A Discussion with Rachel Tipograph, Founder & CEO, MikMak

Woman: Can women have it all?

Woman: What “have it all” means is have children and have work.

Woman: But is there a double standard in venture capital?

Woman: We need women at the table not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it's the smart thing to do.

Michael: I am so pleased to announce SHEconomics. It's an original series in partnership with TriNet and Radivision. The SHEconomics series features women entrepreneurs as they share their journey through successes and learnings along the way. We'll capture their fascinating stories that will inspire you, offer words of advice, and give them a platform to be heard.

Our host, Emily Chang, will sit with eight TriNet customers, discussing breaking boundaries and pushing limits. Emily Chang is the host and executive producer of Bloomberg Technology and author of the bestselling book, Brotopia: Breaking up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley. On her live daily show, she reports on global trends in tech and media, and interviews top investors, CEOs, and entrepreneurs. Business Insider called her “the star Bloomberg anchor that everyone in tech should know.” She previously served as an international correspondent for CNN in Beijing and London, and she's won five regional Emmy Awards for her reporting. Please welcome Emily Chang.

Emily: Thank you, Michael, for that introduction, and hello. SHEconomics highlights women who are paving the way for not only female entrepreneurs but all entrepreneurs, which is certainly something that I can get behind. And today I have the privilege of speaking with Rachel Tipograph, the founder and CEO of MikMak. If you don't know MikMak, it is an ecommerce company that's working to accelerate growth for Fortune 1000 brands offering end-to-end analytics and a multi-retailer checkout experience. Forbes named Rachel one of its 30 Under 30 who are changing the world. Fast Company called her “one of the most creative people in business.” Entrepreneur named her one of the 50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs. And from what I've heard in my conversations with her, she's certainly daring and very refreshingly outspoken. So, I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. It is my pleasure to introduce Rachel Tipograph. Rachel.

Rachel: Hi.

Emily: There were actually a few more magazines and a few more titles, but I thought...

Rachel: That was fine.

Emily: ...that we got the point. Okay. You've been on a lot of lists. It's great to be with you here in person.

Rachel: I know. We're not on Zoom.

Emily: Not on Zoom, but a lot of people are watching virtually, and we are still very much in a hybrid world. And I'm so curious for you, as a business leader based in New York, what the beginning of the pandemic was like. The world goes into lockdown. You have to figure out what to do. And then at the same time, your business is going bonkers.

Rachel: Yeah, it's been wild, but I think that the major headline is I'm super grateful. Obviously, there's other businesses and other sectors that have had a very different story. But, yeah, we've been based in New York. We had an office in SoHo, and I was supposed to be going to this conference in London to present in front of 5,000 Procter & Gamble executives. And that was my barometer if the pandemic was real or not. I was like, "Oh, P & G, they'll cancel the conference if the pandemic is real." And every day leading up to, like, March 12th, they weren't canceling the conference. And then finally, on March 9th, they made that decision.

And then I essentially told all my employees, "Hey, I'll pay for your Uber home. Grab your computer monitor because I don't really know what's happening." And we thought it would be till the end of March like most people in New York. And then fast forward to July 1st, we decided to break our SoHo office lease, and we told employees to go live wherever they want indefinitely, and that we would maintain their New York City salaries. And today we now have employees in 22 states and 2 countries.

Emily: Which is amazing because a lot of companies have said, "You can work from home wherever you want, but we're actually going to reduce your salary to market rate." So how did you come to that decision?

Rachel: Yeah, I think the name of the game with talent is retention, and that it's more costly to lose talented employees than to retain them. And when you, sort of, model out your business that way to keep your key people, you will, kind of, do anything to keep that key talent because the ramp period is what's going to set your business behind.

Emily: Right. And how have people responded? I mean, have a lot of people left? What's the distribution now?

Rachel: Yeah. I would say a lot of people who left New York City, they either bought homes in the burbs or they moved to the West Coast like 90% of my friends. And it's been pretty amazing because people get to now design their life the way that they want to live their life. What's interesting is that 50% of our staff is still in the tri-state area.

And when the world looked more optimistic around March, April this year, I decided to re-sign our lease because I heard it was 55% less than what I was originally paying. And we had to rebuild the infrastructure of the office. We reopened the office around July 4th. We had it open for three weeks, learned a lot in those three weeks. Essentially employees only came in Wednesday or Thursday because they went out drinking together. And parents never came unless their boss was like, "Hey, we're doing some, sort of, offsite together."

And so, all of a sudden it was like, "Wow, I've just got this office back so the 20-something employees can go drinking together. I mean, I'd rather just pay for their bar tab." And then Delta variant got real. And the liability of keeping the office open just outweighed everything, that I re-shut the office down. So, employees are back on Zoom. We were planning an all-company offsite. I was flying hundreds of employees into Brooklyn, rented out The William Vale Hotel. We had to break that. And we're just living in these times where, like, nothing really is predictable.

