Learnings from 3x Scaling a Team, Max Nyman CEO, Lime Go

Wilma Eriksson: [00:00:00] Hi, you have, uh, tuned in to Fail and Grow and opex Operational Excellence Podcast show. So fail and grow is for you. We wanna increase your revenue and become more profitable by listen, learning and often laughing with the world class leaders within opics. So the people I invite. Uh, and are lucky enough to they say yes to become guests in failing Grove.

They're not just full of knowledge, they're also humble and they share their fuck up and what they learn from it. And your host is, and one of the co-founders, TE Vow Q CQ stands for Configure Price quote. So if you ever thought about buying a car and you're going into the webpage and start to configure, that is what the CP Q2 does.

And, uh, I'm super happy. I'm thrilled to say that today's guest, it's someone that [00:01:00] I've followed for a couple of years, uh, going from one success to another. Uh, my first impression of this guy was a really humble, curious, uh, uh, well, happy guy. So, I'm so happy to say, max, that lime go. We'll join Failing Grow Today.

Warmly welcome. Hey,

Max Nyman: thank you. Thank you. Really glad to be here.

Wilma Eriksson: Wonderful. And, uh, lime, of course, is, uh, a huge player in the, in the Nordic, uh, serum space, and I always tell my guests that I can do the bragging and please tell me something that I could brag about. And it was a little bit tricky to get it out to you because you're the one of the lime lime guys, the humble ones.

Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I'm super impressed that you. Uh, three times your, uh, size of your team last year, but also, uh, five times the average deal size. Very impressed.

Max Nyman: Yeah, it's, uh, uh, a lot has been happening, uh, last year and, uh, we've been [00:02:00] scaling the team and building the product and, uh, now looking back, which I did in like, uh, January and over the Christmas, that's when you realize a lot of things have changed.

But, uh, it's been a journey and, uh, learning a lot.

Wilma Eriksson: Mm. I'm so curious to dig into all the things. And today we're gonna talk about how to scale team in efficient way, and obviously you have managed with that. But, uh, beforehand, could you tell me a little about, about, uh, lime and lime Coke from your perspective?

Max Nyman: Hmm. So, uh, Lyme technologies is, as you said, CM vendor in, uh, mainly Nordics, but also a bit in, in Europe. And we basically have a lot of different. Different products throughout the customer journey. So go CRM, uh, user like, um, which is a, um, chat, uh, system. And we have, uh, also acquired a company now called Spot Admin, which is a niche for, for that segment.

And, uh, everything it does, uh, support in the customer journey. But Lime Go, which I'm responsible for [00:03:00] is, uh. Sales enabling CRM. So basically focusing on like SMB B2B sales teams, uh, helping them, uh, ramp up their sales. Hmm.

Wilma Eriksson: Good times. Okay. Mm-hmm. Thank you for that. And, um. As this is an after work podcast.

Yeah. I'm right now drinking a coffee with, uh, a Dutch hand on my cup. Oh, lovely cup. Love. But prefer, prefer something else during an after work. Uh, what would you prefer if we were to have Avia, as we say in Swedish together?

Max Nyman: Oof. Uh, I mean, I'm a, I'm a simple guy. Um, honestly, just a beer. Tap beer that does the trick and, uh, not some fancy, but just a lagger, like really, really nice, a cold one.

And I'm actually one of those guys who drink, uh, I don't mind having a cube of ice in my beer. Oh. But, uh, a lot of people get angry when I like blo, uh, put it in. So, uh, [00:04:00] they

Wilma Eriksson: are,

Max Nyman: yeah. But I would, I would go with the, with that one,

Wilma Eriksson: is that. Upsetting people. Upsetting in, in, what is it like pouring an ice, uh, into wine?

Is it the same experience that people get like frosted that the a roam or something get messed up?

Max Nyman: Yeah, it becomes watery. I've heard. Uh, but I prefer cold over watery, so Well, uh, I'll allow it. I'll

Wilma Eriksson: agree to that. I'll agree to that. Okay. Yeah. Good to hear. And uh, of course, I'm super specific. Curious about your funniest.

Work related fuck up that you wanna share with us today?

Max Nyman: Yes. Well, uh, I thought a bit about this and, um, we've been scaling the team, right? So we've been growing from, uh, three people to 15 in like one and a half year-ish. And, uh, we always have a tradition at Lime that we, at every Christmas and summer party to like a product presentation, we go up on stage and we talk about what's happened in the product.

And we do a demo and like. It's a very fun thing, [00:05:00] presentation on stage for like 300 plus people. Uh, a lot of pressure of course, because you wanna deliver internally, right? Uh, but, uh, super fun. And, uh, historically I've been doing this myself because we've been a small team. Um. But then this is summer or last summer, uh, it was time to involve the team members because we're actually a team now.

Uh, and we wrote the script and we did like the perfect setup and the handovers, everything was like, ah, on point. Uh, and then we went up on stage and I just fell back into my old, let's wing it mentality as I've done it when I've, uh, done it myself. And, uh, I didn't follow. A word on the script. Uh, so I basically just, uh, yeah.

Did my, my thing and then tried to do a handover and like, the disconnect was huge. It was like, uh, okay. And we had like the, uh, the different, the things brought up on stage, like a confetti can, and, and, [00:06:00] uh, a gong, gong and different things. And those were completely off sync. Uh, it was like a gong in the middle of everything.

Thing and confetti flying, not where it was supposed to fly. And then some music goes on and yeah, so, uh, we walked off stage and I was like, yeah, I think, uh, it's time for me to, uh, reconsider how I present with a team, not just me.

Wilma Eriksson: Thank you so much for sharing was great. But, uh, were you, were you like, why this, why did this happen?

