WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.100 --> 00:00:12.660 [upbeat music] Hey, it's Tristan again. Welcome back to the podcast. 2 00:00:13.160 --> 00:00:19.459 I'm a coach who partners with founders and chiefs of staff to navigate company and career building with clarity and intention. 3 00:00:20.060 --> 00:00:29.480 This year, as a chief of staff network fellow, I'll be guest hosting a few episodes and bringing on chiefs of staff from all around the world, and in particular from Europe and Asia. 4 00:00:30.180 --> 00:00:40.120 Today's guest is the wonderful Lisa Sorgenfrei, and this is an episode about what life after being a chief of staff looks like and what exactly does it take to start betting on yourself. 5 00:00:40.760 --> 00:00:48.500 Lisa went from building Capmo from the ground up for eight years, including as a chief of staff, to then branching out to begin her founder journey. 6 00:00:48.560 --> 00:01:02.660 We talk about her life before, during, and after being a chief of staff, the loneliness, uncertainty, challenges, and excitement, and then we talk about her life as the founder of the Munich Play Collective and how being a chief of staff led her there. 7 00:01:02.720 --> 00:01:14.780 I'm extremely grateful to Lisa for taking the time to share her journey and admire how courageous she has been to start betting on herself. Hope you enjoy it. Lisa, welcome to the podcast. How are you feeling today? 8 00:01:15.380 --> 00:01:26.840 Thanks, Tristan. I'm feeling really well. It's good to see a familiar face. You know, we've known each other actually for a couple of years from the On Deck chief of staff cohort, I think in, like, twenty twenty-two? 9 00:01:26.900 --> 00:01:35.500 One? Yeah. It has been a whole year, but it was really nice to follow your journey throughout as well. Well, thank you so much for making the time being on the pod. 10 00:01:36.200 --> 00:01:50.000 I wanted to start off with a question of, for everyone listening, what is some useful context that could help us understand who you are, who is on the pod with us today? So, uh, yeah, my name is Lisa. 11 00:01:50.600 --> 00:01:55.420 I'm a daughter of a Japanese mom and a German dad, born and raised in Germany, though. 12 00:01:55.900 --> 00:02:09.259 And I've always have, like, these two different cultural backgrounds with me, which is, I also think what shaped me into who I am today. As for my career path, I never really had a straight line. 13 00:02:09.940 --> 00:02:19.780 I never had a really straight career path. When I was young, I wanted to become an architect because I loved, like, really creative things. I loved beautiful buildings. I always wanted to become that. 14 00:02:20.380 --> 00:02:28.680 But it's really hard to make a living as an architect and truly make money, and at that time it was really hard even to find a job as an architect. 15 00:02:29.220 --> 00:02:35.140 So instead of that, I wanted to study civil engineering because that was kind of the closest that I can get with an engineering degree. 16 00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:42.640 But as I lacked kind of the language part, I chose business engineering with focus on civil. 17 00:02:42.720 --> 00:02:56.740 So really quite a generalist sort of study where you tap into law, business, macroeconomics, as well as civil stuff like mathematics, construction. It was a lot of fun. 18 00:02:57.540 --> 00:03:14.680 But yeah, that was kind of my studies upbringing, which led me into starting in a software startup, in a construction software startup after my-- or even during my studies to build a construction software management platform together with the founders. 19 00:03:14.760 --> 00:03:25.000 I was one of the first employees. Stayed there actually for eight years. Did different roles there. That's Capmo, right? Exactly. It's a German construction software company. 20 00:03:25.660 --> 00:03:33.920 First was focused really much on defect management on construction, but yeah, as we grew, it became broader and broader, I would say. 21 00:03:34.520 --> 00:03:41.620 What was it like to jump in in the early days with the company and kind of see it grow over eight years? It was a lot of fun. 22 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:50.160 So, you know, I started there as an intern, like I was in my studies, and it didn't really feel like working at a company. 23 00:03:50.640 --> 00:04:04.000 Being an intern before in bigger companies, I knew what it was like to be kind of in a corporate world, and I really enjoyed the gap, being in a software company and a software startup, that it really didn't feel like working. 24 00:04:04.570 --> 00:04:15.460 It felt like doing a fun project together with some friends. Yeah, we worked a lot, day and night sometimes, but, uh, it was just a lot of fun and didn't feel like work. 25 00:04:16.019 --> 00:04:26.740 No, I mean, that's probably a good sign if it kind of all blends. Oh, [chuckles] in some ways, I guess maybe if it all blends together. Yeah, that's true. Tell us a bit about the different types of responsibilities. 26 00:04:26.780 --> 00:04:34.140 You know, I can imagine being early in the company, you're probably doing a bit of everything. How did that change as the company grew, and how did the company do over the years as well? 27 00:04:34.780 --> 00:04:42.360 So I started off in customer success. I was kind of the first customer success manager. When I started, the company was, like, two months old. 28 00:04:42.380 --> 00:05:01.680 We just had the first customers, but nobody knew what construction was really about, and nobody really knew the processes of, of the customers, so I was hired as a customer success manager to actually onboard our customers and kind of use the software to really show people how it can be used in the processes. 29 00:05:02.300 --> 00:05:15.720 That was my first role, and it was quite fun because I was new to the software world. I was learning really a lot and, you know, in that first year when we were just, like, ten people or so, you just do everything. 30 00:05:15.820 --> 00:05:21.340 So we were writing content by ourselves. We were doing outbound sales, going on events. 