Emily: Yeah. So, are you setting a permanent policy for the future? I mean, do you have an idea of what that will look like, or are you not going there yet?

Rachel: I'm not going there completely yet. You know, what I always tell my employees is like, "I'm not the CDC. Like, I can't predict the future but what I..."

Emily: And neither can the CDC.

Rachel: Right, exactly. But what I want to do is give them enough runway so they can plan their life. And so, you know, all the big tech companies are kind of signaling, I believe, what the new start date is, which is January 3rd, 2022. And hopefully, the world's going to be more optimistic then.

In terms of how I'm planning my upcoming fiscal year, like, I'm modeling out having multiple offices because I want to be optimistic about the future. But from a contractual standpoint, I'm not going to tie myself into anything. So, if you're a real estate developer, I'm sure, like, this is how you're thinking about your business right now.

Emily: Well, and then in terms of a talent perspective, you said this allows people to design their lives, but it also allows you to design, probably with many more options, the kind of people you want to hire, the kind of company you want to create, right? Because you can hire anyone from anywhere.

Rachel: No, it's amazing. Like, I'm running a few executive searches right now. And the fact that I can say to them, "People can live wherever," it's opening me up to the most incredible talent pool. And it's done that at every rank of the company, and I can't actually imagine a world anymore where I only could recruit in the tri-state area. That just feels so limiting.

Emily: Well, and I wonder from a competition perspective, too, because there's this war for talent, especially in the tech industry. Bill Gurley, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, just told me he thinks it's going to be impossible to mandate that engineers come back. Like, engineers especially. And so, is that just the new normal?

Rachel: Yeah.

Emily: If you want a good engineer, you got to have that flexibility.

Rachel: I have an engineer that's currently working from like a monk seminary. It's insane the things that are happening, but they have high-speed internet.

Emily: So, let's talk about the business because you support these huge brands, Procter & Gamble, LEGO, Hershey's, and your business actually took off, like, 7x through the pandemic. So not only are you dealing with the pandemic, but you’ve also got this amazing business that's accelerating, and then you have to find the people to support that. What exactly does MikMak do? You know, how do we experience it as consumers?

Rachel: Sure. So, if you're a brand like LEGO, the reality is your products are readily available everywhere. And so, you've kind of cannibalized your opportunity to have a direct-to-consumer business. If you have a direct-to-consumer business, that's probably where you're selling limited edition LEGOs, or you're doing a product exclusive but you're not going to take away that business from Amazon, Target, Walmart.

So, when you're LEGO and you're having customers shop at Amazon, Target, Walmart, you don't know this, right, because Amazon owns the customer, Target owns the customer, Walmart owns the customer. So, we've built software that allows LEGO to connect their marketing investments to their end sale at places like Amazon, Target, Walmart. That's the value proposition for LEGO.

If you're a consumer, none of what I just said matters to you. But if you're a consumer and you're in an environment like Instagram or TikTok, and all of a sudden you were served a LEGO ad, or an influencer was talking about LEGO, and you were given the power to choose where do you want to check out—Amazon, Target, Walmart, that's my company, MikMak, behind the scenes powering that.

Emily: Okay. Now, MikMak was something else a few years ago. This was a pivot, right? What was it? And how does it feel to have successfully reinvented yourself, made that a successful pivot?

Rachel: Yeah. So, when I started the company in 2014, I had this vision for the future of media and commerce, and essentially was modernizing the infomercial industry. So, the first version of MikMak, people described as QVC for Snapchat, HSN for Snapchat. Honestly, we're ahead of our time, so much of business is timing, and it was an iPhone app. And I literally had comedians hawking what I called chotchkies, which is where the name comes from. So, products below $100, through vertical video. And we made all this noise. We got big brands like L'Oréal to sell their products through us. And then about a year into me running this iPhone app business, I literally looked at my unit economics, and I was like, "Hmm, this makes no sense. I need the scale of eBay."

And this is now like spring 2016. If you remember the business ecosystem then, it was pay to play. So, I modeled it out. I'm like, "Okay, I have to go raise $100 million." I have enough self-awareness to know, at that moment in time, that wasn't happening for me. But these brands like L'Oréal kept calling me and they were like, "Rachel, we want to take this universe that you've created for yourself and white label it." And when the biggest brands in the world are saying the same thing to you, you start to pay attention.

So, I picked up the phone, and I called 300 brands, and I asked them a simple question: “Why can't you do this yourself?” And through that, I learned all of these pain points they were looking to get solved. And I was like, "You know what? I'm going to go build software to solve those problems, and I'm going to come back in six months and sell you this software." And that's how the pivot happened.

Emily: Mm-hmm. And it certainly worked out.

Rachel: So far.

Emily: Now you are an anomaly in the startup world in that you are not only female. You are a gay female. You are very out and loud about it, which is wonderful because a lot of people aren't willing to necessarily talk about how that has impacted their journey. How has that impacted your journey in a very white, very straight, very male-dominated world, which is the startup world?