Were you nervous or what happened?

Max Nyman: I mean, I think, um, when, when I don't know what to say, I like to wing it. And I apparently hadn't remembered the, the script good enough, so I lost track and then I was just trying to wing it, and then they had remembered, which, I mean, they, they did their job fucking great.

I, I messed up clearly. So,

Wilma Eriksson: well, it can happen to anyone and, uh, from, [00:07:00] uh, I more or less never get nervous in a customer meeting nowadays. I don't know if I'm like. Too old or done this too much or don't care anymore? I, I don't know. Of course I get sometimes when it's a really big deal with a lot of stakeholders.

Mm. And I feel it's a bit complex, a bit nervous, but every time I should present internally, mm, I get this, uh, uh, maybe one can't believe it since I've been working with sales for. 20 years or something. Uh, when I was in school and were supposed to present something, I was so nervous. I was like shivering and sweaty on the hands and, you know, fumbling and everything.

And that is exactly the same feeling every time I should present internally because I've, I, I just feel that I so much respect for those I'm working with. So if I'm gonna snitch their time and try to like educate them in something, it must be really good. So, I don't know if. That was not at all the same feeling for you, but

Max Nyman: No, but definitely, and I agree and I think honestly it should be like that.

Wilma Eriksson: Yeah, of

Max Nyman: course. With customers as well. But it should be like that, that you'd really want to [00:08:00] perform for your team members because then you like have a high performing culture. Um, so I agree. I get. The, the sweat hands and everything. And then, uh, sometimes it clicks and sometimes apparently it doesn't.

Wilma Eriksson: Well, thank you so much for sharing, and I just feel it's a bit cute.

Max Nyman: Yeah. That we

Wilma Eriksson: are like in so much respect of our team members. So we feel like this. Yeah. But let's move on. Yeah, let's move on.

Uh, tricky times to get, get myself in together here, but okay, we're gonna talk about scaling a team today. I find this a really interesting topic. Uh, I've been myself in, uh, quite fast growing companies, uh, all times beforehand, uh, founding vows, Q especially, uh, get accept. We, we grew like in. With an insanely amount of people in a very short term.

And I feel that this is a knowledge I truly lacking myself because, uh, I hate to say it, but I'm more like a lone wolf than a team player. Uh, so I would never get, become hired at [00:09:00] Lime. Uh, but, uh, but so I'm, I'm so curious that you, uh, about this topic and why you chose it and yet, uh, not to be, but you have yet a quite small team, but percentagewise, you have really.

Obvious triple it during last year. So if we just start with why did you choose this specific topic? Is it, yeah. How is this important for you?

Max Nyman: Yeah, I mean, uh, just to go back a bit, I started at Lime, uh, actually as a trainee, uh, in sales. Um, and then I went, uh, over to product and uh, after that we decided to go all in on the Go Initiative.

So, uh, went over to CEO basically. Uh, and, uh. It's been a bumpy, fast learning journey and I've realized how important it is to like align everything that we do to make sure that. All the people are on board, and I've always been really interested in like leadership and culture and how to efficiently do things together.

Uh, but, [00:10:00] um, one thing that I want to talk a bit about is how Yeah, the culture about it, the leadership perspective and the, the. I don't know the the why, like why are we doing things? Because I realized when I was in sales that a lot of presentations were like, now we're gonna do this. And I was like, yeah, what the hell?

I don't give a shit. What's in it for me? Right. You know, background in sales, you know?

Wilma Eriksson: Yeah, I know. Of course.

Max Nyman: Yes. Now, now my journey or mission is like to really try to. Persuade everybody that the things that we're doing is important and it's gonna affect you in a good way, and I wanna explain why.

Wilma Eriksson: Okay.

Super curious to know more.

Max Nyman: Yeah. Uh, long, long intro, but, uh, I think it's super, uh, exciting to talk about, uh, team, uh, collaboration and efficiency

Wilma Eriksson: and, uh, what have you found? The trickiest yet, like if, if one were to start with, not maybe your, your fuck ups, but just the most challenging part that you try to address and [00:11:00] really understood that this, I have to fix this or try to fix this for us to succeed.

Max Nyman: Uh, I mean, one thing, and I'm gonna be honest, I, it was, uh, where it is my first leadership role. So definitely like learning those things. Uh, one thing that's really cool about Lyme is that we've, uh, acquired a company called, uh, lime Intense, uh, or. More intense it was called. Now it's ly intense. They work with, uh, like leadership, leadership, the training and uh, change management and so on.

Uh, so we've actually had like an internal leadership course at ly, uh, part of that initiative.

Wilma Eriksson: Yeah.

Max Nyman: Uh, which I went during the spring. Mm-hmm. And during the spring was also the time when we ramped up the whole team. Okay. I was like learning by doing every week. Um, but one thing that's been super difficult and uh, definitely something that I wish I would've started with earlier has been defining what are the non-negotiables.

Wilma Eriksson: Mm-hmm.

Max Nyman: Basically this is how we do things.

Wilma Eriksson: Mm-hmm.

Max Nyman: And as a leader, I would [00:12:00] recommend you to do it like this, but like go ahead and try your own things. Uh, and I think that goes back to perhaps a playbook and like, not guidelines or code of conduct, but like written down principles of things that we know historically work and the things that we don't know.

And then you can try it yourself.

Wilma Eriksson: Hmm. Okay. So have you, how did you approach that? Did you like start a playbook or how did you step by step involve in this topic?

Max Nyman: Yeah, so the playbook was actually written just weeks ago. Mm-hmm. So a bit late. Uh, and we talked a bit about playbooks before hitting record that

Wilma Eriksson: Yeah,

Max Nyman: it's something that you, you do a lot and you have to do when you're scaling a team and everything.

