Building Trust and Credibility - Andrew Burton - commercetools - Episode #56

You could have the best marketing message or the best product or, you know, great investors. But if you can't put it all together and deliver it out to the market and out to your customers and serve a need, you know, you're not gonna get very far.

Welcome to Not Another CEO podcast. I'm your host, David Politis. Every week we talk to inspiring leaders and get the true stories, the ups and downs, the lessons learned, and come away with actionable advice for our own journeys.

Today's guest is a seasoned technology executive with more than 25 years of experience building and scaling high growth tech companies. Before joining Commerce Tools, he spent nearly a decade at Rapid7 where he helped grow ARR from 150 million to to over 800 million as President and COO. He also has served and is serving as an advisor and board member to several companies all the way from very early stage to public companies. In July 2024, he became CEO of Commerce Tools, the leading composable commerce platform used by global brands like audi, Sephora and AT&T. Since then, the company has continued its momentum. They're now over 150 million in ARR. They were recently recognized as a leader in the Gartner magic quadrant for digital commerce. A space that is growing like crazy. Please welcome CEO of Commerce Tools, Andrew Burton.

Hi David. Thanks for having me.

Good to see you. It's been many years, but thank you for doing this with me. Yeah, you saw me in that in my old shitty office.

Down on Broadway in New York. That was where we first met. That was many years ago. Okay, first question right out of the gates, what is the one thing that you've done at Commerce Tools, big or small, that's had the biggest impact and you'll absolutely do again if you're CEO of another company in the future.

I think the, the one thing, and probably the most important thing that I've seen, not just at Commerce Tools, but also earlier in my career, is going out and talking directly to customers and putting the customer in that customer perspective, front and center for the company and for the team. And so I think that's been the one thing is going out, meeting with customers, talking with customers, understanding and walking in their shoes is really the, I think most important aspect.

And so let's use Commerce Tools. You just joined there last year, last summer. And how quickly did you go do that?

Yeah, I did it very quickly. So you can imagine as a new CEO, one of the first things I did is I went around and met the team. Right. And that's critical. And that, I think is once the first step that any CEO would do is want to meet the team and begin to get to know the team and the people in the business. But as you're meeting with people and as you're getting to know the business, the question becomes quickly is what is the mission or what is the purpose that you want everybody really galvanized around and as the. The leaders in digital commerce and really shaping this future of digital commerce, it inherently requires you to also intimately, not just cursory, but intimately know and appreciate what is everybody working to do and what is the mission we're all on as a team. And so as I think about culture, team, people, impact, you know, it's customer followed by team followed by individual. Right? And I think working in that order is really important. So, yes, absolutely, David. My first week, you know, was the announcements, meeting with the team, you know, doing all hands, you know, the Q and A's, the ask me anythings, Those are essential. And I went across from Munich to Berlin to London to the States, you know, fly around. And that's, that's, that's what I call is critical, but it's not sufficient. You got to do more than that. And you really got to make sure you step into understanding what are we all here to do? And we're all here at commerce. Here is do is help our customers really shape that future of commerce. And so that's why, that's why I put customer at the center.

Hmm. Now, when you.

When you go to these customers and you go spend time with them, how much time are you spending? Are you meeting each of them for, you know, an hour? Are you doing it one on one? Are you like, what does that look like?

Yes and yes. So I'll actually share a couple of things. So I look at any opportunity to chat with a customer or partner, but a customer really first is a great opportunity. So if a customer can give me five minutes or it can give me 50 minutes or more. Absolutely. And so generally, my approach with, when I, when I meet with a customer is I want to step back. And as I mentioned earlier, you want to. You want to think about walking in their shoes. So what I generally start out with, you know, whether I know them or not, I'd say, hey, it's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for your time. The obvious points, but then you want to ask them, can you share with me what, you know, what do you. What are your top challenges? Or what are you trying to do? What's your program? What's your, you know, what's your team focused on? What are some of your challenges? But it starts with asking them. And I find a lot over the years, and even not just as a CEO, but early in my career, this really core ingredient of go out, get out of the building, get outside the team and go talk to a customer. And not just one, but you've got to really do discovery. Any good sales leader, any good product leader, any good marketing person, anybody that's really, I would argue successful in that in their space is going to know or have an appreciation for at the core, the customer. And so I start out, my first question is always tell me about yourself, tell me about your challenges, tell me about your business. You know, give me a sense of what's going on. Two is then I, then I like to talk about what are the key things for you of how do you measure success? How do you think about so what's your challenge? And then how do you think about success? Again, I haven't entered into the equation yet. Right. And this is a pretty simple framework I would argue anybody could use. It's not complex. You know, I'm a simple person. I like simple approaches. Is then you can introduce after that and you, you, you've kind of earned the right or, or the opportunity now because you understand them, you understand their challenges and you understand a little bit of how they think about success or progress. Then you can say, well how do you think about how we can be part of that or opportunities? And you're still doing. I'm not telling. I'm listening. And what I found like e commerce tools was future of commerce. Digital commerce is really important to most of these leading brands of the world. Two is they're measuring success by things like going multichannel, going multi brand, going multi region. You know, so they talk about these, these opportunities and then they say, well if you can help me and really I, or you guys really helped me get into, you know, different markets, different segments, you know, being able to do this quicker and faster and better. Great. Now I'm able to then help them understand their success and I'm able to map our success and our efforts to them. Right. So it starts with I think this simple, you know, and it's probably, I'm sure David, you, you've, you've heard this over the years with, you know, the power of why, but it starts at it with them. Don't, don't show up and just start telling somebody, show up with curiosity and show up with a general interest in the customer. And their, their, their, their challenges and the opportunity that they have. And then you can always, you know, work from there.