Rachel: Yeah. I like to think that it hasn't, but I know that it has. It's funny. I started the company when I was 27, and that was also the year I came out. So really big pivotal year of my life. Start a company, come out, and now I'm engaged to Sammy who's been with me for this whole journey.

Emily: Congratulations. Was there something about that year that starting a company, like wanting to start fresh? I mean, why did those two things coincide?

Rachel: Totally. I, you know, was running digital marketing at Gap. I quit my cushy job at Gap to essentially go find myself. I went on this world trip, found myself, came back, started a company, met Sammy, the rest is history. But in terms of how I'm building the company, you know, for me, inclusion is everything because when you've felt like an outsider for the majority of your life, you never want to feel that again, especially when you're in control of creating your own universe.

And so, at MikMak, that intentionality has been there from the start. And a mentor of mine gave me a great piece of advice from the start. And he goes to me, "If you don't make your first 10 employees as diverse as humanly possible, it will never happen for you." And so, this is literally 2014. I hire this company that's now doing phenomenally well called Jopwell, and they helped me with diversity recruiting because, for me, it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? I'm a New York Jew. So that's kind of my network. And I knew I didn't want to recruit from that. And my first 10 employees, we literally reflect the U.S. population. And my company today nearly reflects the U.S. population. And so, whenever people asked me, because when they walked physically into my office, you would feel how diverse this company is, "How'd you do it?" I said it was all about the first 10 employees.

Emily: Mm-hmm. Wow. And, you know, certainly, that's how you scale. The only way to scale that kind of diversity is to have it from the beginning. Absolutely. Do you feel like your background...? And I talk to so many founders. You know, all kinds of founders have trouble raising money. Did you have trouble raising money? Like, what kind of challenges did you encounter on the fundraising route? And how did you overcome them?

Rachel: Yep, absolutely. I hate raising money. So, when I first started the company, I mean your job as the founder is to just build resilience. What I always explain is, like, you're going to get 99 no's and 1 yes, but that 1 yes is the only thing that matters. That one yes for me was Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, kind of a personality.

Emily: Kind of? Very much a personality. I love Gary.

Rachel: But he remains on my board, and he's super involved, and I owe a lot to Gary. But Gary was first check in. And with Gary's endorsement, the rest of, sort of, my seed round fell into place. So that was Step 1. When I decided to pivot the company from an iPhone app to an enterprise software company, Gary was the first person I called. I was pretty scared to tell him that I'm fundamentally changing the entire business. The only thing that will be the same is the name. He then wrote me another check because he was like, "Rachel, why didn't you think of doing this from the start?"

And so, he then put more money in. I was able to get a few other people to put more money in. And then when things started to take off with the pandemic, that's when every investor started chasing us. And all of a sudden, the tides have turned. And so that was essentially last spring. So, I was at it at that point for five and a half years. And I said to myself, "Wow, if I knew this five and a half years ago, I would be so proud right now." And I just took a moment to just be proud of myself at that moment.

Fast forward today, I mean, literally every major growth equity investor is chasing MikMak. And we don't need money. That's the amazing thing. And so, the longer I say, "No, no, no," the higher the valuation of the company, kind of, goes, and that's the weird world of venture capital.

Emily: How do you compare raising in New York versus, you know, how you started this company in Silicon Valley? Would the trajectory have been different? Would the journey have been different?

Rachel: Yeah. No, it's definitely a different ecosystem that drives different outcomes. Silicon Valley investors are growth investors. It's grow, grow, grow at any cost. Profitability, they're like, "Get away. We don't want you to make money." So, what happens is then you're on this hamster wheel as a founder where you constantly have to be raising money, and inevitably you own close to none of your company. And so, the media, and I love the media, but they tell these stories of IPO. But if you look at the cap table, some of these founders only own 2% of their company. So, I mean, that is a track.

But then in New York, and Boston, and LA, it starts to be a little bit different. I mean, LA is pretty media focused. There's PE money there. There's also growth money, but it's still like naysaying, I would say, how the LA, sort of, venture ecosystem is developing. New York is a lot of ex-finance people entering, and so there's more of a middle ground. And Boston is really like PE, growth equity. And in those environments, when those investors are investing in a founder or a CEO, they're kind of only expecting a 3x return. And so, if you were growing 40% year over year, those investors will be high-fiving you. If you grew 40% year over year in the Bay Area, they'd be like, "Get out of here. You're not doing your job." And so, it drives different outcomes, and founders just need to be aware of the dynamics with those investors.

Emily: So, I want to talk a little bit about where you came from, your upbringing, what kind of kid you were. Talk to us a little bit about that, you know, your background and, sort of, defining moments where looking back now, you think that was, you know, a part of who I would become.

