The Exchanges

Q Well, thank you so much, but for those of us that made the mistake of missing our round one, let's get the ball rolling today with a little bit on you, so tell me, Mathilde, how did you make the move into the world of startups and really come to found one of the hottest companies in the form of Front?

A I started this company five years ago. Before that, I had only been working for one year in a startup. So, you know, my work experience is limited. I think since I was a kid, I wanted to start a company. And the reason for that is very naive. It is I wanted to create a place where I would be happy to come to work every day. And hopefully other people would be happy to come to work every day. And that's really why I started this company. So then I met my co-founder in Paris. I didn't know that I would move to San Francisco. Most of our customers were in San Francisco, so then we moved, and now we're here, and we have a 130 employees, 5000 customers, and I'm talking to you for the second time, which probably means that we've done a few things right.

AI assessment note: “I started this company five years ago. Before that, I had only been working”

Q communication is one of the core parts that you suggest directing discipline. And investor updates in particular. So if we jump on that first then, what's your advice to founders here? There's a lot of conflicting advice I always see on Twitter. How often do you think they should be? What should they contain? Should they call out specific investors for help? What advice do you give to these founders?

A So there are, I think, three advice that I give. The first one is you should choose the metrics that you will track and you should not change them. Too often I've seen entrepreneurs For example, track revenue, and then maybe revenue is not going as well as expected, so all of a sudden we'll switch to DAUs because DAUs is going better. I think that's the wrong thing to do. So pick a metric and make sure it grows, and I have no excuse for this metric not to grow, and if it doesn't grow, just be very transparent about the fact that it's not growing, and just show what you're doing in order for this metric to grow. Second advice is just send it at the same time every month. I mean, so I recommend it every month because I think every week is too much work, and when you're early, every quarter is too long, but if you don't want to do it every month, I think that's Fine. And advice number three is be very precise in the asks that you have for your investors. So for example, at the end of the day, every founder wants more customers and new hires. But if you're saying, do you know any backend engineer? And do you know any company that would be interested in using front? Imagine an investor that's super busy and receiving this is very hard for them to know. Oh, I can think of these companies that could use front or I know this backend engineer. And instead, if you say, here is a list of …

AI assessment note: “I recommend it every month because I think every week is too much work”

Q applied to fundraising really has made you incredibly well-known and respected with regards to how you orchestrate fundraisings. I'm always hearing, though, Don't meet VCs when you're not raising and then have a super compressed fundraising timeline and do it that way. That's the advice that's always given to me on the show. How do you respond to this advice and how do you approach that relationship building with VCs?

A I would say this advice doesn't really resonate with me because I think it's contradictory in a sense that let's say you've never met any investor between your rounds and then you're meeting new investors because, and you have a very compressed timeline. The problem is part of the reason why, uh, the fundraising will be successful is being Because of the presentation you're going to do and the metrics that you're going to show. But part of the reason is also because of the relationship you'll build with the potential investor that will join your board. And that's very hard in like a compressed timeline to build. I am very happy that I could build meaningful relationships with a few investors before our series B so that then the timeline during the series B was solely about the business and the metrics because the rest, which Takes months, years, had been done before. So I'd say that my advice would be slightly different. I'm not saying you should meet every month with 10 investors, but I think you need to invest enough in a few key relationships that you think can pay out so that then you can raise in a very, very short period of time.

AI assessment note: “I would say this advice doesn't really resonate with me because I think it's contradictory”

Q Well, thank you so much, but for those of us that made the mistake of missing our round one, let's get the ball rolling today with a little bit on you, so tell me, Mathilde, how did you make the move into the world of startups and really come to found one of the hottest companies in the form of Front?

A I started this company five years ago. Before that, I had only been working for one year in a startup. So, you know, my work experience is limited. I think since I was a kid, I wanted to start a company. And the reason for that is very naive. It is I wanted to create a place where I would be happy to come to work every day. And hopefully other people would be happy to come to work every day. And that's really why I started this company. So then I met my co-founder in Paris. I didn't know that I would move to San Francisco. Most of our customers were in San Francisco, so then we moved, and now we're here, and we have a 130 employees, 5000 customers, and I'm talking to you for the second time, which probably means that we've done a few things right.