Everything you just said, I mean, I, I obviously, I agree with it. I think when you, the one thing you said in there that seems obvious when you've done it many times, but I think it was really important is how do they measure success? I remember really early in my career, I was sitting with a person I was working with and who had more, much more experience than me. We were in a meeting and they were watching me operate. And they said at the end, they said you never asked them, you not one time asked them, how do they measure success? Or what are they going to get a promotion for? Or what are they going to, you know, and, and as soon as he said that, it all really like that one thing, it's so simple, but then it click. And when you understand that, you can now navigate the rest of the conversation like in a completely different way. Yeah.

And the measures of success, to your point, you'll be surprised or I've been surprised. What people will tell you, if you're curious. And empathy is also one of those things, you're empathetic. But like you said, some people would talk about, well, my measure, my success is me. And you're like, okay, that's different than, hey, the success. We measure success through our team or financial results or something else. Right. So, but again, it's, it's, it's walking in their shoes. And that requires empathy and understanding. But like you said, when I asked the question about how do you measure, you know, your success, it is really about then understanding. Like you said, that key element of here's an opportunity, but it also sets, let's call, you know, milestones or guardrails for how to think about their success and how you might be a part of it.

Now from that, now you've met these customers, you've gone around, you met the team. What do you do with the information that you just collected from all those, those conversations? Like, is that go to the whole company? Does that go to your exec team? Like, what do you do with that?

So, so I'm a, I'm a big believer in, in playing as, as, as one team. Right. In different parts of an organization. Again, maybe in sales or marketing or R and D or finance or operations, what the case may be, what I, what part of what I do is also as you're collecting all this information, you want to also look for where there are inconsistencies and where, where are things consistent and similar. Right. And what I sometimes find is especially, you know, it depends on stage. Let me back up, David. Depending on if, if, you know, you and I both have been in early stage startups, where in your startup, well then you're working with a lot of blank sheets of paper, right? You're doing things for the first time. If you're at scale, you know, and let's say hundreds of millions of, of ARR. Well then a lot of times you're also looking at where, if things become, you know, where are things not aligned or inconsistent with the mission or the purpose. Right. So one of the first things I did was not just collect the information but begin to actually test it and say, okay, is this consistent or is this inconsistent or are things either directly or indirectly in opposition to one another? Right. And so, you know, obviously it's not just regurgitating out what you've heard, but trying to think about how you can add value around, okay, are we all clear on our purpose? And one of the things I like to start with is obviously mission and, mission and purpose, but I like to think about what, what are we all here to do and is that something that we're all aligned on? And sometimes, especially as a new CEO or as a new leader, you need to spend that time really getting to know people and not, not just asking the eyes, but really building the relationship, building the trust and building, you know, that, that, that environment where people feel comfortable not just sharing, let's say, the things that may be more obvious or more direct, but a lot of times it's, it's creating a space where people will naturally share with you things that maybe are a little more uncomfortable or maybe there's conflict or maybe there's tension. So that first round is really about setting the landscape so that then you can then spend more time in the different areas and try to really get into and really pull back and look for those areas. Now that, that for me would be different as a new CEO of an at scale company versus doing a, let's say going into a startup, let's call it. Right, right. So it's situational. I think it's situationally being situationally aware and being situational in your approach. In this example, I think you begin to look at, okay, we're an at scale company. There's a, there's a lot of opportunity in the market, almost too much opportunity. Right? So you're, you there, there's, there's, there's opportunity everywhere. And so you say, okay, are we focused on the Right. Opportunity. You know, things like, you know, the ideal customer profile. You know, do we all understand the core, our differentiated position? Do we all have the right motivations, do we have the right teaming, you know, that kind of thing? But you're, you're still looking for consistent or inconsistent patterns to be able to then start shaping it. And that does require communication. But it's, I just want to, I just want to make sure it's clear that it's not just you go around, meet everybody, meet a few customers, then you start telling the world, you know, what the new vision is. You got to really test and be comfortable with, with kind of proving it and validating it.

So one, one of the things Andrew, you mentioned there, which I, I, I, I have like three different things I want to key in on. So one of the things that you said was.

You know, the icp and, and I would like to dig into that a little bit in terms of, like, when you join this company, it's already, you know, at scale, but you're coming in as a new CEO and you're going and having all of these conversations and you're meeting with the team and you're understanding all this stuff that's happening. Did you have to do a revision on, on that ideal customer profile?

I would say.

So. Again, situationally, the situational context is really important here. So as you said, at scale, in a big market where there's a lot of opportunity for, for us, for example, we have a, you know, a commerce platform that allows you to really have a ton of flexibility and be able to embed commerce experiences into any point of customer interaction or any point of your ecosystem, right? So there's, there's this really powerful platform that allows you to do a lot of things, ton of flexibility, and we, we have an opportunity to apply it in lots of different parts of the market. So when you're faced with something that's a broad platform, right. That is very powerful and gives a ton of benefit to potential customers, you are naturally faced with, well, there's lots of people we could, could go do business with. And so the icp, I would say there was a shaping and a refocusing on. Sometimes folks will describe an icp, and I often look for there's obvious parts of an icp, size of company, oftentimes by revenue or employee count or certain attributes that, you know, you could, you could go look in a CRM system and you'd probably find lots of things. Right. Fair. What oftentimes is overlooked is what is the core Pain and the core differentiated position that you can take to solve that pain for this profile that begins to, as you start to, you know, naturally people, I think expand ICPS to be bigger than they. You know, it's just a nature, oh, our market's this big, like maybe. But if you look at the ICP and you say okay, there's a, there's a, there's a customer there, they have again going back to what are, where, how do they think about their opportunities and what are their challenges and how they measure success. You then begin to unpack at the core how are we uniquely positioned to solve that better than any of the other providers. So for example, you mentioned the, the, the, the I'll use the Gartner magic quadrant which we're a leader in. And when you look at the, the, the quadrant you will see some other companies, right? And you say well wait a minute for this icp, why us versus one of the others, right? And I find a lot of people talk about their ICP and they're like look, this is the thing. And, and I say well why, why is this IP icp? Because it's ideal. Ideal means for you, why are you uniquely positioned to serve it? And for us we're the most open platform that gives enterprise class customers the power of commerce in any shape or size or experience they need, right? So the open platform. So now if I go back and look at that, you know, that magic quantity and I say okay, look at these companies and I say who else has taken this philosophy of creating an open model, an open platform, one that inherently is built for a cloud, native, AI driven, you know, multi channel commerce experience. We're really the only player there. Now there's some big names in there, but they've taken, you know, either more legacy approaches, their technology might be built or has been built to serve a different design use case or they might be serving more mid market or broad market type of customers. But for me the ICP of enterprise class means a customer that has a need, really a demand to have flexible commerce solutions that evolve with them over time. Therefore our commerce platform empowers that. And therefore our ICP is naturally people that are enterprise class commerce, right? And so the ICP I find that a lot of folks miss is, is they draw an ICP that then they say well I'm like, well couldn't that be their icp? And okay, I'm like, you know, you and I probably see it like this huge market, we're going to win the market. I'm like, well, if the market's that big, you're not the only one in it. And so why is this one ideal for you versus, you know, competitor?

