S1414: Building a global business from day 1, with Fred Plais (CEO, platform.sh)

An episode of The Impact Multiplier CEO Podcast

S1414: Building a global business from day 1, with Fred Plais (CEO, platform.sh)

How can you build a business that is genuinely global on day one? How do you set up marketing, sales, delivery, recruitment and operations when your local market is not going to be your largest market, and where you want customers to come from anywhere?

Today Richard speaks with Fred Plais, co-founder and CEO of Platform.sh, a leading, VC funded Platform-as-a-service for building, running, scaling web applications. 

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

  • The critical early decisions that enabled the business to go global from day 1.
  • Why Platform.sh limits employment to only 12 countries, despite being 100% remote.
  • The process innovations that have allowed Platform.sh to successfully operate a remote-first culture.
  • The big mistake Fred made when needing to accelerate profitability... and what happened.

Resources/sources mentioned:

Join Rivendell (https://xquadrant.com/rivendell/), our exponential programme for elite CEOs dedicated to transforming themselves, their businesses, and the world.

Ready for a big leap forward in your own leadership? Elevate your leadership forever with Richard's book "Making time for Strategy: How to be less busy and more successful". Buy your book here: https://xquadrant.com/time/

Watch

More of a video person? No problem.

You can watch this episode and discover more videos on strategy, leadership and purpose over on the Xquadrant YouTube channel.

Transcript

Richard Medcalf
How do you build a business that is genuinely global from day 1? How do you set up marketing, sales, delivery, recruitment and operations when your local market is not going to be your largest market and where you want customers to come from anywhere? That’s what I’d explore today with Fred Plaice who is the co founder and CEO of Platform.sh. It’s a VC funded platform as a service and businesses use it to build, developers use it to build, run, and scale their web applications with ease. So we get into what are the critical early decisions that Fred made to allow the business to go global from day 1, why the business decided to actually be completely virtual way ahead of the COVID pandemic, and yet why they ended up realising that they should only limit employment to about 12 countries in the world despite everyone being just on the other end of a of a video call? What were the process innovations that allowed platform.sh to actually operate a remote first culture? How do you hire? How do you onboard? How do you get people really feeling part of the team where they don’t spend most of their days in the physical presence of their colleagues? Right? It’s a huge question that many businesses are still figuring out. Fred has a lot of helpful, practical insight on that very question. And then finally, what was the big mistake that Fred made when he wanted to accelerate profitability? And what happened when he tried to do his go to strategy? This is a really interesting conversation. Fred’s built an amazing business and he shares very practical tips. So enjoy this conversation with Fred Place. Welcome to the Impact Multiplier CEO podcast.

I’m Richard Metcalfe, founder of xQuadrant, and my mission is to help the world’s top CEOs and entrepreneurs shift from incremental to exponential progress and create a huge positive impact on our world. Now that requires you to reinvent yourself and transform your business. So if you’re ready to play a bigger game than ever before, I invite you to join us and become an Impact Multiplier CEO. Hi, Fred, and welcome to the show.

Fred Plaice
Hello, Richard. Thanks for having me.

Richard Medcalf
Hey. You are very welcome. So, this is gonna be a fun conversation. First of all, we you come from, you you were I think you were born very near to one of my favorite holiday destinations here in France, but I know that you’ve now you now live in in LA. I’m here in Paris, so we’ve kinda swapped over the, at some point, each was in the slightly different country from where we were born. But what’s most important really is what you’ve you’ve been building over the last, I guess, 9 years, which is a really interesting business called platform.sh. And what I’ve I’ve got some really interesting questions I think to ask you around around that, but perhaps why don’t we just start at the beginning? What is platform sh and kind of like, yeah, why did you decide to build it and, like, where is it now?

Fred Plaice
Cool. Yeah. No. Absolutely. Thank you very much for the for for the, you know, welcoming, moments here. The, Platform SH is a cloud application platform, which, you know, we we are solving a problem that, when you’re building an application or we’re building a website, you know, people don’t necessarily realize if they’re not in the industry, but, you know, shipping it to the cloud is nothing easy. It’s it’s not a solved problem. It’s actually the source of plenty of, you know, time spent and time sometimes poorly spent.

It’s actually very time consuming. It’s also tricky. You can make mistakes. You can actually introduce bugs in your software that hits productions and then, bothers all the end users of your application. So it’s a it’s a tricky problem, and what we’ve done with platform message is to solve the the problems. We’ve built a product that makes it intuitive, smooth, and and really efficient as well for for developers to actually find a way to sustainably, you know, write their code, ship it to production without breaking breaking the production side, breaking the production app, without, introducing bugs with, a lot of guardrails, and, you know, finding ways to to make sure that the application is going to run quickly and fast and serve pages quickly for the users. And all of these, you know, these problems are are really solved with platform message. So that’s, that’s a business we’ve we’ve built back in 2015 with my my cofounders, in France, and we made it a, as you said, a global business.