Rachel: Yeah. So, I grew up 10 miles outside of New York City, Northern New Jersey. And both of my parents are small business owners. And I didn't realize how unusual that was, especially from my mom's standpoint. Like, my mom, working mother, she started three companies. She sold two of them. I'm so proud of her, and I just kind of learned via osmosis.

You know, I grew up in a house where work and life were really intertwined. You know, both of my parents, kind of, worked Saturdays and Sundays. And while it bugged me that they couldn't, like, maybe be as present with me as I wanted, I also just really learned and admired their work ethic. And they, kind of, brought me into their work, and they taught me. My dad did a lot of public speaking. I would sit there while he made PowerPoints. And now, you know, I believe I'm a strong public speaker because at nine years old, I was watching my dad do that. And so, I owe a lot to that environment.

And I think financial independence, which is something that was ingrained into me for a very, very early age. And so, for me, when I turned 18, I never wanted to ask my parents for another dollar. You know, I'll tell you, I asked them for another dollar till I was 22, but I literally have not received $1 from my parents since I was 22 years old.

I have a younger brother, and he was, sort of, put in a different financial situation. When you have two parents who are entrepreneurs, sometimes you have good years, and you have bad years. My brother was in college when one of my parents had a bad year, and he got stuck with a lot of college debt and I didn't. And I told myself the day that I make enough money, I will pay off my brother's student loans. And so last year, MikMak had a great year, and I was able to pay off my brother's student loans.

Emily: That's amazing.

Rachel: Yeah.

Emily: Wow. What a sister. Is he going to be like your next intern?

Rachel: My brother's doing great in his own right. He's a creative.

Emily: So, you know, where did you go to school? What did you study? What did you think you were going to be?

Rachel: I went to NYU. I studied entertainment business, and I was interning at places like Miramax and Gersh Agency, like, places in New York in, you know, early 2000s, mid-2000s. And I was ready to, like, become an agent at William Morris, and then I found out what you made in the mailroom. And I was like, "No, thanks."

Emily: Right. And they all start in the mailroom.

Rachel: Mm-hmm.

Emily: That is true.

Rachel: Yeah. And so, I graduated NYU in '09. You know, it was kind of like that period where New York was still in the financial crisis. And the only people who were hiring were digital and social media agencies. So, literally, all of my friends, we all got the exact same job, whether it was at the same company or competing agencies. And we were the people who were literally buying, like, some of the first Facebook ads. Now, what's awesome is you grow up and you go through your career, and your friends rise with you, they're all now doing incredible things. But we all started in the same place, which was working at digital and social media agencies in New York in the year 2009.

Emily: And you worked at The Gap, right? So, was this before...

Rachel: Yeah. That was the next...

Emily: Okay. When did the "SNL" internship happen?

Rachel: That was at NYU.

Emily: Okay.

Rachel: Yeah.

Emily: So, I want to hear a little bit about that because I'm curious what you learned there that may have carried on in your career.

Rachel: So, how I got the "SNL" internship was pretty entrepreneurial. So, my freshman year at NYU, I was walking down Second Avenue, and I physically collided with the comedian Judah Friedlander, who was Frank on "30 Rock," the guy with the trucker hat.

Emily: Yeah.

Rachel: And he was in a movie that summer that I loved called "American Splendor." So, I was like, "Judah, what's up?" He just started talking to me. And anyway, this is now 2005, and I started telling him about Facebook. He had never heard of it. And I was like, "We can galvanize your fans on Facebook, and I can book you college campus gigs. Like, I'm pretty sure I can get you $30,000 at Syracuse." He's like, "Who are you?" And I was just like, "I just know that I could probably do this for you." So, he hired me. And I literally was Judah in social media, galvanizing his fans, booking him college campus gigs. Then he started to blow up because he was on "30 Rock." And I told him, like, "Listen. A dream of mine is, like, to intern at 'SNL.' Do you know anyone?" He's like, "Oh, yeah. I'll introduce you to the writer's room." So, I was literally an intern at the writer's room. And I learned that working in entertainment is unsexy.

Emily: How unsexy?

Rachel: Like, I had to go buy cigarettes for people. I would go downtown to buy candy when they were working Tuesday night. You were not doing anything glamorous. I was just literally a Postmates going back and forth.

Emily: Did you infuse any comedic timing or talent?

Rachel: Yeah. I think it was just more...like, honestly, admiration for Lorne Michaels and just that entire operation. I mean, it's magical, like, watching that whole thing come together every single week and also just the power of teamwork. I mean, that is like a team sport just in the form of acting and creativity.

Emily: Mm-hmm. So, then The Gap came after.

Rachel: So, then I worked at this agency that was right place, right time because we were winning all the right accounts, and then Gap recruited me out of the agency. I was the youngest executive they ever hired. I was 24. I report into the global CMO, and I ran global digital. I wouldn't be where I am today without that experience. This guy, Seth Farbman, who went on to be the CMO of Spotify and took the company public, was my boss. He just has a knack for spotting young talent. He took a huge chance in me, and it worked out because the net profits of the company over the three years I was there increased by 70%. Digital went from 5% of the revenue to 20%, and it just really launched my professional brand into the ether.

