My guest today is Murat Mutlu who is the cofounder & CEO of the design platform Marvel and research platform Ballpark. Interview Video: https://youtu.be/iXv4tqlL6vc In this episode, we discuss the following: - Murat Mutlu bio - How working at a design agency makes you better at sales - Why work on side projects as a designer - How to build trust with your cofounders - Do you have to be best friends with your cofounders - What to look for in a cofounder for your first project/startup - Is it necessary to have same interests, hobbies as your cofounders - Red flags to look out for in a potential cofounder - Biggest regret before starting a company - Building a strong network before starting a new venture - Transitioning from designer to a CEO - Focusing less on design after becoming a CEO - What if you can't level up in your role as CEO to meet the company needs - It's all about sales - Why keep the company located in London - Choosing not to build a personal brand - Freeing up your time as CEO to think about the future - How to stay motivated over the years working on the same problem - How to not get distracted with side projects as a CEO - How to get in touch with Murat Mutlu For show notes, guest bio, and more, please visit: www.designmba.show
Murat Mutlu is the cofounder & CEO of the design platform Marvel and research platform Ballpark.
INTERVIEW VIDEO:
https://youtu.be/iXv4tqlL6vc
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Namaste and welcome. I am Jayneil Dalal and you are listening to the design MBA which is a real-life MBA program for designers. You will learn how to launch a side hustle and level up your design careers from the interviews rock star designers.
Jayneil Dalal: Today's amazing guest is Murat Mutlu who is the co-founder and CEO of the design platform Marvel and the research platform Ballpark.
Murat, welcome to the show, man.
Murat Mutlu: Thanks for having me. Really excited to chat to you today.
Jayneil: Man, you have no idea. So, here's the crazy thing. I do a lot of intermittent fasting. So, yesterday I told to myself that “Okay, I want to start this fast.” And I knew I had to interview with you. So, literally, I told myself that “If I can make it all the way till our interview ends, then I can have this chocolate” right here.
Murat: Oh wow! Hopefully, it's going to be worth the wait for putting yourself through that. So, I bet make it good. So, let's get into it.
Jayneil: No, absolutely. For me, I just realized that a lot of these things are about training the mind, about doing hard things. And then sometimes it's easier to be through with the body. So, when I tell myself that “For 20 hours to 24 hours you're not going to eat any food” and the body goes through that tough time, it kind of also tells your mind that “Hey, you can do this.”
Murat: Yeah, yeah. I guess the same method of access take, right? It's like they put themselves in situations where their body is doing a certain thing so that the way they're able to produce a scene or the acting through that. So, yeah, I get it. It's not something I would do. It sounds hellish, I just … I can barely go … I could barely go half hour without food. So, well done for that.
Jayneil: Yeah. So, I’m going to take the whole time and rewind it back a lot and trying to go to the point where Murat was a senior designer or just a designer working at a company, working in an agency. Talk to me about that phase.
Murat: So, I had been working as kind of a creative/designer for a little while in various agencies and startups. And I think I got to the point where you just take on more responsibility or you want more responsibility. And because of that, I started to sort of move up through different roles in different companies to the point I was a senior designer. And back then, I think, I was probably in an agency. That's where I spent a lot of my time in my kind of early career and you're kind of responsible for kind of pitches or leading certain projects and so on. And design was very different back then as well. It wasn't the way it is today.
Jayneil: What was it like?
Murat: I think it was a lot more structured. It was … It just felt like the tools didn't give you the structure and you had to kind of do it yourself and things are all over the place and just … styles were not what they are today. So, taste was different. Platforms were different. iOS was different. Web had capabilities as good as today. So, it was just a different time. And, actually, there was probably a lot less to do. There wasn't various screen sizes. There was just one and done kind of experience. You cut assets yourself, you exported stuff out and all that.
Jayneil: What tools were you using?
Murat: Photoshop mainly. I mean, back then there was only Photoshop. Sketch wasn't on the scene yet. So, yeah, that was my only career. And looking back now, I wasn't actually very good at it, I just realized looking back at it like … so, every now and then, you open a folder with your old working and it was really shit like I wasn't particularly good. I think I was finding my feet but I managed to somehow get to a senior position while still trying to find where I was. And design at that time, I think, was quite forgiven. You could get quite far because there just wasn't a lot of people in it. You’d just get quite far because you had some experience in working across iOS or whatever. And, yeah, I managed to get to a senior position. So, yeah, I think, through that, I was really determined to get better at design and I really loved following people with certain styles or certain products they built and I was just like “I want to be as good as that.” And so, I basically just practiced, practiced, practiced and then eventually got a bit better. And, yeah, that kind of experience for being in an agency, I think, it didn't really make me a better designer but I think what it did do is just teach me more about having to pitch my own work, which you do pretty much every week or two there. So, you have to justify a wire. You did certain things. You have to take people on a journey with you. That kind of storytelling is really, really important now for me, I think …
Jayneil: You got better at …
Murat: If there was anything I take away from that … basically, yeah, just selling, isn't it? You're essentially. You're learning how to be a salesperson for your own work, which, I think … I didn't realize at the time, I’m probably sure a lot of people don't, as they get into sort of becoming a … thing and being a co-founder or whatever but majority of it is selling like selling to hire, selling to sell your products, selling to convince investors. All that stuff, it's kind of the same thing and you've got to try and get people excited about what you're doing. And a lot of those things came from that experience in working in agencies where I just stood up in boardrooms or wherever just constantly trying to justify what I put together, some mock-ups or whatever. So, it was a good experience.
Jayneil: So, you're doing all this stuff. You're a designer, you're learning the process of selling, you're getting better at design. And then … I’m trying to understand what made you decide that “Hey, you know what? I think I’m going to start tinkering on side projects, just like build side projects and have something outside of the agency life.”
