Michelle Zatlyn wants you to check your assumptions & never let a crisis go to waste

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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_00: So Michelle, great to see you.
[00:08] SPEAKER_00: That's the second time I've seen you this week.
[00:10] SPEAKER_00: I saw your collision as well, but that's fine.
[00:14] SPEAKER_00: But for everyone at this, so listen to Canada's podcast.
[00:19] SPEAKER_00: When you tell us a little bit about yourself,
[00:21] SPEAKER_00: you're entrepreneurial journey from like Saskatchewan to McGill to Harvard,
[00:26] SPEAKER_00: the president of CloudFlyer and the Silicon Valley thing,
[00:32] SPEAKER_00: give everyone kind of a quick two to three minute.
[00:35] SPEAKER_00: This is Michelle kind of thing.
[00:38] SPEAKER_01: Okay, happy to do that.
[00:39] SPEAKER_01: And thanks so much for having me.
[00:41] SPEAKER_01: And I hope next time it's twice in person, Philip,
[00:43] SPEAKER_01: because you know, zoom is wonderful, but there's no.
[00:46] SPEAKER_01: People in person and I do this that.
[00:49] SPEAKER_01: So hopefully we can do that next time.
[00:51] SPEAKER_01: I'm in Toronto.
[00:53] SPEAKER_01: Good. Thanks so much for having me.
[00:56] SPEAKER_01: And it has been a very positive, you know, journey.
[01:00] SPEAKER_01: I grew up in Saskatchewan and very proud prairie girl.
[01:04] SPEAKER_01: And then I went to school at McGill and love that and found myself working in Toronto for many years.
[01:10] SPEAKER_01: And and have many friends and that my now husband there.
[01:14] SPEAKER_01: And end up going to Harvard Business School.
[01:16] SPEAKER_01: And the way that that all happened is I went to undergrad to study science,
[01:21] SPEAKER_01: thinking I want to be a doctor.
[01:23] SPEAKER_01: I really loved medicine and science.
[01:26] SPEAKER_01: And I ended up falling in love with technology.
[01:28] SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of twists and turns and how that happened.
[01:30] SPEAKER_01: And I'll save that for another day.
[01:31] SPEAKER_01: But I think that that story of I thought I wanted to be a doctor,
[01:34] SPEAKER_01: but then I fell in love with technology or maybe I thought I was going to be an accountant.
[01:37] SPEAKER_01: I fell in love with technology, something that resonates with a lot of people.
[01:41] SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to bring that up for your listeners, say,
[01:43] SPEAKER_01: that I just kind of happened to fall in love with technology.
[01:46] SPEAKER_01: I had met, I started to work at a technology startup in Toronto way back when.
[01:52] SPEAKER_01: And that's when I kind of opened my eyes to what was possible with the team.
[01:56] SPEAKER_01: And so I was working in technology.
[01:58] SPEAKER_01: I loved it.
[01:58] SPEAKER_01: And I just realized that I had a science background.
[02:01] SPEAKER_01: I had a technical background.
[02:02] SPEAKER_01: And I missed some of the business foundations.
[02:04] SPEAKER_01: And I really realized that I liked working in business and growing teams.
[02:09] SPEAKER_01: But I felt like I lacked some of the toolkit.
[02:10] SPEAKER_01: And so that's why I went back to do my MBA.
[02:14] SPEAKER_01: And I think any time in life when I try and science to do something,
[02:17] SPEAKER_01: I try to do it the best I can.
[02:18] SPEAKER_01: And so I ended up applying to a lot of great schools, both Canadian and the US.
[02:23] SPEAKER_01: And I ended up getting accepted to Harvard Business School.
[02:25] SPEAKER_01: And that's what took me to my journey,
[02:27] SPEAKER_01: first journey down to the US,
[02:28] SPEAKER_01: as I moved to Boston to go to pursue my MBA at Harvard.
[02:32] SPEAKER_01: And that was just an amazing eye opening experience.
[02:36] SPEAKER_01: I had, at this point, lived my whole career up in Canada.
[02:40] SPEAKER_01: And I loved it.
[02:42] SPEAKER_01: And I just,
[02:42] SPEAKER_01: arriving on the campus of Harvard and just being on a global skates stage.
[02:46] SPEAKER_01: It was a very international school,
[02:49] SPEAKER_01: a very diverse group of students with much many different backgrounds.