AI assessment note: “I started this company five years ago. Before that, I had only been working”

Q What makes you think that discipline and that kind of rules-based approach is important over vision in the early days, especially?

A So there are a few things. One is, I actually think it doesn't matter if you don't have a grand vision from day one, because as soon as you know that you're operating in a market that could be huge, then you'll have all the time you need to figure out what will be step two, step three, and then step 10 of your strategy. So I can tell you very honestly that the vision up front I pitched during our Series B 18 months ago is very, very different from the vision I had pitched after my seed round or Series A round. So that's one. You'll have time to figure out your vision. And then two is I believe that success will happen only if you're consistent. I've not found any other way to be consistent than a ton of discipline. So that's the reason why I think one is more important than the other.

AI assessment note: “I've not found any other way to be consistent than a ton of discipline.”

Q communication is one of the core parts that you suggest directing discipline. And investor updates in particular. So if we jump on that first then, what's your advice to founders here? There's a lot of conflicting advice I always see on Twitter. How often do you think they should be? What should they contain? Should they call out specific investors for help? What advice do you give to these founders?

A So there are, I think, three advice that I give. The first one is you should choose the metrics that you will track and you should not change them. Too often I've seen entrepreneurs For example, track revenue, and then maybe revenue is not going as well as expected, so all of a sudden we'll switch to DAUs because DAUs is going better. I think that's the wrong thing to do. So pick a metric and make sure it grows, and I have no excuse for this metric not to grow, and if it doesn't grow, just be very transparent about the fact that it's not growing, and just show what you're doing in order for this metric to grow. Second advice is just send it at the same time every month. I mean, so I recommend it every month because I think every week is too much work, and when you're early, every quarter is too long, but if you don't want to do it every month, I think that's Fine. And advice number three is be very precise in the asks that you have for your investors. So for example, at the end of the day, every founder wants more customers and new hires. But if you're saying, do you know any backend engineer? And do you know any company that would be interested in using front? Imagine an investor that's super busy and receiving this is very hard for them to know. Oh, I can think of these companies that could use front or I know this backend engineer. And instead, if you say, here is a list of …

AI assessment note: “So there are, I think, three advice that I give.”

Q that they've found, you know, that X is a really common problem that a lot of people are suffering from. So that, no, I totally get you. And that's fascinating. In terms of the final form of communication, though, again, the team told me about revenue updates. Walk me through this one, Mathilde. Why do you do the revenue updates? Who does it go to, and is there a structure?

A Yeah, so every week, all hands meeting, I show revenue. So, meaning every single week, they know exactly how much churn we've had, how much expansion we've had, and how much new business we've had, and we divide that by the different teams. So, for example, EMEA plus the U.S., Plus the channel team. I've always done that. And I found it very important because, you know, it's not that I obsess over revenue. It's just that I think there are just so many things that need to go right in order for revenue to keep increasing consistently at the rates you've decided was a good rate. And I think sometimes it's hard to do them because sometimes you are not hitting your goals and every single week you're saying, okay, we've not done our goal again for Last week, but I think that's the only way for people to work on the exact right things, and so I've just kept doing them, and I will keep doing them, and I think also giving context on why we're growing faster than expected, or we're growing slower than expected, is a very good thing for employees not to freak out about anything happening.

AI assessment note: “every week, all hands meeting, I show revenue. So, meaning every single week”

Q I'm interested. What's the one-on-one communication line? That's super interesting.

