Chick-fil-A Corporate Support Center’s Post

I recently completed 5 years here at Veryable. At most companies, you would start to feel burned out or bored spending that much time dedicated to a single organization. Here, it's different. I stumbled upon Veryable after seeing a job posting on LinkedIn. I had a promising trajectory at KIK Consumer Products. However, Veryable's mission resonated deeply with me – to solve a pervasive problem I had often grappled with starting with my first job at Kimberly-Clark. It was an opportunity to contribute to an industry transformation rather than just one company's success. Taking the leap was daunting. I transitioned from corporate comfort to a startup ambiance, filled with uncertainties. But what kept me anchored was the vision we were chasing. Witnessing companies utilize our platform for real-time labor solutions was invigorating. I've seen factories divest due to high "fixed costs" related to labor. Veryable's approach of turning these "fixed" costs into "variable" has been revolutionary. Today, Veryable operates in 40+ cities, empowering major US companies to optimize their labor structures. What excites me is that even after 5 years, we are just beginning to tap into the vast potential ahead, continuously innovating with fresh offerings. Conclusion: As I reflect on my journey, I'm filled with gratitude for the risks I took, the challenges faced, and the remarkable growth we've achieved. I urge professionals to seek opportunities that align with their passion and purpose, as these are the driving forces behind genuine innovation and success. Here's to many more years of disrupting the industry and making meaningful impacts! #Veryable #AnniversaryReflections #LaborSolutions #IndustryInnovation #StartupJourney #LaborOptimization #Manufacturing #Distribution #workforcedevelopment #workforcemanagement #supplychainsolutions #supplychain

Breakfast with founders I know! Today I sat down with Laura Rosenberger, co-founder at Laylo. We spoke about: - Wine! It’s never been a more exciting time to continuously find ways to innovate in an otherwise stagnant space, which Laylo continues to do in very innovative and sustainable ways. - AI in the workplace. Our Ops minds obviously got carried away in this discussion talking about all the ways AI can and should be used to improve individual productivity in businesses. The general consensus still is: if you aren’t already using AI well on a daily basis, you are falling behind the person that is. - Life as a founder. The journey is long and typically longer than you might set out to take on. The reward is there for the grabs, but don’t expect it to be easy! That being said, neither of us could imagine a world of returning to full time employment! These breakfasts always remind me though, that part of doing them 1:1 means having close, trusted conversations with founders - meaning not everything will always be public! ----- If you're an investor or founder keen to meet, I'd love to have breakfast with you in London. Link to waitlist is in my featured section. Naturally, I can't meet with everyone, but I'll always try to make time to speak!

I learned something valuable this past month at Loop: The simplest idea can end up being pretty complicated 😅⬇️ But I’m lucky to say, thanks to Tyler Bradley and the incredible team at Deel, we were able to launch our simple idea into the world today 🎉 When Deel asked us to create something “out of the ordinary” for their first national commercial, we knew we needed an idea as ambitious as they are — they’re literally the #1 global HR platform (and have a $14 billion valuation to prove it!). Loop dove into brainstorm mode, putting ourselves in the shoes of a typical Deel customer. As the CEO of a company with under 20 salaried employees, I thought about what it would feel like to increase that to number to 200 employees and instantly imagined myself running around the office trying to put out (literal) fires. That’s when a flash of inspo hit us: Create a live-action remake of the iconic meme “This Is Fine” where Deel makes things... actually fine. Executing the idea seemed fairly simple on paper, but once we dug into it, the details were complex — our team had endless conversations about seemingly trivial but very important things like... 🤔 Should we cast an actual dog?  🤔 How about a guy wearing dog face prosthetics? 🤔 Should we build the set out of cardboard to make it feel cartoony? 🤔 Do we add something into the blank picture frame? Maybe the meme? 🤔 If talent only says “This Is Fine” then how do we communicate anything? 🤔 Do we only film it straight-on like the meme? …we were determined to get it right, to do the meme justice, even if it made our production more complex in the process. When all was said and done, Loop turned this around from concept to final commercial in under ~7 weeks and I’m not gonna lie, I literally threw up on the way home from set. My body was like OK, you did it (or it was that catered crab cake I ate for lunch). Either way — don’t worry, I left the Uber squeaky clean, sent off the driver with a generous tip and am absolutely thrilled with the final product. This is fine indeed.

Last week I shared thoughts on structured thinking. This week, I was reading job posts that RocketBlocks users might consider applying to, and I’m noting a few ways that companies will say they are looking for structured thinkers. First is to just come right out and say it, like from this McKinsey post: “You will structure ambiguous problems and take action to solve them” (McKinsey)" -> https://lnkd.in/gYae5NSB Second, is to describe the environment you’ll be in (“fast-paced!”) with the implicit idea that structured thinking will be necessary. Here are two recent examples from tech: “You have comfort with ambiguity, you enjoy figuring out what needs to be done—and then doing it.” (Lead PM role at Lattice) -> https://lnkd.in/gX9dvcbG “You don’t need a guide. You dive into difficult problems and come up with a plan.” (GM role at DoorDash) -> https://lnkd.in/gNr38q9M However they ask for it, structured thinking is an absolute MUST-HAVE for ambitious generalists. #career

