As Mike McDerment says, “If we don’t have mojo, it doesn’t matter if we’re making money.” But is it possible to scale your great company culture without losing the mojo that makes it special? This was the very question that made the FreshBooks CEO fear the company’s growing headcount. Mike takes the stage at the 2017 Small Giants Community Summit to share how FreshBooks, a 2017 Forbes Best Small Giant, grew from the basement of his parents’ house to a team of 250 people and an anticipated $50 million in revenue this year. In this transparent and actionable talk, Mike shares what makes him fear growth (yes, even today!) and the steps he takes to protect Freshbooks’ mojo through game-changing culture hacks. 

By: Carrie Schochet, Founder & CEO of Purple Squirrel Advisors & Sandy Fiaschetti, Co-Founder and People Engagement Guru at Magnet Consulting.

After the interviews are over and you’ve extended an offer to the best candidate, it’s normal to feel a sense of relief thinking the process is complete and help is on its way.

However, in just a few short weeks, your new employee will walk through the front doors, excited and ready to make an impact on your team.

Will you be ready?

“We cashed in our savings because we believed in our idea,” says bambu co-founder and owner Jeff Delkin. “Now, we’re a start-up within a start-up. Others have followed our lead, replicated our products. But people can’t easily replicate our passion and execution.”

Jeff Delkin and Rachel Speth, founders of bambu eco-friendly homewares, have built a company around a larger mission to reduce our reliance on plastic by providing people with natural alternatives. Jeff and Rachel are both from Portland, but their previous, corporate careers — Jeff in advertising with Ogilvy and Rachel in product development and corporate responsibility at Nike — took them throughout Asia to live in Taiwan, southern China, and Thailand. These new settings introduced them to a world of renewable, native resources. They quickly became enamored with bamboo as a material and its range of uses in daily life.