A So I'm actually going to publish a Medium post about this early next week, because when I think about The tools we've used to create a great culture. I think one-on-ones is probably the most powerful tool we've used. And so I want to share in this article how we do them. So the way we do them is we have weekly one-on-ones and monthly one-on-ones. Weekly one-on-ones about work and monthly one-on-ones are just about happiness. And so monthly one-on-ones, let's say I have a monthly one-on-one with you this week. I will send you an email a few days before on Monday, asking you a few questions. And in these questions, you will always find, one, in the past month, what have you been most happy about? Two, in the past month, what have you been least happy about? What can I do to make your professional life better? Any feedback questions for me. And then on top of this, I will add some other questions. And I will expect you to think about it and send me your answers at least 24 hours before so that I have the time to read and then the time to prepare the questions you've asked me to prepare. And what I found is, I think it's really great for me because I learn a lot and I have the peace of mind that every month, We'll be able to talk about how you're feeling at work. But I think for you, then it gives you the opportunity to reflect every single month about, you know, what could be diff…

AI assessment note: “we have weekly one-on-ones and monthly one-on-ones. Weekly one-on-ones about work and monthly”

Q Is it really difficult to scale transparency and trust with the scaling of team and the growth that you've seen with Front?

A So I don't think it's hard, meaning again, if you're very disciplined in the way you do it, So, you know, we have these outlets today where there is a weekly email, there is a weekly, and we have these dashboards in the office. Every month we send all the data from the past month. Every quarter we have a board meeting, and so we'll send the board deck to everyone. And so I'm not constantly thinking on how am I going to scale this transparency and or what additional information can I share? I think if I know that every week, every month, every quarter, these are the things that I'm going to share. Obviously as the company scale, it needs to evolve. So for example, before everyone knew pretty much everything, that's not the case anymore. So during all hands meeting, we introduced this Q and A that's anonymous. Anyone can ask questions ahead of time and the relevant person will answer these questions. And that I think didn't really make sense in the days because, you know, you could just come to my desk and ask me or come to my co-founder's desk and ask him. That's not the case anymore. So yes, it needs to evolve, but that's not what I've found to be the most Hard about scaling this company.

AI assessment note: “I don't think it's hard, meaning again, if you're very disciplined in the way you do it”

Q You left me at trading one there. What have you found to be the most challenging?

A So I think the most challenging is the fact that it never gets easier and it's the opposite. It just gets harder because, you know, in the early days, you just need one customer every week in order to grow 10% week over week. And then now in order to double, triple every year, the amount of things that need to go right from the people we hire to new strategies we implement, because what's got us Here, won't get us there. It's just increasingly difficult because the scale is bigger every single month, every single year. And I think it's the same thing. I think it's a misconception that, you know, I felt like when we raise money, then things will be easier. When I hire executives, then things will be easier. When I get funding from Sequoia and this amazing brand trader is joining our board, then you'll have a lot of answers to a lot of my questions. And that's like the reality is no, it's just harder every day. And I think that's at the end of the day was the hardest of it. This company is, I can't think, oh, two years from now, things will be fine. No, things will be just even harder, and I need to embrace it.

AI assessment note: “most challenging is the fact that it never gets easier and it's the opposite”

Q that they've found, you know, that X is a really common problem that a lot of people are suffering from. So that, no, I totally get you. And that's fascinating. In terms of the final form of communication, though, again, the team told me about revenue updates. Walk me through this one, Mathilde. Why do you do the revenue updates? Who does it go to, and is there a structure?

A Yeah, so every week, all hands meeting, I show revenue. So, meaning every single week, they know exactly how much churn we've had, how much expansion we've had, and how much new business we've had, and we divide that by the different teams. So, for example, EMEA plus the U.S., Plus the channel team. I've always done that. And I found it very important because, you know, it's not that I obsess over revenue. It's just that I think there are just so many things that need to go right in order for revenue to keep increasing consistently at the rates you've decided was a good rate. And I think sometimes it's hard to do them because sometimes you are not hitting your goals and every single week you're saying, okay, we've not done our goal again for Last week, but I think that's the only way for people to work on the exact right things, and so I've just kept doing them, and I will keep doing them, and I think also giving context on why we're growing faster than expected, or we're growing slower than expected, is a very good thing for employees not to freak out about anything happening.

AI assessment note: “every week, all hands meeting, I show revenue.”

Q suggest that discipline? For me, it's when you maybe ask for access to data room, and they come back with a very thoughtful answer, and pick out specific snippets from the data room, and they send that, you know, at 11:30 the same day, not midway through the next day. Is that the sort of thing in terms of the discipline, and how do you think about the tangible ways?