Murat: Yeah, I think, it's because … it felt tech went from kind of having changes every couple of years to just new things coming out every month. And, yeah, it was in the kind of era where everyone was reading TechCrunch and things were getting funded and launching and it just felt there was a new product every other day that was doing something new. And the App Store came out and, yeah, it's just these real big leaps in product. Previously, it was just you had a few major websites around the things that you use but there wasn't that kind of range of what you have now. So, as these things started to come out, naturally, if you're a curious person, you'd want to explore the tech that made these things or the APIs these things have released and so on and so on and I kept trying to do that through my role and just was unable to because of the business having other requirements and resource constraints and all those things. So, it was very hard at that time, especially when you're in an agency, to find likeminded people because it's so project by project and you're always trying to win new work and it never feels anyone has the time or the willingness to pay for you to explore stuff because you're basically on the clock for some rate card somewhere. So, that led to me wanting to do it myself and finding people who I’d worked with who also felt that way and then maybe just doing it outside of work. So, that's kind of how it started and I was fortunate enough to work with some really great people who are now my co-founders at Marvel and Ballpark where they had the same curiosity, the same drive to make stuff. We just had different talents. They were great at engineering and I was okay at design. And that led to this amazing combination where you just sit down … you come in, at lunch time just sitting there on a table or in between sort of work and calls and emails you're just talking about new stuff that's coming out and you're sharing links and go “Look at this thing. Look at this thing. This is sick.” Imagine if you could play around with this. And just leads into “Let's just do this, you know. Let's just try something and build a little thing where we mess around with some new API or SDK or something like that” which is how we actually did start this. We played around with something really simple which was just experimenting with the accelerometer in the iOS which at that time was new and that was how me and Brendan, my co-founder and CTO, I think, was our first kind of side project together. And it was very quick. In a weekend we got it done and barely anyone used it and looked at it but it was still a very good moment to see that actually you don't need this big machine of your employer behind you. You can just go and do this shit yourself. And that was enough to go. I’m hooked now, right” It's like you just had this shot of truth juice or something and just like “Oh shit! This is actually what we're capable of. This is what we can do.” And then the next project after that was a bit bigger, which was more of a product. It was an iOS app. And then the project after that became Marvel. So, there was a couple of … there was a couple of steps. And they weren't like months apart. They were years apart but the same people who I worked on those with became my co-founders and ended up starting a company together.
Jayneil: Oh wow! So, you built that trust with them. So, through all these side projects, you're working with the same set of crew, same set of people, you're building that trust, you're understanding how each other works. So, eventually when Marvel came around, all of you already had that trust that “Hey, yes, we can become co-founders.”
Murat: 100% So, you get to know these … you get to know them as friends and we were friends anyway but you get to also know a bit about what they want from Life, what they expect to do at work, what makes them excited, right? And you end up … I think, the trust that you have and your trust in their abilities, your trust in their commitment, all comes from that experience of getting to know them. We went away as well like we want to travel together and all that stuff. So, you're basically … the whole cliché is getting a co-founder or co-founders is like being in the marriage and so on. And it's true because if you're starting a company with someone, unless you decide to shut it down in the first year, you're going to probably be together on that for years to make it work, right? Because year one, you're still trying to find out what you're trying to do; year two, even if you are successful, it's starting to grow a bit. And then year three, you're off to the races. That's a long time to spend with someone every day and you're in the office or wherever with them for a large portion of the day. So, how would you be able to do a commitment that without really knowing them.
Jayneil: But then do you have to be … do you have to be best friends with them? For example, I work with a lot of people at work. I mean, they're good work friends, I would say, like acquaintances or colleagues, I would say, but they're not necessarily my best friends that I just talk about the recent Liverpool game or Arsenal game. So, when it comes to co-founders, do you think that you have to be the best buds or best friends or can you just have a good working relationship and that's that?
Murat: I mean, I think you could do both. I don't think … I’m sure there are plenty of successful really … successful start-ups which is just like “Let's just keep this business and have that relationship” and there are others which are probably more of a much closer bond or friendship and stuff. I don't know. I think it certainly makes it easy. Well, I feel it makes it easier knowing the co-founders the way I do and having that relationship with them but I’m also sure that there are certain people and certain types who maybe … it's like their third or fourth business or startup and maybe at that point, it's less important because you're just like “Look, I just want this person who I’m going to sort of head hunt from this place and start a business.” So, I’m sure that's possible. I just think when you're starting up and you're a first-time founder, it's a real riot like there's a whole host of stuff that will come your way and your life will start to morph and sort of change based on these experiences and depending on your age as well like if you're on the younger side, I think, that having someone a relatively same age who's going through the same experience allow you to enjoy it more, if that makes sense. I think there are things that you do that … when you're at that point, there are just much more enjoyable together but everyone's different. That was my experience. Anyway, I just felt like we're pretty much the same age …
Jayneil: I see.
Murat: We're all the same age. So, we basically felt like you're just on this life journey together where all of the things you're doing are shared equally like you're either going on company holidays together, you're going on trips to the festival, all those sorts of things. I felt we’re able to experience all that together.
Jayneil: If I were to ask you like do you have friends outside of the co-founders that you hang out with also? They're are also … maybe you're even more closer to them but they're not your co-founders, just …
Murat: As in people from the company?
Jayneil: Outside friends, not your co-founders. So, you said your co-founders are …
Murat: Oh yeah, of course, yeah. Yeah, I’ve got … I’ve got my … I’ve got my friends from when I was at school to my friends from university to all of that, which I see as frequently as I can. One of my best friends lives around the corner. And so, that … of course, I think … so, you would that as well. So, again, it's like everyone's situation is different. I just think … would I do some of the things that we did when we started Marvel now? No because I’ve got two kids. It would be really stressful to do those things now. Actually, I just really … I’d rather sleep than doing some of the things we did back then but no, now, you my views on the world are different as are my co-founders’
Jayneil: So, I guess what I was trying to get to is you have your friend around the corner that you're really close with, you hang out with and maybe you called your friend around the block, your best friend. So, is the intention that your co-founder gets to the same level as a best friend, as your friend around the block or it doesn't have to be that level?