[02:53] SPEAKER_01: It's kind of open my eyes on what was possible.
[02:55] SPEAKER_01: And then long story short,
[02:57] SPEAKER_01: while I was at HBS,
[02:58] SPEAKER_01: I was very curious about going to learn.
[02:59] SPEAKER_01: I was taking it all in.
[03:01] SPEAKER_01: And a classmate and I were on a school trip to Silicon Valley.
[03:04] SPEAKER_01: And I signed up through the trip just to learn more about Silicon Valley.
[03:08] SPEAKER_01: And I had read about it.
[03:09] SPEAKER_01: And I listened to it on podcasts like yours.
[03:12] SPEAKER_01: And I went to a seat in real life,
[03:13] SPEAKER_01: like go see it in person.
[03:15] SPEAKER_01: And there was a professor led trip to the valley.
[03:18] SPEAKER_01: This was back in January of 2009.
[03:20] SPEAKER_01: And the world was not a very good place back in 2000,
[03:22] SPEAKER_01: January 2009.
[03:23] SPEAKER_01: It had been post the financial crisis.
[03:26] SPEAKER_01: It was gloomy and where.
[03:27] SPEAKER_00: It was pretty tough. I remember.
[03:29] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[03:29] SPEAKER_01: It was tough.
[03:31] SPEAKER_01: And so we kind of showed up for this week one program in the valley.
[03:34] SPEAKER_01: And we're meeting early stage entrepreneurs,
[03:35] SPEAKER_01: late stage entrepreneurs,
[03:37] SPEAKER_01: we're meeting venture capitalists.
[03:40] SPEAKER_01: And again, as somebody who started, you know,
[03:42] SPEAKER_01: my story in Saskatchewan just.
[03:44] SPEAKER_01: Meeting these people in real life that I'd read about.
[03:47] SPEAKER_01: I remember like Jim Breyer and Mark Pinkis and Zingo
[03:50] SPEAKER_01: was the hot company at the time.
[03:52] SPEAKER_01: And just meeting them and getting the being in the same room.
[03:55] SPEAKER_01: I thought, oh my goodness.
[03:56] SPEAKER_01: And it was on that trip that I almost demystified what being an entrepreneur was for me.
[04:03] SPEAKER_01: And I, there was some early stage entrepreneurs that we went to hear,
[04:06] SPEAKER_01: listen to their ideas.
[04:08] SPEAKER_01: And I kind of walked out of that room saying, oh my God,
[04:11] SPEAKER_01: like it was a light bulb one out of like if these people can start company,
[04:14] SPEAKER_01: so could I.
[04:15] SPEAKER_01: And that was a really empowering moment for me.
[04:18] SPEAKER_01: And I happened to say that to a classmate on my trip.
[04:20] SPEAKER_01: And in what was probably the best answer ever,
[04:23] SPEAKER_01: his name was Matthew Prince.
[04:24] SPEAKER_01: Matthew said, of course, you could, Michelle.
[04:27] SPEAKER_01: And we literally started to brainstorm an idea in the hallway.
[04:30] SPEAKER_01: We knew each other from school.
[04:31] SPEAKER_01: And that idea turned into a school project.
[04:33] SPEAKER_01: That school project turned into what is now Cloudflare.
[04:36] SPEAKER_01: And I don't know.
[04:37] SPEAKER_01: I guess the moral of the story is being curious,
[04:40] SPEAKER_01: being open to opportunities.
[04:42] SPEAKER_01: And there's so many interesting people in the world and hard problems that need to be solved.
[04:47] SPEAKER_01: And I feel really lucky that I've met a great business partner in Matthew Prince
[04:50] SPEAKER_01: to help solve our problem.
[04:52] SPEAKER_01: And now today,
[04:53] SPEAKER_01: I've taken that idea to a company that's public with a lot of customers
[04:57] SPEAKER_01: and a lot of employees around the world.
[04:59] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, you know, for those that don't know,
[05:02] SPEAKER_00: Cloudflare, you know, you're being very, very polite about it.
[05:07] SPEAKER_00: But you know, I think the last time I looked at that,
[05:09] SPEAKER_00: I mean, I met 40 billion market caps.
[05:12] SPEAKER_00: So you've, you guys have done pretty well in the 11 years you've been running it.
