Challenging assumptions and building a global mentoring business for the enterprise. In this episode, we talk to Adam Mitcheson, CEO and co-founder of my2be, and discover how he launched a UK startup and why selling into the enterprise in the US was the right path for them.
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Matthew Todd
Hi. My name is Matthew Todd, and welcome to Inside the ScaleUp. This is the podcast for founders, and executives in tech, looking to make an impact and learn from their peers in the tech business, we lift the lid on tech businesses, interview leaders and following their journey from startup to scale up and beyond covering everything from developing product market fit, funding and fundraising models to value proposition structure and growth marketing. We learn from their journey so that you can understand how they really work, the failures, the successes, the lessons along the way, so that you can take their learnings and apply them within your own startup or scale up and join the ever-growing list of high growth UK SaaS businesses.
Welcome back to the podcast. I’m here with Adam Mitcheson. Adam, good to have you here today.
Adam Mitcheson
Likewise, thank you for having me.
Matthew Todd
No, no worries, I’m really looking forward to this conversation, learning more about your business, but also your kind of journey into that as well as some of the ways in which it helps you know, the clients that you’ve got on your platform as well. And as always, I’d like the guest to introduce their platform, it’s always good to hear their elevator pitch as well. So Adam over to you tell us what your company is.
Adam Mitcheson
Thank you. So I’m the CEO and co-founder of my2be, which is a online mentoring platform. So we help to automate and scale the mentoring process, which has a significant impact on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as things like talent retention and development, working with some amazing clients in the UK and in the US more so. In with the likes of box next door. Cool, fantastic. And they Yeah, I want to dig into more about you know, what might be is how it works, some of the benefits, but it’d be good to kind of start was like to kind of, you know, hear from founders, what are some of the kind of motivations and reasons that led to them starting their business in the first place? You know, was it through personal experience? Was it through, you know, for other reasons.
So, yeah, what led to founding might have been in the first place, what was your mentoring experience? So yeah, it was exactly that it was a personal experience. I’d found myself in what I used to refer to as an accidental career. I was working in banking, there in Manchester. So this wasn’t the champagne lunches side of banking, it was the operational side. And I was sort of just landed, and I was like, wondering how to navigate the potential of the career and what I could achieve in it. And I wasn’t really getting any answers to my questions. It’s very siloed. Organization, massive organization. And the department act is almost like its own many organization within it. And it’s very difficult to then see what new landscape is outside of there.
So I wasn’t getting anywhere, with what I was trying to achieve until a mentoring program that the bank provided. I was I became part of that had to apply for it or was accepted onto it. And through that, not only did I just get answers to some of my very simple, basic questions, but it was a genuinely life-changing experience. For me, it gave me that network that gave me that opportunities that I was seeking. It helped me create things for myself, it also gave me that big picture perspective. So the department I was in on a daily basis was not the best place to be, it’s quite a toxic environment. And having that big picture perspective meant I could be patient and, you know, using my network and create opportunities, knowing that I wasn’t going to be in that environment forever. My colleagues were not so fortunate to have this afforded to them. And I couldn’t see why I thought it was insane that I was getting so much benefit out of it. And, you know, why wouldn’t my colleagues, why isn’t this open to everyone? And the simple answer really was scale, you know, trying to manage a mentoring program, trying to deploy it trying to match people up trying to then find out how they progressed, and seeing if they’ve had, you know, simple thing.
Have you had the meeting? What are the outcomes of it was just impossible from, from a manual perspective, to manage at any sort of scale. So the idea for the technology was there. Now I’m not technically minded. So I, I managed to get in touch with an old school friend, Damian, who’s my now co-founder and CTO, we’d have similar experiences. We sort of reconnected on the startup scene in Manchester. And it made sense for us to go and do this together. And that was back in 2018. And then, since then, yeah, that’s where we are today. So we’re just sort of the founding side of it.
Matthew Todd
I think that’s that’s great. It was definitely a personal problem you experienced when you were at that bank, then you mentioned that your colleagues kind of felt trapped in their jobs. They didn’t have that opportunity. You see available to them. So did the bank kind of recognize that they had to cap numbers in this mentoring program for it to work?
Adam Mitcheson
Yeah, for that, for that reason, they had to do that they had to basically only make it available for a certain number of people, for the exact reason that they couldn’t scale it, they couldn’t deliver it for more than that, you know, it was essentially a couple of people were managing it almost full time to make it make it work. I remember we had sort of events throughout the year. So it’s a year-long program. And throughout the year, we had events, I think, halfway through, someone turned up, and they were like, Oh, my mentor left the business. And they hadn’t, did no way of tracking this their way of flagging it.