Mm. Um, so I think that came a bit too, too late. Mm. Um, and also, uh. In the playbook, talk about the alignment between the roles, because it's quite easy to focus on your isolated, let's say I'm a sales rep or, or [00:13:00] this is my focus, but why are we talking about certain KPIs and metrics and how are they actually affecting your role or other roles?

Uh, so, um, not only focusing on like a role module, but the alignment perspective in the playbook as well. Hmm.

Wilma Eriksson: Okay. And is it a playbook, uh, about culture or leadership or how, or is. What's the playbook about? What's the name of it?

Max Nyman: Yeah. Oh, the Lime Goat Playbook. Lime Goat Playbook. Okay. No, but it's, uh, and and that's the, the balance, because we have a playbook at Lime, which is kind of broad in general and culture and like a lot of good stuff is in it.

Mm-hmm. But it's not specific to how we do things in the Go team, our processes or we are working or handovers and so on. Uh, so that has been like finding the balance between, uh, those two and, um, it's, it's everything. I would say it's all from the small lousy traditions. Uh, we have one thing that if you're green on all activities, uh, within sales or customer success a [00:14:00] month, you get a little stuffed halt.

Animal because you're green on everything, right? Uh, that's written in the playbook because Yeah. It's a lousy tradition. It's a fun one. Yeah. But, um, uh, it's all from that to like how we qualify a prospect and, um, what this, uh, an MQL for marketing and so on.

Wilma Eriksson: Okay, so running back to us to scaling a team and mm-hmm.

And why, why this stuff is important to set this in stone to begin with. I think we have addressed a bit, but it's something you'd like to add, uh, regarding, like why, why is this important to have a playbook like already now?

Max Nyman: Uh, no, but I think, um. The importance of it is to create some sort of, uh, co-ownership.

Wilma Eriksson: Mm.

Max Nyman: Uh, because if some something isn't written down, then it's not really defined. Mm. And if it's not defined, then it's not really said what's working and what's not working, then it's more like a fluffy, yeah. We can do different things and no one will really know what's right or wrong. Uh, [00:15:00] so one thing, uh, also has been to like create a co-ownership of the playbook and like as soon as we figure out something that isn't working or isn't written down.

We've been trying to do a lot of pushbacks, like, okay, have you written it? In that place or in the playbook or like, have you documented it somewhere? And if it's a no, then it's like, okay, do that and then we will run from there. Uh, because otherwise it's gonna be difficult to know, um, what our truth is.

And if we don't have a truth, we're gonna have a lot of different methods and processes. And if we have that, well then it's gonna be difficult to scale. And that's something that I realized, uh, later rather than earlier.

Wilma Eriksson: For sure. For sure. Is this something more that has been like. The top three most challenging parts, or should we move over to success factors?

That's always funny.

Max Nyman: Uh, just one more thing that I've realized is, uh, maybe finding the, I don't know what to call it, but, uh, plateaus of growing because you can't change [00:16:00] everything all the time. You need to find the place where you can like, evaluate, um, like pause for a bit and redo things. Uh, and I've, we actually.

Had the, the company presentation during the Christmas party, and one thing that I joked about was how many times have Max changed the prices during 2023? And like all the options were wrong, but it was like, uh, 500, uh, 23 and yeah. And like there's been been a lot of change. Uh. During the last year. Um, and of course everything that's changed for customers or on the web, it needs to be aligned internally as well.

Uh, but you have to find those slots where you can evaluate and also, uh, document the things that's been changed.

Wilma Eriksson: Is that something you strive for? Something you do?

Max Nyman: Uh, I would say do now strived for 2023 New Year, new me.

Wilma Eriksson: Okay.

Max Nyman: Uh. Yeah. So finding those plateaus and [00:17:00] when to, um, uh, do the documentation.

Wilma Eriksson: Okay, but why I'm asking you, because, uh, this is something I, you know, just in top of my head at the moment, I had a good chat with an, with an old friend yesterday and he told me that, yeah.

Uh, the, the entrepreneur of that company? Yeah, it was, he was a great, uh, he was just, he's a great person, but it was like a little bit tricky to work with him because it was always something new. So we like had, we had to have internal team to set up all the processes and the strategists, and then we, like, we did that and he came back and forth with his ideas, you know, and we were like trying to tell him that.

That won't work. We, we have to like align, we have to do this, then we have to analyze. And I'm like, that is super tricky and maybe someone much more, uh, experienced than myself would say. Yeah, it depends. Just totally different on where you are in the stage of growing a company. But yet we are here, uh, approximately, I [00:18:00] don't know your a RR yet, but, uh, approximately at the more or less same stage, uh.

And we also struggle with the playbooks and people asking me like, uh, yeah, but what's that document? I was like, when should I have time to document this shit? Sorry, my language. I have so much to do, therefore, uh, yeah. So I don't know. How's the balance here?

Max Nyman: I, I agree. It's a tough, it's a tough one and I mean, I think I had a to-do list for like the Christmas holidays, like all the things that I wanted to document to write down, and then I.

It just drowned. Like it, it's impossible to prioritize that over hiring or, or things burning and, and similar.

Wilma Eriksson: Yeah.

Max Nyman: Uh, but I think, um, the challenge is to, to exactly as you say, focus on what's needed and what's nice.

Wilma Eriksson: Mm.

Max Nyman: Um, and then trying to do pushback and delegate that responsibility.

Wilma Eriksson: Okay. Moving on to scaling it and hiring.

Max Nyman: Mm-hmm.

Wilma Eriksson: So. What's your learning there?

