Chris Savage, CEO and co-Founder, Wistia, shares how his approach to leadership has evolved as he’s evolved from naïve, startup entrepreneur, to the CEO of an established, profitable business employing over 100 people. Every business goes through a series of seismic shifts as they grow but often, the people in the business don’t realize they are happening until after the fact. Chris will share some of the critical moments in the growth of Wistia where he realized his approach to leadership had to change and how some of those decisions have meant that Wistia isn’t a company he could have imagined it to be 11 years ago. Practical advice that will help you assess your own goals and objectives as well as a few lessons he’s learned from his users that will help you understand your customers better.

1. Hi!

2. Three Mistakes that
Defined Our Business
http://wi.st/threemistakes

3. I was wrong

5. Things I wish I’d known before
scaling from 20 to 100 people

6. You’ve hired the best
Guiding Assumption

7. There is no time to think
Big problems are scarier
Communication gets harder
Scaling Challenges

8. Communication gets harder
Scaling Challenge

9. Communicate:
New goals for the year

11. “When are you going to send
out the finished goals?”

13. If it feels unfinished,
it is unfinished.

14. Challenge:
All of our teams were on
different schedules

15. Communicate:
Try to get all teams on the same
schedule

16. The Operating System

17. Basecamp Summit
Planning
Retros
Form teams
1 week 4 weeks
Execute with your team
Demos to finish so everyone sees
progress

19. “Why are you changing
everything? What the F*&K?”

20. We made the same mistake again!
We got the tone wrong.

21. Mountaineering

22. Basecamp
1 week
Preparing for the next climb:
Monitoring the weather
Reviewing past climbs
Learning from other groups
Letting off steam
Revisit overall processes

23. Summits
4 weeks
Goals for summits:
Laying ropes
Acclimatizing
Rigging ladders
Dropping off oxygen for future climbs
Hike

24. Ed Viesturs
• 1st American to summit all 14, 8,000M peaks
• Saved people in the infamous Everest
season of 1996 (Into Thin Air)
• Once hiked with Chris & Brendan

25. œ

26. Made the communication less serious,
which let people try the operating
system

27. The tone is the message

28. Big problems are scarier
Scaling Challenges

29. As the company grows,
so does the impact of decisions

31. You want the answers
Before you communicate

32. Problem:
Pricing

33. Pricing Testing

34. $25/month
Unlimited videos

35. 0
19
37
56
74
Gross Margin

36. Secretly solve the problem

37. Eureka!

38. We have to raise prices

39. The team hated the solution

40. We formed a
new team to own the
problem.

41. The solved the problem
openly

42. Problem:
Changing how we set strategy

44. Solve big problems openly
Lesson

45. There is no time to think
Scaling Challenges

54. It’s my job to be busy

55. Work Life Unbalanced

56. I forgot that
thinking is work

57. Running a company
is a creative endeavor

58. Solving communication challenges
Making decisions around pricing
Building a more diverse workforce

59. You need to see thinking as real
work

60. Getting free time is hard

62. Being busy is a people problem
not a productivity problem

63. Delegate more
Get better people

64. Hackathons

67. Everyone needs
time to think and create

68. Don’t feel guilty having free time
Lesson

69. Focus on tone
Solve big problems openly
Don’t feel guilty having free
time

70. Thanks!