Good morning, TriVillage Chamber. This is David Polakowski, the president CEO of the TriVillage Chamber Partnership. And this morning, I have Brett Buchanan with me from Pathfinder Product Consulting. How are you this morning, Brett? Good. Thanks for having me. How are you? I'm doing great looking outside. It's going to be 80 today, finally. So, you know, we went from winter, short spring, winter, short spring now with summer. So tell me about Pathfinder and what you guys do.
Pathfinder is a product consultancy. And so really what we do is we help companies figure out what's the what's the right product or what's the right solution that they need to build or create in order to deliver value to their customers. So it's a it's a consulting firm. We really focus on product management. And and part of the reason we do that is it's something one we're very passionate about, but it's something that we see as having a massive impact on on businesses nowadays.
If you remove that discipline from companies like Google or even the Airbnb, now companies like Target and Wal-Mart who have transitioned to more of a product led organization, frankly, without product management, those companies that they fall over, they don't exist. And so it's a it's an emerging discipline. It's one that's, I guess you could say, emerging because of the value that it's creating for these companies.
So what we do is we help companies either build out or improve the way that they build products or do product management. And we've got a number of different services and offerings and capabilities that we provide to to to help companies meet that goal of improving their product organization or their product, culture or strategy.
We do transformations for, you know, kind of like your Series B type of companies that are looking to shift from maybe like a sales driven custom development shop kind of company to more of a product led company that's looking to to scale their growth to fortune 20 companies across the United States who are trying to really disrupt their own business model and disrupt themselves and a lot of ways. So we do transformations. We do what's called what we call coaching.
So we help activate that change. So, you know, it's one thing to kind of align on a vision to to make the shift as a business. Getting there is very difficult. And so we'll help companies navigate that organizational change, whether it's how they think about and deploy strategy or how they operate or even how they're organized as a company. So we coach them along the way. And then we also help companies who, you know, they they they just need extra support.
Maybe they've got product management today, but they don't have the type of product management they need. And so from a consulting perspective, we'll come in and actually do product management for those businesses. So your title with the company is CEO. So how did this company come to be about? And I might have missed that, but I was focusing on, you know, seeing how you're working with these large corporations and the products and tracking that also. How did you get to where you are today?
I worked for a really kind of unique retailer, Gap, the clothing company from 2012 to twenty seventeen. And it's really where I kind of learned product management. They're based in the Bay Area and right in the heart of San Francisco. And when I joined there in 2012, they had a leader, Toby, live, and he's kind of famous for being on the cover of Time magazine for the IPO bubble, the or dotcom bubble. He iPod e toys.
Dotcom took that company public and then during the dotcom bubble, they ended up closing their doors. And so he came over to Gap as the chief product officer and built out a pretty remarkable team. My boss was the one that was one of the key product managers at Netscape in the early days and so worked with some awesome software development and product. People there brought those principles to to to gap. And technology became a competitive advantage for that company.
They were the first company to do ship from store and reserve in store as a retailer. And now that's a core a core omni channel strategy for for almost all of retail. You can't exist with that, especially with covid. So they were a pioneer in a lot of the ways that the that retail was using technology. And so I got to see how product management can have a massive impact inside of a really large company, even a clothing company.
And I started a Meetup club in Columbus in twenty fifteen with the with the goal of trying to build out product management in Columbus. And, you know, the whole idea was let's bring people together to create a network and a community, let's learn from each other and share ideas. And just established that club really grew where over a thousand years now. And it's just established a ton of awesome friendships and connections through that.
And in twenty seventeen I started doing some freelance work just through through that, through that network and recognize that, hey, there's there's a bigger need here for product management support. And so I almost kind of as an experiment, started this consulting company. So my partner and I, Nick Baker, landed a big contract, you know, and that really kind of helped get our company off the ground. We don't have any consulting experience.
And so the first couple of years were really about figuring out what a consulting company did. To be honest with you, we knew how to do product management really well. We knew how to deliver the services and capabilities. But the entire I guess you could say, business around those services capabilities were totally new to us.
I hadn't done any business development, marketing and branding and positioning ourselves was something new to me. So it's been a journey ever since of just starting with that experiment and, you know, testing out new ideas and figuring out the demand in those kind of things. And there's a lot of start ups to rolling with it a little bit. So and that's the funny thing, because now you're opening doors for other things down the road.
