Wolt COO Marianne Vikkula on leadership, operational excellence and hiring

3 takeaways from the conversation with Marianne Vikkula

1. The Importance of Energy and Detail in Leadership

Marianne emphasized the critical role that leaders play in bringing energy into an organization. She noted that it’s not just about enthusiasm but also about setting an example by being deeply involved in the details of the business. Marianne discussed how she ensures that she’s as passionate and engaged in Wolt’s daily operations as her team, which helps maintain high standards across the board. She also highlighted the importance of leaders holding themselves accountable and being transparent with their teams, which fosters a culture of trust and high performance.

A specific example she mentioned was visiting one of Wolt’s grocery stores and directly engaging with employees to understand their challenges. This hands-on approach not only helps in identifying areas for improvement but also ensures that the quality of operations aligns with Wolt’s high standards.

2. Navigating Leadership Challenges: The Weight of Words and Decisions

Marianne Vikkula candidly discussed the emotional challenges of leadership, particularly as Wolt has scaled. She emphasized that the reality of being a leader often involves tackling difficult, sometimes draining tasks—like providing tough feedback, managing resignations, or handling mental health issues within the team. These situations can be emotionally taxing, especially when faced for the first time.

However, Marianne pointed out that, like many aspects of leadership, these challenges become easier with experience and practice. Over time, what initially seems daunting can become more manageable, even second nature. For instance, she now finds annual feedback sessions to be some of the most rewarding conversations she has each year. Through repetition and a focus on personal growth, she has learned to navigate the complexities of leadership more effectively, reinforcing the importance of continuous learning and adaptation in her role.

3. Adapting and Learning from DoorDash: Scaling Wolt’s Global Operations

The acquisition of Wolt by DoorDash brought new learning opportunities. Marianne described how DoorDash’s rigorous weekly cadence of business performance reviews helped Wolt refine its operational processes. This structured approach to monitoring progress and making adjustments has allowed Wolt to maintain its agility, even as it scales.

Moreover, the collaboration with DoorDash revealed new levels of operational depth, particularly in areas like merchant partnerships and sales forecasting. Marianne noted that while Wolt had strong analytics, DoorDash’s approach to forecasting sales for merchants and optimizing business operations provided new insights that have since been integrated into Wolt’s own practices. This collaboration has been crucial in helping Wolt transition from a restaurant delivery app to a broader e-commerce platform—a “shopping mall in your pocket.”

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Podcast transcript

Josua: Welcome, uh, welcome to the show, Marianne.

Marianne: [00:00:30] Thanks a lot.

Josua: I’m, uh, I’m really excited to have you on, uh, because the topic, I think we’re going to focus a lot on operational excellence and, and leadership is super fascinating to me. I think really valuable for a lot of people, but especially so because you’re the CEO of Volt, [00:00:45] at least to me, Volt represents, uh, from a Finnish perspective, maybe even global perspective, like this best in class operations, because like, You couldn’t deliver the quality of service that you do if you didn’t have excellent, like, operations and coordinations [00:01:00] in the back, like, taking care of thousands of couriers and partners and restaurants and customers and all working together.

Josua: So, welcome. I’m really excited. But, uh, before we get into that, uh, Can you tell people a little bit about your background? Like, how did you get to [00:01:15] where you are today?

Marianne: Absolutely. And thanks for the kind words. Um, but yeah, indeed I’m Marianne. Uh, I’ve been at Walt now for six and a half years. Um, I’ll start by telling a bit how my journey went at WALT and then go into what [00:01:30] happened before WALT.

Marianne: But uh, I joined WALT when we were a 100 person company. We were just about to raise our Serious B funding. Uh, we were in six countries, so kind of figured out What we are doing and the next step was to scale that across [00:01:45] multiple, multiple markets. Um, and my role was to help out in expansion efforts. I joined as an IC, so individual contributor.

Marianne: Um, my role was to launch Prague for us. So I spent a lot of time in Czech Republic and then [00:02:00] my role, or I took over basically the business in many of the countries that we had expanded to. And in four years, roughly, we went from six to 20 plus countries. So obviously A lot of complexity and a lot of learnings along the way.

Marianne: Then I spent a [00:02:15] few years building our grocery business, Walt Markets. You might have heard of Walt’s own grocery stores that also operate across most of our countries. And now for a bit more than a year I’ve So basically all the business that Walt has in [00:02:30] the 27 countries where we operate with, with the Walt brand, um, before joining Walt spent five years building Slush, a tech conference that you might have heard of as well, um, did different roles from finance to sales, and then [00:02:45] ran the conference for two years and I’m still on the board.

Marianne: It’s, it’s a lot of fun. I love it. And I studied industrial engineering and management in Aalto. And that’s how I also met a lot of the folks I still today work

Josua: with. Just to touch upon, so you made the jump from [00:03:00] CEO of Slush to then becoming an individual contributor at Vault. Was that kind of, um, was that like, did you feel like you were taking a step down in order to get on this rocket ship?

Josua: Or did you feel like, how did you think about that decision? Not at

Marianne: all. Um, when, [00:03:15] Yeah, I mean, I was, what, 26 at that point, so I guess I hadn’t really grown my, or, yes, I didn’t see myself, uh, yet as that, that, that, a big leader, let’s call it that way, and, um, [00:03:30] When I started thinking, what should I do next? I was really open.

Marianne: I had everything from, I mean, I never graduated. I never did my master’s in Aldo. So that was one path I could have taken. Uh, just taking a gap year and trying to figure out what to do. Wasn’t path going to the venture capital [00:03:45] world was an alternative. I was pondering as well. And then I had discussions with.

Marianne: Probably 20 people I had gotten to know through building slush and just asked like, Hey, this is where I am right now. What would you do in my shoes? And pretty [00:04:00] quickly from those conversations, I realized that I want to stay as part of the startup growth company ecosystem. And the best thing I could do now is join a fast growing company and maximize my own learning.

Marianne: So that was really the kind of scope that I was looking, looking for. [00:04:15] Um, and, uh, yeah, then I got really lucky and figured out that Walt could use a bit of help and yeah, was excited from day one.

Josua: I think, um, that was obviously like a really good decision. And I feel like those are really important, like [00:04:30] choosing the right company to get on board and you start, when you joined, it was a hundred people.

Josua: Now it’s like 10,

Marianne: 000,

Josua: something like that. So it’s like massive, massive growth. Um, and that’s obviously helped your career as well, having this kind of like momentum, but, uh, let’s talk a little bit about, um, operational [00:04:45] excellence or, or leadership and how they combine. Um, you said on a podcast. that one of you, one of the things you think is important as a leader is to bring energy into an organization.

Josua: So what does that look like for you in your role at Volt?

Marianne: Yeah. I [00:05:00] think you’ve also, uh, read slash heard, uh, Frank, uh, from, uh, well, he’s done multiple different companies, but Snowflake being one of them. Um, and that was actually direct quote from him. Like, you know, a leader’s job is to bring energy into the organization.

