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com to pre order. Now do you remember the olden days when you had maybe one or two social media accounts instead of eight, when you use the internet to read blogs for half an hour every once in a while, when your resume was your calling card and you didn't have to build your online presence into a kind of personal brand. Now that the Internet is a crucial part of almost every business and every job on the market,
you're expected to be almost everywhere. Exactly which platforms are important for your industry might differ, but everyone's using multiple apps and networks to sell their products, off of their services or distribute their content. But when you need to be everywhere, how do you get there? You've probably seen Linktree in the bios of your favorite people on Instagram,
whether they're musicians, entrepreneurs, or podcasters. Co founder Anthony Zachariah wanted people to be able to create a digital homepage for themselves in an increasingly complex online world, and the link Tree has absolutely exploded since then, and recently hit Unicorn status, which means the company is worth over one billion dollars. So how does Anthony stay on top? Of things as his company multiplies and expands into different time zones.
How does he stay sane when most of his workday is spent in meetings, And how does he do it all now that he's got twin toddlers. My name is doctor Amantha Imbert. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work a show about how to help you do your best work. Now, given this conversation is with the co founder of link Tree, I thought that a good place to start was to understand exactly what link tree is.
Straight from the horse's mouth.
For those who haven't come across the linktree before. The simplest way to explain it is it is one link to how's your entire digital ecosystem? Everywhere you curate content, create content, wherever you monetize.
Where we're trying to drive an audience to.
Link allows you to house that in one simple link, and that produces another list of links beyond that that drives your audience. So whatever your audience is living is where you'll share your link tree, and then you drive them to those places. So we are the category creator in what is known as the linking bio market now or linking biotools. We started the business about six years ag when we're running a digital marketing agency, and it's
grown very significantly now. It was a side hustle to the agency back then, we're trying to solve a problem for ourselves and our clients.
But you fast forward.
Now there's twenty four million people using it around the world, about one point two billion visits a month on link tree profiles, and we're a team of about two hundred and eighty globally.
And how do you use link tree yourself being what are the people that created it?
Yeah, so it's on my Twitter profile and my LinkedIn as well. And for me, it's just like sharing resources and new things for link tree, So embedding a tweet for a new feature we've released, or a certain video, showcasing a playlist that I'm listening to, often showcasing things we're doing for our employees. So when we release our parential leaf policy or our benefits policy, the press around that, link to press articles, they're probably the main things.
I use it for.
So if you're coming to my link tree, you just gett a bit of a glance of like the things, the things I think you should know most about from a link tree perspective, things are most proud of right.
Now and like a lot of the I guess the power users for link tree are traditionally creators and influencers for people who are kind of not in that realm, and you know, maybe they're just they're like your typical knowledge worker that you know is doing their thing and there may be on two or three different social media channels. What do you feel is like the optimum way to use link.
Tree, So to your point of say a knowledge worker, where they may want to use it as their essentially they've formed a new form of digital identity or a digital business card, and it's a great way just to list out. Put it on your email signature, your LinkedIn, or your Twitter. He's Playarlys, I'm listening to. Maybe he's a video of what's recently. He's my LinkedIn in, my
Twitter or other social handles. You know. Ultimately, most knowledge work have probably got more than five social media accounts of some sort, and so where they might link to those platforms they want to share that. We're seeing a big rise in that as well.
Now late last year I interviewed Phil Libban, who you're probably aware is the co founder of ever Note, and one of the things that he shared with me is that something that he learned that served him really well in leading companies that grew to be very, very big, is that breaking points tend to happen at the numbers
three and ten. So like, for example, when you hit ten people or thirty people, or one hundred people or three hundred people, and that's when all the kind of processes and systems tend to collapse and break and you need to build new ones. And so back in March twenty twenty, link Tree, I believe had seven employees, and now you're getting close to three hundred globally. I'd love to know what have been the hardest kind of breaking points for you in managing that growth.