So they were just sort of a lame duck, like sort of situation, sort of no one had, they haven’t really mentioned it, or they haven’t been replaced. So they didn’t know what to do. And it was like, well, halfway through a program, how does it work now. So it’s things like that, it was just like, you know, when you’re not tracking it, you can lose sight of things, and even people in the first meetings, you know, they might have gone, maybe this isn’t the right person, or things like that come up as well. A lot of the problems you’ll see with a program. So when you’re doing that for you know, I was one of 100 people, which was a lot in some respects, but at the same time, you know, the region I was in is 10 15,000 people. So it’s a tiny minutiae of the population of that organization. So, yeah, they just couldn’t do it as simple as that it couldn’t roll out any further.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, I see. And I suppose you were one of the lucky ones, then to kind of have that opportunity to have that experience, get all those benefits you mentioned, or, you know, network and everything else as well. Why then leave that to try and start a mentoring platform versus make the most of the opportunities that you’ve got the most of your peers didn’t within that bank? Was that not an opportunity for you to kind of accelerate your journey there?
Adam Mitcheson
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think the reality is, I think, had, I done a few things to try and basically accelerate my career there. Even without being technical, I managed to build a, like a training almost like a training platform. And that was AI think, having had that done. That’s what essentially led me to the reason I’m doing this now is, so I built this training platform that was very rudimentary it was he was using a tool called Brainshark. To record PowerPoints, I could do voiceover, because I asked, Can we get quick time on the computer so I can record my voiceover, a presentation, they will be well said no, but we’ve got this tool, so you can use that. So I basically built a playbook for a process, because we were always told, you know, if you couldn’t remember how to do something, go and read the procedure. And that was just to me was just the worst response I could get.
Because I’m, personally I’m a visual learner, I need to be involved in a process to learn properly, I can’t just read it and understand that there was always gaps in these things as well. You know, and it’s, they were out of date. So it was just always rubbish. So when I did it, I did it as a Live me doing the actual process, I did it as like screenshots to screenshot the screenshot everything covered, and record it, and they were blown away by this. And as it happened, my manager took it to India to use to train something like 200 people at the same time, they found it really efficient, they found it was less error prone, because everyone was getting taught exactly the same. They don’t have any as a resource that they could come back to any one point. So rather than trying to find page 469 on a procedure, you go to one minute 30 In a video and look at it and watch it and listen to it. And I thought, right, okay, this is this is good.
This might become, you know, something I roll out and take charge of within the bank and I gave everything to make that happen. But the day-to-day of the bank, the just the enthusiasm dipped after a while. And I was like, it was just that thing of like, you know, when this came up as an idea. I won I think two things, I think two big factors really I think the first one is I thought this is bigger than something that could work inside the bank. This could actually help everyone you know, everyone in their career path from education to to whatever career they choose or end up in. And then the second one was that emphasis of you know, I tried to make this happen before us make something happen before within the bank. And it ultimately didn’t happen because of the you know, the just the operations inside. So if anyone’s gonna make this happen, it’s gonna be me. So that was it that was between my teeth I started to just try and do what I could on my own. Started to get their you know, help them friends and things like that the momentum built then to eventually Leaving my late job and going full time.
Matthew Todd
Cool. Excellent. I think it’s, it’s great that you didn’t kind of take that setback, you know, due to those internal, you know, operational issues and leave it there, it’s great that you’re able to kind of see the potential for this to scale, not just within that organization, but within, you know, many other organizations as well.
Adam Mitcheson
Yeah, I mean, that’s it, it was just, you know, a lot of those experiences really shaped to how this came about, you know, how it happened, and how I’m now doing that. And I think it’s at the time, it can be tough, because it’s frustrating, you know, you’ve built something they’ve seen the value add in it, they gave me an award for it, as well. And it was like, Okay, great. So why would we not roll this out? And it’s like, I thought, you know, it just became that thing of like, there was never really an answer, they just got pushed to one side and pushed to one side and pushed to one side, because they just got on. I mean, it’s a very high-paced environment is very, you know, spinning very much spinning plates and things like that. And, you know, that’s, that’s one of the things that people are trying to do is, when something they just don’t see as priority necessarily comes up, they just don’t bother with it. And that was, that was frustrating, because we’d seen the value add, we’d seen the recognition of it. We knew what it would do in terms of, you know, all the benefits for the bank.
But yeah, I think, you know, again, having been through that experience, when this came around, it was like, Okay, this, there’s something here, and I’m not going to rely on other people for it this time. It’s like, I tried that before with something else, and it didn’t happen. So it’s got a sort of to me, you know, if I don’t try, I won’t know, so that. I know, we are still going.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, no, fantastic. So yeah, having you know, made that decision, having got that enthusiasm, then to see this into your life, for yourself, what did that that look like then rolling out that kind of, you know, early version, getting those first customers on board.