[05:17] SPEAKER_00: But you know,
[05:20] SPEAKER_00: in that sort of 11 years,
[05:24] SPEAKER_00: building something,
[05:26] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[05:26] SPEAKER_00: what's been the most exciting thing for you about being an entrepreneur versus,
[05:33] SPEAKER_00: you know, seeing others around you,
[05:36] SPEAKER_00: you know, in the valley,
[05:38] SPEAKER_00: whatever that are, you know,
[05:40] SPEAKER_00: senior executives that aren't a founder that aren't,
[05:44] SPEAKER_00: that didn't create.
[05:47] SPEAKER_00: Nothing that's anything wrong with that.
[05:48] SPEAKER_00: We've got to have people all around us, you know.
[05:51] SPEAKER_00: But for you,
[05:52] SPEAKER_00: what's the most exciting thing about,
[05:54] SPEAKER_00: you've found about that entrepreneurial journey basically?
[05:59] SPEAKER_01: You know, so it's interesting.
[06:00] SPEAKER_01: The most exciting thing is a little bit of a,
[06:02] SPEAKER_01: I don't think you need to be a founder to have it is,
[06:04] SPEAKER_01: is it feels really good to be on a team when you're working on a common goal
[06:09] SPEAKER_01: and delivering on it.
[06:11] SPEAKER_01: And I, I,
[06:13] SPEAKER_01: doing things,
[06:14] SPEAKER_01: trying to doing things that you were really proud of is incredibly empowering.
[06:19] SPEAKER_01: And in many ways, that's kind of what entrepreneurship is.
[06:21] SPEAKER_01: And you're, you're, you have an idea and you,
[06:23] SPEAKER_01: you have to go assemble resources that aren't really in your control
[06:26] SPEAKER_01: to build something.
[06:27] SPEAKER_01: So you're builders and you're building something and hopefully you're building
[06:30] SPEAKER_01: something of value.
[06:31] SPEAKER_01: Because if you do,
[06:32] SPEAKER_01: then it just kind of becomes a flywheel that builds on top of each other
[06:36] SPEAKER_01: and you get to meet incredible people along the way.
[06:38] SPEAKER_01: You get to help solve customers problems.
[06:40] SPEAKER_01: And I just,
[06:41] SPEAKER_01: there's, there's something very empowering about that.
[06:44] SPEAKER_01: And I just think that's why I love technology is it's,
[06:47] SPEAKER_01: you actually don't need a very big team to,
[06:49] SPEAKER_01: to get that rush.
[06:51] SPEAKER_01: If I'm going to build something,
[06:52] SPEAKER_01: ship something and then see the value it creates.
[06:55] SPEAKER_01: And I think that that is very humbling and energizing and inspiring.
[07:00] SPEAKER_01: And so that's,
[07:00] SPEAKER_01: that's what I love about entrepreneurship.
[07:03] SPEAKER_01: And what I would say is just to kind of punch up what you're saying is,
[07:06] SPEAKER_01: actually,
[07:07] SPEAKER_01: don't think you have to start the company to be part of that.
[07:09] SPEAKER_01: Of course,
[07:09] SPEAKER_01: I happen to be the founder and that's amazing.
[07:11] SPEAKER_01: But the best part of my job,
[07:14] SPEAKER_01: hands down or the people I get to work with.
[07:16] SPEAKER_01: And then it's like the best part of my job or customers.
[07:18] SPEAKER_01: I love that too.
[07:18] SPEAKER_01: But just very passionate smart people who do a lot of different things,
[07:23] SPEAKER_01: who choose to spend their time helping us make internet faster,
[07:26] SPEAKER_01: save for a more reliable together,
[07:28] SPEAKER_01: is really fun.
[07:30] SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like being on a professional sports team.
[07:31] SPEAKER_01: There's lots of different positions and,
[07:34] SPEAKER_01: and practicing and working together and then going to win the championship.
[07:37] Speaker UNKNOWN: 
[07:37] SPEAKER_01: there's a lot of that in the work for,
[07:39] SPEAKER_01: in a, in a, in the work setting for me.
[07:42] SPEAKER_01: And I think building companies being part of a growth company,
[07:45] SPEAKER_01: you really see the impact of your contributions.
[07:49] SPEAKER_01: And I just think that's a huge feedback loop that's really empowering for a lot of people,
[07:52] SPEAKER_01: including me.
[07:53] SPEAKER_01: And so I think I love that the best about entrepreneurship.
