Every February, people gather to celebrate the Super Bowl, Black History, love, groundhogs and more. But for us, one of the things we look forward to most is gathering alongside 10,000 startups, tech leaders and brands from around the world for two days of inspirational content, education, and networking, spanning 10 stages, 100+ sessions, and social events, at Startup Grind Global.

On February  11-12, the cred team headed down to the historic Fox Theater and Century Cinema in Redwood City to experience one of our favorite events of the year. Successful founders and executives from some of today’s most beloved companies like Rent the Runway, Reddit, Uber, Adobe, Zoom, Plaid, Poshmark and more took to the stage to share how they’re grinding in their spaces, and to provide valuable insights and actionable advice for other startup grinders to apply to their own companies. 

Some of our favorite tips and sessions included:

Data is the strategic advantage:  Heidi Zak, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of ThirdLove, and Jaya Kolhatkar, Chief Data Officer of Hulu, discussed how they’re Curating the Customer Experience at their data-driven businesses. More than 16 million women have taken the ThirdLove fit finder quiz, and they leverage this data to determine the right marketing mix. Hulu leverages 15B events per day to understand what products to make for their customers. Zak and Kolhatkar discussed how both ThirdLove and Hulu put customer privacy first by anonymizing their data, but still offering highly personalized content that customers have almost come to expect. 

The takeaway: Customers tell you what they want from you and understanding them through data is key to your success. To collect data, you need to provide value to your customer by making sure the product is a good fit, but also make the customer journey highly personalized.

It’s important to focus on the people side of a company: Josh Reeves, Founder & CEO of Gusto, talked about humanizing business and building your company for the long term. He shared that what drives Gusto is helping the customer, but you also have to have a sound business model attached—you have to build a product that is differentiated, but if you focus too much on the product you will lose focus of the mission.

Reeves discussed how, during Gusto’s hiring process, they look for motivation alignment—people that care about their mission to help small businesses grow and thrive so that when they arrive on their first day, they are excited to work and share the same motivation. 

His tactical tip: go out and spend time with your teams. Josh personally teaches company mission and values to each employee when they start.

The takeaway:

1. What makes the Gusto community work is that folks don’t view it as a zero-sum game. If you focus on a problem and you ask for help, you’d be surprised at the number of people who would be willing to help

2. Spend time early on your values. Gusto uses them throughout their hiring process so that people feel aligned from the second they join

3. In the context of scaling, invest in the right leaders and people you can trust. He spends the most time on recruiting and team building. 

Always invest in yourself first: Justin Kan, CEO of Atrium, and Mathilde Collin, Co-Founder & CEO of Front, put wellness front and center in their discussion on Leading Your Company Starting With Your Own Well Being. Employee—and Founder—wellness is so crucial to being your best self at work.

Kan shared that you have to make the time—because you’ll always feel better. Always put yourself before other priorities, and just start somewhere, even if it’s for 5 minutes, to help you to build something that becomes habitual. When it comes to leading a company, he references three main principles from The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Klemp as his advice for other leaders:

1. Take 100% responsibility for what happens around you. You need to look around and see what you can do to adapt.

2. Be open and curious. Bring your whole emotional self to work every day.

3. Build an environment where you can address your emotions and find solutions to it that can be more productive.

How do you get employees to come to work every day? Collin believes that employees need to be shown that they can make an impact and need a sense of belonging. They need to know why they are doing what they are doing. It’s important to establish this early on. During an interview process, employers need to understand where people’s genius is, and have honest conversations about strengths and weaknesses. It’s like a relationship, you have to build trust.

The takeaway: “You spend so much time at work, if it’s not making you happy, there is something else out there that will make you happy.”

Create a great product and the rest will follow: Rich Razgaitis, Co-Founder and CEO of FloWater, and Jon Silverman, SVP of Physical Product and Own Brands at Grove Collaborative, talked about how they’re Creating Products that Help Our Planet. 

Their sustainable startups believe in creating great consumer experiences to drive acquisition. They discussed that sustainable brands are up against companies who use propaganda to drive consumer perspectives around plastic packaging or plastic waste, and that to grow in this space you have to have a product that is differentiated and have an impact. Razgaitis and Silverman shared that most progress and momentum to date is because of the consumer's voice, and consumers have been receptive to adopting new products that help our planet. 

The takeaway: The consumer voice really matters.

Build something great: Marco Zappacosta, CEO of Thumbtack, discussed how the company overcame challenging hurdles during their growing pain years. He answered: why does a business that is seeing 80% growth year-over-year press pause? Because they were committed to delivering on Thumbtack’s promise and wanted to do whatever it took to get there, even if it meant rebuilding the entire product.

The takeaway: “You have to be passionate about the problem you're solving, not the solution you're building.”

A few more highlights from the event: 

cred client Annie Scranton, Founder and President of Pace PR,  spoke on How to Successfully Pitch to the Media and Secure Game-Changing Press for your Startup.

In addition to seeing Rich Razgaitis of FloWater on stage, we also loved seeing FloWater on the show floor. Startup Grind partnered with FloWater to provide water refill stations at the event to encourage reduced plastic use and support sustainability efforts. You may have seen these stations at your local airport, music festival or food shop, but if you haven’t tried FloWater yet you’re missing out. (Coming from a very particular water drinker it is the best tasting water, dare I say it—ever.) A win for both humanity and sustainability! 

We love coming to Startup Grind to learn from successful leaders who have tried and true strategies we can apply as we look to grow our own scrappy little startup.

Huge shoutout to the Startup Grind team for always taking such great care of us and our speakers year over year, and working hard to plan a valuable event we look forward to. We appreciate you!

Interested in speaking at events like Startup Grind? Get in touch!