Adam Mitcheson
So the earliest sort of version of it was, again, I had to get it, get something built, I gatecrashed a hackathon, I found a couple of sort of very stereotypical, junior devs kids who just love to code kind of thing. And that was it just sort of spoke to them. And I started working on it with them over the summer, you know, I had a very small budget from some savings. And I just said, lads, this is what I’ve got, this is what I want to do. Can we ever crack this over the summer and see where we get to and do it, you know, brilliant, lots, and that was it, we went from there, and we build that up. And then in terms of the momentum, then it was a case of, I actually, you know, that was, the job I was in was, like, say I was doing something like stupid, like 12 hour days, most days, and I was trying to then work on this at the same time, I actually just made me ruthlessly efficient at work. So I think there was a lot of time faffing about in that 12-hour day.
That was just part of the culture and things like that. And I just cut all that out. And, you know, I didn’t do any less work, I actually just did, you know, more efficient work. And I was doing, you know, getting in at nine and getting away at five, ensuring that I could do things in the evening, go to Events, work on things, work on the product, and then also then get enough sleep stay sane, and getting do my day job. And that momentum built up to the point where it was like, Okay, this is getting stretched a bit thin. And I took a week off, where I then just lived as if I was doing this full time. So just sort of like a practice run for seeing how much I could get done. And
Matthew Todd 13:46
I think that’s great advice, by the way for anyone thinking of quitting their job and going all in, take a week off and practice first.
Adam Mitcheson
Definitely because there was a couple of things around that for me one, I mean, I remember going out that morning on the Monday, and I was out of the house by ATM. I was in a meeting by half at nine o’clock. I was I didn’t get home till evening. It was you know, it’s a long day. But I wasn’t didn’t come back until I came back. absolutely buzzing. But the other thing about that was my parents really saw how serious I was at that point. You know, they were like, Okay, you really are serious. So, you know, if you’re, if you’re in a position where, you know, whatever its partner, whether it’s parents, whether it’s kids, whatever it is where you go in, I’m going to potentially leave a job to do this. I think when they see how serious you are, and you know, they know you’re going to commit to it, they don’t think it’s just a pipe dream or something you can actually throw everything at it. Then the back you know, they take it a bit more seriously themselves and think okay, I can see that. You go in to do this. So you’re just a matter of time and then yeah, and then that was it.
Matthew Todd
Cool. So in terms of, you know paying customers, how long was it before you got the first paying customers on the platform?
Adam Mitcheson
Yeah, so we didn’t get our first paid customers till 2020. And that was a bit of a whirlwind, to be honest. And so myself and Damian co-founded together in 2018. And it was October 2019, I was in the US. So up to this point, we basically just been building out the product. And we, we were looking at, you know, the idea of mentoring is that it can go in so many different directions. And there’s so many different verticals that can support. And I think the problem we had was trying to then narrow that and we’re almost building like a one size fits all sort of platform at that point.
And it was that trip to the states in October 2018, where I had my sort of road to Damascus moment, I was heading to conference for box works. And as I was heading down the street to the Moscone Center in San Francisco, I remember, never forget just seeing the signs of Box, Zoom, Slack, and Okta. And yeah, the thing that struck me about that was this, the four signs were all the same font size, all the same color scheme, you know, there was no standout logo of the four. And I thought that was really bizarre because it was boxes conference. And you know, Silicon Valley’s a very, like Dog-eat-Dog environment. And I thought, What’s going on here, so I remember speaking, someone who then explained to me that, you know, they’re in a partnership, they recognize each other as the best in class, for what they do. The best content cloud provider, the best video conference tool, the best team communication tool, the best security, and Onboarding Tool. So rather than trying to outbid each other, they start to work together. And essentially, that as a for work, you know, the leading tools in the, in the future of the world of work.
And another moment on that trip was where an investor I was talking to said that, you know, it’s a massive advantage to have the team in Manchester, because of the costs, you know, and the talent, SQL and things like that. Whereas previously, everyone had said, you have to be in the valley, you know, you have to build your whole team here. But the costs and things like that, I think there are two factors, I think the cost of living and the cost of running a business in the valley, it just got to the point where it is extortionate. And the other thing was the idea of these tools, being able to enable distributed teams meant that you didn’t have to have everyone there.
So that sort of lightbulb moment, there was the idea of, okay, this is going to change how we all work. We’re going to have more distributed teams, we’re going to have the ability to work anywhere, we’re going to use these tools in a more regular way to work. And that was a we, you know, the vision then became, we become the fifth logo on that wall as the best in class for developing people. And it was from there on, we just went all in on enterprise. So that changed our conversations that changed our pitch, change the build of the platform, you know, really, and that was really useful, because it essentially drove us down a single track. And, you know, we weren’t going off in all these different directions. I think, when in that early days of like, sort of customer discovery is like you talk to a university one day get really excited, talk to a business that next day and get really excited.