Emily: Was that through The Gap rebrand that they'd tried to do?

Rachel: That was 2010, going 2011.

Emily: Okay. They had already reverted. What was it like being the youngest...not just the youngest, but a really young executive in there?

Rachel: Yeah. Most of the time awesome, sometimes awful. You know, working in any big corporate environment, there's politics. And there are people who want you to succeed, and there are people who want you to fail. And very quickly, I had to learn how to navigate that type of environment. But my whole thing was about building spheres of influence, and essentially convincing people that they came up with these plans, strategies, and ideas, and taking no ownership, and shepherding things along the way to create change.

Emily: And what did you learn in the early days of digital adoption? I mean, you were basically in charge of getting us to click on stuff, right, and spreading the word. What did you learn in the early days of that that has been useful in, you know, having a tech startup?

Rachel: Yeah. You know, paid advertising, driving people to shop — it's a hands-on keyboard endeavor. You're essentially optimizing creative and media in real time, and you can't be precious about it. So, that's really hard for a lot of old school marketers because creativity, the brand storytelling, like shirts, all beautiful. That's not how you get people to buy things on Amazon, or you get people to buy things on gap.com. And so, having more of that day trader mentality, if you look at, like, some of the most successful ad agencies, a lot of those people were hedge fund guys because it's a very, very similar form of trading, but you're trading attention instead of trading money. And you're optimizing your media in real-time. And that's kind of the approach that we took.

Emily: Well, and that's something that now every brand, every company, and even individuals, often have to do, if you have an individual brand. I mean, what are some of the secrets to success there?

Rachel: So, I would say it all starts with...and this is getting very tactical, but campaign objective. You literally have to tell the algorithm and set the outcome that you want. So, oftentimes, people go in and they're like, "Well, I want the most affordable way to do this." Well, the most affordable way to do it is to just let people know that you exist. That's not what's going to drive ecommerce sales. You literally need to drive check-out events, and then you have to go after super niche audiences. So, I'll give you an example with food.

If I went after women 18 to 34, that have indicated that they have a kid somewhere between 0 and 5, I'll have a certain outcome. If I go after women 18 to 34, who've indicated that one of their children has a gluten allergy, I promise you, the conversion rates will be higher. And so, the more niche you go, the stronger your results will be.

Emily: Mm-hmm. That's where it becomes problematic at Facebook when you're, like, getting nicher and nicher and nicher, and you're like, "Are these niches okay to be chasing?"

Rachel: Well, that's why the industry is fundamentally changing. You know, you talk to a lot of people. If you talk to people who've run direct-to-consumer businesses, they're struggling because they are no longer seeing conversion from Facebook because iOS 14, the changes that have been made there have completely gutted their ability to drive customer acquisition through that environment. So, that is why I believe you will start to see all of those brands available on the shelves of Amazon, Target, and Walmart.

Emily: Interesting. Okay. Let's talk about that. And by the way, if you're not familiar with this, Apple has come out with new opt-out ad tracking technology, essentially where they're offering iPhone users the choice whether they want the apps to track them or not. And increasingly, people are saying, "No, we don't want to be tracked." Okay. So, what does this mean? How does this play out?

Rachel: Yeah. So, if you're...insert direct-to-consumer business. I'll just use Warby Parker, but not... Warby Parker is not a client. Probably what's been going down at Warby Parker all these years is that they've been buying Facebook ads, and they put the Facebook pixel on their checkout cart. So, every single time a consumer checks out, Facebook is logging that event. They're essentially able to mine that user and that user's behavior and go find more people who have the same attributes.

So, Warby was just on this, again, hamster wheel — buying Facebook ads, driving checkouts over and over and over. iOS 14 comes along, that Facebook pixel no longer works on that checkout cart. That's gone away. The entire ecosystem, poof, just like that, gone. How are they going to drive customer acquisition?

So, that's why now brands are moving more of their dollars into retail media because retail media has all of the first-party data. Amazon, Target, Walmart, they own that data. They can use that data through any DSP. They can use it within their own environments, and they can drive people to check out. Facebook can't because that was third-party data, but Amazon owns that data. And that's why you're going to see all these direct-to-consumer brands either consolidate because they can't do it on their own or make themselves available at places like Amazon, Target, Walmart.

Emily: So, are you saying they're going to advertise on Amazon instead, or they're going to start selling directly on Amazon?

Rachel: They're going to do both.

Emily: So, we can imagine that Warby Parker, which you would never...I don't even actually know if Warby's on Amazon or not, but you wouldn't think they're on Amazon or imagine that they would ever be on Amazon because that's not part of their brand.

Rachel: Yup.

Emily: It's going to be on Amazon.

