Software Entrepreneur Q&A: Recruiters, Managing People, & What Startups Can Learn From Oracle
A conversation with Michael “Mikey” Trafton, CTO at Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas
I recently interviewed the co-founder/CEO of a software company whose headcount scaled from 16 to 140 people, expanded internationally, and reached profitability – all since 2014. He told me much of this success can be attributed to a talk he heard at the Business of Software (BoS) conference. In fact, he called this talk “life changing” for him and his company. That “life changing” speaker will be back at BoS in 2018: Michael “Mikey” Trafton will be presenting, “How to Manage Your Badass Team.” It’s an appropriate follow up to his 2012 talk, “How to Build a World Class Culture in 3 Easy Steps,” and to his 2012 encore, “Recruiting a Bad Ass Team.”
Trafton is the CTO at Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, founder/CEO of Fire Ant Software, director of education at Capital Factory, and founder of Blue Fish Development Group. He sat down with Software Executive magazine and SoftwareBusinessGrowth.com to share some of his expertise before he takes the stage in Boston at the Business of Software conference October 1-3.
---
For folks who have not been to the Business of Software conference before, this will be your third time on stage. Can you give us the high-level recap of what you talked about the first two times?
My first two topics were on culture and recruiting. I’m a strong believer that a strong culture can provide a huge strategic advantage, plus, working in a company with a strong culture is just more fun. My first talk was all about how to define your culture and how to create systems that reinforce that culture on a daily basis. My second talk was about how to hire “bad-asses” – super high-performing team members who are a great culture fit.
Can you give us a preview of one of the topics you’re going to dive in to during your talk?
This year’s talk will complete my BoS trilogy. It’s about how to manage your team of bad-asses after you hire them. Many entrepreneurs were never trained to be managers, and managing people can seem like a black art. I’ll share some of the tools and processes I have developed over the years for managing my teams.
For example, in every cop show on TV, there’s always some overbearing Police Captain telling the main character “If you don’t do what I say, I’m going to bust you back down to writing parking tickets!” But that kind of intimidation won’t work on a bad-ass, because she can easily walk across the street and get another job somewhere else. You have to use other techniques to motivate a bad-ass. Fear won’t cut it.
You recently gave another talk where you gave mentioned recruiters. What do software companies need to know about working with recruiters?
If you are hiring bad-asses, most recruiters round to useless. They can’t tell a bad-ass from a lazy-ass. Just like I wouldn’t be able to tell a good plumber from a bad plumber, because I’m not an expert in plumbing, a recruiter can’t tell a great developer from a below-average one. If you want to hire top performers, you will have to create your own ways to assess their abilities, such as coding exercises or algorithm puzzles. You can use recruiters to source candidates for you, but you should do your own assessment of their talents.
What is the most valuable business less you have learned from attending BoS?
I have attended BoS five times, and one of the best talks I heard was from Bob Moesta and Chris Spiek about the Jobs to Be Done framework. I’m excited to see that Bob is speaking again this year!
If you had a free 30 minutes to talk about something other than managing a badass team, what other advice would you want to share with your fellow software entrepreneurs?
What is a software company’s most valuable asset? Most people think it’s the company’s technology – but it’s not. If that were true, a startup with some amazing new technology would be acquiring a giant company like Oracle who has older, outdated technology. But of course, that’s not how it works. It’s always Oracle that acquires the little startup. That’s because Oracle has a more valuable asset than technology. It has an amazing customer list.
Oracle has a team of sales reps that meet regularly with the CIOs of every Fortune 500 company. The tiny startup can’t even get a meeting with a Fortune 500 company. So, Oracle can acquire the startup and the very next day be selling their amazing technology to the CIOs of the world’s biggest companies. That customer list and those customer relationships are Oracle’s most valuable asset. Without those customer relationships, they’d be sunk. The moral of the story is that you should be spending just as much time developing customer relationships as you do developing your technology.
---
Business of Software Conference USA 2018 is taking place in Boston at the Seaport World Trade Center, October 1-3. Other speakers this year include David Cancel (CEO, Drift), Rich Mironov (Author, The Art Of Product Management), Claire Suellentrop (CMO/Founder, Userlist.io), Jared Spool (Founder, UIE), and Tania Katan (Author, Creative Trespassing).
Tickets are available at a reduced rate for Software Executive Magazine and SoftwareBusinessGrowth.com readers – just enter the promotional code ‘SoftwareExec' to get a 20% discount.