Matt Hinds on the Power of Persistence, Risk-Taking, and Continuous Growth

Q - Tell us a bit about your career journey so far and what you’re focused on now.

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A - I grew up building and selling things during school before I realised I was doing business.

• I then studied a combined engineering + commerce degree, before switching to focus on commerce (finance + economics).
• In my first year of uni, two friends and I started our first "real" business, an e-commerce clothing business called Noggans where we'd design, manufacture (in China) and distribute a range of different clothing products. Three of us put $1K in each ($4.5K total to kick the first order off) and we grew the business to $260K revenue in the first year (we launched over 30 clothing products, built a loyal brand of 30K followers, hosted stalls at Aussie music festivals like Splendour in the Grass and Lost Paradise). I started to realise that I might be able to make a legitimate career out of entrepreneurship, rather than getting an investment banking internship which the majority of my uni cohort was working towards.
• In my third year of uni, I started a FinTech startup with a few friends called AgCrowd - we set out to solve a funding/investment problem that I'd experienced working in the agricultural industry. Around the same time I did a university exchange in Sweden, and I decided that when I returned, I'd go all-in on trying to get the startup off the ground. We raised some angel funding, built a tech product (my first entrance into tech / building products), launched the platform with our first customers. We learned so much in a short period and ultimately, the business had challenging unit economics which put constraints on it being venture back-able (many more learnings here I'd be happy to share). We sold the business in 2019 to a Melbourne-based financial services company.
• After that, I knew I wanted to do another startup but felt like I needed to learn how to build software products and sell to enterprise. So I joined Amazon Web Services as an Account Manger (B2B Sales/Success) with a revenue target/quota. I learned what it was like to operate inside of a large enterprise of Amazon's scale - insane! Ultimately, I felt like I needed to get back to building.
• I joined SafetyCulture as a Product Manager. I started by scaling SafetyCulture's flagship product with hundreds of thousands of active users, then launched their new Issues product to market which was where I truly learned how to go from zero to one. Many learnings here which helped me build Sauce.
• Outside of my day job, I was exploring different problems to solve with one of my best friends (now co-founder) James Gabb - we'd cycle through a problem per month and decide if we were passionate about solving it or not. We eventually zoomed in on critical problems we were solving in our product management workflow, which led to us co-founding Sauce with our CTO James Szklarz. We raised a funding round with Blackbird and Airtree Ventures and set out to solve it.
• 2.5 years later we are grateful to have learned so much, built the leading Al Product Insights Engine, and power leading product companies around the world like Atlassian, Whatnot, Linktree, Zip, and many more.

Q - Can you describe a pivotal moment in your career when you faced a significant challenge? How did it shape your approach to personal and professional growth?

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A - In the early days of building a startup, founders often experience what we call the "valley of despair." I didn't know it was called this at the
time or that I was experiencing it, but essentially it goes like this:

1. You think you've got what it takes to go out on your own and build something (confidence is high) = we left our jobs to start Sauce and raised venture funding as we'd experienced this problem first hand and believed we had the right team to solve it
2. You get smacked in the face when you realise you know nothing (you hit a rock bottom) and start to question everything = we showed our first idea to customers and it didn't resonate as a standalone product. We didn't know whether we'd made the wrong decision in leaving our jobs, or whether we'd just missed the mark on our first go of the solution (but the problem still being sound) and we just needed to continue iterating (turned out to be the latter)
3. You pick yourself back up and put one foot in front of the other, accepting that you know nothing, and then go on a journey through the ups and downs (which can take many years) and through pure persistence, self awareness and curiosity you eventually reach the point you set out to = we reframed from focusing on the end outcome to falling in love with the journey of building something, celebrated small wins and focused on learnings and progress with tight feedback loops and bias for action

This is what happened to us, and reaching this rock bottom and then clawing our way back up grew me in ways I could never have previously
imagined. It taught me that everything comes down to the mindset and persistence of the team. Happy to unpack further.

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Q - Growth often means stepping outside your comfort zone. Can you share a time when you took a calculated risk in your career, and how it propelled you forward?

A - A few calculated risks I've taken in my career which have propelled me forward and opened doors that I didn't know existed. A few examples:

• Not doing an investment banking internship in Sydney and instead going to Sweden for exchange. This helped me take a step back from the construct of growing up which were school > uni degree (commerce, engineering or law) > investment banking / law / consulting job. Instead I went to live in a foreign country, with people from all different walks of life, experienced a Nordic culture and realised that entrepreneurship could be a viable career path and perhaps more suitable for me. I returned from this experience and went all-in on my 2nd business (1st tech startup) which then led me from the finance world into the tech world.
• Starting a FinTech startup while in my last year of uni, instead of getting a graduate job like all my friends. It was hard to connect the dots a the time, I was just passionate about solving a problem I'd experienced and hustled to try to build something from nothing, but on reflecting it taught me the foundation for all my business knowledge - how to lead a team, what's important in co-founders, how to acquire a customer, what it means for a customer to rely on you, how to build a software product (and how difficult it is to actually solve a customers problem), that business is a never ending battle of persistence, and while you're fighting every fire you still have to make sure you're taking care of the finance and legals, and many many more. This was the foundation of learnings that accelerated me into my next adventures
• Because of this startup experience I was able to skip ~5yrs of climbing a corporate hierarchy and jump straight into a mid/senior sales role at AWS. I spent 6 months in the role managing and growing a $15M portfolio of customers with a clear path to be very well paid at a young age, to then realise that I wasn't fulfilled nor inspired, and that my goal was to build another startup and I needed to learn how to build world-class products before I could sell them. So just after I passed probation (7 months in) I decided to leave and landed a job as a Product Manager at SafetyCulture.
• After ~9 months of leading the largest/flagship product at SafetyCulture I was getting itchy feet - the product was established and had a clear vision, strategy and roadmap. I wasn't learning/growing as quickly as I wanted, so I was assessing other opportunities. The PM of one of SC's emerging products had just been fired and it was a mess. There were C-Suite stakeholders trying to tear it in many different directions, unhappy customers, unhappy product and customer teams, and a product teams of 10 all working on who knows what, and no PM. Nobody wanted to step up to the role so I decided to put my hand up - the next day I was the product manager leading the team with a lot of pressure from all angles (CEO, GTM, product team) - I led the overhaul, turnaround and re-launch of the product to market.
• Starting Sauce - I launched a product at SafetyCulture and was blown away by how messy it was. Disparate data sources, critical signal lost in noise, manual workflows, wasted resources, lost revenue and unhappy customers. I was jamming on this with my friend James (now my co-founder) who was facing this same problem at Atlassian too. We decided this was a problem we believed was worth solving and also believed we were the team to solve it - so we raised a funding round with Blackbird & Airtree Ventures, left our jobs and set out to solve it.

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Q - We often talk about fostering a growth culture in organizations—but what about as individuals? How has your commitment to personal development translated into tangible benefits for your company?

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A - Especially in the early stages, there is a direct correlation between the mindset/health of an individual founder > the culture of the team > the performance of the business. In the early days (just after raising our first funding round) I didn't take care of my health (both physical and mental) and burned myself out which wasn't good for anyone. I had to pull back and prioritise my health which made a huge difference to my performance and ability to support the team.

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Q - What’s in your personal growth toolkit? Which resources (books, courses, mentors, coaches, etc.) do you turn to for continuous learning and improvement?

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A -

• Books: biographies (Shoe Dog, Hard Thing About Hard Things)
• Coaches: Maxine
• Advisors: Ely
• Mentors: leveraging network for specific problems / questions (e.g. when expanding to the US, finding a founder who's expanded to the US before)
• Founders: realising I'm not alone in the problems we face, every founder faces the same problem and being vulnerable allows us to openly share experiences and learnings to help each other
• Family & friends: unconditional/love support and timely reminders that the business isn't our full identity

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Q - How do you cultivate a culture in your organization that supports and encourages growth for your team members?

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• Autonomy - tell them them the goal (not how to do it) and let them surprise us with the results
• Ownership - everyone owns part of the product or customer experience. We all feel a loss and all feel a win and own taking action to improve it
• Unwavering support/encouragement - if you have conviction on a problem/solution or want to grow into a particular area, you can take initiative to solve it and we have your back

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Q - Leaders face constant pressure. What are your strategies for building resilience and maintaining a positive outlook during challenging times?

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• Relationships - having a strong support network both within work (co-founders, coach, other founders) and outside of work (family, friends). Prioritising investing in these relationships and ensuring you're there for them so that they can be there for you when you need
• Exercise - for me this is gym, I try to go every day or at a minimum every second day
• Meditation, reading, yoga
• Hobbies outside of work - music, Spanish
• Travel - making sure I get the adventures and experiences I need, that's important to me
• Going for a walk - helps me shake off any bad news

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Q - What’s your perspective on the importance of a growth mindset in achieving success? Is there one action or resource you wish you’d known about earlier in your career?

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A - A growth mindset is one of the key factors in a person being successful in achieving their goals. To me, a growth mindset is a combination of a) absorbing anything that comes your way which could be good or bad > learning from it > and taking action to improve it, and b) being insanely curious and continuously trying to seek truths and answers to questions we have (about ourselves and the world).

I wish I knew about exec coaching earlier in my career - it's been the highest leverage thing I've done that has helped me benchmark myself, develop ongoing awareness, and rapidly grow with accountability.

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Q - What are two pieces of advice from a coach, mentor, or great manager that have had the biggest impact on your career and leadership journey?
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A -

• Reframing every failure / obstacle to a growth and learning opportunity = fail fast
• Setting insanely ambitious goals makes you change the tactics required to achieve those goals (Luke CEO @ SafetyCulture). E.g. “If we wanted to fill up a tub with water, we might say let’s use a bucket. But if we decided we wanted to fill up an entire building, a bucket won’t work. We’ll need a truck instead.” Setting ambitious goals helps us reframe the type of tactic and solution needed from small and incremental (bucket), to bigger bolder bets that truly move the needle (truck)

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Q - Is there anything we have not asked that you believe would be valuable for our readers to learn from your journey?

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A -

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Sports e.g. rowing really helped me develop a growth mindset. Particularly:

• You operate as a team not as an individual. You grow and support each other and experiences wins, losses and learnings together
• You realise when you start to feel pain that you are only at e.g. 10% of your pain threshold, and that you can keep pushing
• You develop a love for competition and desire to win

Prioritising

• Health (physical and mental) is the most important thing
• Friends and family. Being clear on where your line is for what you're willing to sacrifice and what you're not, continuously learning and improving it
• Things that are important to me - adventure, travel, learning new skills