I like that a lot. I like that, I like that. One of the, one of the questions, you know, you came in as CEO, you weren't the founder of the company, of course, and you came into a global company with I think over a thousand employees, right.

It was, it was, it was more around, you know, 5, 600.

5 600. So, so.

How do you not as the founder, you know, get, come in and get the buy in from the team? You know, I have not been in that situation, but I'm curious, you know, how did you do that?

Yeah, well one, frankly, I have the benefit of a long career working with founders and I believe really deeply that the power of founders and the insight, the founder insight and what founders do and have done for their companies is just amazing. And I think I've worked with a pretty amazing mix of founders over the years and I work today with some amazing founders. And Dirk, our founder CEO, when he and I met a couple years ago, you know, one of the first things I spent was time getting to know him for and we get, and you're really helping him being an advisor, being someone that we would get together and talk about the business, talk about things like you and I are talking about. And so one, I think you inherently, in my opinion, you know, I value and appreciate founders and I think there's actually magic in what founders believe bring to tech companies. Right. And I think there's other people out there that would probably support that as well. Right. In the benefit of founders. And so it starts there first as an extension of that. It also starts with an appreciation for you're walking into a situation that is well underway. Right. Especially at scale. Right. And so you have to walk in and appreciate that, you know.

There is a going concern that has opportunities and challenges and you've got to appreciate what the team has done, you got to appreciate the founders have done. You got to appreciate what the current leadership team is doing. And you know, I find sometimes people step in an environment and to your point, how do you build credibility? Well, you got to build understanding and trust. Right. To start with. Right. So if I, if I show up and I'm curious and I'm, I'm genuinely interested in learning about the business and understanding what people have done or what the challenges have been, then you can begin to really and that create that environment of trust, then you can begin to really build Credibility and have the trust that now you're being a part of versus coming in. And now, obviously it's situational. Are you in a turnaround? Are you in a, you know, for us, we are continuing to scale and go to what's next. You know, obviously, if you step into something where, you know, it's a, you know, if it were a company in duress or you were in a turnaround or retrenchment, you know, totally different things. So again, situation matters. I think for us, it was a growing, healthy company in a big market with a unique technology advantage and just incredible customers. Right. That are, we're able to solve real business pain for. And so if I look at that, I'd say, okay, then that's different than if you stepped into something that was different.

So that's interesting. So you actually knew him for a while, like that relationship was. I mean, just by math, that's like a year before you joined, essentially you had some relationship.

Yeah, exactly. And it started out with, as you can imagine, a connection through investors, through a community, you know, is one of the things as a CEO, it's a lonely job. Right. So a lot of people say is anytime you have an opportunity to meet with other leaders, other CEOs, other people and, you know, investors, you know, people that have, that have gone through similar experiences, you're always looking to, you know, as a mentor. Used to, used to tell me is you, you always look for more people in the cabinet, right. When you, when you have a question or need help, someone you can, you can kind of go talk to. And so with Dirk, you know, I, yeah, I think it was about two years prior we first met, talked about the business, where he was going, and, you know, it was, it was, it was purely networking and building a relationship. And then over time we talked, you know, more and more. And then that led to, hey, maybe, maybe this would be a good thing that we, we could do together.

I think that makes a huge difference because I think the trust there, because it's a, you know, it's someone giving you their baby, basically.

Exactly. Yeah. No, it, it is like a baby. I mean, a founders, I mean, you know, they're, you know, you, you've given me know you've created something and it's now growing and building and you want it to be healthy and you want it to realize its full potential. So I, I, you know, as a, as a, as a child or as a, as a baby, if you will. I mean, you know, maybe that's similar, but you're like you want to see that realize its fullest potential.

When you think about as you've come in and, and you've started to meet the people, meet the team, meet, you know, understand the industry, meet the customers. Where have you, where what changes or initiatives, new initiatives have you put in place that you feel have actually made the biggest impact? You know, I know you said going and speaking with customers, but after that, like, what is the. What is, what are those things?

