Startup Grind with Guest Speaker Heather Brunner

Sure. So well first off, I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to speak with everyone and thank you for, I really appreciate it. This room in particular has a lot of special memories for me and meaning to me. This is where, in this room is where we actually crafted and held all the working sessions to create our core values for WP Engine. So for those of you who are here from WP Engine, this is where it happened. So that's very cool that this happened then. Now I feel, and I feel so bad. So for me, I just, I always think that part of really underpinning my life and my kind of family background is a very intense work ethic, commitment to family. Generation Texans, and my family is from just not too far from here, from Austin is where I have the majority of my descendants and family. And came here actually, which is another kind of interesting story about this building. I came here to Austin in 1994 when I was a newly minted manager from Anderson Consulting, now Accenture, and came here for a project with back in the days of garment bag and my briefcase and stayed here at the Omni to come for to work for Mission Consulting. And they had, this is where their offices were. So it came to, this is my first, you know, get off the airplane, come straight to this building in January of '94. And then years later come back here and to be part of WP Engine, and it was 2013. So it's kind of an interesting part. So for me, basically I've had the opportunity to work in, always interested in international business. Growing up in Houston, my father worked in the energy industry, keywords in the Triton trade and Nolde trade, and so a lot of work at the Port of Houston. So always going to work with him, you know, meet people. It's always fascinated by international travel and all the things that he was doing and was always fascinated by that. And that then led me to go to Trinity University here in San Antonio. I have an international economics background and that helped me to get to a place where I kind of found my career in technology actually through a study abroad program when I was studying at Cambridge University in England on the international economic study program. I met a partner from Anderson Consulting and then it's kind of like this but for students who are interested in finance and interested, it's called the City Club. So people who were interested going to perhaps work in the financial district of London out of college, out of university. And it was through the talk, discussion, he was giving a talk about the work that they were doing to start to bring business systems and automate a lot of things, going in basic back-office type of systems. So it was really interesting. He was talking about doing this for Lloyd's of London. And so after his talk I went to talk to him and, you know, I'm just fascinated by this, it's super interesting. He said, why don't you come and see a project? So he invited me to come and so I got to go to the project side and see it and then kind of unfold it from there. That he wrote a recommendation for me to go to work at Anderson Consulting and that kind of started my career into tech. And then from there worked doing everything from learning how to code in COBOL, SQL, you know, writing basically design sessions to prep a project and program management into doing more planning and general management of different projects. So kind of started from there and then that was back in the '90s. I've seen every kind of major technology wave from back-office automation, green screen COBOL to first-generation client-server, ASP model, SaaS, you know, the beginnings of SaaS and ERP. I ran the Austin office here for Cole. So seeing a lot of different changes both in terms of large companies and then going from SaaS working in social commerce and Bazaarvoice, working in terms of web analytics and core metrics, and then lots of other different enterprise operating trilogy. And then taking all those different types of experiences now to get me to a position to be able to work at WP Engine, have that perspective about technology and what's possible with the web. So it's all a smattering.

Absolutely. So just maybe to set the stage, just to share a little bit about WP Engine. So out of 600 people with the men and women globally, we have basically a third of the organization is non-white, a third of the organization are women. At the management ranks, a third of our non-executive management are women, and at the executive C-suite, in terms of the entire C-suite is basically 60% women. At the entire executive team, it's 50/50. And we have a third of our organization, it's actually, I think it's actually got a little bit higher to 35% of the organization does not have a college degree. So we have a very, very, I would say for a technology company that's growing and I would say considered to be a relatively diverse organization, and we're very proud of that. And I think one thing I always say is diversity attracts diversity. So if I'm a woman, I see other women ahead of me thriving. If I'm black, I see other people who are black who are thriving. If I'm gay, I see other people who are gay who are thriving. You can see yourself, then that attracts other people to say this is a place where I can be myself. And I think that's really, really first starts often. I think a big part of that is how we really instantiate that into our core values around this ability for people to be different and for people to say you can be different, you can be different. We can agree and disagree, as long as you're proud of what you're doing and the character and integrity that you're operating with, then you're doing the right thing. So it kind of allows people to be different and allows people to be owners of what's happening for them in the company. So I think part of it is like that, our values. The other part of it just, I think it's also how we treat people. And we treat people with a sense around, you know, we have abundant, so we practice open book management. So we teach all of our employees how to read our financials, to know what their KPIs are, then we share openly, transparently what our results are every month. And it seems like a little thing, but it's actually a really big thing when your employees really know what's going on and they feel like they're treated like an adult or treated like an equal in the business, that it causes other kind of empowering impact around people finding opportunities to help the business, to work on the business, to do things in a way and embrace that. And so those kinds of things you would say like, well how does that create diversity? Well, what it is is empowering more people from more backgrounds to be business people versus saying only a few people, if you have this title that means you're a leader. No, that means that everyone can be a leader. And then that means people then can build their confidence, their trajectory, their impact, and then that helps attract and grow other people as well. So I just say us opening our doors wide. A lot of technology companies require a college degree for any job, and I have been, you know, have been one of those people, those tech leaders who's done that in the past. And really coming into WP Engine, seeing the quality of the team and the kind of energy that they're doing. When I joined the business, we were about 40 people five years ago. And so seeing that kind of just the diversity that already existed and the quality of the team and they're in our space. And what we saw was an open source, there was really a mixture. And so we decided just to embrace it. So I think just those are just some of the things. I think it really just starts with how do you treat people, do you actually value difference? And if you do, that has to be the foundation from which you can build all these other things to really have an inclusive, diverse culture and environment.

