New episode of our series of interviews with unicorn leaders on Without Borders. This time our guest is Zeb Evans, founder and CEO of ClickUp.
Created in 2017, ClickUp is a customisable workplace productivity platform that has experienced tremendous growth in a brief period of time. In June 2020, the startup raised a Series A and in December 2020 it raised $100 million in Series B funding, reaching a valuation of over $1 billion. In this interview, Zeb explains how challenging it is to manage a company that has grown from 60 to 600 employees in just a few months and highlights the importance of hiring employees who match the company’s culture. For Zeb, the ideal ClickUp employee is someone who is optimistic and wants to grow.
Our guest acknowledges that he is not a natural communicator and has learned the secrets of communication as he has progressed in his career, but that the most key thing to communicate successfully is to be authentic, really believe in what you are doing and get the passion across. He also points out that, simple as it sounds, the biggest communication mistake leaders make is assuming that people know what they are thinking. According to Zeb, it is necessary to over communicate and continually repeat the core messages and vision of the company in order for them to resonate, whether with employees or with any audience.
Zeb also recounts his meeting with Richard Branson, whom he considers his biggest entrepreneurial idol, and tells us the two main lessons he learned after several hours of talking about how to be a successful entrepreneur.
The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.
We have distilled the most valuable, actionable insights from our first 15 interviews with leaders of unicorn companies and bottled them in our book ‘Growing without borders: The unicorn CEO guide to communication and culture’. You can download it here.