The NFX podcast is about seeing what others do not. And getting at the true mechanisms behind people and companies that endure change in the world. If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a rating and review and by sharing with friends you think should listen. You can also discover more content like other episodes, transcripts, essays, and videos by following us on Twitter at NFX and visiting NFX dotcom. And now on to the show. Hi, everyone.
I've known a not for 6 years now, and she's just amazing. And not say hi to all the early stage founders out there listening. Hi, everyone. Hey, Gigi. Hey. And that is the co founder and CEO of APIA Global, an amazing company, which recently closed their $250,000,000 Beller d round in just in September. Bringing its valuation to 3,700,000,000. Congrats, say not.
And as much as she doesn't like to be singled out as a female entrepreneur, and that is inspiring many female founders as the Pete of Israel's first woman led unicorn. She's amazing. 2021 has been a breakthrough year for a papaya. So we really wanted to talk with Anita about what's going on, what she sees and what others don't see. So let's jump right in, you know.
So the COVID pandemic really removed barriers to global hiring course, it was happening before, but when did you start to see that this was not just a short term reaction and, in fact, the lasting shift, like a real change in the Morgan? So I think the real change in the Morgan actually happened only a few months ago, I mean, from my perspective, because I think that, I mean, you know, I mean, COVID was kind of we had a lot of different phases during COVID. The 1st phase was, okay.
Let's see what's going on in here. Let's take it easy. Maybe the word will go back to Morgan, and then people kind of started to digest to the new reality. And I think eventually only a few months ago, I started to see kind of shifting in the strategy, understanding that things are here to stay for good and for bad.
And it's not about just having some people working remotely and so on, but really changing the whole dynamics, really changing the company to be a remote first or to be a company that accommodate our locations and so on. And also growing up into that, because I think that when you started, I mean, when we started, we COVID. It was very romantic. Right? I mean, people will work from anywhere. I mean, we don't need to meet each other any longer and so on.
And there are many, many things the change, and we realize that it's not all or nothing. I mean, you need to find the balance. People need to meet. There are lots of good things in remote environment and remote hiring, but there are lots of bad things as well. So what would you say are the good things? I think first removing Currier. And even more than this, I think that we are all kind of learning how to work with others, how to build better organizations that are remote by nature.
And it's great because, mainly, when you are a small startup, you kind of have this habit that you know, everybody knows what happens, right, because, I mean, you work in the same room or you work in the same atmosphere, you constantly update each other.
So it's very hard to get to a place where everything is structured, where, you know, you can kind of pass information through processes and those terrible words that founders don't really like, but you have when you are going remote because this is how you onboard Pete. This is how you train them. You need to assure that they don't need you to be available at all times because you want your work on time zones and so on. And I think that eventually it's building better companies to scale.
If you manage to do some very early days, I mean, you are building the right ground and the right infrastructures in order to scale quicker when, I mean, afterwards. And this is the great thing from my perspective. Okay. And what is the bad? What are you saying is problems that companies are struggling with? So, you know, I spent the last weekend reading this crazy community called Over Employed and understanding that this is becoming a trend.
And the one thing that they took from it is I think that the remote eventually employment, kind of creating a barrier between the employee to the company. So, you know, somebody told me this when we had our shared office at WeWork at the time, he told me, you know, the one thing that I don't like about shared spaces is the fact that if you are just changing the logo on the door, I mean, it's a different company. You don't Beller your own DNA. And it's the same with remote work.
I mean, you need to work very, very hard to build the DNA. If somebody is not feeling attached to the company, and it just, you know, somebody who pays his salary. I mean, this is not a good thing because you have people that are working for the company, but they're not part of the company.
And I think that this is the worst thing that can happen to a start And so when you think about the way people are recruiting their teams right now, I mean, I know that many of our companies are now speaking about building remote teams in many cases for no choice because they can't find people where they want to, but in other cases, because that's also the demand of the employees. What do you think is really happening in the way people are recruiting teams right now?
Is it really all remote first? Is it really about, you know, we need to be flexible and let people do whatever they want. How do you see this forming? I think there are lots of currently thesis. And, I mean, you had company that were always remote Morgan, GitLab and so on, and it's worked for them, but they worked really, really hard to make it happen. It's not something that they just decided overnight, and that's it. And, I mean, you need to be very, very dedicated to that.
And I think currently, as I said, I mean, it's even a bit romantic. I mean, let's people all over the world and everybody will be hired. I mean, we don't care where you are and so on. And in reality, it's not working because even setting the team meeting is impossible with the time zones and you don't feel that the team is connecting. It's not bonded. And we all know that when you put a group of people in the room, things I mean, some magic happens there.
I mean, it's different than just working together over Zoom or over any, I mean, remotely. So I think this is always the advice that I give to founders. I mean, try to keep things in focus. And try to fix things under control. And having 20 different people working in 20 different countries, you are currently increasing the complexity of managing your companies in so many different levels. I mean, tax wise, employment labor, wise, James zone wise, you know, culture wise.
So it's okay to assure that you are employing remotely. But, I mean, as I do internally in Papaya, I already said, okay, let's find the next hub or let's find the next location. Not let's just find the talents all over the world. And just a little higher than wherever they are. For us, it's not working. I mean, because I don't really this is not the kind of organization that I want to build.
I don't believe that this is the right structure, and I don't think that we will be able to work like this. But, I mean, you really need to be focused and spend some time about the strategy and assure that It's not only about hiring or bringing the people. It's really about connecting them and creating a group. Yeah. I Beller in that a lot. I mean, for years now, when I head off for teams.
I think the main thing that I was trying to do is find a way to make them feel as if they're part of the actual team. You know, it could be the posters in the office could be the swag. It could be everything, but generally the more you make people feel that they're part of the organization, the better chance you have to get them to be loyal, committed, and work hard.
And then it is very difficult to do that with a single, you know, individual contributors sitting somewhere in the world it's much easier when there's a group of 5 Morgan group of 10 or a group of 20. And so we always try to kinda concentrate kind of these offshore remote teams in one place that they can have their own little thing that sits part of the company's DNA and culture. How do you think about this trend?