Yeah. So I think the first and the obvious one is, is, is shaping and reshaping or crispening up the icp. Right, right. That starts with customer. Right. And say, okay, who are we ultimately here to make successful and provide value to? Right. And so it starts with first, you know, getting out there and really reshaping and making sure we're all aligned on that icp. Right. And I think we made some, we refined it. Right. I think we definitely narrowed it. I remember one of the first sessions that I think I led with our team was a, was a discussion and really reached. Refocused around this is the icp. In my opinion, those things aren't fixed. You continue to make sure that's your North Star. But I think that was one of the first things and, and one of the important things to. There is to say is what we're not going to do, right. We're not going to this. This part of the market. So, for example, the SMB, right? That's an obvious one. You say, okay, well, the SMB is not in our, in our icp. And you know, there's lots of people out there. If you just need something simple and easy that doesn't really need to be very flexible. Sure. There's lots of options in the market. Our superpower is, is, is a flexible solution that changes with you as time goes by, Right. That'll meet your needs and not just today, but in the future. Right. So that means there's a certain ICP that doesn't meet. So that's, that's 1, 2 is you. Then you got to look at a couple of things. You got to look at what's the health of the culture and the team. I think in our case, very strong, right? Very strong culture, very strong team. People that are committed and passionate about what we do. Right. So. So that's, that's again, I think a benefit we have. Right. So, but I think you got to, you got to look at culture and team, you know, almost immediately. And in our case, they have very good, very good situation. Just personally for, for me and I think it's testament to our team and our leadership and Dirk and everything they've been doing. Then behind that I say, okay, we've got a great team, we've got a great culture. Do we have the right measures and milestones that we're all managing to. Right. And that's where you begin to see where I think it was. Are we playing as one team or do you have multiple smaller teams playing for their definition of success? And that was where, and I think this is the ongoing role is like, are we all on board with why we're here and the customer, you know, the solutions we're trying to solve for, are we, do we have a good team environment? Do we have a good culture? But then are we all measuring success in the same way and are we all kind of working in the same direction? I think in, in naturally when there's hyper growth, people are just growing quite quickly and it can become a common dynamic where when you look at well, how do you measure success, you go from customer to team and sometimes teams will have measures that are inside the four walls which aren't necessarily a bad thing. But then you got to map, you got to map those back to okay, well how does that support the customer?

Right.

And sometimes as teams get bigger. Not sometimes I would argue as teams get bigger, you get multiple levels and layers of different, you know, management. You have different functional groups. And begin. You want to make sure everyone has a clear sense of okay, here's how they can contribute to the mission and, and our shared purpose, if you will.

Yeah, that makes sense. I want to ask one specific thing there. So when you talk about getting focused on those measures of success, do you use an OKR system? Do you use what, what do you use for that?

Yeah, I, we, we had, I again I was, I was lucky. And credit to our team and the leadership team that was here. And, and, and that's, that's, that's continue to do the great work is we had an OKR system in place. We call them our priorities and measures. But, but it's what are our priorities and then what are our measures against those priorities? So some companies I've been at or even like my startup, for example, we had to put that in place from scratch and there wasn't something. But we did have that in place. Again, that's testament to our team and testament to Dirk.

So you still use that same system. You just basically looked at what was in that system.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And here's a good example. The part that I Love is the measures of, you know, I would find, I have found over the years.

I have yet to meet a team that says we have too much time, too many resources, or, you know, or we have, you know, generally there's a ton of opportunity, but they literally will say, you know, yeah, you know, I've got more work than we have time. And, you know, I'm trying to figure out what to prioritize. And so with the right measures, you begin to really have a conversation about impact. And what I find sometimes is people use measures of activity versus measures of impact. And let me give you an example. So if I came to you and said, okay, well, as a measure, he said, well, we've got to make sure these legal agreements are updated. Okay, well, what's the impact of that? You got to map it back to maybe know, deal cycles. You got to map to aren't. You have to get into procurement and red lines, but you got to map it back to what's the impact and last less about what's the activity you're going to get done. Because I find that most teams don't have a shortage of activity. What you want to help them prioritize around is how do you maximize your impact and then do the right work to support that impact.

When you, when you look at, you know, you're going to come. This is the early part of this year, but. And you get to the end of the year and you start planning for, for next year, how do you do that planning?

Yeah, I'll share, David. I'll probably share more broadly. You know. Yes. Is what we do here at Commerce Tools and since I've been here, but I would say I'd probably share maybe for some of the people that might, might, you know, you know, might listen in or looking for broader tips is I think about the balance of an annual planning cycle. Let's assume that fiscal year and annual. Let's assume they're one of the same. Right. So what I find is usually teams are trying to close their year, hit whatever numbers, deliver whatever product or marketing or sales goals they have for the year. So usually teams are focused. I got to get this done by the end of the year. And then you got to open up the new year, right. You got to have a new plan, a new budget. You know, if you're in sales, you got to have your, you know, your comp plans out. You got to have your territories in place. You got to have people ready to go. Right. If, you know. So generally teams are really at the end of a year and the beginning of a new year. You're, you're closing down one annual cycle or you're opening up another. And you've got, you know, a lot of times you also have comp planning and you know, all that other stuff. Right. You know, that goes on and that's a lot to get done and it's a very stressful time of year. So what I generally recommend is in the midpoint of the year, more in the summer timeframe is when you're looking at more strategic planning. It's hard for people to do strategic planning when they're under a lot of stress. Right. So, so, so by decoupling the stress of a fiscal interesting from the strategic plan, you inherently create more space for a discussion. Now the other thing, David, that I, that I've seen has worked really well is what naturally happens when you're at the, let's call it the later part of a second quarter. You've got one quarter of results, you've got a pretty good feel for your second quarter's forecast and where you're going to net out. And you're already thinking about your second half. Right. You're thinking about Q3, Q4. So you're naturally in this place to where you've got a feel for your year. And what naturally, if you're a product leader or let's call it a marketing person, you need to be out ahead of the business.

Right.

You don't want the business running you over. So you need to already be thinking about six months, nine months ahead at least. Right. So in the midpoint of the year, it allows some parts of the business to be able to think natural planning cycles that need to be further out ahead of the business. It allows the executive team to talk about where are you in the current year. But it also is in a, in a, in a time when there's a natural kind of, you know, I'd call it a cadence where you can have more strategic conversations about how to think about not just annual performance but multi year or kind of 1844 month before. So that's how I think about planning. And again that sits within kind of a multi year strategy. So I do want to say like there is an assumption here. You've got a strategy, you've got your planning cycles, then you've got your fiscal year. And then the other last part I would add is I'm a big believer in monthly cadence. Whether your sales cycles are monthly, nine months or more. I still think everything, like running everything on a Monthly cadence, because then you've got 12 iterations, not four. So I do believe in kind of a monthly cadence, even if you're, you know, in enterprise class B, you know, B2B company.

So, so when you say monthly cadence, that's like your all hands and all the reporting and like all of that, or.