31 00:05:22.060 --> 00:05:40.940 And being the customer success manager, I was also helping in the product department, translating the user stories and the problems of our customers that I understood from sales conversations or, like, really customer conversations into user stories and understanding and unpacking the problems more. 32 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:51.040 I found that work to be really, really fascinating because it's super creative and you take a complex problem and you solve it by creating something out of nothing. 33 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:57.400 That was kind of the thing that really, really stuck with me and that I liked. 34 00:05:57.620 --> 00:06:06.672 So I transitioned after a year into being the first product manager full-time and working in the product department.It was a lot of fun, super steep learning curve. 35 00:06:07.052 --> 00:06:18.732 I had a lot of responsibility and autonomy, so I could run and just solve a lot of really cool problems. I guess in the early days of being the first product manager, what was that experience like? 36 00:06:19.132 --> 00:06:29.752 What kind of problems were you working on, and what were the failures as well, I guess? In the very early days of the company, we really spent a lot of time also with our customers. 37 00:06:29.832 --> 00:06:36.252 I was on a construction site so much, uh, just talking with our customers and showing them the product. 38 00:06:36.292 --> 00:06:43.472 The product was quite buggy at that time because we had some offline functionality, and that was quite fun and quite interesting. 39 00:06:44.172 --> 00:07:02.272 I would say the problems that we worked on mainly were, like, really customer problems because the team was so small that you don't need, like, processes, and you don't have that much, like, internal problems or challenges because everyone is just being crammed in a small room and working together on a mission. 40 00:07:02.312 --> 00:07:14.792 So small teams have that, until a certain capacity or size, have that magic that it kind of just somehow works internally, and you can really purely focus on the external, on the customer problem. 41 00:07:14.852 --> 00:07:25.552 Okay, so talking a lot to the customers in the early days and for you being the product manager, I mean, as you said, you were kind of on-site all the time. I guess as the company grew, how did the dynamics change? 42 00:07:25.652 --> 00:07:39.492 Like, you can't really fit in a small room anymore. Yeah, exactly. We moved to, like, new offices and became much bigger, and we hired a second product manager who was also a lot of fun to work with. I learned a lot. 43 00:07:39.532 --> 00:07:47.672 He was more experienced than me. I mean, I haven't done any product management before, so I was kind of a self-starter and needed to learn from also other people. 44 00:07:47.752 --> 00:08:00.892 And when the other product manager came, we added a lot of processes because now with two teams, of course, we need to align much more and need to see that we don't break the code base by accident or so. 45 00:08:01.412 --> 00:08:07.092 That's where I also understand, okay, now we're growing, you know, we're adding more layers, we're adding more processes. 46 00:08:07.852 --> 00:08:18.032 And there in the beginning, I also learned a lot because I learned more about how a business then grows. But I love really steep learning curves. 47 00:08:18.432 --> 00:08:22.932 I just love jumping into the deep water not knowing anything and just- [laughs]... figuring things out. 48 00:08:23.512 --> 00:08:33.112 And as soon as the learning curve kind of starts to flatten, maybe it's a bad trait, sometimes it's a good trait, but I feel bored [laughs] and I need to have a new challenge. 49 00:08:33.812 --> 00:08:46.172 And so I told the founders that I really need a new challenge. I feel like product management in that sense is not it. I want to understand the business more. 50 00:08:46.292 --> 00:08:59.212 I want to understand more what it is like to really build a business and not what it is like to build a product only. And that was kind of the start of my transition into a chief of staff role, actually. 51 00:08:59.252 --> 00:09:09.232 What was that conversation like when you kind of brought that up? How did the leadership team take that, and how did you then carve out the role? So the role didn't exist before in our company. 52 00:09:09.432 --> 00:09:19.661 I was having more conversations with my manager, who was the CTO at that time, one of the co-founders, that I want to learn more, that I want to add more responsibility. 53 00:09:19.692 --> 00:09:39.092 And at some point, I even considered leaving to have another, like, kind of learning curve because, of course, instead of being in the company and learning a new role, I could also do the role in another company and again learn a lot, even though product management was maybe not it, but I could maybe learn something. 54 00:09:39.652 --> 00:09:50.312 Shortly before me really saying that I think I might quit, my boss called me someday and said, "Hey, you know what? I talked to the CEO," the other founder. 55 00:09:50.552 --> 00:09:59.752 We were all friends at that time, so it was not like, "Oh, I talked to the CEO." [laughs] Yeah. It was more like I talked to him. I think he needs a chief of staff, and I didn't really know what a chief of staff is. 56 00:09:59.952 --> 00:10:12.372 [laughs] So he had a friend who is a chief of staff. So he was like, "Hey, maybe talk to him to understand a bit more about the role and if it's something for you." Then I started talking to that person. 57 00:10:12.412 --> 00:10:24.072 It really sounded awesome. It sounded like all I ever wanted, like understanding everything around the business, being really close to the CEO and understanding how to take these hard decisions for our company. 58 00:10:24.741 --> 00:10:36.792 And then I talked also to the CEO, and that's how I ended up there. It sounds like, you know, some parts of getting to see the whole company as opposed to just working on one specific product does seem appealing. 