I mean, when I speak to founders, many of them off the record because it's not very politically correct. Tell me, you know, if COVID is now completely gone, I'm back to 100% on prem, 100% non remote. I want everybody to be in the office because I feel that when it comes to innovation, innovation is much tougher when it's remote. What do you think about the statement and also what do you think is gonna happen? Let's say hopefully very soon, COVID is gonna be completely a nonfactor anymore.
So I think, again, it's not 0. Nothing or 0. I think that 100% probably won't happen, but, I mean, I see it all over the world. I mean, every single employee that we have in the company in Israel, in the US, and so on, they asked to have an office. And currently, I mean, we already started opening most of the offices around the world for 2 to 3 days a week, and people are happy. We happy. I mean, I don't need them to come to the office every single day.
I totally get that sometimes it's much, much nicer to start the week or to start the the weekend when you are working from home. And, I mean, it can be much more efficient. So eventually, I don't think that it should be you shouldn't enforce anything, but you should really build a flexible environment that you are okay with that. You trust your employees because you have to trust them. Right? Otherwise, it's not working. And they have enough time that they can work quietly and, with themselves.
And they also have enough time that they know that they are coming to the office, and they have this group thinking. So I think it's a good mixture, and I think that this I mean, the world will probably align to it. I think it would be very, very hard for founders to force people to come only to the office and to be 100% dependent in the office.
Yeah. We just said today, 2 very strong candidates, one of the companies that basically, when they approached, they said, yeah, we're very interested, but you need to know that I wanna work remote only. And we were okay. Why is that? And they said, because we want the flexibility. We may wanna come to the office in a while, but we wanna be in. These are 2 very strong candidates. I think I'm seeing this more and more. That's not good making this work of startup CEOs much easier.
Yeah. But in here, I would say on the CEO perspective, I mean, I have a clear policy to everyone. Okay? Female male, regardless. I think that, I mean, it's not sure to have different policy per candidate. And sometimes you lose some candidates, but you win the trust of your organization because they know it's for parent. So for example, I know that we probably gonna speak about this a bit. It's like with female employees.
I mean, I'm a mom myself, and I have young kids, but when I meet candidates, and they ask me to work a shorter hours from the office or shorter hours in general, and then complete hours. I tell them that, listen, I mean, this is not a stage that we can allow this ability. I mean, maybe they should go and work on a bigger company because we have the same policy for all. I mean, every single employee, even if they are single, if they have kids, male, female. I don't care.
Have the same policy where they can before COVID, they could work one day from home and then have one short day during the week. And I think that creating a place where people feel equal also in the terms, and it's not negotiable. It's very, very important. And honestly, it makes your life to see how much easier eventually. I agree that transparency is definitely much easier. So what do you have now? 3350 hun how many people do you have?
We just cross 300, and we are approaching very, very quickly to 150, actually. Okay. That's very cool. And so, you know, why is hiring for startups in general such a nightmare in general? And these days, why is it so difficult do you think? Beller, I think it's always difficult. I mean, because first now, I mean, kind of, you are hiring all over, so you are hiring people We filed meeting them. You're hiring remotely. You're hiring.
I mean, the rule and kind of the structures is all messy and it's constantly changing so on. But I think when you are starting or setting a startup and, I mean, I still consider ourselves as, you know, as a growing startup, you need people that have a lot of different talents and different kind of skills set, and it's very hard to describe them. So it's very personal sometimes.
I mean, I can write a JavaScript But then in reality, I mean, the people that they meet have some personal skills that it will be very hard to describe over a job is fiction. This is why I personally, I think that I hired more than 150 people these days through my personal network to papaya. I mean, because eventually, people understand what type of people I'm looking for in terms of their skill Pete and in terms of, their personality.
And it's much easier for them to And I think that we always need to kind of to keep this balance of having a very, very good talent, but also having people that are a good match to the company, DNA. And the DNA is not something that you can just change. You know? I mean, the founders, this is what they are. I mean, Beller founder has his own kind of DNA that they bring to the company and so on. And, I mean, you need to align to that.
And if you are not respecting it or you're trying to build an organization that is very different, I mean, it's ended up with a lot of chaos, and it's not working. Yeah. Definitely. You know, we always say that, you know, you know, this famous sentence that you've gotta hire for attitude or DNA and then train for skill rather than the other way around. And I think that many startups end up forgetting this.
And when then when they get somebody with the wrong DNA, that creates such a liability for the company. It's such drag that eventually it's much better to not recruit the person with their own DNA. How do you think about that? I totally agree. I totally agree that DNA is the most important thing. And sometime if you have one person that's bringing something different to company, some different level of energy and so on, you can start 50 different problems within the current team.
And sometimes those are the best talents that you have out there. As I said, I mean, for me, I have this kind of policy that if somebody is negotiating their personal benefits, for example, I mean, as you said before, I mean, I want to work with you. I don't wanna come to the office. Even if everyone is coming to the office, I want to be excluded and so on. Those are kind of, for me, those are the I say, okay. I mean, there is an issue here because this person, he's not a team player.
He wants other terms. You know, I mean, it's like, I cannot tell my team, I expect you to be locked in the office every time that we are releasing, for example, version and so on. And then just leave the office at noon and say, oh, yeah. To go home. Right? I mean, I'm part of the team, so I have to be a team player.
So I really think that you need always to kind of understand what are the things that you are creating in terms of the DNA, what is the group eventually qualities that you want to create and ensure that if somebody is not a good match, So, I mean, I totally get, you know, the lack of talents and so on. And you might end up hiring them, but really think about it. Like, one time, two times, three James, don't do it and just say, okay. That's gonna be okay. I mean, get to the risk that is working.
No. I I agree completely, and I love it. In in a way, it kinda reminds me that, you know, what said about, the procedural stuff that tells you a lot about the, about the founder's DNA. You know, that's very similar to the way I think about how we, look at companies. We're many times things like how fast they answer emails, and how do they take a tough question, or how do they take, sign of me not being confident in what they're doing? How do they take it? How do they deal with it?
These are procedural stuff not the essence. It's not the company, but these things Beller me a lot about the Pete. And many times, I would end up saying no because of these, even though I like the idea or some But one thing that really strikes me, you said aligned to the founder's DNA. And I love it because I don't think that I've heard anybody say it. So clearly, you know, people usually say There's a company DNA, but an early stage company, the company DNA is the founder's DNA.