Yeah, that's a great question. I think we've that's a really good insight. In the three and ten, I would say it's pretty accurate. And if we've thought about it in those numbers specifically, I think we've We've had other people who have gone through their growth tell us about you know, every fifty or one hundred, you know, fifty and then one hundred and then two hundred and then
five hundred. I would say that it's very true. We've been very I think we've had a couple of different reorganizations throughout in the last two years of how we structure the teams and where we put leaders, and how we organize that, how we organize squads. We work in a cross functional squad model, so that's been that's changed a few times. I'd say definitely the fifty person mark, particularly as we're growing globally where most of our team
are in Australia. We were quite a few, you know, in the US and spread out across times into in Australia and New Zealand as well, and so the the fifty and the hundred mark has broken. I think what's also is like our ways of working has had to evolve a few times as well, and also just the reiteration of like, you know, we're not a jacket on the back of a chair, culture that you have to always be online during certain hours, or like even though
we're remote. First that concept of like, well, I don't worry about the office, my jackets on the chair even though it might not be here, and that trying to embed that culture of like working asynchronously and you know, have to reiterate ways of working quite a few different times.
And we're going through a new process at the moment of that, because as we've grown, there's all different tools and systems we've been trying to use to make things more efficient and friendly and inclusive for a global team that's working remotely. But then with that sometimes some feedback is like I don't know what to use for what anymore. Guys like, you've got a few different tools we're working with, where do I start? And so like, yeah, that's also fair.
We've tried to go too deep on efficiency and optimization with certain tools and systems, like let's bring it back to some basics. So, yeah, there's a process happening right now. And then as we approach three hundred people to just hone in a little more.
So at that fifty and one hundred person mark, what was some of the best things that you look back at now that you put in place to help.
To help rebuild what had been broken?
I would say things like notion and just being very open and transparent. We grew to fifty pretty quickly, and that the need to be having the projects people working on be open, so someone being like how do I find how someone in product might be asking someone in marketing like how do I find what your marketing plan is going to look like? Or vice versa like guys, what are you building? They need to think about from a go to micro perspective from now and there's a
notion link. We use notion as are wiki what everyone everyone's working on after meetings, everything is documented so anybody can look at each other's projects and you know where to go for that.
So here, here's your notion look at everything in there.
As we do any questions afterwards, or that person may actually record a LOOM video to talk them through it for five minutes and you get full context verbally so much quicker than sometimes just you know, reading it out or typing it all out. So they implemented a few of those things and encouraged a lot of that open collaboration and even even just with our weekly all hands meeting, being very transparent about a lot of things so that
everybody has full context. That became we realized that pretty quickly early on that we needed to have that dialogue. I think that's helped everybody have visibility and have also just like the buying from a whole team to feel like we're all on the journey together. That was one thing at the fifty person mark we noticed have a big impact. The other would be just some rules around meetings. Previously it'd be a need of like, oh, we should
talk about this. Let's just invite anybody that we think is relevant to a meeting and just put in their calendar.
And you know, you have to be very intentional about meetings, particularly with global workforce and time zones, and the rules around meetings we implemented pretty early on have helped help that as well, and not to be able to have to remind people though about it as new folks coming to the business, just our ways of working reminders, so things like, you know, the first rule, first principle for great meetings is doesn't need to be a meeting. Just
actually asked that doesn't need to be a meeting. Can I just put an update on an asynchron's channel. Can I record a video of somebody talking about it and to get feedback?
Does it link?
Literally need to be a meeting because we need to get to a decision together within a period of time. So little things like that have helped I think another part on the meeting thing as well, is you know, beyond just doesn't need to be a meeting, is any pre context? Like if we think the last few weeks have actually ramped this forcefulness up, I would say, is like we get to a meeting and there's ten people on the call, and somebody's about to present a deck
and spend the whole thirty minutes and presenting. It's we cancel the meeting because it's wasting ten people's time presenting. So that person who has to record a loom video in advance and send it to everybody seven's got context and the meeting's about discussion of Q and A are getting to a decision place.
Hey, God, so you cancel the meeting that started within the meeting.