I think it can be abused. I think it has to be, I think you have to be really clear on what you're interviewing for in the company. And I think it's important to ask people questions about how they handle different situations and getting a sense around are they going to fit in. So but you know, I think for us is like more we're looking more holistically around do they have the kind of experience, do they have the potential, do they have the work ethic, do they have a value match with our values, our values resonate with them, and can they share examples of that? Then we kind of know if this person holistically is going to be the right fit. Yes. And I think for us in our environment, you know, it's kind of like I know that this is a lot of companies can say this, I could mimic jerks, but I really feel like we're doing a really good job. And if there's a jerk emerges, I think we have, you know, what's the thing you do, a transplant, it doesn't work, tissue rejection. It is self-healing. And then I think that's why, you know, I always said my culture is like an operating system. Your culture is like an operating system of the business and your culture is basically the core values in action. And so if everyone starts to see that, then you know that perhaps you can, you know, a previously undetected recruiting error, and then you move on and it's like that person is probably not, that person is just not a fit in our environment.

The culture is your core values in action. So are you, whatever you say you stand for, does that actually, what you hire to, is that what you actually celebrate, is that actually what you fire to, is that actually what you, so do you actually live your core values and do you use them as a way to make decisions? We have, we have over 3,000 interactions with customers a day and in each of those interactions is an opportunity for you to be true to, are you being customer-inspired, are you doing the right thing, are you thinking built to last for the business, now what are you doing to be earning and inspiring to lead and earn respect to that customer. So a lot of our core values are those things that we expect that all of our employees would think about how they do treat each other with those levels of that type of respect and care that we then give to our customers. So to me it's really just like they're inextricably tied. Your culture is your core values in action. And I'm strongly, strongly encouraging you, hear me saying this over and over again, my team hears this over, I'm so passionate about, so I believe so fundamentally that because we have defined our core values and because we use them every day that it is creating high performance in our organization and high clarity around what does it mean to be at WP Engine. And I would strongly encourage, you know, all founders to have some type of core values. Take the time to say this is who we are, this is what we stand for, this is what we're gonna use as a framework for our decisions.

So I think, I think that I call it kind of three V's. So what's the vision? So vision, what are you trying to accomplish for who and why? How are you going to help make their life better? What kind of organization are you building? What's the place that we're going together? And having a compelling place around we're headed here together and we're going to do this with intensity and with integrity. And that's the vision of where you want to go. The next is your values. So we talked about that. So being very clear on the values of your organization and making sure that you as the leader are number one in terms of making sure that you're bringing those to life and being a role model for that. And then third is victory. What does victory look like? So having to be very clear for your organization around what are the goals and strategic priorities for the organization, what are we trying to accomplish as a business not only financially but also key initiatives that we know we're going to move the business forward. What does that victory look like? So I think that how you inspire people is people want to be part of something, feel like they have that clarity, they can get impact, that you're doing something that's meaningful and that they're gonna learn and grow. And so I think that's how you inspire people is those vision, values, victory.