What do you do if you're an early stage founder and you don't really know what is your DNA or how to look for it? I mean, do you think that it's important for early stage founders to define very early on, like, at the early stages What is the DNA they want in their company? Yes. But, I mean, this is the thing. It's not what I want in the company because, you know, I mean, I am what I am. So even if I want to change my personality, it's gonna be very, very hard.
It's what you are and what are the good things that you bring and what are the things that you know that will be problematic and maybe you need to find a way to adjust them. And if you are not sure about what type of personality you bring in, what type of management skills you bring in, ask around. I constantly ask.
And, you know, I mean, I don't want to hear that that I'm a great person, blah blah blah because, you know, this is not gonna help me to improve, but I really want to get the sense of how people get me as a manager. And, you know, I know afterwards, I know what I'm looking, and I also know how to highlight it. So think about this as going to a date, but not speaking about how great you are. Speak about the things that you know that will piss the other person off in 6 months time.
Yep. Yeah. And this is the thing that you really need to highlight and say, okay. This is the thing that I bring to the Beller. This is the company DNA. For me, for example, you know, I take decision very, very quickly. There is no single way for me to keep my opinion to myself. This is what I am. You know, even if I'm gonna try very, very hard, it's not gonna work. And, you know, some Pete, I mean, it's not for them.
Some people really respect this, and some people will learn how to live with it even if it's new to them, but they know what they're getting into. And it really impact the DNA. I mean, one of the other things that I always keep in papaya is that we said we don't work for ego. So we build a great company, and we need to stay humble. And if we are not in the right place currently for the role that we are feeling, we need to step out.
And we need to kind of bring someone over to lead this and see how we fit in because, you know, this is a constant change, and it's a very, very strong for me in papaya. I mean, to keep it a group of doers and not a group of people that have a lot of ego because this is who we are, and this is who we are as founders.
So you need to understand what type of person you are and then to try at least, like, I would say, the first 50 employees I mean, match to who you are, not much to kind of a list of company best DNA that you find in Google or so on because that's not gonna help you. As you speak about it and I'm thinking, and I agree with you that the best companies that I've invested in, you know, their core core core team is really, really, really they have a great, core team founder fit.
Like, the people have similar DNA, which Beller them basically get over so many initial hurdles that had the team been different in DNA would have been really tough to handle. So good foot for thought on that. How do you think, you know, about recruiting in these crazy days? I mean, you know, constantly hear, you know, clearly salaries are the highest they've ever been employees want every possible perk.
I remember that, you know, a few years ago, we thought that things were bad when employees started one thing, you know, to get allowance for lunch. And now the question is, what famous chef are you bringing to cook for your employees on Right? It's like, you know, I wanna know what chef is cooking. Otherwise, I'm not coming. How do you think about it? Do you think this is a new world and we have to live with it, or do you think gonna change.
And how do you handle this as a company that, from what I can see from the outside is less flashy and less into show off. First degree, and we don't bring any famous chef to lunch because I think this is an endless a James, and you will always lose. Okay? There is always going to be the company that will pay Morgan, that will bring a better benefit and so on. You really need to assure that you bring another value.
So what is it that you can offer to your employees that will make them want to join even if you are not the most? You know, I mean, because a lot of startups, they cannot afford themselves to pay, you know, the high salary in the market. Right?
I mean, I I'd wanna be there in terms of even starting this race because that's never ending game, but I want to assure that people that are coming to papaya, I mean, they can get different values even if this is kind of the understanding that they're equal that we have a transparent policy that we have flexibility for them to work from home, So build some values that you can speak to because I think in general, people have more dimensions than just
what you need for me in terms of the benefits and the station package, and you need to speak to that. Yep. And how do you retain employees in this crazy environment? Now, you know, all your good employees, I'm sure they're getting one to offer or, you know, at least few approaches a week. What's your thoughts about retaining these employees? You know, the great people that work in the company. Yep. So it all go to the same place.
I mean, and again, I mean, I think that they work very, very, very hard in papa, apparently. I mean, we are growing so quickly. So everyone is working super hard, and I know that it's not easy. And, obviously, as I said, I mean, you cannot, I mean, even if you're gonna compensate more and more and more terms of salaries, that's not gonna be the right retention. You really need to assure that they are happy. They feel that there is some meaning.
So for example, I mean, you know, we did this campaign this year bringing the parents to work. Yeah. I've seen that. That was gorgeous. And, you know, I mean, people were really excited. I was excited personally. Tell people what it is. Yes. So we did a parent day eventually in Papaya. Pete brought their parents to work, to show them where they work, I mean, to show them the environment, to show them their friends, By the way, I highly recommend this to everyone.
I mean, you know, once you are back to the office, I think that I received tons of private message from friends Beller me that after seeing it, they feel really, really sorry that they did not do it in the past, and now maybe their parents are too old, or, I mean, they already passed away. And there is something about the fact that your parents don't understand, you know, what we are doing or they don't know how your office looks like and who are your colleagues that really gets them excited.
So we are always trying to kind of assuring that we bring the extra value. I mean, for me, people know that I'm very obsessed about this. I mean, when they're telling me, okay, let's do a company event, I've said, okay. Don't bring me just, you know, like, the standard ideas of let's have a great party. I'm not into it. Let's create memories. Let's assure that we are doing something that people will feel that this is unforgettable, and we invested something more than money in this.
And I think this is really about understanding that first, the CEOs, you need to be involved. You cannot outsource this. Okay? You cannot outsource the soul of your company to other people and tell them, yeah, let's do great things and build a great culture for this company. This is not working. You need to be highly involved. Otherwise, it's not authentic. Yeah. I just love the memory thing. I think that you're totally right when it comes to things that are monetary.
Of course, you need to pay honest and good James. So but when things are just monetary and not related to emotions and to feelings. It's very difficult to create that long term retention. And when you start touching into people's real desires and a operations and emotions, this is where you start getting the different kind of retention that we want. We want from our employees. We want from our customers. We want from everyone. So I really love that part. So here's question for you.
