The Exchanges

Q Given the fact that I hate reading, you can be the intellectual one. What's your favorite book and why?

A So I'd have to go with a book called, uh, The Most Human Human by, uh, Brian Christian. And, uh, Brian's actually a close friend of mine. Uh, and, uh, the book, uh, sort of follows the journey of, of the author, uh, participating in something called the Turing test. Uh, and, uh, basically the setup is there's a panel of judges and they chat over Uh, over like an instant messenger type interface. Uh, what they don't know is whether they're talking to a chat bot, an AI chat bot, or an actual human. Uh, and they have to try to guess and figure it out. And, and they give an award for the, the, the chat bot that does the best and fools the most people as the most, uh, human computer. Uh, and they also give this sort of funny award to the human who convinces the most people that they are in fact human, uh, the most human human. And, and it's just a fascinating read. Uh, and it's all about human connection. Um, and as you can imagine, there's lots of parallels to, to Cambly there, which is also all about one-on-one interactions and, and human connections.

AI assessment note: “So I'd have to go with a book called, uh, The Most Human Human”

Q What do you know now that you wish you'd known at the start of your founding of Cambly?

A Um, I think, uh, hiring in like leaders with a, um, with a really like deep expertise, uh, in an area, I think, you know, we, we ran a good chunk of the company for a long time without, uh, without hiring, like we were kind of a team of people that were learning on the job. And I think only more recently have we hired some, some very senior folks, uh, you know, we hired The, the head of finance out of Airbnb experiences. We hired the, the head of core product, um, out of Pinterest and, and lots of other great leaders onto the team. And I think, uh, that just allows you to move faster, uh, because, um, uh, folks like that can draw from, from the many lessons they've had in their, in their very successful careers and bring, inject those things into Cambly. Uh, and so, uh, I think I, if I could go back, I'd say, Hey, Uh, pulling, pulling, pulling some, some really strong leaders with a lot of experience earlier, and you'll be able to get, you know, get to where you're going faster.

AI assessment note: “hiring in like leaders with a, um, with a really like deep expertise”

Q What do you know now that you wish you'd known at the start of your founding of Cambly?

A Um, I think, uh, hiring in like leaders with a, um, with a really like deep expertise, uh, in an area, I think, you know, we, we ran a good chunk of the company for a long time without, uh, without hiring, like we were kind of a team of people that were learning on the job. And I think only more recently have we hired some, some very senior folks, uh, you know, we hired The, the head of finance out of Airbnb experiences. We hired the, the head of core product, um, out of Pinterest and, and lots of other great leaders onto the team. And I think, uh, that just allows you to move faster, uh, because, um, uh, folks like that can draw from, from the many lessons they've had in their, in their very successful careers and bring, inject those things into Cambly. Uh, and so, uh, I think I, if I could go back, I'd say, Hey, Uh, pulling, pulling, pulling some, some really strong leaders with a lot of experience earlier, and you'll be able to get, you know, get to where you're going faster.

AI assessment note: “hiring in like leaders with a, um, with a really like deep expertise”

Q You mentioned distribution there and just getting to them. I think a lot of distribution is actually consumer resonance and storytelling and kind of product marketing. It was another skill that, that Kevin and Jeremy actually said you were fantastic with. So how do you think about what makes a crew, a cruelly, how do you think about what makes a truly great story and really effective product marketing today?

A Yeah. So see, I, I like, I like storytelling. I find it fun. And I think like the way I would dissect that is I think stories about people are just much more interesting than, than stories about, you know, numbers or categories or broader things like that. And so, um, you know, I think it's a lot more compelling to hear about like one student on Cambly, uh, and their personal journey. It just draws you in a lot more. Um, Uh, I also love to share like small details. I think that, that, uh, that kind of makes people resonate and understand the story. And so that's a personal, you know, stylistic, uh, preference of mine. I can give you an example. Like when I'm, when I'm talking about Cambly, I often, uh, bring up, uh, this, uh, Turkish pilot who started using Cambly. And, and when we heard about him, we're like, oh, that's interesting. Like, why, why would you use Cambly as a, uh, you know, as a, as a pilot? What we learned as we kind of dug in was if you're, um, yeah, if you're a pilot in Turkey and you, uh, and you only know Turkish, uh, you can fly anywhere you want in Turkey, but if you want to fly internationally, uh, English is the official language of air traffic control. And so, um, if you could just learn English, uh, then you'll get a promotion and you can fly anywhere in the world you want. And so, uh, that. You know, it was a very, very clear ROI. There's a very clear…

AI assessment note: “stories about people are just much more interesting than, than stories about, you know, numbers”

Q Given the fact that I hate reading, you can be the intellectual one. What's your favorite book and why?