Marianne: You [00:05:15] have a few different vectors. And how do you do that velocity? Raising the bar for quality or greatness, um, as well as focus. Uh, so that’s something that has really stuck. Uh, that framework has really stuck with, with me. Uh, and also [00:05:30] us more widely at Walt, like when we, we heard that. And, um, we can talk about it, each of them as well, soon on top of that, the things that I also think are important are trust built, building the right environment for people to be [00:05:45] who they are and kind of, you know, be themselves.

Marianne: Transparent, bring up problems. And then also ultimately you need to kind of everything I say here, you have to exhibit as a leader, right? Uh, leading by example. So, uh, what leading [00:06:00] by example. for energy to me means is, you know, I’m also passionate about the things that everybody at Walt should be passionate about.

Marianne: And I need to go to the same level of detail. I expect the rest of the organization to go to. So holding myself [00:06:15] accountable. And I guess also it helps that, you know, I at least have a fairly positive and optimistic worldview in general. So showing up Um, every day with like a Energy and can, can do this [00:06:30] attitude does definitely help.

Josua: Do you, do you do that kind of like consciously, you’re very like aware of how you’re perceived in the organization. Like before you get, get to work, you kind of do a pep talk to yourself in the mirror and, or did you just kind of let your natural kind of personality shine

Marianne: [00:06:45] much more than natural personality side?

Marianne: I think actually, actually one of the hardest parts is growing as a leader. As the bigger the organization becomes, the more weight your words have, yeah. And you realize every now and then that okay now we’ve gone through again this like one chapter of [00:07:00] growth where If I say this even as an idea Okay, like there are so many people who perceive it this in that way.

Marianne: So um Certain things you just learn by doing that. Okay, how to, I don’t want to say filter your words because I don’t think [00:07:15] it’s about filtering. It’s more about being very deliberate about what I mean when I say something. Is this just an idea? Is this actually a decision that I’m expecting people to act upon?

Marianne: Or is this like, input, but decide [00:07:30] to take it or not take it. Um, and being clear about what is, what matters the bigger you become.

Josua: Yeah. How do you, how do you do that in practice? Like, is it just preface it, prefacing everything with saying like, this is just an idea or this is an actual like order. [00:07:45] This is what we need to do.

Josua: Like, how do you do that in practice? Because like you said, um, your words carry so much weight in a, such a big organization where you are at the top. Um, so how do you, how do you think about that? Yeah,

Marianne: I think big, a big part also comes with the culture. Like how is a company, how does [00:08:00] a company behave and how are people expected to behave?

Marianne: We’re definitely a company where we, like decisions are not usually made very like top up where we wait for a big leadership team meeting to happen on, let’s call it Wednesday next week. And then people wait for that [00:08:15] meeting to happen. And then like you get an outcome, but rather We try to push the decision making as, let’s say, close to the problem as possible and only escalate if, you know, decisions are not made or we can’t come to a conclusion.

Marianne: [00:08:30] Um, so the good thing is that usually it’s quite clear when it comes to like a Point where I’m, I’m the decision maker. Usually people actually say that out loud. They come in with like, Hey, this is the proposal. Can we get a green light to move [00:08:45] forward? So that’s likely quite simple in like smaller forums.

Marianne: Um, and then in bigger forums. If that’s not the case, again, it’s like, I was just in a, in a, not necessarily so much as Walt, but this was [00:09:00] at a board context where we were having a discussion and like, we ended up the session with like, ultimately, you are the operators, you’re responsible for this, we’re giving input, but you can decide what you do with this.

Marianne: Set that out loud at the end of it, but remember, all of this is just feedback. [00:09:15] And ultimately you are the decision makers. So, Hmm. Even that clearly saying out loud that, uh, when, when is it just input to decision making and when is it a situation where you’re actually kind of expected to be the leader and make it, make the decision?

Josua: I think that’s, that’s such a good point [00:09:30] because I feel like it’s so much, you can create so much more efficiency by just being very clear about very simple things. Like at the end of meeting, saying like, did we all agree to this? Are you going to do this? When are you going to do it by? But I feel like we often let these things slide and then you create ambiguity.

Josua: And [00:09:45] there’s no accountability. So, so having maybe then a culture of being very explicit around these things can be very useful. Yeah,

Marianne: definitely. And I really do believe in the framework of velocity, focus, and, uh, quality also, like what does it mean for you as a leader? [00:10:00] Exactly like you said, at the end of the meeting, you’re like, all right, so what’s the action point from this meeting?

Marianne: Who owns it? What’s the timeline obviously the earlier the better in most of the cases and then you can as a leader even like try to Be like, can we do this today? Like is there a reason why [00:10:15] we need to wait like aren’t we all here? Yeah, just let’s do it today and then at times you also just need to realize that Going fast isn’t necessarily the best thing But the best thing is to raise the bar of what we actually want to achieve and say the [00:10:30] timeline doesn’t matter But we need to change the inputs to get a better outcome

Josua: So let’s go to like Frank Slootmans.

Josua: Like you said, it’s a very good framework. Uh, I remember reading about it and like I had two takeaways. One was like, wow, this is really clear. Like you can see that this is how he’s run [00:10:45] like multiple hugely successful companies. And the other takeaway was like, this sounds really exhausting, but we can get to that second part later, but let’s start with that framework.

Josua: So first one, um, increasing velocity. So speed of decision making I’m guessing, but how do you think [00:11:00] about velocity? Yeah. And not just

Marianne: decision making. I think also speed of more like execution to me. Well, I guess both depends a bit on the organization. Um, but both are kind of what I’ve learned is that what [00:11:15] makes a difference between a great team, great company, and then a good team is one is just like, how fast are you able to learn?

Marianne: And usually A lot of things in business are not deep rocket science. It’s more just getting [00:11:30] stuff done. So the faster you’re able to get to an even small outcome, the faster you learn the next thing. So it’s not always about decisions, but it’s more about, for example, in our business, It’s about seeing how do consumers behave if we change one thing or [00:11:45] the other thing?

Marianne: Or how do our merchants behave if we change something? So it’s really about how do you increase the velocity of learning and sometimes also decision making but they’re quite interconnected because usually you first need the input of data and [00:12:00] Here, again, it starts with the leaders themselves, like are, are the leaders in the organization people who firstly hold themselves accountable for making decisions fast and not like outsourcing decision making [00:12:15] elsewhere are comfortable taking risks that, that just try it and see what happens.

Marianne: Um, very rarely are there decisions that are one way doors. What I mean by that is, um, Decisions that are super hard to walk away from most of day [00:12:30] to day business decisions are reversible.

Josua: Yeah,

Marianne: let’s just take it back Um in this in those situations when you have one way door decisions then take the time But most aren’t so just go ahead and and give it a try

Josua: What would you say to someone [00:12:45] who’s listening to this and working inside a company could be a startup or something else and they?

Josua: Agree with it that resonates with them. But how do you go about trying to increase? Velocity. Yeah. Where do you start? Is it like, yeah, where do you start?

