The Exchanges

Q Not at all, but I'd love to kick off today by discussing a little bit about you. So tell me, how did you make your way into the world of startups and come to FoundSolve?

A Oh, well, I have a very nonlinear path coming into startup land. In fact, I started my career in politics, where I was on John McCain's That was the Straight Talk Express John McCain, not the Sarah Palin John McCain. Spent some time in PR. I was at Apple for a moment. I went to Morgan Stanley, and then ultimately, I found my way over to Trulia back in 2006, which really was my home then for almost a decade. In that decade, we built a remarkable company, and I was so pleased to be on for that ride as one of the builders, where we were really trying to help consumers figure out how do I make better decisions around real estate? 15, I thought, I think I want to go do that again, but this time in healthcare. And so the CTO of Trulia and I, who had a long history of working together, decided we're going to go take on another hard problem. We're going to start from scratch, and we're going to build, solve to help consumers effectively have more control in their healthcare experience.

AI assessment note: “decided we're going to go take on another hard problem... and we're going to build, solve”

Q have to just ask Because obviously you saw it from the very early days to the IPO and the incredible success that was later achieved. I have a lot of people on the show that say, actually, you need to reinvent the management team every three years, and they're meant for certain stages. You're proof that this isn't true. How do you think about that and respond to that statement?

A Well, I think anyone who makes blanket statements is generally going to be wrong. So certainly there are going to be people who will last the duration from the early days until the You know, whatever your hyper growth stages are. And in fact, Zillow, the company that acquired us, if you look at their management team, you know, they're proof positive that you can scale something from the very early days until something that is a very successful public company. Amy Butinsky started as the woman in charge of PR, went on to become the CMO of Zillow, and then now is the COO of the Zillow Group. And so that is absolutely possible. And then certainly there are people who, based on their skills or frankly their interests, Are right for a period in time. I can think of some really early executives at Trulia who were fantastic, but the reality is the thing that drove them was not building it to that next level of scale. They were really driven by the creation, and that's great. You should have those people at the right time where both their skills as well as their fire match to what the company needs.

AI assessment note: “anyone who makes blanket statements is generally going to be wrong.”

Q have to just ask Because obviously you saw it from the very early days to the IPO and the incredible success that was later achieved. I have a lot of people on the show that say, actually, you need to reinvent the management team every three years, and they're meant for certain stages. You're proof that this isn't true. How do you think about that and respond to that statement?

A Well, I think anyone who makes blanket statements is generally going to be wrong. So certainly there are going to be people who will last the duration from the early days until the You know, whatever your hyper growth stages are. And in fact, Zillow, the company that acquired us, if you look at their management team, you know, they're proof positive that you can scale something from the very early days until something that is a very successful public company. Amy Butinsky started as the woman in charge of PR, went on to become the CMO of Zillow, and then now is the COO of the Zillow Group. And so that is absolutely possible. And then certainly there are people who, based on their skills or frankly their interests, Are right for a period in time. I can think of some really early executives at Trulia who were fantastic, but the reality is the thing that drove them was not building it to that next level of scale. They were really driven by the creation, and that's great. You should have those people at the right time where both their skills as well as their fire match to what the company needs.

AI assessment note: “anyone who makes blanket statements is generally going to be wrong”

Q I love that. I couldn't agree with you more. You'll never know unless you take the leap, but God, what an inspiring story, Heather, that should be a blog post. I feel slightly away from your personal scaling that to the scaling of the people around you. How do you think about bringing in the right people at various stages of the company? Let's start on that.