[07:56] SPEAKER_01: And I happen to have been also the founder.
[07:58] SPEAKER_01: And actually,
[07:59] SPEAKER_01: you get a lot of that going to any growth company without having to be the founder.
[08:03] SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's,
[08:04] SPEAKER_01: that's the best part of my,
[08:05] SPEAKER_01: in my point of view.
[08:06] SPEAKER_00: So you spent 11 years building this, you know,
[08:11] SPEAKER_00: and it's,
[08:12] SPEAKER_00: it has an old being smooth.
[08:14] SPEAKER_00: I'm sure.
[08:15] SPEAKER_00: Um, what's the greatest challenge you've faced in,
[08:19] SPEAKER_00: you know, in,
[08:20] SPEAKER_00: in those 11 years?
[08:22] SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's always interesting for people to understand,
[08:24] SPEAKER_00: but not just based it that you've overcome.
[08:27] SPEAKER_00: And, and is,
[08:28] SPEAKER_00: is there something that we can learn from that?
[08:31] SPEAKER_00: Basically.
[08:32] SPEAKER_01: Definitely, you know,
[08:33] SPEAKER_01: I'm here smiling,
[08:34] SPEAKER_01: all excited and,
[08:36] SPEAKER_01: and I,
[08:36] SPEAKER_01: and on the balance,
[08:37] SPEAKER_01: it's been incredible.
[08:39] SPEAKER_01: And I'm incredibly lucky,
[08:40] SPEAKER_01: but it's certainly not always easy.
[08:42] SPEAKER_01: And there are many times,
[08:43] SPEAKER_01: if we admit on us, you know,
[08:45] SPEAKER_01: maybe a few hours earlier,
[08:46] SPEAKER_01: a few hours later,
[08:47] SPEAKER_01: that may maybe be like,
[08:47] SPEAKER_01: oh, it's been a tough,
[08:48] SPEAKER_01: tough hour,
[08:49] SPEAKER_01: tough day.
[08:50] SPEAKER_01: And I think that,
[08:51] SPEAKER_01: um,
[08:53] SPEAKER_01: I think that there's more people willing to talk about that today,
[08:56] SPEAKER_01: which is good.
[08:56] SPEAKER_01: I actually think that's really helpful,
[08:57] SPEAKER_01: because if you are starting a company,
[08:59] SPEAKER_01: or you're joining an early stage company,
[09:01] SPEAKER_01: what I would say is the roller coaster,
[09:04] SPEAKER_01: there's a huge roller coaster.
[09:05] SPEAKER_01: There are many highs and lows,
[09:07] SPEAKER_01: and they're very close together.
[09:08] SPEAKER_01: And,
[09:09] SPEAKER_01: and that doesn't just last for a month.
[09:11] SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like the first two to five years of the company's history
[09:14] SPEAKER_01: is a roller coaster.
[09:16] SPEAKER_01: And I just remember back,
[09:16] SPEAKER_01: I think back to the early days of Cloudflare is,
[09:19] SPEAKER_01: you know,
[09:19] SPEAKER_01: you're right,
[09:20] SPEAKER_01: we graduated from Harvard Business School.
[09:23] SPEAKER_01: Um,
[09:23] SPEAKER_01: we packed our things in a U-Haul,
[09:25] SPEAKER_01: Matthew, Prince,
[09:26] SPEAKER_01: and his mother drove the U-Haul from Boston to California.
[09:30] SPEAKER_01: I happened to fly and to drive my car from Vancouver down here.
[09:34] SPEAKER_01: So anyhow,
[09:35] SPEAKER_01: and we show up,
[09:36] SPEAKER_01: and I look around on my other,
[09:37] SPEAKER_01: my other friends who had met at heart at Business School,
[09:40] SPEAKER_01: who now were getting signing bonuses to go work at companies,
[09:43] SPEAKER_01: they were getting a good salary.
[09:45] SPEAKER_01: We kind of show up in a city where we didn't really know anybody.
[09:48] SPEAKER_01: With an idea,
[09:49] SPEAKER_01: we were taking a salary,
[09:51] SPEAKER_01: and we really did not have a lot of money in the bank,
[09:52] SPEAKER_01: we just finished Business School.
[09:54] SPEAKER_01: It was,
[09:55] SPEAKER_01: it was hard.
