Slides from Natalie Nagele, CEO, Wildbit's talk at Business of Software Conference 2017 about keeping perspective in your business life. For updates on future events and to be notified when the talks are published online: http://businessofsoftware.org/updates/

1. Natalie Nagele
CEO of Wildbit
@natalienagele
Keeping the Fun in
Your Business Life

2. 16 100,000+ 27
YEARS IN
BUSINESS
COMPANIES LOVING
OUR PRODUCTS
FAMILY MEMBERS
IN 5 COUNTRIES

3. A development workflow you use, not
manage
A fast & reliable transactional-only email
platform for web applications
A complete workflow to write,
review & deploy code.
Instantly build and ship code anywhere in one
consistent process for your entire team.
In
Beta!

4. 1. Happy
2. Profitable
3. Growing
4. Bootstrapped
5. Having a LOT of fun
We are:

6. 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Beanstalk Growth

7. 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Beanstalk Growth

8. Growth happened to us

9. Don’t just copy what others do (duh!)

10. We had no purpose except to grow

12. Photo by Medena Rosa via Unsplash

13. 1 Why did you start your business?

14. Photo by averie woodard via Unsplash
Why did we start Wildbit?
• Financial security
• Control our future
• Prove we can do it
• Have fun!

15. Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov via Unsplash

16. Why are you running your business?

17. The bigger you become, the farther away you
drift from why you started in the first place.

18. 2 The Beast

19. The Beast is the business itself

20. Image credit:
Google

21. What do I need?
What does the team need?
–You
What does the business need?
–The Beast

22. Photo by Evan Dennis on Unsplash

23. But, the business isn’t real

24. What is real?
• You
• Your team
• Your customer
• Your community

25. What is real?
• You
• Your team
• Your customer
• Your community

27. Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash
What’s real? The people

28. 3 Your Team

29. Happy team = $$$$

31. Focus on your team first.
Then they can focus on your customer .

32. We exist for our team

33. Team is committed to each other ,
not a product

34. 3.1 Team - Intentional Culture

35. Cyprus Retreat
2007

36. Culture sometimes happens to you

37. Does your culture leave others behind?

38. Photo by Matt Popovich via Unsplash

41. –Wikipedia
Organizational culture encompasses values and
behaviors that contribute to the unique social and
psychological environment of an organization.
“
”

42. Image BenKrantz.com

43. Photograph by Officesnapshops.com

44. Photograph by glassdoor.uk

45. Photograph by Yucatar

46. You need to make sure you have healthy
values if you want to build a company
focused on the people that build it.

47. Why do people have a job?
1. Success or purpose in their professional life
2. Enable a life outside of work (we work for our hobbies)

48. Work to live vs. live to work

49. Tie your values to those simple principles.

50. Wildbit is product agnostic. We exist to
support our team.
As individuals, we are self motivated and
constantly improving our craft.
As a team, we support each other to do
the work of our lives.
We expect great things from ourselves.
You should expect the same from
everyone else.
We are driven by one metric: our
customer’s success.
Be respectful, natural and transparent in
communication.
Most things are not urgent. Be patient,
stay calm, go home.
The best work happens in peace and
quiet (or when you are not around a
computer).
Be practical. The best decisions consider
time, resources and mutual acceptance.
Don’t be an asshole.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

51. Wildbit is product agnostic.
We exist for our team.
1

52. Don’t be an asshole10

53. Policies back up values

54. 1. Flexible working hours
2. Profit sharing
3. Competitive salaries
4. Private offices
5. Best benefits we can afford
Policies like:

55. What work fulfills the team?

56. If we built Beanstalk today ,
what would it look like?

58. 4 The founders

59. Lifestyle Business

60. Lifestyle Business
Unicorn

61. Lifestyle Business
Unicorn
Regular Business

62. Businesses are not built for martyrdom

63. Growing to sell

64. Photo by Alice Pasqual via Unsplash

65. Growing to keep

67. Take care of yourself so you have
incentive to keep going

68. 5 Grow! Grow! Grow!

69. Grow with intention

70. It’s ok to exit, too

71. Photo by Andrew Neel via Unsplash

73. 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Postmark Growth

76. –Seth Godin
Don’t grow unless it brings you joy.“ ”

77. You can do it.6

78. Consciously and explicitly make
choices for yourself and your team.

79. Quit serving the business
and serve the people

81. The business serves you

82. Natalie Nagele
CEO of Wildbit
@natalienagele
wildbit.com