Yes, I think kind of vision is underpinned, why do you exist, who are you serving? And I think it's so, so around that. So I think that's really, really key. And it's okay if you're ideating on different businesses or you still have different types of ideas or personas or different things that you're working on, and that's okay. But once you get to a place where you actually feel like it's time for me to really commit or to raise money or to ask other people to get on board to make a commitment or sacrifice to join me, you sure as heck better have a real clear sense around the purpose and who you're trying to serve and how your company is going to make that person or that, you know, that hero, I call the hero customer, your hero customer better. And so how are you gonna make their life better, how are you going to give them value, how are you gonna change something to where it's any hero customer who the burger you're serving is going to be willing to part with money to or to take an action, whatever the action is if you need them to do, because of what you're doing is actually going to inspire them to make a change. Because in essence when somebody is giving you an exchange for money or they're doing something, they're committing to take action. And so you have to have some kind of compelling purpose for people to do that. And what I have found very often in talking to entrepreneurs is that they still have not honed in on who is the real hero customer. They're focused on, well I'm serving a wide variety of different people. That's fine, serve all those wide variety of people after you have success with somebody who's actually going to start to actually help you pay the bills or to do beta or to experiment with you or to prototype with you, etc. You have to have some anchor first. I think that's really critical. I think the other thing is, I think it's really important at every stage but particularly the early days is to have a path, kind of a path called path to a million. This is not rocket science, but just having a clear path around these are the assumptions I would have to make, these are the things that would have to happen, that's very clear and articulated around how am I going to get a path to a million dollars. So that might be different, you may say well I'm just trying to run a lifestyle business, I don't need a million dollars, I just need to make whatever I'm making, it's a problem, that might be different. But most people I'm talking to are actually thinking about how am I going to build something that's going to be a company that's on a path to actually have some type of funding and then from there a path to Series A, Series beyond. So that I've been thinking about that kind of lens. I don't think a lot of times as I talk to entrepreneurs they spend enough time thinking about that and then anchoring that hero customer into and showing how that hero customer helps that path to a million dollars manifest. I would say the other thing is when I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs, they have not done enough customer research. When you have a hero customer, so you're serving the developer or you're serving the marketer or you're serving nonprofit executive directors, whoever you're serving, you need to talk to 20, 30, 50 of them. You spend as much energy as you can knowing exactly their day in and day out and how are they going to change their behavior and their action to use your product, your service and engage with you. And there's nothing more compelling that inspires your team or your potential investors than you have real stories from people that you've talked to that you know that your product is going to meet, has a product, it has a market, if it has a market need and the people who are engaging with you. So have a hero customer, talk to lots of them, have that inspire then what you're doing, then have that of course then help you build the plan. And the plan sounds very general but it, you know, some type of path that you can then start to be working on and iterating on. As I recall, Jason Cohen did that at the founding of WP Engine, telling the story of 30 to 50 people that he spoke to where he had this series of questions and he asked everyone the same questions and he kept getting the same answers over and over to the questions where there was this gap in the market between professional hosting and hobbyists that wasn't being served. People worried about speed, they were worried about security, he kept hearing over and over and over. He's like, I got to where I could predict what they were gonna say before they said it and that's when he knew that he had something.

Well, I think just the first talk would be their passion and knowledge about what they're wanting to go and build and the fact that they've done their homework, that they actually have had new customer interviews, that they've actually, depending upon what stage or where they are, if it's somebody who's like I need your help to ideate, okay, but that's outside let's say something. I have an idea, I have a business and I'm looking for an angel investor, then I would want to see that how is their purpose of their company actually informed by data, how is it informed by original conversations where people said what, what have they done to really validate their hypothesis that this product or this idea is really valid. And I want to see how they're thinking about what would be the next steps, how would they, whatever the hell, have they used their own money, their own time to get to what stages of what milestones and what would they be seeking to go do with more money, what would be there in essence that game plan. And having again that back to the whole thing of having a plan, full of furniture on what's the one around what's next. Who are they surrounding themselves with, their team or advisors, is also a big signal. And what is their sense of humility. I think that a lot of times people, or their ability to be, you know, fall in their bowl and to say here's what I know, here's what I don't know, here's what I'm looking for, etc. versus a lot of times people have the sense where they will appear weak if they don't kind of have all the answers, where actually it makes them look weak if they do. What's that balance between the humility of, you know, here's my experience. There are a lot of entrepreneurs who are serial entrepreneurs who have that sense, who have kind of gone through a lot of the growing pains and of course that's maybe a different animal. But a lot of times it, you know, folks I have met with here at Capital Factory who are first-time entrepreneurs who are going through that journey, you don't have to know it all, surround yourself with great people, use your resources, you can soar.

Well, if it's a hard decision based on, like data or numbers, I think you just have to go back to your strategic plan, your strategic priorities, and you know, how does this fit vis-a-vis that. If it's a difficult decision because it's about people or something related to an issue, so for example, we had a situation related to what we thought was a more impactful security breach, but it turned out to be very isolated. But until we knew about it, this is like, you know, many years ago, we made the decision, I made the difficult decision not knowing to basically roll the credentials for all of our customers and basically disrupt their ability to log into their accounts. Not knowing that, and I just basically, I felt like in the absence of information and not knowing until we could do the research, it was the best thing to do to protect our customers and to honor our core values. And so that was a decision like what's the right thing to do and what would you want to have happen to your business and the decision. So kind of really taking that heart. I think in terms of again back to more of a quantitative, you have to have some level of ability to stack rank and prioritize, although it can be difficult. You can't be doing everything at the same time. And so you do have to have some kind of framework. So for us, we have certain metrics or certain things that we know that are the objectives and we kind of measure things through that lens of how we're going to achieve those. We have others that we're willing to not do or not invest if we have to to sacrifice to do those things. So it's kind of that constant prioritization.