[09:56] SPEAKER_01: And so you kind of look around me like,
[09:58] SPEAKER_01: is this the right thing to do?
[09:59] Speaker UNKNOWN: 
[09:59] SPEAKER_01: and,
[10:00] SPEAKER_01: you know, I think early on,
[10:02] SPEAKER_01: it's, it's not that you wake up with someone saying,
[10:04] SPEAKER_01: yeah, this is the right thing you should be doing.
[10:06] SPEAKER_01: You got to find the conviction from within.
[10:09] SPEAKER_01: And that's hard to find that conviction from within.
[10:11] SPEAKER_01: Actually, I think a lot of people choose not to do things
[10:13] SPEAKER_01: because they can't, can't do that.
[10:14] SPEAKER_01: And so you're like,
[10:15] SPEAKER_01: am I crazy or is there something here?
[10:16] Speaker UNKNOWN: 
[10:17] SPEAKER_01: you know, you go from one hour of like,
[10:18] SPEAKER_01: oh my god,
[10:19] SPEAKER_01: this is going to be a huge company.
[10:21] SPEAKER_01: We're, we've got it to,
[10:22] SPEAKER_01: oh my goodness.
[10:24] SPEAKER_01: What,
[10:24] SPEAKER_01: am I crazy?
[10:25] SPEAKER_01: Like,
[10:26] SPEAKER_01: am I just delusional?
[10:27] SPEAKER_01: And,
[10:27] SPEAKER_01: and you go back and forth,
[10:29] SPEAKER_01: highs and lows, very cool to like that.
[10:31] SPEAKER_01: And,
[10:31] SPEAKER_01: to put it, you know,
[10:32] SPEAKER_01: a couple of years later,
[10:33] SPEAKER_01: again, it doesn't last start from one quarter.
[10:34] SPEAKER_01: It's many,
[10:35] SPEAKER_01: many,
[10:36] SPEAKER_01: many years.
[10:36] SPEAKER_01: It's, you know,
[10:38] SPEAKER_01: you go from a team where
[10:39] SPEAKER_01: you're trying to get people to come join you and they do
[10:42] SPEAKER_01: and they're doing great work.
[10:43] SPEAKER_01: And then they leave because of maybe they're moving back
[10:45] SPEAKER_01: somewhere else or they decide to do something else.
[10:47] SPEAKER_01: And then you have to,
[10:48] SPEAKER_01: so you're like,
[10:49] SPEAKER_01: oh my god,
[10:50] SPEAKER_01: you're leaving.
[10:51] SPEAKER_01: That's too bad to then having to get on the phone to
[10:53] SPEAKER_01: give it to someone else to join.
[10:55] SPEAKER_01: I mean, five minutes apart.
[10:56] SPEAKER_01: And it's these highs and lows that are very close together.
[11:00] SPEAKER_01: That I think is difficult part of entrepreneurship
[11:03] SPEAKER_01: and being part of a girls company.
[11:04] SPEAKER_01: And I think that's both for the founder.
[11:06] SPEAKER_01: But any person working at that company because
[11:09] SPEAKER_01: companies or groups of people working towards a common goal.
[11:12] SPEAKER_01: And often a company with less than 500 people,
[11:14] SPEAKER_01: you really know the others.
[11:16] SPEAKER_01: And you're part of this.
[11:17] SPEAKER_01: You're in it together.
[11:18] SPEAKER_01: You're building.
[11:19] SPEAKER_01: And so it's not just the founder.
[11:20] SPEAKER_01: It's like even working there.
[11:21] SPEAKER_01: You're like, oh my god,
[11:22] SPEAKER_01: my friend is leaving.
[11:23] SPEAKER_01: Do they know something I don't?
[11:25] SPEAKER_01: Or, oh,
[11:26] SPEAKER_01: we lost this customer or we won this customer.
[11:29] SPEAKER_01: So it's both good and bad.
[11:30] SPEAKER_01: Very close together.
[11:31] SPEAKER_01: And I think managing that roller coaster
[11:33] SPEAKER_01: is an art in science.
[11:34] SPEAKER_01: And I saw someone say it was actually Fred Wilson,
[11:37] SPEAKER_01: originally, who kind of from unions,
[11:39] SPEAKER_01: bar ventures,
[11:40] SPEAKER_01: a really successful venture fund out of New York City.
[11:43] SPEAKER_01: He blogs every day.