If we're going to if it's going to waste ten people's time present unless it's absolutely the only way to
get through it, will will we will. It's only hapen a few times so far, but we're starting to do it because ten people in a meeting is not only expensive, it's also just like you then're going to have to have another meeting to have a discussion, So share a five minute video in advance of what you want to present, and then the full menu can be on discussion, Q and A get into a resolve place so you can then move on with that decision to get to the next place.
Wow, what's been the reaction from people?
I don't think I've ever been in a meeting, although having said that, I'm pretty strict on the meetings that I set in a ten but I've never been in a meeting that it's been about to start and someone said, no, we're going to cancel this meeting.
What if people do?
I think it's first is a bit of shock, but then it's a realization of like, oh, yeah, you're right. If we're going to spend this whole time just listening to a presentation that we could have watched. You know a great thing about loom You can watch a video in advance on one point five or two speed, So what might be a ten minute chat could be watching five minutes. You get the context, you're ready to go, So it doesn't have to happen all the time.
But it's just happened a few times.
Mainly, I wouldn't say, look, it's not to prove a point, it's not to be a hard ass about it. It's not our intention at all. It is just like, guys, is half an hour right here, we could all be doing better things. Let's recap later once we've watched and read the content. So first a bit of shock. It's only happened once or twice, and it's out of more out of respect everyone's time, versus like trying to put anybody down.
That's more the thing. Everyone's very mindful of.
It, even when when like, oh we've got we've finished everything, need to talk about coolly. Everyone gets him in the day back. We don't need to do the labor on points for any longer. Like everyone's busy. So that's more what it's about.
How do you make those rules for meetings.
Actually stick throughout a company that employs several hundred people.
It's often we need to probably do some reminders, so leading by example, so the people running meetings, all the things we kind of touched on before around like having purpose and agendas and action items and you know, also you know, not just like some people actually free to meet to just spot something in their calendars, but then it's reminders with the leadership team and even even people managers. Is hey, guys, just remind on how we want to
run meetings here to be efficient effective. Here's the notion page with how it all works. We might when we have a people manager's meeting, it might literally be that like just a reminder, here's our meeting etiquette, here's how we roll it out. Any other feedback you think we should be tweaking or welcome, but these are the six principles from now that we work with and just remind
many people. Because the team's growing, stuff happens all the time, you need to keep reiterating ways of working and just pulling people up on things.
It's not being about being told off.
It's just like this is for the better, you know, best best for everybody. Kind of kind of similar to how when you're talking about the why behind why you're making decisions and product releases, and even though you think you've said it or like, hey, it lives in notion, people should just read it. It's like people are busy with their days and got stuff to do, so that constant beat of communication is required.
Now I've heard that you don't take meetings on Mondays. Can you tell me about what led to that decision and also what do you do on Mondays if you've got no meetings to go to.
Yeah, it's been it's been a new thing we've been doing for maybe the last three or four months. And the reason it came about because we through the last a couple of years of growing so far asked meetings was kind of dropped in wherever, and so as a leadership team, we're trying to structure what day certain meetings
are on. And it's still not perfect. But the thing that was everyone was struggling with the most was like, I've got meetings spread out all through the week and I can't get into any deep work or get back to people properly or quickly enough.
And so.
You know, Mondays are great to not have meetings to get deep work done because the US will come online on a Tuesday, and so we're meetings from Tuesday to Friday with US team, and so that means anything from the last week, we haven't gotten to any prep work we need to do for the rest of the team for the week. Anything like that can just be all done on a Monday, and you get ahead, you actually get deep work done and get get into the zone.
So there's still some meetings that might creep in if need be, because you know, you might make a decision on something, or maybe there's an interview that needs to happen. Because because we're getting we're getting towards the end of a process, so those might creep in. But the most part, we try and have a meeting free day, particularly leadership team level, so that you know the team can get
what they need from us. But also you know, we've we've got such a flexible work culture linktree where we have the flex Benefits program. Everyone get six thousand dollars a year to spend on things that matter to them, as opposed to this like global you know, hey, we're going to give everyone a health program or everyone gets a gym membership, or just dictating what we think people want.