A You know, I think of a company a bit like a growing organism. And so at different times, it needs different things to survive. And of course, each one is also different. But in general, there's a framework that I use, which I think is helpful when you think about certainly the early stages of the first hundred people at a company, you know, so the first zero to 10 people, you know, those are your creators. So self-directed, oftentimes driven by something greater than themselves, high team orientation. Frankly, these are the people that are going to set the culture for the organization as you grow. And so they're very important on that dimension as well. As you go, call it 10 to 50 people. I think of teams. Right. And so that doesn't mean you're bringing in a professional management leader, but you do need to put some people in place that can help provide leverage for others. You know, 50 people scrambling around in an office, you know, without anyone providing direction, it would be tough for efficiency. So as you add more people to teams, you need to add the other people who can provide them the daily support and accountability. And then when I think about 50 to a hundred people, I think about infrastructure. You start thinking more about roles that support the organization as a whole to perform better. You start thinking about people who are experts At the particular thing wh…

AI assessment note: “in general, there's a framework that I use, which I think is helpful”

Q Well, I mean, I have to say, I think I'd rather go through an Ironman than childbirth, but moving swiftly on, what were your cool learnings from seeing that first-hand scaling of Trulia into hyper-growth mode?

A You know, when I first started at Trulia, there were roughly a dozen people in the room, you know, nearly zero dollars in revenue, a couple thousands of visits to the site, and when I left over that time span, after our IPO and sale to Zillow, we were at roughly fifty million uniques per month, And around two hundred and fifty million in revenue. So we saw some pretty incredible growth. I think the first and biggest learning is that what it takes for a leadership team to scale from, you know, roughly a dozen people to a thousand. And the combination of growing people from internally to maintain that culture and core of the company, as well as bringing in that external expertise, right, as you are hitting different levels of scale and operations that many of us in the early team had never seen before.

AI assessment note: “I think the first and biggest learning is that what it takes for a leadership team”

Q I love that. I couldn't agree with you more. You'll never know unless you take the leap, but God, what an inspiring story, Heather, that should be a blog post. I feel slightly away from your personal scaling that to the scaling of the people around you. How do you think about bringing in the right people at various stages of the company? Let's start on that.

A You know, I think of a company a bit like a growing organism. And so at different times, it needs different things to survive. And of course, each one is also different. But in general, there's a framework that I use, which I think is helpful when you think about certainly the early stages of the first hundred people at a company, you know, so the first zero to 10 people, you know, those are your creators. So self-directed, oftentimes driven by something greater than themselves, high team orientation. Frankly, these are the people that are going to set the culture for the organization as you grow. And so they're very important on that dimension as well. As you go, call it 10 to 50 people. I think of teams. Right. And so that doesn't mean you're bringing in a professional management leader, but you do need to put some people in place that can help provide leverage for others. You know, 50 people scrambling around in an office, you know, without anyone providing direction, it would be tough for efficiency. So as you add more people to teams, you need to add the other people who can provide them the daily support and accountability. And then when I think about 50 to a hundred people, I think about infrastructure. You start thinking more about roles that support the organization as a whole to perform better. You start thinking about people who are experts At the particular thing wh…

AI assessment note: “there's a framework that I use, which I think is helpful when you think about”

Q Absolutely. And I love that question, uh, fundamentally. But I would love to discuss the scaling of the business itself. Finally, on the scaling element, you've raised twenty three million dollars from some phenomenal investors. I mean, Bill Gurley at Benchmark, James Slavitt at Greylock, The wonderful Pete Flint. How do you fundamentally determine when is the right time to double down and really pour fuel on the fire?

A You know, I think this is one of the biggest challenges for a startup, and especially those that have raised, is spending too soon. You know, having money doesn't necessarily mean that you should be spending a ton of money. So, thinking about both sides of the marketplace, you know, I think when it comes to your supply, I think it's critical to look for signals from your paying customers, like, are your customers asking you for more? Do they want you to take on more and more of the problems that they have? Do you have your core metrics around sales or acquisition, unit economics, customer retention, the measurement around your ROI for customers moving in the right direction? They don't have to be final, but they certainly need to be directionally moving, and if so, then I say pour some gas. On the demand side, I think Sarah Tovel from Benchmark has a really great, simple, and useful framework here, which is lots of startups focus on user growth, and as part of her framework, she says don't focus on user growth, which can be cheap, But focus on growth of users completing a core action, right? A core action. So a core action for solve is a booking. We have lots of other areas of engagement. We have lots of ways to drive user acquisition, but the core action is ultimately, are they actually booking, creating that unit of value within our product? If you know what your core action …

AI assessment note: “If you know what your core action is, and your consumers or users are starting”

Q Can I ask, is there anything that you can do literally to enhance the chances of constructive candor and enhance that kind of internal rapport within the team?

