We hosted Scott Weller, CTO and co-founder of SessionM, for lunch last week in Cambridge. Scott has a number of startups under his belt throughout his 20 year career as an engineer and software architect, so we talked a lot about early decisions founders make and how those decisions affect their businesses down the road.
Scott made the point that startup ideas usually end up far from where they start; yet, there exist some key observations that do not change, even as the idea evolves. SessionM, in particular, started out as a consumer application wherein users would traverse a world strewn with branded rewards and discover them as they moved about. The company has since evolved into a platform that connects users to brands through rewards in mobile ad units, not its own first-party app. What SessionM has kept at its core is the notion that game dynamics, implemented through rewards, can create meaningful interactions with brands. What has changed is simply the distribution channel for those interactions.
Scott also discussed the early team-building decisions that he and his co-founders made at SessionM. In fact, Scott and his co-founder Mark initially started working on SessionM before their third co-founder Lars joined. Scott and Mark identified that, if they wanted to go to market through a mobile ad unit, they needed to bring on someone who understood the market. Fortunately, Lars had previously helped build the mobile ad network that is today known as iAd at a startup called Quattro Wireless. Lars had the right complementary skill set to both Scott and Mark for this new distribution channel.
In addition, when Scott thinks about bringing on additional team members, he encourages his employees to go out and “find their replacement;” that is, to hire someone that could do your job better than you. A key part of the SessionM culture is that employees are not insecure about their own abilities and are not threatened by A-players who raise the average bar of the company.
Scott also likes to create a bit of a competitive dynamic with his managers when it comes to new hires. It can be easy for 5 managers to sit around a table and say, “We should hire this guy/gal.” But it’s harder for them to say, “We should hire this guy/gal, and I want him/her working for me.” Unless Scott hears the latter from multiple managers, and in fact hears them argue about who gets that particular candidate, he questions whether that person should be hired at all.
Scott closed the meeting with one final thought: don’t look at your business as you would look at the top of a mountain from the bottom up. Look at it like you’re on the top, looking down. Right now, when you’re just starting out, your vantage point is the best. As you add employees, product features and other obligations, it will only get cloudier.