That money goes towards things that matter to them in the pillars of like growth or lifestyle or learning, and so some people want to spend it on short courses, otherwise on exercise programs, and so by encouraging flexible work culture and people using their benefits for things that suit them, mondays like I might go to a polities class at eleven o'clock and that's okay, and I'll put that in my calendars. People know, hey, am it polarates between eleven
and twelve, But I'll get back to you late. I even on a third and when I'm going to heap of meetings and just having building that culture within the team starts from the leadership level and that that's okay to do because you're measured on the work and the output.
So I know that's along. We didn answer to talk about.
Mondays, but that sort of sets up the rest of the week with everything else that we're kind of building cultural wise and how we get stuff done.
It's working.
So tell me about your Mondays. What would a typical Monday look like for you?
So typical Monday starts like every day.
I've got nearly two year old twins, so they wake at about five thirty in the morning.
Five five thirty in the morning, So no matter.
What day it is, that's that's just like that's the that's the alarm clock is then waking up, which is awesome.
In that they're so happy in the mornings if they've had a decent sleep.
So there's getting to you know, hang out and play with them. But it's a bit of a bit of a scramble sometimes to get to that first meeting, and luckily on Monday there is in a first meeting at seven to seven thirty, so it's just about getting them to daycare on time on so a bit of time with them in the mornings, you know, having breakfast with them,
getting them to daycare. It's a nice way to start the week as well, because the rest of the week is quite rushed in the morning, so trying to take the time to spend with them on Monday morning is
really nice. And then from there it's I'll actually go and take myself and have a coffee somewhere and bring my laptop and just to get work from I work from home most days of the week, so getting out of the house is a key thing no matter what day, at least once a day, so I'll just in a coffee shop with my laptop and just get on top of the week, get on top of some work. And that's sort of the start for the first couple of hours,
which is just sets up nicely. Then you kind of come back home and get in the zone on deep work.
We will be back with Anthony soon talking about his tricks, but getting into flow when he does deep work and how he has managed to stay present as a dad, juggling two year old twins and running a billion dollar tech business. If you're looking for more tips to improve the way that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things that I've discovered that helped me work better, ranging from software and gadgets that
I'm loving through the interesting research findings. You can sign up for that at Howiwork dot code. That's how I Work dot co. How do you get into flow when you know that you've got some deep work to do.
This is a hard one because this nature of like and trying to pull yourself out of this nature of being busy and reactive is productive, which is not and you feel productive. He's like, Oh, I'm just replying to a sluck, gett into an email, getting back to this thing, or like making some comments on something that don't really need to but I feel productive because I'm contributing. It's like, actually, it's not productive at all. I'm just trying to pull
yourself out of that is. It's been a really big learning of the last couple of year as well, because I think previously running early days of Linterin even previously running digital agency, you're kind of having to be all things to all people and the jack of all trades, and now it can be a bit more specialist. So that's deep work thing is something we're really trying to
focus on. For me, it is just writing a list of like the three things I might need to do today and noise canceling headphones is the biggest thing for me Like.
That.
I just find if I'm procrastinating a little bit and trying to figure out what do I work on?
There's so many things. What's the priority? I've got an hour to do it.
I know it's I know other people have this or that, but for me, just putting their headphones on, putting noise canceling and some music of some sort, I'll just lock in and can get through that. If that is just replying to some emails, that is just like responding to giving feedback on a bunch of stuff that's sitting there on a project that I need to feedback on to
unlock others. I find I can just do that as soon as the headphones are on and I've had coffee and I've you know, maybe had a bit of a morning stretch as well.
Do you have go to music or do you have a song on repeat? What's your approach to music during deep work.
Depends on what I need to get done. If you do some reading, then it's no music with no lyrics.
But and it might be just some electronic music that is just pretty, just a nice beat, semi monotonous but enough you can just give you a bit of energy. But if its stuff I don't need to be reading at the same time, I'll probably go I'll probably go something else a little more aggressive. It has guitars in it. This gets you a bit more amped up. But it
kind of varies. Like I've been known to put on you know, the best of opera soundtracks on Spotify, because like some of the like the the builds and the momentum in it is like it actually.
I don't know.