You know, so you Pete now the challenges of recruiting your own company with, you know, 350 employees, but you also see how people are recruiting remotely and the offshore and in different countries. Do you see any major differences, or essentially is it all becoming in Morgan be the same other than the administrative and difficulty of recruiting, remotely, which you're solving. I mean, on everything else on the softer areas, is it just becoming the same? No. It's not becoming the same.
I think that eventually Pete are recruiting remotely, but then they're not investing the same efforts to create the same engagement to the company. I understand who they're recruiting and how they're creating the same experience for them. I mean, one thing, for example, that I always advise CEOs is don't give your remote employees allowances to cover things. I mean, make the efforts to provide them the same benefits.
By the way, we published in our website if it's helpful for somebody kind of a simple of a global benefits policy because, I mean, I find that when you have some kind global policies and people feel that you take care of all of the things that you want to give them or you would give them if they were part of your headquarter. They feel more it, and they feel more involved. It's not the same. I mean, just adding $100 to my pay slip and tell me, oh, okay.
Now you can have your own medical benefits and so on. Good luck with that. I don't wanna do you know, I want somebody else to do deal with that. This is why I came working in a specific company. Eventually, this is what I expect from somebody, to provide. And One of our clients told me this, even pre COVID, and this is something that I took with me. I mean, internally and also when we were designing kind of the client experience in papaya, He told me, listen. I mean, we are hiring remotely.
Each one of the employees that we are hiring remotely, they could go work anywhere Beller. They could go work in Google, Microsoft, Amazon, any single place. They came to work for us, and we need to assure that they don't feel that they compromise We need to assure you that we are reaching every gap that we have locally for them to feel that this is a great experience. So hiring globally, I mean, has lots of challenges because you don't speak the language. You don't know what you don't know.
Your team members, I mean, they experience different thing, even holidays. Okay. I mean, you know, I mean, think about how you would feel if somebody would send you emails during the holidays in Israel and asking you for an immediate response. I mean, you would think that he's not respecting you. Isn't this normal? Isn't this what's happening to everybody? Yes and no. But you would expect some respect, I mean, you know, to some things like your holidays and so on.
So I think that when you are hiring remotely, I mean, there are some kind of basic fundamentals that you need to assure that you are preparing and assuring that, again, it's not only about compensation. This is a very, very short step. Currently Ukraine, for example, I mean, compensation is going crazy. People feel that, I mean, every time that their employees working on the street. So, you know, I mean, somebody's offering them a job, and they can just be hired by someone else.
So really, I mean, they need to feel connected. I'll share another event that we did last year. 6 months ago, we took the whole company to a global week to the Maldives. It was just in the middle of COVID. People for the time crazy. I was thinking that I'm half crazy, but I decided to do so anyhow. And there was those people that are working remotely, and we never met because we could not meet them. I mean, people came from Ukraine and from the US and so on.
And everyone was so excited just about the fact that we took care of them, and we eventually assured that you know, that we meet them and we create experience for them. We took this. Obviously, it was a huge responsibility. I was Beller single day I was praying that, you know, not gonna end up as a huge COVID saga and so on.
But anyhow, I mean, I think that this is really create a bonding between people, between different countries, between different teams and so on that you can't really create differently. So, I mean, the one thing that I always advise people is travel, I mean, as much as you can Pete the team assure that they see someone, I mean, don't kind of get to the new reality or, oh, yeah, we can do everything over Zoom.
I mean, let's just remove all their travels, remove all meetings, and so on because this has such a different effect on people.
Yep. And so, I mean, if I sum it all up, would you say that the right state of mind for startup CEO is to really try as much as they can to treat the remote employees just the same as they treat their local employees, meaning in terms of benefits, behavior, exposure to what's happening in the company, transparency, meeting them in person, getting them company off sites and so on.
You'd say that the best thing is if you can actually make them feel 100% is if they're in the same country and together. Yep. That's correct. And for example, I mean, you know, I've been in this business forever. I mean, in the global workforce, I'm a kind of a dinosaur in this space. And for years, I've never seen a company granting, for example, global equity to employees.
In the last year, it's becoming the new norm, right, because, otherwise, they can't Pete, and it's ahead obviously, it's a real headache for companies to manage a global equity policy, annexation, and so on. It's a real headache, but you need to create those things. I mean, if you want to be remote, you need to work in the I mean, you cannot just say, yeah. Okay. I'm just gonna do whatever I'm comfortable with the rest I don't care about.
Yep. So, I mean, I just love this part, and I know that it's so important for you, you know, the team and building it, but I wanna jump for a second into into the actual business. So I think that when you guys started the company, you know, I think 26 seen, people sort of thought that it's gonna be impossible to create a platform for automating what was then seem to be a manual cumbersome, very traditional labor intensive document intensive process.
What was seen so impossible creating this automation? Did it got you to the point that almost nobody tried to do that at least not success Yeah. So I always said that, I mean, Topaya story kind of Flint the industry Beller, okay, because from 2016 to 2019, I raised $5,000,000 and I was really going, you know, like, knocking on doors in order to raise them. It was very, very, very hard work. And then from 2019 to 2021, I raised more than $400,000,000 honestly, it was very easy. I mean, process.
And people came and take people came Exactly. Exactly. And I think that the one thing before even automating that We were always saying, and I think it's much bigger than COVID. Constantly heard that this is not a real problem. This is not a real pain. And I could never understand this I said, okay. I mean, you know, I I work with clients. I hear this all day long. I mean, I know that this is a real Flint.
I mean, from the investor side, they were not asking the right question because they were asking the wrong people they were asking the CEO. Is it a pain for you? No. I don't think that this is a pain because, you know, he is not a buyer. So he he Pete doesn't even know how manual process it is and how things are running. So, you know, for him, it's not a pain. I mean, it's not he's not dealing with that on the ongoing process.
And the second thing that I've been constantly asked how you are going to automate this. And I always kind of divided the 2 because I still believe that this is the right structure. We in doing it this day, that onboarding is where we need to be on a high touch basis. Okay? I mean, I don't think that you or any other employee wants to get a process that eventually can be very, very efficient, but it's not personalized because this is your contract.