Follow tequila. Don't come out till you work it out. To me, it's like, you know, usually when there's a disagreement, it's good. That's another thing, like disagreement and conflict is, but you want people to not agree, that's awesome. That means like we're actually thinking people, they have a point of view. So first off, conflict is good. So that's great. If it's conflict that's unhealthy because there's a lack of trust, that's different. So then you have to go down to where's the issue around why we don't trust each other or what's that comment. That may take some facilitation or just so maybe some, how the hell those people work it out. But one of the things that I'm a really big believer in is just let people work it out. And only when you really can't work it out, you can't either, you can't make a decision, there's some kind of group like this, you just cannot work it out between the two people, whether this be two executives or whether this be two team members at any level, they should try to work it out. And I try not to get involved or encourage my team not to get involved, leaders get involved until they've given that chance. And then when they say no we need help, that's when you should step in. But you should want to see a healthy level of, you know, conflict and disagreement and dialogue in a diverse, or that's part of diversity is that the disagreement, that's a point.

Right. I think in part of it is, you know, like, you know, it sounds like to be a, what's a saint, you know, to be a friend, be somebody who, you know, be worthy of the friendship or whatever. So if you want to be building a network, I mean part of building a network is you have to give. You know, so part of, you know, what are you going to do, how are you going to, there's something that you're interested in. So let's say, let's just say for example here at Capital Factory. So how do I build and take advantage, I'm new to Capital Factory, take that. Well part of it might be is like figuring out what are some of the things that you're interested in in events and then perhaps volunteering. What can I do to help set up, what can I do to, you know, just be supportive and kind of finding ways to get back. Oh there's something coming up, what can I do in those things. So those kinds of situations where you have an interest, then find a way for you to give back to the people who are already organizing it and then, you know, offer to help. It's, you know, those kinds of things I think is really, it's one way. I think the other thing is networking within your own company is important. That or if you're in a, you know, company structure, it's just, you know, finding things that you're interested, you know, meeting people from other departments and building that out. I think the other thing is, you know, asking for, being very specific. If there's people that you aspire to meet or to get to know, be really specific. The whole, there's nothing more dreaded than hey let's meet for coffee, I want to take you to coffee. It's just like no, I want to pick your brain. I want to pick your brain, all right, like that is like no. It's like how, what experience, meeting, help with, and be very specific. I'm reaching out to you because I understand that you are an expert in this. I'm trying to do this, I need help with this. You know, I've sent you this, I've packed it, you know, help you. And then you're like okay great. And then just that extra level of effort, you'll get attention around people like oh this person I really want to help them. And then that maybe it becomes the formation of some type of this guy or, you know, exchange or network, etc. But I think it's kind of like you gotta give to get. And I think that I would say one of the most powerful things I've done here in Austin in terms of building my network is going to a call for volunteers at United Way. And so I went to that call for volunteers, I was, you know, new here to the Austin, you know, kind of coming back into Austin, and I was like went to that, met all kinds of people. And through that just met all kinds of, you know, just different people from all different types of industries outside of tech. But those actually, those relationships helped me in tech. So anyway, so just again my tip is like think about it from a standpoint like building your network is I'm gonna, doesn't mean a bunch of people, this be like no, I'm gonna give to a bunch of people and through that giving I'm going to then build my network.

I mean I think all of us have incredible different gifts that we can be giving in different ways. And what you take for granted, like something I took for granted, I go, you know, just general business knowledge and finance knowledge was like a boon to the United Way because they're like, you know, we don't think like that. So can you help us with all these, you know, auditing, you know, the financial results from the nonprofits you have to submit them and giving us a framework and coming in with differences that was like to me was easy and to them it's like oh, you know, this is something that they didn't know how to do. So there's different ways that can be within a nonprofit, it can be within your own organization, within an organization to aspire to be a part of, what's your gift to them. So, you know, any kind of business person you...

One thing I see is I would say underestimating the amount of time and capital it takes to get things off the ground and the amount of energy it will take to tenaciously let that kind of fuel you. So what are you going to do? For example, I want to use an example from my past where we decided, and this isn't boasting, we decided to do some consulting or have some other sources of revenue while we in essence have quit our day job to help offset and put some money in that we could basically invest back into the business. But that time to how you're going to, unless you have something at the right of ways that has market fit, it's going to take time for you to build it. Who you're going to help, who you work with, you're probably going to, you may need to be working with people who are subcontractors or freelancers until you have the means to attract a team. Just making sure you have enough runway in those early days, it's really important.