A So I'd have to go with a book called, uh, The Most Human Human by, uh, Brian Christian. And, uh, Brian's actually a close friend of mine. Uh, and, uh, the book, uh, sort of follows the journey of, of the author, uh, participating in something called the Turing test. Uh, and, uh, basically the setup is there's a panel of judges and they chat over Uh, over like an instant messenger type interface. Uh, what they don't know is whether they're talking to a chat bot, an AI chat bot, or an actual human. Uh, and they have to try to guess and figure it out. And, and they give an award for the, the, the chat bot that does the best and fools the most people as the most, uh, human computer. Uh, and they also give this sort of funny award to the human who convinces the most people that they are in fact human, uh, the most human human. And, and it's just a fascinating read. Uh, and it's all about human connection. Um, and as you can imagine, there's lots of parallels to, to Cambly there, which is also all about one-on-one interactions and, and human connections.

AI assessment note: “I'd have to go with a book called, uh, The Most Human Human”

Q Did you ever think of doing negative incentives? I've spent a lot of time studying negative incentives where you actually penalize people for not doing it, which is where you actually start fining them for not showing up. Um, there was a brilliant company that did it years ago for gyms. If you didn't go to the gym, they'd fine you. Um, have you ever looked at negative incentive structures?

A Uh, I can't say we have, although we've experimented with a few different models where, uh, I think one thing that's been pretty helpful is We, we kind of built right into our like business model. It kind of teaches you how to use the product. Like you have, um, you know, a fixed number of minutes per day, uh, and it's used or lose it. And so, uh, I guess you could, you could say that's a mild negative incentive that you lose those minutes if you don't, uh, if you don't use them. And so what's really important about learning a language is consistency and daily practice. And so. Uh, it's kind of baked right into the plan to teach you how to use the product.

AI assessment note: “I can't say we have, although we've experimented with a few different models”

Q is very, very kind of you. I'm thrilled that you like the show, but I do want to start with a little bit on you. We see Cambly today now becoming more and more public. I'd just love to go back to the beginning. What was the founding moment for you with Cambly? And when was that realization that this was a core pain point that we had to solve?

A Yeah, definitely. Um, so Cambly grew out of our own experiences, learning languages. And so, um, my co-founder and I both grew up here in the US, uh, and we went through the public school system here. Took foreign languages as part of that process. Um, and for me personally, I studied Spanish and I never really felt like I was very good at it. Uh, in fact, I kind of thought I wasn't really a languages person. Uh, and then independent from that, I love to travel. I've been all over the world and I've been to many places where, um, everyone speaks Spanish and I found that to just be such a better environment for learning a language. And I took one trip to Argentina in particular that, um, for a good chunk of it, I was traveling on my own. Um, and I kept finding myself in environments where I was surrounded by people that only spoke, uh, Spanish. And it really took like a situation like that for me to really come out of my shell and practice speaking. Um, and what I found is I got so much better at the language, uh, so much more quickly than I ever did in a classroom environment. Uh, and not just that, it was also just far more rewarding. Uh, a thing I love about travel is getting to meet people and learn about their lives. And I was getting to do that. And so. Uh, you know, my co-founder had a really, my co-founder, his name is Kevin. He had a really similar experience, um, study…

AI assessment note: “we kind of got together on this idea, like why can't, uh, we practice”

Q Final one, 20, 27, so five years time. Where are you and Cambly then? Paint that picture for us.