Murat: I mean, I think it's different … like I said, it's different for everyone. I think it's … I spend much more time with my co-founders than I do with my friends, yeah. So, I see them … so, I see them all the time. I think the thing is that shouldn't be your expectation. I guess, maybe this is how I’d describe it. I would easily … I’d be happy to spend a week on holiday with even my co-founders and I’d have a great time. I think I’m able to spend personal time with them and business time and I enjoy both. They're super talented plus they're really funny and I get on with them really well. And I would just say probably you're spending eight hours or more a day with these people. What kind of experience do you want to have in those eight hours, right? Yes, you could get on with someone business level and I’m sure that that's completely fine, especially if you're smashing it. It doesn't really matter how you get along but I think I want to enjoy those eight hours and I want to be around people that I like. So, that's the choice I made. And I think, yeah, it would be a shame to not have that for the amount of time spent on something and just be like “Yeah, let's just get this meeting over and done with so I can get back to work” and not really want to find out more about who I’m working with but, again, everyone's different. I know people who have started stuff with co-founders that they've found randomly at an event or whatever and they're not the best friends in the world but the co-founder is super talented and they make things worse and it's a successful company. So, it doesn't really matter. It just depends on the person where you are in your life and what you want. And I know people who are just like “I’ve got kids. I need to go home. I don't really care and that's what I want to do” and other people who want like “I want this kind of style of working.” So, completely there's a flavor for everyone. It just depends on what you. So, I would just say from, for me personally, I like people who I get alone with … I mean, it sounds … of course, who doesn't, but I like people I can spend time with outside of work and enjoy the company and not even be work related, go out, whatever, holiday, drink, dinner and you'll have a great time. So, that's my preference.
Jayneil: Love it. Love it. These are all the questions … you're like 10 steps ahead of me. So, me bombarding with all these questions is like answering so many questions in my own head.
Murat: Yeah, it's all good. And I think it depends on what you're doing. If you're trying to find a co-founder the first thing you're doing, I think, there's a lot of trust in the first thing you do because you don't want to get burned by someone leaving halfway, you're going to give like … if you're two of you 50-50 each and then they're not committed and then all of a sudden, you're left with something that's half finished and you can't find anyone else or maybe you get a bit of funding and then they leave, all those scenarios that are things that happen a lot. And I think that the stat is that the large majority of startups fail not because of money but because of the co-founders falling out, right? So, that's something to be aware of. And I’ve heard stories where people have started stuff and the other person's just walked even post funding and it's really problematic. So, to avoid all those things, you just want to make sure that you know that person and what they want, what motivates them and as long as … I’d say, the one thing is like as long as someone's putting in the same amount of effort as you, you can't really argue with it. I think that's fine whether they're your friend or best friend or they're just a working, it’s a working relationship. As long as the effort levels are the same, then you haven't really got much to worry about.
Jayneil: It's like, with me, I’ve found amazing people that I worked and collaborated with but the things that I do outside of work where I unplug like I might watch a soccer game, I might do other things, and then the people that I work with in a business capacity or work capacity, they might be wanting to just talk about work or they might be different outside of the work setting. So, the reason I was asking all these questions is because I get along with them amazingly when we're working together, there's a level of trust, but then outside of work, we are different people, if that makes sense.
Murat: Yeah, yeah, which is fine, I think. I wouldn't get too hung up on that especially if the working relationship is …
Jayneil: Like there are other best friends …
Murat: … enjoy that time and then …
Jayneil: … I would rather go on a trip with. We were talking about you don't mind traveling with them …
Murat: Of course.
Jayneil: Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at.
Murat: Yeah. I mean, look, when you get a co-founder, the aim isn't to replace your best friend or to have a new best friend. It's basically to build something special with someone you know and have a commitment from them to be on the same part, the same level as you in terms of commitment, energy, shared values, what you want to build, mission, all that stuff. I think those are the things that make the business work. The other things are what make maybe some of the more enjoyable parts better but, like you said, like as long as they're nice people, you don't really have to … you haven't really got anything to worry about, right? Yeah, someone might cricket, someone might like rugby. It won't make a difference. There's plenty of … my co-founders, we don't like the same stuff, I mean, not all the same stuff. It's actually quite funny how different we are because it's just really amusing when we choose things to do or I go to things they I like and to do. So, for example, one of my co-founders likes dive bars and I don't like dive bars and I hate going into them but I go into them anyway because I’m like whatever. It's like you just want to hang out and just … the conversation's still the same but the setting's different. So, yeah, that's a very lightweight example but … I mean, yeah, I think that's … if the other parts are ticking the boxes, I won't worry too much those bits you mentioned.
Jayneil: I’m very new to this, of course, compared to you but what I try to like focus on is can I trust this person like, trust this big thing morally or can I trust this person to like not do shady stuff. And, for me, like finances, can I trust them? And if that checks the box, I feel, for me, a lot of other things fall into place because if I can't trust this person financially to be good on their word or just morally like not do shady stuff, then it's very hard for me to fathom working with them.
Murat: 100%. Yeah, if you've got concerns about someone financially, I would say … yeah, I would stop that relationship straight away. I think it would be … yeah, if they don't pass that test …
Jayneil: And I was like “Oh my god! This is elementary level question” but … I mean, I’m just going to say …
Murat: Well, I’m kind of thinking … I’m thinking who are you talking to like what kind of people are you meeting that you're not really able to trust them financially but … I mean, yeah, there are some fundamentals here. Values are important. There are all sorts of behaviors in people that you would just be like “That's a red flag. I don't want that.”