It's like a bit of movement in the passion of it that you go, yes, I'm getting this stuff done, and this big opera moment is like so euphorik, I'm with this.
I've definitely heard the music thing from a few guests
now I know. Matt Mullenweg, co founder of WordPress and Automatic, He's big on listening to a song on repeat, as is Kevin Kelly, co founder of Wired, and I recently interviewed Brian Koppleman, who's the showrunner of Billions, among other things, and he was saying how he will always write scenes and dialogue to music, and often it will be the music that is in the background and is quite instrumental to that scene, which I thought, wow, that's quite stunning.
So it just reminded me of that when you mentioned the Best of Opera, which is very interesting. Now, noise canceling headphones very important tool. What are some other tools that you find really important, whether they be software or hardware for being productive?
Yeah, I think we've toyed with a few over the years.
And I used to be a bit more of.
Like a productivity junkie. You're trying to find the latest to do list, task manager every month, you know that something came. Now I'm just like I just you know, even getting that set up takes a while getting into a routine rhythm with it. So it's for me, it's it's I use a sigh enough to list all projects and project management notion we use we use that collaboratively at link Tree as a whole, but I use it for some personal stuff as well. The other two would
be Mirror, the virtual whiteboarding tool. You can build out wireframes and all sorts of it's fantastic. We use it across the business as well to share you know, brainstorming or how things come to life and loom, which is fantastic. I think I touched on it before. The video recording tool.
So Chrome plug in. If I need to send a note to somebody, you'll explain something, talk through a presentation, you know, hit the Chrome plug in, start talking, spend two or three minutes explaining, giving context, share that embedded either in a notion, in a slight message, whatever, and people can watch or listen to that, you know, onto speed,
so it gets through it very quickly. And yeah, we do that for the I do that personally, but also across the business, you know, we do that even when we're collaborating with agencies or contractors.
We'll use that way of working.
So and then my email, I use Superhuman for email as my email tool, which is a great no distractions, The send later tools amazing, the shortcuts you be able to have to use your mouse with it.
It's yeah, it's awesome.
Yeah, I want to dig into Superhuman. I'm always curious when I meet fellow Superhuman users. I've been such a fan of that software for probably a couple of years. Now. What are some of the ways that you use Superhuman? You mentioned a couple of things there in terms of the send later function where you can write an email and then program it to be sent later, and knowing the keyboard shortcuts, I find is just good practice for
every piece of software that you use. And funnily enough, when I interviewed Rahul Vora, who's the founder of super Human, he said that is one of his biggest productivity hacks, just learning keyboard shortcuts because it's far quicker than relying on your mouse. So what else do you do in Superhuman and how you use email? Because chances are there might be a you know, a Gmail or an Outlook equivalent. So what else do you do with Superhuman?
For me, it is the shortcuts to the probably the biggest one.
They've got a I know they've got a like the calendar integration is also a great one. Immediately as soon as I can just type in Thursday, for example, it'll come up with what's tapping on Thursday, and I can just see that what is free and what isn't straight away is also the biggest thing for me. I think I think I use to send later one the most.
I don't know why. I think it's knowing when I want emails to land for people at certain times, particularly if I'm working over the weekend, and one I don't want I don't want to. You know, teams don't need seat on a weekend. Even though you slack for a lot of things, somethings are an email if you with outside collaborators. I think it's also knowing if you're emailing somebody in the US, you wanted to land in their
morning versus their evening. So at the top of mind, I'll use that quite often and I find that quite effective and it helps a lot as well.
You mentioned that you have two year old twins. I remember I've got an eight year old daughter, and I remember when she was three months old, I took her to sleep School and there were there was one set of twins at sleep School, and I just remember thinking.
I don't know how that mum is functioning right now.
And so your twins are two years old. How do you balance running such a high growth company where you're the chief commercial officer with having two tiny people that cannot fend for themselves, yet how do you stay present as a dad?
It has been the biggest.
Throw yourself in a deepened thing over the last couple of years. And I mean, if you talk about faking it till you make it, learning how to be a dad is probably one thing, a little bit just.
Figuring it out as you go. It's like, I can do this, I can do this. I'm the best dad there is. I've got this, But.