Richard Medcalf
So so so what does it mean for you to be a global business? Let’s just understand what what does that look like for you right now.

Fred Plaice
Yeah. I mean, it’s, yeah. So global business, what I mean by that is we get customers in, I think more than 70 countries, and, and team members in 25. So not exactly global, but, you know, it’s it’s very international for the list. And, you know, we we were born in France. I think the the the revenue in France are approximately 10% of the revenue globally. So, you know, really, really global. We, quite frankly, we’ve been very focused at Western Europe and North America more than the rest of the world.

So when I say global, I’m thinking really Western countries more more more or less here. But, yeah, it’s, you know, it’s it’s been, you know, it’s it’s interesting. It’s an interesting product that was was launched and built through, go to market channels, like, you know, mostly marketing and product led, which, at the end of the day, we’ve got customers in in many, many countries. We’ve got all sort of industries. We’ve got some very large companies. Some of the larger ones as customers, thinking Nestle. I’m thinking BNP. But, you know, we also work for startups.

So it’s actually a very interesting mix of, of customers. We have approximately 7,000 customers today.

Richard Medcalf
Okay. Amazing. Right? So you got all these customers, 10,000 customers in, I think, it’s at 75 countries, your employees across at least 25 countries. And, and as you said, you know, your your home based revenues before you start building in France is is quite a small share of it, at this point, which is very different, right, for many companies who end up having a home market where they get 70% of their revenues. Right? So one of the things that we’ve talked about before getting onto this this call today is around the mindset that you had from day 1, which is we wanna build this as a global business because it’s a global market. Right? Helping people upload to the cloud and run their applications in the cloud is clearly a global problem. It’s gonna be pretty much the same problem in France as it is in in, you know, the USA or in Japan or anywhere else at this point. I guess there might be some differences in which cloud operators people are using, but, yeah, it’s it’s a global market.

And so you’ve had to build your business very specifically to, I guess, find the right talent to support this growth and to find the right customers, independently of where they are. So as you kinda started with your cofounders in Paris, I know you were a little later than, I think, moved to the USA. But when you were first starting, what were the key decisions you actually made, the structural decisions which set you onto this path so successfully?

Fred Plaice
Right. Yeah. No. We we, platform message is a team story. We we started 3 cofounders, the business, back in 2015, as you said in in in Paris. I think the vision we we had for that market was, our users are going to be developers. And what’s very specific about developers today in in in a world we we live in is they all speak and write English very proficiently. They have to, you know, most of the coding, you know, everything is in, is in English.

All the tutorials are in English, I mean, most of them. So, it’s, there’s a lot of fluency in in in that language for for developers in general. For and and second thing, you know, they they it’s a very global market in the sense that, they use tools that are pretty much the same across the globe without, having some local specifications, some local, specializations only only with exceptions. You can also build your software on on the backbone as a of, of of companies like Google and, Microsoft and Azure, which provide the data center that are necessary big cloud solution that are absolutely global as well. So, you know, it makes it actually both both feasible and actually very enviable, to be able to, to scale a business, from day 1 that will, you know, just, like, transcend the the the borders and and be able to actually hit customers anywhere. And, so, you know, with that in mind, we we we made some some, you know, simple, but not necessarily obvious decisions, which for instance, you know, we’re French, but we’re not building a website in French. We’re only focusing on building a website in English. Our support would be a 100% English.

We wouldn’t do phones because phones is is too demanding, so we we decided to actually start with, for for many reasons, but, you know, the the support was actually only with few free tickets and only in English. This has changed over the time, but, you know, these, these were basic decisions that we made to be able to scale a global business. We also made a, a fairly fundamental, and quite frankly, it was not that common at the time, which was let’s also not hire people in a in a in an office, but let’s pick talents where they are, specifically trying to avoid the the the the tech hubs of the of this world. I’m thinking, you know, San Francisco. I’m thinking London. I’m thinking Paris, where, you know, the talents are are have plenty of opportunities, and they’re they’re really expensive. They’re, they’ve, you know, they’ve they’ve they’ve again, you know, it’s they’re hard to get. So we thought, okay.