A I think there is. One, it has to be authentic. I'll start with that, right? Oftentimes startups, when they're looking to build their value statement or their cultures, they'll start by looking up what other startups do, and I think that's exactly the wrong thing to do. I think the right thing to do is, one, start with what is authentic to you. Trust. If that's one of yours, one, it has to be authentic to you, the founder. Next is at solve. We emphasize that we start with an expectation of trust and a one team mentality, right? Versus one of suspicion and every man out for themselves. Just like when you're on a sports team, your best serve starting with an expectation that we're all trying to win. And so the way we do that is we vet this in interviews. We talk about it as part of the team. We ask questions in interviews like, Tell me about a big failure for yourself and your team and what happened. You can hear a lot in a person's language on whether or not they are starting from a place of trust versus one of suspicion. And then second is you build in opportunities to build the trust that comes from getting to know each other outside of a deadline. In a company with only twenty-somethings and people with fewer outside commitments, like fewer triathletes, for example, this is awesome. This is often done over, you know, spontaneous after work drink nights. There is a reality when…

AI assessment note: “we vet this in interviews. We talk about it as part of the team.”

Q of a core action, though, there was a core action for me when reviewing your incredible career, and one that just fascinated me was the element of, as Actually, being on the board of Atlassian, and also at the same time, obviously managing the Solve board, I'd love to ask, what do you think are the benefits of simultaneously sitting on a board and managing one at the same time?

A You know, it's a tremendously valuable experience to be both the CEO And then sit on the board of directors for another company, and especially one as exceptional as Atlassian. I think at its core, it's because it gives you perspective. While we're in entirely different industries, seeing a much larger and very successful company work through, admittedly, at a much later stage, but some of the same things that we think about on the day-to-day, you know, it gives you perspective as a CEO that you're not alone, no matter what stage of company, and that these challenges are While we are having them today, Atlassian certainly had them 10 years ago. That's evolved. They probably had them five years ago, and they're having them today, and so it gives you the perspective that you're not alone and helps you see around corners, and then I think the second big benefit is you get insight sitting on the other side of the table in terms of how to use your board effectively, and so watching the exceptional co-CEOs of Mike and Scott managing the Atlassian board gives me Frankly, a playbook that I can use and examples that I can use in my day-to-day when I think about effective board management.

AI assessment note: “I think at its core, it's because it gives you perspective.”

Q Not at all, but I'd love to kick off today by discussing a little bit about you. So tell me, how did you make your way into the world of startups and come to FoundSolve?

A Oh, well, I have a very nonlinear path coming into startup land. In fact, I started my career in politics, where I was on John McCain's That was the Straight Talk Express John McCain, not the Sarah Palin John McCain. Spent some time in PR. I was at Apple for a moment. I went to Morgan Stanley, and then ultimately, I found my way over to Trulia back in 2006, which really was my home then for almost a decade. In that decade, we built a remarkable company, and I was so pleased to be on for that ride as one of the builders, where we were really trying to help consumers figure out how do I make better decisions around real estate? 15, I thought, I think I want to go do that again, but this time in healthcare. And so the CTO of Trulia and I, who had a long history of working together, decided we're going to go take on another hard problem. We're going to start from scratch, and we're going to build, solve to help consumers effectively have more control in their healthcare experience.

AI assessment note: “the CTO of Trulia and I... decided we're going to... build, solve”

Q yourself, then the team around you, and then the business. So on yourself, I spoke to your former boss and now angel at Solve, Pete Flint, and he told me the story of a time when an exec hire wasn't working out, and you stepped in to take over the role. Pete told me it was a very bold move. So what gave you the confidence to do that, Heather?