Jayneil: It's true.
Murat: That's important too.
Jayneil: It's not like I’m always talking to people that are like that but it's just like when I think about my own process like yours, I would say that's where I start off like “I don't know this person. We've just met maybe through the podcast or something like that. So, can we connect on this level first?” and then all these other ones are like … slowly we progress there.
Murat: Yeah, of course, it'll take time. I mean, if you don't have … I was really fortunate to have gotten to know my co-founders through working with them for a long time. So, that's not something everyone gets. Then it's like how do you get to that point without those years and years of working together to understand if this person is someone you want to spend the next potentially five or more years with on a business and what are the things that you need to get right in your mind to make that happen. And likewise, the other person too, right? It’s a two-way street. You'll both be sharing the percentages of the company equally. Most likely so that's the thing you've got to go through on your checklist to make sure they're the right fit. And there are … I can't remember any off top of my head but, I mean, there are plenty of examples where people have met in unusual circumstances or in ways where it wasn't just like … they weren't particularly looking for it and then they built these amazing companies. What was that one about Uber is like … I think Travis and some other dude was out, so they were outside waiting for a cab in the rain and they were like “Oh, this sucks.” They both talk to each other “It’s rubbish” and then next you know, they've actually solved this and, all of a sudden, the company happens because they were both waiting for a cab together in the rain. So, yeah, there's loads of examples but, I mean, yeah, it's just about is that person someone you want to spend that time with and are you going to get to where you need to together.
Jayneil: So, at what point did you realize that the co-founders … like you and your co-founders have worked on a couple of projects before Marvel and then Marvel happens. At what point did you all realize like “Hey, let's all quit all the agency work, the day job that we're doing and then go all in on this Marvel.”
Murat: So, it was a little bit … I think it was when … we had been talking about for a while and it started to seem just based on the numbers that something was happening and there was an opportunity to do it properly. And we've been building on it, even the weekends, doing the whole kind of side project thing. And once we released it and we saw the people using it and actually it wasn't slowing down like more and more people were hearing about it and signing up and it was really interesting and some of the names signing up were companies, we loved, were like “Okay, this is probably worth some more time.” And I was really fortunate that I had previously done some freelance work for a company in the UK, which is called Kiddy Care, which is basically a department store, online store for kids’ stuff like clothes, toys, whatever. And when I decided to try and raise money for Marvel, I reached out to my network and I was just like “Does anyone know any investors?” And it just so happened that the CEO of that company had decided to become an angel and start a fund called Hatch and we were their first investment. So, I just reached out to him, I was like “Look, I’m starting my own thing.” We'd already had a couple of meetings when I was freelancing in there and I think he could see that I was hopefully good at what I did. And then, yeah, it made it a lot easier. So, I think network is everything actually like more … 100% today is basically … one thing I really regret is that I didn't spend enough time doing that before starting. I just had my agency work grow with networking like asking people to go for coffee, getting people to look at whatever I put together, whether it's a blog post, whether it's work and just expanding out beyond the agency world that I was in because everything gets so much easier when you when you do start building that network. And I think that without it it's much harder. And it was really hard at the beginning because once we got things rolling, getting seed investment was really challenging and it was just a lot of … there weren’t a lot of funds at the time. It was very different time back then. Got rejected a lot and was running out of people to talk to and, fortunately, someone who I knew, I’d met previously, who was a CEO of a company did an intro and I just got investment two weeks later. So, it is about building that network out and letting people know who you are, what you're working on, what you're passionate about. And when things come up, you'll be front of mind. People don't know about things they don't know about. So, how do you make sure that they know …
Jayneil: So, what I’m hearing is what I’m doing right now via the podcast, putting myself in front of people like you, if I were to do something in the future, should that opportunity and moment come, then it's much easier for me to reach out to you and say that “Hey, I’m doing this” or “doing that” versus just randomly reaching out to you the first time.
Murat: 100%. So, if you … yeah, exactly. So, let's say we hadn't met and you reached out to me of all the whatever … I mean, cold emails that I get every day, right? How would that one be one that stood out? And it'd be very difficult because there's just so … there's so much stuff that's happening every day like there's so many things that are taking our attention whether it's Slack and email and Twitter whatever else and life outside of the screen. So, having this conversation now means that at some point in the future I may be able to be helpful for you. I don't know how. Hopefully, I can be but it'll be much easier for you through this conversation, for whatever I know or whatever network I built up, to tap into that, right? So, that's kind of how you do it. Now, that's not to say everyone who wants it will get it because you're asking for something, right? And to do things like that, you have to kind of demonstrate certain things like hopefully you're a nice person, hopefully the thing that you're talking about is interesting and passionate. So, if you came to me with something “I’m thinking of starting … I’m thinking about starting … let's say … what's the best way to … an estate agent or something like that, which is like a realtor, right? I don't know anything about that. I can't help you, right? So, the things have to be relevant to what my space is which is typically creativity, productivity, SaaS but if you say “Okay, I’m looking at getting into building a recruitment service,” I’ll be like “Look, I don't really know that many people that could help with that or investors or anything like that.” So, hopefully, the people that you're picking to ask are like the main experts of some sort, right? And I’ve had people reach out and ask for certain things and I’m like “I honestly have no idea how I can help you like I don't know anyone in this space or whatever it could be.” Lots of things at the moment … just being in this position, I do get a lot of inbound and I’d love to help where I can but sometimes I just don't have any ability to do it. And so, yeah, depending on that but generally speaking, yeah, it's a really good idea to do things like this or whatever else. And it can literally just be DMing someone on Twitter and going “Listen, I read this post you did or this tweet. I really agree. Here's a couple of thoughts on why I agree. If there's any chance we can chat about it in the future, I’d love to jump on Zoom or whatever.” It's even just that. And replying to tweets, replying to posts on blog posts in the comments section, email all those things are possible. It just depends like how you do it and when you do it but hopefully … I to think that most people like to pay it forward. I wouldn't have been here if someone didn't give me the time and helped out. So, where I can do it, I do try and hopefully this helps someone …
Jayneil: It's helping me and it's going to help a lot of other people. And once again, thank you for just doing this, paying it forward right now.