A Right. So I think the thing is discipline for founders will be different from discipline for like, for example, a salesperson, a product person. And so I don't think there is a silver bullet that tells you, okay, this person is disciplined. One thing that I've found very interesting as an entrepreneur is I started investing in startups maybe two years ago. As I was doing that, I started receiving investor updates. And I quickly noticed that the entrepreneurs who were sending the updates in the same format as At the same time of the whatever month, week or quarter were people that were making more progress than the people that would change the format all the time. Sometimes send it every month, sometimes every quarter. So that's how you can test for a founder along the way. Now for sales, I think there is a ton of discipline around pipeline management and the tools you use and how you use them for product. I think there is a ton of discipline around how to raise facts and how do you communicate about them. And how do you track results? And so that's what I assess specifically for every role. But I also think that there is a lot of soft signals that you can have in a meeting. Just having someone answer the question that you've asked and know more than that is, I think, helpful in knowing if the person will be a disciplined person.

AI assessment note: “entrepreneurs who were sending the updates in the same format... were making more progress”

Q it be just to scale an existing milestone? Can it be, so we're at one million ARR now, and we're going to raise ten million Series A to get to a six million ARR status. Is that good enough, or does it have to be actually, we're going to open up new markets, we're going to see products evolve from this to this. Can it just be a scaling revenue?

A So the thing is, I would say it's not enough, but I'm not an investor, and so you know better. And it depends at which stage you raise money. But one of the things that I used in my series B was saying the difference between me raising a series B and me raising a series A is now I feel like the business is far more predictable. So it's almost like mathematics where I need to spend X to generate leads, and then I need to spend Y in order to convert these leads. And then once a person is a customer, then I know that I can expect this growth year over year. So I almost don't need your money because I still have some money on the bank account. Or I need a limited amount of money for that to scale. So that may be one of the reasons why you raise is to scale this thing that's working and you need some money. But if you want to ask for more money, then what I found being successful is to be able to say on top of this, we can change our trajectory and accelerate our growth by doing X, Y, Z. And that's why I need more than just what's reasonable in order for us to go from. Three to 10.

AI assessment note: “I would say it's not enough, but I'm not an investor”

Q I do have to ask, I would be nervous that maybe, as you said, two weeks running, for whatever reason, we don't hit the targets that we want. How do you think about the ability for maybe to deject the team, or maybe just Disintensifies the team. Is that a concern for you?

A It's definitely a concern, and I think whenever, so one of our values at front is transparency, and I always tell people that it's very easy to say that transparency is one of your values, and then it's insanely hard to actually leave it, a hundred percent, and the reason it's hard is because as a human being, whenever there are bad news, then your temptation is to not share it, because what you want instead is making sure your team is always As excited as possible. But what I found is people in the team will be engaged because they trust the company. And that's why they will work hard. They won't work hard if every single week we're telling them everything is amazing. We've hit our goals. This is just not the reality of a business. Like a business will go through ups and downs. And you know, when eight things out of 10 are going well, then two things are not going well. And it's super important for the team to know so that they can focus their energy on Bringing these things back on track. So I think there is some misconception about engagement being created by the energy of announcing good news versus engagement created by the trust and the transparency and the context that you will give to your employees.

AI assessment note: “It's definitely a concern, and I think whenever, so one of our values”

Q Is it really difficult to scale transparency and trust with the scaling of team and the growth that you've seen with Front?

A So I don't think it's hard, meaning again, if you're very disciplined in the way you do it, So, you know, we have these outlets today where there is a weekly email, there is a weekly, and we have these dashboards in the office. Every month we send all the data from the past month. Every quarter we have a board meeting, and so we'll send the board deck to everyone. And so I'm not constantly thinking on how am I going to scale this transparency and or what additional information can I share? I think if I know that every week, every month, every quarter, these are the things that I'm going to share. Obviously as the company scale, it needs to evolve. So for example, before everyone knew pretty much everything, that's not the case anymore. So during all hands meeting, we introduced this Q and A that's anonymous. Anyone can ask questions ahead of time and the relevant person will answer these questions. And that I think didn't really make sense in the days because, you know, you could just come to my desk and ask me or come to my co-founder's desk and ask him. That's not the case anymore. So yes, it needs to evolve, but that's not what I've found to be the most Hard about scaling this company.