A Yeah, so, so our mission as a company is to bring, bring really high quality English to every English learner in the world, and Uh, and, and we, you know, the company's scaled a ton. The company's doing incredibly well. Uh, but, but we are very, very far from, from achieving that mission. We've got much, much more ahead of us than behind us. Uh, and, you know, 1.5 billion people trying to learn English. Uh, we've got only a very, very tiny fraction of them, those people in Cambly today. And so, uh, You know, a lot of what we're focused on right now, and I think will be for the next five years is just figuring out how to bring Cambly to more and more of those people. And, and there's very concrete things we have to do there. Like, um, Cambly is pretty expensive today. I think we have to find ways to make it more affordable and accessible to, to help more people. Um, you know, I talked a little bit about like matching. I think matching you with the right tutor is really, really powerful. Uh, that Turkish pilot I mentioned earlier, uh, he found a tutor that had aviation experience. And so he could learn not just everyday English, but the specific English he needed to, to, to, to communicate with air traffic control. And we have lots and lots of examples like that. And so matching you with the right tutor is really important and really, really powerful. And so, uh, I, I think we've…

AI assessment note: “what we're focused on right now, and I think will be for the next five years”

Q I do just want to touch on one background element. I always think that we're shaped a lot by our past experiences, and you obviously spent, you know, four years or close to four years at Google. I'm just fascinated. How did seeing the internal mechanics of Google, being there for four years, how did that shape your operating mindset and how you are as a leader today with Cambly?

A Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so I, I was really fortunate to get a job at Google straight out of college, and so it was my first job, and Um, I feel really lucky. I think Google is an, is an exceptional company. I think just getting to see how, how a really exceptional company was run, I think was, was very formative to me, especially early, that early on in my career. Uh, you know, concretely I learned things like how, how, you know, how to build a great software and to do it at scale, uh, which has served me really well. I was on like kind of a metrics and analytics team. And so I learned a lot about metrics and data. I learned a lot about how Google thinks about and approaches data. Um, And, uh, I think that helped me understand how to, how to make kind of the importance of, uh, data-driven decision-making. And, uh, that's something that served me super well.

AI assessment note: “concretely I learned things like how, how, you know, how to build a great software”

Q But, but why am I wrong? Why, I'm sorry, but, and again, I'm going off course here. Every education app has shit retention. Why is Cambly different?

A Yeah, so, yeah, retention I think is, is Yeah. One of the, maybe the most important metric in a business. And so super, super important, uh, to, to look at and pay attention to and make sure you're optimizing for it. Um, I think like, if you look at education technology, like a lot of the services that exist are either pure software services, um, where you can kind of quit whenever you want and no one really cares or like a giant classroom, uh, like a, like a, you know, massive online course. Where also you can quit, uh, whenever you want and no one cares. Cambly is quite different from that. Cambly is, uh, a one-on-one conversation, not too dissimilar to this one. Uh, and I think because of that, it's inherently just like much more engaging. It's like this human to human connection. Um, and not just that, there's also, you build relationships. You actually like our students get to know our tutors really well. Uh, and, and yeah, there's, there's strong relationships that are built there. And so in the same way you wouldn't like Uh, you know, set up a dinner with your friend and then just stand them up. Uh, you kind of feel like you've got some, some obligation to, to, to show up to your, your class in Cambly. And so I think there's, there's a social component and I think it's just a lot more fun and engaging to, to, to sort of really exercise the skill of speaking English, uh, …

AI assessment note: “Cambly is a one-on-one conversation... you build relationships... feel like you've got some obligation”

Q I'm so unfair going off schedule. How do you know when to listen to data and be scientific and rigorous in your approach versus when to go on gut and intuition?

A Yeah. Uh, it's a, it's a really good question. Uh, and I think, you know, I mentioned some of these things apply really well to startups, but, uh, the reality is in the very early days of startups, uh, you don't really have much data. And so, you know, in theory, you might think, oh, let me just like AB test everything and AB test my way to success. Uh, and it doesn't really work because like you're tiny, there is no data and you kind of have to like deeply understand the problem and largely go off intuition. Um, Uh, as your, as your company kind of starts to scale, you can then start to layer in these, uh, these experiments. Uh, but, but it was, I remember in the early days of Cambly thinking, oh man, I know of all these strategies and tactics and they just don't work at all because we're just too small. Like if you're getting, you know, we ran a, we ran a test, I think in the really early days where we like cut our prices in half. Uh, and I was like, let me try to measure like the price sensitivity of, of Cambly. And we were getting like, you know, a purchase a day or something. And it was like, you can't measure anything at that point. And so, uh, and so I, I kind of had to sort of tuck away these, these techniques I, I knew and understood really well and say, this will serve me at some point down the road, but, but, but not now.

AI assessment note: “in the very early days of startups... you don't really have much data”

Q North Star and how you measure that retention is crucial and one that I don't think enough founders think about. Can I ask you, we mentioned that like the struggles of fundraising in the early days, but you said actually there is value in tough fundraisers in the early days. And having that experience, what do you think the value is of not being able to raise early on Samir?