It was hard to know where you’re going to land. And it was like, well, can it do this? It’s like, yeah, it can, but then it’s like, what does it do that can but you sort of, you know, like, say when you’re trying to do more of a one size fits all, you’re not really doing it for anyone. The business version was just like, Okay, that’s it. And we started to build conversations, and then the pandemic hit in the March of 2020. And we actually thought this could be a huge opportunity for us, if you look at the you know, the likes of what happened with Zoom, obviously, is the number one example of a software tool going through the roof. You know, we thought maybe this could be a moment in time where this really then gets the awareness and the traction. And actually, the opposite happened because people were unsure about what was happening with employees, they couldn’t really invest in their benefit and their retention.
They were totally unsure about what was happening if they would have a company in six months time. So it will almost threw us out of it. But what happened then was our first customer came from a network. So it was a group of people who are basically preparing for retirement. And we were putting them together with young entrepreneurs. So in that moment in the climate of So everyone was panicking and not knowing what was happening in the uncertainty, it was a really massively rewarding piece for us in that these young entrepreneurs were able to speak to these experienced people from, you know, who run their own businesses or high open businesses and, and be able to able to advise and guide them, and help them through the process. And that was just massive. For us. It was great.
But again, we because we’ve been focusing on building a prize tool, and then we’d reverted almost back to the network piece. It was, it was a bit of really difficult, it was quite a challenge, to be honest. And, you know, we took a step back, we recognize where, you know, we, we were trying to have the conversation around, this is what we’re building, and they’re like, well, we need what the customers say, and we need it to use and do this. Yeah. And that experience was hugely valuable. Because, you know, after butting heads a bit, we got on a really good footing with them, you know, really transparent, really open, how to build a fantastic relationship with them. And that experience was crucial to then landing box as a client to box were our first major client.
Yeah, we’ve had a flux, a few smaller ones where were, but then I think that experience through the early customer journey, when we came to talking with box and getting that over the line, we knew how to deliver, we knew what we were building for, we knew where to focus, we knew a lot more about customer retention and things like that. And it just helped that whole conversation and experience. So they’ve been a fantastic partner of ours like we’ve we’ve worked extremely closely with them. That’s helped us massively we obviously delivered for them because we converted what was a initial pilot with them into a multi-year contract. Partnership. So it’s Yeah, I think from the oil that was when our earlier customers came in, and then we’re starting to again, see build out now. So.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, no, I think that’s interesting. I think it’s interesting that you said that experience helps shape the conversation that you then had with Box, I was just kind of interested to know was that from, you know, those early kind of smaller customers you got on board? Was it from talking to prospects and finding out who wasn’t a fit for as much as who was a fit for? What were some of the things that you, you know, you could actually take to that conversation with Box?
Adam Mitcheson
Yeah, I think the it was, it was all of that, if I’m honest, it was it was you learn about what people want, what they don’t want, especially when you’re talking to different types of potential customers, when we’re talking to say, education providers or public sector, it’s a very different conversation to an enterprise. And it’s a different conversation in the UK than it is in the US as well, slightly. When it came to Box, I think one of the pivotal moments for that was a lot of the regular feedback people give is that they are trying to work out how a program is going to work internally. And then see if we can apply it to a platform. And we took the initiative there and just said, Look, we do this every day. This is what we do. We run programs, you know, we know what works, what doesn’t, we know what questions you’re gonna get asked what, you know, let us help you with that.
So that was a bit that I think changed that conversation, because then they were like, Okay, this is great, we do need a bit of a handhold. And then we’ll apply everything to the platform. So we did that. And that helped us it helped them, you know, we got a really good lesson in the onboarding experience in the program delivery experience, as well, from an enterprise through that conversation, and that’s helping us again, further build out our platform, because we look at all the bits and pieces around that and go, you know, then it’s like, okay, how do we move some of this into the onboarding experience from the platform side. So it becomes more software-focused. And that’s just been a game changer for us that we can just build a lot of that in, and just make that when people are looking at setting up a program or, or launching something that they can actually do quite simply and then scale it.
Matthew Todd
Yeah. And I think there’s a couple of interesting things about going down that enterprise route, but also going down that US customer route that I see a lot of UK, you know, startups, especially even into the scale-up phase, almost a bit hesitant to, you know, like, we’re not ready for enterprise customers yet. We need to get more smaller customers yet you’re actually saying that now the smaller customers cause you to lose focus, because there’s so much variation. And I also see a lot of UK founders, you know, kind of planning to go to the US versus, you know, seeing the opportunity of the internet as a global business.
Adam Mitcheson
This is the beauty of, of software as a service, it’s can be anywhere, and you can purchase it from anywhere, and your customers can come from anywhere.