Marianne: [00:13:00] One very concrete advice is simply starting to set deadlines that are very early, like today, not tomorrow, today, or not next week, but tomorrow, whatever the timeline is, just halve it.

Marianne: Try to constrain it. If it’s way too [00:13:15] ambitious, the team will say that. Um, or then you can reduce the scope a little bit. Oftentimes actually getting the 80 percent of stuff done Gives you the most valuable insights. So you can actually ship stuff. That’s not necessarily 99 percent [00:13:30] complete yet. That’s fine.

Marianne: Um, getting something out there early to get any early indications is usually more valuable. Um, and then obviously you as a leader can and should help the positive [00:13:45] cycle by making those decisions fast, or, you know, delivering yourself, showing by example that, Hey, like.

Josua: Yeah,

Marianne: this is how we’re expected to operate here.

Josua: Yeah. I loved, I have like a concrete example for me. It’s like when you’re in a meeting, [00:14:00] um, and someone asks a question, like we should figure that out. And then, so another person says like, yeah, I’ll call that person right away and then we’ll catch up. So, um, that’s so energizing when you have a culture where the decision making is like constantly being compressed and, or, or action taking [00:14:15] is constantly being challenged and compressed and can be.

Josua: uncomfortable, but it’s also so energizing. And I guess, like you said, if the leaders don’t do it, it’s not going to happen.

Marianne: Yeah, exactly. And actually picking up the phone is a great example because what COVID did was [00:14:30] that everybody’s calendar suddenly became calls, right? You’re in a zoom or teams meeting every hour and picking up the phone wasn’t or isn’t so easy anymore.

Marianne: It was like, people are not, So easily available, at least like in a way high in the [00:14:45] organization, because they’re booked all the time and other meetings, but, um, it’s super powerful still like just a traditional call. Hey, what do you think about this? Or can we do this and, uh, getting it out of the way? And obviously [00:15:00] what kind of, that brings to my mind is also the, how you operate as an organizational role.

Marianne: For example, for me, Slack has always been the kind of core operating system and DNA, um, where I’m used to operating and it really helps us moving fast

Josua: [00:15:15] because

Marianne: you’re basically, you get most of your problems solved the same day. People do answer. You’re expected to reply to a direct message within a day.

Marianne: And if that’s not your company culture, you probably should like check that.

Josua: Yeah. Yeah. Do you have anything inside vault? [00:15:30] Um, any kind of metrics or anything in place that you use to monitor The velocity inside the organization, or is that more like, uh, a cultural trait that you try to enforce? Like, I wish I

Marianne: had a KPI for that.

Marianne: That would be interesting, but no, we don’t have a decision [00:15:45] making velocity KPI. Okay. Yeah. I think it’s much more about anecdotal people feeling, obviously you can also measure things like overall people engagement and ask questions. But to me, it’s much more about the anecdotal feedback that starts [00:16:00] coming from people when things.

Marianne: It’s just start getting too slow. And then you know that you need to change something. Honestly speaking, usually even before anybody comes to you saying that things have become too slow or bureaucratic, you felt it yourself. Yeah. You felt that yourself. [00:16:15]

Josua: And anecdotes are really powerful. I mean, there’s so many examples of organizations where they highlight these stories of like individual managers and contributors who do something that’s really aligned with the company’s values and they highlight that and that becomes like a, uh, uh, a rallying cry.

Josua: It’s, [00:16:30] it’s much more. It’s much more, uh, easier to grasp than a random metric that says like, we’ve got this speed metric that we’ve defined somehow and nobody really knows. And now it’s up 5%. Yeah, exactly. And the

Marianne: problem with such a thing would be anyways, that it [00:16:45] moves so slowly. That at the point when the, it’s moved enough that it’s a problem, it’s like a serious problem already.

Marianne: And you rather would have some early indicators.

Josua: Yeah. And final point on the speed thing. I think anyone who kind of reads, for instance, Elon Musk’s biography [00:17:00] gets a really good kind of like, um, sense of how he does it, which is, um, not always very smooth, but

Marianne: fast for sure.

Josua: Fast for sure. Okay. Second part, um, I think raising the bar.

Josua: How do you think about that?

Marianne: Yeah, I think that’s one of the. [00:17:15]

Josua: Or actually, sorry, can we go back to that? Because I had a follow up question that I almost forgot. Um, you mentioned speed. So one aspect of that is getting something out early. Um, how do you combine that with the potential tension of releasing something that’s [00:17:30] maybe not fully ready?

Josua: And I’m thinking, especially for a brand like Volt, for us. For me as a consumer, Vault represents like everything you do is like first, first class. It’s like beautiful. It’s, it works. So if I were to receive like a [00:17:45] MVP version of some new product, then I might have a, uh, that might not sit well with the brand image of Vault.

Josua: So how do you think about that potential tension? Is there a tension?

Marianne: There’s healthy tension, um, I think, and yeah, it’s a really great segue to [00:18:00] quality as well. Um, but I think when you’ve set the bar for quality high enough, Then you, it’s easier for you to kind of determine what are the things that are non negotiables.

Marianne: What are the things that we’re always going to [00:18:15] ship with certain, uh, quality? When I say ship, it easily, you start thinking about the app and what it looks like, but obviously we have a gazillion other things as well that we want to change and test. Like what happens if we change our delivery radii, for [00:18:30] example, um, or what happens if we add X number of new merchants or change our pricing.

Marianne: That doesn’t necessarily change the kind of product, what it looks like, um, at all. And it’s quite important to understand the, the weight of [00:18:45] what the change you’re making is. And oftentimes you can do with the, the 80%, even on the product side, like I said, there are no negotiables. There’s just stuff that we would never ship unless it’s like Walt, [00:19:00] we call it Walt grade.

Marianne: Uh, that it’s like, we would be proud about what we do. Um, and that, that needs to be there, but is everything ready when we put it out to the world? No, definitely not. Like we also learn by [00:19:15] putting it out to the world. For example, uh, fairly recently we introduced a new feature in certain countries. That’s called double order, which means that you can order from multiple different places.

Marianne: More or less as part of kind of one order or with one [00:19:30] fee structure. And we have those non negotiable fundamentals in place, but then in the background, there was a list of a hundred things we hadn’t had the time to build yet, but then you’re faced with a decision. Do I wait six months to put this [00:19:45] out for this to be perfect?

Marianne: Or do we have 80 percent of the features that we need, and then we’ll put it out, start learning what we actually need, even if You know, who knows if the hundred things that were on our list were the right things on the list that consumers or customers mainly care about. [00:20:00] Um, so those are the trade off discussions.

Marianne: Yeah. That we go through.

Josua: Okay. Well, I think that’s really useful to, to, to hear kind of even from a, a, a company like yours that have like probably your list of non negotiables is pretty high [00:20:15] because you have a very strong brand and you need to protect it. But even so you can still focus a lot on, on pushing things out early and, and increasing velocity.

Josua: Yeah. But how do you go about then continuously raising the bar for what quality looks like?