A Yeah, no, totally. Well, don't, don't get me wrong. It's painful at the time. Uh, but then when you look back and you look at kind of where it led you, uh, I think there's, there's often some really good things that come from it. And so, um, I think, you know, when you don't have a lot of resources, you just have to, uh, you have to work with what you have and, uh, You learn to be really, really scrappy, really efficient. Uh, and, uh, a lot of those decisions you make without a lot of capital, you know, I think in our case helped us make, helped us build a, uh, a product in a marketplace that was just like, uh, highly, highly efficient. And then as we scaled it, we were really, really capital efficient in the process. And so, you know, I, I can give actually a concrete example. Like we went out to raise our series A and, um, Uh, and it was, it was a challenge. Like it did not go as planned. Uh, and, uh, you know, we had to basically pull the team together and say like, Hey, we were planning on raising an A. It's not going to happen. Uh, we're, we're going to start executing on plan B and plan B was actually to get the company to cashflow positive. And For sure. It was a stressful time in the company, but we made a number of really good decisions in a very short period of time that, that, you know, four months later led to the company getting the cashflow positive. Uh, and we've…

AI assessment note: “You learn to be really, really scrappy, really efficient.”

Q Were you worried about them losing faith, losing morale, going, oh god, Cambly's not the rocket ship that I thought it was, I'm gonna move. Like, that's a dangerous move. Were you worried in that moment, and how do you think you did it?

A Yeah, I was, I was absolutely worried in that moment. And, uh, I think there's a lot of, you know, it's, I think inherently a very scary thing to do. Uh, and I can't say that I was like, this is definitely the right decision immediately. Like I had to kind of like work through it, but, and work up enough courage to do that. Um, but, but ultimately I think we decided like, in order for us to figure out how to get out of this, this predicament, we're in, uh, we need the team to help us like this. There's no other way to do it. And so. Uh, I think there was a fair amount of trust and faith that like, Hey, we've got a, we've got a group of people that I think can, uh, can, will pull through for us. And, uh, I think what helped was, um, we, we told them, you know, here's the update, like the fundraise is not happening. Here's what we need to do with the company. Uh, and I think it was helpful that we had a plan. Uh, we didn't just say, okay, things didn't go according to plan. Any ideas, anybody like we, we came in and we said, here's what our plan is. And not just that we'd actually started executing on it. Uh, through some of the things I mentioned, some of the price changes, helping our margin, increasing our margin. And so we didn't just have a plan, but then we showed a graph of like, and here's what our gross profit was two months ago. Uh, here's what it looks like today. We'r…

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I was, I was absolutely worried in that moment.”

Q You mentioned distribution there and just getting to them. I think a lot of distribution is actually consumer resonance and storytelling and kind of product marketing. It was another skill that, that Kevin and Jeremy actually said you were fantastic with. So how do you think about what makes a crew, a cruelly, how do you think about what makes a truly great story and really effective product marketing today?

A Yeah. So see, I, I like, I like storytelling. I find it fun. And I think like the way I would dissect that is I think stories about people are just much more interesting than, than stories about, you know, numbers or categories or broader things like that. And so, um, you know, I think it's a lot more compelling to hear about like one student on Cambly, uh, and their personal journey. It just draws you in a lot more. Um, Uh, I also love to share like small details. I think that, that, uh, that kind of makes people resonate and understand the story. And so that's a personal, you know, stylistic, uh, preference of mine. I can give you an example. Like when I'm, when I'm talking about Cambly, I often, uh, bring up, uh, this, uh, Turkish pilot who started using Cambly. And, and when we heard about him, we're like, oh, that's interesting. Like, why, why would you use Cambly as a, uh, you know, as a, as a pilot? What we learned as we kind of dug in was if you're, um, yeah, if you're a pilot in Turkey and you, uh, and you only know Turkish, uh, you can fly anywhere you want in Turkey, but if you want to fly internationally, uh, English is the official language of air traffic control. And so, um, if you could just learn English, uh, then you'll get a promotion and you can fly anywhere in the world you want. And so, uh, that. You know, it was a very, very clear ROI. There's a very clear…

AI assessment note: “stories about people are just much more interesting than, than stories about”

Q I love that. I didn't know that actually in terms of their ability to do that. Um, can I ask you, leadership is ever changing. What gets harder over time, Samir? And what gets easier?