If we don’t get in into the hubs, we’ll find some some great some still very good talents, you know, we potentially, it’s it’s gonna be more more affordable for us to to acquire them. And, you know, I think that was a big a big surprise to me because, you know, I’ve I had spent potentially 20 years. You you remember that I I I was born in in Brittany, near Saint Malo where you spend your vacation. I actually was, I I’ve spent 20 years in in in Paris, though, from my studies to, my first work experience. And, you know, I couldn’t believe how much, you know, great talents there are outside of those, those hubs. And, you know, we’ve we’ve started that way. We actually managed to find some some amazing people that have decided to, you know, that it’s better for their family to get, you know, a little bit of, of of a garden and, and space and, you know, a cheaper cheaper setup for their for their life and, worth fighting, you know, super smart striving for and and not so much solicited by by companies. We we found some some people that are a little bit late, older than, than most startups.

I think the average age in, in startups scale ups is 25 years old. For us, it’s, 36 years old. So, you know, it’s a decade more, which actually we love the the fact that we get more experienced people. We also it’s probably also because it’s a stage of, their their career where, you know, they’re very autonomous. They they know what to do at work. They’re self driven. And, they’re at the time in their career where it makes sense for them to and and potentially in their family lives also to to, you know, move away from the from the the the crazy lives in in big cities and, and find, you know, find a a different place. So, yeah, you know, short long story short, we decided to hire, talents in, you know, in many places.

We end up now today, we have employees in 28 countries. We, you know, at some point, we were saying we hire everywhere and anywhere. It’s no longer the case. We’ve got restrictions. We’re trying to solidify and and make sure that we we we are actually focusing our our recruitments on, on, I would say, only 12 countries today, just for the sake of

Richard Medcalf
Why why is that? Why why did you decide to focus in?

Fred Plaice
Oh, it’s it’s, you know, for mostly for compliance and legal reasons just to, you know, make sure that we’ve got the right setup in every country, and it’s hard to scale, to scale and and be compliant in every regards while having people in in too many countries. So it’s really for for for that reason. It’s also easier when you want to gather people, which it’s really important to have FaceTime at some point. And if people are in less location, it actually makes it easier for for for them to to regroup. So, you know, that’s a yeah.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Yeah. So let me just pause for a second because it yeah. Fascinating. In fact, I was trying to look multitasking for a second. I was trying to Google, but I can’t find it. The, there’s a phrase from the Art of War by that famous book around, like I think it’s like conquer the countryside first, you know, and then go to the cities or something like that.

Fred Plaice
Really? Okay. Interesting.

Richard Medcalf
And it’s a bit like your approach, right, which was to say, rather than going head on into the tech hubs where talent is, you know, expensive, hard to get, probably not very loyal in some ways, you know, they probably move around quite a lot, kinda go to the countryside. Right? Go to where, there’s perhaps less competition. Right? And and perhaps where you can build a unique, stronghold in some ways.

Fred Plaice
Yeah. No. Absolutely. And, you know, I think we we, again, you know, it’s very common today to to to work as a remote, or to be a remote first company, you know. Remember that the pandemic, you know, just like made it the norm for 2 years. So but but before the pandemic, you know, when we started back in 2015, this was a a very you know, for the best, it was a a, a bold decision that we made for some, and for many, it was just crazy. And, you know, I I met a lot of people that, at the time were telling me that, you know, this was never going to work and never going to scale. And, you know, some VCs passed on us for that very reason saying, you know, yeah, we like the business.

We like the industry. We like the team. We just don’t like the the remote aspect. We don’t think this is the the the the future. And, yeah, I mean, the pandemic then went there, and then everything changed, and it became clear for everybody that actually working from from home is a is a possibility. Now it’s really interesting, you know, because the 5 years I mean, 5 years beef after I was about to say 5 years after the beginning of the pandemic. Is that already already 5 years? I’m not even sure, but, yeah, probably 4. But, you know, years after, it’s very clear that the pandemic has, has driven people to actually work from home, but, you know, also raise a lot of questions on what’s the right way post pandemic.

Do we want to bring people back to the office? Some companies have decided to be extremely, extremely rigid on bringing everybody back. Some have remained, flexible. Some have decided to go for remote. So it’s there’s a mix now, and it’s actually much more common to to see that mix. And I think it makes up for the the the culture of the company is very different if you, you know, made one choice or another one. And building a company, thinking this is the way we want to operate in the long run is really helpful. I think, you know, it makes a huge difference in the the experience you’re giving your your your employees.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Yeah. So, Pat, we’ll come back to that in a second. I just wanna make sure we’ve kinda got some of these key structural decisions. Right? Because what I heard was there’s this, you know, go for English, you know, no phone support, go for the whole virtual approach for your workforce, avoid the tech hubs. What about in terms of, like, actually how you market and, or you go to market? Again, what were the decisions there? Because, obviously, making a global play for customers must be quite different from trying to recruit, you know, the people you know down the road as customers.