Max Nyman: [00:19:00] Ooh, uh, lots of things. Um, but, uh, when it comes to hiring, I mean, uh, I've always realized that the most stressful times during my, like, years scaling it in, now I. Has been related to hiring.

Wilma Eriksson: Mm-hmm.

Max Nyman: Either someone quitting or someone coming in and we need to onboard that person.

Then we don't have a structure for it at all because it's the first role where like onboarding a person in that sense.

Wilma Eriksson: Mm-hmm.

Max Nyman: Uh, so I think, uh, hiring is something that always will be stressful. Mm-hmm. And, uh, you never know when you need to find your next hire. So try to be proactive and have, have like an open application pipeline, uh, ready.

Uh, but, um. Hiring. I think, uh, I've gotten a lot of help from like the Lyme machinery, which is freaking awesome in terms of HR processes and systems. And also Neils the, uh, Lyme group, CEO, has been doing all the last step interviews, which is a. Process we [00:20:00] do thoroughly at, uh, at time. Um, and he's really good at like digging deep into the person and the who they are and so on.

And I've been more like, okay, let's talk about, uh, numbers and, uh, how we wanna work and so on.

Wilma Eriksson: Mm-hmm.

Max Nyman: So I think, uh, I need, one thing that I've learned is that you need to realize your own strengths, strengths and weaknesses in what you are looking for. And if someone else in your team can like. Help you out in asking other questions to do the broad analysis of the person, not just on a personal perspective, but on a motivational perspective, and then long term as well in terms of career goals and everything.

Wilma Eriksson: How does the process look like if, if you, are you hiring right now? Sorry, if not knowing this, are you hiring right now?

Max Nyman: Yeah, we're hiring a couple of different roles at the moment. Um, but I would say the, the process is quite long and thorough and um, that's something that we're. Proud of, and we wanted to be that way.

[00:21:00] Um, but in general we have, uh, like a screening call, uh, phone just to make sure that we like, are semial aligned. Uh, after that, depending on the role, we do either a or maybe seniority as well. We do either a deep interview. Uh, immediately.

Wilma Eriksson: What would you like to discover in the first call? What would be like, is it like clear no GOs, or is it like the salary or what?

Max Nyman: Yeah.

Wilma Eriksson: Do you have some defined, like, we have to check these boxes, that these are, we are aligned in this

Max Nyman: Really good question. I think, uh, salary definitely one and like a cultural fit. Mm-hmm. Um, like the, I wouldn't say mentality, but the, um, like, um. The values in terms of how we wanna work, the pace, the office culture or remote type of setup and so on.

Uh, just to know that okay, which boxes are checked and which are, uh, are not. So I would say it's definitely a couple of non-negotiables that we wanna figure out in that call.

Wilma Eriksson: Okay? Mm-hmm. Um.

Max Nyman: And then moving on to a [00:22:00] deep interview, which is a bit more, okay, let's talk about the role. What do you want? Like what do we need to check off to make you happy?

Wilma Eriksson: Mm-hmm.

Max Nyman: And what do you need to check off to make us happy? Right. Um, so like cornerstones to define. And then, um, after that, we're doing a case. Mm-hmm. I love to do the cases. Uh, I think it's a super fun way to actually try the, um, um, the role and for me as well, having, uh, been in product. I always see something in our product when they are doing the case that we can improve.

Wilma Eriksson: Hmm.

Max Nyman: Yeah. They're seeing something that you haven't seen or using it for the first time and they think it's unclear and it's like, Hmm. Alright. Noted. And then after that we have, um, references and then, uh, maybe one last like agreement walkthrough or just a salary alignment. And then, uh, Neils the last big boss, uh, doing the final interview as well,

Wilma Eriksson: would be interesting to hear how much of his time and percentage he put into this.

But I guess it's a [00:23:00] lot of, because Lime is a full company. I mean, you hire a lot, uh, so yeah. But that's a question for him. Of course. Yeah. Okay. Very interesting. And, um, the cases, do you do them on everyone non depending on their seniority?

Max Nyman: Uh, yes. Everyone, uh, but what we realized is that, um, more senior people have less time to focus on it, and then maybe it's better to ask them to do a case presentation on like their product so that they don't have to learn.

Product fully.

Wilma Eriksson: Mm, okay.

Max Nyman: Um, but we really wanna see how they are in reality, in action, in the role. Like, do they handle the stress well? Do they answer to questions in a good way?

Wilma Eriksson: Is it sales rep or developers? Marketing, hr,

Max Nyman: yeah. So, so sales is obviously doing like a pitch case. Uh, customer success as well.

But for existing ones, marketing is more like, um. A plan, uh, rollout, and, uh, engineers do the, like, code assessments, then it's not the presentation. I don't think we will [00:24:00] be able to hire anyone with that setup. Um, but then, uh, product is, uh, like writing a pitch of a problem that, uh, we haven't defined in the product yet.

So something that's missing or not good enough, write a pitch on how we can solve it and then present it

Wilma Eriksson: experience. Uh, of this kind of exercises is, uh, first of all very poor. I've done it once. Uh, there was a terrible experience. Uh,

Max Nyman: you mean that you did the case or? Yeah,

Wilma Eriksson: I did the case. Uh, and the experience overall was just, I never wanna work at this place.

Oh, lovely. Yeah. But, but also, uh, I think it was mainly the ones like the setup, like who from the company joined. But the funny thing actually that I start working with a person that actually did me feel this way. So I mean, everything can, everyone can evolve. Yeah, clearly. Uh, but I yet feel it, uh, very, very interesting.

So. [00:25:00] Uh, we try to implement it here at vq and what I feel is the most tricky is to like, do the case on the right stuff.