Marianne: Yep. [00:20:30] I think. It starts a lot with the people you have in the team. Um, you need to hire people who have the mindset of being 1 percent better every day. That what was good [00:20:45] today or what was good yesterday is not good today anymore.

Marianne: And if people don’t share that mentality, it’s really hard. But when you have people who every day have the kind of intrinsic starting point that. Yeah. What’s the next thing we do [00:21:00] better, bigger, faster, whatever it is, the way that we are going to be better. Um, it’s much easier to also operate in a way where we’re thinking about, okay, so what next?

Marianne: Cause big people want to be the drivers of change. Um, [00:21:15] but regardless as a leader, what it’s oftentimes it’s spotting things that just don’t necessarily make sense. Or you’re like, why did we make the decision this way? So it’s. Raising the bar for quality is oftentimes [00:21:30] being very close to details, being the customer yourself, or even responding to customer, um, support chats.

Marianne: Or maybe as a concrete example, last week, I was visiting one, one of Walt’s cities where we have our own grocery store. I was [00:21:45] there talking to our. People who pick groceries from the shelves every day and ask, like, what would you change? And they go through the app and are like, I don’t understand why we changed this.

Josua: And you’re

Marianne: like, you’re right. I don’t understand this as a user either. And then you go to [00:22:00] the team responsible for the change and be like, what, like what, where was the bar for quality for this change? If it wasn’t there. So it’s often about being very close to the detail.

Josua: Okay. And then it kind of asking that follow up question, not just, not just putting out fires, but asking, like, why [00:22:15] was this fire?

Josua: Even there in the first place and try to fix the root cause as opposed to

Marianne: yeah And the good thing is that at least what I’ve seen when it comes to quality It’s often not like fires fires But it’s the small details that don’t necessarily as one detail going wrong [00:22:30] change much But then if you do it a hundred times you end up in a situation where you fully degraded something Yeah, so like kind of holding the entire organization accountable for the consecutive small decisions that we make every [00:22:45] day, that they’re going to the 1 percent better direction.

Josua: Yeah. What do you think about this idea of quality? Because there’s different, I guess, perspectives on it. One would be like the Steve Jobs philosophy, where he is the one who’s personally making decisions, doesn’t care about, [00:23:00] really about like customer market research or anything like that. He knows what he wants and he, he gets it out there.

Josua: And then it sounds like at Volt, you’ve got. You know, decision making is decentralized heavily and, and you’ve obviously got a ton of different features, products and [00:23:15] so on. So how do you think about, about quality? Does it need to be, does there need to be someone at the top with a really clear product vision or can you have just smart, hardworking people across the organization, everyone like working on different projects?

Marianne: I [00:23:30] think you just need both, honestly speaking. You need someone who sets the vision for. Kind of, where are we going towards what does our grade of products or operations look like and who is [00:23:45] in a way it sets the philosophy, the principles, um, that person doesn’t necessarily though need to be in the everyday decision making when it comes to like, do we, is this good enough, uh, but rather sets the bar and is, is the [00:24:00] person who kind of, you know, Calibrates also where we are as an organization.

Marianne: Um, but then to be able to rapidly grow on a day to day level, you just need your teams to be independent, take a lot of ownership and really when, if you [00:24:15] own, let’s call it, you own our logistics product, you are really the CEO of that. We expect you to. And of course work with other people, um, that’s part of every day business, but like it’s your domain, uh, go, go for it, make, [00:24:30] make the best out of it.

Josua: Okay. And do you feel like that visionary person, um, ideally as a founder, like in, in Mickey Goose, for instance, he’s been there from the start and, or can it be, can it be someone who’s not the CEO and can also, can it be someone who is brought in [00:24:45] externally as a professional manager? Can it be

Marianne: another person in our case?

Marianne: It’s definitely, uh, Miki who has like a very strong product intuition. Um, but it could be someone else as well. It really like, it really depends on the leadership and [00:25:00] founding team. What are their strengths? Um, and if you lack this person from your founding team, probably better get one outside than not have one.

Marianne: Um, your organization will definitely benefit from having a founder who has a clear vision [00:25:15] for the product, but I think it’s definitely also, um, It’s a skill that is hireable outside, not outside, not easy, not easy by any means. Um, but, um, I think there’s a, there’s a way that way as well.

Josua: Yeah. Okay, [00:25:30] so last one, then narrowing the focus, which, well, they’re all, I mean, velocity and raising bar is also really difficult, but I feel like this one is, is really, really hard.

Josua: Um, how do you think about that?

Marianne: Yeah, because the reality is that a human mind would love to rather do many things than just [00:25:45] one thing and doing many cool new things is nicer than just being in one box and one box only for, for a lot of people, at least. Um, when I see us slowing down, it’s also very [00:26:00] often link to folk, not having enough focus, just so many, having too many things, uh, on going on, going on at the same time.

Marianne: Um, but that’s a really big challenge for any leader, even, even anybody working right where you’re at the [00:26:15] same time, you want to do more things and be faster, um, do them at a better quality. And then you’re being stretched. Like why couldn’t we do these, these things at the same time? Um, so to me, focus is a lot about, um, Using past experience in just [00:26:30] seeing what’s actually doable, what I think is doable, um, and then combining that with just real life evidence, seeing are we going as fast as we should be going and where can we, where should we just say that, hey, this is not there yet.

Marianne: And I think [00:26:45] a fantastic framework I’ve learned from Um, CP, Christopher Payne, who was the COO for DoorDash, um, was that he’s using this 70, 10, uh, 70, 20, 10 framework where basically 70 [00:27:00] percent of what your, where your resources go should be the things that pay your bills. 20 percent are the things that have found product markets fit or are the next growth vectors, and then 10 percent is your.

Marianne: bucket of [00:27:15] experiments, the new next things, but not for the next year or the second year, but for like five to 10 years from now. And, um, I think that framework has helped a bit with focus, right? Cause then you’re able to bucket things. And what are these actually? Cause that’s also an often [00:27:30] seen leadership misalignment when, um, You don’t align amongst people where in the life cycle of a business or product we are actually, um, and then people start treating it [00:27:45] differently.

Marianne: Somebody expects profitability from something while others are saying, but this is so early that we’re, we don’t even know how to grow this. Right. So by bucketing different initiatives to, to different, let’s call them purposes, helps also focus. Cause then, you [00:28:00] know, to tell a team, you know, Your focus is to find product market fit for this thing or now we’re focusing on growth And narrowing down the all the things that we want the teams to achieve helps with getting the most important [00:28:15] things shipped

Josua: Got it How often is it realistic to move people from different folk or move the entire organization on certain teams or certain?

Josua: individuals from different focuses Cause I feel like, um, you, you see that in some organizations where people get confused and it’s like, Oh, you know, [00:28:30] I thought EBITDA was the most important thing and now it’s growth and now it’s something else. And like, how, how, how consistent do you need to be with, with the goal that they have?

Marianne: I think you can switch even full organizations focus surprisingly rapidly, [00:28:45] but it, Boils a lot down to the highest level of leadership communication. So you’re not going to be able to shift focus by making a statement in a leadership team meeting as a CEO and then expecting that to [00:29:00] be grounded across the board.