Fred Plaice
No. Absolutely. Yeah. What we’ve done is, we’ve decided to actually go, you know, market the doers, market the people that would be using the the platform, which, you know so developers, which which, you know, it’s it’s interesting because you sell, you know, in in our industry, we say you sell free developers, but you don’t sell to developers. Because developers, most of the time, they don’t have the budgets. They have a need. They can make recommendations, but they don’t they don’t sign the the purchase order. Right? And, so, you know, this is the but, you know, we still thought this is we need to win the the the art and souls in a way of of developers to to win on this business.

And, so we’ve we’ve been actually, the the way we’ve been marketing has been very focused on, on on several things. 1st, going to conferences where we could find developers and show them the product first time. So we’ve sponsored 100 and 100, and we still do actually, developer conferences where we, you know, we we show what we how we can help them, how we can support their their their business, how we can actually decrease the stress level of, you know, pushing to production, which, you know, your it’s it’s one one of those things, you know, in this in this job as a developer, when when it’s time to go, live, I mean, when it’s time to push the button to go to production, there’s a huge amount of stress because you may break something big time. And

Richard Medcalf
So I’m interrupting, but I’m I’m curious. Right? So I I get it. You’re like you’re going to these conferences. You’re showing them this thing that’s gonna reduce the stress of that, like, going live and all the the risks associated with that. So did that feel strange? Like, in other words, you say you were selling through them, so you’re kinda trying to win them over in the hope that in a few months’ time, perhaps, they’re gonna ring you up and or somebody’s gonna ring you up and say, we’d like to make this purchase. So it sounds like it might be a little bit stressful building a company knowing that you’re not necessarily going direct, but having to go an indirect route. Am I right? Or were you also doing something else? Or how did that feel?

Fred Plaice
Yes. You’re right. It’s it’s the the thing is going to developers is is our primary focus. It’s not the only one. We only have to we also have to talk to the decision makers and, and make our way to the decision makers. So, you know, once we identify that an account is actually, starting to use the product, I’ve used the free trials. There are several emails coming up from the same company showing that there’s there’s something there, then we are doing our our research and our homework and trying to connect with the, who we think the decision makers are in the in the company. So there’s there’s there’s the second layer that comes in then.

But, you know, the starting point is to to show the product to to developers. They’re the one who really understand the the pain points and and who would be able to to prescribe the product to to their boss, suggesting that there’s plenty of, time savings to to be done. So, you know, to reach out to them, we go to conferences. We we write a lot. You know, we do a lot of, content, blogging and, you know, that sort of stuff. We’re so you know, work on the spend some spend money on, on on on the places where they are to, to get visibility for the for our brand. So, you know, there’s a mix of, of of things we’re doing on the marketing side, which which really aims at reaching out to them and and making our offer compelling to them.

Richard Medcalf
Mhmm. Yeah. I get it. So it’s really, a strategy of getting raised hands. Right? Because what you’re doing is you are getting the users to raise hands and then that has download the trial. And then from that, you get to see, okay, where is there a burst of activity? And then you can come.

Fred Plaice
Right. And as as you really rightfully said, you know, this is, mostly an inbound strategy in a sense that, you know, we’re not so much reaching out. We we we are waiting for people to contact us, which, you know, it’s, which I think is a very scalable, scalable model, but it’s also demanding because you you have to make sure that you you find a way to actually, you know, get get attention from from the the people you’re targeting, which is not always easy.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Absolutely. So great. So now this kind of zoom out. So is there anything else you’d say in terms of these key pillars. Right? So we’ve got, you know, the keys, the early decisions of language, where you’re gonna hire people from, how you’re gonna set up the business, the the kinda go to market model, which is more inbound, right, conference led. Are there any other kind of things you would kind of circle, put your finger on in terms of those key decisions that you made very early on that allowed you to scale globally, or have we kind of got the main

Fred Plaice
Yeah. No. I I no. I think you you you get them right. I think it’s, you know, it’s a couple of decisions on on both the go to market and the way the the the company is structured in terms of, you know, where do we have employees, how do we build the teams. You know, there there’s, we we also, you know, one one one more thing on the team, which for instance, you know, it’s very common to have all your engineering team in the same same place. It’s it’s not the case for us. You know, we we we did the same recipe as, you know, it’s it’s very it’s very common, I would say, and logical for your sales team and your marketing teams to be, you know, locally based and, you know, just, you you get some people in US that actually take care of the US, and you get some people in in in the UK or in France that take care of France.