Rachel: Yeah. And maybe it won't be Amazon, but it will probably be Target or Nordstrom, or maybe they'd come out with a certain product line for that environment. But, yup.

Emily: This is interesting because I really thought brands were all moving towards direct-to-consumer rather than away from direct-to-consumer.

Rachel: With the changes with iOS 14, it is becoming nearly impossible for them to drive customer acquisition this way.

Emily: Huh. And what does that mean for Facebook?

Rachel: Well, I mean, Facebook, they're only...they're not...they have so many verticals, right?

Emily: But advertising is...

Rachel: Absolutely. But there's travel. There's automotive. I mean...

Emily: Yeah.

Rachel: And it's still an incredible platform to drive brand awareness. Right? You have all of these eyeballs. But ecomm conversion and a direct-to-consumer environment has become increasingly more difficult.

Emily: Mm-hmm. So, I want to talk a little bit about how you built your company because, you know, obviously, you started at such a young age, and how much you came into it, knowing the values and the kind of company you wanted to create and how much you've learned those along the way as you developed as a leader.

Rachel: Yeah.

Emily: Like, when you came in as a first-time founder, you know, did you know what you were doing? You know, it was a terrifying? Did you, you know, have sort of an established set of values that you wanted to uphold, or did it kind of happen in a more backwards way?

Rachel: Yeah. I definitely had no idea what I was doing, and still may not. When I started my company, I turned to my parents. And I was like, "You've been running companies your whole life. Do you have any advice for me?" My dad said to me, "Rachel, treat your employees the way that they want to be treated, and everything will work out for you. Essentially lead with empathy." And I try to live that out every single day. And when I went on this whole world trip to find myself, I wrote one thing in my journal, and that was to build the next great company that people want to work for.

When I think about leaders that I admire, it's about how they treat their people, like Marc Benioff, they stand for something, right? And people want to get behind that person because they have those shared values. It's not money.

For me, I believe in my abilities. I know I'm very skilled. I have this niche. I know I'll get paid for it. So, I'm not motivated by money. I'm motivated by doing right by people. And so, when I started MikMak, that's really what motivates me every single day. You know, the pandemic has actually changed how that comes to life. I was that classic millennial founder. I was obsessed with people being in the office. We would do soul cycle together. We'd go drinking together. We would go to the Hamptons, like, the whole thing. It was a cult.

And then the pandemic came, and all of a sudden, you realize that that can't be your company culture because that can't exist in a virtual world. And it's really about how you treat your people. And so, everything that we did in the physical world, it wasn't about reimagining in a virtual world. It was actually questioning, what are our new values in this world where we're going to spend the majority of our time together on Zoom?

Emily: Mm-hmm. On that note, how are you thinking about redefining culture in a hybrid world? Because in many respects, the flexibility is great for all different kinds of people. You know, if you just use working mothers, working parents, as an example, you imagine that this is better for parents. While hybrid work can be more level setting, it can be more inclusive, it can also be more exclusive because you have to physically, like, you know, invite someone to a meeting. You're not crossing paths with them in the hallway. So, how do you find that balance and make sure you're not, you know, tilting towards the more exclusive when obviously that can feed on itself and tension can build?

Rachel: You know, in this virtual world, you have to be so intentional about culture because it can't just organically happen. And so, it really, for us, came from the employees. And from the very, very early start of MikMak, like, mental health has been a huge thing. And maybe it's because of the average age of my employees, but it was like something that was always spoken about.

And so, when the pandemic struck, we really had to think about that even more. How do we create an environment that's constantly protecting our employees' mental health, not causing burnout, especially with parents? I mean, I have so much respect for parents during the pandemic. It's crazy to watch how they've managed their lives. And so, it really was about giving our employees the platform and the resources to create programs to shape our culture.

So, we have a few very active sort of ERG groups at MikMak. One is called the Mental Health Committee. And they've done phenomenal things. First of all, they've built this dashboard for me. So, like, in Google Data Studio, at all times, I have a pulse on what my employees' mental health is and their relationship to their manager. It's now allowing us to triage employee-manager relationships. This was built by my employees. Like, that could be software in itself that we can sell. Like, who knows? But it's creating those opportunities where they feel so empowered that they can shape the culture of MikMak.

Emily: Now, how do you balance... And there are companies putting stakes on the opposite side of the line, like Coinbase, which has said, you know, "We're not going to talk about social issues, politics at work, only as it pertains directly to cryptocurrency." Now, we are sort of expecting leaders to take on social issues, to take a stand, to make a statement, if there's, you know, some massive protest or massive movement happening. And, you know, I know internally from some of my sources at Coinbase, like, some people are relieved, "Oh, God. We don't have to talk about this issue or that issue at work." But it's very much not the direction that most of Silicon Valley and most startups are going.

