Episode 30: Quality Leadership through Digital Transformation

Hey listeners, welcome to SphereCast. A podcast all about technology, technology advice, technology inspiration, and how real entrepreneurs have used technology to build their businesses from the ground up. If you're wondering how technology can support your business goals, rest assured, our guests have been there and done that.

Leadership guru John C. Maxwell once said, "A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way." But that charge to lead the way is no easy task, especially for one leading a new company and especially for one leading a new company through a digital transformation. Such is the story of our guest this week, who became an entrepreneur knowing full well that laying the foundation for her company would be a heavy lift, but through it all, she led well.

Hey, it's Luke here. And this week on SphereCast, Ksenia and I speak with Sophie Schwerdtfeger, Co-Founder and CEO at welearn, the parent company of wehorse and wedog. welearn's goal is to be the go-to destination for educational content on certain niche topics. welearn's first endeavor, wehorse, offers users the world's largest library of equestrian content all from one single streaming platform. welearn's second project, wedog, is currently in its early stages, similar to wehorse, will give its users access to an enormous library of streaming content related to dog training.

Even before acquiring the horse riding content library in 2018, Sophie knew that to succeed, she would have to radically change how this content had been historically distributed through DVD sales. And with that mission in mind, she and her co-founder embarked on a journey to build and lead a company while also digitally transforming that company into a streaming platform.

On the podcast, Sophie shares a ton of knowledge on leading well, and particularly on leading well in times of major transition and growth. So without further ado, here's our conversation with Sophie Schwerdtfeger.

Hi, everyone. Ksenia's here. And today, our guest is Sophie. Welcome to the SphereCast. How are you?

Hi, Ksenia. Thank you for having me. I'm very good today.

I want to start with an icebreaker. Could you share with our audience something interesting about yourself that most people don't know?

Yes. To be honest, I well, my biggest dream was always to compete at the Olympic Games. It sounds maybe a little bit strange, but I'm really a passionate horseback rider. And I think for an athlete, it's always like a dream to compete at a very, very cool tournament. And of course, the Olympic Games would have been one of the amazing tournaments. But well, of course, I didn't Well, not of course, but obviously, I didn't make it so far. I'm still a little bit into horseback riding and riding my horse, but not on this really competitive competitive level.

Have you competed in the past?

Yes. I actually competed at the Europeans, so I was kind of a little bit successful, but not further than the Europeans.

Wow, that's amazing. I know it's everyone's athlete's dream. I was a swimmer my whole life, and so my dream was to go to Olympics, of course.

Very good. And I appreciate the the athletes, what they do, how they on point, are just doing an amazing job. And they they've they get my fullest respect, to be honest.

Absolutely. All right, let's go over business now. I'd like to start with your most recent venture. In your own words, what is wehorse, and how did you start this company?

Well, everything started with wehorse.com, that's true. But the general idea was welearn or still is welearn. And welearn is basically the idea to have equal access to the best trainers and thought leaders regardless where you are. So basically, our vision is to use technology and to build a community of people thriving for improvement and education.

To put it in a in a nutshell, wehorse is the Netflix for horse lovers. But besides wehorse, we actually also want to build wedog.com, which is going to start in the end of the year, which is an online dog school. So we have an online horse school and horse riding and riders community. And by the end of the year, we also start the dog community and the dog online school.

That sounds amazing, by the way. Looking forward to that. I mean, is there going to be a wecat as well?

Well, I guess cat is not so interesting. They can't do a lot. But to be honest, like we we the idea is always to have the a technology-driven education platform. And we started wehorse because my founder and I, we both came well, come from the horse industry and we got the opportunity to buy a company, a publishing company which was selling DVDs and books.

And then, of course, we did the digital transformation when we bought the company. And we are still in this transformation form, because it it never ends, to be honest. But we will stop our shop. Now right now, we are still selling DVDs, but by the 1st of July, we will stop our DVD selling and we will only turn into the streaming platform.