It is it Being present has been like what I've been trying to focus on the last few months. I think the first year of their life has been was very tricky. Firstly, I have the most amazing wife and co parent, and you know, we're very much just in it together. It is right, who's doing what? How are we getting through the morning the day?
Who's taking them? There's taking them?
Where? Being twins, especially until they could even walk, you can't.
You couldn't.
Really a lot of things involve two people, right. It wasn't like you just take them to that spot and deal with it. It was like, oh no, taking them taking two babies to the car. I can't even walk? How do I do this without leaving one in the car then or taking money into taking you know, we go into the shops without what It's like this whole mind band of everything involves two people. So being very deliberate about like you know, making time for that for them.
The morning's a big part of just being focused and present. I think now is there's such little sponges that you talk about.
The sleep thing.
We've gone through so many different versions of sleep training and it's still not working.
And it's like.
Oh man, it's like I don't know if we're ever going to get there. We're just resigned to not you know,
getting great sleep. But we A big thing was, seriously, now that they're they're starting to be chatty and they're more present and acknowledging us even more, is this like emotional connection thing with them, we really need to make sure we've got and so because we know that will help through the night and if if we're so like some mornings would be so distracted because you know, like on a morning when the US is online, sometimes we'd wake up both both Katie and I I like cool,
holy shit, I got this stuff that's just happened overnight I've got to deal with it. Can you deal with the boys for a second and then I'll take them and then you go shower.
Then I'll do this, and you do that. Who's got it? First call this morning?
Just like chaos when the days start like that, and then continue in the evening through dinner time and all that stuff that like we're not we're not being the best parents for them, we're not showing up, and you can just see it just in their behavior. They're rattled, they're trying to play up to get our attention and ultimately in their sleep, so really being delivered about just eye contact. We've even started doing a bit of one on one time now so because it's you know, both
want both of our attention. That on weekend, just started doing one of us will take one one of the boys each and just go for a coffee, you go for a walk with them, so just get really really great bonding time.
And that's we found that to be really helpful as well.
But you know, it's definitely a dayly challenge, and it's when they're when they're being like in the morning, they're so amazing. It's such a good remind that just be like you know, first thing I uld always do, get out my phone, like cord I need to do today? Who's responds to stuff overnight?
Now?
And just trying to avoid that and just be present with them for the first sort of half hour so and then get stuck into it.
And do you and Katie have any like rituals or routines in terms of checking in and checking in about you know, how you're going, like balancing parenting with you know, running like such, like you know, a growth driven business.
We are.
We kind of often joke that will sometimes discover with each others the others doing via other people, so we might be in in a group conversations like oh I'm doing this thing on Sunday's like really.
What like oh we should we should talk?
So there's just yeah, we're trying to get better at it, but it's often just like everything, so like you know, deadline and driven either with work or even sometimes with the boys, get them here on time through that and you know, you almost crash into bed at nine o'clock and then be like, hey, so how you doing, how's your day?
What's what's happened?
Fairly even spoken to you that hasn't been logistics related, So yes, we try to get better that at least, you know, a couple of times a week, or having a date night at least once a week where it is just like a you know, decompress, have a glass of wine.
And finally, Anthony, for people that want to connect with you and connect with link Tree, what is the best way for people.
To do that?
For sure?
So link Tree just our website for me, it's it's my link tree. Hand is link tree slash anzac A and zac or my LinkedIn. You can search me on there.
Fantastic, Anthony.
I have loved chatting to you as someone that has created a product that I use in my own social media. So thank you for what you've brought to the world. And it's just been so fascinating to learn more about how you work.
So thank you for your time.
Of course, thank you so much for having me.
Something I found almost encouraging about talking to Anthony is that he doesn't claim to have all the answers, and despite running a billion dollar business, he's still figuring it out, often by trial and error, like the rest of us, when it comes to his approach to work, marriage, and parenting. How I Work is produced by inventingum with production support from Dead Set Studios.
The producer for this episode was.
Liam Riordan, and thank you to mat Nimba who does the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound so much better than it would have otherwise.
See you next time.