A In some ways running the company can get easier because you hire all these people with a ton of experience and, uh, they, they run, they run actually large parts of your org. And so, uh, and, and you can learn from them. And so, uh, you know, as the company is scaled and we've been able to bring on some, some folks like that, we're just, I just don't have to be in the details as much anymore. Like they know far more about their domains than I do. And so you can kind of hand that off and let them, let them run, run the company or sort of run, run their piece of the company. Um, so I think that gets easier. Um, uh, a lot of stuff gets harder. I think, you know, the, The scale of the problems are just bigger. I mean, you've got a much bigger business, you've got, uh, much more customers, you've got, uh, a bigger team. And so everything's just a, you know, everything is just higher stakes. Uh, and so I think there, there are a lot of challenges that, that, that come from that. Um, uh, and also culture, I think, uh, you know, is, can be, you know, scaling your culture can get challenging. I think when you're really, really early on, You're, you know, you have one-on-one relationships with everyone at the company and you can influence that very much personally. Uh, but as the organization grows, you have to find ways to kind of, to scale that and, uh, bring on new people and kind of …

AI assessment note: “In some ways running the company can get easier... a lot of stuff gets harder.”

Q Did you ever think of doing negative incentives? I've spent a lot of time studying negative incentives where you actually penalize people for not doing it, which is where you actually start fining them for not showing up. Um, there was a brilliant company that did it years ago for gyms. If you didn't go to the gym, they'd fine you. Um, have you ever looked at negative incentive structures?

A Uh, I can't say we have, although we've experimented with a few different models where, uh, I think one thing that's been pretty helpful is We, we kind of built right into our like business model. It kind of teaches you how to use the product. Like you have, um, you know, a fixed number of minutes per day, uh, and it's used or lose it. And so, uh, I guess you could, you could say that's a mild negative incentive that you lose those minutes if you don't, uh, if you don't use them. And so what's really important about learning a language is consistency and daily practice. And so. Uh, it's kind of baked right into the plan to teach you how to use the product.

AI assessment note: “I can't say we have, although we've experimented with a few different models”

Q How does Google approach data if you were to summarize it?

A Yeah, that's a, that's a good one. It's a big one. Um, uh, I mean, Google has immense amounts of data and I think they really appreciate the scale of data and how sometimes scale of data can win. Uh, And, uh, and I think they just rely a lot on data for decision making. Uh, so, you know, you might have an intuition. I might have an intuition. Uh, they might both be totally wrong. And, uh, what I, the team I worked on, we ran AB tests on everything. Uh, and so, uh, you just learn a ton from actually putting stuff out there and, and running a split test on it and measuring what the impact is. Um, and, and that's something that actually works. It works obviously really well at a, at a company like Google at, at huge, huge scale, but actually you can employ a lot of those same strategies at a startup in order to kind of hill climb your way to, to, to a better growth engine.

AI assessment note: “they just rely a lot on data for decision making. Uh, so, you know”

Q the different elements of the business, but you know, Bluntly, you've got now Basma who did the A, Benchmark who did the B, Jeremy and Sarah. Amazing investors. Some of the best you could have got in the world. But it wasn't always smooth sailing in the fundraising markets I heard. I wanted to ask, like, why do you think in your mind you struggled fundraising in the early days?

A Yeah, I think, I think a, a, a couple reasons. Uh, I think one of the really big ones is Uh, well, well, for starters, Cambly's a, camp is kind of a weird business in a bunch of ways. Uh, and I think one of the ways it's, it's strange is, you know, we were two Americans living in San Francisco, uh, building an English education app that was meant for basically everyone who was not here. Uh, we were building, we were not building the product for ourselves and all of our customers were like everywhere else. And so. Uh, I think Cambly is inherently a little strange in that regard. And the way that translates to fundraising is you go to talk to an investor and you're solving a problem that they've never really had, but they've never had themselves before. They probably haven't thought about that much. And what's interesting is it, it's this immense problem in the world, but it's not a problem we see every day. Um, you know, there's, there's about 7.58 billion people in the world. Uh, six billion of them don't know English. And, uh, and by the way of, of those 6000000001.5 billion are actively trying to learn it right now. And so this is an enormous problem, but, but you and I, we, we speak English already and we've always speak, we always, we've always spoken English. And so, uh, it's just not a problem we've ever faced in our lives and not just that, uh, but everyone we know speak…

AI assessment note: “you go to talk to an investor and you're solving a problem that they've never”

Q But, but why am I wrong? Why, I'm sorry, but, and again, I'm going off course here. Every education app has shit retention. Why is Cambly different?