A You know, I would love to say that I had a cape on and I walked out with boldness and that I just ruled the world. But here's the reality is we were a team and we were in a situation where we needed someone to fill in. I didn't really have a choice. You know, there was a need. I was the person in the room best equipped to fill it. And so I did. I think ultimately my confidence came over time from realizing that everyone who gets put in these roles, who at the early parts of your career, you look at these people and you feel like they have it all figured out. The reality is people who are in these roles start by not knowing what the hell they're doing, right? And they figure it out piece by piece. And oftentimes, even though they've been doing jobs for a long time, they still don't know what the hell they're doing. So I think there is a confidence from recognizing that we assign a false competence to people oftentimes because they're in certain roles. When I found myself in that role, then I just thought it's, I guess I now need to do what everyone else has had to do. Um, and so I would give this advice to people. And if I may, I'd especially give this to women and underrepresented groups. Cause I feel like this is where I see the problem the most. Is know that you're never going to be a hundred percent ready, but neither is the other guy. So just take a leap.

AI assessment note: “ultimately my confidence came over time from realizing that everyone who gets put in these roles”

Q of a core action, though, there was a core action for me when reviewing your incredible career, and one that just fascinated me was the element of, as Actually, being on the board of Atlassian, and also at the same time, obviously managing the Solve board, I'd love to ask, what do you think are the benefits of simultaneously sitting on a board and managing one at the same time?

A You know, it's a tremendously valuable experience to be both the CEO And then sit on the board of directors for another company, and especially one as exceptional as Atlassian. I think at its core, it's because it gives you perspective. While we're in entirely different industries, seeing a much larger and very successful company work through, admittedly, at a much later stage, but some of the same things that we think about on the day-to-day, you know, it gives you perspective as a CEO that you're not alone, no matter what stage of company, and that these challenges are While we are having them today, Atlassian certainly had them 10 years ago. That's evolved. They probably had them five years ago, and they're having them today, and so it gives you the perspective that you're not alone and helps you see around corners, and then I think the second big benefit is you get insight sitting on the other side of the table in terms of how to use your board effectively, and so watching the exceptional co-CEOs of Mike and Scott managing the Atlassian board gives me Frankly, a playbook that I can use and examples that I can use in my day-to-day when I think about effective board management.

AI assessment note: “gives me Frankly, a playbook that I can use”

Q Can I ask, is there anything that you can do literally to enhance the chances of constructive candor and enhance that kind of internal rapport within the team?

A I think there is. One, it has to be authentic. I'll start with that, right? Oftentimes startups, when they're looking to build their value statement or their cultures, they'll start by looking up what other startups do, and I think that's exactly the wrong thing to do. I think the right thing to do is, one, start with what is authentic to you. Trust. If that's one of yours, one, it has to be authentic to you, the founder. Next is at solve. We emphasize that we start with an expectation of trust and a one team mentality, right? Versus one of suspicion and every man out for themselves. Just like when you're on a sports team, your best serve starting with an expectation that we're all trying to win. And so the way we do that is we vet this in interviews. We talk about it as part of the team. We ask questions in interviews like, Tell me about a big failure for yourself and your team and what happened. You can hear a lot in a person's language on whether or not they are starting from a place of trust versus one of suspicion. And then second is you build in opportunities to build the trust that comes from getting to know each other outside of a deadline. In a company with only twenty-somethings and people with fewer outside commitments, like fewer triathletes, for example, this is awesome. This is often done over, you know, spontaneous after work drink nights. There is a reality when…

AI assessment note: “I think there is. One, it has to be authentic.”

Q we marry, obviously, supply and demand, I'd love to discuss the NPS element. We had Leah at TaskRabbit on, and she said that one side of the equation will always be less content. Would you agree with this, kind of, having run and operated SolveNow, and then also having watched the early days to the successful days with Trulia, how do you think about this and navigate finding that difference?