Rachel: We had to face that head-on. You know, I would describe MikMak's culture as woke, which is beautiful, but also a lot, especially when...like, I'm not a trained professional in some of the things that we've had to deal with. And so, we had to work with some of our employees. So, we have, like, a DEI committee. And essentially, we identified together the issues that MikMak can impact and the issues that we can't. Like, we can't comment on every geopolitical issue. That's not our role in society.

And so, as employees, having an understanding with management, these are the things that we feel that we have a role in shaping, talking about, because it directly impacts our employees or the communities they live in, and the other stuff, like, we just don't have a role. It doesn't mean that it doesn't matter to us, but it's just not appropriate for MikMak as a company to be commenting on these issues. And I had to have that dialogue.

Emily: How did they respond to that? Because, you know, it's hard to hear, like, "Well, we think..." You know, talking about that as a distraction from, you know, why we're here, when it's something that someone might really care about.

Rachel: I'd say it was challenging. And I made sure to do it with guidance because that type of conversation can go many different ways. But ultimately, all my employees are really rational and level-headed, and we got to a good place. But it's really hard, and I'm not going to pretend that I'm the expert in it. I honestly turn to a lot of my mentors because this stuff is just some of the most challenging.

Emily: Mm-hmm. Now, I hate to even mention this argument because I certainly don't want to advance it, but there has been a long tradition of a contingent of Silicon Valley investors who believe that having less diversity at the beginning is better for growth because you all think alike, you move more quickly, you can agree more quickly on things, and grow faster. And then you try to diversify later. You know, I know you feel the opposite. Do you ever feel like being a diverse company has slowed you down because it's led to, you know, more disagreement, more contradictory opinions?

Rachel: Yeah. So, this is where I would challenge whoever is saying that. Diversity and alignment are two very different things, and they absolutely can exist together. I am in 100% agreement that you need to have company alignment, leadership team alignment, but that doesn't mean you can't have diversity of thought to get there.

One of my favorite business books is, like, "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team." And I really believe in that. And at some point in leadership, and just in doing work in general, you have to disagree to agree because you have to commit and move forward, and you can't win every battle. So, that's where I would just challenge that because you can have diversity and create alignment within that group. And the most important things are, one...this is why I lead with transparency and I'm doing this right now with an executive I'm trying to hire. I'm being very honest with them about the next 12 months of the company, because if they don't want that for themselves, this is not going to work out.

And so, I think you need to be super transparent with, like, the state of the business, what you're trying to achieve, what it's going to take to get there. Make sure that the person wants this for themselves, make sure that they can buy into the strategy, they see the world the same way that you do, and that they're reflective of your company values.

So, a perfect example. We're a highly collaborative culture. Like, if you're the type of person that wants to wear headphones and be in a spreadsheet and, like, not work with other people, MikMak is not the place for you. Doesn't mean that it isn't a great skill to have, but that's just not the culture that we've bought into. And so, that's something that I screen for.

So, you know, one of the key things that I do in interviews is, I pay attention to when someone goes, "I, I, I," versus, "We." And I never hire someone that says, "I, I, I," because I don't believe that person's collaborative.

Emily: Interesting.

Rachel: Yeah.

Emily: And this is what I personally believe that, you know, the more diversity in the room, the more opinions you have, the more you can avoid potential problems. The more you realize, "Oh, this product is not going to work for that kind of audience," because you've got something in there saying, "Uh, uh, uh, it has to be this way." Are there some examples, or have you seen your team benefit from the diversity in a room in a way that, you know, you wouldn't have had that “aha moment” or that discovery if, you know, a certain someone who didn't look like everybody else or think like everybody else wasn't there?

Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. There's another leadership assessment called the Disc Profile. I'm just kind of a nerd for all this stuff. You take a little bit from everything and make it your own. But essentially, like, you take this personality test and it tells you if you're a D, if you're an I, if you're an S, if you're a C. I'm, like, a hardcore DI to the point where it's like, "You're one of the most persuasive people that have ever existed." This is why I'm good at sales.

There's a leader of mine who's, like, a hardcore C. And he analyzes everything to the point where you're like, "Dude, we're never going to get anything done." But he's the guy that you feel is the naysayer, but no, he's just going so deep that he's getting us to a place that we would never have got in because the rest of us are like, "Let's go, go, go." And he's slowing us down in the right ways.

And so, one of the things that this individual unearthed for me is that when we... We create a certain deal structure with our customers. Those customers grow 10x with us versus another type of contract. All of a sudden, I was like, "What the hell are we doing? We have to stop that other contract method and only do this." And it totally reimagined our entire go-to-market strategy.

Emily: So, how do you, as a leader, open yourself up to that kind of challenge, that kind of challenge to your...whether it's your idea or somebody else's, but something that you want? And then someone comes in and says, "No, I don't think so." How do you, as a leader, make yourself open to, you know, everyone in your company having the voice and the power to say that?

Rachel: Yeah. I only care about one thing, and it's winning. And I don't care if I came up with it or this other person came up with it. I have no ego about that. My job as a leader is to build the strongest team humanly possible and for me to just focus on what I'm the best at. And I really just try to get the hell out of the way with everything else.