A Yeah, so, yeah, retention I think is, is Yeah. One of the, maybe the most important metric in a business. And so super, super important, uh, to, to look at and pay attention to and make sure you're optimizing for it. Um, I think like, if you look at education technology, like a lot of the services that exist are either pure software services, um, where you can kind of quit whenever you want and no one really cares or like a giant classroom, uh, like a, like a, you know, massive online course. Where also you can quit, uh, whenever you want and no one cares. Cambly is quite different from that. Cambly is, uh, a one-on-one conversation, not too dissimilar to this one. Uh, and I think because of that, it's inherently just like much more engaging. It's like this human to human connection. Um, and not just that, there's also, you build relationships. You actually like our students get to know our tutors really well. Uh, and, and yeah, there's, there's strong relationships that are built there. And so in the same way you wouldn't like Uh, you know, set up a dinner with your friend and then just stand them up. Uh, you kind of feel like you've got some, some obligation to, to, to show up to your, your class in Cambly. And so I think there's, there's a social component and I think it's just a lot more fun and engaging to, to, to sort of really exercise the skill of speaking English, uh, …

AI assessment note: “Cambly is, uh, a one-on-one conversation... you kind of feel like you've got some, some obligation”

Q North Star and how you measure that retention is crucial and one that I don't think enough founders think about. Can I ask you, we mentioned that like the struggles of fundraising in the early days, but you said actually there is value in tough fundraisers in the early days. And having that experience, what do you think the value is of not being able to raise early on Samir?

A Yeah, no, totally. Well, don't, don't get me wrong. It's painful at the time. Uh, but then when you look back and you look at kind of where it led you, uh, I think there's, there's often some really good things that come from it. And so, um, I think, you know, when you don't have a lot of resources, you just have to, uh, you have to work with what you have and, uh, You learn to be really, really scrappy, really efficient. Uh, and, uh, a lot of those decisions you make without a lot of capital, you know, I think in our case helped us make, helped us build a, uh, a product in a marketplace that was just like, uh, highly, highly efficient. And then as we scaled it, we were really, really capital efficient in the process. And so, you know, I, I can give actually a concrete example. Like we went out to raise our series A and, um, Uh, and it was, it was a challenge. Like it did not go as planned. Uh, and, uh, you know, we had to basically pull the team together and say like, Hey, we were planning on raising an A. It's not going to happen. Uh, we're, we're going to start executing on plan B and plan B was actually to get the company to cashflow positive. And For sure. It was a stressful time in the company, but we made a number of really good decisions in a very short period of time that, that, you know, four months later led to the company getting the cashflow positive. Uh, and we've…

AI assessment note: “You learn to be really, really scrappy, really efficient.”

Q we've experienced. Um, when you think back through the Cambly journey, and this is a really hard one to throw on you, so forgive me, but, um, I want to ask, when you think back through that journey, what's the hardest Like, what's the most painful experience that you've had that's also been very good for you as a leader to have had, and you're pleased to have gone through?

A Yeah, so I'd have to go back to that same one that I kind of touched on, uh, when we went to go out and raise our Series A, and, uh, it did not go as planned, and so Uh, you know, I, I mentioned Cambly's cashflow positive today and has been for the last five years. Uh, that was not, you know, that did not happen. That was not our choice. We didn't say, Hey, today we're gonna become cashflow positive. Like we became cashflow positive, you know, out of necessity initially. Uh, and so, you know, we, we had some amount of money in the bank. We were, but we were burning a decent amount and we went out to raise and it didn't happen. And so, We kind of had this moment where like, okay, this is, you know, it was the first time first and only time in our history where we had, um, sort of an existential risk and, uh, that's stressful. Uh, but it also brings a lot of clarity in terms of what you need to focus on. And, uh, what me and my co-founder noticed, I think, you know, as we kind of started executing on plan B and figuring out how are we going to, how are we going to, uh, plot a path, uh, to, to cashflow positive for the business. What we noticed is that like the rest of the company was kind of continuing to do the things that they were doing and they were good things, but they, they, you know, we were, I think coming in and saying, Hey, stop doing that, do this other thing instead.…

AI assessment note: “when we went to go out and raise our Series A, and, uh, it did not go as planned”

Q Would it have been different if you were a remote team, do you think?