So that’s actually the obvious way people do it. We do it as well. But, you know, even the the engineering team, and the support teams are distributed across the the globe. For the support team, it it was actually, it was very interesting approach all also because since we get customers everywhere, you know, we we get reached out at any point in time. You know, if you get all your teams supporting your customers in in Europe or in, let’s say, the US or in India, then it’s only one time zone, and you have to set up some, you know, some, rotation between your teams and some people work at night and which it’s it’s a nightmare. It’s actually the best recipe to, you know, to, not keep, customer to not keep employees very long because people can who can actually switch from a night job to a a day job will do it, immediately. We use the time the time zones. We we, you know, we have a team that actually does the operation, starts in Europe, and then, you know, it moves to the US and then moves to Asia Pac.

And so there’s a continuous station of people that are actually leaving, you know, supporting our customers regardless of where the customers are coming from initially, but, you know, during that time zone. So, you know, in the middle of the night of a of an a British customer, it’s likely that, you know, the the answers would come either from the West Coast of the US or from, from APAC, but, you know, with the same understanding of the customer’s problems and and and and the context. So we’ve we’ve organized the team, you know, to have a, you know, follow the certain approach on on support, which was actually very, yeah, very efficient and, which proved great in terms of retaining retaining talent.

Richard Medcalf
I hope you’re enjoying this conversation. This is just a quick interlude to introduce you to 2 transformative programs that we run. The first is Rivendell, my exclusive group of top CEOs who are committed to transforming themselves, their businesses, and the world. It’s an incredible peer group and a deep coaching experience that will push you to new heights no matter how successful you’ve already been. The second is Impact Accelerator, a coaching program for executives who are ready to make a big leap forward in their own leadership. It’s regularly described as life changing, and no other program provides such personal strategic clarity, a measurable shift in stakeholder perceptions, and a world class leadership development environment. Find out about both of these programs at xquadrant.com/services. Now back to the conversation.

So so talk a bit about how you create a I mean, a high performance culture, engaged people, people really like being creative and, you know, not just kind of waiting for calls to happen. So how, yeah, how have you thought you’ve been able to create this, especially perhaps with this dispersed engineering team? Right? So what are the kind of ways you’ve had to innovate how you operate as a business to kind of really create that remote first culture?

Fred Plaice
Yeah. No. Absolutely. I well, first, I think, you know, you you you of course, you need to to to, to be really, really careful on, on recruitments and, and and and find the the the right methods to to identify the right candidates and and and pick them up. I think, you know, starting with, you know, avoiding as many mistakes as we can avoid on recruitment, you know, is where everything starts. You know, if you get the right talent in your team, things are going to work. But, you know, you you have to set up

Richard Medcalf
But what have you learned about that? I mean yeah. I’m like, what what what if like, what’s the what’s that one thing you’ve done in that you know, to kind of really make sure that you do recruit the right people, you know, perhaps even if you can’t see them face to face and whatever.

Fred Plaice
Maybe the first thing we’ve done is actually communicate about the fact that we are a remote first, company, which again in 2015, it was a differentiator. It’s way less now, but, you know, it’s I mean, it’s still kind of his. But he was a very big differentiator by the time. And quite frankly, that worked really well for us. The number of of spontaneous, application we get every year is almost, almost 10,000. Well, you know, we have 3 people on board, and we receive 10,000 resumes a year, which when you think about it, it’s it’s really an amazing ratio. And I think that’s, you know, we we we managed to get, some high visibility on our employer’s brand through talking about remote and how we we are building a a model that is, is remote. So, you know, that that helps a lot because when you get a lot of, you know, people that want to work for you, then the selection is much easier than if you have to reach out and and go after them.

So, I think that’s one of the things that we we’ve done correctly. And then, you know, we’ve also I have some really great talent acquisition that are really good at, you know, making sure that, you know, the the the the the candidates, the applicants that the managers like are going to be a fit from all the other aspects that they may not have thought about beside the ability to do their job, which is, you know, fit to the culture and make sure that, you know, they get the the the recognition to be working from home decently, and they’re not going to be working in, you know, in, for instance, in a in a one apartment 1 room apartment where there’s 3 kids around all day long, you know, lots of stuff. So so making sure that, you know, we we’ve got that, well understood and secured. And sometimes, you know, we we have that scenario, but then we’ll we’ll recommend, you know, to the person to take a a shared office room somewhere else so, you know, it can be focused or she can be focused. So, you know, the I think it start with that, and and then it’s about, you know, making setting up the the culture for people to to work our ministry together. So it’s about, setting up as clear objectives as you can. It it has to be very clear, especially if you get a team that is that distributed, that doesn’t have a chance to talk, you know, to have the small talks that that you may have, you know, around the the the cooler machine or the or the, you know, the coffee machine, it’s really important to set up your goals to describe the culture that you want, to make sure that, all the information around the company, around the product gonna be largely available. So it it requires a lot of, writing skills because you have to write things down everywhere.