Adam Mitcheson
Yeah, that is exactly it, you know, it’s, it’s, it makes total sense to start with what’s on your doorstep. But I think the pandemic did bring that global illness to, to everyone you know, as it was, that’s it, you can buy things from anywhere, you can deliver things from anywhere, because we all had to everyone was forced into that situation. You know, I talked about when we went to enterprise and the vision for it in October 2019, never in a million years did I think the companies I used to work for the banks would adopt this way of working, and this hybrid way of working remote way of working, because it just wasn’t ever on the roadmap of the culture or anything like that.
They had to, because they’ve had to, because everyone was forced into it, it proved that there’s the revolution in work happening. And everyone’s seen the, you know, the light, and that’s it. So I think, as you know, as you pointed out, is, it’s why would you not look globally, I think that’s the beauty of software is that you can purchase it from almost anywhere. And it will deliver, you know, you don’t necessarily know where that company is based, if you go on to try and buy something. And I had a conversation with another founder recently. And he said, like, you know, he, they’ve built a business here in Manchester. And they, you know, they’ve done a fantastic job. And I was asking them about how they’ve built, you know, how do they branch out into the states, and things like that, and they said, essentially, their first customer came from Australia, and they didn’t even have to speak to them. So that was a watershed moment for them. Because they’re like, right, you know, this is the beauty of, of software as a service, it’s can be anywhere, and you can purchase it from anywhere, and your customers can come from anywhere. It’s the beauty of the internet, is that availability everywhere?
So yeah, I think the, it does make total sense where you could, you know, even now, you know, we’re back in the ability for face to face for most people. You can go and see people and meet them on the doorstep and have the conversation with the mind to it, compared to over zoom. But I think that what it proves to us is you can do things from all over the world. And the other thing about going to the US first Rose was a lot of that is the nature of the product. So with that first pilot we did with box, the focus was on developing underrepresented talent. Now we hear a fair bit around diversity, equity, and inclusion in the UK. But I think it’s really not at the top of a lot of people’s agendas. I think whereas the US, it’s, it’s a lot more prominent, and a lot more urgent. And the idea, you know, the difference over there is that they, they’ve been, you know, we saw over the last couple years, a lot of people around the world have reached the point where we’ve had enough. And it can’t just be a policy anymore. It can’t just be a, you know, like a celebration month or whatever we change your logo, you’ve got to start taking actions, you’ve got to start having greater equality across the business, greater diversity, greater inclusion, and this was something that was able to deliver that.
So now when people are looking at how do we take our policy and turn it into action, mentoring is part of that process and part of that delivery. And, you know, thing, that reaction in the US is what that is I think the concept of mentoring over in the US is a lot more prominent, and it is in the UK, still. So that made sense for us to then go okay, you know, let’s basically focus more on the US started things. And that’s, that’s where we are, again, seeing the traction seeing the results. And it’s making more sense for us to do that way. So and I think, you know, the other way I looked at it was when it comes to software, they have us are ahead, Silicon Valley is ahead. You look at the start of the pandemic, and all those companies I mentioned when overnight went remote, you know, without too much of a disruption.
It was like, okay, look, we’ve got, there’s all the tools, there’s everything you need. We’re all gonna go remote. If you need anything else, let us know. Whereas like, companies all over the UK, were panicking, oh my God, we’ve got this. And we’ve got that, how do we do this? How do we do that? And it was just like scrambling. So I think when it comes to things like the world of work, when it comes to tools that you’re gonna use and things like that, I think the US is and Silicon Valley in particular is always going to be that step ahead. So by having them as our clients will be a step ahead, and working with them will get that step ahead. Where when the almost like the rest of the world catches up, we’re more than ready for it.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, and I think that comes down to knowing your proposition, knowing the value that you add an end stick into that niche as you said earlier, so that’s where the best opportunity and customers are that fit that profile and that’s where you go and if you get other people from also, then, then great, but don’t rule out where your best customers are just because you don’t think you can go over there yet.
Adam Mitcheson
Exactly. And that is the beauty of the internet in that you can, you know, you find the attraction, and you can then double down on it. And, you know, we’ve got some, everyone’s got so much data now available to them around things like, Well, if you’ve got a website, or where’s the most traffic coming from, you know, there’s a lot of information out there that can actually help you navigate that you might be banging on the door around the UK as a UK company. But you might find that when you look at your, your analytics, you, you find that most of the people searching for your website are in France, or Switzerland, or you know, somewhere around the world. So it’s like that, that’s where you can then see if you can put a focus on and see why have you gone, then that real, or it might be a particular type of company or profile of someone who’s looking at your, your business. And that’s what helps you then focus on that as well. So there’s, that’s I think that’s the beauty of it is there’s a lot of information out there, it’s utilizing that, it’s, it’s using the power of the fact that we can do things from anywhere. And then focusing on that.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, and I think use that data, as you say, so don’t hold yourself to any assumptions that you’ve got about what you can do or can do away or customers are going to be, as you say, if you find you know, you should be putting out good content there, you should be talking about your products. And if you’re doing that and doing that, well with you know, the appropriate messaging, then as you say, look at where your traffic is coming from on the website and look at what sectors industries or job titles, demographics, whatever that may be, look at the data that’s there. And as you say, double down on that find out. Why is it resonating there? What is it about there that’s causing, you know, interest, and go and make the most of that opportunity?