So I always I always tell people to be careful what you tell me because my mind never stops. But developing a business, I mean, that's a great story, which you have. And I think it needs to be shared more with our small businesses. And you have how many employees we're at now. OK, so growing and so looking pre 20, 20 and, you know, getting into the pandemic and. How did things change for you, how did you have to like zig zag because of what was going on with the pandemic? A couple of ways.
We had to we had to rethink our pipeline one and say, OK, we've we've got all of these potential opportunities in our pipeline which which ones seem risky. And there were some that seemed risky. And we had to rethink our existing clientele because, frankly, we anticipated losing some of those customers and and refocus where we were going to be a partner was one way we didn't want to be caught off guard there. The second thing was, like most companies, we had to move remote.
So everything went, you know, zoomin calls like this and how we how we interacted with our clients and our potential clients. It just culturally, as you're growing a company, you know, we went from two employees to.
Almost eight employees, six employees, I guess, during, you know, 20, 20, and so we hired great people, but I had to put an extra emphasis on making sure that we maintain the right culture, because doing that distributed in remote fashion is just more difficult than being able to do it in an office where you can, you know, interact with people. You've got more of the water cooler talk. So culture was a huge, huge focus for us last year and a priority to make sure that we nailed.
Those are those were two of the biggest kind of changes, I guess we made. It opened up a lot of doors for us because companies everyone was remote. So previously in the consulting world, you had to travel like we knew because we've got kids and things like that. And family is very important for us. We didn't want to travel. So it really restricted us from some clients who wanted us there every week in Denver or wherever it may be, to now opening up some of those opportunities.
So a lot of our growth is coming from companies outside of Central High, and these are the stories that they think are important to share. Because, you know, we one of our big focuses when this all hit is trying to encourage our business, our small businesses and looking at them and getting that online platform and getting that connection virtually. And I give you kudos for the fact that you thought outside the box and you took a step back.
And one of the biggest things that sticks out is you keep talking about culture. It is amazing, and so you want what's your culture like there, what do you what do you see as your best quality as the head of this business and and with the organization? How do you think that has helped you maintain who you are as an organization business? That's a really good question. I think one of the biggest impacts that it's had is just kind of alluded to this earlier.
Like we're still early as a company and we are still figuring out a lot. And so. Psychological safety is really, really important for us because I certainly don't have all the answers and really lean on my team to figure out.
You know what we should be doing or how we should be doing it, I guess, and so like a big part of what our cult like, I guess where our culture comes into play, there's we wouldn't be able to figure these things out without a strong culture, without a high level of psychological safety, where people can ask questions and challenge things and not feel scared to do so. I need that. I need to feel like comfortable because frankly, you know, I don't have a lot of the answers.
And so it's been it's it's been critical for me to be able to, like, ask the team for feedback, a feel for you challenging me on things and pushing me on things. And and there's a really healthy kind of Push-Pull conversation that happens within within our team. And that's, I think, shows the strength of a strong leader, knowing that there's some gaps and you try to fill those gaps with people and surround yourself with people that can help fill those gaps and move forward.
And again, I give you a lot of credit think it is because that truly is a strong culture for a business. We didn't grow as a company until I hired some of the strong people that are fired like we were we were out of two for the first year and a half, added a couple of key employees. And now we'll probably be close to 15 people by the end of this year.
So, like, I totally just just kind of for sharing with who's ever listening, you know, that that's something that I've learned, I guess, is how critical that hiring, you know, plays into your growth. That probably goes without saying, without being said to some degree, but also just not only hiring the right people, but giving them the opportunity to really be fully, fully reach their potential by creating the right culture.
That's amazing. And again, I'm excited because this is actually the first time that we've had an opportunity to truly talk and in chat. And I'm just amazed at the professional aspect and everything you're doing and looking outside the box. So when have you had a difficult time finding people to come work? Because that's been one of our biggest challenges. And we know that's a national challenge with trying to get people to actually follow through with interviews.