Murat: That's all right. It's all good.
Jayneil: Now, you've started Marvel. You've got the funding in, right? You've got amazing investors Mills and you're all in on this. So, you decide to be the CEO, right? And before this, you were the senior designer. So, you were in an individual contributor capacity leading projects and now you're the CEO. So, I’m kind of curious to know how does that leveling up look because both are very different roles?
Murat: Yeah. I mean, it's basically learn as you go, right? Now, you get advice along the way. Your investors are telling you stuff and you're reading but then it's the real-world situations that help you understand what really this all means. And at the beginning, it was really hard to understand what exactly it was like you go out and get some investment and you're like “Wow. Okay, it's my job now. I go raise funds and do this.” And you start to take on more responsibility because, okay, there's no one to do customer support, there's no one to do Marketing, Sales, Design. And eventually, if you're fortunate enough to be able to hire into those roles and then you build out that team and then your role changes again because you don't have that stuff to do anymore, then you're like “Okay, what do I do now?” like “I used to do payroll but now, I need to do something else because I’ve got someone to do that.” And then you start realizing what you're responsible for is essentially the health and wellbeing of the company, its vision, its health and setting direction and the course for everyone to jump on with and then of course hiring and all those other things. So, yeah, that is also a part of it and it changes over time and you have to keep forgetting what you've learned and relearning and if you've got bad habits, they could get even worse once you're CEO like timekeeping or responding to emails, all that. If you're just not good at those things, you just get worse at them, it'll just amplify things that you're not good at. And instead of … so, one thing … I mean, I don't know how other people who have been through this feel about it but I’ve got some great people around me in my team and they're really … like a lot of them know me really well probably in some ways better than I know myself. And often what I had done in the past was try to be good at the things I wasn't good at because I thought that I had to have this kind of … these number of skills under my belt because I had to be a certain type of way but what they've kind of taught me … it’s like “Oh, you've got a gap here and you've got to do that” but actually, what you really probably should be doing is the things that you're really good at, do that more and then bringing other people to help with the things that you're not good at. So, fill the gaps with people who love doing that stuff or are really good at it. And once I started to figure that out, I’m like “Actually, I embrace the bits I’m shit at.” You can't be good at everything. Not everyone's good at everything. You can't be a really great designer and a really great developer and a CEO. There's very few like people that. And there are new things kind of happening all the time like marketing will change, product growth will come and new sales methods, all sorts of things. You're just not going to be good at all of them but what you may be good at is like … in my case, if storytelling and strategy and product design and things that are your strong points, speaking to customers, do all that stuff. Then ramp that up. That's where … that's where you're good at. And that's not to say you shouldn't know how to read your accounts or something like that or your some legal documentation. You should be able to read it but you should be able to put it together maybe but that's not your strength to write a legal document or an accounting writeup or whatever. The goal is to just use your strengths, they've got you here in the first place, try to tweak and build on them and refine them and then hopefully get rid of the things that you're not good at to people who are really good at them and then it'll serve you better. So, that helps a lot. And I think that embracing that a bit more over the last couple of years has helped. So, yeah, I think that was how I would say that you can change in this but you are forced to change a lot of ways because you just have … you just have different responsibilities. As soon as you start hiring, things change.
Jayneil: This is so mind-blowing because this is very counterintuitive because normally the normal advice is let's learn all these skills. And then very often I found myself that … like even with the podcast, for example, what I’m really good at is building relationships, connecting with people, cold networking and stuff. What I may not be that good at is like, let's say, distribution, for example, just like creating viral threads on Twitter and increasing massive follower count. It's not to say I cannot do it but I enjoy this right now like talking with you way more than figuring out how can I get this post to a million views. You see what I’m saying? So, I slowly become more aware of those things and hearing you say that just gives me that assurance that “Okay, this is all right.”
Murat: Yeah. Then the challenge is “How do I find someone that's really good at it and get them excited about why they should work for me when they could work for anyone else?” Another thing that happens during this process is the things that you're originally good at sometimes are things that you're no longer good at because you've not been practicing them. So, for design, for example. I’m not a good designer anymore because I’m surrounded by people who are better designers than me and they do a much better job. So, one of the things that I came into this with, I could do that but now it's like there is no need for me to get involved in that even though that's like … it’s part of my identity, right? It's like “I’m a designer. I want to design” but if I’m looking at my own work and going “There's stuffs out there that are much better now and people around me are doing much better work,” it's like what's the point of me wasting people's time trying to do stuff? So, I think it's very easy to fall back into what you think you know because there's comfort there, you're just like “I know how to open a design tool and put together some rectangles and make a UI” and I could easily lose myself in a couple of hours in doing that but there are people who do better stuff than me. So, why bother? Yeah. And I think that that's what we're eventually … that's what eventually happened to a lot of the skills you have. So, then you just pick the things that you've been doing, the busy work, it's no longer the stuff that people care about. The things that people care about is that how you manage the company and that's eventually going to be the goal.