This is your decision and you want to get personalized attention. So for us, we always said we are not trying to automate the onboarding process.
But from the other hand, if we are investing along in the onboarding process, and assuring that everything is being done and handled correctly, then the cycle can be automated quite easily because there are no discrepancies, and we can Eventually automated the data, we can validate data process because when I was asking users and users that are working, I mean, payroll managers that are working on Morgan clients, companies were
telling me that they are doing a manual validation, copying numbers from Pete to Excel sheets every single month for every single employee in order to close the Morgan And, you know, this is crazy. Okay. I mean, for them, we've literally have users that when they see our demo, they start crying because for them, this is the Morgan time of of their month. I mean, this is a super manual process that they are doing.
They are always afraid of having mistakes because every single pay slip that they have mistakes, they will be unhappy employee. And, you know, nobody cares that 99% has been paid correctly. Right? You have one person that hasn't correctly. This is, for him, you are 100% wrong. So, I mean, nothing else matters.
So I think that by respecting manual processes, and assuring that we are not trying to find a magic solution to everything, but we are just eventually automating the fields that can be automated and working with the data in the right way and also respecting the fact that we need the local Pete, we cannot replace them. This is like I mean, you will always go to the doctor, right, even if I'm gonna give you a full directory of all the disease in the world, I mean, you still want doctor opinion.
You still want an expert to look at this and say, this is what you have. It's the same with payroll. You need this expertise locally. We are not trying to bypass it. We are not trying to replace it. We are trying to work with it, and we're trying to make it more efficient. Interesting. And so, you know, we see many companies in the various fields that are say, coming and saying, here's the manual process. We're going to automate it.
And many times, I think they end up, you know, banging their hands on the wall because they're trying to automate the bits of it that are just not automatable simply because either the users don't want it to be automated or because there's technical problems. Do you have, like, a framework thinking about how to look at an automation problem. The complex ones, the ones where maybe the right solution is to not automate everything.
What would be like the thing they would recommend if young founders looking to its automation of different fields to think about when when trying to not over automate and fail and not under automate and deliver 2 little value. How do you think about that? Yes. So I had exactly the same conversation yesterday with young founder on the recruitment space and they're automating some process and so on. And he told me, yeah.
And now we are going to start automation, and we are going to assure that every single pricing that goes into the ERP is being automated. And I said, why? I mean, what's your gain? I mean, you know, how many ERP systems are you gonna find I mean, that's a never ending automation, and nobody cares. I mean, do it manually. I mean, create an RPA process. Do you have so many ways to do it dirty behind the scenes? Keep the data consistent, why do you need to invest your R and D teams there?
So I think that you really need to understand what brings the most value to your user and to your buyer. Right? I mean, because if I'm gonna show you that I'm automating an amazing thing, but eventually, I'm not bringing any efficiency to you as my buyer and my user. So why should you buy it? I mean, what do you care? And eventually, I think that you should start from your users and what is their pain? I mean, because automation eventually equal to saving time. Right?
Saving time, reducing mistake, bringing you some freedom. Right? I mean, just find those things. Understand what are the things that you need to automate in order save time to your user, reduce their mistakes, I mean, increase their confidence with whatever value is equal to automation in your product, and focus on them. Everything Beller, I mean, this is your problem.
I mean, do whatever you need on your side, on the back end, but ensure that you are bringing the maximi the the the maximum value to your to your user first. This is the first and foremost thing that you need to do. Yeah. And, you know, I always like looking at this metrics of what it's gonna make. On one hand, you know, one access is what's gonna make most impact on your customer. And the other one is what's gonna be the easiest for you to deliver.
Yep. And then trying to find these magic moments where there's something that you can relatively easily do, but immediately gets the customer off, you know, one of their big pains. And this is a great place to store it, and it seems that that's how you think about it, and that that's how you look you wouldn't add it. Yeah. And and I think that it always goes side by side.
We speak with your users and assure validate your assumptions because, honestly, the example that I gave before that we had this user copying information from a Pete file to a sell sheet and validating it manually. I never thought that this is the process. I mean, I said, no way. I mean, why can't you get it by sale? You know, it's a financial data file. I mean, and said, no, we can't. I mean, this is, eventually, this is the output that we received. I asked it 10,000 times.
I mean, they told me that I can't. So this is how I need to do So go and understand what is your biggest pain. Don't just take assumptions because I think that this is where you might be spending a lot of time in automating the wrong things or the one with not the highest value to the Flint. Completely. And, you know, in that regard, I wanna jump.
I I you're known and the industry is one of the founders that it's probably the most obsessed with customer experience, like, you know, most obsessed with what you're actually delivering value to the customer. And so how do you think about developing this obsession? And then in your company, has it grown How do you measure the successory customer experience and the obsession? And how do you educate your team to be as obsessed as you are?
First, I think it's all about teaching them and showing them that you care about this. Okay? I am currently assisted to any issue that clients have So, I mean, obviously, not every complaint that they have on the ongoing basis or an issue that they have with the team, but we have some kind of critical issues that happens or some kind of says that our flag is not as good experience as I want my clients to be. And I get them alert on each one of them.
In 90% of the time, I will go on a call directly with client to hear it from him because I think that sometimes you just need to hear how he experienced this, and you need to understand what can you do differently? Because it doesn't matter. I mean, it's not about being right. It's not about saying, yeah, you know, I mean, this customer gets us completely wrong. I mean, you know, he's not using the product correctly.
We did I mean, it's about understanding from him and hearing his own words and hearing his own experience because he's the client. And I always said that I'm a nicer client for anyone that is providing me services, like, you know, like my Beller phone company and my bank and so on. I mean, if I have complained, I wanna to be treated immediately and very, very seriously? Because I don't wanna spend time on fixing something that I think that needs to be eventually just working.
So I want to get the same level of service to my clients. And I think this is really about assuring a few things first that Everybody knows that you care about it. And in even if you ask the R and D, what they not cares about most, they will tell you the customer experience. It's not about the talk about anything else because they know, and this is basically, a very, very strong, thing in our customer journey and the thinking of will the client love it? Will he not love it?