Last month, I made a decision: spend more time sharing my learnings about creating new products, launching & scaling consumer brands and setting up & running global supply chains. So let me introduce myself and tell you my story. I’m Justin 👋 I’m a New York transplant to Austin, TX. Have lived here for the past 3 years (since COVID). My background is in product development, consumer goods, and manufacturing. My first foray into tech was at a company called Quirky, where I was lucky enough to wear many hats across operations, product development, manufacturing, business operations & corp dev. Three years in, Quirky decided to open an office in Hong Kong and the CEO asked me to go out and help set it up. I thought it’d be a 1 month gig. That turned into 2 years living in Asia, spending 3 days a week running around (predominantly) China, setting up & managing production for litany of consumer products. I hired a team of 50 people in Hong Kong, traveled, met my wife there, and learned a ton. Then? That office closed down and I had to lay off all 50 employees. That was tough, but I was offered a role back in the NYC office as Chief of Staff to the CEO. When Quirky went sideways (RIP), I had a stint launching new products at Buzzfeed as well as a DTC product company (Raden, also RIP). That experience was enriching, but ultimately let me to realize there was an opportunity to create a better, more efficient way to bring new products to market. I partnered back up with some former colleagues from Quirky to form Doris Dev. Doris Dev brings new products to market, with muscle to support design, engineering, manufacturing and supply chain management. We’ve worked with world-class founders & brands to help support bringing their products to market, and scaling them into 9-figure businesses. From there, we’ve incubated some interesting ventures: -> Canopy: Humidifiers with skincare in mind -> Factored Quality: Tech-enabled services for quality control and compliance I decided last month I would lean in to sharing more learnings from my experience creating & scaling new product brands & companies, so here we go. Would love to connect in the replies or DMs and answer any questions!

"When I made the decision to go back to a startup, I expected a limited focus on individual growth based on previous experience. Boy, was I wrong. I was wildly impressed by how much structure was put in place at Crafty." As Senior Director of Marketing, Sarah Berger isn't only concerned with Crafty's growth. She's also invested in the individual growth of the people on her team and beyond. Since the early days, part of our culture has been that we invest in people, not positions. Helping our team members shape their careers is a top priority. The reason why we are able to craft better workplaces for our clients is our people. When we feel fulfilled, supported, and valued, we create magic for our clients. Check out the link below to read Sarah talk about Crafty's growth-focused culture in this new feature from Built In ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/g-56i5_9 #growth #careergrowth #hiring #culture

Kudos to Grab in applying lean startup and experimentation to launch new innovative features to their users, such as the “food locker” and “large order” examples given in the article. To stay competitive and to keep up with the ever-changing market demands, one has to dare to try out new ideas, challenge the norm and be differentiated, and probably one of the best way to do this is via pilots and MVPs, and when users see that their feedback and complaints are heard, they will continue to support you as they know you are trying to make their life easier. Positive feedback loop. #leanstartup #experimentation

Cheers to a prosperous New Year! 🎉✨ May your brands tech stack thrive and flourish in 2024! 🚀 Discover how Cubby's is elevating their operations and preparing for expansion by partnering with an integrated tech stack designed for scalable growth. 🌐💼 Read the full case study here. https://lnkd.in/gg-y3acM #restech #backofhouse #casestudy #cheers #happynewyears #ayearofgrowth #tech #restaurants

At Unberry, we are fortunate to have an amazing community that: ▪ shares our vision for modern solutions in HR tech ▪ is super invested in the journey of building and scaling Unberry Our community, friends, evangelists and mentors share our passion for creativity, innovation, technology and entrepreneurship. They vibe with our audacious ambition to truly transform HR tech! 🚀 We’re thrilled to announce something super exciting for everyone here. 📌 𝗪𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁-𝟮𝗫! A 72-hour innovation marathon with 80 product visionaries, targeting 4200 hours of groundbreaking product development. (this'll be equivalent to 6 months of dev work in a normal scenario) Teams of Unberry and Grappus will be building-in-public our innovation roadmap - all between 16-19th May. 🍓 We aim to solve for some of the most glaring problems across talent journeys 🍓 We will share regular updates on the challenges our teams are solving for, our roadblocks, failures, wins and outcomes 🍓 We will be gearing up to launch world class tools in HR-tech In a nutshell, we all will go through an intense journey of striving for something extraordinary in coming 3 days! If you've ever dreamt of building cool, ground-breaking stuff - stay tuned to Unberry for regular updates, as we kick off #Sprint2X tomorrow. We are very excited and nervous at the same time - crazy preparations are going on! 😇 Are you excited to see the updates? 🔥 Let’s build something amazing together! 🚀 🖤 #Sprint2X #Innovation #Unberry

What was it like working at Workfellow ? Just like this video: fast paced, creative and a little mad. 😄 It's a tough time for SaaS startups, but in a few years time we'll only remember what we learned and who we met. This video is one of my fondest memories of the last two years at Workfellow. Soon after I joined Workfellow in the summer of 2022 we decided to create a brand video with Marina Lange. We were a very early stage startup looking to hire the best talent we could find and make a splash in the very corporate process intelligence software market. Already then we lived off a bootstrap budget. When I told Josef Konderla we needed a script and hire a lead actor, he said he could do it himself. It's Joe you see in the video acting as our sickly CFO. The hospital theme was obvious. We had only just moved in to our offices at Maria 01 - an old hospital. They probably thought we were a bit mad when we asked to borrow some old gurney beds and stroll through their corridors during filming. The video looks professionally produced because it is. We had Paavo Tervonen bring his creativity and crew to bring our wild idea to life. In the final scene you see how most of the team showed up to help out with our mad marketing idea. Even Kustaa Kivelä made his acting premiere. Let's see when he will have the enthusiasm to try again. 😅 I mentioned a couple weeks ago how our common startup journey sadly came to an end. Despite our best efforts we needed to shut up shop in February. Workfellow was a very special place to work. A lot of what we did was creative, fun and distinctly unique. It's these positive memories I'll remember the longest. One last thing. Now that I have your attention... Every IT recruiter in Finland should remember the word Workfellow. While our startup journey came to an untimely end, this bunch will achieve amazing things in the years ahead. DM me if you've got challenging available roles in fields like software development, marketing, sales and/or customer services.