Jayneil: What I’m trying to figure out is obviously there's no book that's written just for you like “Okay, this is how you become a startup CEO.” Sure you can watch videos, you can read articles but you're not the only person trying to figure it out there's a lot of other startups where people in the same Journey trying to figure that out, some of them maybe in the same space, some of them may be competitors. So, it's like every day you're trying to be better in this new role of a CEO. And what I wonder is like that fear that “Okay, what if I cannot figure this thing out like being better at this or letting go of the bad habits and what if that tanks the company?”, not tanks the company but like “If I’m not able to scale up that quickly in my growth, maybe that will hinder the company growth.” How do you deal with that?
Murat: I think the first thing is to identify if that's the case, right? Let's say your decision making is really poor and you've not set the company on the right course. Hopefully, you have people around you, especially if you have investors, I’m sure they'll be the ones to tell you first. And then if you have honest co-founders, they'll be the ones to tell you even before that, I think. So, if you're unable to achieve something for the good of the company, then you have a couple of options and one is to either fix that and get better quickly depending on where you are in the business or the other one is to step down and let someone else do it. So, if you think that some are more capable or someone is ready to take that on and maybe you take a different role and that's also a possibility. So, that happens too. That happens in companies who are really far along and doing really well and their CEOs decide that maybe it's no longer for them or the co-founders decide no longer for them and they hire a CEO. And that's completely fine and that's actually a similar … that's a similar thing to what I described to you earlier is like you hire people to fill in the gaps you're no longer good at. And if it turns out that one of those gaps is that role that you're no longer fulfilling because maybe, for example, when it does happen, maybe you like the marketing side of it, maybe you more like the product development side and those are the things that get you passionate and you're fortunate enough at that point to bring in someone to replace the CEO side of it and you can do that too. It depends. There's no one way of doing things in this. Everything's able to be changed. It's just where … you put the company first usually and make sure you're doing what's best for the company and the team. And if you do feel like you're holding it back, then it's time to … it's time to make a decision in some way. Maybe you could get a coach and they could coach you through it really quickly. Maybe you have this kind of revelation, you make the change yourself or you decide that someone else needs …
Jayneil: This is mind-blowing to me because in one of our previous conversations, you had told me that there's all these things you thought were important and when you became a CEO, you realized that they were no longer important. So, as I’m talking to you, I’m realizing that so many things that I think are important now, as I grow further in my career and my journey, they may not be important anymore as … I think now.
Murat: Yeah, it's true. I think when you start out, especially if it’s your first time, I think it's very easy to get caught up in the detail too much. And when it comes down to it, most companies survive and they do well because they're making money. It's easy business stuff, right? If I went to business school, I’m pretty sure that would be lesson number one but in this space, because of VC investment and other things, it can grow for all costs and burning cash and all that stuff, it'd be hard to … you can easily forget that and it can get away from you but I think the little drop shallow you put on a button or the interactions or even some new features, they don't really matter at the end of the day unless you're making sure that the businesses is doing okay in terms of sales and revenue and other things like . So, I think there's a portion of that which I think … if it's your first time, it can be easy to forget. I think we're fortunate in the early days that we had such little resources that it just felt we were always really efficient in what we did and we were really scrappy and we kind of never lost that. And that kind of mentality, I think serves, as well. And I think there's a couple of companies out there which have always had that mentality and even at their size now, it's like Zoom, for example … I think Zoom have always been profitable or something close to that. They were profitable when they IPOed and all that stuff. So, that mentality all the way throughout is like “No, this is how we run things” and that comes from whatever experience you've had in the past or whatever kind of values you have. I think those sorts of things are interesting but, yeah, I think the things that matter at the end of the day is that if you're a business, you need to make money and it can be easy to forget that for a lot of people not just who are starting up or founders but also a lot of people in the space like a lot of people who are looking in from the outside and they just … all the comments on what you might see on Twitter and stuff, it's all about money. and it's not great to say because maybe as a product designer and people and products, there's a kind of romantic view about products, right? It's like user experience and like stuff that but no … at the end of the day, it's just like … the real hard fact is it's about being able to grow business and keep the lights on and be sustainable. So, it’ll be high growth for whatever you're aiming for and this is just generally about sales which I think we talked about when we first … when we chatted originally which was like at the end of the day, it's all about sales which is whether you're selling, the product, to hire, to talk about a new feature. It's just sales. And there can be … you can lose a bit of the romance when you talk about it that but I also think it's quite exciting because if you do it in a way that excites you, it can be it could be great like it's cool to tell people about what you do. So, I think, something along those lines is how I kind of think about it if I was to look back on it and go “Right, this is what I would change.” It was just to realize that. A lot of this is sales, a lot of this is sales driven and you really got to be tuned into that to make it work.
Jayneil: So, did you ever think about “Let me just move the entire company or just go to the Bay Area and just …” you’ve raised funding but now, maybe being in the Bay Area, you would have raised ginormous amount of funding. Did you ever think about that because you come from like “Let's be lean and efficient?”
Murat: Yeah, we did actually. There were several conversations about moving to America and also, in the early days, we got an offer from a US VC which would have sort of back then you had to move to get the US funding, right? It was part of it. And we turned it down to stay in London. And I think it was definitely a right move because one of the reasons why is because we just thought there's so much talent in London that is not utilized and just lurking in various corners of digital agencies and stuff. And we thought we would have much better shot at being able to build an amazing team here. And that became true as well. So, that was one reason. And also, to set up in America is expensive. And I think that it's all relative like you might raise more money but you're going to spend more money. So, what difference does it make? You're going to have the same amount of runway but you have to up and move everything and also have less chance of getting any talent. So, because of that it was like “It's not worth it.” And now that everything's remote, it doesn't really matter where you are. So …
Jayneil: I love that.
Murat: It’s kind of all worked out.