I mean, I want them to be obsessed with papaya as a service and not only product. I want them to see us as our trust partner. I want them to feel that we are very, very personal into their issues because eventually it's all about trust, you know, they trust us to be their growth partner. And, obviously, sometimes things breaks and you're you cannot always deliver everything 100% but they know that you care, and you'll be forgiven if you care, and this is very, very important.
So, I mean, you know, the first thing that I would say, if CO is not taking client call and you don't hear the experience. I mean, you'd never know from 1st night, how's the process? You'll never hear the complaints. You'll never understand them as you Flint is eventually describing them. You will never know how to ask the right question and solve the right eventually solutions. So this needs to be on the agenda.
I mean, there is never enough time to do everything that you want, but there are specific things that you must do. And for me, this is the one thing that, regardless, whatever I have in the calendar, I will always have the time to assure that I have enough time to hear my clients. And, you know, in the last funding announcements, in the very same day that we had the PR going live and everyone was very happy and congratulating me and so on, I had a client that was not happy about something.
And the very immediate moment, somebody asked me, what's going on? Why you are not happy? I said, yeah. Because, you know, it's not about the funding round. It's about that we have an unhappy Flint, and we need to assure that he is happy. So, you know, maybe I'm too obsessed, but I think that it's all about eventually assuring that you serve your clients. And, I mean, we all have clients. We all eventually create products for somebody else to use. That is so true.
I know other than just showing everybody in the team that that's the thing that you care about the most, is there anything else you do to make sure that they know how important it is? Like, is it part of their OKRs, or is it, you know, something that you force them in double brackets to do, or is it just by them seeing how obsessed you are with it? So it's just about them understanding that we take seriously every complaint that we debrief everything.
So, yeah, That's definitely part of the process. There is nothing that we are just, you know, kind of saying, okay. He was not happy. Okay. He decided to leave us. I mean, you know, for me, I mean, measuring churn, which is very, very, very low in papaya is one of the most important thing. I mean, I want to assure that if client is making the decision, to terminate the engagement with us. I wanted to know why. And so it's part of their process. It's parts of eventually their training.
It's all over the place. I mean, it's not in one place. It's all over the place, really all over the place. Yep. And so being obsessed with customer experience, that's, I think, is one great superpower that startup CEO, especially in B2B, but, of course, also in B2C needs to have. What other kind of superpowers do you think, early stage test companies need to have you know, anything about how to build your team to make sure that you have these superpowers in the team.
So I think that the one superpower that you must have, many on early stage, is the ability to plan ahead, but to be very, very, very cautious about what you are doing currently because you never have enough talent. You never have enough money. You never have enough time. Right? I mean, it's always kind of, the constant struggle, and it's always going to be the case but you need always to look ahead and say, okay.
What do I really, really need to do now in order to assure that in 3 months' time, if I'm meeting and, I mean, it's not if for me, it's always, I mean, if I have KPIs, we need to meet them. I mean, what does it mean? How the company needs to look like? And one that I started using internally in the company when we have those meetings weekly, monthly, road map planning, and people are saying, yeah, we cannot meet these So we need more time today.
So this is not something that we think that it will be achievable. I asked them, what do you need in order to make this achievable? Don't explain to you why it cannot be achieved. Let's start breaking the things that will make it achievable. What do you need? 50 more Pete, a year Morgan your time. And when people are, you know, starting to break this, and eventually they realized that they can make it achievable. I mean, they might need some help.
They might need some more resources, but all of a sudden it's becoming something that they feel comfortable with committing to and not just something that feels like Farfetch. Okay. I mean, don't know how to handle this. So, I mean, I'm just not gonna even start getting this wanna ask one specific question about your market that really, I think, keeps coming up, which is around blockchain and crypto.
You just say, you know, for years now, there's been this theory that making payroll internationally is gonna be super simple because we're just gonna basically transfer some money to somebody's wallet and everything else is gonna be super easy and so on, and everything's gonna be seamless and truly, truly global and very quick. How do you think about that?
I mean, clearly, the reality is a lot tougher and but we are in the United States already quite a few companies that are offering their employees to take part of the salary in crypto. It's a perk that some employees want. And I kinda wonder how do you think this should be part of what you're offering in the future, or is it really a risk, or is it just basically a payment method, but eventually, you to still report and pay and do the contracts and everything. How do you think about that?
Yeah. So to be totally realistic, I think that we are actually getting I mean, farther away from this on the global perspective, then, you know, closer to to make it happen because eventually payroll, I mean, you know, is taxes And as you can see currently, the global trend, okay, let's enforce 15% the minimum taxes globally and so on, on a corporate level and so on. It's the same with payroll.
I think that at the beginning, it took a lot of countries a lot of time to understand that crypto is Pete, so they did not enforce it, or they did not have specific regulation related to payment in crypto. But Salaries are always the first thing that countries are protecting. Now we see more and more regulation that are actually banning using crypto payments than we saw 2 years ago because, I mean, all of a sudden it's become something that somebody said, hey, listen, we have an issue here.
We need to assure that we have regulation against that. So the first thing is okay. I mean, we are not going to allow it. I mean, payroll is payroll. I mean, they need to pay locally. Easiest. I mean, and that's it. I mean, I don't even think that most of the people knows in the majority of the world, you cannot even pay salaries in different currency than your local currency. This is not allowed. So, you know, an encryptor is is even kind of more Farfetch in terms of country level.
We do see more and more, I would say, additional components that are being used to compensate in crypto. So I would say payout commission plans, even equity based crypto plan, the structure that they actually really like, and I think that is a very, very good structured compensate. And this required a lot of tax adjustments. So it's not an easy fix. It's not just, okay, let's just pay them with crypto, and that's it.
But if you are separating the core payroll components or your gross salary and just keeping it on a Flint local currency and assuring that you are playing with the crypto component on the kind of the variables component or the equity component. This is definitely thinks that I think that we see more and more. I personally really like. I mean, we are dealing with a quite a lot in papaya, and we probably become more popular. That's super cool.
I think that clearly, you know, the banking rails could very quickly be disrupted by stable coins and by the ability to transfer money with no cost, but clearly the what's really happening on the ground is very different in terms of tax and so on. But are you today paying also, for example, for, you know, helping companies pay for people working with them in the Philippines, for example, a lot of the economies already, you know, based on crypto transaction.