Yeah, yeah, there's definitely a monthly communications. Things like an all hands. Absolutely. What I also think about monthly is your operating cadence every month. Like, what are we delivering this month? So if your sales, what new customers are we bringing on board this month? If you're in marketing, what are the marketing programs and campaigns that we've launched this month? Right. If you're in product, what are the monthly deliverables coming out of the product organization? If you're in finance, you've got, you know, monthly closes. If you've got people, what are we hiring? You, you know, like, you can go through each functional group. But I find that if, if, if you do quarterly planning, inherently it's 90 days and you inherently only get 44 of them. Right. So if you, if you, if you really get this monthly cadence, you know, sure. Could you do weekly? Sure you could. And, but, but I think month is a nice.

I got it, I got it. I like that a lot. And I really like the planning. You know, I, this past year I helped like a couple of companies, like three or four companies go through their planning. And of course, it all came at the end of the year here, exactly when they're closing the thing, exactly when they're trying to do the plan for as. Exactly when they have their board meeting. And it really doesn't give you this, it really does not give you that space. It's a, it's a really interesting.

Do you, do you do that off site? I know it's very tactical, but do you do that kind of off site usually when you're doing those kinds of things?

Yeah, it'll, it'll. It, it depends on size and scale of company and where you are. I, I find whether it's off site or generally, yes is the simple answer. You know, off site could be, could be at maybe an investor or board member's office. Could be, you know, a lot. If you have an, A law firm you work with could be like on place to go. I, I find that sometimes companies mix up and leaders mix up. Are we just going to have fun? Which is great, but also are we more to like, are we going to actually get value from an event? So I, so I do try to balance, you Know, creating something that is, you know, a space where you can create relationships and create good. Let's call it team bonding, but also a space where you can go get, you know, get that clarity and the value leaders we need to deliver. So I find going outside the, the, the buildings of or, or the locations of the company is, is, is, is really important. But I want to make sure it's not just, oh, we're just going to, you know, go play golf, right, or something.

Right.

So you've had this pretty imp, I mean, pretty amazing career, you know, and, and now get brought in to be CEO and of the scaling company with amazing products, all of that. Did you deliberately kind of, you know, did you know, like early part of your career? Hey, I'm, I'm trying to make my way to be CEO. You know, was that kind of, or has it just been a series of opportunities and.

Jobs and successes that have led you here?

I, I think it's a mix. I've definitely benefited from working with some tremendous leadership teams and also CEOs. I actually was, was texting earlier with, with one of them that is a few companies ago. And so I've been very fortunate and to have some tremendous CEOs really invest in me and help me. And I tend to, I try to pay it forward to future CEOs. Right. So I would say absolutely. I would say the core, maybe a core threat of my career was the curiosity of what makes the businesses go. Right. If you see, early in my career I was in product and you know, I remember even early on was like people building stuff, you know, like what does the stuff ever get it to the market? Does the stuff get used? Do people pay for it? You know, can you sell it? You know, all those natural questions. And you know, I learned early, early on that you could have the best marketing message or the best product or, you know, know, great investors, but if you can't put it all together and deliver it out to the market and out to your customers and serve a need, you know, you're not going to get very far. And so in some ways I was always interested in, in trying to understand how to help teams be successful. And many instances I was on some of those teams that, that maybe were struggling at the time. And you're like, why are, you know, why are we struggling? You got to get, you got to dig in and figure out why. Right. And I've led sales teams that like to say if sales isn't making money, that it's hard for a company to make Money. So, you know, if you talk to a sales leader or a sales team that's not having success, you know, you start to uncover lots of great insights, right. At the same time, I've been part of product teams that have built things that didn't get used. Right. You know, and you're a little bit like, well, why are we building stuff that isn't being used? Or you know, why are we trying to sell stuff if we, if we're not having success? And it requires a lot of, a lot of this kind of, you know, this innate, I think, importance of understanding and digging to a deeper question of why. And so you could argue that my career of moving into leadership roles was in pursuit of helping teams be successful. And I think my aspiration was not in, you know, I always ask CEOs like, well, why, why do you want to be a CEO? I find this is always an interesting question. And I get, over the years I get everything's deeply personal to the individual of what motivates them. Some of the, you know, some of my, you know, some of the CEOs I've worked with or even CEOs I like to follow. You know, I find that each one of them has a very unique story, but the commonality is a deep passion and motivation for something that drives them. And for me, my passion and motivation is to help teams be successful and really make sure that you're able to kind of unlock the potential of a team and bring a team together. Right. I'm in Boston. As we talked about earlier, David, you know, I think sports analogies are a great one. Can not, can you just win a championship, but can you continue to repeat multi year success over, you know, over time? And I think, you know, a lot of people, you know, struggle to experience success, but those who do, you know, I always find it interesting when you think about it over multiple years. And the core thing for me that's why is when you have a team and you're able to build the right culture, the right team around the right purpose that can serve ups and downs of market changes and shifting customer preferences, things like that.

When you talk about the curiosity, I have found that the leaders that I've hired or worked with over the years who didn't come in as a CEO or whatever, but ended up becoming a CEO later, the curiosity actually is such a curiosity of things that are not exactly in their realm or what they technically own. It really is a mass, like it makes a massive that. And my question for you is how when you're in product or you're in, you know, some other sales. How if you're a leader right now, listening and you're a chief product officer but you know, you want more. Like how do you get more, how do you get into those other areas? Because I don't know, I've been in, I've been in exec meetings where if like the chief product officer starts asking the chief revenue officer, you know, how do you do this? Why does this, you know, I've been in some where that doesn't go.

So well, you know.

Yeah. And you know, so there's a couple of things. One.