Max Nyman: Yeah.

Wilma Eriksson: Uh, because you wanna give the person a great opportunity to, of course, evaluate us as employee, but also to show their strengths and to be able to talk about their weakness so we can have a good dialogue.

But I feel this is tricky. Do you have any learnings to share here?

Max Nyman: No, I agree. And I, I think definitely that a lot of. Or like the, the, the understanding when you're delivering a case is that, okay, I need to know everything and I need to look into the product and like find the details and everything.

What we, what, what I've learned or we've learned is that like setting the expectations that you don't have to understand the features like at all basically, but you have to understand the value. That the features can bring and how you can talk about that value.

Wilma Eriksson: So you're like, define what you wanna, um, to understand if the person, uh, understood it or not.

Yeah. So like, [00:26:00] define, okay, what are we gonna evaluate you on and what are we gonna internally evaluate the person on?

Max Nyman: Exactly. So like my expectations is not that you learn the product in and out, I want. Us to focus on like this, the need analysis, the problem that we're solving, and more a dialogue rather than the monologue.

Um, and then when that's been more clear, then it's been easier to okay, go away from the study, everything in product, and then move to a more dialogue focused discussion. Um, that's helped a lot. But then of course we know that some people don't spend the time well enough. So I've been sitting in on a lot of case, uh, presentations when you see.

Like the first impression of the app is like, oh God, here we go again. Not good enough. And uh, like then what I've learned now is to do like a quality assurance check the day before. Okay. The number of times they've logged in. Yeah. Or the usage so that we can steer it off or

Wilma Eriksson: save everyone's time. We'll, uh, go through.

Okay.

Max Nyman: Yeah.

Wilma Eriksson: Uh, and you, uh, you mentioned culture. Mm-hmm. [00:27:00] Um, and I know that's something that you're very passionate about, uh, from your point of view, uh, culture and scaling team, how does that align and why is it important?

Max Nyman: Oh, I mean, um, I was not, I would say a sports guy when I was younger. I played a lot of football.

But then I actually found gaming and then, uh, made up some sort of knee injury story and played video games instead. But now when I've like, uh, got on a team around, I love the team analogy. Um, so basically talking more about, okay, the similarities between a professional sports team. And, um, uh, team or a company.

Uh, so I think that's super important and I know that there's a lot of things that you need to define in the team to make it work. And I think that's, it goes all the way back to the culture.

Wilma Eriksson: Do you have the same culture, lime and lime go because you are one company? Yeah. You have the same culture, or you talked about little bit in the playbook, it different?

Max Nyman: Yeah. I would say we have the, the same culture, but definitely it's a bit more. Since we [00:28:00] have smaller deals, more maybe SMB segment rather than perhaps lime, CRM, that is a bit more enterprise, uh, I would say it's a bit more fast paced. So we want the like, uh, aka hunger in the, uh, in the culture, in the team.

And I mean, not everybody can be impatient and like, we gotta do this now, but we still wanna. Talk about it and say that we will probably behave like this and you should probably buy into that. Uh, otherwise we'll have a mismatch.

Wilma Eriksson: There would, uh, must be a great, uh, part for Lyme as well to have you guys for those.

So being a bit more impatient, maybe it's a great, I mean, overall culture fit, but have that more. I don't know how to say it in a better way, but like more of a startup mentality and need cows. Yeah, it's a bit

Max Nyman: cows, definitely. Yeah. And that's the cool thing about lime, like it's super broad. I mean, uh, it's the startup, uh, thing with lamb go.

We [00:29:00] have more enterprise with lime cm, we have international sales. We have the more like, uh, uh, niche verticals with now, uh, spot admin and, and, uh, uh. A lot of different areas to, to pivot into if you're feeling that,

Wilma Eriksson: Hmm.

Max Nyman: My current role is not really what I'm most excited about at the moment. Um, and on that topic, just, uh, a small note.

I remember having a one-on-one with my then boss, Friedrich Ekman. I think you

Wilma Eriksson: Yeah.

Max Nyman: Know who that is. Yeah, for

Wilma Eriksson: sure. Great guy.

Max Nyman: Yeah. Now he's, uh, responsible for sales at Lime for all of Sweden. Um, and, uh. We had a one on one and I was just shooting ideas in terms of product and business development and, and he was like, stop, stop, stop, stop.

Do you really want to work in sales? And I was like, no. And then he said, great, now I know. Let's find something else.

Wilma Eriksson: Yeah.

Max Nyman: So like, as long as you're being transparent in what you [00:30:00] wanna do, I think that's super important because no one can read minds. You need to speak up. And, um, I did because he encouraged me to, and then we found this solution, and now we have a team of 15 people who share the same, uh, hunger startup mentality.

So I think that's really cool.

Wilma Eriksson: Really, I'm very, very impressed. And also, well, about the fact that you had that kind of relationship with him. You felt safe with him. You knew that I could be, I can be honest with him because he won't judge me or fire me or something else. It was like, he will help me to. So it, it's, it sounds like you didn't even hesitate.

You were like, this is what, what I wanna do, and he helped you to find that correct place. So, I mean, that says a lot about your culture and I'm very, very impressed about that.

Max Nyman: Definitely. And I mean, I came from, from a bank, I worked at SEB and then coming to LA it was like, whoa, this is where I belong. Uh, but there was a change, I mean, getting into the open.

Openness and this transparency between, uh, peer and manager and what to [00:31:00] talk about and so on. Hmm. Uh, but I think that's really cool and, uh, it creates a good foundation that you apparently can build on as well.

Wilma Eriksson: For sure. Okay. So, uh, moving forward 20 24, 20 25, looking ahead mm-hmm. Uh, continuously scaling your team, what the most important areas that you'll focusing on in coming one, two years from a leadership perspective and yeah.