[11:45] SPEAKER_01: He's kind of one of these famous people in technology
[11:49] SPEAKER_01: who I used to read every day.
[11:50] SPEAKER_01: And then years later he ended up becoming an investor.
[11:53] SPEAKER_01: So now I know him,
[11:54] SPEAKER_01: which is kind of like this thing where you do something long enough.
[11:56] SPEAKER_01: You end up knowing people.
[11:57] SPEAKER_01: And I remember he used to walk about the,
[11:59] SPEAKER_01: the these emergency drills that really close together.
[12:01] SPEAKER_01: The highs and lows.
[12:02] SPEAKER_01: And that your job as a leader at these growth companies,
[12:05] SPEAKER_01: either as a founder or a VP or a sea level executive who comes in,
[12:09] SPEAKER_01: is to spread them out.
[12:11] SPEAKER_01: Because really great companies don't have those highs and lows
[12:14] SPEAKER_01: so close together.
[12:15] SPEAKER_01: And that was,
[12:15] SPEAKER_01: and I think that that was a good mental model for me early on.
[12:18] SPEAKER_01: I remember reading that when I was like 50 people.
[12:20] SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh my god, yes, we are that the highs are low.
[12:23] SPEAKER_01: It was 10 times a day.
[12:24] SPEAKER_01: And really this idea of you got to spread it out.
[12:27] SPEAKER_01: And we still have great highs at Cloudflare.
[12:29] SPEAKER_01: We win a big deal.
[12:30] SPEAKER_01: We, you know, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we shift some big
[12:33] SPEAKER_01: products that feels awesome.
[12:35] SPEAKER_01: And sure there's things that go bad too.
[12:37] SPEAKER_01: But they're much more spread out now,
[12:39] SPEAKER_01: so they're easier to manage.
[12:40] SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's probably the best,
[12:42] SPEAKER_01: or articulation that I can,
[12:44] SPEAKER_01: that's kind of what's been hard.
[12:45] SPEAKER_01: And, and they're for sure hard.
[12:47] SPEAKER_01: We're a huge success story, as you said.
[12:49] SPEAKER_01: We were on the positive.
[12:50] SPEAKER_01: Everyone sees Cloudflare as a huge success story.
[12:52] SPEAKER_01: And even in the success stories,
[12:54] SPEAKER_01: there's a lot of hardships and challenges you have to overcome.
[12:56] SPEAKER_01: But with the right people,
[12:57] SPEAKER_01: the right attitude,
[12:58] SPEAKER_01: you can definitely do it.
[13:00] SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
[13:02] SPEAKER_00: mentorship is so important.
[13:03] SPEAKER_00: You've talked a little bit about it.
[13:07] SPEAKER_00: What's the best piece of advice you've received that you keep on using?
[13:12] SPEAKER_00: You know, you get, you get advice,
[13:14] SPEAKER_00: and it's good at the time, but you didn't disappear.
[13:18] SPEAKER_00: But occasionally you have a mentor that drops something on you
[13:22] SPEAKER_00: and you keep going back to it and using it time and time again.
[13:26] SPEAKER_00: That, that, that, and something like that on your front.
[13:29] SPEAKER_01: I do.
[13:30] SPEAKER_01: I kind of three,
[13:31] SPEAKER_01: and they're a little bit related.
[13:32] SPEAKER_01: So I'll go through them quickly.
[13:33] SPEAKER_01: The first is,
[13:33] SPEAKER_01: from when I was a product manager to sheba,
[13:36] SPEAKER_01: check your assumptions.
[13:38] SPEAKER_01: It's actually, people make really bad decisions if they make
[13:41] SPEAKER_01: user-wrong assumptions.
[13:42] SPEAKER_01: So you have to check, check, check all your assumptions.
[13:45] SPEAKER_01: And, and I just,
[13:46] SPEAKER_01: whether we were 10 people or today were 18 or 100 people around the world,
[13:51] SPEAKER_01: check your assumptions.
[13:51] SPEAKER_01: That piece of advice is so helpful.
[13:54] SPEAKER_01: And if you understand the assumptions inputs,
[13:57] SPEAKER_01: you can make better decisions and, and output.
[13:59] SPEAKER_01: And so that, that's one.
[14:01] SPEAKER_01: The second one is,
[14:03] SPEAKER_01: never let a crisis go to waste.