Adam Mitcheson
Exactly, you know, you and you see this fairly regularly, where a company might start out as a tool or a product that is a provider for let’s say any business, but then they’ll find traction in a certain sector, you know, they might go actually, we’re getting a lot of business in the legal sector or the accountancy sector. And you’ll find there’s a reason for that. So then that’s where you can then really add a lot of value and gain a lot of traction and gain a lot of customers through that particular sector before then branching out. It’s almost that if you to do things that there’s a famous thing, masters of scale, which is to do things at scale, you have to first do things that don’t scale. So if you want to focus on one particular client or one particular sector, and that is where you then really build that up to then branch out and go wider. So it’s not like, you know, entwined later date to start with, and then you can branch out.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, absolutely. 100% agree. That’s, yeah, certainly what we recommend most companies even when they think they have done they haven’t gone deep enough with that particular niche, or vertical or whatever. That may be.
Adam Mitcheson
Yeah.
Matthew Todd
Now, moving on from, you know, you mentioned getting, you know, boxes, that first big kind of enterprise customer, what did, what did it look like, then from there, you know, was there? Were you able to kind of build marketing on the back of getting that big customer? Did it make it easier to access similar customers?
Adam Mitcheson
Yeah, so the, I think the sort of one on one thing that’s quite paradoxical is because we’ve been bootstrapped, and small team small resource available to us, we’d not really done any marketing, until we’ve done no paid marketing. And, in a way, that was a huge achievement to be able to then learn the customer like that without doing that. But the paradoxical side of it was, we’d achieved something massive, and no one knew who we were. Yeah. So it was like, Okay, this is what we should be doing. And we and you know, that I think, once again, you talked about making assumptions, and something you should never really do is that we assumed getting one would lead to like an open door, you know, just be like, right, we’ve got major logo, this is going to then just blast the doors open for everyone else.
And it didn’t have that impact, because you know, you’re still building credibility is still building your profile is still building the product, you know, the products never finished, you still doing that, I think. But with boxing with all those earlier customers, the thing we did really well was how closely we worked with them, and have worked with them, continue to work with them, because that gives us insight into our own product gives insight into the challenges they face. And how we can ultimately just make that more efficient, more valuable, more scalable.
And, yeah, that that is then what became the springboard, you know, did allow us to announce obviously, a major, you know, achievement for us, a major Coffee Company, as a client and I think it’s now we’re starting to get that bit of traction, because we’ve built all the credibility, you know, we’ve got actual, we’re not just got, it’s not just them as a, as a logo, it’s actually, here’s the results, here’s what we’ve actually produced. And then with other clients as well, we’ve got use cases, we’ve got information where we can actually use it as, it’s not just, let’s say market information, it’s our information from the programs we’ve delivered and the platform is captured. So it’s, we’ve built that credibility up, now we’ve got that, then like, say, the use cases, the data, the information, and then you add things with a fantastic recognized customers. To that, that’s big, that becomes really powerful.
So then you get the next one on the next one, and the next one that starts to see where it starts to come. And I think that’s, that’s what’s starting to happen now is that we’ve got a really healthy products in place, we’ve got some amazing clients, some amazing use cases, some fantastic, say, logos, on the, on the, on our, on our books, who we’re working with, and just some amazing people we’re working with. So it’s a case of all that together, makes the selling side of things a lot easier, because I think there’s always going to be a bit of impostor syndrome as a founder, you know, you’re always like, you know, where the products going. So you’re sort of like, wherever it’s at, it’s never as good as it can be.
Because, you know, in a week’s time, in a month’s time, a year’s time, it’s gonna have x, y and Zed on top of it, and make it that much better. So you’re always a bit as much as you believe in everything in your, your hype. I think you’ve always got that reservation in your mind about, you know where you’re at. But I think we’ve got that confidence now, because we know, we’re delivering, you know, we are delivering with the product we are delivering with the service we are delivering for our customers. And the feedback we’re getting from them is amazing. So that’s, that’s allowing us to have that confidence, which helps with was gaining new customers as well.
Matthew Todd
Absolutely, I think you’re completely right, that a lot of founders because they always looking to the future, they know the bugs that are in the product, they also know the features they haven’t been able to build yet that they want to build. So they always know there’s more value to come, which I think can cause them to lose sight of the value that existing customers can or prospects can get out of the platform at the moment compared to what they’ve got now, which is nothing, you can add a significant amount of value.