Marianne: If you need to really do a U turn, let’s call it that. Many companies had to in the last few years, right? Everybody was growth focused during COVID. And then last few years, EBITDA, uh, profitability has become much more important for a lot of [00:29:15] teams. Um, and if you want that ship to do a U turn fast, you really need to do as a CEO, like an all hands with a very clear messaging followed up by this and this and that kind of a call and that kind of a message to the entire [00:29:30] organization.

Marianne: And you end up feeling like, uh, what would be a good, uh, Good reference, a parrot, you repeat yourself a lot of times, but that’s the only way to, to get the message through. But if you do that, I think you can change [00:29:45] course quite rapidly in a situation where need be, um, but probably part of your question was also more about like, not so drastic changes, but a bit more like fine tuning the focus and within a smaller team or so.

Marianne: And it is true. Like [00:30:00] if you have shifting priorities that come, let’s call, call it a product team that has a roadmap and the roadmap is first committed for six months and then stuff starts coming in and we need to do this and that. And then suddenly you realize that everything we said we would do, we didn’t do it.

Marianne: All [00:30:15] this random stuff appeared throughout the year. Very common frustration. Um, and, uh, what I’ve seen to help in those situations for a company, at least our size, is that you just need to. Have a few different layers to your [00:30:30] planning or focus that you have those. Well, the 70, 20, 10 framework, again, that 70 percent of the stuff should be just core stuff you’re working on and not really negotiable.

Marianne: Sometimes maybe some priorities need to be renegotiated, but as a starting [00:30:45] point, those 70 you would keep as they are, but then maybe 30 percent of your team’s focus is stuff that, okay, now the company says that this is the new thing instead of that. Let’s like put that part of our resourcing then available for for a change.

Marianne: So that way you kind of keep the [00:31:00] Foundational improvements happening all the time and you’re not just running around like Headless chicken.

Josua: Got it. Okay. So that kind of covers the, the messaging part. Then there’s another part of, of switching focus, which is, has to do with incentives. And like the worst case, in my [00:31:15] opinion, when you see is, is when you have people’s bonuses tied to a specific metric, um, and then the world shifts, let’s say from growth to EBITDA and um, you tell them, Hey, now let’s focus on EBITDA, but all the people’s, um, bonuses are tied to something else.

Josua: Guess what they’re [00:31:30] going to do. They’re going to, they’re going to use, do what most people do. So how do you think about that at Volt? without going necessarily into specifics, but just how do you create a structure where people are actually incentivized to be flexible and change as the needs of the company changes?

Marianne: Yeah, that’s a [00:31:45] great question. Throughout our history, the main method for doing that has been incentivizing people through stock options or restriction, restricted stock units. So basically tying people’s incentives to the, how [00:32:00] is the company overall doing? And That really helps because then whatever is the most important thing for the company overall is directly linked to how are people compensated as well.

Marianne: Um, that turned out to be a good thing for the very early [00:32:15] like stock option program, um, who joined Walt early and still remains for the full time employees at DoorDash.

Josua: Yeah. Okay. Uh, um, so getting to the, the, this kind of second takeaway that I had from the Frank Slootman [00:32:30] article, like all of this sounds.

Josua: Reasonably simple to do, but it also sounds exhausting. Like you have to challenge people. You have to tell them no, you have to question assumptions and so on and so forth. So, um, how do you do it without [00:32:45] getting just emotionally drained?

Marianne: Yeah, that’s a great question. In a way, the reality as a leader is that you, you just have to do it.

Marianne: [00:33:00] Some things are harder than others. Some people enjoy that more than others. And also, not everybody is made to be a leader. Not everybody wants to be a leader and that’s fully okay. Um, is also kind of a fair recognition or [00:33:15] like being cognizant about that. Um, but as in anything, I think rehearsal and practice helps a lot.

Marianne: So, by just doing things more and more often,

Josua: Yeah.

Marianne: Asking for a team to do something by [00:33:30] Monday instead of Fridays and really you don’t have to consciously think about it It’s it’s like riding a bike Initially you have to consciously think how do I not fall?

Josua: But

Marianne: then when you learn how to run a bike or ride a bike you [00:33:45] just ride a bike and you can think about other things So I think in some parts it’s also that that the more you do it the more it comes naturally You’re just like And what stops us making the decision today, even not having to conscious to be like, can I [00:34:00] say this now, you just recognize the situations.

Marianne: Um, and then the other part is obviously hiring better people than yourself. Like that’s been one of the best parts for me working at Walt that I mean, I’ve never built. This is the biggest company I’ve ever worked for. Probably also the biggest [00:34:15] company for many other people here. Um, but what’s. I’m speaking kind of brought me where I am, has and have been the people I’ve gotten lucky enough to work with.

Marianne: And had we not had those people who are actually much better than I [00:34:30] am in many of the areas that we operate in, um, we wouldn’t be here. So that’s one of the most important jobs for any leader to realize that you will be much more successful by hiring better people than you [00:34:45] are, and raising the bar or putting the bar to what kind of talent you want to bring in to the organization really high.

Josua: Oh, yeah, I think, I think that makes a lot of sense when it comes to the fact that you do learn these things, they become kind of second nature. [00:35:00] And ultimately, I mean, it’s just your job. So it’s there’s no point in really thinking too much about it, you just have to do it. One thing you said that resonated with me 100 percent was that you find that solving business problems is like stimulating and [00:35:15] energizing.

Josua: and solving people problems inside the company, the business, uh, can be really draining. Um, I thought, first of all, that was interesting because my kind of perception has always been that to be a really good operations person, you, especially, I mean, in a business that’s very heavily [00:35:30] people focused, you need to love dealing with people problems and solving conflict and creating alignment and all those things.

Josua: Um, but it sounds like that’s not really exactly what Gets you, uh, gets you the most kind of, it’s not the, the, the part of the job that [00:35:45] you look most forward to. So how do you kind of, um, yeah, how do you deal with that?

Marianne: Yeah. I think can you,

Josua: can you learn that to, to love that kind of Yeah. I think any

Marianne: leader to some extent needs to enjoy working with people.

Marianne: At least I get most of [00:36:00] my energy from the people I get to work with and their solutions to problems and, and everything. So 95% of the time. Or maybe 99 percent of the time, it’s super energizing to get to work with, um, get to work with the great people, uh, we have. [00:36:15] I think what I refer to or meant to, uh, meant by that comment, Was that, um, there’s a first for every leader.

Marianne: There’s the first feedback chat you need to have. There’s the first resignation. When someone comes to [00:36:30] say that I’m going to go somewhere else, there’s the first mental health problem or burnout. And then there’s the first time you need to terminate an employment contract. And I think whenever you’re in that first situation as a leader for the first time, I don’t know [00:36:45] anybody who would not have been afraid or who would not have been stressed about it.