And so has it been a challenge for you? It could have been. Honestly, it hasn't been. As big of a challenge, because we've made it one of our top two priorities as a company, and so I spend a ton of time looking for talent, recruiting people, make sure that making sure that they have, you know, not only the right experience, but almost more importantly, the right. Culturally, for us, what's allowed me to do that is is is pushing some of the work to my team.
And so a lot of my responsibility recently in the last six months especially, has been focused on on finding talent, prioritizing my time is really critical and making sure that I'm carving out enough time where we're selling consulting services. So we're selling basically people in some regards, our talent to companies. And so we need to make sure that we've got the best talent out there. And so we kind of recognize that as a company and make it make it one of our top two priorities.
Right now. It's going to be more and more difficult just because the demand for this type of talent is is increasing right now. I read a statistic on LinkedIn that there's something like 10 million product manager jobs open right now in the world and there's only like three million people who have ever done it. And so there's just a massive demand with a limited capacity. It's it's we saw a similar thing in with engineering in the past. You know, software development.
It's just about and it's just about making it's been about making it a priority for us coming out of the pandemic. You know, where do you see you taking the business? You know, I'm assuming and I think we're all adjusting the fact we're going to have to offer for that virtual aspect. But what do you see are your next moves coming out of the pandemic?
I guess for us specifically, like we're still trying to find product market fit in some ways, like we know that we've provided we can provide certain services, but we're pretty diverse in the services that we provide. You know, we provide the transformation services, the coaching services, the kind of augmentation we call product management as a service like for extra bandwidth type of services. We can even provide recruiting services for companies.
And so we're feeling a little bit unfocused in what our capabilities are. And so a big priority for us coming out of the pandemic is making sure that we're not just chasing revenue and finding the right clients for us is going to be really important because it's especially as a startup like some of that revenue.
Is it? It's tough to it's tough to turn down, I guess so as things ramp up, which what we've seen is a lot of opportunities coming in and some of them are the right fit and some of them aren't the right fit. And trying to find that right balance, I guess we're hoping that we can we can still service clients remote. That's stillto be determined.
I think our leadership team has has families and we've kind of agreed to make some business decisions that where we might be a smaller company because, you know, we don't want to travel as much. So that's another thing that are kind of big for us, is how willing are companies to to maintain this remote working style. And, you know, I always say we want to grow, but we want to control our growth so I can totally get what you're saying about.
Not overselling and committing yourself and not being able to follow through, because I think you're coming out as a strong business and I think there's a lot of potential. So in the fact that you guys think about family and yourselves and your employees is just a huge asset to who you are. Yeah, thanks. Well, the other thing that's I guess worth mentioning, because I think it's relevant for this audience is like.
You know, we started this company to really bring these ideas to Columbus, you know, bring some of these more emerging philosophies and methodologies and concepts from Bay Area, Silicon Valley type of companies to Columbus and even our mission statement, our company's original mission statement. You had had Columbus in it. And so it coming out of the pandemic. What we're hoping to do also is is is partner here locally. I mean, we live in Columbus because we love living here.
We love raising our family here. And that's why I started the Meetup group, is to help kind of give back to the community a little bit and help help build the community, the community around product and software development just a little bit. And so another focus of ours is going to be shifting back to how do we build help partner with companies here locally, which is something that's just been a surprise for us that's been a little bit more difficult to do.
Most of our clients are in California or in know on the coasts, and it's again, it's just refreshing to hear the enthusiasm and excitement. So if someone wanted to learn more about who you are, how do they connect with you, websites, social media, e-mail, whatever you want to share with us. Yeah, you can find us at Pathfinder product dot com. I'm on LinkedIn. I also post a lot of product content on Twitter.
It's our website we haven't touched in a year and a half because we've had more demand than we can support right now. And so marketing spend less of a strategy now. We're redesigning it right now. So I just I throw that out there is don't judge us too much on the website, but you can get our contact info on there. My emails spread at Pathfinder product dot com, so I would love to help out. However, I can always open for a call with anyone that might have any questions.
Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule. And again, I know we have an event scheduled for you. I think it's a luncheon or something that I think I'm even more excited now to hear more about your story and share with others. So thanks for being here. Try Village. Have a great day, Brett. We'll see you soon, hopefully. Yeah. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for sharing it.