Just scaling the team

Max Nyman: team. Um, I think definitely to try to, um, uh, align the different silos, if you can call it that. Uh, because we've doing, uh, we've been doing a lot of, uh, focused like initiatives in okay sales or on the web or, uh, in, uh, how we do things in the customer success department, onboarding people and so on, uh, customers.

But I think now it's time to like. Tied the whole thing together, the machinery. So, um, looping in people in how we do things and when we're doing it. Because what we realized last year is that we had a lot of good [00:32:00] initiatives and we ran at a bunch of different things, but we weren't aligned. So I. Someone could poke someone and then say, now I want you to help with this this week because it needs to go live on Friday.

And it's like, what? But I'm doing this and that's my deadline, and we're not really synced. So I think finding that machinery of, um. We, we've been talking a lot about key initiatives and not having them department specific but bigger. So, uh, getting that collaboration up and running.

Wilma Eriksson: So are you working with, uh, OCAR objective key results or is just key initiatives as key initiatives and nothing connected to any measurement tool or.

Max Nyman: Yeah, so we have key initiatives and then we've broken it down with like ish OKRs, but, um, sub, uh, projects and then metrics and smart goals and everything. Um, and that's also something that literally I haven't done before. So a lot of insights and knowledge comes from Lyme and like, this is how we do it and you have to do it until this [00:33:00] day because we have a deadline and it needs to, uh, be presented and so on.

So, uh, once again, utilizing the like knowledge and expertise and bringing that into the startup, uh, world. World, uh, has been a game changer.

Wilma Eriksson: We are on that journey too. Uh, we just, uh, implemented rocks and I, I worked with o uh, o cars and other measurements tools beforehand, but if you can call it measurement tools, but I think people understand what I'm trying to say here, but yeah.

Uh, and now we are, uh, have just implemented rocks and it's more or less the same thing, that you have it during a period of time and it should, it should be with different departments involved and to like. Yeah, stretch it towards the year's goals, but I feel it's super tricky. I must admit. It's embarrassing to admit, but I'm so used to just do stuff.

It says so much from my, my sort of personality. So we had this strategic days for a couple of weeks ago and I was like, I think 30% of the time I was trying to, uh, yes. Can I even think [00:34:00] strategic? What is it really, you know, that was like, yeah. So

Max Nyman: yeah,

Wilma Eriksson: we, we, all of us are, are learning and evolving, uh, of course, but yeah, I feel it's tricky.

Max Nyman: Yeah. And I think that's also a learning, like knowing your strengths and weaknesses because I'm a doer. I like operations and then I need someone to come in and balance and put the strategic and long-term perspective on things. Yeah. Uh, so definitely finding that, uh, like piece of the puzzle in the team, uh, to allow you to scale.

Wilma Eriksson: I agree. Okay. So overall, we have talked a lot about the internal, uh, perspective of scaling a team. If we look at it from the customer point of view, why is it important to like, have the core values, to set the playbooks, to have the key initiatives? Why is it important for them? Uh, that we work and improve, uh, our set of working as a team.

Max Nyman: That's really good. And I think, um, we've been, uh, defining our like. I, I don't know if we can call it unique selling points, because obviously the [00:35:00] CRM space is like, there's a lot of vendors out there.

Wilma Eriksson: Quite crowded. Yeah. You can say,

Max Nyman: but, uh, at least, uh, like, uh, strong selling points. Uh, and I think, uh, as long as we know our processes and how we work, uh.

And how we want to do things, we can live up to those, uh, promises to the customers as well. Uh, and one thing that we talk a lot about is being a one-stop shop. The, uh, like single point of contact for customers when they need help. Not calling a support, um, other side of the world or having a like chatbot with.

Routing challenges. Uh, so, so basically we need to like be available and, and deliver to that promise. And I think the only way we can do that is to actually make sure that the whole machinery internally is working, because otherwise that's gonna fall. And then the, uh, customer, uh, promise will fall as well.

So I think that's the, the founding, um, stepping stone to be able to, uh, deliver customer care at all. And then, then [00:36:00] it's just a level of how much, basically,

Wilma Eriksson: uh. I could, I couldn't agree more. And, uh, I'm super curious to under, to understand like the effective results you could expect of working with this.

And the one I was like bragging with mm-hmm. Uh, with, in the beginning was that you, uh, your average deal size. Is five size bigger. Mm-hmm. Uh, ending 2023 than it was in the beginning. Uh, that is one kind of results. What other results could you see when doing this in efficient way? Uh, and obviously gaining?

Uh, yeah, I would say a high level of, uh, customer efficiency, uh, as a result. Do you have other numbers you wanna share with us and could share with us since you're No. Uh. Public company.

Max Nyman: Yeah. It's a, it's a blessing and a curse being part of a Exactly. Part of a public company because some things are confidential, some are not.

I'm, I'm not there yet in terms of the, uh, insider stuff. But, um, one thing, uh. Or like the, the major thing. And [00:37:00] that's why it's really nice to talk about the, the x or the percentage increase rather than the going from go going two

Wilma Eriksson: obviously.

Max Nyman: Uh, but, uh, we've done huge changes in like the pricing positioning work in 2023.

Uh, so that's where we've seen the most impact in terms of, as you mentioned, average deal size, but also the, uh, the different. Lead or deal sources. Uh, for example, the, uh, the web, um, deal size that we're getting, uh, has been, I think it's increased by two and a half.

Wilma Eriksson: The ones that signing up through the website or Exactly,

Max Nyman: yeah.

