{"id":42838,"date":"2023-10-20T15:24:08","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/lessons-out-of-the-box-aaron-levie-on-scaling-and-sales-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:24:08","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:24:08","slug":"lessons-out-of-the-box-aaron-levie-on-scaling-and-sales-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/lessons-out-of-the-box-aaron-levie-on-scaling-and-sales-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons out of the Box: Aaron Levie on scaling and sales – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
When scaling a company it’s important to balance two types of employees, those that have experience in the industry you’re disrupting, and those with fresh ideas, according to Box co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie.<\/p>\n
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Levie founded Box when he was in college in 2004, with friends Sam Ghods, Jeff Queisser and Dylan Smith. They were trying to solve a simple problem – how to access and share files from anywhere. It’s now one of the most dominant content management companies in the world, and employs over 1300 people.<\/p>\n
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The company’s mantra is simple – make mum proud, “unless your mum is evil” Levie clarifies.<\/p>\n
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Early hires<\/b> <\/b><\/p>\n
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Speaking at Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, Levie says Box was fortunate to include among its early hires people who had experience scaling startups.<\/p>\n
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“They had seen what scale looks like and had seen where we were going to be in the future,” he says.<\/p>\n
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“But we try and mix that with individuals that haven’t necessarily learned all those particular and unique lessons that come with a different kind of point of view or perspective that doesn’t have any \u2018baggage\u2019.<\/p>\n
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“What’s really important is for the experienced individuals that you hire understand the reason they’re joining a startup is to do it differently.<\/p>\n
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“That allows us to constantly be inventing or reinventing the parts of our business that no longer makes sense.”<\/p>\n
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That reinvention began quite early in Box’s life. After beginning as business-to-consumer startup Levie says it quickly became clear that the way forward was with an enterprise business model.<\/p>\n
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Scaling an enterprise-focused is quite a different proposition to scaling one that’s consumer-focused. When Levie told his staff of the pivot, at that point around 10-15 people, they agreed it was the right move.<\/p>\n
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“Everyone was like well that makes sense, the other (business model) wasn’t working,” he says with a laugh.<\/p>\n
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“The next day everyone woke up and they worked for an enterprise software company.”<\/p>\n
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Renaissance sales<\/b><\/p>\n
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