59 00:10:36.852 --> 00:10:49.452 Like, what else about the role was appealing for you, and to you, like, what is a chief of staff role? How would you define what it is? I think there's no such thing as, like, one chief of staff role. 60 00:10:49.572 --> 00:10:59.552 Every chief of staff does something else, and, uh, it might be similar, but it always needs to fit the company and also the person that you're serving. 61 00:10:59.612 --> 00:11:09.932 For me, the chief of staff role there was a lot about bringing structure into the company as a whole and by that, helping it grow. 62 00:11:10.472 --> 00:11:24.712 And that was quite fascinating for me because I felt like because we're growing, we need more structure in the way, what kind of meetings do we actually do? How do we do strategy? How do we execute against that strategy? 63 00:11:24.732 --> 00:11:27.112 How do we hold ourself accountable? 64 00:11:27.192 --> 00:11:45.072 All of that, and it was really appealing to me to bring structure into this and also do the communication side of things to bring everybody along with that journey and doing that change management, if you will, within the company to bring that structure in. 65 00:11:45.112 --> 00:11:56.372 I'm guessing also the fact that you were there since the early days as the company scaled as well, you also had a lot of support and buy-in from the leadership team because, as you said, you're all friends. 66 00:11:56.552 --> 00:11:57.732 You were there since the early days. 67 00:11:58.332 --> 00:12:14.224 One of the tricky things in conversations I've had, and also my personal experience, is that as the team scales, you have the-Core crew, let's say, that grew with the company from the very early days that, you know, those bonds are so different than the bonds that are formed after the thirtieth or hundredth hire. 68 00:12:14.324 --> 00:12:24.224 What was it like for you to traverse and navigate, like, the company as it scaled, and what was that like? So I think I was really lucky being one of the first. 69 00:12:24.644 --> 00:12:36.364 As you said, I had a bond with, like, the leadership team and everyone around. I wasn't coming from outside and saying, "Hey, I'm gonna change now everything how it works." [laughs] So that was easy for me, fortunately. 70 00:12:37.304 --> 00:12:51.624 I felt like maybe just on the personal side as the company grew, people who were with me in the early days, of course, they also leave, and kind of the best friends that I had at that time left, like, one by one. 71 00:12:52.284 --> 00:13:07.844 So that compared with being a chief of staff, which is quite a lonely role, at times felt really lonely, I would say. But in total, it was really interesting and really cool to see the company growing. 72 00:13:08.524 --> 00:13:21.194 I would say I was one of the culture shapers. I think I really embodied the values of the company, and I took pride in really shaping the culture and bringing it into the company and into every conversation. 73 00:13:21.924 --> 00:13:38.624 And it was really nice to see that while the company was growing, the culture was still sustaining and overall, like, the values were still lived, which was really, like, rewarding for me also as a chief of staff because as chief of staff you have another channel to also be a culture driver, right? 74 00:13:39.144 --> 00:13:49.044 So that was a really good thing. What were those channels for you, and what sort of signs did you see that, you know, after eight years, like, those seeds were pretty much, let's say, the same seeds, I guess? 75 00:13:49.704 --> 00:14:06.404 I would say three main channels. One is really during the recruiting process that I was also involved, especially in key hires in the peer interviews. And in the peer interviews, we would vet for culture fit. 76 00:14:06.904 --> 00:14:13.564 So that was kind of one channel that I could work in. The second was during the onboarding. 77 00:14:13.824 --> 00:14:37.544 We always did a kind of value workshop, so it was kind of a workshop for all the newbies, talking about the values and teaching them about the values, but also, like, interactively getting them to talk about a time or situation where they lived this value or where they lived this value internally or externally and-- or how do they feel about the value. 78 00:14:37.584 --> 00:14:48.104 That second channel was really, really powerful, and I, I did it also after I transitioned out of the chief of staff role. I continued to do these workshops. And the third one was the all-hands meeting. 79 00:14:48.544 --> 00:15:01.324 So once a week, thirty minutes, there was a meeting for everyone within the company, no laptops, just like what's new within the company, what's the state of the company in terms of numbers, and we always had a section about the culture. 80 00:15:01.864 --> 00:15:17.304 It's like the Capmo of the week section, where one employee would praise another employee for living a certain value and telling about the situation where they lived the value, and then they would pass kind of the, the ball to the next person. 81 00:15:17.324 --> 00:15:26.984 When I started as a chief of staff, I also changed what the content of the all-hands is, and I would say that was also a really big lever for me to really bring the culture into the company. 82 00:15:27.584 --> 00:15:32.694 Yeah, I guess, you know, as like chiefs of staff, the most common description is like the glue that holds things together, right? 