The inbound leads. Yeah. Uh, but otherwise, in terms of the, um. So the different things that we measure is, uh, like onboarding time. How fast can we onboard a customer? Uh, that has decreased by half, but we're definitely not there yet. Um, uh, but there's like, that's also the thing when running, there's so many things you want to measure and want to figure out where are we [00:38:00] and where are we going?

Uh, but uh, a machinery that we've been like. Putting together piece by piece. So, uh, I will have to get, uh, back to you on, uh, a lot of more, uh, KPIs on, on that topic.

Wilma Eriksson: I'd love to. I'd love to. And I, uh, I couldn't, uh, be happier that you talked about pricing, because that was a bonus question that I didn't cut you to, I didn't sell it over beforehand.

Uh, is how, who owns the pricing strategy and how do you work with it and does it affect your business? So one business, and if you were just. To gimme a short brief about the pricing and how you think about it and how you work with it on a regular basis, or do you do it like once a year or

Max Nyman: really good one?

Yeah. And uh, I think we're gonna cover a bit of that in the vice versa podcast episode.

Wilma Eriksson: Yeah. Looking forward.

Max Nyman: But, uh, I think, uh, as joked about earlier, obviously I've changed it a lot, so I'm apparently owning it. Uh, but I think it's, uh, it's something that needs to have a clear ownership. [00:39:00] And, uh, it needs to be challenged.

Uh, I remember we did the price increase, uh, a couple of years ago, and then, uh, we got some like internal questions like, is it really a good time to increase the price? And like, there's never a good time to increase the price. You just have to do it and evaluate basically. And, uh, and, uh, tried the different price increases both on the new customer base but also existing ones.

Wilma Eriksson: I couldn't agree more. And uh, also. I mean, there's perspective when it's a good, uh, fit, uh, it's scary to do it. Uh, we had this webinar with, uh, Ingrid Bunda working at, uh, the investment firm s mm-hmm. Uh, and our chairman and also the CEO of Al Invest. And they were just so reliant, like increased pieces, increased the prices.

It, it felt like the whole webinar was about, you have to be bold, you have to increase the prices. Yeah. So. Uh, yeah. For the ones that listen to that webinar, now you have another person who, yeah, feels that this is a very [00:40:00] important thing and actually succeeded with it as well. So,

Max Nyman: yeah. And I, I think it's, it's also, uh, an interesting positioning standpoint because, uh, like.

The price sets, the tonality of which customers you attract and what they can expect.

Wilma Eriksson: Yeah.

Max Nyman: Uh, and I think that's something that we've deliberately worked with as well, uh, to, uh, position ourselves in a different way. And that should not be, um, underestimated

Wilma Eriksson: for sure not I. Okay. Thank you so much, uh, regarding everything is so interesting.

I, I wish we could continue this for hours. Yeah, me too. I, our deadline is running on really quickly. Try to it up in a good way. Mm-hmm. Scaling it obvious. It feels like you read like a lot of books or follow very interesting people or similar. So who do you get most inspired about this topic?

Max Nyman: Uh, ooh.

There's actually a French guy. He's called, uh, go. And, uh, you can rate my pronunciation, uh, but he is, uh, a French guy. He's been [00:41:00] scaling, uh, like four different, um. Sauce companies, lamb pod, lamb list, lamb calendar, or Lamb cal. Uh, he's a really cool guy and I just found him on LinkedIn and then I saw that he has a newsletter, he has a YouTube channel.

He has like everything, uh, talking about scaling sauce. Um, so I've, um, I'm gonna order his book as well, so that's really one person that I, um, uh, get inspired by.

Wilma Eriksson: Cool.

Max Nyman: I'll send you the link.

Wilma Eriksson: Lovely, lovely. I tried to write it down, but I see, I

Max Nyman: would

Wilma Eriksson: never try to No. Pronounce that. No.

Max Nyman: Nope. Yeah, let's never do that again.

Wilma Eriksson: I am de Moola and I work with Sales Collective in Finland and, uh, a couple of other companies on the background. But my business related question to the next guest is that what do you do when times get tough? So there's a bit of a economic downturn and [00:42:00] there's a bit of. There's a war going on and there was a covid and there's this and there's that, and it's get, selling gets harder and everything gets harder, but it's not purely sales related.

What do you do from a business kind of strategy perspective when times get relates after you cut costs? Do you cut marketing? Do you cut sales? Do you put more money into all of those? What do you do when going gets hard?

Max Nyman: Oh, that's a good, uh, question. Um, I. One major learning, once again coming from sales, is to talk about what's being heard and said.

Uh, so trying to define, okay, what kind of objections are we getting? What's the pulse on this? How are we handling this? Do we know it? Or is it more like a one outta 10 objection or is it more and more, uh, reoccurring? Uh, and I think definitely also getting a, a tight feedback loop on, for example, price to understand, okay, I.

What are the, the customers saying now and how are we compared to competitors? And I'm quite, quite firmly [00:43:00] believing that we shouldn't look too much at competitors because it's impossible to stay updated on all their pricings and features and everything we should focus on. We do really, really well. Uh, and then what we did now as well is that we have a, we had a session talking about our like major strengths and.

Trying to really focus on those in every dialogue early. Uh, so that that's something that you can come back to and, uh, challenge the customer on. But, uh, I think it's super, super difficult. So, uh, having a tight feedback loop, trying to do a lot of, uh, like, um. Um, objection handling discussions and, uh, focusing on what you do really well.

Extra

Wilma Eriksson: interesting. Very, very interesting. And thank you, Tim, for an excellent question. More accurate than ever, one could definitely say

Max Nyman: definitely.

Wilma Eriksson: Okay. Uh, so Max, what are your main challenges in your business right now, problem that you're addressing this week, this month?