Marianne: Cause you’re in, in that situation for the first time. And it’s a very usually come emotional situation combined with, you know, you realize that it’s, it’s about a [00:37:00] person. Uh, you don’t want to, you know, you don’t want to fail. Um, and again, here practice helps. Like nowadays I love having annual feedback chats.

Josua: Yeah.

Marianne: Um, I don’t really. I take them very seriously, but I don’t negatively stress about [00:37:15] them. They’re usually some of the best chats I have every year. Um, where we actually take time with the people and spend, not just 30 minutes catching up on all, all stuff ongoing, but go quite deep into what people want and what’s broken and what’s not broken.

Marianne: So I [00:37:30] think you can also learn a lot. This is nobody’s ready as a leader. Yeah. I just like, born leader. Um, you can have certain characteristics that help. But, um, This is again, an area where practice makes things a lot easier.

Josua: I think it was, uh, Ben [00:37:45] Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz who said that like a lot of the things that make for a great manager are really counterintuitive.

Josua: And like, nobody knows how to run a good one on one you’re not born during like knowing that. Um, so how did you, how did you learn this stuff? Because you went from in your own words, like [00:38:00] not being a great big leader, necessarily just a few years ago to now being CEO of this company that has thousands of thousands of employees, which is, which is Very rapid kind of, you’ve gone through multiple, multiple steps on, on that kind of like, um, journey towards, uh, becoming [00:38:15] a big, big, big leader.

Josua: Um, so obviously from listening to you, like one of the things you’ve done is just like, Trying and doing things, taking risks and learning on the job. But is there anything that kind of stands out as, as methods [00:38:30] or ways or resources that you’ve used to, um, be able to go on this massive or very rapid journey?

Marianne: If I start from people, um, I think it’s a combination of one, just firstly being attracted to [00:38:45] work in a place where I have a lot of people I look up to. So initially when joining Walt, I already saw that. There’s a lot of people smarter than I am and there’s some very something really exciting here So I saw and knew that and then took that as a learning opportunity [00:39:00] and I think that also Says that or implicitly at least says that Taking feedback and very rapidly, not just taking feedback, but changing your actions accordingly, um, is part of that equation.

Marianne: And it’s not [00:39:15] always feedback that comes in a form that somebody sits down. It’s like, Marianne, I’ve been thinking I would want you to operate this way, but rather you just realize it through a conversation that. This is what I or our team or the company should do better and then just being proactive and picking up the ball [00:39:30] and like, let me do it.

Marianne: Um, and then the second part is really what I mentioned earlier about getting people who are better than yourself. So, I mean, there’s been a lot of problems, I haven’t built or solved myself. We’ve found better people who’ve seen it elsewhere and been [00:39:45] like, okay, wow. We knew this was a problem, but I never imagined we could solve it this way.

Marianne: Like, thank God for these amazing individuals who figured it out. Um, and then obviously I can take some of that also then to other parts of my day to day work or the organization. [00:40:00] Um, but it’s really been finding the right people and having the different backgrounds being kind of combined into finding the world way of, of operating.

Marianne: Um, and then, yeah, obviously I’ve throughout the years read books, you referred to Ben Horowitz, [00:40:15] fantastic book, uh, hard thing about hard things, hard things, hard thing about hard things, uh, very, like very good book for an early lifetime team leader, uh, recommended to a lot of people. Um. But then [00:40:30] you also realize that you just have to kind of get yourself into the situation that you can read as and listen to Podcasts or books as as long as you want, but ultimately learning by doing is what matters and What I’ve [00:40:45] also learned is that humility helps a lot going into situations with Zero ego and just kind of being like I’m here for the company and you You Let me help figure the situation out and when you try to extract yourself from the [00:41:00] situation Not just from like what are your wants but also telling to people that hey, I like I have zero Personal interest my personal interest is solving the situation You get people easily kind of on your side and help solve the situation [00:41:15]

Josua: Okay, that’s a good, I guess, like you said, I mean, there’s no substitute for actually doing the, the work.

Josua: Yeah, unfortunately, um, a couple of notes, questions about operational excellence. Still, you’ve mentioned [00:41:30] in a previous podcast that when you were acquired by DoorDash, was that in 2010? 2022. Yeah.

Marianne: We announced it 21 and then it closed summer 22,

Josua: 2022. And before that there was like a few things that you felt as well, like we are really world class at [00:41:45] this.

Josua: And then as a part of the, um, acquisition, you got to kind of, I guess, plug into the, the DoorDash way of working and you discovered like new levels to this thing. So I’d be really curious to kind of hear about, uh, maybe if you have any practical [00:42:00] examples of like things that you’ve just like open. Um, new levels essentially that you’ve discovered to performance.

Josua: That’s

Marianne: very much true. Um, so what, if I would have to generalize first, this thing that I [00:42:15] was most impressed by and still am is even with the size of the business. So Nordash is the market leader in the U S has 60 something percent market share, um, in our industry. How. [00:42:30] intense you can be in leading the day to day operations, because someone could say that that big of a company, you become slow and corporate and politics and all that.

Marianne: But then when you look at the very day to day on how decisions are made, how do you keep up the [00:42:45] velocity we talked about, even at that scale, and yet go into such a level of detail has been super impressive to me. And a few concrete examples of both how that’s done. And then where kind of we were at, especially.

Marianne: Behind or [00:43:00] where we’ve been able to learn a lot, um, would be one, there’s a very clear weekly cycle that that organization nowadays we, uh, breathe and it’s a weekly cadence. Basically it’s [00:43:15] how we review our business performance on a weekly basis. What happens on Monday? What happens on Tuesday? What happens on Wednesday?

Marianne: What happens on Thursday? And what that, Rigorous cadence helps with even if someone could from the outside say that and even my initial reaction was like a lot of docs [00:43:30] need To be rotated around a lot of meetings and like where is this all leading to when you have a lot of people? having enough frequency in certain things Helps both push the organization to operate at a certain cadence because [00:43:45] basically, you know, all right, we have this thing on Tuesday I want to have the answer for the problem in that call.

Marianne: Cause I’m going to be asked about it or, Hey, we need more funding for this and this and thing. There’s anyways, that thing every Thursday. [00:44:00] Let me take this there and we’re going to be able to solve our funding problem for this thing already Day after tomorrow So then when you have these certain cadences that are always happening that Gives the entire organization kind of the mental model of how do you operate and how do we keep [00:44:15] moving on fast?

Marianne: So you don’t need to every week think all right now we’re Off to this next problem. We have who are the right people to kind of bring on board and align Um, but that cadence kind of forces the the organization to be [00:44:30] aligned and operate at the same cadence. And then another example of an area where we saw a lot of opportunity would be how impressively deep, uh, the team in the U S had gone when it comes to our merchant partners.

Marianne: So the restaurants, [00:44:45] the retailers that are on a platform like ours, um, and we’ve been able to learn a lot from them in thinking, how do you, for example, forecast sales. Of a certain merchant that would come on the platform Actually, [00:45:00] if you today go to doordash’s website for merchants The first thing you see there is after entering a few details about your restaurant It gives you a number

Josua: of

Marianne: this is the expected.