I think another thing I see a common mistake is too early entrepreneurs giving away equity to others and giving away large portions which seem very small at the time but can be very meaningful. And then also giving away titles too early, so giving away co-founder titles to people that perhaps, just because if I'm a non-technical business founder, I found somebody who's super technical and they seem really interested, well I'm going to go ahead and give them 25 percent of the company and call them a co-founder just because they're technical. It's like, don't do that. Your equity is like the most precious thing that you have as the founder of your company and it just needs to be treated with that level of care. And I see people, oh, in order for them to leave their day job, I've got to make them a vice president even though they have never managed a team before. So that's a very common thing, this sense around, well, I've attracted these people that come to me and so I've got to keep them and I've got to attract them. You have these rationalizations but then it's very hard to take away a VP title, it's very hard to then take away equity from someone, nearly impossible once you give it. So those kinds of things I see founders making some of those mistakes. And so I'm just basically saying instead, you don't have to have an org structure where everybody has a C-level or any level, just be like, I'm running this, I'm running this, and treat people fairly and make sure that they are compensated fairly for whatever their role is, but don't overextend yourself too early.

You have to have enough savings, enough liquidity to where, whether that means that you have saved or you had something else, if you're then using that source for that or you're supplementing your idea with whatever. But a lot of this just boils down to cash, right? So for example, founders who I've seen do this successfully, they basically have traded cash for freelancing or for technical work or whatever and then had the ability for them to test it out just like a job interview. So before I'm going to make sure to give you equity or make you some kind of larger role, let's at least work together and maybe for you it's a part-time gig and you're kind of getting that. That's a great thing for you to be able to kind of try before you make those commitments. But you have to have some kind of means to that unless you have people who are willing to do it for free, which maybe people might do it for lower because they're inspired by you, your idea, etc. But I think a big part of it is if you're going to make that leap, you have to have a safety net and something for you personally, otherwise it creates so much stress and a lot of, I would say, dysfunctional decisions because of it. And for you that might be a year of salary, it might be six months of salary, you've kind of mapped your mind, something like that. You have to have some type of corpus to get going and not feel that strain.

Yeah, so we don't rank people in the values but we do celebrate people who embody the values. So they exist. I'll go through the values. So some are core. So first off, the history of them is that when I first came to the company and kind of noticed that there was a palpable sense about the company that you felt at the team and everybody. We're here working at the Capital Factory just over there and you can feel the vibe. And we knew that we were going to be growing and getting into different geographies and growing very rapidly, we more than doubled that year. And kind of saw that we needed to really take the time, say who are we and get this down so that we could help to drive that scale and use it as a touchstone for how we're going to run the company. And so the core values, number one is do the right thing. And basically the key phrase of that is when it's right for the customer, that's right for the company, and you're proud of your decision and you've done the right thing. There's a whole other supporting phrases but the whole essence of it is that in any situation that you can, there would be a difference of how you get things done. So in situation A with a customer, again we have thousands of different directions each day, that you feel empowered that you think you should do A, you think you do B, you're both proud of your decision, you've done the right thing, keep going. And with more information you learn more and you feel like, hey, I would do it any different, great, take the lesson, you didn't really make a mistake, you just keep on going. So that kind of sense around decision-making empowerment at speed, that's the first one.

The second one is customer inspired. And so the whole concept behind that is turning customers into advocates, earning it with every action. And advocates is a very specific phrase. This advocacy means I'm willing to associate my brand with your brand. And we know that in our business the majority of our customers come somehow referred to us through some type of word-of-mouth. The fact that we would have an army of customer advocates is something that would fuel our business. So that's customer inspired in the sense that every interaction, every touchpoint of the customer matters. It doesn't matter if the customer's paying $30 a month or $30,000 a month, they matter because that advocacy fuels our business.

The third is where the best gets better. So this is going to focus on our employees. The basis is saying that we want you to be your full authentic self at work and that you would consider it to be a place that you could be accepted and that you can do your best work of your career there and that we're going to stretch and empower you and challenge you. Management be inspired by everybody else doing the same thing. So the five questions are: are you learning, are you growing, are you having fun, does your manager have your back, and do you have a plan for the future? Those are the five questions, kind of the spirit of where the best gets better.

The next one is built to last. And this is a sense around taking a long-term view, taking a long-term view with the relationship with our employees, our customers, our partners, the WordPress community that we serve as well as the communities that we live and work in. And so that's kind of the last one. We always want to be in control of our financial destiny. We didn't just raise more money, raise more money, grow, but we grew responsibly. We grew to over a hundred million dollar run rate with less than 18 million dollars of cash to earn. And so we did that and because we were just very focused on have success, use that to fuel the next day's success. Building, building, building. Inspired by the title of the book from Jim Collins, so we stole that.