And this is really exciting. And of course, what is the next step? The next steps is to make a a second vertical basically and start with wedog, because, well, it's it's it's very easy to have the idea. But of course, the execution is now the key. However, we have a very good background and a platform which is already really good functioning. And wehorse is making a huge growth. And of course, now we're going to have a second layer with wedog.com.

That sounds like a plan, Sophie.

Thank you. It is a plan. We have a When we bought the company, we really had this plan in mind. And now we three years later, we finally started, and it's really cool.

It's already live. Well, you can go to wedog.com. It's already We have a blog already out there. And of course, everybody can have a look on wehorse.com, which is already our our best practice case.

That's amazing. I know during COVID, a lot of people got dogs, so I think that's going to be really lucrative business for you.

Exactly. We are we're having a little bit of tears in our eyes that we didn't start a little bit earlier, or we haven't started it yet. But we will come to that later, that of course, with limited resources, you will always have to find the best ways to improve your business and to grow what you have and then start something new. So you have to sometimes do it in a sequence and not do it everything at the same time.

I think, you know, the having great educational content is more important here than just releasing something out which may not give a good impression to the customer. So I I still think, you know, there's there's a this is an exciting opportunity. And if if content or educational material is your strength, I think it's it's a it is something I'll be watching out for, you know, how this one goes.

Yes. And to be honest, the market is 10 times bigger than for horses. So every like obvious, horses the horse industry is is a niche. And now we are now we are entering really the big industry, which is the dog industry. And there's a huge potential, especially also in in of course, the in English-speaking countries. We're still very very big with wehorse in in European and the in European countries in Europe. However, English-speaking and especially USA is still something where we have to go.

Very interesting, exciting times. So I'm I'm going to take a a little step back. So obviously, your organization is going through this digital transformation, which like you said, never ends. I agree with that because once you get to one milestone, you're like, "Okay, we have a new thing to do now." So it's it's just going to be on and on and on, part of your innovation innovations and you know, engineering what you're doing there.

So could you talk us through the process for our audience, for aspiring entrepreneurs, a a bit more about, you know, how you are doing this or what what challenge were you what challenges were you faced with and at what point you realized, "Okay, we need to digitally transform this," and how did you go about executing that vision vision? So yeah, I'd love to know that.

Honestly speaking, we always had in mind When that when actually when we bought the company in 2018, we already knew that DVD is going down. The DVD sales is going down. But what we knew is that we have this huge asset, like the database of educational content in the horse industry, which is the biggest in the world. So we have the biggest basically library of educational content in the world. So we knew that this is going to be well, this is what we have now. That that was basically the asset deal we have.

And we already had in mind we need to build the streaming platform because everybody knows that DVD is going down. So no matter if you if you put it on a streaming platform or sell it or print a DVD, that it's the same content. However, we needed to build our streaming platform in a case that you can actually stream this huge data in a very good way so that you know that people regardless where they are, whether they are in the stable, whether they are at home, whether they are I don't know, in the car, we we want to be we wanted to be accessible. And of course, there are a lot of little road bumps which you have to which you have to take while transforming it.

And these are just small things. Of course, the rest is what billing system are you using, what platform are you using. People are saying, "Oh, well, just don't Just take your just using a a white-label solution. It can't be so difficult to to stream videos." And we were like, "No, we want to have our own own back end, our own." So everything is built on our own. We have a very good development team, and they are building our back end and our front end. So we own the whole company and the back end and the the the front end, which is the most important thing for a company, because that's the asset you you also leverage later in your in your career of the company.

Who did you have as your founding team? Who were the members?

Yes, my co-member is Christian Kröber, he's called, Christian Kröber. I met him at a horse tournament, of course. And we knew each other very very just recent, not not that long. And we we met on parties and stuff, but then I just quit my job, so we met on a tournament and we talked about which was called pferdia tv. That was the former welearn. And he told me about it, and we were talking about it and stuff. And I I just said, "Well, this is my dream. I would love to have this really like a company where you know there's so much potential out there."

Because the horse horse industry, I have to say, is very you can say it, untechnologized. So there's not a lot of technology, and and you can really build something very great also in small well, with small steps to say, but also with an with an idea, because people are hungry for new ideas in in the horseback industry.