You have to write write a playbook for every single department, how to address them, what do they do, how do they work, you know, what’s the best way to to, to get questions answered. I mean, all of this needs to be to be clarified because when you think about, you know, the experience for a person joining a remote company, the first Monday, you know, they’re coming in and, you know, they’re still at the same home that they’ve lived, but, you know, they they’re entering the company through maybe Slack or through a video call. And that’s that’s that’s our experience. Right? So it’s not very it’s actually you know, it feels very much continuity. So how do you understand the culture on so all of this has to be has to be well communicated, has to be available. We spend a lot of time actually documenting things to make sure that, you know, people can when they have questions, they can first look at the playbooks, and, find find response. If they don’t, you know, then they can ask openly on on Slack, and we’re asking people to be super supportive, especially for the newcomers and and respond as quickly as they can on questions. So it’s it’s about, you know, setting up that culture where new employee will feel, you know, that they they they connect with the company even though they’re doing that from their living room.

And and they connect with people. They they understand the business. They adhere to the culture as quickly as possible while staying at home. So that’s a sort of, challenge we’re we’re we’re trying to solve every day.

Richard Medcalf
Is there a way that you found to actually get proactive ideas and, you know, people creating their, you know, seeing new opportunities and proposing that? You know, have you found that that has been natural result of just having the right people there? Or have you found that it’s taken a bit more effort to create those forums where people kinda get to brainstorm or be, you know

Fred Plaice
Yeah. No. I think I think it’s fair, Richard. I think you’re referring to something that, has has been, you know, fairly largely admitted, which is, you know, being in a room with many people helps you being more creative and thinking out of the box. Working from home is actually, making you very efficient. You know, your your schedule is perfectly respected to the minute all the time. You know, you can actually move from one call to another with no time, no transition. Most people have actually decreased the the length of their meetings because it’s so much more, you know, it’s much more transactional.

So what you are doing in 45 minutes because of the, you know, chitchat and the small talks, Now it’s down in 20 minutes. So great. But, you know, then then also the, you know, the chit chat was us. What we realized is the chit chat and the all of this was not useless. Right? It was actually there potentially for a reason. And missing that out, you have to recreate it in a in a different way. So, you know, the the, you know, we’re we’re trying to find ways to actually, accommodate for that. 1st, we don’t believe, in our platform.

So we don’t believe that remote means not seeing each other ever. We think that it’s really important to create opportunities for the for people to regroup and and discuss. What we are seeing is during those times, a lot of people a lot of problems get solved in a different way. You know, a lot of things that have been hanging for for sometimes weeks or even months from time to time, suddenly, you know, because you’re in person, because you’re in the same room, because you have low times and high times, you know, then you’re talking and then you’re having lunch together and then you’re talking again. You find solutions much, much, much faster in a way. So we we love the idea of alternating, you know, like, the the the efficiency of, you know, I’m at home. I’m really focused on getting things done with the okay. I’m I’m I’m I’m meeting with my colleagues.

I you know, this social experience is is exciting. It’s great. And, also, we are thinking and working a little bit differently, and and, you know, the the the complementarity, I think, has has to remain, and it’s it’s it’s therefore, reason and I think it’s really important, on a constituent, part of the the the the the the way you can actually a company remote first work efficient.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. I love it. Do you have a particular rhythm that you try to adhere to? You know, how often do you expect people to kinda get together?

Fred Plaice
Yeah. We we are currently trying to figure it out, quite frankly, because we, we made a big mistake quite quite honestly. 3 years ago, we thought, okay, we need to do some, you know, we we need to get to profitability. You know, this was a time where the the the tech market has has changed. We were, we’ve raised money. We VC funded, And, quite frankly, we were burning too much money during a year, which, you know, we we we needed to do something about it, so we decided to actually, do some cuts. And one of the ones we’ve done is in person meetings. We did we actually almost crash the line.

And, the impact was very sudden. You know, we saw that, this was this actually helped people in a way. You know, they they they they love those gathering. They thought it was actually a tremendous, reason why they they joined platform message in the first place because those meetings are really fun and great, and it’s lovely to see everybody and to spend time actually together, and it’s also very efficient. And not doing it, we saw we saw that, you know, that there was a a lot of, unsatisfaction from our from our employees and also less the the the quality of the work decreased. So, you know, lesson learned, and we reset that budget. And last year, we reset actually a very significant budget when you get when you have stronger people and some have to to fly around for I mean, it’s it’s it’s it tries it, you know, it goes up very quickly. And so last year, we we, we did set up a travel and expense budget, which was really meaningful already.