The situational aspects are important. Every team and every company has a unique culture. Right. And you rarely, I don't think I've ever met a CEO or someone who came out of company like, oh, tell me about your culture. And they say, oh, it sucked and it didn't work. Usually it's like, usually it's, people are going to tell you possible things. And one of the key questions that I think I asked is what about your culture doesn't work for somebody? And so you have to force the question of what's different. So for example, in your example, well you're like, well, in our culture, if as a leader I would say you're a leader at versus a leader of. Right. And so you're a leader at Commerce Tools versus I'm just leader of sales or I'm the leader of marketing. And what it means is if we're doing, you know, I, I love the difficult thing about difficult things, you know, book.

Yeah.

But if you take the premise of we're doing hard things, we're driving and building a business, we're good, we're shaping this future, we're doing hard things, wouldn't you naturally want a team there to help you be your best and if you take a misstep, be able to support you or do you want everyone just to play their part and not, you know, not to worship? So now to your question. If you're in this environment where you have that culture of what works about our culture or what doesn't work well, there's, I would say, look, if, if you're not open to other executives asking you questions to try to understand how we can be successful together, then this probably isn't the right place for you. Now There are some CEOs that are incredibly successful, world class companies. Maybe they operate that way and that's great. But then we go back to, you know, well, what, what kind of company do you want to be in and what kind of team do you want to be a part of? And so for me, it, it this, this, if you're curious. And, and that's from a. You know, I have seen, David, this example where someone's trying to show how smart they are, that doesn't work either. Right. Like, I think is if you're on the team, you're talented. My assumption is that you're part of this team, you're talented, you should be here because you should. You know, for the most part, getting in the door is, is those are the minimum requirements. So now it becomes how does that team work together? And for, for me, one of the most important aspects is how do you create the space where people are, can be curious, they can help each other explore problems, or if something goes wrong, there are people willing to step in and jump in and help figure it out. And so I would say the CEOs that we talked about earlier, that in my career that I was fortunate to work with, I think there were CEOs that when there was a challenge or when something goes bump in the night, because inevitably, right. You and I know this. Like, things go bump in the, things go wrong in companies. You know, whether you're early or late, there's always something goes unexpected. And my question is when that happens, what happens? When something goes bump in the night, what happens? And those CEOs and think myself is you try to create a space where people are able to lean in, jump in and help. And that creates opportunity. And I remember saying from years ago, One of the CEOs told me, he's like, andrew, there's opportunity and chaos. I was like, really?

And as he explained it to me, he goes, yeah, because when things are going, or when things are difficult or going awry, that's when people can step forward and help each other and help the team move forward. And that's where leadership and opportunity creates itself. Right. So I, I kind of think of that as one of my guiding principles.

I like that. In terms of you, you've now said a couple of times, you know, you kind of, you had this.

You know, you have these other CEOs you've worked with and you, you know, kind of the, the advisors that you've been to other people, but people have been to you.

Was there one or two people or like, were there one or two people that really stand out, you know, as those mentors, as those, those people who've given you those shots and have helped you along with, in your career?

Absolutely. And you know, I think early in my career I, you know, I'm trying not to name specific people just out of fairness to them, but you kind of guess who they are if you look through my, you know, LinkedIn or whatnot. So I think one is there, there are, there are the CEOs that ultimately are. Want to recognize the team, the importance of the team and having the right people on the team and realize that they have the ultimate responsibility for ensuring the right team and the right culture. Right. I mean, there's very, very few decisions a CEO can directly control. But think about setting the setting, the setting the strategy set culture and making sure that the right team are on the bus. And so I think, you know, they've all shared and even people that maybe I worked with that are now CEOs, they're not, by the way. They're not always David CEOs that were CEOs at the time. I've got some incredible friends that are, that are now CEOs that we were colleagues or I worked for that they were just, weren't CEOs, but they were tremendous leaders. Right. And so I also, I don't just equate it to just the CEOs at the time. I equate it to people that maybe have become CEOs or become C level executives that I've been able to learn from not just when we work together, but, you know, after, after working together. And so one of them, one of them is a CEO of a leading west coast, you know, company. And he, I worked for him and he was a CEO and I was a CEO. But I tell you, working for him was tremendous. Uh, and I learned a lot. And one of the things I learned is I'm not him and he's not me. And we, we each gotta be a little unique. And so he does crazy stuff. He's, he's incredibly engaging. But I also realized that's him, that's his style. And I've gotta, so I've picked a little bit from each, everyone and there's been some I've learned from that, maybe things I wouldn't do. And I'm like, all right, that's, that's fine, that's. But I think it's ultimately about what, realize what works for you and what, what is part of your style. Right.

One of the things you said there is that, you know, the CEO does have an impact on who gets brought in and that, that is a decision. You know, what, what is the number one attribute you look for in people that you hire.

I, I, I look for curiosity. You know, we talked about earlier that growth mindset. I, I think early in my career I didn't know what it was called and then I came across the growth mindset, you know, work that, that had been done. And yeah, I think that was the biggest thing I look for. I think unfortunately, I think our industry over indexes on people who've done it versus you know, people who can. Right. And I think it's not to say there's a lot of, lot of success people have, that's great. But when you, there's very few people that can replicate success. Right. There's people that might be part of a franchise or a market opportunity or part of a team, but if you shift the market, shift the team or shift the franchise, you know, they'll struggle. And so I always think about the commonality for me is people that have success in different markets or different, with different teams. And I think that often goes to that growth mindset.

And how do you find that? How do you look for that? Like in an interview?

Yeah, I think one, I mean there's, there's a ton of research out there, scenario based interviewing, you know, get talking to people about how they approach it, situational cases. But I think the commonality is do you look for someone that says as what they did or did they have the answer versus how they worked the problem?

And yes, there's people that are logical thinkers. Great. But I like to look for people that.

You find where there's this natural ability to share how they approached it or this if they walk in, I find this sometimes in sales. Where do they have their playbook and do they just run the playbook? And I'm like a playbook's important but you have to tailor and adjust it to the right environment. And so sometimes or a product person might say, hey, this is exactly how we're going to operate. I'm like maybe, but maybe not. Let's but like if you go in it with a fixed mindset, you're never going to find out if there's a better way of working as well. And you may have the best plays in the world and those plays may be great. And I think there are some world class sales method methodologies of world class product models that people use. Absolutely. But you still have to apply, apply them and tailor them to your organization.