Jayneil: Love your take on it. And then something I’m kind of curious about is as a CEO now, do you ever feel like “Oh, you know what? I should just build like a massive Twitter following, just share insights.” I know some CEOs do that. So, I’m just kind of wondering how do you look at that social media. So, do you think about focusing more on just the product and there do you think about “Oh, I should have a personality and then that would attract people and …”
Murat: No. I mean, I do … don't get me wrong, I like Twitter. This is fun. I follow a lot of people who are just interesting and I like getting information that way and every now and then I do post something but admittedly, I use it for promotional purposes mostly because … there's a lot of stuff that … an experience I could talk about but I just know … I don't know. I don't feel like it's hard to get the … I don't know why. I think it's probably because I just like … I don't think anyone will care but also, it's just the use of my time. I just don't have … I just … to sit there and draft that stuff, I just don't know. At the moment, I just don't feel like it's a good use of the time to spend to build a personal brand now, to promote what the amazing team I work with do. Yes, I would 100% do that but I’m not going to do that by doing some nonsense in a thread and it tries to be a bit clickbait. I will hardcore promote the work the team does because they do amazing things and I know the world should know about it but for myself, I couldn't give a shit. I just … hopefully, the work does the talking. I hope the things the team produces, I get excited about that. I do … to be fair, I think one thing I do really enjoy doing is giving props to people who do cool shit that I happen to come across like I really want to be supportive where I can support the designers, the developers, the founders whoever are doing cool stuff like where I can … if I see their stuff, I try out, I love to comment. I do try out a lot of things. So, that I do doing but in terms of you just putting up … building a personal brand, it's not quite for me.
Jayneil: I think this is all tying back to you're very in tune with what do you doing and your strengths and doubling down on that and then being very active about or mindful of “These are the things I don't like. And if they're important, maybe I can partner with someone or get someone to do it that are more passionate about it.”
Murat: Yeah, exactly, exactly. I think that's probably the same for most staffs that go past the point of just a few people, right? I think, as you start to scale out, I think … you said it to me it to me … probably one of our investors that said “You should be looking to give away 5% of your role every quarter.” And I was like “Ah, that's a good idea.” And then you start hiring people that take a chunk of your time out and eventually, you're hopefully left for more free time to think about the future for the business because that isn't something that just comes to you in the shower. You need to really think about it. And I spend … to do that, you have to … I know, for me personally, I just … I have to immerse myself in a lot of stuff to be able to think about where things are going. And I do a lot of reading, do a lot of exploration and that takes time and you need time to do that. And if you're being pulled into meetings or you're doing work that is probably best done by other people who are really good at it, then it's just like …
Jayneil: And when you say reading, is it reading books, is it reading blogs, is it just seeing what the latest trends are, where the market is going?
Murat: All of it. All of that. I think any data point is really valuable. And I think I try to get as much as I can through picking up stuff and seeing it. Speaking to customers is really helpful as well. I spend a lot of time doing that and that's where I think you get the real-world stuff too. So, if you can couple, if you can tie in some of the things that you're sort of reading and hearing about and then speaking to people and go actually like “Is this something … this is a problem you're facing? Is this … how do you feel about this?” and you kind of get that validation of it that you're right, “Okay. Well, I’ve heard this five or six times now. Let's explore this a bit further” and then you flesh it out and then you take it from there. So, yeah, I think it's just my own process. I know everyone's a bit different in that but I find it really helpful to carve out that time to do that and then … that's how things like Ballpark come about, right? It's like you hear … you kind of got this inkling that something could be worth doing you start off by reading about it and speaking to users and looking at some data then then creating a presentation, showing people and then eventually it becomes a product or it can become a product that could be … or a feature or whatever or strategy. So, that's how it is. And then alongside that, the thing that you have to do is you can't just like go “Okay, this is what we're doing today.” You can't just tell people that this is just a new thing to build. You actually have to tell the whole background of how you even got there, right? You have to go step by step, go through “Okay, this is how it started. This is the idea.” So, it’s validation. This is people you talk to and take people on that Journey with you. If you're excited about something, you should be able to get other people excited about it as well. And I think that's part of this … that's part of the role. You want to be able to go into work hopefully with someone that you believe in what their vision is and you want to come along for a ride and build some cool stuff to get there. And the best way to do that is by explaining people what's in your head and getting them excited about it, right? I think people don't know they're not going to get an opportunity …
Jayneil: I think what’s mind-blowing as I just listen to what you just said or think about it is that quote you said like every quarter you want to give away, I think, 5% of your role. And it's like while you have your whole team that's working on the execution piece of it like figuring out the day-to-day stuff, how do we get that vision, you need to have time to figure out in which direction this ship is heading. And if you are involved in the day-to-day stuff, every small details, I mean there's nobody to really look where the ship is going or course correct it if need be.
Murat: Exactly. And no one else is going to do it for you. So, you have to be the one that comes up with the goal that, right? You're not going to be able to put it off. You're not going to be able to … you shouldn't expect someone else in your team to come forward and go “Hey boss, this is the future of X.” If that does happen, great, but I mean, generally, you should be the first person to pick that up and already know about it. So, the people that work for you are going to want to know why you're doing something and where it's going because they could work somewhere else, right? They could work on anything else if they're super talented like the folks we have at Marvel. So, what is the reason for them to come in every day and work on these projects. And, hopefully, it's to be a journey that gets them to …
Jayneil: And then you’ve been working on this Marvel project idea and now the company for so many years. I mean, you could be a superhuman but I’m a human. And, dude, after a while, you get tired of working on the same topic. You want to explore some other thing. You want to explore some side projects or … So, how do you manage that? How do you stay still motivated on the same problem space for so many years at a time?