A I love that comment from Leah, actually. When you think about a marketplace, balancing your supply and your demand side, the needs that they have as users, frankly, your internal organization, which services both sides of your marketplace, is a really challenging thing, and it's part of what makes it so damn hard and so damn fun when it comes to building a marketplace. I think it is true that there will always be frustration on some side of your marketplace. I don't know that it always needs to be one side or the other. And in fact, my experience shows me that it's often a series of trade-offs. So if you take the Trulia and Zillow use case, ultimately what we realize as a company is that if we were helping consumers make better decisions or shining a light in the darkness, as they would say at Zillow, in terms of the consumer, that ultimately that would best serve the supply side of that marketplace, which was the agent, because we would grow the audience, And those agents would have more engaged consumers to transact with. But in the day-to-day of operating any company, you're going to have a natural tension between both of those sides. And I actually think that it's ensuring that you've got the right leadership internally, understanding what are the core priorities of each side of your marketplace, and then fighting those battles internally so that you have the requisite bala…

AI assessment note: “I think it is true that there will always be frustration on some side”

Q Absolutely. And I love that question, uh, fundamentally. But I would love to discuss the scaling of the business itself. Finally, on the scaling element, you've raised twenty three million dollars from some phenomenal investors. I mean, Bill Gurley at Benchmark, James Slavitt at Greylock, The wonderful Pete Flint. How do you fundamentally determine when is the right time to double down and really pour fuel on the fire?

A You know, I think this is one of the biggest challenges for a startup, and especially those that have raised, is spending too soon. You know, having money doesn't necessarily mean that you should be spending a ton of money. So, thinking about both sides of the marketplace, you know, I think when it comes to your supply, I think it's critical to look for signals from your paying customers, like, are your customers asking you for more? Do they want you to take on more and more of the problems that they have? Do you have your core metrics around sales or acquisition, unit economics, customer retention, the measurement around your ROI for customers moving in the right direction? They don't have to be final, but they certainly need to be directionally moving, and if so, then I say pour some gas. On the demand side, I think Sarah Tovel from Benchmark has a really great, simple, and useful framework here, which is lots of startups focus on user growth, and as part of her framework, she says don't focus on user growth, which can be cheap, But focus on growth of users completing a core action, right? A core action. So a core action for solve is a booking. We have lots of other areas of engagement. We have lots of ways to drive user acquisition, but the core action is ultimately, are they actually booking, creating that unit of value within our product? If you know what your core action …

AI assessment note: “if so, then I say pour some gas.”

Q You said before about constructive candor as part of culture. Can you unpack that constructive candor for me?

A Uh, yes. It's one of our core values and frankly, one of my favorites. At Solve, we think of constructive candor as Trust, and this is important, plus direct communication is winning. As you think about all the organizations that you've ever been a part of, whether that's your family organization or your company organization or wherever, oftentimes, 80% of the drama in any relationship has to do with the ability to effectively or ineffectively communicate, right, and the misunderstanding that happen when you aren't able to effectively communicate. So when we say constructive candor at Solve, We're effectively saying, number one, start with the assumption of trust of one another and looking at the same goal. Number two is be direct in that communication so we're not wasting any time, right? And I truly think that it's our superpower to move fast as a company.

AI assessment note: “we think of constructive candor as Trust, and this is important, plus direct communication”

Q we marry, obviously, supply and demand, I'd love to discuss the NPS element. We had Leah at TaskRabbit on, and she said that one side of the equation will always be less content. Would you agree with this, kind of, having run and operated SolveNow, and then also having watched the early days to the successful days with Trulia, how do you think about this and navigate finding that difference?