AI assessment note: “So I don't think it's hard, meaning again, if you're very disciplined”

Q applied to fundraising really has made you incredibly well-known and respected with regards to how you orchestrate fundraisings. I'm always hearing, though, Don't meet VCs when you're not raising and then have a super compressed fundraising timeline and do it that way. That's the advice that's always given to me on the show. How do you respond to this advice and how do you approach that relationship building with VCs?

A I would say this advice doesn't really resonate with me because I think it's contradictory in a sense that let's say you've never met any investor between your rounds and then you're meeting new investors because, and you have a very compressed timeline. The problem is part of the reason why, uh, the fundraising will be successful is being Because of the presentation you're going to do and the metrics that you're going to show. But part of the reason is also because of the relationship you'll build with the potential investor that will join your board. And that's very hard in like a compressed timeline to build. I am very happy that I could build meaningful relationships with a few investors before our series B so that then the timeline during the series B was solely about the business and the metrics because the rest, which Takes months, years, had been done before. So I'd say that my advice would be slightly different. I'm not saying you should meet every month with 10 investors, but I think you need to invest enough in a few key relationships that you think can pay out so that then you can raise in a very, very short period of time.

AI assessment note: “this advice doesn't really resonate with me because I think it's contradictory”

Q let's go back to that kind of 30 KMR, uh, use case. And me and you've just met and you've just, uh, ruthlessly lied to me that you're at 20 KMR, not 30 K, which is the reality in that case. Tell me, how do you know when is the right time to go? Now's the time we catalyze these conversations and actually raise. What are the determinants to you?

A So I guess there are three criteria I use. The first one, which to me is the most important one, is when you feel like it. And it's something that a lot of entrepreneurs forget, but one thing where it's very hard to fake it and or to lie to investors is how confident you are in your business. And the reality is, you know, it's a lot of ups and downs. And so there will never be a moment where you're like overly confident about the business. But There will be moments where you're far more confident about the business, because for example, you've done three quarters in a row with hitting your goals, or because you've just made a hire that you think is going to be very impactful, like whatever reason. And then sometimes, you know, things are great on paper, but you just heard about this customer that's going to churn. You just heard about this employee that's thinking about leaving. And so even if people tell you, but you've been growing three X last year and you've reached a million AR, so it's time to think about your series. You just don't feel like it. So my number one advice would be you need to be in a good state of mind because that's something that's hard to fake. And then number two is you should have reached a milestone. Usually I like to think about fundraising as I need this money in order to prove that maybe in one year, two years, three years. And so you should make s…

AI assessment note: “So I guess there are three criteria I use. The first one”

Q What makes you think that discipline and that kind of rules-based approach is important over vision in the early days, especially?

A So there are a few things. One is, I actually think it doesn't matter if you don't have a grand vision from day one, because as soon as you know that you're operating in a market that could be huge, then you'll have all the time you need to figure out what will be step two, step three, and then step 10 of your strategy. So I can tell you very honestly that the vision up front I pitched during our Series B 18 months ago is very, very different from the vision I had pitched after my seed round or Series A round. So that's one. You'll have time to figure out your vision. And then two is I believe that success will happen only if you're consistent. I've not found any other way to be consistent than a ton of discipline. So that's the reason why I think one is more important than the other.

AI assessment note: “I've not found any other way to be consistent than a ton of discipline.”

Q I need your help then, because as a VC today, vision and grand vision as to how this could scale to be a billion dollar company is always one of the questions that we ask. Does that mean that actually I'm wrong in asking that and how should then I think about and maybe change my approach in terms of engaging with startups on how they think about their vision?

