Eric Bourget hosted Convoso Co-Founder and CPO Bobby Hakimi at Skunkworks Podcast by Halfserious. The podcast focuses on innovation stories and how entrepreneurs guide their companies through different stages.
In this podcast they discuss how a successful company needs to have the right systems to power efficient communication within the company, with customers, and with potential customers. Bobby introduces Convoso as a single platform sales acceleration tool that helps companies to communicate with customers through various channels, including voice, text, email. He talks about keeping up to speed with technological changes, the company’s structure, and how adopting and applying the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) enabled them to organize and grow .
So tell us a little bit about what your company looked like in 2006?
It was just an idea. We’d been in technology since 1998…me and my brother [Convoso CEO & Co-Founder Nima Hakimi]. A family member needed a software solution to reach out to his mortgage leads and people who were interested in getting refinanced. So, we started as kind of a favor. Once we brought it up, he was just blown away by the number of increased sales and contact rate, and how much faster he was able to get people – it was tremendous. Then he started telling his friend, and then more and more people heard the word. And the one thing no business can succeed without is passion. So the passion was there, the excitement was there, and the drive was there.
This is an industry that changes a lot, right? A lot of people in your position will complain that the fires and urgency of the thing that’s broken now will always wind it out on the bold new idea, and that ends up creating a problem because it actually doesn’t move.
The thing that really changed our company was implementing a system called EOS [Entrepreneurial Operating System]. Before we didn’t have structured meetings, we didn’t have quarterly or annual planning. A successful company needs to have an operating system, limitations, invitations to meetings, everything needs to be structured right now. We were stuck for 3-4 years, but once we implemented that, we started growing year after year.
You’re preaching to the choir…I’ve invested in about five companies, and in my deal sheet there’s always a line that you have to implement EOS. As the CPO, do you split your teams in any way?
That’s actually what we’re going to do now. There’s going to be a support team. And then, there’s going to be a vision/innovation team, to build more new stuff, and then a team that supports it. As the company grows, some of the members will be more involved in design and architecture, so they’ll not be a part of any customer support anymore.
Eric and Bobby continue their discussion around how EOS helps with operational structure; stabilizing product teams so they develop a sense of ownership, flexibility, and competency to scale and keep ideas fresh; challenges in finding the best technical talent; and the importance of creating a culture that makes people want to stick around because they enjoy working there.
Listen to the full episode here.
