Inside, preemptive, external, and competitive playbooks
Long-term target identification, enticement vs. solicitation, fantasy development
Annual and multi-year planning
Org planning, profile creation, selection process development
Trust development, offsite execution, individual support, board planning
Emotional mastery, executive presence, coaching skills
Founded in 2015, Enjoy The Work is a San Francisco-based startup advisory firm serving startup founders and CEOs worldwide.
About the engagement
Tipalti was ~60 employees split across Tel Aviv and San Mateo when we first met. The product and technology already was solid and the early customer traction compelling. The biggest opportunities were internal – related to goal setting, internal comms, talent development, and recruiting. Together we hired senior talent including a CFO, a CRO, and a GM. We re-built the financial and goal setting approaches, implemented the first leadership off-sites, rebuilt core values, and executed a 360 talent development study for the top leadership. Meanwhile, the company grew 20-fold and became ETW’s first double unicorn.
I met Enjoy The Work in 2016 when our company was still quite young. We came to rely on them for trusted counsel on an array of topics from strategy to hiring to fundraising.
About the engagement
Companies that find explosive product market fit are rare; Paper.co, which delivers an online tutoring platform to North American school districts, is growing wildly. Our role in support of the founders has been to call out the predictable risks on the road ahead, share frameworks and best practices to mitigate the dangers, and then to serve as a translation layer for how those strategies might apply to Paper. In partnership with the founders, we’ve raised multiple growth rounds of capital, enhanced goal setting, metric identification and hiring practices, interviewed senior roles, co-facilitated leadership off-sites, and led the creation of the company’s core-values.
Jonathan and the ETW team have been instrumental in helping scale our business over the past year. They have become an integral part of our company, advising many different leaders within the organization. They are truly redefining what it means to be a great advisor!
About the engagement
We first met the exceptional folks at Honeybook in 2019 and our work together since has taken many turns. From leadership reviews, to goal setting, to market strategy, to funding rounds, to board of director preparation, to the navigation of a once in a lifetime pandemic – we’ve had the great fortune to serve as partners, guides, and confidants to Oz, Naama, and their team as the company rose from scrappy startup to global unicorn.
We've come to rely on ETW for so much. They’ve guided offsites, helped plan our talent needs, facilitated strategy sessions, even helped build better trust across our leaders. Perhaps most importantly, every time I call, they are there. It doesn’t matter day of week or time of day.
About the engagement
It doesn’t matter the size of the company, the nature of the market, or the complexity of the technology. If the team is not thriving, nothing can be accomplished. We’ve had the great fortune to partner with the exceptional Jessica Mah to rebuild inDinero leadership from the ground up, adding new executives, crafting new communication practices, installing improved goal setting rituals, and enacting improved financial discipline – all to set the company for it’s next phase of growth.
I can’t even remember what it was like before working with the folks at Enjoy The Work. I know my business better, have a better sense of control over my future and maybe most importantly I am having fun again.
About the engagement
We began working with the Shef team not long after the founders raised a $20M round from Andreessen Horowitz. The initial priorities were to determine a scalable growth model, develop the playbook for launching in new cities, and recruiting. In parallel, we also helped build out the operating culture (goals, values, communication architecture) while helping the founders become more effective in terms of managing their schedules and practicing self care. As we received unsolicited interest from growth capital investors, we helped the team raise a large up round.
As founders, we focus so much on company growth that personal growth can occasionally fall by the wayside. ETW puts the focus on you, going above and beyond to make sure you have the necessary tools, discipline, and clarity of mind to make good decisions and help your team succeed.
At the beginning of 2020 our business model was predicated on flying human engineers to physical office buildings. The pandemic came for us like a heat seeking missile.
Lesley and the ETW crew helped us navigate a pivot, and in 2021 we are on track to triple revenue while eliminating the emissions of 10 power plants, an 8x increase in rate of impact.
We may not have survived 2020 without ETW, much less come out thriving. And they're fun to work with! If you have the chance to work with them, take it.