So we were talking about it, and we knew the founders of pferdia tv. So in 2018, we bought it together. Basically, it was it it was it was during a three- or four-months period where we talked about it. We talked to the owners. We negotiated. Of course, we had to go to the bank to get some financing, which is not always easy. But in this case, they were all very convinced about the business case, because it's it's so obvious. And we could really have some good numbers and they all believed in it. And they believed in the founders' team, I guess. So we got some finance and we bought it, which was

So we are 50/50. We are two people founding it and now we are nearly 30 people in our company. And we started with 2.5, so we grew we grew quite a lot since 2018.

Wow, that's fascinating story. What do you feel are the most difficult decisions for a CEO to make?

I guess the most difficult decision is finding the right decision at the right time, because when you and when you when you face so many difficult also in a in a in an environment where we are, in a technology environment where where things are changing so rapidly and you as a company sometimes only have limited resources, you need to take the decisions at the right time regarding financing, regarding employees, regarding your strategy.

So these are For me, that was also a big learning, that these things are not always that easy to take. But then you, of course, talk to your co-founder, you talk to your very close network, and then you hopefully do the right decisions. And so far, we were very lucky, because everything is really going well and we have now a 60% growth rate from last year to this year, so with This is just amazing for for us to see.

Speaking of last year, last year was a COVID year. How has it impacted your business? What steps have you taken to adjust to the current situation, if you can share with us?

As you mentioned before, I guess COVID were for was for us, and I hardly dare to say that, but for us, it was we were clearly the winner. So we had a we had a lucky year, to be honest. I know we have to be very careful to say that, but because a lot of people suffered and like the social and all the restaurants and everything was really not not a good not in a good shape and in a good situation, but for our business, it was the best we year we could have.

Due to really easy reasons, people couldn't get their trainers into their stables. They were abandoned because they were not allowed to go into to enter the stables. So people were seeking for new or for alternatives to train the horse. So we were the only online riding school with this huge amount of content in and the depth of content, which yeah, and they could just enter our platform, so we we had this lucky shot on new subscribers.

And the second thing is also people had more time due to different reasons to spend time at the horse, and they just wanted to have a good time at the horse. So they also were seeking for alternatives ways to have this good time with their horse, and we were the right platform where which they can enter. So we were winners of COVID, to be honest.

Yeah, I mean, they say that you have to be in the right place at the right time. So and and and you know, harder you work, luckier luckier you get. So I guess, you know, you you did put some something in and the stars got lined, you know, in the end. So yeah, great stuff.

We put on the right horse, which was which is nice so far.

You put your money on the right one. Yes, as the old saying goes.

I I do I do want to ask you something else. So I believe you are the nontechnical co-founder of this organization or you both could be nontechnical or technological co-founders?

Christian is the technology guy. He's he's just a great technology guy. He's not a developer, actually, like from from He's a finance guy. He studied finance. And I studied international business with marketing and and sales background. And I also had 10 years experience in marketing and sales as I grew in basically a startup into a coffee company which was called Tchibo. And I lived in Zurich for this coffee company to build a in-house startup, basically. So I had some experience for building new companies. Of course, always with a financing background of a very, very large company, the Tchibo company. But now and now I had to swim myself with Christian together without any big guy giving us money. But he's he's the technical guy to come back to your question.

So what what I wanted to ask you was, what advice would you give to, let's say, an aspiring entrepreneur who is not not technological or tech-minded? And what what did you learn from your experience that you could share of working with Christian or you know, new things? I guess you do have to make yourself dangerous enough because in order to support Christian or your the business founder. So how how what did you learn, anything you would highlight in that journey?

Yes, I guess my learning was so even if you're not having the background your co-founder is having, which is first, that's very good, because you are actually If you have the same co-founder with the same interest, then of course, it's also not well, you're not kind of giving things together and it's good to to exchange your passionate and your your How do you call it? I'm just like

So good to have different perspectives on the same team. Two heads are better than

Yeah, and you you basically you bring your ideas together, and then it's a good one. Basically, it's more kind of supplementing each other and not having the same same interest and the same ideas, because then you can actually build a good product when you are talking to each other and having different mindsets and different ideas. Otherwise, you have the same, and it's it's not going to be interesting.

