One of my jobs as CEO is to make sure we have enough capital to get things done, to invest in our future, and to pursue our dreams. I look only for investors who share our long-term vision for Fab. We want to build a brand that 10, 20, or even 30 years from now, people will think of when they think of design. I'm overcommunicative with our investors and board members, because the more they know about Fab, the better they can help us. I send email updates on our successes and challenges often, and ask them for help if we have a problem.
Allen Morgan is an investor in Fab, a board member, and a tremendous mentor--I call him once a week to bounce things off him. Another person I rely on is Jeff Jordan. He took OpenTable public as CEO and before that ran PayPal, so he has managed many tough situations. I call on him if I am in a challenging spot. He always has great insights.
We have an all-company meeting every month--this summer, we shared our projected sales. I told everyone, "We're going to do $150 million in sales this year, but, frankly, I don't give a shit if our sales are $130 million or $170 million. I care about the brand we're building and the emotional bond we have with our customers." Those are both critical--and fragile. Right now, I'm focused on how to scale to $1 billion. The best way to get there is to stick to our business goal: If we make people smile, lots and lots of money will follow over time.
We call our customer service team members Crackerjacks, to describe people who go above and beyond. We look for young, hungry, smart people. We tell them up front that if they spend six months as a Crackerjack, they can go anywhere in the company. It's our mailroom. Both Bradford and I spend a few hours every month with customer service. We take calls from Fab users and respond to emails and tweets to make sure we're always in tune with what's going on.
Every day, I scan Twitter for Fab references--if there's a problem, you hear about it there first. I also read our app reviews in the iTunes store. We released a new version last May that got a few one-star reviews--usually we get five stars. So we dug around, and we found out from our users that they didn't like one of the features. It was a "Who moved my cheese?" kind of thing, but we decided to improve it.
I travel often--about two weeks out of every month. We acquired Casacanda, a design site in Berlin, in February. Since the acquisition, Bradford and I have been going to Germany every month. There are 105 people in that office. We also acquired the British design company Llustre in June, so now we are also traveling to London a lot. We're growing so fast that it made more sense to acquire these two companies doing similar things rather than build new ones from scratch. We've mirrored a lot of teams from here to there, so processes are the same. We really want Fab to be Fab everywhere, from the merchandise to the customer experience and the operations. Still, culture is the biggest challenge.
Bradford and I designed the culture here--we're the hardest-working bunch of misfits in the world. He and I spend one to three hours each week interviewing potential hires. If they're overseas, or if we're traveling, we'll Skype. The heads of each team interview for function, and then Bradford and I interview for fit. We want this person to be part of our family.
Bradford and I do the interviews together, and we always ask certain questions. I like to ask people what their parents taught them. And I have them tell me about the most stressful situation they've ever had and how they dealt with it. I also ask people to help me solve a problem I'm thinking about, and I'll often give homework assignments. And I always ask people what they've seen on the site that they liked recently. We're really looking to see, Do potential hires have genuine passion for what we do? Or do they just want a job? We also look for ambition. We don't want people who are just coming in to do a job--we want people who want to be the best at what they do. As a result, we say no to about 20 percent of the people that we sit down with, and we have very little turnover.
Sometimes, I joke that I have two wives. I married my partner, Christian Schoenherr, in August. But Bradford is sort of my first wife--he dictates more of my life. In all seriousness, Chris and I have one date night a week, and Bradford and I do, too, but the dates are very different. Chris and I spend that time getting our minds off work, going out to a nice restaurant, relaxing, and catching up. Bradford and I get out of the office to talk about what is going on in the office.
When I am in New York, Chris comes to the office to pick me up at 7 every night, and we go to the gym together. Chris knows that if he doesn't come here to get me, it could be 8:30 or 9 before I leave the office. But that's also our time together. We enjoy working out together. Then we go home, make dinner, and walk our dog, Rupey.
It's important to have downtime--to get out of the day to day and think about what's coming ahead. Part of my job is managing today, but a larger part has to be figuring out where we have to go tomorrow.