And even I'm working through something right now with one of my leaders where he's really advocating for something that I am just not 100% comfortable with. And this morning, I woke up to myself and I was like, "Rachel, you hired this person for a reason. You need to just, like, let go of your own belief system on this." And I called him this morning and I told him, "You know what? Let's do it your way." And he was kind of, like, "Huh?" Because we had such a heated conversation about 48 hours before. And I feel good about that decision.

Emily: You're letting your employees lead, like your dad told you to.

Rachel: Exactly.

Emily: Now, you said you're a woke company. A lot of company...tend to be more woke. Is there more competition? You know, because other companies are also trying to improve their cultures, you know, maybe have learned from whether it's the Me Too movement or the Black Lives Matter movement and become more socially conscious, more empathetic to their employees.

Rachel: Yeah. I mean, Glassdoor tells all truth.

Emily: Brutally.

Rachel: Exactly. You on Glassdoor, and you can understand if a company is full of shit or not. And I think employees know that. And so, the process of becoming more woke, honestly, I would think that would require an entire leadership change at certain companies because it's all about the top.

Emily: Mm-hmm. So, as you think about, you know, the best leaders are always reinventing themselves. You know, how are you setting goals for yourself, for the company and for your company's culture over the next, let's say, three to five years?

Rachel: Yeah. Three to five years, I can't think that far. Maybe I should.

Emily: Three to five months?

Rachel: Yeah. You know, I have some key themes for 2022. And for me, it's about understanding my role in those themes because I now understand how disruptive I can be to people's work. Like, we're at a certain scale that when I get involved, it actually could do more harm than good. And so, a lot of it is about determining my role next year in the business and retraining myself to not do certain things and only focus on others.

Emily: Do you think that's something that all managers could and should do?

Rachel: Absolutely.

Emily: Uh-huh.

Rachel: I don't know the founders of Shopify personally, but I recently listened to a podcast. And what I love is what he says in it, the CEO, is, every year he and his executives have to reapply for their jobs. I think that's brilliant. Like, are you still qualified? Should you be in another role? What are going to be the requirements of being a CEO of a company in 2022 versus 2023? And, you know, I'm informally doing that with myself because I believe that's the right way to lead, and it forces you to grow as a leader.

Emily: So, you know, when you look out... I find it interesting that you said you can't think that far ahead. How do you balance short versus long-term thinking? Because you've got a lot of people. And maybe there's not a ton of truth behind it. I can think, you know, 10 years, 20 years away. You know, nobody...we don't even know when the pandemic is going to be over.

Rachel: Yeah.

Emily: Right?

Rachel: So, strategically, on paper, I can do that. But I live in reality. So, sure. For my board or for future investors, I can articulate the story of MikMak to IPO, like, very easily. But I know it's not going to go down that way. And so, I think it's the balancing act of understanding the core things that have to happen in the business to keep it on the right track, and then knowing that 50% of it is going to go way out the window for things that have nothing to do with what I can control.

Emily: Mm-hmm. So, our audience is filled with, you know, mid-career folks, varying ages. What advice would you give to your high school self? And then what advice would you give to your mid-career self?

Rachel: High school self, keep surrounding yourself with good people. Mid-career self, my advice is, be external. I have found that the people who are moving fastest in their career...if that's your goal, it might not be your goal. But the people who are moving fastest in their career have really built their external network within their industry. Internal promotions, you're on a two-year track. Maybe you're getting a 10% salary bump, but if you want the big swings in your career, you're actually going to have to go leave. You can always come back to the organization, but you're going to have to go leave. And the way that you're going to go leave is by building your professional brand and network.

Emily: How do you do that? How do you be external?

Rachel: Well, today in a virtual world, LinkedIn is one of the most powerful tools of the internet that, I think, is completely under-utilized. And it is so easy to position yourself as a thought leader within that environment, and then literally just DM people within your industry. Set up a 30-minute Zoom coffee, and boom, you're off on your way.

Emily: So, what excites you about 2022 from a culture perspective and from a business?

Rachel: From a culture perspective...these things will go hand-in-hand for my answer. We're aggressively expanding internationally. So, today, 96% of my revenue comes from North America. And if I see you this time next year, I hope to say 60% of my revenue comes from North America. And so, I'm just very, very excited about the challenges and opportunities of building a global company. The type of talent that we're going to bring in, potentially even acquire, and just reimagining what MikMak is when it's just not focused on some of the key places that we're in within the U.S.

Emily: Isn't IPO the goal, or something else?

Rachel: Some sort of liquidity event like that.

Emily: All right. Well, everybody wants liquidity even though money is not the name of the game, but it certainly helps. Rachel Tipograph, the CEO and founder of MikMak, thank you so much for joining us. And thank you all for listening today.

Rachel: Thanks for having me.

Emily: All right.