But to come back to your question, I think it's very important that you both have like-minded interest. Like I'm I'm still loving technology, and I I'm I'm passionate about technology. However, he's the one who has the deeper interest into technology, and he who really tries to crack new system, and tries to to bring into our company new ideas in terms of which tools or which kind of development language and stuff like like do you want to use.

But still as a as you're the sparring partner on the other side, you have to be open-minded, you have to be sure that you want to to to go on the same vision and you to share the same vision and of course, get into details when it comes to when it's comes to decisions which have to be made. So you have to be aligned on what you want and what you in in general, like as a vision, you have to be aligned.

And then you when you have two founders, then you are actually like trying to find this way to your vision, which means that you have to align yourself, but also accept the sometimes the ideas of the others and not trying to always convince them to convince your partner that your way is the right way, because off often there is not the right way, but it's something in between. There's not a right way always straight away.

I see. That's very interesting advice, by the way. Yeah, you need the the balance, and but again, if you two are not thinking on, you know, or on the same page, are on the same page, then I think, you know, the chances of becoming successful are that much less. So differences and then some similarities are are required. So that's that's a good balance.

And still you have so many discussions. I mean, we knew each other from from really random parties and and exchanging ourselves, but then I mean, you spend more time with your co-founder than with your partner, right? So especially when building companies and under limited resources and financing, I mean, I'm I'm personally 50%, I'm also partner and have my money involved as as well as he has his money involved in this company. And even if we have the same vision to to to the company and for the company, still on the really nitty-gritty things, there's so many things which you can actually discuss and where you have different opinions, which is good, but which is also at some point can be exhausting.

So you have to always align yourself. And communication and feedback among your team and also among the managing directors is the most important things. I think the feedback culture you have to implement straight away in so that that everybody can live in your company and and live to the most yeah, to the to the highest potential.

I couldn't agree more with that. So yeah, absolutely on the same page there. Yeah.

And the more people you get, like the the bigger the company grows, the more difficult it is. So you have to find mechanisms to keep the structure and to keep your culture alive. And you have to live the culture. I think nothing is If you you can write down mission, vision, culture deck, whatever, but you have to live it and and on a everyday basis.

Yep. And as the team grows, you have to be that much careful in hiring the people, if they think the same, if there's there's a there's so many challenges there. And I I I heard from one of our podcasts, Ksenia, I can't remember the name, but that person advised that you should hire slow and fire fast. So

It's true. It's true, yeah.

I remember that, yeah.

Yeah. I can't remember the the person. We've recorded that many episodes, but uh

You have it. Okay, you have to send me which one it was, because I want to hear the podcast.

I will, definitely. There's a new episode out from last week, so I think you should definitely give it a listen. And

Ah, good, good, good. Yeah.

So

But team building is especially in COVID times and home office times and stuff, you have to to really focus on that and make virtual team events and really keep the company as close as you can and find tools like Slack, Asana, like all the project management, but as well communication tools, to really be close to the people. And one of our employees, which was really nice, he he wrote us and said, "I just wanted to tell you that it's so nice. I don't have the feeling that we are all sitting apart. I have still the feeling we are all sitting in the office." And it's not feels like being it's it really feels like being part of a team and not being alone in in the home office, which is very nice.

I think you have to foster that kind of culture of trust. And I'll give you a funny example. Like, you'd be astonished to hear this, but my brother-in-law in Australia, he's he's in a very senior position, but he has to literally since the you know they are so untrusting with employees and everyone that he has to literally have his video channel on, open all the time. So he's looking at his colleagues, they're looking at each other, so I find it strange.

And I find the same culture in the UK, as well. There's a lot of micromanagement or this lack of trust in people that they are constantly monitoring. And I think this is where you you see the difference that new organizations, the startups, they are growing rapidly, they have a team that's working well together instead of small fragmented teams, you know, in a big global organization with 30,000 people who don't really work together and are not really efficient. So yeah, I was quite stunned to hear that he has to He cannot even use his mobile phone while he's eight or nine hours doing his work. He literally Yeah, when I call him, he has to cut the phone, because, you know, he can be seen using his phone and stuff. He's a senior engineer there. So yeah, I find it strange, like very very difficult culture. I wouldn't want to work there, you know, personally.