Marianne: This is the range of sales We can expect that a merchant [00:45:15] like you would get on the platform and let’s call it that we were very far Doing that at the time of uh the acquisition and uh, we’ve been obviously ramping up since

Josua: Okay. Well, and to that point, I mean, from knowing people who work in the restaurant industry, um, I think, [00:45:30] I mean, even before that, your analytics was head and shoulders, I think about some of the competition, uh, feedback from like people I know.

Josua: So, um, you were doing a really operating at a very high level and still found, found room to grow, uh, or to, to kind of level up. [00:45:45] But, um, question about the cadence. Is that something that you, a company needs to be at a certain size before it makes sense to kind of really formalize? formalize it that way or?

Marianne: I think all sorts of organizations need some sort of a [00:46:00] cadence, but let’s call it that the size of your team and the business you have does determine a lot, like just what makes sense. Um, as a concrete example, uh, when I joined [00:46:15] Walt, we used to have weekly meetings for the entire company where we would go through business results and so on.

Marianne: Yeah. We were a hundred people then we started already noticing that this doesn’t necessarily make sense because there’s a lot of people to whom It’s not relevant to [00:46:30] hear No, what were the Danish sales last week for a Latvian salespeople, right? So then you need to start dissecting a bit more of like, okay, what makes sense for these certain people to, uh, to be in because to the point of focus, you [00:46:45] need to clear things off from people’s plates so that they have time to focus on what actually matters.

Marianne: Um, and I think that’s a never ending problem to solve that I feel like at least every 12 months, we still have to, we’re not [00:47:00] changing the core principles, but we’re amending quite a bit how our different forums work at what cadence and who’s participating and so on to fit that stage of our growth journey.

Josua: Yeah. And I mean, I mean, this may be obvious, but it sounds, [00:47:15] um, it sounds like when you’re working at a high growth company, you can expect major organizational changes quite frequently. And some people hate that others thrive on it. And Um, yeah, I mean, you just got to know what you’re getting signing up for.[00:47:30]

Marianne: Definitely. That’s the truth. I mean, we try to do a lot of that expectations management already when hiring that this is truly an organization where the only constant is change. So don’t expect that, you know, your [00:47:45] team or even your manager is going to be the same two years from now, because it’s just, you know, Not likely if you join a company that’s a hundred people in two years from now, it’s a thousand people.

Marianne: It’s quite likely that a few change changes happen along the way.

Josua: For sure. Uh, I do have to ask about hiring cause you mentioned so many times that [00:48:00] working with, uh, people that are smarter than you, how do you, um, I mean, Walt has increased its employee base hugely in a very short time. I think you’ve, I’m guessing you’ve, Hire to tons of people yourself.

Josua: Um, any way, any practices, [00:48:15] any tips, trick, tricks, secrets that you use to kind of weed out the people who have that kind of potential to want to be one percent better each day, who want to get on board with all the organizational changes and, and um, are receptive to get feedback and [00:48:30] give feedback in return.

Josua: Like what do you, what do you look for? Anything that’s kind of like non standard.

Marianne: Yes, great question and after rehearsing still, you know, you’re never a hundred percent a hundred percent of the times things go right but um [00:48:45] for us the fundamental principles in hiring have been Since I joined, um, at least a combination of one, us being quite clear on what we stand for as a team.

Marianne: What are our values? Uh, and those are many of the things you just listed us. [00:49:00] Willingness to learn and teach others, having heart or humility, having the right attitude and so on. And if you don’t have those listed down, you’re already in trouble. So that’s the starting point. Do write down your company or your team’s values and [00:49:15] then figure out a way how you want to test it.

Marianne: Against those values for us, the ways we’ve tested for those values have been through, well, as a starting point, especially when you’re a small and even nowadays, [00:49:30] especially when you go to new countries, people don’t know what Walt is in Finland. Probably. Yeah. But when we enter a new country, let’s call it, we entered

Josua: Luxembourg

Marianne: fairly recently.

Marianne: People in Luxembourg haven’t heard of Walt. We’re a hyperlocal service. [00:49:45] So just opening a job ad and fingers crossed the best people apply doesn’t work. So what you have to do, you go after the best people. Usually the best people are already busy with something else. So you go hunting talent, LinkedIn, or use local [00:50:00] agencies, whatever is your company’s way to go, reach out to those people who have the likeliest similar profile.

Marianne: And then the early, Parts of hiring for us is a lot of sales. Getting people excited about the opportunity. And [00:50:15] only once you know that the people have gotten excited about the opportunity, you start testing against those values. And obviously also the job scope itself. And to me, that the one way of doing [00:50:30] that, where I’ve To me, the best filter is by having them do something that’s very close to the job itself.

Marianne: And for us, it means that, for example, a general manager of a country would put together a business plan for the country. What would I do in [00:50:45] this role in the next 12 months to grow the business as profitable, profitably as I can?

Josua: Yeah.

Marianne: For a salesperson, it would probably be a combination of how I would sell Walt and what would be my lead list and how I would nurture the accounts and so on.

Marianne: And through [00:51:00] that, you get. Actually quite a many of those values when you do it the right way, tested, because then you’ll see if they, if they deliver a work that’s off the quality you expect with the timeline, that’s somewhat compressed that you would expect your people to operate with. [00:51:15] Um, and then more through like situational questions in the later parts of the, uh, hiring process, you can go into situations like, Hey, in the past, when there’s been a lot of change in the organization, how have they reacted or behaved and what kind

Josua: of,

Marianne: Proactive [00:51:30] ownership.

Marianne: Have they, for example, taken in such a situation, um, and, uh, finding characteristics that meet our expectations.

Josua: Um, I’m guessing that these assignments can be pretty big. Like it’s not just 20 minutes, a couple of questions. [00:51:45] Like, no, I mean, uh,

Marianne: uh, general manager putting it together and business plan for a country.

Marianne: I’ve seen decks that are 40, 60 slides long. People spend a week, like full working week doing it.

Josua: Okay. Is that kind of, are the assignments [00:52:00] mandatory for all types of roles or is it like specific, do you like, do you use it? Is it a kind of non-negotiable In the recruit recruitment process, it’s pretty

Marianne: much a non-negotiable, but obviously they are adapted to the, uh, job [00:52:15] scope you’re joining us for.

Marianne: So let’s call it customer support. our customer support associates are not doing a 40 page presentation about customer support. But what they’re rather doing is, Hey, this is an customer support situation that [00:52:30] could happen. What’s your intuition? What would be your intuitive answer? Like, well, how would you treat the customer in this?

Marianne: So it doesn’t always have to be something you take home and work on for a long time, but more like, well, if in the work you’re expected to react right away in [00:52:45] a way or Let’s call it at least not in a certain way.

Josua: Yeah,

Marianne: we can test that also on the go.

Josua: Yeah I think it was really interesting what you said about the kind of proactive finding of talent And it surprises me how many companies, small [00:53:00] companies, um, or maybe even bigger ones that are very passive.