83 00:15:33.384 --> 00:15:49.324 And I guess by having the agency through, I guess, like, the backing of the leadership team, then not only can you see the spots that maybe need some love [laughs] Yeah. 84 00:15:49.704 --> 00:15:59.884 But then you also have, like, the mandate to be able to raise it or, you know, just act on it. And I can imagine being someone that was there from the early, early days, you have extra support in some ways, you know. 85 00:16:00.544 --> 00:16:21.903 I've spoken to quite a few chiefs of staff that are in this phase of trying to get the backing from the leadership team because they've, you know, been, let's say, some of them have been promoted from founders associate role, some have been hired externally as a chief of staff into this role, but it's like coming into, like, an ant colony [laughs] an ant colony- [laughs]...that has, like, its own way of, of operating, you know. 86 00:16:21.944 --> 00:16:31.944 And, like, there's very clear paths these ants are walking, and suddenly you're gonna choose a different path after it's been trodded on for [laughs], you know, for such a long time. Yeah. 87 00:16:31.984 --> 00:16:36.064 I reckon it's a really hard challenge. I am fortunate enough to not having had that. 88 00:16:36.424 --> 00:16:46.584 I had other challenges, I guess, but I was really fortunate to always have the backing of the leadership team and always had a bond already with the leadership team. Yeah. 89 00:16:46.704 --> 00:16:56.604 So at the London Chief of Staff Network event that we had, that was at last year in November, we did, like, a little word cloud situation where we got everyone. 90 00:16:56.644 --> 00:17:03.624 There was, like, sixty or seventy chiefs of staff in the room, and we asked the question, "What's one word you use to describe your role?" That sounds fun. Yeah. 91 00:17:03.644 --> 00:17:11.124 [laughs] We had quite many words, but the one that came up is a word that you've used, which is lonely. 92 00:17:11.784 --> 00:17:20.904 And then it was surprising for people to see that other people had, other chiefs of staff- [laughs]...had said that it was lonely. You know? So it was like, "Oh, you, you guys too? Oh, oh, damn." 93 00:17:21.224 --> 00:17:31.944 [laughs] But that sounds like a good moment to realize that other people feel the same. [laughs] Yeah. What do you think about this role, like, makes it lonely across the board for many chiefs of staff? 94 00:17:32.724 --> 00:17:44.684 It is that you have the full spectrum of knowledge of what's going on in the company and also behind the curtain, but not being able to tell anyone about everything. 95 00:17:45.264 --> 00:17:55.664 You need to be really cautious with who you share information, right? Because you know sort of everything. The only person that I could share, like, everything that I know was myself. 96 00:17:56.184 --> 00:18:19.984 I was also a trusted advisor or, like, a trusted person for l- a lot of employees, and I can't just bring that unfiltered to the CEO.So I was kind of in between, like, this sandwich situation where you have trust from both sides and you need to navigate how do you filter everything that you know so you don't say too much or too little. 97 00:18:20.644 --> 00:18:32.184 It's a classic conundrum. It's like, you know, with great power comes great responsibility. [laughs] True that. But still, I think it's a lot of fun, and I honestly think it's one of the best roles there is. 98 00:18:32.944 --> 00:18:38.964 What was your approach to that? Let's say an employee shares something sensitive, you know, their personal, personal experience, let's say. 99 00:18:39.384 --> 00:18:45.704 What is the Lisa filter in terms of deciding what to share and what not to share? It would be, like, two questions, I guess. 100 00:18:45.784 --> 00:18:54.784 It's like, does that bring anything good if I say this to others, if I, you know, transfer the message? Does that help the company? 101 00:18:54.864 --> 00:19:06.024 Because first I'm serving the CEO, then I'm serving the company, then I'm serving people in the company, and then I'm serving myself, right? So does it serve the CEO or the company if I transfer this message? 102 00:19:06.684 --> 00:19:16.244 And if not, does it do any harm also if I transfer this message, right? Like, that's kind of the two things. And it's really hard. 103 00:19:16.464 --> 00:19:26.864 It's just really hard, because if you say too little, then sometimes people feel like, "Yeah, the leadership team does something behind the curtains, and it's not transparent. We don't know anything about it." 104 00:19:27.244 --> 00:19:37.784 Then, of course, people start to worry. But again, if you say too much, then also maybe, I don't know, people start panicking. It's always a hard thing to navigate. 105 00:19:38.404 --> 00:19:44.844 I would say also I'm a very intuitive person, so I also trust my gut a lot if I should say something to someone or not. 106 00:19:45.664 --> 00:19:59.184 Reflecting a bit back on the chief of staff journey, I guess, in what ways did you see yourself, if you kind of take it like a zooming out, how did you see yourself grow, like, as a person through being in these tough situations? 107 00:19:59.884 --> 00:20:20.764 I understood much better what my strengths and weaknesses are because it was just a, um, tremendous workload, so I would journal every day to get everything out of my head, and that journaling became a practice where I also saw the patterns of what I'm good at, what I enjoy, what I don't enjoy. 108 00:20:20.824 --> 00:20:25.464 That was, I would say, a big thing for me. What were some of those patterns that you saw? 109 00:20:26.084 --> 00:20:35.684 So I learned a lot that I really enjoy being with people, bringing people together, and really that I enjoy and I, I think I'm naturally good at networking. 110 00:20:36.284 --> 00:20:44.364 Talking to people, make them feel safe, that they really open up and reassuring them and make them feel seen. 111 00:20:45.104 --> 00:20:50.764 I think that's something that I learned that I'm really good at, that I didn't see as a product manager for myself. 112 00:20:51.264 --> 00:21:01.524 And I also think this is something that helped me being a good chief of staff because, again, now there, the culture aspect, I help people feeling seen by the leadership team. 113 00:21:02.244 --> 00:21:09.784 So I would say that was kind of my biggest learning for me, that I also continue to carry and always try to think how I can leverage this strength of mine. 114 00:21:10.524 --> 00:21:22.714 Maybe a side question, but maybe it's also related, but why do you think that's a strength? Like, how did this develop for you? Making people feel seen is both good for the company and also good for the people, right? 