A I love that comment from Leah, actually. When you think about a marketplace, balancing your supply and your demand side, the needs that they have as users, frankly, your internal organization, which services both sides of your marketplace, is a really challenging thing, and it's part of what makes it so damn hard and so damn fun when it comes to building a marketplace. I think it is true that there will always be frustration on some side of your marketplace. I don't know that it always needs to be one side or the other. And in fact, my experience shows me that it's often a series of trade-offs. So if you take the Trulia and Zillow use case, ultimately what we realize as a company is that if we were helping consumers make better decisions or shining a light in the darkness, as they would say at Zillow, in terms of the consumer, that ultimately that would best serve the supply side of that marketplace, which was the agent, because we would grow the audience, And those agents would have more engaged consumers to transact with. But in the day-to-day of operating any company, you're going to have a natural tension between both of those sides. And I actually think that it's ensuring that you've got the right leadership internally, understanding what are the core priorities of each side of your marketplace, and then fighting those battles internally so that you have the requisite bala…

AI assessment note: “I think it is true that there will always be frustration on some side”

Q yourself, then the team around you, and then the business. So on yourself, I spoke to your former boss and now angel at Solve, Pete Flint, and he told me the story of a time when an exec hire wasn't working out, and you stepped in to take over the role. Pete told me it was a very bold move. So what gave you the confidence to do that, Heather?

A You know, I would love to say that I had a cape on and I walked out with boldness and that I just ruled the world. But here's the reality is we were a team and we were in a situation where we needed someone to fill in. I didn't really have a choice. You know, there was a need. I was the person in the room best equipped to fill it. And so I did. I think ultimately my confidence came over time from realizing that everyone who gets put in these roles, who at the early parts of your career, you look at these people and you feel like they have it all figured out. The reality is people who are in these roles start by not knowing what the hell they're doing, right? And they figure it out piece by piece. And oftentimes, even though they've been doing jobs for a long time, they still don't know what the hell they're doing. So I think there is a confidence from recognizing that we assign a false competence to people oftentimes because they're in certain roles. When I found myself in that role, then I just thought it's, I guess I now need to do what everyone else has had to do. Um, and so I would give this advice to people. And if I may, I'd especially give this to women and underrepresented groups. Cause I feel like this is where I see the problem the most. Is know that you're never going to be a hundred percent ready, but neither is the other guy. So just take a leap.

AI assessment note: “my confidence came over time from realizing that everyone who gets put in these roles”

Q You said before about constructive candor as part of culture. Can you unpack that constructive candor for me?

A Uh, yes. It's one of our core values and frankly, one of my favorites. At Solve, we think of constructive candor as Trust, and this is important, plus direct communication is winning. As you think about all the organizations that you've ever been a part of, whether that's your family organization or your company organization or wherever, oftentimes, 80% of the drama in any relationship has to do with the ability to effectively or ineffectively communicate, right, and the misunderstanding that happen when you aren't able to effectively communicate. So when we say constructive candor at Solve, We're effectively saying, number one, start with the assumption of trust of one another and looking at the same goal. Number two is be direct in that communication so we're not wasting any time, right? And I truly think that it's our superpower to move fast as a company.

AI assessment note: “when we say constructive candor at Solve, We're effectively saying, number one”

Q Well, I mean, I have to say, I think I'd rather go through an Ironman than childbirth, but moving swiftly on, what were your cool learnings from seeing that first-hand scaling of Trulia into hyper-growth mode?

A You know, when I first started at Trulia, there were roughly a dozen people in the room, you know, nearly zero dollars in revenue, a couple thousands of visits to the site, and when I left over that time span, after our IPO and sale to Zillow, we were at roughly fifty million uniques per month, And around two hundred and fifty million in revenue. So we saw some pretty incredible growth. I think the first and biggest learning is that what it takes for a leadership team to scale from, you know, roughly a dozen people to a thousand. And the combination of growing people from internally to maintain that culture and core of the company, as well as bringing in that external expertise, right, as you are hitting different levels of scale and operations that many of us in the early team had never seen before.

AI assessment note: “combination of growing people from internally... as well as bringing in that external expertise”

Q Can I ask, if you were to focus on one number that you hone in on, check daily, think about, what would that be? Would that be GMV? Would that be kind of Pure transactions. Would that be visitors to the site? How do you kind of prioritize the stack?