Max Nyman: Uh, I think this is a fun one. Or, or not the fun, or [00:44:00] like, every challenge is fun, but I think it's fun to reflect on the biggest challenge at the moment because if I look back at the most challenging thing two months ago, it's like,

Wilma Eriksson: huh?

Max Nyman: Throwback. I

Wilma Eriksson: know we solved that one. Yeah.

Max Nyman: So, uh, yeah, I think it's, it's, uh, really interesting looking back. But, uh, right now I would say it's, um, since we are. A young team.

Wilma Eriksson: Mm-hmm.

Max Nyman: And like a young team in both having not senior people in terms of age, but also senior people in terms of, uh, working at Lime or Lambo.

Wilma Eriksson: Mm-hmm.

Max Nyman: Uh, so that's a challenge to like, get the people on board to, uh, scale and ramp up the, the team and tighten the things together. So I would say hiring is, uh, one of the biggest challenges right now to get, uh, the perfect amount of seniority in. In to be able to live in like a bit of chaos, but still.

Yeah. Uh, so finding that sweet spot [00:45:00] higher for the different roles. I would say that's a big challenge at the moment.

Wilma Eriksson: And which roles was it you were looking for in the moment? If someone listening to this. It's actually happened before, you know? Mm. Someone listened and then they got hired, so, ah, yeah. Oh,

Max Nyman: nice.

Free marketing. Here we go. Knock yourself out. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so we're looking for a technical, uh, delivery slash product manager mm-hmm. To work with, like implementations and stuff.

Wilma Eriksson: Mm-hmm.

Max Nyman: Uh, we're looking for customer success. We're looking for product manager. Um, and those are the main three at the moment.

Yep. So, um, anyone in those interest areas holler at me

Wilma Eriksson: for sure. Definitely. Okay, great. And who would you like me to invite Podcast that would, uh, made you to listen to other episode of Failing or, because I know that you are a listener of Fil Grove, which makes me, uh. That, you know, internal, uh, embarrassment, feeling and happy.

Of course, I'm very proud. So who would you like me to grill in this way?

Max Nyman: Yeah, that's actually fun because I, I looked at my phone and found, [00:46:00] found a note that I listened to your podcast like two years ago, and then I had written down the questions that you. Answer in the episodes, and I think that apparently somewhat inspired me to start my own thing.

So thank you for that.

Wilma Eriksson: Thank you.

Max Nyman: Um, but, uh, two, two people, uh, that I have in mind. One is, uh

Wilma Eriksson: mm-hmm.

Max Nyman: Um, he's cool exer and, um. He is, uh, working at a company called Grid.

Wilma Eriksson: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Max Nyman: They've been doing a lot of acquisitions. Oh. And I think Interesting. Think that could be interesting to talk about the operational excellence in terms of aligning those, uh, in a good way.

Wilma Eriksson: For sure. For sure. Very interesting. Ah, great. And I haven't addressed that topic at all, so that's a great fit. Thank you.

Max Nyman: Mm-hmm. And another guy is, uh, Patrick. Or trippy. Mm-hmm. I've seen him on LinkedIn and I think he creates killer content, uh, mainly sales focused. Mm-hmm. He's, uh, CSO at, um, uh, I think it's a Swiss, like financial services, uh mm-hmm.

Company.

Wilma Eriksson: Mm-hmm. [00:47:00]

Max Nyman: Um, within sauce and, um. Yeah, I've been trying to get him to my pod, so if you beat me to it, that would be great.

Wilma Eriksson: Challenge accepted. Uh, well really nice to have someone outside of Nordics, uh, as well. So I will definitely, uh, try to invite both of them. And if you were to connect me with Richard, of course, I would be very grateful.

Max Nyman: Yeah, definitely. I'll fix that.

Wilma Eriksson: Okay. So we pour up that beer, we put in the ice because I always prefer it to be cold. Great. Uh, despite the watery, I don't care about that because often I drink everything. I drink very quickly, none depending on if it's water, coffee, or uh, champagne. Unfortunate. So, okay. We take that, uh, uh, a shared, a shared beer together.

Mm-hmm. And this songs come up and I say a great smile on your lips and you. Maybe you start dancing. I dunno if you're a gamer, maybe you don't dance. Or, that is maybe something I shouldn't say. Maybe all gamers dance, I don't know. But my guy is a gamer too, and he hates dancing. Okay. Yeah. But maybe [00:48:00] you do.

So what song are we listening to? Okay,

Max Nyman: so, uh, I'm a electro electronic music, uh, enthusiast. Mm-hmm. So. I am literally listening to like techno house or any type of music, uh, which my mom would call it, uh, like, uh, yeah, throughout the day, a week. So some sort of, uh, one hundred and twenty five twenty six BPM song.

Okay? Mm-hmm.

Wilma Eriksson: Someone you prefer. Anyone?

Max Nyman: No one favorite is Eric prt. Mm. Uh, Swedish dj. Really cool. Um, famous Foreign. Uh, this, the one called colony, even though he doesn't like it himself. But, um, yeah, that, that, that would be my, my go-to, uh, to put on. Definitely to get the vibe up when a beer is in the hand and I'm hanging out with you.

Wilma Eriksson: Looking forward to that moment. And thank you so much, max, for joining and all the learnings I've, uh, achieved. I really must listen to this, uh, one extra time. And [00:49:00] just to put, put everything down, I learned a lot. So thank you so much.

Max Nyman: Thank you for having me. It was, uh, a lot of fun.

Wilma Eriksson: Great. Cheers and have a great weekend.

Max Nyman: Yeah, you too. Bye-bye

Wilma Eriksson: bye

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