115 00:21:22.714 --> 00:21:35.084 The people feel more motivated, and so it provides business outcome because people do more and people maybe do also their work better. But also for the individual person, they have a cheerleader with me, right? 116 00:21:35.244 --> 00:21:48.484 I tell them when they do something good, and they feel good about themselves. So it's both like I see it as a strength because it drives business outcome, but it also is generally just making people more happy. 117 00:21:49.264 --> 00:21:59.744 And I think everything that makes people happy is sort of a strength maybe. [laughs] Yeah. Is there any way, like, this sort of developed for you personally? Like, how did you develop this strength yourself? 118 00:22:00.344 --> 00:22:12.964 I think I would say I'm very empathetic, and when I do something, when I say something, I always think, "How would I feel if this is being done to me or if this is being said to me?" 119 00:22:13.724 --> 00:22:27.003 And I like being told that I'm good at something, of course. I like if someone tells me that this was good or, "Hey, this is something unique to me." So I think that's why I started also doing it to other people. 120 00:22:27.803 --> 00:22:40.464 So what happened after being a chief of staff? Did you go into a different role, or what happened after that? So I really liked the company. It was also a bit of my baby because I was there since the early days. And so 121 00:22:41.404 --> 00:22:56.344 after being chief of staff there, I transitioned into another role because, again, learning curve, same thing. At that time, we had struggles or challenges with really, like, setting up the go-to-market really well. 122 00:22:56.864 --> 00:23:14.024 So I transitioned into more of a go-to-market heavy role, setting up a pre-sales department, which after a year we evaluated that pre-sales in itself is a good thing, but we want to merge it more into, like, the existing commercial roles. 123 00:23:14.744 --> 00:23:30.044 And then I was owning the execution of the go-to-market strategy as a whole. So I was doing business development and a lot of things that I would say, like, a product marketer would do, I was doing that. 124 00:23:30.084 --> 00:23:45.584 Like the positioning, the messaging, what kind of problems are we actually solving for the users, how do we find out in sales talks, how do we find these problems out within the sales talks, and how can we then bridge that to us solving the problem. 125 00:23:46.184 --> 00:23:56.164 I was doing a lot of that. What was that transition like to kind of go into that role? How did it feel being in that role? It was hard. [laughs] It was, it was really hard. That's what you wanted, right? 126 00:23:56.823 --> 00:24:10.644 [laughs] Yeah, hard in another way. I came from knowing everything about the company and having full transparency to a more narrower role. 127 00:24:10.904 --> 00:24:24.348 I was still within the leadership team.But before, you know, everything that a CEO knew, I knew. It was hard for me to give up this transparency. I completely agree that I didn't need that transparency in that role. 128 00:24:24.908 --> 00:24:37.048 It was logic, but it was just really, really hard for me to give that up. It's like the sweet taste of nectar of having, like, the whole broadness of everything, like doing every role. 129 00:24:37.088 --> 00:24:40.568 And as a chief of staff, you're parachuting also in, like, different roles, right? 130 00:24:40.658 --> 00:24:54.928 And solving problem here within the company, solving problem there, external for the company, and then really, like, specializing once again in a role in a sector and leaving that full transparency thing. 131 00:24:55.548 --> 00:25:00.188 For me, that was the hardest part of that role, and I struggled a lot with that. How did you manage? 132 00:25:00.848 --> 00:25:27.648 I think during that time, I kind of also realized that I really want to do my own thing because that would be the only place where I would have the possibility to really work on the full breadth of a company from really, like, mundane, maybe admin things to sales to marketing to the product itself to I don't know what, like doing everything. 133 00:25:28.268 --> 00:25:33.248 I think the only possible way is to start your own company, right? I think that was kind of the realization. 134 00:25:33.288 --> 00:25:43.728 I, I had that somewhere in my head always that I wanted to do this, but during that transition, I kind of realized, "Oh, this might be something that I need to pursue at some point." 135 00:25:44.058 --> 00:25:53.848 And I kind of hold on to that while saying, "Okay, but I'm still learning a lot here with that new role, so I better stay." There were two things happening, I guess. 136 00:25:54.188 --> 00:25:59.268 Your day-to-day, which is at the company, but at the same time, the seed had been planted. 137 00:25:59.468 --> 00:26:07.588 I guess it had been planted maybe a while, but then it only started maybe being watered towards the end, I guess, later stages of your time there. 138 00:26:08.328 --> 00:26:14.768 What helped water-- Like, what was the water that was, like, feeding it and growing, and what eventually grew out of the seed? 139 00:26:15.488 --> 00:26:22.987 During that time as a chief of staff, I was really drawn to see how to take, like, really hard decisions. 140 00:26:23.748 --> 00:26:35.348 I think that's a skill that I don't see many people talking about it, but I think taking hard decisions is a really, really great skill, being able to do that. What is a hard decision? What would be an example of that? 141 00:26:35.868 --> 00:26:45.868 A transition that changes the trajectory of the company and might even affect job opportunities of the people or, like, your employees, right? 142 00:26:45.888 --> 00:26:58.508 But you still need to do it because you either grow or you die [chuckles] at some point as a company. So, like, a decision to go into a new market or a decision to not go into a new market even, right? 