Are you seeing more requests like that there? So in general, I mean, as we are very, very minded, you know, compliant and so on, we are always processing the pay slip in the calculation, eventually, just in local currency, local regulation and so on. We are allowing our employees to get their net payment in crypto. I mean, normally, we are, limiting it to 30% out of their net pay. To be completely honest, I thought that we will see more employees that are asking for it.
The numbers are very, very small. Interesting. What did you have for a second to your founding story, what we call the founder story because I really like yours. So before Papaya, you were the CEO of 2 different relocation services companies, and it seems that what you've learned there was the basis of what the basic gave you the competitive advantage for trading papaya.
And it's a great story because in a way, there's so many new businesses that could be set up by people that know their industry really well and then decide that it's about time that disrupt it with more automation or more technology. And I love it because that's like a route for not only tech people, you know, people that inherently come from the tech positions to invent great start up, but also people that come from the more traditional businesses. So I kinda wonder, how did that work?
And, you know, what basically can you recommend to people that know their answer really Beller, what framework of thinking that could help them understand whether there's a real opportunity to try and disrupt it with technology and automation.
Yes. So so first, I think it requires some I mean, there are lots of roles eventually setting up a real business you know, a bootstra business, understanding P and L, understanding what it is eventually to deal with pricing, to ensure that clients is paying, all of those fun stuff that you are doing is as a small business owner and all of the worries that you have when you know that every single daughter that you eventually gain, I mean, we used to pay the expenses that
you have, and you need to be very, very minded. But for me, I mean, when I started thinking about scaling or I wanted to do something that is more tech oriented. I think that the first barrier was to understand what is it that is because I said, okay. So what's the issue? I mean, now, I mean, I set up a business now. I'm gonna set up a platform and so on. And first having tech people around you. I mean, so you're kind of having the balance because for us, I mean, we fast with the 3 founders.
It's very, very clear. I have very, very strong business orientation. My founders have very strong tech orientation. Product eventually are in the orientation. And I think the 1st 6 months was kind of understanding and setting up the expectation for me as a very operational person. I mean, if I have an idea today, tomorrow, I want to implement this. This is it. I mean, I'm gonna work hard, like, 24 hours, launch everything, run the process, and so on, and that's it.
It's 5. But then I remember the 1st 2 months that Ruben, which is the greatest, probably, product person that I've ever Pete, and he's so obsessed with details. He was torturing me with details. Okay. Explain me every single process of the payroll. I said, Ruben, leave me alone. I don't wanna speak about it. I said, yeah. You don't have any choice. Mean, I need to build this product. And, you know, it's kind of really understanding that it's different.
It took me a while to understand why do I need to raise so much in order to build a product because I said, okay. Why? Why people are raising so much funds? And thinking about scale and automation, large scale, and understanding that you really need automation internally.
I mean, not not the one that you need now for the clients or for the product, but internally in order to do things, it's a change of mindset So I think that if you are coming from a very, you know, like, operational, like, background and you have experience with business, first, you need to understand few things. What is the total addressable market? Because it's a completely different mindset. You know, I had a business in Israel.
I was very happy if I had, I don't know, 10% of the Israeli market as clients I mean, as a small business in Israel, it would be a great business and so on. It would never, you know, I mean, last time, it would never be the good use case when you are thinking about setting startup, then assure that you understand what is it the process of building a platform, building a product because it's so different.
It's a completely different mindset complete different process, and you need to do this alignment. So it's a very important process, and I think that's great background, but you need to respect the differences in order to succeed.
Yep. And I think that is, you know, it's a great example of how combining the power of tech and automation with intimate knowledge of, a specific field It can really, really help you run faster and great, you know, the great customer experience that you need much faster than somebody trying to learn in your industry. Let's talk for a second about scaling because that you're one of these really companies and maybe global companies that experienced some of the fastest scaling around.
And you've gone from an early founder to a unicorn CEO with hundreds of employees has changed for you and your company as the company grow? And, you know, what did you change in the way you manage and then the way you lead the company? So I always say that every year, I kind of restructure the company, and it's a completely different company.
And the first thing that I learn is to respect this and to kind of start this process much earlier during the year and to understand that this is part of the process. I have to do so. I have to ensure that I'm rebuilding the organization, asking everything, I mean, challenging everything that we are doing, challenging every process that we are doing. And the second thing, they actually, one of my investors gave me the credit for So I'll quote him and he said, you know what?
I like about you that you always choose, I mean, people that are much more senior than you and their experience, and you are not afraid to bring them to be as part of the company and part of the team. And I think that this is very important. Sometimes we kind of tend to bring people that are timer and so on to be part of this journey, which is great. You need them as well.
But as you are scaling, you need people that can teach you how to scale that been there, done that, that's been to senior positions and can take this organization to grow. Because as you grow, you know, I mean, I hate those words, but this is becoming part of my routine, obviously. Let's build the process. Let's have a guideline.
I don't think that you Beller ever hear an entrepreneur or founders say, I want to build a company because I want to deal with processes and guideline, and I really like it. No. This is probably against our nature. Yeah. Yeah. So bring the people that know how to do it. I mean, I'm the most messy person in the world. I mean, I hate working with processes. I don't respect guidelines personally when I do things because always kind of work very, very messy.
So I try to step out and let other people to lead this and assure that I respect this and I say, okay. This is what the company made in order to succeed. And sometime, I find myself try to break the process. So do and then stopping myself said, okay. No. No. No. No. No. I mean, you're not going to send this email currently. Yeah. If I'm gonna break it, what will everybody else do? Exactly. So, I mean, scaling is something that really affected the company. It's not the same company.
One thing that we did over scaling, and I still think that is very important. And, again, a part of our very transparent DNA that we're trying to keep, we have this monthly update where we sent to the whole company, everything that is related to our metrics. Everybody knows how many clients we added this month. What are the big clients that we added, what are the onboardings, where we are with the metrics. And it's a very confidential information, and we had some dispute about this.