A Uh, I think you can, you know, I, I, I'm a fan of, of in-person collaboration. Uh, and so I always bias a little that way. Uh, but, but I think you can do this stuff remote as well. Like, you know, I think another moment when, when we had a, I think a similar kind of conversation with the team, uh, when probably every company across the world was having this conversation was when, when the pandemic hit. Uh, and again, we kind of, I think I, I looked a lot on the conversations we had during that attempted series A process and tried to say, okay, The best thing to do for the company, for the team is to, to like bring everyone in and say, here's what's happening. And so, uh, that one I, we did, we did over video chat, we did remote and I think it went over really well as well. Uh, got the team aligned, kind of put everyone at ease. Uh, so I think it's, I think it's doable at a remote, but, but it doesn't hurt if you can all be together in a room.

AI assessment note: “I think it's doable at a remote, but, but it doesn't hurt”

Q Totally get you. How did you acquire the first teachers?

A So really early on, yeah, we were kind of scrappy across the board. We, uh, we posted to job boards and forums, uh, and kind of got our initial tutors that way. Uh, and being a tutor in Cambly is actually like a really cool job. You get to, uh, talk to interesting people around the world. Uh, learn about their lives. Uh, and, um, you can, and you get paid for it and you can work like whenever you want. Uh, and so totally flexible hours. And so it's a pretty, it's a pretty cool job. And I think as a result of that, uh, uh, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, uh, word of mouth growth. Uh, and so a lot of our tutors come from just, you know, hearing about it from a friend. Uh, and we've actually have, we've had, I think for most of the history of company, a long wait list of tutors that are really excited to join. Uh, we just onboard them kind of in lockstep with the student side of our, uh, our student side growth.

AI assessment note: “we posted to job boards and forums, uh, and kind of got our initial tutors”

Q Final one. Do you have a high tolerance for risk?

A Uh, in some ways, yes. And in some ways, no, I think like, uh, I mean, personally, I love to like, you know, I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie. And so, uh, I used to skydive when I was in like college and hang glide and, you know, love to ski. And so I take a lot of risks, uh, you know, or, you know, you could say our risks in my, in my personal life. And I think starting a company like Cambly was, you know, leaving a cushy job at Google and, and deciding to kind of get into the startup world was, was a pretty big risk in itself as well. Um, but I also like to think things through really carefully. I like to think decisions through, uh, and so, um, yeah, I don't know. I have a mix of answers there. I, I'm, I'm open to risk, but I want to really, like, understand what I'm, what I'm getting into first before I, before I take the leap.

AI assessment note: “in some ways, yes. And in some ways, no”

Q What's the hardest element of your role with Cambly today?

A Uh, I think probably the, one of the most challenging things is we've got, we've got a really global business with a really global team and Uh, running, uh, this global workforce, uh, really effectively and kind of keep everyone connected to, to, to the sort of the central team, I think is, has been a challenge. Uh, and then I think also as we've scaled, like scaling our culture, we, we had kind of a really strong culture, uh, with a small team early on and figuring out how do we, You know, as we grow the team, as we bring on leaders, how do we preserve aspects of that culture, but also evolve that culture, uh, as the business grows.

AI assessment note: “running, uh, this global workforce, uh, really effectively and kind of keep everyone connected”

Q Final one. Do you have a high tolerance for risk?

A Uh, in some ways, yes. And in some ways, no, I think like, uh, I mean, personally, I love to like, you know, I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie. And so, uh, I used to skydive when I was in like college and hang glide and, you know, love to ski. And so I take a lot of risks, uh, you know, or, you know, you could say our risks in my, in my personal life. And I think starting a company like Cambly was, you know, leaving a cushy job at Google and, and deciding to kind of get into the startup world was, was a pretty big risk in itself as well. Um, but I also like to think things through really carefully. I like to think decisions through, uh, and so, um, yeah, I don't know. I have a mix of answers there. I, I'm, I'm open to risk, but I want to really, like, understand what I'm, what I'm getting into first before I, before I take the leap.