143 00:26:59.088 --> 00:27:05.428 These are decisions that, of course, only the leadership team will do or take, and I was always drawn to that. 144 00:27:06.128 --> 00:27:19.968 So that kind of planted the seed as I was, again, one person within the leadership team, but, like, then also only one specific point of view within the company. 145 00:27:20.028 --> 00:27:30.288 It's not the fault of the company, but I felt a bit limited in the kind of decisions that I can take to learn that. I wanted to have harder decisions. I wanted to have, like, harder problems. 146 00:27:30.948 --> 00:27:47.408 And I think that let the plan grow more and more until at some point I realized I'm not happy with where I am right now, and I feel like I could do something else that would help me much more in learning the skill and growing. 147 00:27:48.168 --> 00:28:06.668 And so I talked to the CEO, who was still my manager there, and we agreed that I'll reduce my work hours into a four-day workweek, so I have the other remaining days to think more about starting my own company and trying things out and experiment. 148 00:28:07.328 --> 00:28:15.528 Is this agreed that he or she was supportive? Yeah, definitely. I'm forever grateful really for everything that this company and the people there have done to me. 149 00:28:15.548 --> 00:28:27.468 I'm forever grateful because being able to do this in parallel is not something that's common, I would say, and not something that a lot of companies allow. 150 00:28:27.508 --> 00:28:36.088 Also, like, reducing the work hours to build something else where people already know that you're gonna leave at some point, right? So I'm really grateful. 151 00:28:36.828 --> 00:28:47.868 It kind of just shows, like, the strength of the bond and, I mean, you were also there for eight years. So what were the experiments? Let's run through some of those and love to talk about where we landed eventually. 152 00:28:48.548 --> 00:28:53.788 So as I said, I saw this networking part and connecting part as one of my strengths. 153 00:28:53.888 --> 00:29:04.368 So I thought, well, it would be really great if I would be able to build up a community or to build up something where people can really connect and find out more about themselves. 154 00:29:04.398 --> 00:29:14.328 So the problems that I wanted to solve was that especially women in my age, we struggle a lot with, like, what do we do, work? 155 00:29:14.908 --> 00:29:24.928 And, like, how do we combine, like, that we want to make a career, but we also want to have a family. What's actually our goal in life sort of, and how do we balance that? 156 00:29:24.968 --> 00:29:49.808 And, uh, I had a lot of people struggling with that, so I thought about, like, making a retreat, especially only for women, to bring in coaches and help navigate this and also build a community and connect with other people who have the same problems because it just feels, as you said, like, also in the summit, like, it just feels good to know that other people have the same struggles and being able to talk with them about it. 157 00:29:50.268 --> 00:29:59.408 An idea was to do a retreat like that. A lot of people were interested, but the willingness to pay was not there. That was really interesting to find out. 158 00:30:00.068 --> 00:30:29.644 So, you know, I created ads on Meta and did a fake website to have a waiting list for this retreat, and I saw a lot of people clicking on the ad, but none of them went onto the waiting list, for example.So I had these ideas, and then I had ideas maybe I should go back into civil engineering because there's a lot of businesses right now from baby boomers that want to retire, but they have kind of their legacy company and don't know what to do with it. 159 00:30:30.024 --> 00:30:37.484 So I was like, "Okay, maybe I can buy an HVAC company or, like, something in construction." But that also didn't really click with me. 160 00:30:38.344 --> 00:30:45.784 And at some point I was really frustrated because I tried out so many ideas, and none of them really either stuck with me or really didn't work out. 161 00:30:46.564 --> 00:31:01.904 So in summer, I was like, "I really need to get out of my head," and I used to do that doing pottery. So I went to an open pottery studio here in Munich and just did pottery on Fridays just to get out of my head. 162 00:31:01.944 --> 00:31:10.244 [laughs] I guess that became, like, um, even more water [laughs] for the seed. Yeah. [laughs] That was, that was- Exactly. 163 00:31:10.604 --> 00:31:19.544 That was like a whole splash, like, uh, someone brought a hose and then just, uh, put a lot of water in there. Yeah, I was in the studio, and I was having a good time. 164 00:31:19.604 --> 00:31:27.104 You know, when I do pottery, I just forget about time, and I don't look at my phone for like, I don't know, three hours. It's like very zen. 165 00:31:27.424 --> 00:31:36.504 You're like, you're just being in the moment, do- doing something with your hands. So I like that a lot, but I didn't like the studio because it was really crammed. There was a lot of dirt. 166 00:31:36.914 --> 00:31:46.224 They didn't do anything with the community that was there. They didn't really make people connect. And at some point I was like, "Why am I not doing this?" You know? 167 00:31:46.484 --> 00:31:58.704 [laughs] And then I, I sat down, wrote the business model and did some numbers, and I was like, "Okay, this is actually not that bad." Showed it to my husband, he was like, "Oh, this is actually really not that bad." 168 00:31:59.084 --> 00:32:11.404 [laughs] So I was like, "Well, you know, maybe I just try it out. What's the worst that can happen?" And then I started looking for a studio and, uh, opened up a pottery studio. 169 00:32:12.084 --> 00:32:21.364 [laughs] So you just finally began looking for a spot, and give us a timeframe from, from the first experiments, you know, from running the Meta ads for the retreat. Like, what kind of timeframe are we talking about? 170 00:32:21.924 --> 00:32:32.403 So running Meta ads and everything for the retreat was, like, last year, February, March, April. That was kind of my first weeks of really planning out things. 