[14:05] SPEAKER_01: And this is very helpful back to the highs and lows of building a business.
[14:08] SPEAKER_01: That's a really good one.
[14:09] SPEAKER_01: I've heard that one.
[14:09] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
[14:10] SPEAKER_01: Because you think everything is going wrong and,
[14:13] SPEAKER_01: and actually,
[14:15] SPEAKER_01: that becomes a huge lever to help change something in an organization
[14:19] SPEAKER_01: or to say,
[14:19] SPEAKER_01: oh my god, we're doing this wrong.
[14:21] SPEAKER_01: We got to change it.
[14:21] SPEAKER_01: And so I think that how we've learned over the years,
[14:25] SPEAKER_01: not to let a crisis go to waste.
[14:27] SPEAKER_01: So you build a product that no one uses.
[14:28] SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
[14:30] SPEAKER_01: Use that to then go build the next great product,
[14:32] SPEAKER_01: or you lose,
[14:33] SPEAKER_01: you lose a big customer that does not feel good,
[14:35] SPEAKER_01: that feels a huge gut in the punch.
[14:37] SPEAKER_01: But okay, well,
[14:38] SPEAKER_01: let's use why they left as a reason to fix it in the organization.
[14:42] SPEAKER_01: And it turns out how,
[14:44] SPEAKER_01: don't hide from those.
[14:45] SPEAKER_01: Be it honest about it and don't let a crisis go to waste.
[14:48] SPEAKER_01: It actually can help be the change,
[14:50] SPEAKER_01: it you need as a leader within organization to set the company
[14:53] SPEAKER_01: on a better path.
[14:54] SPEAKER_01: And I think that that is a very important lesson I've learned
[14:59] SPEAKER_01: that I've learned from, you know,
[15:02] SPEAKER_01: a mentor and something that I still find myself today.
[15:05] SPEAKER_01: And I know that's successful when people in our team say,
[15:08] SPEAKER_01: shall I remember once you told me never let a crisis go to waste.
[15:11] SPEAKER_01: And so I'm using that here.
[15:12] SPEAKER_01: And you're right.
[15:13] SPEAKER_01: It works really well.
[15:14] SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, it's,
[15:15] SPEAKER_01: it's just a very,
[15:16] SPEAKER_01: I think that this is a really good one.
[15:18] SPEAKER_01: People can use that I think in many,
[15:22] SPEAKER_00: in many of their careers.
[15:23] SPEAKER_00: Okay, just two or three,
[15:24] SPEAKER_00: what I call rapid fire questions.
[15:26] SPEAKER_00: It's kind of fun questions really.
[15:29] SPEAKER_00: You're a morning or a night person.
[15:31] SPEAKER_00: A morning.
[15:33] SPEAKER_00: You're, you know,
[15:36] SPEAKER_00: 85% of the entrepreneurs I interview are morning people.
[15:40] SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
[15:41] SPEAKER_00: It's kind of interesting.
[15:43] SPEAKER_00: Well, book are you currently reading or would you say you got to read?
[15:48] SPEAKER_00: You know,
[15:50] SPEAKER_01: I'm currently reading humor seriously.
[15:52] SPEAKER_01: It's about how I having a sense of humor in business actually an asset,
[15:56] SPEAKER_01: not a liability.
[15:57] SPEAKER_01: It's really great.
[15:59] SPEAKER_01: I love it.
[16:00] SPEAKER_01: A few years ago,
[16:01] SPEAKER_01: I kind of had a realization,
[16:03] SPEAKER_01: and I wanted to be more funny.
[16:04] SPEAKER_01: I took things really seriously.
[16:05] SPEAKER_01: I was very busy building.
[16:09] SPEAKER_01: And I was like,
[16:09] SPEAKER_01: I need to enjoy this a bit more.
[16:11] SPEAKER_01: And I think laughing more,
[16:12] SPEAKER_01: having a sense of humor has something that's made my work life better.
[16:17] SPEAKER_01: And this book basically gives me the research saying,
[16:21] SPEAKER_01: it's an asset to have a sense of humor or and to have levity at work,
[16:25] SPEAKER_01: not a liability.
[16:26] SPEAKER_01: And they've a lot of research that shows kind of in our 20s.
[16:30] SPEAKER_01: The, the amount we laugh goes way down.
[16:33] SPEAKER_01: Because people think that they shouldn't be doing that in the workplace.