Adam Mitcheson
Exactly, exactly that it’s, I think, I think once you start building out the use cases from those earlier clients, that’s where it really comes, comes into its own because you’ve got proof points for you, you’ve got proof points for the market, you’ve got proof points for your clients. So that’s that’s where the validation comes in. And when people are asking about it, you can go actually, you’re not just you’re not just pulling out a bit of information mixed in with something else. It’s like, actually, this is solid information. This is absolutely a result. This is what we do. And this is how we’ve done it.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, there’s that social proof element isn’t it is someone else like me and other company like me and other, you know, HR director or whoever it may be that you’re selling to, like Me has seen these results?
Adam Mitcheson
Exactly. You know, that is exactly it’s, and I think just going back to the point around the US versus the rest of the world. And as customers, I think the beauty of a lot of those companies is they still you know, they they’re massive companies, but they still have the heart of it the culture of a startup, because that’s what they were, you know, they were startups that have become corporates. And they recognize what they’ve been through, you know, and they’re probably a bit more willing at times to take a chance on something new. And, yeah, I mean, that’s where I think you get the proposition, right, you get the deal, right. That’s where you get, you know, you can get that over the line. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Todd
And, you know, when it comes to confidence in the value, and also starting with the enterprise, how have you even, you know, approached the process of thinking about pricing in those kinds of scenarios, I imagine it can be quite challenging, especially when you’ve got, you know, a bigger contracts, but also a longer duration contracts as well to get that right, especially as you’re still on that journey of building out the platform.
Adam Mitcheson
Yeah, it’s hugely challenging. I spoke to a founder a couple of weeks ago about this very subject. And, you know, they’re, they’ve just done Series B and they were saying, you know, price discovery is one of the biggest challenges you will ever go through. I think from the earlier instance, you’re looking at all the software tools, you’re looking at things in the same region or market you’re in and how they’re being used and how they’re being priced. There. which can help you then shape your pricing. I think the way we’ve done it is that we just make it quite simple in that we do it on a tiered structure for now, the reason for this is that we know from experience of what people tend to do is they’ll maybe deploy for a certain number of people are certain size business. And they might have a very focused program to start with, and then roll it out to the wider group to the wider network to the wider organization.
Because it’s new, because Mentoring can be new for a lot of people, the focus around diversity and equity and inclusion can be new for a lot of people as well. They still want to find out how do we do this. So we’ll start with a small number, and then we’ll scale it into a bigger number. But that’s where we look at, like a growth plan for the pricing as well. So it’s like, okay, as there’s the price for that amount of people. Instead of it then going, Okay, we’re going from 200 people to 1000 people, and suddenly the price is gonna go, you know, 10x or something, and it’s not actually after, let’s look at like, you know, if you’re going to do that over two years, you’re gonna do that over a year, and then factor it into the process. So I think being quite transparent with people is what’s what’s useful. You know, from experience, the CFOs, the people that sign it off, they want a number that they know, they can have factored in, and then they can budget for the year after as well. So they go, right, okay, we paid X for that this year, what we’re paying for next year, but why has it gone up so much? Or? Okay, it’s gonna be that, right? It’s factored in, it’s in the contract, Don’s dealt with, know where we’re at, you know, that makes their life a lot easier rather than I think.
Because what sometimes you have the things like individual pricing that can, you know, I think slack do a really brilliant thing with their fair pricing offer, you might have seen what I’ve heard firsthand that like, a lot of the CFOs don’t like it, because it’s like, we paid X amount, let’s say we just paid over 50,000 For this, why have we got 5000 coming back, like, oh, because the fair pricing system, it’s like, we budgeted we paid out, you know, you messing with my numbers. A good thing to have, it’s like, at the same time, I think people just like to know how much the spending was, you know, where’s the budget for next year and things like that.
So I think being transparent with customers at the start is always useful. Building something that works for both sides, you know, you’re ultimately looking for that when what’s going to work for us to deliver it, that we’re not going to be completely stretched? Or, you know, and then what’s going to work for you from a budget side and make it something that works for everyone. So yeah, it’s still always going to be a challenge. I think. price discovery, as my fellow founder said, is the one of the most difficult challenges you’ll you’ll face. But it is that thing of over time, you will learn to a point where you can have quite a set, set price in place.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, I think that’s, it’s going to be good to hear those points on predictability and transparency of pricing versus, oh, we’re gonna go into the organization, we can have lots of different usage levers here, but it actually creates a very unpredictable price for your customer. But as well as having that buying process, almost, you know, recognizing what not what you want your selling process to go was talking about a buying process more than a selling process? So it’s what is their experience of, you know, from purchase to, to onboarding, what does that look like? And I think the growth plan that you mentioned is just fits with that, doesn’t it?