And then the final one is aspiring to lead, committed to giving back. So aspiring to lead is that sense of humility, the sense around hunger, and that we're going to inspire people with our leadership in terms of how we're serving our customers, how we're serving our employees, how we're inspiring to serve the WordPress community. And that would be committed to giving back as we have more success that we give back more to WordPress, so we'd give back more through volunteerism and philanthropy. So our team, we have a whole kind of grassroots philosophy around giving and it's all employee-led. And so far this year we've given over $50,000 from our employees, not from the company, to over I think now almost like 15 different causes just this year so far, over 600 people. So it's this sense of giving back in that way and the sparking that, aspiring to lead, that hunger around you're never satisfied even though you're doing well or you're going to keep winning or you're the leader, you have to keep earning it. So those are our core values.

We wrote them and we decided, kind of inspired when we were here in this room, this board, we said that we're going to put them on a board. And I said, you know what, I want it to be kind of like the Declaration of Independence, like this is our moment. You're graduating out of the Capital Factory and we had gotten into our first office space which we're still in. And it was the first town hall we have, we run an all-company town hall once a week for 30 minutes. And so at that town hall, the first Thursday that we were in our new space, we have no furniture, can't afford furniture, that was us, this is all this empty space. And we had our board and I launched the core values and then everybody signed them. And that's become an annual tradition. So everybody puts their signature on our core values every September when we renew, kind of have a renewal ceremony so to speak for our core values in September of each year. And so we have them in all of our offices, they're constantly around. We have quarterly awards for people who amplify our core values. So we do six Computers and one leader award each quarter and we read out the nominations, people give to people so that people know exactly what did their peers say about them.

We use Facebook at Work and we have a kudos kind of screen there and that's filled all day long as people basically saying, you know, so and so did this and he really is doing something that is customer inspired and here's an example. So kind of fueling that language or using that language every day in how we're doing each other through this. So those are some of the ways that we kind of try to bring it to life. So anyone who's here from WP Engine, any other thoughts?

Right, right, yes.

Let me start, the community is large. So instruments, just like your personal financial life and how you're going to choose it, you're going to need the same thing in the business side. And there's just different people have different views around how that you sit and have a business. You don't have to, if I hypothetical you do, and I just understood why we don't see it. I think it's there. I think if there is, it's not probably noticed, it's not, you're not going to see a big splash in Turkey. Unfortunately, so the soap company just arranged for a revolver. So you know, we have debt instruments, we have revolvers, we have everything. We've never used them, we've never borrowed a penny. Not saying that's good or bad, we just have it. And we've been prudent, I think for you to have a certain size and scale, particularly when you have a certain level of commitment, employees and compensation, that if you're making sure that you have the right balance where if something happened you could have today's situation. That's one scenario. The other source, I know I'm going to use debt as an instrument. Definitely companies who do that. I'm not personally, I've not personally used that as an instrument for business. I only use basic cash flow and equity. So that's just me. But companies do do it. If you have a recurring revenue model and you feel it's really strong and you're comfortable with servicing that debt, it happened, the partner that you're paying and there's no covenants and you're not having, because a lot of times they're going to ask you for equity. And to the point, as long as you're comfortable, you feel like there, why not? It's definitely an option. You know, I really don't think, I'm not really expert in, for example, in the private equity world, a much much bigger size, it's very commonplace. But in the smaller stages, yeah, I just don't know why.

Great, missing something.

In terms of different industries, so I sit on a board of a public company that's a real estate investment trust and that's a whole different, right? Let's, you have totally debt.

Well, I definitely think that's a great question and I would say that from what I've seen, most people have a place that they prefer to be in terms of their risk profile and their risk tolerance with their ability to deal with ambiguity and risk. And so I do think the people who are going to kind of make the leap early thrive on that sense of I'm building might be different than the people that you're hiring at 25 or even at like a team of 25, 50 people, different than maybe your first 10. It's different, that kind of sense, different stages along the way and I think that that's okay. And like right now there's absolutely people who I interview right now who say I would have never interviewed with WP Engine. How did you not know that you were a hundred million dollar business? Whereas we had other people who are in the business for like, coming together, this is good, awesome, I want to go back to something small. Help me get back to something small. I've loved my journey, this is great but I don't want to be part of a large global organization. I want to get back to the old scrappy days when we were at the Capital Factory. I can do everything through these Swiss Army knife and now I'm the specialist in this role and I have a boss and they have a boss and the boss. And so but other people who are like, who are the also people who I've seen journey, we were doing it phenomenally and I'm going with the punches. So do you have a willingness to adapt and to change? And also if you're not too, you know, there is a cell mitosis that happens in the company. You know, so we're doing this like, okay you do this hack, I'll do this out. Okay now we're going to add in this many people, you do a third, under a third, you do a third. Well I used to be a VP running the whole marketing department. Sorry, you had the experience, you're in a marketing department at this size but you don't have the experience to attract, energize, develop a strategic plan and retain talent that we need to go to this size. So sorry. And so either like, okay I'm in because I want to learn from those people, I want to be doing that. Sorry, it's been great, how do we help you find the right? So I definitely think it's different times, different places and there are people who can navigate across. So one of the things I love is I love the stage of where, you know, there's product fit, there's market fit, there's customers, we've got something that works and then how you come in and scale it. That's, I love that path. I also really, really enjoy working at this stage where it took that before, that pre-public stage. And I was going to say there's like, you know, the food fight, there's no rules, it's kind of crazy, whatever, fight. And then there's the hockey game where it's a little bit more rules but it's still rough, there's blood and checking some teeth under the ice and that kind of thing. And the only kind of, you're going for the Stanley Cup, right? And then there's, you know, college football, certain Texas, the college football, big, big, you know, lots of energy, it's so fun to watch, like you can't, what you love it, love it. And then there's like the pro leagues, it's like all the players making millions of dollars, the owners are up there with, you know, actually the merchandise, that's bigger than perhaps the game. And there's kind of like the ballet, and the ballet is like the same, you know, constant, is the same, everything, the same music whether you go to Ohio or you go to Moscow, you know, it's still going to be Swan Lake. Like right now I'm on the path, like how do we take what we're doing, I thought we've just kind of, we're in that stage of like trying to get to, I would say excellence at college football on the path to go to the pro leagues. And so to me that's like, this is my yes.