We’re we’re still going to increase next year. So, you know, we’re we’re trying to find the my my gut feel, it’s it’s not the same for every department. I think, you know, this this, you know, it’s a little bit cliche what I’m going to say, but, you know, the the the sales teams are probably more, you know, eager for in person than the engineers. And so it’s not necessarily the same frequency that you need for both populations. So we’re we’re trying to set it up team by team and, to to, you know, to actually create more of a bottom up approach on on that question than a a top down rule.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. But are you thinking more on the 3 to 6 months, kind of rhythm, or is it more like is it 1 to 12 months? Like, what’s your kind of rough idea?

Fred Plaice
It’s more like quarterly quarterly quarterly, and max, 6 months. And it’s, you know, depending on teams, it’s a for some, it’s absolutely quarterly, and some, you know, it can be a little less.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense. This is really fascinating. So I’m just aware of time ticking on. I have 2 questions which I love to ask every guest, so I’m gonna ask you those. The first is, what would it look like for platform. Sh to multiply its impact, over the next, you know, 2 or 3 years? Like, if we’re having this call in 3 years’ time, what would you be incredibly proud to come back and report? What would be amazing?

Fred Plaice
Yeah. No. Thanks. I think, you know, there’s, there’s, there’s one thing that we haven’t talked about, which is, dear to our hearts and, really at the core of the mission, which is, what we do is platform message. Again, we run production for our customers. What does that mean? You know, basically, we set up some really large shares for them to to get applications to run over them. And, you know, sometimes it’s it’s huge. And this is not just for it’s called cloud.

It’s it’s nothing virtual. Right? It’s not vaporous. It’s actually hard core data centers, that are, you know, big white rooms with tons of servers and a huge huge amount of, of, of firepower in terms of energy to supply those, those data centers. So, you know, there’s there’s important carbon emissions due to the fact that you run your apps on the cloud. And, you know, part of our promise to the customers beyond giving them a good intuitive experience on deploying and making sure that, you know, securing their their application is to decrease their carbon emissions while using us. We do that through a number of ways, but, you know, one of the important ways to make sure that we get a density that is, that is, you know, super strong for the application. There’s a lot of wasted resources in compute in in IT, and we are not wasting at all. So we’re very, very lean, and we are making sure that every resource we are using is going to be well used, and mutualized.

So, you know, and and, you know, the numbers we see and we’ve got a a firm to audit that, we we we see that we can actually have, sometimes, you know, decrease the the amount that they would spontaneously use by a factor of 12. So as much as 12 times. So 12 times less firepower on computing to run the same app with the same speed. So, you know, it’s it’s drastic. So, you know, that’s one of the things we’re doing every day, and our engineering teams are really focused at making sure that the density and our ability to leverage every, you know, piece of, computing power, is well used. And the second thing we’re doing is, we also realize that your data centers are not isolated in terms of their energy. They they all more or less rely to the grid energy to to the electric grid that is around them. And so we’re pushing for customers to use data centers in regions where the electric grid is carbon efficient, and that has a massive impact.

And let me just give you a single example. If you’re running it in if you’re running if you’re picking a data center which is in Germany, which, you know, I I love Germany, but Germany is full of gas, as we all know now with the the news. You know, there’s a lot of gas and coal versus Sweden, which it’s mostly hydraulic and wind. The difference is 1 to 20. You know, it’s 400 gram per of CO 2 per per kilowattler on the, energy grid in Germany. It’s 25 on average in Sweden. So it’s it’s decreasing in Germany, but it’s not decreasing fast. But, you know, it’s a 1 to 20 difference.

Right? So if you wanted to generate less c o two, you gotta pick a region like this. And we are we’re giving an incentive. So on on financial incentive, so we decided to actually decrease our price by 3% if you’re picking a region, which is going to be low intensity versus high intensity. So helping people to, you know, consider something else and because people will go to the closest data center thinking I’m gonna limit the the the the, you know, the the the time to first bite and, you know but that’s actually the difference is very small, but the carbon emission difference is huge and nobody knows about it. So we’re trying to get, you know, to raise awareness, there. And, so to answer your question in in 5 years, if if, if we manage to get all our customers on clean regions, we’d be extremely extremely happy with that result.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. I love it. Amazing. I think it’s great that you’ve got that kind of second mission, right, within, you know, within this. I often talk about having a goal with the rider. You know? So you’re growing your business, and at the same time, there’s this other rule that determines success. Right? And the other rule in your case is, you know, moving customers to clean regions, right, or to reduce the the overall emissions. And

Fred Plaice
Exactly. And we think we can do both at the same time, you know, just like make the experience seem to leave and, you know, side nice side effect. Also, you’re decreasing your carbon footprint. For some, it’s really important. For some, it’s not that important. So, you know, some don’t value that as much, but, you know, still, I we we’re seeing a trend where customers value that more and more. And, so that’s, yeah, that’s very encouraging.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Beautiful. And then and then my last question really, Fred, is how are you gonna need to evolve and change as a leader for you to multiply your impact? Right? Because we always have a way that we operate that’s got us to where we are, really good. And yet we know that if we reinvent ourselves, a new area of leadership and impact is gonna open up. So, what comes to mind when I ask you that question? Like, what’s an area which you feel might be your own learning edge?