And you know, in all the interviews I've done so far, I think I've done 50 of these. No one has actually said that thing about the playbook. So explicitly. And I think that's important just to focus on because I, early in my career, I actually felt like the people with the playbook were the people that you wanted to hire. You know, again, if I think back in my early part of my career, I was like, they would show up with the actual play, like, yeah, like a sales leader. And like, this is the playbook. I'm like, this is great. The person knows exactly how to do it. But, but to your point, I think every sales leader, if they've been a sales leader, they have a playbook.

Yeah.

But it's not, it's not that they have it, it's that they understand that how that is relevant to whatever market, company, team, everything is.

Now I, I would say I don't want to be misinterpreted because sometime I have, I have had people come back and say, wait a minute, like, can you talk to me more about this? Or they try. So I'm a sailor, I love sailing. Right. So what I would say is if you're on a sailboat, especially if you're racing, everybody's got to have a role and you got to know how to do your, do your job right. But you're operating as a team. But ultimately you're also navigating the constantly shifting and changing nature of the weather, the water, and how to then still win. And you've got other competitors out there. And so the beautiful part about sailing is it's not a fixed field with fixed positions and fixed dynamics. Everything's always changing. Right. And so the best sailors in the world are able to adapt and still have a set of skills and experiences, but they're able to work together as a team to navigate constantly changing environment. And what I find is take, take some of these playbooks. If people apply them without situational context or they try to, you know, I think sales methodologies are pretty straightforward. But if you need to think about like, okay, well, what kind of sales model are you running? Is it a high velocity, you know, PLG model or is it an enterprise model? And does it, you know, and you need to tailor and adjust to the situations you're in. And then, you know, let's say there's certain deal cycles or sizes that you're going to manage. Products coming up, being a single product company versus a multi product company, being a pro, a platform company versus, you know, just a standalone offering, you know, there's different approaches. The fundamentals I think are important. So looking for people who appreciate and have experience. Absolutely. I'm not saying don't look for people with experience or people with good judgment. But the best part about experience and judgment is you can then apply it to an environment where there's a lot of unknowns. Because you and I remember you and I first met, right? You were building your company and you know, I was building a different company. And you know, I think we could, hopefully we'd both agree that it was a. You know, those are very unique times when you're doing that, and those are much different than they are today. And. But it's. It's just this changing nature of what we do, right?

Where fast forward three years, it's 2028. Where is commerce Tools?

I mean, the simple answer, I'd say we've realized our potential, right. I think the thing that excites me about commerce tools and I think if we look at our customers, the nature of digital commerce is under massive shifting, transformative, you know, dynamics that. I think if Commerce Tools realizes its potential, we're able to help customers not just kind of embrace that, but really help power that next generation of commerce. Right. And so I think it's a huge company, but more importantly, and I think we've got a great team, but more importantly, we're really driving some incredible customer successes. And I think the market is there. I mean, I equate it somewhat to the emergence of the cloud or the emergence of AI. When you talk to people that are doing digital Commerce, whether they're B2B or B2C or D2, any of these different commercial models, and you ask them, is your world speeding up and getting more complex or is it getting simpler and easier? And most people say no. It's like we got more channels, we got increasing customer demands. We're having, you know, agentic commerce has come out. It's become a big thing. We got all, you know, we got all these different channels of commerce. And I think the realizing our potential for us, the market opportunity is substantial. The potential to realize that is where I'm focused, is can we realize our full potential? I think if we're able to do that, I think you've got a tent pole company that has really created great customer outcomes and created some great, some great benefits for our team and for our partners in the community around us.

Awesome. So let me just quickly, I want to transition a little bit to your background. Where are you from originally?

I'm from the Seattle area originally.

And did you, if we go back like childhood, did you have leadership? You know, whether it's in sports or Something like, was that something that comes naturally to you?

It's, it's funny. I, I, I joke with my, I have two daughters. I joke with them that my wife and I joke about that when we grew up. Maybe it was a, Was it Gen X is your, your parents told you to get out of the house and not come back till, you know, till mid, till the sun went down, right? Till, till it was nighttime, right? And you were like, it was kind of like you went out all day. You were, you were, you kind of, you know, hung out with the other kids. And there wasn't a lot of structure, but there was a lot of just entertaining yourself. I have three other siblings, so I'm the youngest of four. And, you know, I think our, you know, in our family, it was a lot of, you know, a little bit of we joke. You kind of raised by wolves, right? You know, you're like, you know, your siblings raised you. Your parents were like, yeah, they were working and they were like, look, you know, don't, don't come back till the sun's down. Then, you know, Then, you know, you were kind of left to figure it out. So maybe that was a Gen X thing. But I, I think those are kind of some of the formative experiences.

Do you, like when you, when you think about again, what, like, really, like, deep down, what, what, what really drives you?

Yeah, I mean, you could say there's various things about birth order people talk about, but I, I think when you're, when you grow up the youngest of four and, you know, and your, your siblings raise you, I mean, you're definitely the one trying to keep up, right? You're definitely the youngest of four. Right. So I think when you think about that, you know, what drives me is like, you know, I have this, I think, insatiable appetite to trying to figure out, you know, what, what is the potential or how to really help people or help myself. I'd say I've never done that was one of the core values in a previous company. And I remember when I came across it, I was like, yeah, that really resonates with me, this idea of never done. And I think that, you know, you could equate it to my upbringing, but you could also equate it to my career. Like, is, I would like to think it's a, it's, it's unique, you know, people that someone that's been in product, been in sales and marketing, been in different leadership roles, been a CEO, you know, president of company Small and Large. I think this idea I've never done for me is what I never done.

The birth order is very real that I think that's not a real thing.

I've heard people claim it is.