Josua: Like you put out an ad and then you kind of cross your fingers and people don’t realize you could get LinkedIn, like the recruitment or sales tools, less than a hundred euros per month. And the CEO himself herself could [00:53:15] go, it’s super easy to find people. Like there’s, you can filter and you can find people and then just send a message and Hey, like you want to grab a cup of coffee.

Josua: Um, I’m, I’m really surprised that people don’t treat that as like. The most important thing, which it actually is like,

Marianne: I spent [00:53:30] in my first year at Walt expanding to new countries. I think third of my time. Went into being a recruiter. So not just like being an interview, but literally writing LinkedIn messages, scheduling calls, going to [00:53:45] cafes and all that.

Marianne: So

Josua: yeah,

Marianne: just like chase people.

Josua: I think that’s safe to say that most managers don’t do that. Like you ask them, like, what’s the most important thing people, of course. And then like, how do you look at the calendar? Like how much are you spending on finding new talent? And it’s like [00:54:00] maybe 5 percent or something like that.

Josua: Maybe not even. So. Yeah, I guess that was a really big key to,

Marianne: yeah, for sure. And obviously it has changed a bit now, given my role. I’m not just directly hiring so many people. I have my [00:54:15] team more or less in place,

Josua: but

Marianne: even regardless of that, I’m helping a lot of different parts of our organization, for example, by doing bar raisers.

Marianne: So the last final round interviews, I have multiple of those every week.

Josua: A question about the bar racers, cause that’s like an Amazonian kind of [00:54:30] thing. And, um, I’ve, I’ve. I understand the concept, but I was always a little bit skeptical, not to the concept, but whether it’s actually being applied because, you know, the team has gone through all this work with this candidate.

Josua: They feel great about the candidate and, and I think it takes a lot to come in at [00:54:45] the end and be like, Nope. So do you kind of, do you enforce that?

Marianne: I think having the bar raiser, what we’ve learned has two mechanisms of work. And I would say the more important mechanism of working is not actually the [00:55:00] bar raiser, last round interviewer, interviewer going and saying that I’m not so sure about this candidate, but just the fact that the hiring team knows that there’s the last step coming and they need to hold themselves accountable, that the bar needs to be high enough that [00:55:15] already Creates a bit different kind of a filter.

Marianne: Um, so that that at least is half of the job Either way of the bar raiser interview that it raises the bar for the entire process Um, but then on top of that I don’t have exact [00:55:30] stats on this but I would say that probably every 10 to 15 of the final rounds don’t go through. Okay, so I mean to me at least personally that’s roughly my like rate of of [00:55:45] success

Josua: Okay.

Josua: I think that that was higher than expected, but I feel like that’s probably a very good, like, you don’t want it to be zero percent. You don’t want it to be a hundred

Marianne: if it’s even a 50 or like, yeah, something’s wrong with the process, the filtering, because we want most of these people to go through.

Josua: But that’s an interesting [00:56:00] observation that it raises the bar for the process.

Josua: And I think it also sets the expectation for the candidate, like, Oh, I’m actually being in the CEO is taking time to talk to me because they really care about talent. So that’s a kind of a really positive. Yeah.

Marianne: And I think it’s [00:56:15] also some of the leaders have learned to use the final step. Cause the more senior people you hire, I think the more complex the decision making also becomes.

Marianne: Cause you rarely be are in any more in a situation where like all the things check out perfectly. And you’re like, kind of [00:56:30] like, do I take. Do I accept that this party wasn’t as strong as we originally thought or that thing isn’t that strong and it’s not so much Oftentimes i’m going into those calls not so much of like this is the person we want to hire Let’s go but more [00:56:45] like they passed the the the steps on the way but What do you think?

Marianne: A bit more, a bit more like uncertainty than they even flag it. Um, so then you also go into the call a bit differently and, uh, that’s actually what I found also to, to [00:57:00] me, what I really want to hear is I want to see what the team thought beforehand. I also know people who don’t want to like know anything about what the team thought about the candidate or individual ahead.

Marianne: But for me, I’ve learned that to me, it’s more helpful to know like, what are the strengths and the weaknesses that we [00:57:15] spotted? And what are the things that the hiring team is. Contemplating on because then I’ll focus only on the things that they’re contemplating on and

Josua: yeah, you

Marianne: know sometimes come back saying I think your worries were Correct or I’m maligned and maybe we shouldn’t hire or then [00:57:30] They just didn’t have time enough time in the process to go deeper into the things that they outlined to me as questions And then I’ll come back saying I asked about them and I’m at least confident that Um, they shouldn’t be a problem.

Josua: Okay. Yeah, that was a good, good expansion. I think, good justification for [00:57:45] using the Bar Razor as part of the recruitment process. Um, I could ask you tons and tons of more questions for hours and hours but maybe we can do a, uh, a follow up at some point later in the future. But, uh, so final question for you.

Josua: Um, is there any initiative at [00:58:00] Vault currently ongoing that you um, are personally very excited about, like a product feature or, yeah, Anything going on that people should know about?

Marianne: Hmm. I think the thing many have [00:58:15] already learned, um, but still vast majority hasn’t necessarily properly internalized is that is the overall transition that we’re making from being a an app where you can get restaurant food delivered to truly being a shopping mall [00:58:30] in your pocket.

Marianne: And how we’re expanding to all categories. And by opening the app, you can, honestly, we can get almost anything you want. Obviously on that journey, we’re not there yet. We haven’t built everything. Um, [00:58:45] but, uh, the journey is super exciting. And, uh, I recommend people to next time when you’re like, damn, I need this, go and check if we have it.

Marianne: Cause like, Quite often nowadays, we, we do have it in our selection. If we don’t, some of our partners might [00:59:00] have on their own website. A kind of personal example that I love on this was, uh, my partner was going to Switzerland for a skiing trip last spring. And 10 o’clock in the evening, he realizes that you have different electric sockets in [00:59:15] Switzerland.

Marianne: We don’t have Swiss adapters. I’m like, well, that’s not a problem. Let’s just order them home from verkokauppa. com. Um, we go there, order a few different adapters, Select Walt delivery or express delivery through Walt, um, in [00:59:30] 30 minutes. And then before 11 PM, we have that actors at home and everything goes smoothly with the travel next day.

Josua: I think that’s like a perfect way to end it because it highlights operational excellence to me. The fact that you can do that, [00:59:45] um, like would have been unthinkable. I think just a few years ago. It used to be really slow and, and, and I mean, you couldn’t, you literally could not get it, get it, uh, uh, done.

Josua: And now you can click a button and get it done. And I think that’s pretty, that speaks to the quality that you guys are, [01:00:00] uh, operating at. So, uh, Marane, thank you so much for, for coming on and, uh, wish you all the best of luck with everything you got going on. You and the team at Vault and this big journey from going from restaurant to like everything app essentially.

Josua: [01:00:15] Um, it’s going to be really interesting to follow. Your journey and success.

Marianne: Thanks all for having me.