Fred Plaice
Yeah. No. Look. It’s a great question. And, and quite frankly, in the past 9 years, I’ve I’ve I think I changed my my my leadership style drastically already. Hopefully, for the best, but, you know, it’s also the mission just changes completely over the years. Right? You know, when you have a 300 people, team as we have today, it’s very different than when it’s only 3 of you and, you know, you get to be an orchestra man and basically build and do things by yourself all the time. So this has changed drastically.

You know, I think the the what the company needs of me is to, I think, focus really as much as I can on the on on the future, on the culture, on on the strategy, unless and less on, you know, micromanaging and doing things myself, which I’m I’m I’m, you know, naturally tempted to do because I it does I’ll I love doing stuff, and I’ve I love to be, you know, getting impact, short term. So, you know, I’m I’m trying to to, you know, basically, you know, feed the the the the the costume of a, you know, stronger to a 1000 people CEO, which, you know, I am learning as we go. So, but, you know, at least I think I think the fact that I I understand where I wanna go is is already a good step. So trying to, you know, try to get in that as as quickly as I can.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Beautiful. So, Fred, it’s been a great conversation. I’ve really enjoyed kind of exploring these the way you built your business, whether it’s culturally or, your go to market or how you recruit employees, how you’ve built this global business from day 1. And, yeah, I think just now getting into a bit about the heart of that about the, you know, the the mission behind behind the mission as well, and the the bigger impact that you wanna make in the world. So if you wanna get in touch with you or or learn about the business, where’s the best place for them to go to do that? Sure.

Fred Plaice
I think LinkedIn is my my go to social network, and, you know, happy to to discuss with anyone, who wants to to to know more or is interested to, you know, to towards entrepreneurship or, you know, I’m I’m, yeah, LinkedIn is my my go to. My name is Fred Pless. Should be easy to find.

Richard Medcalf
Absolutely. And then I guess the the business itself, platform dot sh. Right? I guess that’s gonna work all by itself with any more detail.

Fred Plaice
Exactly.

Richard Medcalf
Perfect.

Fred Plaice
Yeah. Absolutely.

Richard Medcalf
Well, Fred, thanks so much for joining us. I really enjoyed our conversation. Look forward to following along on your journey in the years to come.

Fred Plaice
Thank you so much, Richard. Love the question too.

Richard Medcalf
Take care. Well, that’s a wrap. If you received value from this conversation, please do leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. We deeply appreciate it. And if you’d like to check out the show notes from this episode, head to x quadrant.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the details. Now finally, when you’re in top leadership, who supports and challenges you at a deep level to help you multiply your impact? Cover more about the different ways we can support you at xquadrant.com.

**Note: This transcript is automatically generated.
Please excuse any errors.

Beyond the podcast...

Once you've subscribed to the podcast, why not go deeper and subscribe to the Xquadrant Insider?

This is our complementary email newsletter that focuses on multiplying value and impact at the intersection of leadership, strategy and purpose.  Originally designed for our private clients, we've made this available to a wider audience of high-achieving and purpose-driven leaders.


More from The Impact Multiplier CEO Podcast...

S1415: Do CEOs really have (or need) a super power? with Rebecca Harrison

S1415: Do CEOs really have (or need) a super power? with Rebecca Harrison

S1414: Building a global business from day 1, with Fred Plais (CEO, platform.sh)

S1414: Building a global business from day 1, with Fred Plais (CEO, platform.sh)

S1413: Staying lean and agile whilst achieving world-leading growth, with Toms Jurjevs (CEO, Sun Finance)

S1413: Staying lean and agile whilst achieving world-leading growth, with Toms Jurjevs (CEO, Sun Finance)

S1412: Avoiding the mistakes CEOs make when scaling from £0M to £15M+, with Peter Busby (Founder, Grayce)

S1412: Avoiding the mistakes CEOs make when scaling from £0M to £15M+, with Peter Busby (Founder, Grayce)

S1411: Growing a business that’s never been done before, with Karl Andersson (CEO, Motatos)

S1411: Growing a business that’s never been done before, with Karl Andersson (CEO, Motatos)

S1410: The skills you’ll need in an AI world, with Tim Smeaton (CEO, Kubrick Group)

S1410: The skills you’ll need in an AI world, with Tim Smeaton (CEO, Kubrick Group)
{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}
>