Destroy.
OK Troy This is David Jones How are you.
I am well here.
How are you today.
Good.
Thanks for taking the time to speak with me.
Oh my pleasure.
Thanks for reaching out to me.
How are you.
Yeah pretty good.
I'm totally interested in this just because it's looks like it's a really important player in the Chicago
startup scene and not maybe you know that is not Venmo brain treats not these other you know sort of
startups that I don't know seems to seem to come up most often in Chicago but it looks like it's doing
fantastic.
Yeah.
We were getting some wonderful recognition.
And yeah it's it's as I mentioned in my email it's been a fantastic ride.
Cool.
Yes so I mean I was just wondering you know first you know what like what what are you seeing out there.
You know side in terms of you know the positioning within the startup community or like for example
you guys are recruiting a lot of tech people right now.
I don't know what you know what's going on.
Yeah absolutely.
So one of our biggest our biggest area is pretty much where we strongly focus on customer service which
is our operations associate.
So these team members are mainly playing the liaison role between our customers and people that we actually
do business with.
So other than that we do have strong tech side of developers and network engineers and whatnot that
we actually need to so as well.
Yeah.
Cool yeah because I was just checking out the video learning a little bit more about the service.
So these so the customer service side has to just engage with the facilities managers and stuff and
say hey how's it going like that.
Absolutely.
So they're making sure that the customers like let's take sample one of our largest customers.
So whatever they have in terms of their contract go as far as what work they need done.
We contract that worked from them so that we're going to keep your prices stable across the board and
we will actually find the people to maintain the services so that your store managers don't actually
have to mess with that and take away their focus from their daily operations of running their location.
So what are project manager operations managers or associates do they play that leads to the role of
guns I mentioned earlier too or they're contacting the affiliates sourcing out the work making sure
that we can see everything in real time through our technology making sure that everything is being
done from start to finish and making sure also that the customer is actually satisfied with the work
that's being done at each location and service.
So yeah there's a lot of I can see that like a lot of communication with the vendors and basically vendor
management it looks like.
Absolutely cool.
So what's the headcount now of the company.
We're just approaching 300.
And all of all of our own employees work in-house.
We actually just have a couple that work as remote employees in the streets of our company going to
be just different locations in certain regions and areas just representing us and making sure that you
know again everything's satisfied.
Cool.
Yeah I mean and I was also hoping that you could give me your your feedback on the outlook and basically
you know the transition that I'm seeing here which is that I've been working with with a small team
with the Stanford startups lab here in the Bay Area and we got funding to do this project the project
is successful.
It's coming to a close and I have a history in in both management consulting and in in in recruitment
I used to work with Robert Half you might know that company.
I noticed that actually on your profile as well and we've worked with Robert has.
Oh cool.
And so yeah I mean ultimately you know I'm I do have an MBA from a great school and I'm looking to move
into something that's a little bit more you know a little bit more of this sort of operations and maybe
internal consulting type of thing.
And you know I just wondered for somebody who is an expert.
I mean do you see do you see that as a profile match that with you know that would make sense for an
organization that needed somebody like that.
I think possibly yeah.
Yeah that's cool.
All right.
Yeah I mean it's I mean basically is there anything that you would suggest in terms of I don't know
like working on the resume or how to present you know oneself when you're when you're trying to just
sort of just just change function just a little bit.
Not totally but you know just a little bit as far as changing into becoming more of like operations.
Yes exactly fair.
I mean one thing that our department really focuses on what we search out are people with excellent
customer service skills that highlights those skills the skill attributes personality traits are obviously
a huge match.
We can pretty much teach anybody anything but you can't teach anybody niceness as far as the resume
standpoint though what we do look for strong organizational skills.
Multitasking.
Five years.
So those are those are key focal points that we actually to target and any kind of resume.
So what's it like how do you guys.
Is there like a cultural initiative with like create I don't know a certain kind of culture or hiring
for a particular attitude or anything like that.
Absolutely.
I mean our culture here we are a very casual company.
We do strongly believe and enforce positive work life balance.
We like to make work enjoyable instead of just coming in and punching a clock or staring at the clock
counting down the hours.
We want to make sure that you're enjoying coming in and doing what you what you enjoy doing and not
necessarily enjoy every aspect of it.
But we definitely want you to feel that you have a stable career here with the company and that you
enjoy coming into work on a daily basis.
Cool.
Yes so what's so what's your what's your what's your outlook.
Troy I mean I notice that you've really called the ranks with this company I mean where it where would
you see yourself in like five years.
For example continuing with the company.
I would love to consideringly with the company as it is right now I'm actually going for my Ph are on
standing for that.
So I take my time actually in December of this year shortly after the questions.
And so with that I definitely want to develop a stronger recruiting recruitment aspects of for this
company put more metrics into place for the five years that my growth has been so fast it's almost hard
to say with this company.
I know it definitely and I really enjoy the HRA aspect of it and I thoroughly enjoy being on the recruiting
aspect of it as well.
I like meeting people working with people.
Yeah think mentoring and communication with people and you know making sure there is a proper fit and
you know if there's not I definitely want to be upfront with somebody and you know the most pleasant
way possible instead of just being a harsh cut off.
Yeah I understand that.
Cool.
All right.
Well you know I wonder is there if I was to look for opportunities with this what do you think the best
way to approach that is opportunity is a one best way.
We have everything posted through Indeed and LinkedIn actually as well.
Everything does go through our website and everything is then filtered into our applicant tracking system
which is what we use which is a recruiter box actually.
So I guess that's the best way to actually learn more about the opportunities that we offer and we change
just just daily would get actually visiting our website which is just a dot com.
Ok cool.
So yeah I mean I'll definitely I really appreciate the help.
You know my wife and I are moving out to Chicago here in about two weeks.
And as I used to work and live in Chicago for four years so I definitely know the city.
But anyway yeah you know so.
So we'll be out there and.
And you know I'll definitely leave you Illington recommendation for you know taking the time to speak
with me and let me know a little bit about your culture.
I really do appreciate it and I appreciate the perspective on the you know what's happening in the in
the sort of startup world in Chicago.