Written: May 2025
Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
Growing up in Nebraska we celebrated May Day by filling little baskets with candy and putting them on neighbors’ doors. Once a basket was in place, we’d ring their doorbell and run. As a kid, I thought it was all about the running. Turns out it was about brightening someone’s day. In that same May spirit, consider your doorbell rung and a basket of goodies delivered in this issue to make you smile. But we’re not running away. Feel free to reach out anytime. We love the encouragement, questions, and debate after nearly every Gestalt Gathering.
Finding the Bright Side
Basket #1: Team & Culture Goodies
Work hours and work/life integration at a startup can get a bad rap if you don’t make your team and culture a priority. Here are some things we’ve put in place to ensure everyone pitches in and works hard in a cool way that doesn’t kill us.
- Kumo – Since we all work remotely, we’ve created a virtual office using Kumospace where we can instantly chat with each other face-to-face, solve issues quickly, have a laugh, and collaborate as if we we’re just down the hall from each other. View Kumospace Webinar Highlight.
- Flex Hours – We treat people like adults and value a commitment mindset over anything else. If someone says they’re going to do something, we trust that they will, even if that target needs to be updated occasionally.
- Goals – Everyone needs a target to aim for. Goals keep us moving forward, individually and as a startup. We have a lot of work to do and are wanting and willing for people to jump in, learn, and become the expert.
- Coaching – From a weekly executive coach Annissa , who meets with the leadership team individually to help keep us accountable and keep our wits, to Tony Jeary’s office, who helps us proactively prepare and think about our messaging, we’re invested in the power of support and continuous improvement.
“We treat people like adults and value a commitment mindset over anything else.”
Basket #2: Customer Goodies
We’ve learned a lot from our most difficult and uncomfortable conversations. It’s all about assuming good intentions and giving each other the benefit of the doubt. We can both have bad days. We can both be rigid or stubborn. However, when we have the freedom to be ourselves, and to speak honestly and openly, it makes room to come up with winning solutions together. Our customers don’t want us to fail or give them something for free and then go out of business. And we certainly don’t want to handcuff or limit them.
“It’s all about assuming good intentions and giving each other the benefit of the doubt.”
While the majority of our customers share things in common, here are just four examples of how customers with slightly different needs have helped us. And we appreciate it!
- Customer A: They needed us for one thing in particular around raising capital. Post raise, questions came up about why or how do they use us. This helped ground and remind us that a sale is nice, but the customer’s team has to buy in and see the value. We could turn our back and move to the next sale. But we believe a strong data foundation can help every company and that mindset reframes our training, our value prop, and ultimately the number and types of customers where we can add value. After all, if our training doesn’t exist because we have only customers that don’t need handholding or it exists at a technical level and not a business level, then we’re limited and the overall goal of partnering to make the entire ecosystem better is lost.
- Customer B: Custom systems. They’re tricky! Our data architecture still works even if a customer has a custom system. Our data model works. When it comes to data mapping, we believed our flexible patent-pending AI smart mapper would do the trick. While it did and is very helpful to speed up these situations, we learned that we needed expanded configurability and clarity on definitions and transformations. We could say “no thanks” and stick with integrations we’ve done before, but we don’t because it makes us better internally and for our customers.
- Customer C: At our last company, the most opinionated system admins were the ones that helped me as a leader grow the most and have the best strategy in mind. The conversations were often painful and so was the stress on the team. We all wanted the same winning result, but the fight for priority was real. We find the same thing here. When the types of resources we would hire to help us think through and build work for a customer instead of internally, we’re stretched to expand our product usage, our QA, our training, and our communication style.
- Customer D: With a strong Credit Risk team member, this customer asked for more. More abilities, more features, more access. They could have been frustrated it wasn’t there, but they engaged as a partner. This gave us the opportunity to beta test features and discuss internally how to offer them to the larger community.
I could share lots more examples, but there’s one more basket to open.
Basket #3: Investor Goodies
Venture partners can be judged unfairly. You don’t hear as much about the good. Since closing on our Seed round in June of last year, here are some of the positive things our partners have done that we’re grateful for.
- Alpha Edison: While based out of SF, I was definitely drawn to having our partner in Austin. As a collaborative and trusting partner, they ask good questions when needed, check in, and encourage along the way.
- Yamaha Motor Ventures: As our co-lead investor, we grappled with whether having a strategic co-lead made sense. We decided it did of course. Besides being consistent and helpful as they promised, there were two other “campaign promises”we hoped would happen post signing. I’m encouraged that they have already hit one of them and are actively working on the second.
- Sidekick: An understanding thought partner, a proactive introducer, and a quick responder. While months may go by where I don’t ask or need anything, I know when I do, they are on it.
- New Type: A great thought partner and proactive intro’er from early talks to post-closing. I feel both encouraged in each interaction, but also know that I will get truths from them, even if I don’t love it. A recent event at my church reminded me how important it is to be surrounded by people who both have your back and trust you, but also will gently but firmly speak honestly with you.
- Alloy Labs: Thanks to Alloy Labs for inviting us to their Annual Member Meeting earlier this month. Attending it for the first time, I see why community banks choose to take part. The vibe was professional yet comfortable. The people were ready to talk and help each other.
- Sentiero: Thanks to Sentiero for inviting us to one of the booths they sponsored at Convergence AI, and (I assume) for nominating us for the AI75 award we received. On top of that, they make sure to check in with me, offer to listen to sales pitches, and proactively try to think through who they can connect us with.
- Long Run: Always open to do an introduction when asked! Thankful to them and all of our investors who prioritize our requests and emails. I know for many we are such a small investment in the grand scheme of things.
- CURQL: We were lucky to be chosen as a cohort company in the last CURQL accelerator. I don’t have patience for programs that aren’t run well, so luckily, they crushed it and didn’t test me. It’s been great to enter into the CU space with the support and encouragement of the team.
Happy belated May Day everyone!
– Stephanie