171 00:32:32.804 --> 00:32:39.504 As I said, like, I was still working, like, four days a week for that other company, so I didn't have, like, that much time also to do, like, other stuff. 172 00:32:40.124 --> 00:32:51.844 But yeah, it was, like, February, March, April maybe I was brainstorming different ideas, looking at different problems. Then in, I think June, I was doing more pottery. 173 00:32:52.424 --> 00:32:59.644 Sort of July, I was like, "Maybe I can just do this." And then in August, I registered the company, started looking for a studio. 174 00:32:59.684 --> 00:33:04.884 That took some time because, you know, the rent is the most expensive thing within this business model. 175 00:33:05.604 --> 00:33:16.144 So I also looked for a studio that was fitting where I didn't have to do a lot of construction or fit outs, but the rent was also cheap. I found something in November. 176 00:33:16.864 --> 00:33:28.604 I moved in first of December, set up everything, also during Christmas. My husband helped me a lot with that. [laughs] And then mid-January, I opened up. So how has it been with the Munich Clay Collective? 177 00:33:29.224 --> 00:33:44.224 Now that I look back, one of, like, my biggest pain points working in software or general, like, working over the past years, especially after COVID, has been that I spent way too much time in front of a screen. 178 00:33:44.364 --> 00:33:58.624 Everything I do, I do with my laptop. Every meeting, every notes that I'm writing, every script that I'm doing, everything was with my laptop, and it made me really feel quite miserable. 179 00:33:58.904 --> 00:34:08.944 And then I understood that the pottery was actually that nice because I was away from screen for some time, you know, and really, like, in the moment for some time. I get to have this now much, much more. 180 00:34:09.084 --> 00:34:35.584 Of course, I'm working on my laptop also a lot because 80% of what I'm doing is marketing, and some marketing or, like, sales I need to do with my laptop, of course, but I spend so much more time off the screen now talking to real people [laughs] in a physical environment, and it's not as hard of a decision right now yet because I don't have employees whose salary depend on me. 181 00:34:36.284 --> 00:34:45.414 I get to take decisions to shape a company of my own. I get to create something out of nothing, and that has been the best feeling ever. 182 00:34:46.264 --> 00:35:02.404 I think if we kind of track back this conversation, even when we started talking in the beginning, you told me how you've always been curious, and you just wanted to work on challenging problems, and even when you were working at your last company, when things flatline, you kind of look for the next challenge. 183 00:35:03.084 --> 00:35:08.504 And, you know, the beauty of being a generalist is that you do general things. [laughs] You do a bit of everything, right? 184 00:35:09.024 --> 00:35:18.204 You know, and I think a lot of chiefs of staff that are listening to this podcast, past or present, can probably relate to that, like wanting to continuously challenge ourselves. Yeah. 185 00:35:18.264 --> 00:35:22.844 What are the things that you're kind of pulling from those eight years at your last company and being that generalist? 186 00:35:23.404 --> 00:35:32.224 I think especially by being a chief of staff, but also by, like, transitioning to different roles, I really learned to learn new things quickly. 187 00:35:32.384 --> 00:35:43.324 I learned what to do when there's something in front of me that I know nothing about, and I have to solve this somehow. Someone throws me all the problem and say, "Hey, go fix this." 188 00:35:43.384 --> 00:35:56.504 I learned how to do this really, really well, and I think that the transitioning into different roles, but especially the chief of staff role, has been the best possible training ground for that, also to be an entrepreneur. 189 00:35:57.304 --> 00:36:07.324 And if you could help me understand a bit more, like, what is that exactly? Like, when you're able to adapt quickly to new environments and learn, like, what is that skill? Like, open that up if you can. 190 00:36:07.844 --> 00:36:25.534 So adaptability itself, I think, is a skill, but what I mean is being able to grasp a problem quickly, like understand something really quickly, and search for the right help in order to solve problems efficiently.I think that's kind of a skill. 191 00:36:26.094 --> 00:36:35.674 I don't know if you can call it a skill, but I learned how to ask the right people for help. Because I was always the first person in a new role in a company, and also I was the first one doing the chief of staff role. 192 00:36:36.294 --> 00:36:48.584 I always just got on LinkedIn and looked for people who had done it and who I found interesting and thought, "Okay, maybe this is a similar environment," and I just texted them. 193 00:36:48.634 --> 00:36:59.174 I was like, "Hey, I just found you here on LinkedIn looking for someone who's maybe done this challenge. I would really love to talk to you. Do you have some time? That would be amazing." 194 00:36:59.234 --> 00:37:07.914 And it's surprising how people get back to you and generally wanna just share their experience and help you learn. 195 00:37:08.574 --> 00:37:20.294 So I think that that has been, like, a skill that I learned there, and that's kind of the skill that I mean with, like, being able to not adapt real quick, but learning a new skill real quick. 196 00:37:21.114 --> 00:37:22.394 I think what you said is really true, you know. 197 00:37:22.474 --> 00:37:34.724 Like, being able to grasp a problem, understand, like, what is it that is really in front of me right now, and then figure out how to be resourceful in figuring it out [laughs], you know? 198 00:37:34.754 --> 00:37:44.414 Like, is it about talking to the right people? Is it about opening it up in different ways, you know, dissecting the problem? And, like, just being resourceful I think is really important, you know. 199 00:37:45.034 --> 00:37:53.594 Like, being chief of staff is about being resourceful and finding ways to solve something that maybe no one has solved yet. Yeah. Sometimes it can get in your way, though, I think. 