00:27:54 · Snow Lee
[00:27:54] S5: Great, great. Thank you for asking. I can talk whole way but let me try to make it short. Our previous product, actually the product is still live and it's running, we have the customers. The product is Runbear and it's helping the customers with the technical support and especially related to the DevOps part. So you can consider it as a little bit vertical side of the AI Copilot. And at the moment, OpenAI Dev Day, OpenAI launched two big products. One is OpenAI GPTs, and other one is OpenAI assistance. We know that the Runbear provides unique backdrop. We know that our product is different, but we were worried, really worried about that. Our customers may not understand that because the building AI is getting more easier and easier. So we needed to compete with not just with the competitors, other players. We need to compete with the engineering teams inside of the customers. That's the point we were stuck and we were shocked. So at the moment we think about it, we consider about it and what we were missing, what we can do and at the time we realized that we spent more time on integrations rather than building the core of AI itself to build the Runbear. So we even research it to find another solutions so that if we can use that kind of integration solutions for the Runbear and we couldn't find find the best one for us. So we jumped in, we spent one or two weeks to launch the product, and just after the launching the product, we got some traction and we are now in the middle of the growth.
00:30:07 · Hannah Lee, Snow Lee
[00:30:07] S6: All right. Well, thank you. I know that that was a very hard moment to sort of say that we're not going to give up and we're going to go in this new direction. And I think especially because this was your third startup, I feel that there must have been a lot of practices that you had to unlearn in order to make those decisions, so can you tell me a little bit more about. The mission that you were trying to achieve as this was your third startup and what kind of things you had to unlearn during the process? [00:30:42] S5: That's a good point. It's difficult to pick but if I choose one thing so I have in mind right away that I needed to unlearn the OKRs. OKR is one of my favorite framework to achieve something. So at the Buzzvil, was one of the biggest fan of the OKRs. You explain [00:31:16] S6: OKR a little bit before you go further?
00:31:16 · Hannah Lee, Snow Lee
[00:31:16] S6: OKR a little bit before you go further? [00:31:19] S5: Great, great. So it stands for the objective and key results. So you can think of it something like the KPIs or other frameworks, but it's a little bit different. The concept is really simple, but still the team decides the objectives and define the key research to track if they are on track or at risk. So we usually run OKRs for each quarter, so we spend quite a lot of time to decide which objectives we are going to pursue this quarter, and then it takes quite much discussion and time to decide which number we will track. And then also there is a concept between the input metrics, output metrics, and then lagging leading metrics. So anyway, it's very good framework. But as a founder, as an early stage founder, we change the objectives every week. We need it. So one the sentence I like is that the agile framework actually it was built for the situations that when the team faces the unexpected situations. So if we use the agile for after building the objective and pursue for three months, maybe agile is not the good framework for that situation. But for us, we need to listen to customers, we need to define the next two weeks objective, totally different objectives this week. So in that case, I needed to unlearn the frameworks I learned.
00:33:08 · Hannah Lee
[00:33:08] S6: All right, all right. That's great, that's great. And a little bit more about also the delegation process, because now that we're talking about frameworks, I think we can talk about how team operates. As being the leader and the founder and you mentioned that you have to determine the suitable situation that you are in in order to delegate the in order to choose the delegation level of the tasks that you're going to give to your TEAM members. But I feel like it's easy to say, but it's really hard to carry out to really objectively see the urgency of a problem and to also align that with your team. And you mentioned a little bit of an example of what your team member, and I was wondering, were there any failures in terms of the delegation that you failed first and then you realized, oh, this is what I should have done.
00:34:05 · Snow Lee
[00:34:05] S5: That's great. That's great question. Yeah, you know, I face it all the time, even now. I mean, yeah, we cannot perfect, we cannot write for all the time and all the things, right? So, that's a good example. So when I think that member can do something by themselves and I used the level four but after the thing is done, actually it was a different direction, totally different direction. Then I give the feedback to him or her, then the whole process should be started again. Right? So that's the that's the wrong delegation, and I faced it time to time. But these days, so I clearly shared my thought and we, all the team, the Runbear team, discussed about how we can manage this delegation. So the alignment is quite important. So every every team members understand what the level of delegation is, and they don't get hurt even if I use the delegation level one because they know that this is decided by the task not the person so that can be very helpful that is very helpful for me now.
00:35:29 · Hannah Lee
[00:35:29] S6: And how you talk to your team members? I'm sure because it's a smaller team now, I feel that there's, I think a lot of early stage founders would resonate with you in terms of how closely you work together as an early startup team. And sometimes I think you also mentioned in the presentation that you have to sort of. Talk think about how you are nurturing your team members versus also being having a successful business and nurturing that business successfully. Because you're working so closely with the team, I feel that sometimes it's very hard for founders to Make that decision to sometimes put the business first or also vice versa, make the decision to see the long term goal, whereas you're a founder, you need to get out there and really serve your business. For you, what has been the biggest part, problem or a challenge in prioritizing the right team or business in terms of choosing the right leadership strategy for you?