Adam Mitcheson
Exactly, you know, and this is another thing is, I think, when you’re in those early days, those very first customers, you might be thinking, the person you are dealing with, for the deal is the person who signs it off, but ultimately, they might go upstairs, am I going to, you know, a person, one person above or a committee or something like that. So there’s different, you know, understanding how their internal operations work helps you both because I think, you know, you might be really scared to say a number. Or you might think, I don’t want to kill the deal, and it’s like, but then if you go too low, you might they might not take you seriously. Balance of it. And the other thing is the person you’re speaking to might go, oh, that’s, that’s, well, that’s far too much or actually, okay, we can probably do that or whatever. But they’ve then got to take it someone.
So even, they might have the most blank reaction you’ve ever seen, because I’ll just write it down and go, Okay, I’ll go back to your manager and tell them that’s how much it is. So it’s, yeah, it’s that thing of again, I think when you’re being transparent with them, understanding like you said, understanding the buying process is really important because it helps you figure out what they’ve got to do internally to get it over the line. You know, the other thing is, I think when it comes to that is you might agree everything but then you’ve got to go through their internal processes, you know, vendor processes and onboarding process versus something like that, which might take another four weeks might take another month, two months, it might take a week, you know, if you don’t know, you can be in a bit of a limbo situation, it might take quite a lot of work to fret to then, you know, maybe that’s why it might fall down.
So I think that’s another important thing to understand is what is the vendor process? How long does that take? Who’s making the decision on buying this? You know, where’s the budget coming from which you know, which department which team who’s just understanding all that, in the earliest onset is saving time and energy and effort on both sides?
Matthew Todd
Yeah, 100%? Absolutely. So, yeah, given the successes that you that you have so far, you’re getting that traction, you know, what’s what’s next for me to be you know, both from a business perspective, as well as my a product perspective as well, for anyone that might be interested?
Adam Mitcheson
Yeah, I think the from a business point of view, we’re starting to grow, starting to then look at like how we do that, because I think one thing we have done is I’ve said bootstrapped, we’ve been a very small team very lean, which actually think with the potential economic situation we’re all facing is actually prepared those massively well, but we are looking at growing now, towards the end of the year, looking at investment as well, and having some conversations around that right now. As well as just onboarding new clients. So we’ve got a bit of everything happening at the same time, which is a good position to be in, to be honest. But I think that’s, that’s from the business side. And I think for a product side, I think at the moment, we’re just looking at constant evolution of it in terms of I think one thing is the onboarding side, is making that much more automated. You know, we’re adding more integrations we’re adding, adding more features in that sense. But one thing we always get really high praise for is the simplicity of the product. It’s not over complicated, it’s not over thought. And you know, that’s something we never want to stray from, we want it to be a really simple process for the end user to create a relationship and build that relationship. And I suppose the one of the biggest evolutions we’ve got at the moment is that admin and reporting side, we gather quite a bit of data and the delivery of that, and the demonstration of that is the next evolution of it. So we have a lot of raw data displayed in the admin and the reporting and creating my actual insights and data insights is one of the next evolutions for us. Giving like a really holistic view of what the benefits are, what the organization looks like, and why you should have everyone on an mentoring program in the organization.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, fantastic. I think that’s sounds like you’ve got an exciting few months ahead of you for this year and beyond as well. And I’m sure, you know, certainly fueled by the hybrid working scenario that, you know, pretty much every organization is seeing themselves in these days.
Adam Mitcheson
Yeah, that is, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s been a journey to this day, and it does very much feel like we’re in you know, by being so resilient by the evolution that we’ve been on. We are finding ourselves in a Right Place Right Time moment. But that wouldn’t have happened without everything that’s gone before it, you know, we know that we’re halfway into it. 10-year overnight success. So absolutely.
Matthew Todd
Fantastic. Well, I look forward to reading about that, that overnight success. Cool. So um, yeah, I know, thank you very much for taking the time, really appreciate it and really enjoyed the conversation. I think there’s a lot that other entrepreneurs or the founders can take away from this from, you know, choosing your markets, in terms of your geographical but also, you know, segmentation as well and, and really going deep on solving a particular challenge. And don’t hold yourself to assumptions that might be too small for what you can actually achieve. So thank you for that. And just as to kind of round off where should people go if they want to check out the platform and find out more themselves?
Adam Mitcheson
Sure thing, the website is my2be.com. Where easily findable as well on social and things like LinkedIn. We’re quite open to have concert conversations with people. You can contact us via the website or via those channels, whether that’s founders’, prospective new customers, always happy to see where we can help.
Matthew Todd
Cool. Fantastic. Thank you again for joining us, Adam and I, I’m sure we’ll talk again soon.
Adam Mitcheson
Thanks very much. Thanks for having me.
Matthew Todd
Thank you for joining me on this episode of Inside the scaler. Remember for the show notes and in-depth resources from today’s guest, you can find these on the website insidethescaleup.com can also leave feedback on today’s episode as well as suggest guests and companies you’d like to hear from.
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