Building a Team While Building a Product


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Oct 06 2020 25 mins  

Show Notes

Building a team while building a product can be a wild ride. Angela doubles her team in the last couple months, she discusses how that feels at a time that the product is being built out. Jonathan gets into how and why he has added to his company, and the outcomes of different hires.

Jonathan talks about taking his son trail running in a stroller, the Thule Chariot Sport.


Find Us Online

Angela Hapke - @angelahapke - https://www.clinnect.ca

Jonathan Bowers - @thejonotron - https://www.twostoryrobot.com


Credits

Produced by Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke

Music by Andrew Codeman (CC BY 3.0)


Transcript

Angela: [00:00:00] september is a very, very, very hard

Jonathan: [00:00:02] Yeah.

Angela: [00:00:04] in many different ways. Oh, my God, are we both burping? This is going to be amazing podcast.


Introduction [00:00:11]

You're listening to Fixing Faxes a podcast on the journey of building a digital health startup with your hosts, myself, Angela Hapke.

Jonathan: [00:00:22] And I'm Jonathan Bowers and I took Zack for a trail run for the first time this weekend.

Angela: [00:00:27] Wait in a stroller or was he running?

Jonathan: [00:00:33] he, he could run actually, cause we go on our walk. Uh, he's pretty fast.

Angela: [00:00:41] fast for his age.

Jonathan: [00:00:42] yeah. I mean, it's a walk at my pace,

Angela: [00:00:44] Ah, so you went trail running with Zach in a stroller. What kind of stroller do you have that you can take trail running?

Jonathan: [00:00:53] Well, let me tell you about the stroller I have. It's a, uh, it's a Thule Chariot Sport. it's spectacular. It's a little wide to be taking down trail, but it was fun.

Angela: [00:01:07] Does it have suspension in it

Jonathan: [00:01:09] Yeah,

Angela: [00:01:09] Zack? Yeah,

Jonathan: [00:01:10] it has, it has not full system essential, but it's got suspension on the back and then, disc brakes, which is really nice.

Angela: [00:01:18] Did he like it?

Jonathan: [00:01:19] He, he really enjoys being in the, in the chariot. It's like, yeah, he loves it. We go for runs, weekly, at least. But I was getting sick of the same kind of getting bored of the same route and decided that trail running is something that I should start doing to mix it up a little

Angela: [00:01:36] Okay. Yeah.

Jonathan: [00:01:37] boy, is it hard pushing a stroller with a child up a pretty steep hill?

Angela: [00:01:43] Do you do much trail running anyway?

Jonathan: [00:01:45] Nope, I do one or two trail runs a year.

Angela: [00:01:48] Oh, see, we're like, not only am I going to try trail running, I'm going to try trail running with a stroller and my child,

Jonathan: [00:01:55] Yeah. Yeah.

Angela: [00:01:57] I love it. Well, good for you. That's amazing. Are you training at all for? I know there's no races right now, but

Jonathan: [00:02:07] Ironman Canada has, sent off their email saying that Ironman Canada, 2021 is a go as best they know. So they canceled 2020, and we got a deferral to the next year. So I've signed up cause it's the. Who knows. So I'm be training for something that might get canceled again,

Angela: [00:02:26] Oh, right. It would be frustrating. Full iron man or half. Oh, good for you. That's exciting. Where is it?

Jonathan: [00:02:37] Penticton BC?

Angela: [00:02:40] Okay, we'll get updates on that as you go.

Jonathan: [00:02:44] Yes. That is going to be a new focus of my life again.

Angela: [00:02:48] Oh, God, we're going to have to talk about all those things, all the things I don't do, running biking or swimming. Okay. It'll be great.

Ah, okay. Let's jump in.

Growing a Team [00:03:02]

so I, well, can we get Kristy on, but we'll get her on next week. And so then I didn't really have a topic. So then I asked my husband, I said, since he's an avid.

Jonathan: [00:03:17] Listener.

Angela: [00:03:19] Of Fixing Faxes. Is there something that you wanted to like, is there a topic we haven't hit on that's obvious or blah, blah, blah.

And he said, he goes, you know, I think you should start, start talking about building your team, like how you've built a team and things like that. And I was like, Ooh, that might be a good one. So. I was thinking today, it might be kind of fun to talk about. the way that Two Story Robot has built their team and the way that we've built our team, while we've built a product at the same time and how that all kind of goes. And in the spirit of Fixing Faxes, we're going to talk about things as they happen. So as we build our team, we talk about that.

Jonathan: [00:04:02] not about the, not about the job application process that requires people to submit faxed resumes to you.

Angela: [00:04:11] Could you imagine if I asked for faxed resumes? Oh my God. It's should just shut up shop now if that was the case. yeah, no, no. I was thinking no in the spirit of talking about things as they happen instead of

Jonathan: [00:04:25] Yeah. So you've, you've just hired a couple of folks.

Angela: [00:04:32] we have just added a full time visual designer and we added a part time intern,

Jonathan: [00:04:41] We've talked about one of these people in the past.

Angela: [00:04:45] You talked about, Megan as the intern in the past, but I don't think we've talked about, Ammara is, now our new visual designer and she's working remotely out of Mississauga, Ontario. So not only did I add a new person, but I also added a fully remote, different time zone person. Uh, So before it's Jackie and myself, are the full, are the full time people on Central Referral Solutions.

Doubling from two to four [00:05:16]

And then we have Rosemary. Now Rosemary kind of sometimes gets forgotten about, cause she doesn't work on Clinnect, the product she works, for the general surgeons in town. And I always call her my, my research and development department, um, and she's and she's part time. So we kind of like. Almost, I feel like almost doubled our team with the addition of, of, two, two people to, to only three.

Jonathan: [00:05:40] That's a big, that's a big jump.

Angela: [00:05:42] Yeah. Can we talk about that?

Jonathan: [00:05:44] Well, I mean, it's, it's when it's two, it's you and Jackie like back and forth, and

Angela: [00:05:49] re and Rosemary ...