AI assessment note: “in some ways, yes. And in some ways, no”

Q Totally get you. How did you acquire the first teachers?

A So really early on, yeah, we were kind of scrappy across the board. We, uh, we posted to job boards and forums, uh, and kind of got our initial tutors that way. Uh, and being a tutor in Cambly is actually like a really cool job. You get to, uh, talk to interesting people around the world. Uh, learn about their lives. Uh, and, um, you can, and you get paid for it and you can work like whenever you want. Uh, and so totally flexible hours. And so it's a pretty, it's a pretty cool job. And I think as a result of that, uh, uh, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, uh, word of mouth growth. Uh, and so a lot of our tutors come from just, you know, hearing about it from a friend. Uh, and we've actually have, we've had, I think for most of the history of company, a long wait list of tutors that are really excited to join. Uh, we just onboard them kind of in lockstep with the student side of our, uh, our student side growth.

AI assessment note: “we posted to job boards and forums, uh, and kind of got our initial tutors”

Q I totally get you. A final one, and then I promise we'll get back to schedule. Retain, like retention is, is a wonderful, like focus and North Star, but it's so much more nuanced than that. How do you define a retained user? What is the action? What is the behavior process that would consider a retained user for you?

A Yeah. So our, our North Star metric from, from like the pretty early days was Um, paid usage. So the number, the amount of minutes that students spend, uh, actually using the product and, uh, every minute there is a tutor teaching and a student learning. And so what I love about that metric is it's a, it's a value delivered metric. Um, and that may seem obvious as I describe it to you, but actually I think a lot of the companies that came before us, um, optimize much more for revenue. They kind of just focused on the revenue number. And the, the challenge with that is. Uh, you can, you can sell the dream for a product people don't actually use, uh, and, and make a lot of money in the process. Uh, and actually a lot of those companies would charge a lot of money upfront for it. And it's, uh, it can be really misleading because you might feel like your business is doing really well, but unless you're actually delivering on the value that your customer wanted, uh, you're heading down a really bad path. It's, it's totally unsustainable and eventually we'll catch up to you. And so Uh, very early on in the first year of us working, we kind of saw that this was a pattern of language learning companies, and we've sort of vowed not to become one of those companies. And so we, um, we, I think one of the best things we did towards that was picking the right North star metric. Like this is…

AI assessment note: “our North Star metric from like the pretty early days was paid usage”

Q What's the hardest element of your role with Cambly today?

A Uh, I think probably the, one of the most challenging things is we've got, we've got a really global business with a really global team and Uh, running, uh, this global workforce, uh, really effectively and kind of keep everyone connected to, to, to the sort of the central team, I think is, has been a challenge. Uh, and then I think also as we've scaled, like scaling our culture, we, we had kind of a really strong culture, uh, with a small team early on and figuring out how do we, You know, as we grow the team, as we bring on leaders, how do we preserve aspects of that culture, but also evolve that culture, uh, as the business grows.

AI assessment note: “running, uh, this global workforce, uh, really effectively and kind of keep everyone connected”

Q sustainable growth. I think, you know, I want, coming from the guy with the fedora, I want to talk about you, uh, and the different hats that you wear within the companies, because whenever I spoke to anyone, they all spoke about your skill here, and to dig in here, and so I wanted to start on performance. How do you define high performance in business today as a leader?

A I think about performance as, uh, sort of focus, uh, you know, results and driving for impact. Uh, and, uh, I think like, you know, in the early days, I used to think of that kind of, I think very much at the individual level, like, What are you personally doing to kind of drive an impact in the business? And then obviously as the organization is scaled, I think I've, I've really grown to appreciate, um, what, what great leadership looks like and how, and then the type of leverage that has, uh, on the business. And so how do you create an organization and an environment that, that drives towards impact? And, uh, and I think one of the things I've been thinking about even more recently is, you know, we've got a much larger company now, like how do you get Everyone across the company aligned and kind of running in the same direction. Uh, and so, uh, my, my performance, my, my definition of high performance, I think has evolved over time, but, but it started off with sort of individually, what are you doing? How, how, how much are you driving for results and impact? Uh, and then it's kind of grown and evolved into, uh, how you get your organization or whatever kind of whatever's under your purview, driving, driving in the right direction. And everyone on your team sort of pushing towards impact.

AI assessment note: “I think about performance as, uh, sort of focus, uh, you know, results”