[16:35] SPEAKER_01: And actually,
[16:36] SPEAKER_01: there's a lot of places where it's well placed and becomes an asset.
[16:39] SPEAKER_01: So it's a, it's a great book humor seriously.
[16:42] SPEAKER_01: I have to read that.
[16:43] SPEAKER_00: That's that.
[16:43] SPEAKER_00: That sounds really good.
[16:44] SPEAKER_00: If you had to pick one word to describe Michelle,
[16:49] SPEAKER_00: what would it be and why?
[16:53] SPEAKER_00: Glue.
[16:58] SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
[16:59] SPEAKER_01: You probably never read that.
[17:00] SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I sometimes,
[17:01] SPEAKER_01: I think, you know,
[17:02] SPEAKER_01: I'm not a deep expert in any one thing,
[17:05] SPEAKER_01: but we almost always perform better when I'm there.
[17:08] SPEAKER_01: So I don't know how else to describe,
[17:10] SPEAKER_01: but just glue help glue things together.
[17:12] SPEAKER_01: I, my, in high school, I was on the last school.
[17:17] SPEAKER_00: That's the first.
[17:18] SPEAKER_00: That's a really good one.
[17:20] SPEAKER_00: What's keeping it up at night?
[17:24] SPEAKER_00: Let's keep you in it.
[17:25] SPEAKER_01: Well, COVID, I guess is keeping me up at night and just missing friends and family and,
[17:30] SPEAKER_01: and, and,
[17:31] SPEAKER_01: and obviously we're lucky.
[17:33] SPEAKER_01: We're very healthy,
[17:34] SPEAKER_01: but I do miss seeing people back to where we started our conversation.
[17:38] SPEAKER_00: I hope I get to see you in person.
[17:39] SPEAKER_00: I'm only what you,
[17:41] SPEAKER_00: cloud-fired just opened and trying to,
[17:42] SPEAKER_00: and you can't even be here.
[17:44] SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a great, yeah.
[17:46] SPEAKER_00: But speaking of that,
[17:47] SPEAKER_00: what's your, what's your most favorite place in the world?
[17:54] SPEAKER_01: Waskusu Saskatchewan.
[17:55] SPEAKER_01: So it's a Prince Albert National Park.
[17:56] SPEAKER_01: I spent many of my summers there.
[17:59] SPEAKER_01: And I, I think also part of his May, April,
[18:02] SPEAKER_01: thinking about summer coming.
[18:02] SPEAKER_01: And I just have very fond memories as a Canadian spending them at the lake.
[18:07] SPEAKER_01: And I went to waskusu.
[18:08] SPEAKER_01: My husband grew up in Oakville.
[18:09] SPEAKER_01: And so, Miscoco would be his answer.
[18:11] SPEAKER_01: So we spent a lot of time reminiscing about our lake summers up at waskusu.
[18:16] SPEAKER_01: So I would say waskusu.
[18:19] SPEAKER_00: Michelle, it's been absolutely delightful to have you on.
[18:24] SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm sure that there's some great things that people kind of listening to.
[18:30] SPEAKER_00: How can people get a hold of you if they have a question?
[18:33] SPEAKER_00: Because it happens on the, you know, we have a lot of fellow entrepreneurs that listen and hear something and want to get an opinion on it.
[18:42] SPEAKER_01: It's great. Well, I love that you're doing this.
[18:44] SPEAKER_01: I think it's wonderful.
[18:45] SPEAKER_01: If I can be helpful, you can find me on LinkedIn under Michelle's atlin.
[18:49] SPEAKER_01: I have a profile and or you can also find me on Twitter at Zatlin.
[18:53] SPEAKER_01: If that's the right avenue where you can email me.
[18:55] SPEAKER_01: I'm Michelle at clafler.com.
[18:57] SPEAKER_01: And so the more specific the reason why you're reaching out,
[19:00] SPEAKER_01: the easier it is for me to reply, but I really try to be helpful to other entrepreneurs because there's so many people have been helpful to me.
[19:07] SPEAKER_01: Or if you're looking to work at clafler, if we can find a way to partner or be helpful to you.
[19:13] SPEAKER_01: We try, I try to be very responsive. So I think those are three different ways that you can get in touch with me.
[19:20] SPEAKER_00: Michelle, thanks for getting me very, very interesting session.
[19:23] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[19:23] SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for having me.