Murat: Well, I think the thing that makes it achievable with Marvel and Ballpark is the space has changed so dramatically so quickly in a small space of time, right? It's nowhere close to where we even started. So, maybe … in some other spaces, that isn't the case. I can't think of any off top of my head but let's say you're building a to-do list app, right? Not to say that they're bad but … I mean, there's very little ways that that's going to evolve dramatically over the course of five years, right? Maybe it goes across device. Maybe you put WebRTC in this real time but generally speaking to-do lists, but with design, what … we've gone from Photoshop which was great at the time but when Sketch came out, it was “Oh wow! This is how it should be.” And then Figma comes out. And the jumps that you’ve seen from Photoshop to Sketch to Figma are massive. They're huge. Technological jumps, user experience jumps, everything. Everything has happened, big evolution. And I don't know any other space where it's been that dramatic in SaaS. You kind of … maybe in analytics or a few others that you've kind of seen that but generally speaking, it's something to learn every six months. And because it's so rapidly changing, you have to evolve as well and you get to explore new tech. And a lot of the team get to play around with all this new tech as well. So, now they're playing with … we've just integrated real-time collaboration into Ballpark and all sorts of really great tech and that, again, keeps it interesting because, I think, the three things that you want to be able to give to people, and I’ve got this from a video of from … I can't remember the chap’s name. I have to remember it … but basically, he says that there are three ways to get people to do really good creative work. Mastery, Purpose, and Autonomy. That was it. So, I think, the combination of those three things are just really powerful. So, here's some new technology, get really good at it, so get that mastery. Here's where we're going because it's a super relevant mission and vision for the business. So, that's purpose. And then we trust you to go and do it because you're super talented and given the autonomy. And I think the combination of things, if you get that right, you can bring in talented people and just be able to get them interested in staying along for a longer journey as well. Marvel has a tenure … the tenure of employees on average is really high. It's above … I think it's above four years now. So, majority of people in Marvel, they're in their sort of fourth or fifth year, some people are in their sixth year. And you don't … that's really difficult to achieve in tech and I’m really grateful for it because we hire amazing people, I love working … I’m privileged to be able to work with them for so long and have to be able to share sort of them evolving and seeing them go from sort of either junior positions into senior positions and learn new skills and take more responsibilities. It's amazing. So, I think that's partly because of that … those three things that we're able to provide. Also, working environment is super important like culture. I think you have to have a mix of both. You can't just have this great culture but the work side doesn't line up. I think you have to have a mixture of being able to build a business around really nice people who are just nice, everyone's a really great person to be around. And then alongside that, provide them the opportunity to go really great work.
Jayneil: So, let's say you're focused as CEO on Marvel and Ballpark and then necessarily become very interested in crypto. Maybe you're curious about it but has nothing to do with, for example, Marvel or Ballpark at the moment and you're like “You know what? This is very fascinating to me,” could be also very lucrative for you personally, maybe you have folks that you can reach out to or maybe you're like “You know what? I’m going to start angel investing because I’ve got brand name, people know me and that could be interesting and also very lucrative for me personally but maybe it not move the needle on what I’m doing as a CEO.” So, how do you solve this dilemma? Do you still go and explore that itch and do it or do you balance it? How do you make sure you're not losing sight of what your role as CEO is and not getting too much into the side stuff?
Murat: Well, I think it depends on what you're getting into. If I’m starting something new on the side, I think it's a big time-sync right and you have to weigh up whether that's worth doing versus focus on the business. The crypto stuff and everything else and angel investing, I think those are things to do outside of work, the weekends or something you want to mess around or angel invest and stuff, you should do that. And generally speaking, those things don't take up the time that angel investing or crypto … now, that wouldn't take up a lot of time but to start something else on the side, I think, probably would. And people do it all the time. It depends on where you are. Maybe you've given away so much of your role, you've just got loads of free headspace and maybe that side project is because you want to bring some of that learning into the business, maybe you want to flex in on some new tech and try something new. I think when you see especially people who are sort of engineers as sort of co-founders and stuff, you do always see they build some stuff on the side and you're like “Oh wow!” It’s usually they're just super passionate about and curious about trying new things. And if your stack is like react and there's some new thing that comes out, then you're not going to be able to play around with it really at work. So, you're going to have to find somewhere even if you're in a co-founder position. So, I would say it depends on where you are in your journey. If you're further along and you've got a huge team covering all bases and you're just like want to play around, you can do whatever you want, but if you're in the process of shipping your first product, then maybe a side project isn't the best thing to introduce, but for us several years in, I think there's … because of Ballpark and some other things we built recently, we're touching on things that I would probably want to do in my spare time anyway like real time and some other really cool stuff that I can't talk about but I mean, generally speaking, there's some … if you're fortunate enough, you can introduce a lot of these things into your own product. I know that isn't always the case and it doesn't allow but I just think it just depends on where you're at. If you've got the time, maybe you want to do it every weekend and that's your downtime and that's how you stay fresh and energized and relevant. For other people, maybe it's a distraction or it's an energy sink. So, it depends on where you're at but for me personally, I haven't done any of those things because I’m keen to keep exploring all that new stuff through the business and through Ballpark and what Marvel puts out. So, yeah, I’ve not run into it but I’ve totally seen it happen and, yeah … most of the time when I see it happen, the businesses are in a much more mature stage where you can just like … flirt around.
Jayneil: How can people or listeners or designers get in touch with you?
Murat: So, I am on Twitter and you could DM me if you wanted to. So, my … on Twitter it’s Mutluae2. If you want to email me, you can. It's Murat@Marvelapp.com where I will try to respond. I currently have several hundred unreads. So, I’m trying to get through those uh. So, if you don't mind waiting, you can email me. DM's a lot better. It's a lot quicker. I can do that. So … on the move somewhere. So … but, yeah, any questions or anything that anyone has, I’m more than happy to …
Jayneil: Thank you so much, Murat, for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom.
Murat: No problem. Thank you for having me.
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