Had some, someone who used to work with me, like told me you got to read this birth order book. And I didn't read the whole thing. But like when you start and you know, if they're boys, girls that you know what place and it's pretty spot on. Like when you, when you think about the people that you, that you know that are in those places, like and this person was, this person was youngest of five and very similar, like kind of never done there and the chasing. I don't know. I, I think for sure my. I've got two boys and definitely the younger one has. I can see that, that mindset. Yeah.

Well, I got to read about it, David, because I haven't, I haven't read the book but I've heard people say it. I mean I know what it's about but, but I haven't wrote.

I think that's definitely part of it. Let me one question I ask everyone who has families, you know, who's been super successful, you know, especially earlier in your career, you know, do you feel like there is work, life balance? Do you feel like that's possible as you're trying to build, as you're trying to. Especially when you're in like earlier stage companies and you're, you know, you're trying to build your career. Like, did you have that?

Yeah, I, I would, you know, I would love to say yes, but I would say.

You know, it shifted and changed throughout my career. I think like anyone else, you know, you know, my, my, both my daughters are older and you know, you know, we've, we've raised them and you know, I like to think we did a reasonable job, but, you know, sure. Would you. You know I think I've read a lot of things about people later in their life even like was it Bill Gates recently was talking about this as well. Like the Microsoft parking lot. I think that he would monitor. Right. So you know, and, and now he think, you know, I think is one of his commitments. But speeches or where, where he's referenced this as well is like looking back on things. Hindsight's 20 20. Right. And sure. Like anybody can look back and say good. Yeah. Could I have done things differently? Could have spent more time here or there. I like to think about it is.

Everybody'S got to figure out what motivates them, what they're passionate about. And work life balance, I think is a proxy for what is your passion, what motivates you, where do you seek satisfaction, where interesting, you know, and what gets you out of bed. So David, I, I gave this talk a couple years ago about, I call it the two feet on the floor problem challenge. So every morning you're going to get out of bed, right? Until you don't, and, and you're going to put your two feet on the floor. And I always say, look, the first question I think most people don't look, look at is what's motivating you? And some people are motivated by family or their religion or, you know, their community. And some people are motivated by, you know, by, you know, power or money or whatever that case may be. Right. And I think everyone's going to ask the question of what motivates you, what are you passionate about? And as you in the journey of life. And not to get too philosophical, I think that shifts over time. Right. When you're in your 20s, I'll tell you, I was a totally different person in my twenties versus where I am today. And so I think work life balance is, is more a question for me about what are you passionate about and what motivates you? And don't underestimate the importance of asking that question regularly. Right. So did I always have the right balance? I would say no, because I was always trying to figure out, you know, what it, what is, what is my, you know, where's my career going to go? Where's my, you know, family, where's my, you know, my personal motivations, right? And those shifted over time. And I think for me it was, it was a recognition that, you know, as, as I, as I go through different parts and as any leader goes through different parts of their journey, I think you gotta think about what it, what's really motivating you. And there, I think there was an old article, an old article. I think it was Drucker, it was no one self. And I remember reading it, I think it was in college and I was like, oh, this really spoke to me because it was like the key is less self awareness and self understanding. And to me, work life balance is just a proxy for, you know, what motivates you, what are you passionate about. And if you're not passionate about something, it's gonna be hard for me to.

Teach you or get you to be passionate about it. Right? So if you're not passionate about being in a startup, it's hard for me to tell you to get you passionate about Being in a startup, right, you're not about being in sales. It's gonna be hard for me to try to convince you to be in sales, right, or run those kind of things.

All right, last question. What is one thing, you know, knowing everything you know today, your entire career, everything. The one thing you would go back and tell yourself at the very beginning of your career, the one piece of advice you go back and give yourself?

Yeah, I, I would say.

Even though I talked about being open, being curious, I would say sometimes I, I'm not, I, historically was definitely not the most patient person. And I think I've, I've tried to learn better patients as I've gotten older and more experienced. But I think early in my career I was like, you know, I think sometimes people and I had this, is like you had this. I, I gotta, I gotta get to that next thing. I gotta, you know, I think sometimes be a little more patient and opportunity presents itself in really, you know, unique ways and different places. And so sometimes if you're, if you, if you're so focused on what's next, you may miss the opportunities in front of you or you don't fully appreciate the, you know, opportunities that could present themselves. And so, you know, I, I, I, it's not to say there's, there's, there's just something. I think sometimes people are too focused on what's next versus well, there might be opportunity here and you, you should just, you know, spend a little more time thinking about what opportunities might be around you versus just how do you get to the next one.

If people want to get in touch with you, I know you're very busy, but let's say people want to get in touch with you. What, what is the best channel for them to do that? Is it LinkedIn or email or.

Yeah, LinkedIn. I, I try to keep, stay up on the LinkedIn messages. It's hard with kind of the random.

I hate LinkedIn messages, actually. I hate it. I always, I always read it, never respond. Like, I did get you on LinkedIn messages, which I was very excited about.

But the problem, I, I, you know, I used to give emails and, and text our mobiles or whatever, right. I find now it's just overwhelmed with a bunch of noise. Like with LinkedIn messages, I find it key because then you can look at, you can look at, you know, who it is, might be reaching out. You know, I think it's fairly straightforward. If someone's spamming and you know, who it is versus a, a random email or a random text you're like, oh, who is this person? The LinkedIn. I agree with you. LinkedIn messenger is tough, but it has all the benefits of LinkedIn around it. Right?

Awesome. Andrew, thank you. I really appreciate you doing this. And you said a couple of things here that really.

You said them in a way. I think that that makes it really easy to understand and, and, and act on. So I appreciate you doing this.

Yeah, thank you. And it was great to catch up and I look forward to talking again. David, we'll talk soon.

Awesome. Thank you everyone. Hope you enjoyed and I will see you for the next episode of Not Another CEO Podcast.

Welcome to Not Another CEO Podcast. I'm your host, David Politis. Every week we talk to inspiring leaders and get the true stories, the ups and downs, the lessons learned and come away with actionable advice for our own journeys.