Yes, we think that WordPress and open source content management for us has a huge, huge addressable market. So right now we see, right now in terms of 30% of the whole websites are WordPress and of the top 1 million websites by traffic globally, 27% of those are WordPress. And of the top 250 most trafficked sites globally, 25% of them are WordPress. And of those 25, we basically 3 percent of those are using some type of solution like ours. So we thought we have huge total addressable market in WordPress and you're double, triple, quadruple down on adding more value so that WordPress becomes the CMS of choice using our tools and suite of tools on top of it to build great digital experiences. Whether you're Uber who's one of our customers who does all of their content sites on top of WP Engine, or you're Marriott who is using us for all their properties outside of their .com, or if you are Savvy Dating Addiction who she sold off her 401k and built her business and we handle the tech team because all she wants to work on is her business and content and we just handle everything else. And so again, it's that whole range. So for us, it's a big market, it's global, we're at, you know, 90,000 customers, 130 countries and we see huge opportunities both inside the United States as well as outside.

You think about, so there's the commercial side of WordPress which of course we're part of the commercial ecosystem and then there's WordPress core or the kind of the foundation or the nonprofit side of that. And Matt Mullenweg is, both is one of the founders, two founders of WordPress, he's originally from Houston. WordPress, and so from a week, you know, just so far this year we've already contributed more than two million dollars to WordPress in terms of original code contribution. You have multiple engineers who are focused on giving back code, you're doing content, we have two digital magazines that we publish every day, one that's targeted at promoting WordPress to agencies and marketers and one that's a digital magazine moving it to the WordPress community and to developers. And so our, you know, we're contributing that type of content as well in thought leadership. So we are very much all-in on helping to work with everyone in the WordPress community including Matt Mullenweg and his team at Automattic which is the for-profit side of WordPress. So that's that's that's website. We do have a surface area where we technically compete but it's actually not that much of an overlap because they're mostly focused on monetizing the long tail of WordPress, the millions and millions of sites, where we're focused on is on the body and on the head. So we're focused on those top 1 million websites by traffic that is really our sweet spot of where, you know, their website really matters, it's mission critical and they've chosen WordPress, we want to be serving those customers.

And so when I, so my husband and I were married for nine years and I was already operating at a senior level, but a vice president level when I basically decided to have kids. And we were kind of on that path, was just like go, go, go, go. And I was actually not going to have kids. My mindset was like, okay, we're going to keep on going. And then 9/11 happened. And it was 9/11 aside, this big event, a milestone event for my husband and I were really like, what really matters? What we as a family, our family, we're very close to our family, very close to our siblings and kind of said, no, I think. And so that was kind of the place that that's making that stop in my tracks. And so then from there we started to try and although some of the things are finally in and it was really hard. And so I had the means to be able to have child care to help, etc. Both my husband and I were working and about five years in this, my daughter. So we came to kind of a difficult decision, actually my husband's idea, but the intensity of my role, my job was just increasing, increasing as a vice president. We're about, you know, thinking about taking the company public as I have to serve to help preparing for all of that and I held the revenue numbers, the street number. And so that responsibility was really high. He sacrificed and said he wanted to be. And so I'm very fortunate because I basically had the opportunity to have children later and had a partner who was with me all in. And not everybody has. And so I just make sure that I'm coming, like how do you do it all? It's because I have a lot of support from my husband and I could not do what I do and have a family and operate at the level that I have without his support. And so just being really mindful of, I'm a really, really big believer in savings and having personal to help you achieve your goals. And so that was a great time where we had to tap into our savings and things like that to afford to pay for things like child care and things to help us through those times and to kind of get through it all. So but in a day to day right now is just I have to be relentless about my time. So it's not about, you know, whatever commitments I make, when I make a commitment I'm going to be there and whatever. And then it's kind of times like, okay, I need to bring this to a close in a good fashion or an honorable, graceful fashion.