A So I guess it's like, of course, you should ask what's the grand vision and why could it be the single biggest company that has been created in the past 20 years? And every investor wants that, and that's fine, but I think it's all about the weight that you all put in that, and I think, you know, you can put a 10% weight, that's important, but 90% should be, okay, now how confident I am that the person can execute on this brand vision, because it's super easy to say, this is how big my company could be, and this is insanely hard to make it happen, so I guess now then the question is, how can you test for discipline, and that's a harder question, but I would really encourage you to try to assess that when you meet entrepreneurs.

AI assessment note: “of course, you should ask... but I think it's all about the weight”

Q I do have to ask, I would be nervous that maybe, as you said, two weeks running, for whatever reason, we don't hit the targets that we want. How do you think about the ability for maybe to deject the team, or maybe just Disintensifies the team. Is that a concern for you?

A It's definitely a concern, and I think whenever, so one of our values at front is transparency, and I always tell people that it's very easy to say that transparency is one of your values, and then it's insanely hard to actually leave it, a hundred percent, and the reason it's hard is because as a human being, whenever there are bad news, then your temptation is to not share it, because what you want instead is making sure your team is always As excited as possible. But what I found is people in the team will be engaged because they trust the company. And that's why they will work hard. They won't work hard if every single week we're telling them everything is amazing. We've hit our goals. This is just not the reality of a business. Like a business will go through ups and downs. And you know, when eight things out of 10 are going well, then two things are not going well. And it's super important for the team to know so that they can focus their energy on Bringing these things back on track. So I think there is some misconception about engagement being created by the energy of announcing good news versus engagement created by the trust and the transparency and the context that you will give to your employees.

AI assessment note: “It's definitely a concern, and I think whenever, so one of our values”

Q You left me at trading one there. What have you found to be the most challenging?

A So I think the most challenging is the fact that it never gets easier and it's the opposite. It just gets harder because, you know, in the early days, you just need one customer every week in order to grow 10% week over week. And then now in order to double, triple every year, the amount of things that need to go right from the people we hire to new strategies we implement, because what's got us Here, won't get us there. It's just increasingly difficult because the scale is bigger every single month, every single year. And I think it's the same thing. I think it's a misconception that, you know, I felt like when we raise money, then things will be easier. When I hire executives, then things will be easier. When I get funding from Sequoia and this amazing brand trader is joining our board, then you'll have a lot of answers to a lot of my questions. And that's like the reality is no, it's just harder every day. And I think that's at the end of the day was the hardest of it. This company is, I can't think, oh, two years from now, things will be fine. No, things will be just even harder, and I need to embrace it.

AI assessment note: “most challenging is the fact that it never gets easier and it's the opposite”

Q let's go back to that kind of 30 KMR, uh, use case. And me and you've just met and you've just, uh, ruthlessly lied to me that you're at 20 KMR, not 30 K, which is the reality in that case. Tell me, how do you know when is the right time to go? Now's the time we catalyze these conversations and actually raise. What are the determinants to you?

A So I guess there are three criteria I use. The first one, which to me is the most important one, is when you feel like it. And it's something that a lot of entrepreneurs forget, but one thing where it's very hard to fake it and or to lie to investors is how confident you are in your business. And the reality is, you know, it's a lot of ups and downs. And so there will never be a moment where you're like overly confident about the business. But There will be moments where you're far more confident about the business, because for example, you've done three quarters in a row with hitting your goals, or because you've just made a hire that you think is going to be very impactful, like whatever reason. And then sometimes, you know, things are great on paper, but you just heard about this customer that's going to churn. You just heard about this employee that's thinking about leaving. And so even if people tell you, but you've been growing three X last year and you've reached a million AR, so it's time to think about your series. You just don't feel like it. So my number one advice would be you need to be in a good state of mind because that's something that's hard to fake. And then number two is you should have reached a milestone. Usually I like to think about fundraising as I need this money in order to prove that maybe in one year, two years, three years. And so you should make s…

AI assessment note: “So I guess there are three criteria I use. The first one”

Q it be just to scale an existing milestone? Can it be, so we're at one million ARR now, and we're going to raise ten million Series A to get to a six million ARR status. Is that good enough, or does it have to be actually, we're going to open up new markets, we're going to see products evolve from this to this. Can it just be a scaling revenue?