No, honestly, our our like in our company, just to give a little bit insight, it's We now asked our our employees, "Look, guys, do you want to come back?" because we our office is in WeWork. WeWork, you basically know, I guess. So we have a shared, of course, the coworking space, and we have two offices there, and and we were now about, "Okay, shall we cancel one? Shall we reduce? Shall we increase? Shall we make bigger sizes?" So we asked the team, "Look, guys, how do you want to work in the future now, as rules are going a bit little bit like you can now go in the office again, it's not so strict anymore and stuff?" And they were all like, "If you ask me, I would love to stay at home, because I love the flexibility." They are all Some of them are having their horses, they want to go horseback riding during lunchtime, they are sitting at the desk. I have one colleague, she sits at the desk at 5:30 a.m. in the morning, so she can ride in the like lunchtime and in the afternoon.

So we're so flexible, and I always tell them, "Look, guys, I don't care when you work. I just want you to get it done, and the the basically the This is the goal, and this is where you have to go. And if you get it done in a very good way and the way we want it, you can do it whenever you want." So I think that is also part of a culture, and it's trust in our employees. And without our employees, the company would would be nothing. So we really appreciate what they do, and they they they give so much in for the company.

But also, I think it's a big big advantage, because we no longer, for example, hire on location, but we hire on motivation and skill set. So our especially as a small company, we have a huge increase in where the people and location. So where where are the people sitting and who wants to work for us? Although Hamburg is a nice city, but a lot of people are not in the city. So and they don't want to move, so we can always say, "Okay, you don't have to move. You can work wherever you want." And for we have one app developer now under contract who who is in Turkey. He stays in Istanbul.

That's a nice place, by the way. Nice place, as well.

And if you need very good mindset and skill sets in in this market, especially in developers, it's so difficult to find good people, and we really need good people, and we want to hire them. But if you always say, "Well, you have to move, you have to sit in Hamburg," then it's really restricting.

Talent is not where you are, so you have to you have to be where the talent is, not always.

Yes, so the boundaries are very low. Everybody the boundaries to enter our company needs to be very low.

Yeah, I agree. Thank you for sharing that. So yeah, that that was a good point. That was a good point. I think us as an organization are are very much, you know, we operate in a similar way. We are one of the better employers in the market. Hope we love very happy, so yeah. I I I am very happy, I'll say that to everyone. Ksenia, you are too, but

I am very happy as well.

Okay. Okay, moving on. So, Ksenia, do you have what do you have next on the card?

I want to get personal here. Sophie, you are an exceptional person and entrepreneur. How do you manage your time and get so much done? Can you describe your typical day for us?

To be honest, there is no not an everyday routine, I have to say, which is also nice, because I love to have different days and and not having a routine. However, of course, what I do every day is checking on my team. Is Well, do they need anything to to to do their work, or to get their work done? Are there any roadblocks for their for their work to be which I can remove? So I basically try to to enhance them and be a sparring partner every day. And apart from that, of course, we always try to improve our processes and try to be more efficient in order to grow our company, which is also a challenge getting the operational stuff done, but also, of course, strategically work on the strategic side and improve on an on an everyday business the process and the the way things are being done. But basically, this is how I try to manage it every day.

How do you unwind? How do you relax? Do you meditate?

No, I do some sports, of course. I do I go running, I I do some horseback riding, I love the countryside. And to be honest, the most loving factor is, of course, spending time with my boyfriend and my son. I think then the world is, yeah, the world is happy.

Yeah, I think you need to have a good structure around you, so and when you finish work, I mean, I'm talking about the the family and your partner, so it's very important to have that balance in life. And when that's there, I think that's already ensuring that whatever you do in your work life, it's going to be more successful and you will have more focus there, because you know you have the support around you, people who will be there for you, if you need.