And, I mean, people were telling me, listen, I mean, you know, it's going out of you have so many people and you don't know what they're doing with it. And for me, that's correct. I mean, you know, definitely that's something that I don't want to be leaked from the organization. But if I want people to be part of this organization and I want to show them that we trust them and their partners, I want them to know what's going on.
I mean, outside of their departments, they don't need this information. I want them to have it because this is part of them being part of the scale and the growth. And also, you know, even not fearing that maybe bad things happen and they're not aware. And so what other tips other than maintaining, you know, like full transparency do you have for founders that are going through the hyper growth period? Wow. Sleepless. How can you sleep less when you don't sleep? Yeah. That's correct.
I think mainly always look ahead and plan ahead. I mean, one creative that I received at beginning of 2021 from a founder that took company public few years ago, he told me stop hiring, I mean, all year round because this is really a huge distraction. Have a boot James of hiring. So tell everyone, okay. I mean, we are in January. I want you to hire February, everybody that you need until June. And then in June, hire everyone that you need until December. And then this group will start together.
You will have a boot camp training, it will be much, much easier to the organization to adopt, and you will be ready for the scale. And we did this actually very, very successfully this year. 1, And then we kind of forgot that we did this and, you know, now we are doing it together. We we missed one cycle. I felt that it was a great step for me. It was a great advice. What happens if somebody a real department, like, really desperately needs something in the middle?
You don't let them recruit, or you there's, like, exceptions No. It's not that we don't let them recruit. Of course, that they can recruit, and they're always kind of hiring. But, I mean, we hire in batch. So, I mean, if you need and you know that you're gonna grow the team in 100 clients. So and you know that you're gonna have, for example, 100 account managers that you need to hire during this period. So try to hire them in batch.
And then, obviously, you have some people joining during the year and so on, but, I mean, you have still a very, very strong base that you hired together. And you are doing one training. It's much easier. They get to start as a group. So it's it's much more engaging for them, and they can grow into the craziness and the scaling of company. But, obviously, I mean, it doesn't mean that we are not hiring, I mean, aside this, we are constantly hiring.
But this is what I said that we are going very quickly now from 300, 350 because this is what we're doing currently hiring the next batch. I really like that. That's something that I actually never really heard in almost any company, and I need to think about it, but definitely lots of of having the boot camp together, of having the people start together. I wonder whether it's not a burden of the organization absorbing lots of people at the same time, but I can definitely see the benefits.
Now I wanna go to the last topic, which is one that I know that you get a lot. You know, everybody has been telling your story as the first female unicorn founder in Israel.
For me, you know, the question is not about the unicorn founder, but it you're definitely the example for me of an Israeli start a founder that managed, you know, irrespective of the phenomenal evaluation that managed to create a great organization that's growing very fast that's bringing real value to customers, and it's really on a trajectory to really change your industry.
And so, you know, I've gotta ask you to, you know, And I really hope that the answer is that you don't need to say anything anymore, but I know that that's not really the case. But what would you say to a room of and coming female fans of right now, what would be like the, you know, the pieces of advice that you give them if they wanna be like you one day? I mean, the first advice that I would give them is, you know, understand that you cannot have it all. Okay?
So and we spoke about this offline before we started the podcast that I either came to your great program, to NFX program, because I was pregnant, and it was actually a hard decision. You know, I mean, I needed to choose these days. I mean, if joining a program that I thought that Beller me a lot, then kind of choosing the more rational or more, would say responsible at the time, choice because it was, I mean, it was my first pregnancy.
And honestly, I remember the discussion because I remember my house telling me, look, I'm gonna support you with whatever you want. But, I mean, let's think about the worst case scenario. I mean, what happened if you're traveling to the US? And all of a sudden, I mean, something happens. I mean, you know, your first pregnancy. You don't know what's going on. You're gonna stay there for a few months. I mean, you don't have your doctor with you.
I mean, you're gonna skip some medical routine that you need to do. I mean, do you feel comfortable with this? And I said no. And this was, for me, one of the first time that I felt that I need to make decisions, and I need to make hard decisions. Between choosing my personal, you know, life and things that happens with me and choosing the things that I want for the company.
And when I signs the serious term sheets, I mean, this is the the eventually the round that, took a papaya to the unicorn status. It was 2 weeks after I gave birth. It was my 3rd child. I mean, it was a completely craziness around here. Personally, I didn't want to sign it. Honestly, I knew what means to sign this term sheet, and I knew that's gonna to completely a total craziness to the craziness that already had, I mean, in this period.
And I had to do it for the company because I felt that this is not fair and I sign it, you know, I don't regret it, but I had, I mean, a month that I was really working around the clock. I will try again to find the smallest balance with the newborn that I had here and the other kids that needed me and so on. And it was crazy. It was a completely craziness. So, the first one that we say that I mean, you need to make a lot of compromises.
And I'm never gonna tell anyone that, yeah, you know, it's amazing. It's so easy. You can have it all. This is Farfetch. This is not a reality, and you need to be ready and you need to be prepared. But from the other hand, don't let anyone else tell you If you can or you can do that, that's my own personal, you know, decision. Nobody will tell me if I can be capable to be a CEO a week or 2 weeks after giving birth. This is my own personal decision. No one else. Yeah. I I just love that.
I think that, you know, We have, quite a few female CEOs and the un effects of guilt, and they're definitely as good. If not better than most of the men CEOs. And I think that the is a great piece of advice. You know, no female founder should ever have anybody else think for her Beller she should be to see or not. We wanna see more female LCOs in our companies and in the ecosystem in general. Hey. Not this has been really phenomenal. You're really an inspiration for me.
I love building, and, and I love the humble, quiet, and, you know, and customer experience obsessed manner in which we're doing it. And, I really wanna thank you for spending the time with us. I know how busy you are, and I wanna wish you to keep rocking. And, you know, you're definitely gonna be the first. How did they quote it? The 1st deca corn female founder in Israel? And, you know, more than that. So really, really wanna thank you.
And, you know, I think that also everybody that listened to you has learned a lot, and I'm there's gonna be a lot of learning that people can implement in their company. So thank you very, very much. Thank you. Enjoy the conversation. And meet you in my next startup, one day. One day, definitely. At NFX, we believe creating something of true significance starts with seeing what others do not.
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