A So the thing is, I would say it's not enough, but I'm not an investor, and so you know better. And it depends at which stage you raise money. But one of the things that I used in my series B was saying the difference between me raising a series B and me raising a series A is now I feel like the business is far more predictable. So it's almost like mathematics where I need to spend X to generate leads, and then I need to spend Y in order to convert these leads. And then once a person is a customer, then I know that I can expect this growth year over year. So I almost don't need your money because I still have some money on the bank account. Or I need a limited amount of money for that to scale. So that may be one of the reasons why you raise is to scale this thing that's working and you need some money. But if you want to ask for more money, then what I found being successful is to be able to say on top of this, we can change our trajectory and accelerate our growth by doing X, Y, Z. And that's why I need more than just what's reasonable in order for us to go from. Three to 10.

AI assessment note: “I would say it's not enough, but I'm not an investor”

Q suggest that discipline? For me, it's when you maybe ask for access to data room, and they come back with a very thoughtful answer, and pick out specific snippets from the data room, and they send that, you know, at 11:30 the same day, not midway through the next day. Is that the sort of thing in terms of the discipline, and how do you think about the tangible ways?

A Right. So I think the thing is discipline for founders will be different from discipline for like, for example, a salesperson, a product person. And so I don't think there is a silver bullet that tells you, okay, this person is disciplined. One thing that I've found very interesting as an entrepreneur is I started investing in startups maybe two years ago. As I was doing that, I started receiving investor updates. And I quickly noticed that the entrepreneurs who were sending the updates in the same format as At the same time of the whatever month, week or quarter were people that were making more progress than the people that would change the format all the time. Sometimes send it every month, sometimes every quarter. So that's how you can test for a founder along the way. Now for sales, I think there is a ton of discipline around pipeline management and the tools you use and how you use them for product. I think there is a ton of discipline around how to raise facts and how do you communicate about them. And how do you track results? And so that's what I assess specifically for every role. But I also think that there is a lot of soft signals that you can have in a meeting. Just having someone answer the question that you've asked and know more than that is, I think, helpful in knowing if the person will be a disciplined person.

AI assessment note: “entrepreneurs who were sending the updates in the same format as At the same time”

Q relationship building. In terms of those kind of encounters with VCs, when you are getting to know them and building that relationship, I know being a VC that VCs will always pry into, you know, customer growth, revenue growth, whatever form of traction they can, even in the getting to know you meetings. Can I ask, when there is this prying from investors, is there a right way to respond?

A So it's a good question. I can tell you what I've done. I don't know if that's the right thing. So first of all, I've always shared some information. I don't think that if you share nothing, people will be excited to meet with you every six months. Now I've always Chosen the metric that was the best, obviously. So for example, we have users, we have companies using the product, we have MR, whatever you choose. I always talked about the one that was the best, but also I always said that, so let's, let's say I was at 30 KMR. I would say we're at 20 KMR. So I would always give a number that's below so that, you know, if I raise it in two months and for some reason things are not doing well in the next two months because you can never predict and I'm a very paranoid person, then at least I have this It's better to show the person that the company has been growing. So that's a trick I've used. I don't know if it's a, it's a good one.

AI assessment note: “I've always shared some information. I don't think that if you share nothing”

Q I'm interested. What's the one-on-one communication line? That's super interesting.

