Building a Stable Business in a Tough Economy with Maelle Gavet

INTRODUCTION: Welcome to The Daily Bolster. Each day we welcome transformational executives to share their real world experiences and practical advice about scaling yourself, your team, and your business.

Matt Blumberg: Welcome to The Daily Bolster. I'm Matt Blumberg, Co- founder and CEO of Bolster, and I'm here today with Maëlle Gavet. Maëlle is the CEO of Techstars. Good to see you, Maëlle.

Maëlle Gavet: Hi, Matt. How are you?

Matt Blumberg: Good. So I have a timely question. Unfortunately, the timeliness of it seems to be dragging on in life, which is we are in a tough macro environment right now. The economy is slower. We haven't had a recession yet. We might or might not have a recession, but it's clearly going to be an elongated period of low growth, slow growth in the economy, we have rising interest rates. It's just, in general, I think, a more challenging period for founders who need capital, who are looking to scale their businesses. So I would love for you to talk about a few tips that you might have for founders about how to build strong and stable and resilient companies that are positioned for long- term growth in this particular environment.

Maëlle Gavet: We see a lot of founders at Techstars and with a portfolio of 3,600 companies, we have this conversation on a regular basis.

Matt Blumberg: All day, right?

Maëlle Gavet: About the macro environment. It's like, whoa, things have changed a little bit. The thing that we talk to them very regularly is, one, nobody succeeds alone. Techstars is a very, very network driven investment business. We do talk to them a lot about getting the right team, getting the right board, getting the right mentor, getting the right partner, getting the set of people surrounding you just right. And I think it's always important, but in a crisis, in a storm, that is even more important. You want to be on a boat with people that are going to help you navigate the storm in the best way possible, who are going to have your back, who are going to have initiatives when they see a big cloud coming your way. And so this idea of remembering always that nobody succeeds alone, no matter how smart and hardworking you are, is very, very important. The second thing that we teach our portfolio companies about is you need to be data- driven. And it's particularly important during the macroeconomic climate that we are in, because when the stress goes up and the level of unexpected increases with it, there's a natural human mechanism that comes to place, which is you start trusting your instinct a lot more and you start making decision much faster because you feel, or you're completely paralyzed, which we're not going to talk about. But most of the time what founders do, they tend to be on the hyperactive side. And so they start making more and more and more decision and a lot of them are gut feeling rather than data- driven. And so we talk to them a lot about how important it is to be data- driven, particularly during crisis time. It doesn't mean that you have to wait to have the perfect set of data. You should really, really use data as your compass, as you navigate the crisis. And then the last thing I would say, because I think you told me three, is-

Matt Blumberg: You can give me four or five if you have them.

Maëlle Gavet: Is try to embed in your company culture the willingness to pivot. And the word pivot has been used and abused by the tech communities, there was a time where everybody was pivoting all the time. But what I mean by that is the company that tend to be the most successful during a crisis are the ones who are capable to be flexible as more black swans are coming their way, and it becomes a key competitive advantage, that flexibility, that ability to pivot, make them more resilient because basically they're not rigid. And so they have developed that ability to make decision in an uncertain environment and to change the direction and course correct in a decently smooth way.

Matt Blumberg: Those are three great pieces of advice, probably in any environment, but certainly when there are external constraints and there's a little less margin for error.

Maëlle Gavet: Absolutely.

Matt Blumberg: Thanks for being with me, Maëlle.

Maëlle Gavet: My pleasure.