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Olof Mathé

Co-Founder & CEO, Mixmax · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveoperator@olofster ↗LinkedIn ↗olofmathe.com ↗

Olof Mathé is the co-founder and CEO of Mixmax, a sales engagement and outbound email productivity platform founded in 2014. Prior to Mixmax, he led the team behind Inkling Habitat, worked as a product manager at Skype, and co-created the international Art Hack Day series.

11statements → 0claims → 0claims resolved → 3.64/5average certainty → 2.09/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 2said about them ↓

1 opinion · 10 insights · every statement was checked. none of them is a claim the record can settle: opinions, insights and disclosures never carry an assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Olof argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: speaking style how? →

224 words/min while actually speaking · 1 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Olof Mathé: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 30 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 4,077 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Olof Mathé is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 3/10
pushed back at the host 2/10
setup questions received 35%

Everything Olof Mathé said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Mathé: A new executive must exponentially improve their function within 90 days
“Another core litmus test is have they made the function exponentially better within 90 days? And if you have any hesitation about that question at 90 days, it's probably not the right person.”
Olof Mathé Jan 25, 2019 ▶ 20:40 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax
Opinion
Mathé: Silicon Valley operates on a rigid company-building and funding monoculture
“And what strikes me here is while we have this adoration of entrepreneurship, the way we're supposed to build companies is like a monoculture. There's traditionally like one way to build a company, one way to fund your company, One way to do things X, Y, and Z…”
Olof Mathé Jan 25, 2019 ▶ 25:41 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax
Insight
Mathé: Vast startup literature covers PMF, but neglects scaling leadership
“There's all, they're like libraries written about product market fit and very little written about scaling and in particular building out a senior team.”
Olof Mathé Jan 25, 2019 ▶ 5:09 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax
Insight
Mathé: Founders face three stages of denial in executive hiring
“If I look at my own 20 18, I think as a founder, I definitely went through kind of three stages of denial in terms of hiring senior folks on the team. And so the first thing I think you say as a founder is, you know, Hey, I don't think we need this role right …”
Olof Mathé Jan 25, 2019 ▶ 5:19 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax
Insight
Mathé: Executive hiring is already overdue once you hit product-market fit
“Once you have product market fit, which is an entirely different topic, probably worth its own episode, assuming you do, the answer is it's probably too late already, and you should have hired them yesterday.”
Olof Mathé Jan 25, 2019 ▶ 6:19 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax
Insight
Mathé: The true cost of delaying executive hires is founder opportunity cost
“What senior leaders on the team do for you as a founder is that they free up your time. And so the real cost to you is opportunity cost.”
Olof Mathé Jan 25, 2019 ▶ 7:38 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax
Insight
Mathé: Hire functional leads once you have more than eight direct reports
“So I think for any founder who might not be CEO, I would almost say the rule of thumb is as soon as you have more than eight direct reports, you need to hire someone to replace yourself or at least take over most of the work. And ideally they become an entire …”
Olof Mathé Jan 25, 2019 ▶ 8:22 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax
Insight
Mathé: SaaS companies over $1M ARR should transition to specialist hires
“If you're a SaaS company and a decent economics and you're north of a million dollar ARR, that's probably one way of looking at it. If you have more than eight direct reports, it's probably, you know, attempt to make the move from a generalist hire to a more s…”
Olof Mathé Jan 25, 2019 ▶ 11:05 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax
Insight
Mathé: Scrappy startup generalists rarely scale organizations or build processes
“You start with a generalist who totally knows how startups work, is super scrappy, able to contribute to, you know, five other functions out of their area of direct domain expertise. And the issue with that candidate or that person in your company is they're v…”
Olof Mathé Jan 25, 2019 ▶ 11:25 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax
Insight
Mathé: Candidates avoiding tough CEO talks will repeat that behavior at new jobs
“Have they thought through the conditions, like what exactly it is that they're not satisfied with, and what it is they're looking for next, and how do they know they can't get that from their job currently, and have they even entertained a conversation with th…”
Olof Mathé Jan 25, 2019 ▶ 22:37 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax
Insight
Mathé: Experienced leaders must demonstrate clear self-awareness of development areas
“For someone who has been a functional leader for a long time, I'd expect enough self-awareness and introspection for them to have a couple of areas of professional development they're looking at, they're working on”
Olof Mathé Jan 25, 2019 ▶ 23:26 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax

The other half of the tape: Olof Mathé's own voice is left out of every number here. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Statements about Olof Mathé, by other people (2)

Insight
Mathé: Hire senior consultants before making full-time executive department hires
“I see it really helpful if you're building out whatever it is, HR or sales or marketing, or perhaps product or design, whatever function it might be engineering for the first time to have a very senior consultant come in and work with you for a good couple of …”
Olof Math e Jan 25, 2019 ▶ 18:14 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax
Insight
Mathé: Senior consultants can evaluate and recruit department VPs for founders
“This consultant can help you find the senior leader. You very likely don't even know how to interview someone in that function. And so you can pay them and they can help you find the right senior leader for that function.”
Olof Math e Jan 25, 2019 ▶ 19:10 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To H Jan 25, 2019 19m
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