A So I'm actually going to publish a Medium post about this early next week, because when I think about The tools we've used to create a great culture. I think one-on-ones is probably the most powerful tool we've used. And so I want to share in this article how we do them. So the way we do them is we have weekly one-on-ones and monthly one-on-ones. Weekly one-on-ones about work and monthly one-on-ones are just about happiness. And so monthly one-on-ones, let's say I have a monthly one-on-one with you this week. I will send you an email a few days before on Monday, asking you a few questions. And in these questions, you will always find, one, in the past month, what have you been most happy about? Two, in the past month, what have you been least happy about? What can I do to make your professional life better? Any feedback questions for me. And then on top of this, I will add some other questions. And I will expect you to think about it and send me your answers at least 24 hours before so that I have the time to read and then the time to prepare the questions you've asked me to prepare. And what I found is, I think it's really great for me because I learn a lot and I have the peace of mind that every month, We'll be able to talk about how you're feeling at work. But I think for you, then it gives you the opportunity to reflect every single month about, you know, what could be diff…

AI assessment note: “we have weekly one-on-ones and monthly one-on-ones”

Q I couldn't agree with you more there in terms of the specificity of the ask. If we apply that discipline then, maybe internally to the direct reports, I know another element that you really excel at. As I said, I spoke to even members on the team itself. What's included in the direct reports? When do they go out, and how does it help you, I guess?

A There are many ways I communicate internally, and first, company-wide, I do two things. One is, I send an email every Monday morning or Sunday night. It used to be Sunday night, and now I care about work-life balancing. More than before. And therefore it's Monday morning. And I explain everything that we've done in the past week, everything that's going to be done next week. And I've been doing that since I started France and I have only missed sending this email once, which was when demo day was happening, which was really crazy. But otherwise I've always sent it and I've never had any excuse for not sending it. So that's how I do my communication internally, just to make sure everyone is on the same page. On top of that, we have an all hands. Where, you know, not everything can be described in an email. Like if I want a new hire to present themselves, if I want to demo something for the product, then all ends is better. So every Monday morning, nine a.m. PT, which is six p.m. Paris time, we have a company all ends. That's what I do company wise. Now for my direct reports, they do something different where at the beginning of every week, so 10 a.m. every Monday morning, they receive an email explaining what my priorities for the week are, because usually their priorities are somewhat different. Correlated with my priorities, and so for them to receive it will give them more gu…

AI assessment note: “Now for my direct reports... every Monday morning, they receive an email explaining what my priorities”

Q Speaking of giving their best selves to work, let's put the foot forward and do the next five years for you and for Front. Just how big could it get, Mathilde?

A So I have crazy ambitions for Front, and that's one of the things that I think this country brought me to. You know, when I was in France five years ago, if you had told me I would be here, I would have said, ah, I mean, I wasn't expecting more. And now I just felt like we're a tiny, tiny company. So I expect us to just keep growing as fast as we can, while always keeping in mind that the culture needs to be great. And so that's the limits to the growth that we want to see. But I'm excited about the future because from a market standpoint and product standpoint, I think the opportunity is huge and there are billions of people using email accounts. Every day, and I think if you change that for the better, then the impact in the reach is amazing, but also I'm super excited just for the people I'm currently with and the new people that I'll bring to the team, and so I think the, you know, things will be hard, but I, inside of me, I know that we'll figure things out.

AI assessment note: “I expect us to just keep growing as fast as we can”

Q Agreed. What can be done to do that tangibly?

A So I think diversity, there are a few different things. I think what I don't like about Silicon Valley is just the fact that everyone is working in tech, and I think that's going to be very hard to change, and then there is diversity, you know, within companies, and that's something that you can change by being deliberate about it, and just making sure that you will spend the time to evaluate a lot of different people, because at the end of the day, if you, let's take, for example, women versus men, if you spend the time to evaluate a lot of people, you should end up with fifty-fifty. If you don't, then you will probably not end up with that ratio.

AI assessment note: “being deliberate about it, and just making sure that you will spend the time”

Q Agreed. What can be done to do that tangibly?

A So I think diversity, there are a few different things. I think what I don't like about Silicon Valley is just the fact that everyone is working in tech, and I think that's going to be very hard to change, and then there is diversity, you know, within companies, and that's something that you can change by being deliberate about it, and just making sure that you will spend the time to evaluate a lot of different people, because at the end of the day, if you, let's take, for example, women versus men, if you spend the time to evaluate a lot of people, you should end up with fifty-fifty. If you don't, then you will probably not end up with that ratio.

AI assessment note: “making sure that you will spend the time to evaluate a lot of different people”