A We look, because we're a marketplace, obviously, we look at both sides. One is on our supply side. We look at volume. You know, what is the volume on the supply side, and how is that trending day over day? And of course, we know all of the operational levers in order to drive that. And then when it comes to the consumer, the demand side, one is the top line number, is what does that demand look like? And then, frankly, the next level down is, are they taking the core action? And so the core action for Solve is the booking. And so we look a lot at those numbers on our day-to-day to see, are we driving the engagement and the success that we're looking to drive?

AI assessment note: “the core action for Solve is the booking. And so we look a lot at those numbers”

Q the team itself and more to the company itself now being solved. I've heard it described before as the open table for health A dynamic market like any other. There's obviously also the demand side of the table. James at ThredUp said that in marketplaces, stubbornness helps a lot. How do you think about this and determine between maybe vision and mission, and when something isn't working, so to speak?

A You know, I think his point is a really good one. You know, when you are starting up a company, you have an emphasis on metrics. Negative in the early days because the numbers are so small. There's this narrative that a company should come in and beta test everything and AB test everything. Let me tell you something. It's a lot better. You are at millions of visits per month or fifty million per month versus when you only have five or 10 or 20 or 100 or zero consumers on every given day. Your data sets can be too small to run the test or get the validation that you need. And so I do think that stubbornness and knowing ultimately what is the purpose that we're trying to serve is really important. Certainly you look at the data and usage of your product But you also have to look at other inputs, whether in the early days that's qualitative validation from whoever your core user is, or that's looking at other companies solving a similar problem in a different space, or a somewhat similar problem in the same space. You need to look at your validation, not just through that A-B test and that number that you're seeing, you know, on your dashboard today, but from a number of data points.

AI assessment note: “stubbornness and knowing ultimately what is the purpose that we're trying to serve is really important.”

Q the team itself and more to the company itself now being solved. I've heard it described before as the open table for health A dynamic market like any other. There's obviously also the demand side of the table. James at ThredUp said that in marketplaces, stubbornness helps a lot. How do you think about this and determine between maybe vision and mission, and when something isn't working, so to speak?

A You know, I think his point is a really good one. You know, when you are starting up a company, you have an emphasis on metrics. Negative in the early days because the numbers are so small. There's this narrative that a company should come in and beta test everything and AB test everything. Let me tell you something. It's a lot better. You are at millions of visits per month or fifty million per month versus when you only have five or 10 or 20 or 100 or zero consumers on every given day. Your data sets can be too small to run the test or get the validation that you need. And so I do think that stubbornness and knowing ultimately what is the purpose that we're trying to serve is really important. Certainly you look at the data and usage of your product But you also have to look at other inputs, whether in the early days that's qualitative validation from whoever your core user is, or that's looking at other companies solving a similar problem in a different space, or a somewhat similar problem in the same space. You need to look at your validation, not just through that A-B test and that number that you're seeing, you know, on your dashboard today, but from a number of data points.

AI assessment note: “I do think that stubbornness and knowing ultimately what is the purpose that we're trying”

Q Can I ask, if you were to focus on one number that you hone in on, check daily, think about, what would that be? Would that be GMV? Would that be kind of Pure transactions. Would that be visitors to the site? How do you kind of prioritize the stack?

A We look, because we're a marketplace, obviously, we look at both sides. One is on our supply side. We look at volume. You know, what is the volume on the supply side, and how is that trending day over day? And of course, we know all of the operational levers in order to drive that. And then when it comes to the consumer, the demand side, one is the top line number, is what does that demand look like? And then, frankly, the next level down is, are they taking the core action? And so the core action for Solve is the booking. And so we look a lot at those numbers on our day-to-day to see, are we driving the engagement and the success that we're looking to drive?

AI assessment note: “the core action for Solve is the booking. And so we look a lot at those numbers”