Podcast: Willemijn Schneyder (SwipeGuide) over female founders en verandering

Zesde aflevering van interview-rubriek HelloMasters

HelloMasters is de tweewekelijkse podcast van HelloMaaS, waarin Louise Doorn spreekt met de toekomstige leiders in de Nederlandse marketing-scene. CEO’s en CMO’s spreken over de staat van marketing, successen én twijfelmomenten uit hun loopbaan. In deze aflevering Willemijn Schneyder, oprichter van SwipeGuide, over haar werk als female founder, het inspelen op veranderingen en teamcultuur.

Alweer onze zesde HelloMasters-aflevering en we zijn voorlopig nog niet klaar! Dit keer spreek ik met Willemijn Schneyder, CEO en founder van SwipeGuide. Ze was eerder te gast in onze aflevering over startup-mythes, maar dit keer gaan we persoonlijker in op haar persoonlijke traject. We praten over de stappen in haar loopbaan, het leven als vrouwelijke CEO, veranderingen in haar bedrijf en het creëren van een teamcultuur.

“I think I’ve always been an entrepreneur, I’ve always acted as one, but I just needed to acquire enough guts and experience to fly out on my own.”

Het besluit van Schneyder tot het oprichten van een eigen bedrijf was er niet één die uit de lucht kwam vallen. Hoewel ze onder andere werkte voor reclamebureaus en in marketing-consultancy in het begin van haar carrière, kwam ze er snel achter een passie te hebben voor opkomende technologieën en customer experience. Het waren deze jaren die het startsein gaven voor uiteindelijk een eigen bedrijf. Zo geeft ze aan: “Founding a company is not something that just happens. You really need a great insight and a real need to solve and a great team around you.”

Personal Support System

Over haar rol als CEO in combinatie met haar eigen leven, vertelt Schneyder: “You need a big personal support system, just to keep you in check. Building your startup company, you can be so much focussed on the next milestone that you forget to take care of everything that keeps you in check.”

“Als een investeerder vragen stelt over mijn commitment omdat ik twee kinderen heb, zijn we meteen uitgepraat”

Support uit zich natuurlijk ook in het team dat je in binnen het bedrijf neerzet. “It takes a village to raise a startup, so you have to surround yourself with a great team. Not just in work, also in your personal life. People who tell you when you are going horribly wrong.”

Stimulerende werkcultuur

Schneyder benadrukt het belang van een stimulerende werkcultuur en geeft aan dat dit ook terugkomt in het huren van nieuwe medewerkers. “Our values are: go positive, leave your ego at the door and embrace failure and celebrate success. When you stick to these values, you find yourself attracting and working with people who share the same values.”

Graag trekt Schneyder dit breder en geeft aan dat dit ook geldt voor de partners en venture capitalists waar ze mee samenwerkt. “When they ask me about my commitment because I have two children, I immediately check out. Then it’s just not a fit.”

Het belang van experimenteren en iteratief werken komt ook naar voren. Binnen SwipeGuide is veel gebruik gemaakt van A/B-testing om zo tot conclusies te kunnen komen over bijvoorbeeld een ideaal klantprofiel. “Als je ongeduldig bent en opschaalt voordat je echt klaar bent, dan werk je gewoon inefficiënt.”

Topics uit deze podcast

[00:00:28] Introductie van Louise Doorn en direct daarna Willemijn Schneyder

[00:01:22] Schneyder over het verloop van haar carrière

“I think I’ve always been an entrepreneur, I’ve always acted as one, but I just needed to acquire enough guts and experience to fly out on my own.”

[00:03:13] Is being a start-up CEO/founder borderline insanity? Willemijn about keeping insanity, wearing different hats and fun.

“Building a startup is much like running a marathon. You have to have enormous drive, train and practice and also take your rest. Training towards a marathon, you don’t get there by running more kilometers a week; sometimes you have to sprint, sometimes you have to have an interval training, sometimes you need recovery time. That’s how you should review your work and role.”

[00:04:38] Support system on a personal level

[00:06:15] Startup CEO as a female

“We are a company that creates instruction software for industrial processes… Simply because of the fact that you are a woman, people get disregarded for the conversation.”

[00:09:38] About SwipeGuide, their product and their journey

“If companies are willing to pay 100k a year for software solutions that help solve a question, there must be a market for software that helps prevent the question.”

[00:12:20] Sticking where you are today & Pivots

“We have never once pivoted from the core of the product vision. We have always been true to the product vision. To make it as easy as possible for anyone, to create a very interactactive, compelling instruction that you can use on a mobile device.”

[00:13:55] How do you accommodate changes?

“We have customers that can help us learn change the stories so they fit a specific industrial market.”

[00:15:15] Diversity in hiring strategy

“Up to now it already came naturally. We look at content, and not the bucket the content comes in. Do they have a fit with our company’s cultural values? (…) Cultural fit is in many little things. We look at the skill set, followed by an interview. A part of this process is a peer review with someone random in the company. They will ask related questions and help enable a setting where it has to come out. It’s also something that I cannot define tangibly. It’s the way people make eye contact, the way a conversation picks up yes or no. (…) When the skills match, but the cultural fit isn’t there, am I going for a sustainable hire or go for someone who might not really fit. Once or twice I thought it would be okay, but then it wasn’t. We have learned from it.”

[00:18:17] Fundraising and keeping sanity

“It was a huge struggle to get to the first level. But once you meet people that align with your values, they are just fully aligned with what we believe. (…) The one thing I would have done differently, is get legal guidance. Even if you think you don’t need it.”

[00:23:00] Marketing and SwipeGuide’s team

“Some people have a role in one, two or three teams, depending on their ambitions.”

[00:24:35] KPI’s and targets

“Constructively building towards the common goal. It has to be ambitious but also feasible.”

[00:26:25] Teams and their autonomy

[00:28:05] Leverage opportunities in marketing

“We opened ourselves up to experiment. We narrowed those experiments down to an ideal customer profile.”

[00:31:00] Alternative ways of working

[00:32:35] Things Schneyder would have done differently

“I would focus more on building a balanced core team quicker.”

[00:34:38] Predictions of this year

“We envision our product to have a predictive value. (…) If you’re impatient and you scale before you’re ready, there is just too much inefficiency going on.”

[00:35:58] Outro

Wij begrijpen dat je in een startup soms kortstondig specifieke kennis nodig hebt. Benieuwd hoe jij jouw in-house marketing team op een flexibele manier kunt opzetten? Op HelloMaaS kun je direct connecten met marketingfreelancers. Meer weten? Klik hier.