Exactly. And when I'm at the desk, I'm trying to be 100% focused. So this is also the a child is teaching you, or a baby is teaching you, when you have time and when they are sleeping or when I don't know, when you have the time, then you really have to be 100% focused and don't drink a coffee or anything else, but really use the time you have in a very efficient way.

Yeah. This is something, you know, like you only realize when you I think I I realized it like that I am better working from home, because when I just come to my office, I'm completely zoned out. There's nothing on my mind. I'm just fully focused on the job in front of me.

And I don't even think nowadays of anything that I have to do, let's say, maybe next day or tomorrow or day after. I I'm very focused on what's on the diary today, and I just go through those items. We'll get there when we get there tomorrow. So it was very hard. I used to panic a lot thinking, "The next week is going to be super busy," and stuff. And I think there's a lot of people who struggle with that. But I found a very strange exercise to to learn how to not think of If anything comes to my mind, I learned that I just need to quickly put it on my diary and say, "I will get there tomorrow whenever that time is."

Isn't there a You can even say something Isn't there a is how can you say like, worry when you get there, or something like that? Like don't worry before, but only

We will cross the bridge when we get there.

Oh, yeah, yes, yes, that's. In German, it's a different word, but yeah, okay, the English one is that.

Yeah. That's what I'm learning, so yeah, it was It stemmed out from that particular phrase, so yeah, I kind of like, "Okay, we'll we'll think about it when we get to the bridge, you know." So no need to think about it.

Yes, when we need to cross the bridge. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, cool. I don't think I I quoted it correctly, so whoever is listening, don't don't take my words or put bad comments, you know.

I think we know the context. We know what you mean. I'm I'm pretty sure.

Sophie, at the beginning of your career, what do you think is the one thing you wish you had known before you started?

I guess, very important, I really I clearly and really underestimated the hundreds of unpredictable issues that can occur during building your business. So you jump Basically, you jump into the water and you just start. But then, of course, you realize, "Oh, I haven't thought that this is going to be a problem." So there are so many hundreds things, and you you just need to be flexible. You need to really believe in what you do.

But you need to be flexible and you need to adjust and always be reflective of what you do, and and appreciate every feedback you get, and don't feel mistaken or anything when somebody is telling you, "This is not correct," or "I think this is a different way." But of course, that's sometimes also very hard. So there are a lot of things which will cross your road while building your career and also building your business.

But they can't you can't plan it. I think it will always be unpredictable predictable. You cannot really learn it beforehand.

Again, one of the things I learned or kind of I always tell myself, like you you know, like I believe all entrepreneurs have this thing, and that that's very unique in them. I I sense that you you have loads of it. You you just take on a challenge as it gets put across you, so planning just basically makes you more worried, and and you're not fully focused on the challenge. You're more worried, and there's fears, etc., etc. But if you just, you know, deal with the situation when it's in front of you, I I'm sure, you know, we have learned enough, we have enough knowledge how to handle these things. And something, you know, and there's support around you, so we we find that, you know, normally it's quite useful just to deal with it then, and trust yourself that you will have some kind of solution for this particular problem or any particular problem or challenge you come across. And and you build on it. So yeah, I I I I sense that, you know, this is something you do as well. Can you give us an example maybe, you know, like something that just came across, and you were like, you got support from somebody unexpectedly, you were not expecting that this person would be able to help, or some kind of, you know, good good good fate, you know, let's say?

Good fate, yeah.

Well, when when you are a small company, when you start with two or three people, or four people even, everybody is doing everything. But in the end, when you're growing, you really need to separate your tasks and your division, basically, and say, "Okay, this your co-founder," like Christian in my case, "you have you are responsible for that, and I'm responsible for that." And we did the mistake, or we were just unexperienced, that we both of us were always like talking in the subject of the others and also in the division of the others and stuff.

So so at one point, we were just crashing and saying, "Okay, this is not how it's going to work." And then actually, his girlfriend and my boyfriend, so we are they they jumped in, and they tried to also coach us and manage us a little bit, how we get out of the situation. And that was, first, unpredicted that this is going to be an issue that you're going to face, that you don't that you run into, which is everybody would say, "Well, normal that's of course normal. You have to have your certain departments, and that's your your responsibility. That's his responsibility. It's very obvious."