200 00:37:53.953 --> 00:37:59.674 [laughs] Because I learned also as a chief of staff to be, like, really resourceful, and sometimes, I don't know. 201 00:37:59.734 --> 00:38:05.714 Just as an example, totally, like, private life, but we're planning a trip to Italy, just like a road trip. 202 00:38:06.394 --> 00:38:15.594 The endpoint is clear, because we're invited to a wedding somewhere in Italy, and it's just too far away for us to do in one go. And so we said, "Okay, we're gonna do a road trip." 203 00:38:15.674 --> 00:38:26.014 And the resourceful brain of mine is like, "Okay, but I don't want to get off the initial road too much, because then we need to drive more, and it's not that efficient." [laughs] Yeah. 204 00:38:26.154 --> 00:38:34.794 [laughs] The other brain is like, "Yeah, but on the road, there's nothing that's really interesting. It's worthwhile to stay," you know? [laughs] Right. Right. Right. So it can sometimes get in your way. 205 00:38:34.974 --> 00:38:45.144 [laughs] Maybe sometimes the, the best thing to do is just to do the simplest thing. Like, is, like, just to be, like, brute force, like, just go. Just straight. [laughs] Yeah, maybe. 206 00:38:45.494 --> 00:38:48.434 [laughs] I tell my husband, we just go 15 hours straight. 207 00:38:50.274 --> 00:39:20.714 [laughs] Lisa, we're gonna wrap up soon, but I wanted to ask you, you know, for chiefs of staff listening, you know, you've had this journey of being with one company, seeing so many different sides of the company as the company grew, and then also having, like, three different roles, probably more unofficial ones as well, I'm guessing, and, you know, going from that path, experimenting, and then becoming a founder, running The Munich Clay Collective, starting your own thing, being a founder after having worked for founders for quite some time. 208 00:39:21.294 --> 00:39:30.254 For chiefs of staff listening, what advice or thoughts would you say for people thinking also of, like, what could come next after being a chief of staff? 209 00:39:30.374 --> 00:39:40.074 So I think there's three different paths, actually, that chief of staffs usually take. One can be if the company's growing, great. Good on you. 210 00:39:40.154 --> 00:39:57.654 Then maybe the CEO office or something like that will grow as well, and you kind of become the head of the CEO office, coordinating that CEO office, and that's kind of how your responsibility can grow and how your role maybe also will change, and you'll have more different kind of challenges. 211 00:39:58.234 --> 00:40:10.374 The second is transitioning into a role within the company, into maybe opening up a new department, maybe, like, in an existing department, but there's, like, a role opening up. 212 00:40:10.954 --> 00:40:16.154 Maybe that can also be perfectly fine for you, and you just find out through the chief of staff role. 213 00:40:16.214 --> 00:40:24.034 Sometimes people do the chief of staff role because they actually don't know what they want to specialize in, and during that time, they find out what they want to specialize in. 214 00:40:24.674 --> 00:40:28.154 If that's you, then follow that and go into that role. 215 00:40:28.634 --> 00:40:37.154 Even though you will lose some transparency, that's gonna be the trade-off, but if you know that you want to specialize in that one thing, maybe that's worthwhile taking. 216 00:40:37.854 --> 00:40:48.734 That wasn't for me, so I didn't feel like I want to specialize in something. And so maybe the third path for you is trying it out yourself and become an entrepreneur. 217 00:40:48.774 --> 00:41:02.774 And what I want to say there is that it's not on or off. It's not one or zero. It's not that you need to leave your company completely to become a founder and do your own thing. You can start that as a side hustle. 218 00:41:03.514 --> 00:41:08.734 You can first be a freelancer in something. It has never been easier to build a digital product. 219 00:41:09.434 --> 00:41:24.394 Like, you can do a lot of things on the side and try things out and see how it goes if you are not the kind of person that want to hop off a wagon and say, "Okay, I don't need any security, and I can just do this full-time now." 220 00:41:24.854 --> 00:41:33.794 If it's not for you, there's a lot of different possibilities to still do this while you're being employed. Last thing. 221 00:41:34.454 --> 00:41:47.874 I found this phrase that you've written, which is, "Creating sensory experiences where people want to stay." Can you help us close out this call with why this is important to you and how that shows up in your life? 222 00:41:48.494 --> 00:41:59.054 As I said, I'm a very intuitive person, and so are, I think, also a lot of other people in the world. But the business world is not made up for intuitive people, I feel like. 223 00:41:59.374 --> 00:42:04.054 It's a lot made up for people who are, like, really strict of the numbers and of the rules and spreadsheets. 224 00:42:04.854 --> 00:42:17.454 And I want to live in a world where people feel like they belong by really feeling welcome in a place that really calms them down, calms their nervous system down, as it will. 225 00:42:18.174 --> 00:42:28.254 And you can do that by a lot of sensory things, like the smell in the room, the music that you hear in the background, things that you touch with your hands, the things that you see. 226 00:42:28.354 --> 00:42:46.254 Like, everything can be very calming, and I think it's actually a business asset that's very undervalued to create rooms or create, like, spaces where businesses can create these experiences for people so they feel good when they're in your space. 227 00:42:46.494 --> 00:42:57.354 And then they want to purchase something, or then they want to work with you or whatever it is. I think what you're working on and the way you're showing up, it's really emblematic of the work that you're doing, so. 228 00:42:57.894 --> 00:43:03.174 So I think there's a lot of coherence there. [laughs] Thank you so much, Lisa. Thank you, Tristan. 229 00:43:06.714 --> 00:43:25.724 [upbeat music]