NZ Business Podcast - Paul Spain
00:53:37 · Jamie Beaton
[00:53:37] S0: So within our team, we really believe that empowering the team to be entrepreneurs and to help build the next frontier of Crimson requires them to have a lot of visibility into what's happening so they can make good decisions, and they've got the context that we have. Because two people with different contexts can think radically different things about the same scenario. So we have a a monthly all hands call, and we have, you know, very clear company KPIs for every year and actually every half. Everything from student outcome goals to revenue metrics to cash flow targets, etcetera, that, you know, are quite transparent with, you know, all the various aspects. We then do some work to kind of explain different financial metrics so people that aren't familiar with finance can, you know, determine kind of what this means and the implications it has, and then we all rally towards those goals. So in the early days, I'd say the idea of sharing some of these goals to me seemed kinda counterintuitive, like people didn't need to know this, you know, and so I was much more guarded with it. But then now, you know, it's wonderful. You know, we share our employee engagement statistics. We, you know, share our revenue share, all the different goals, share all of our student success, which, you know, everybody's really excited about. So that would be my, you know, approach now. You've gotta be a bit careful because sometimes, know, those statistics, you know, you want them to be empowered within your team, but then you don't want, for example, your competitors to have all your different goals right. So there's a bit of a balance, but, you know, we trust the team, so we, you know, share that openly within the all hands formats, etcetera. And I think, generally, as you get bigger and bigger, you kinda have to do that. So there's a limit to how much kinda guarding you can do, particularly if you aspire to, you know, be a company of scale and significance.
00:55:04 · Paul Spain
[00:55:04] S1: Yeah. How much of a challenge was it for you to sort of, you know, get through that knowing that really any any any private information soon is is public information, right, at one point in time or another, or or it can be. So, you know, there's no guarantee, you know, that that anything, you know, you say in a, you know, particular context won't sort of, you know, end up outs... Out, you know, outside of the business. Have you have you sort of, you know, had to work in quite tight sort of nondisclosure agreements and, you know, and and processes to help with that? And, yeah, like, I mean, going from, you know, one end of the scale where it's like, okay, well, this stuff's all private and it doesn't matter to the team to, you know, where you've landed, and I'm sure there are there are variations beyond that too. Yeah. Walk us through that.
00:55:52 · Jamie Beaton
[00:55:52] S0: So I guess if you think of... I'll give you a funny example. Take Facebook. Right? So they they went through some challenges during the twenty sixteen election when there was a lot of scrutiny around, you know, their handling off, you know, Russian hacking, etcetera. Every time there was a company all hands call, whatever Zuckerberg would say would get, you know, leaked to all of the media. And so for him, basically, you know, he had to be entirely aware that whenever he spoke, that was just public information, essentially. That was the test probably he had to operate with. And so I think that, you know, as... The earlier you you can get into a state where you just assume whatever you say, you know, everyone from your, you know, your your grandmother to your customers, to your parents, to, you know, random stakeholders in the media would, you know, cover, you know, the better, I think. And, you know, we're not in a particularly sensitive industry in terms of, like, things like financial data, such that it really is that big a deal. What we really care about is student privacy. So protecting, you know, students' names and information, things like this, you know, child safety standards, which have a very high bar. So that's the area we're kinda hardcore on. But as far as other areas of our, you know, like strategy, etcetera, we, you know, we share with the team, aware, you know, aware of the fact that there's some risks involved, but we think net net, it's worth it. I think if you were like a company like Palantir or something and, you know, you have a lot of scrutiny around you and, you know, how... You know, your clients, etcetera, for various, I guess, political reasons, you know, or not, maybe you've got to be more careful in that environment, I think. Or if you're like a venture capitalist and, you know, your deal terms for a certain company have to be quite private, I think it's quite different. But for, you know, operation like us, we serve, you know, students and families and parents, and, you know, what we provide is pretty straightforward. It's it's not so much a big deal, I think.
00:57:27 · Paul Spain, Jamie Beaton
[00:57:27] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now let's talk about the the next phase of the business because you're looking now at a at a younger audience. Tell us, you know, what this online high school looks like. [00:57:41] S0: Yeah. Sure. So [00:57:42] S1: And how the... And how it came and how it came about? How did you make that decision to adjust, you know, adjust the business or, you know, add this new area? [00:57:50] S0: So rewinding all the back to high school. Right? In high school, I did 10 a levels, and most students were three or four, which meant I had to do many subjects kinda outside of school with self study, things like this. And I thought it was quite unusual how I had to go through school where, you know, this this year I do this level of math, this year I do this level of math, and I felt quite constrained because in certain subjects I wanted to go faster. Mhmm. And so that was a personal observation I had. So when we first kicked off Crimson, I'd recommend many of my kids to extra subjects. We help them, you know, enroll in private exams, send us things like that. And so I think about that boy, Smile, that I just mentioned, or take Zhong Huang. Zhong grew up in McLean's College. He he now works for Google's Waymo team in Silicon Valley. He went to Caltech, and he took, I think, six or seven different a levels when he was in school. [00:58:31] S1: Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:32 · Jamie Beaton
[00:58:32] S0: Now that was that was in the back of my mind. And then fast forward, we had many kids doing these subjects through tutoring online, etcetera. Yep. And then when I went to The US, I saw the online high schools there. For example, there was an online high school that, you Elon Musk sends his kids to, and they were achieving incredible academic results. And I thought, wow. Like, this really syncs to what I'm seeing at Crimson across all these learnings. Yeah. You know, what could we do with this? So then that got me thinking and then triggered me to really create, you know, Crimson Global Academy, our online high school. So this is a fully registered high school, registered in New Zealand and in America. We teach the British a levels as well as the AP, the advanced placement, the American curriculum. So we've got students from Keri Keri to, you know, Remuera to, you know, Christchurch that basically are hopping online part time or full time. So part time, you go to your physical school, then take extra subjects outside of school, after school, or on the weekends, and you're part of our global community, these great teachers, the supercharged learning environment, or you go full time. And this is your full school experience, with all of the extracurriculars and, you know, other aspects included. And that's really what we're building at the moment. So we launched that school earlier this year, about six months ago or so, and that's really gone gangbusters. So past a lot of our growth expectations, we've now got kids from more than 20 countries. As I said, it's headed by John Morris and also Mark Phillips, who came from Maclean's. Maclean's the school we helped guide the ducks to get into Harvard five years in a row. Incredible student community, very ambitious, and we knew he was a bit of a rock star, so we brought him on board. And then many other top teachers that have come out of these great schools. And the wonderful thing about an online high school is you're no longer constrained to meeting kids that just live near you or teachers that happen to live near the school. Our teaching pool is from the world stage, and our students are sitting in class with kids from Russia, from China, you know, from Auckland and learning together, and also at this faster accelerated pace.
01:00:13 · Jamie Beaton, Paul Spain
So about 45% of our kids are learning at an accelerated pace, and my goal is to make sure that any Kiwi anywhere in the country can tap into an education that will legitimately make them competitive enough to succeed, you know, anywhere in the world stage, because there is a bit of an achievement gap between, you know, various education systems around the world. If you compare, for example, many of our Kiwi schools to schools in Singapore or Korea, there's big gaps. And so I wanna make sure that, know, you can move to New Zealand and really be com... Comfortable with the environment you're in. And so CGA is, you know, really the next evolution of Crimson. I mean, really, really hope it will kind of broaden the access to our really, you know, quite powerful education system to more families. [01:00:48] S1: And I guess it gives you a pipeline as well of, you know, of students to help them, you know, get into Harvard and the and the like.