But when you're on a everyday basis and in your daily business, sometimes that's a little bit difficult and it gets mixed up. But now we are really after this kind of phase we had, we are even more focused on, "Okay, this is your topic, and this is my topic. Let's be still sparring partner, but you have to get it done. And I'm not doing it for you, and you're not doing it for me." So this is you have to be a very in a very clear structure when growing your business. And for us, that was not always clear, especially when you are a person have a personality that you always want to control everything, then of course, it's difficult to delegate.

You have to let go, yeah. I uh That's that's part of scaling organization, I think. I I don't know if you've come across the challenge as a CEO that, you know, managing everything makes the organization difficult to scale, and you

Yeah, you can't scale. But it's hard to learn. It's It's really hard to learn. Although it sounds so clear and obvious, and everybody is saying, "Well, of course," but when you are into your organization and when you're really doing it, it's difficult. And the funny thing is, my my boyfriend is also self-employed, and he had exactly the same with his founder and his team, but they had it five years before us, because they are more in a more mature phase. But that was also very cool, because he could he helped us a lot in that phase.

It's easy to see it from the outside and say, "Oh, you're doing this wrong. Just fix it," you know.

Yeah, exactly. It's so easy.

When you're in middle of it, you you just, you know, have these sleepless nights about little things and you just can't, you know, things get out of control. You just have to go through it.

Yeah. And luckily, we we have been through it, and we are still Well, we actually we you even grow out of it. I think afterwards, it's always it's always better. You have these phases are also very good, and you learn a lot, and the company grows, and the team grows, and the strategy grows. So you learn a lot. When you're into it, it doesn't feel so nice sometimes.

I can see. There there could be an issue sometimes then. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for sharing that. Ksenia, I think we have come to the last part, so I'll hand the baton over to you again.

Yeah, all right, everyone. We've come to the final part of our podcast. This is where we ask our guests very tricky questions. Sophie, what are the most important attributes of a successful CEO or an entrepreneur and a leader today?

Definitely you have to be a communicator, and you have to be emotionally intelligent. That is really different also to how leadership was seen, I would say, 20 years ago. But this is very important nowadays, that you have to be emotionally intelligent, you have to be very close to your employees. Leading by example is one of the most important things I've I'm seeing as well, so only you can only tell people what to do when you when you're doing also it in a great job.

And again, like having a sense for business and doing the right decisions at the right time, this is something you cannot really learn. You have to feel it, and you have to have the sense for it. Of course, that comes out of experience, but also this is something you have have in inside you, or you don't have it.

Very interesting. That's very interesting, yeah. The sense of timing, the

Yes.

Yeah. You just have to Yeah, you feel it, or you don't feel it, so yeah, it it makes a lot of difference.

And in a fast We are in this technology like Netflix environment, and in this fast-growing and fast-moving business environment, it's sometimes very difficult to anticipate what's coming next and what to see. And then you have to be 10 times ahead of the time you'll be you're at the moment. That's really a challenge. And sometimes you are wrong, but you only know that you were wrong when when you look back. Of course, you don't you you will never deliberately make a wrong decision. You can only judge on the decision when you look back.

Yeah, hindsight is a

That's part of life.

Yes, exactly. But that makes us also challenging, that's why we love our business, right? I mean, this is why we why we do it. And not, and there's also maybe not everybody can do it. That's also it's a character. It's a sense of of personality. It's a sense of being.

Yeah. It's the risk, it's the amount of unpleasantness you can bear, and and and the the uncertainty, you know, the you you you you you you are happy to live around, so or live within. So yeah, I think some people want to be 100% certain of where they are going tomorrow, what's going to happen in the next one, two years.