I think that there's a lot of, there can be an early stage and we hear a lot of, a lot of bouncing around, but a lot of talk around reinforcing things around just focus on, eat your vegetables, kind of stuff like people think it's easier than it is, their idea is better than it is, the customers faster than it is, and always pivoting. So I'm not sure about my personal, I'm just trying, this is my reaction to your question, some of it said I'd get there. But I think that what others don't do is just do the freaking fundamentals. Like, eat your vegetables, drink the water, take a walk, take some, I don't mean that in terms of like, yes, that's a mic, the mom in me says do all those things. Do your homework, talk to customers who actually think are beneath you, use your product and give you money. Do the homework, have a plan, work the plan. Have it in the absence of revenue, have activities and milestones if you're holding yourself accountable to and freaking do them. Don't be sitting around in coffee shops just answering emails and working on your deck, freaking talk to customers, go to a board or talk to people who help to give you money to do those things. So I guess to me is like, I'm not sure about what I would say like don't do, but I would say it's like, I don't think on, now just do the fundamentals to where they can. Because if when you do the fundamentals, just like you have when you've got six months of savings in your bank account, a whole different mentality around what actions you can take, what risk you can take or whatever. If you have some kind of thing, whatever, so that you think about what are things that give you confidence. And I would just say, whether you're an entrepreneur or not an entrepreneur or just anybody, I'd say be doing things that give you confidence to where you can take chances, you can take risks, you can do things and feel like you're not sacrificing everything. Because that hope creates anxiety, stress, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, relationship stress, divorce. I've seen it all, like really bad things happen because people, they push that, they believe in this whole narrative that I'm just going to go do this.

So for us, so one of the things that when I first joined the attention, I just wanted to get as much data as I possibly could. Where are we winning with who, why, in what country? So one of the things I did, it's basically took all of our customers and we analyzed it literally against industry code, their size, the company, as much data as we could. Okay, what's happening? How's that changed over the last few months? Be steeped in the data. One of the things we saw was organically, and just in that data, even just in 2007, 2013, my first join, we saw organically, wow, we had a couple thousand customers already in the UK. We're doing nothing to try to get customers in the UK. And but there's like this big population and it had been growing steadily. Like what happened? What are you doing? Whatever we deliver. So we start to investigate, pull that thread. But yeah, oh okay. And also when she have a lot of people who are reselling us, that's really interesting. And they're taking our products, let's pull that thread. So this is trying to kind of really use the data to tell you those, to help you and say what's really going on in the business. No worries with your enterprise software, you may only have one or two or three or ten customers, that's okay. But being really clear about, you know, what's happening there and why. But so for us we saw these, they're offensive way, okay let's go investigate, let's then go, that's why she faced it, let's go to London, let's go to the UK and meet these customers and talking to get on the ground and observe firsthand. Is they're there, they're here to come here, what's the reception, is there a way for a community like the Capital Factory for us to go tap into? We found that there was Tech City UK was kind of like the Capital Factory. Hey, what if we come over here, become members, say what do we need to do to get back, whatever, we offer them different things, whatever, to power their site for free and give again back to giving value, give food, tap into this network. It's a good, and we decided, okay well there's a beer, they're here, met customers, we did anchor position. So again I just say like, you have like, use the data, that's I think the other thing I'd say is don't start, don't diffuse yourself. Have something that you're doing that has success, create the profit to use the profit to do the next thing and we get that to success or decide it's not working and stop it and get back to use the profit to be the success for the next thing. So don't confuse yourself from the core. Have fun, one thing that's really your core moneymaker, but then help you fuel and creep your experiments.

Well, the most important thing to me is that I have to, my children are good people. That takes time and attention and care and being basically every day. The high side, that how much of the week time do I have with my kids? So making sure that when I'm with them I'm really present and with them, they know what matters to me and that we can really connect. And that's really to me, so making sure that that happens, that they feel like they're good, well-rounded citizens and people. So that's really important to me with that. And then also make my, the more people that I can really realize the potential for the people, like, hey, I spent some kind of time with Heather working with, working, you know, in support of what worked in some way that I grew as a person and helped.

No, yeah, no, it's awesome to chat with y'all and I'm Heather Brunner, two N's at wpengine.com. If I can help you in any way I'd be delighted to help you and maybe asynchronously.