And there are people who just, you know, live for, you know, whatever short-term challenges are, they want to get them done and see what happens and take a new route from there, so yeah. I I I appreciate that, and these things, you know, I think you just learn these things along the way, and you find out if you do it or not, but yeah, it's a it's a long journey ahead of you. We appreciate that. And and I think I think you you very you seem very flexible and quite, you know, like you you very you you have been very open and transparent today, and and at times, you you gave us answers which I feel like you're very open, and you know, very kind of you you're not afraid of being vulnerable, so you give very clear, transparent answers, and you're happy to share your weaknesses or areas where you're improving and have improved. So Yeah, I think this is part of being an entrepreneur, that you're not you know, one is not embarrassed about anything. Successes and failures are all part of the journey, and you just take the next step that's in front of you and see how it pans out. So yeah, well done.

And also say, "Sorry, I was wrong." That's not that's not something bad to tell. I mean, by the way, in a relationship as well as in your business, it's always the same. You can always excuse. It's not But also like my parents or like like the generation of my parents, for example, they never learned it, right? For them, it's very difficult. And but this is not how you lead a company nowadays. This is not not successful.

People don't want to work in in an organization. This this is a question I always want to know from the you know, entrepreneurs that I talk to nowadays, so how do you find working with I'm not trying to isolate anyone, so maybe we will not include this in podcast, but how do you find working with Millennials or Generation Z?

This is funny. We talk a lot about it. So one very big rule, never put your expectations on any employees. So every person is like has a personality, and is is an individualism. So you always have to see the person behind, and not put your expectations, because that's always what I did really in the beginning, put my expectations on everyone who was around me, and there's of course a a big problem. You you're facing big problems.

So the millenniums, I think you can't tell like they are all this like this, and they are all like that. I I really found we have wonderful employees who are Millennials and who are younger and that they are great employees and they are working for this company, and without them, the company wouldn't exist like it is. So however, of course, being now also a mother, I'm trying to raise my child maybe a little bit also that that you have to work and that it's not the world is not always like money is not lying on the ground. I don't put him on a podest all the time. He also has to learn stuff. And so

So I see I hopefully to raise him in a way that he appreciates also work. And I think the problem is work why is work always something bad? Sometimes it has a bad reputation, where where work is something nice and going to work, and having a company, and and doing for something for your money. So I think this should be more into the people's head that it it's part of life, but it's something nice in life also and not something bad. And sometimes it had this really bad and negative pronunciation, I have to say. And that's I think we have to change this. But we are changing are trying to change it in our company with the culture and also with all the flexibility our employees get. I think that's very important.

That's a great answer, I think. That's that's that's Yeah, I I really appreciate that. I I wanted to understand this, you know, from your perspective, but I think you're you're developing an organization that's welcoming everyone, not just assuming. Like I, you know, I was not trying to assume something, you know, negative about Millennials or Generation Z in my question, but I think the culture is different now. People expect to be treated with respect, not treated like they're in a school when they are working, so I think things are changing and and I think this is where COVID has kind of transformed the the employment market, and people have realized that work can be fun, work can be rewarding, and at the same time, not feel like, you know, you're in a prison, or you you have to do this, you're forced to do something. So yeah, I I think that was a great answer.

So with that, I think we have come to the end of the podcast. I think it's been really enjoyable, really open and hearty conversation with you, so we appreciate that, you know, absolutely. And personally, I will be rooting for wehorse and wedog as well, and looking forward to wedog. And I hope, I'll buy a subscription for my mother-in-law. She has two very un Naughty dogs. Naughty dogs, yeah. Let's let's put it that way. So I think we we could really do with something like this. Because

Okay, you can already put her on our on our web page, because she can read some blog articles which are very interesting already.

Okay, okay. I will definitely do that. So yeah, look forward to doing it. And yeah, that's my that's my ending notes. Ksenia, anything from you?

I just want to thank you for your time, Sophie. We will keep following your success and stay in touch.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. Very very nice. It was my very first podcast and I really enjoyed it.

A special thanks to our podcast guests this week, and once again to our sponsor, Sphere Partners, for bringing this episode to life. If you enjoyed this episode, drop SphereCast a five-star review on iTunes, and share this content with your network. For any relevant links or notes from this episode, check out our podcast website at www.sphereinc.com/spherecast. And always remember, when you think you can't, technology can. See you next time.