Explore Kraft Heinz&#x27;s strategic presentation at the 2024 CAGNY Conference, highlighting growth pillars, a 10-year horizon plan, and reaffirmed outlook. Discover the company&#x27;s commitment to innovation and sustainable impact.

Kraft Heinz Charts a Flavorful Future: Unveils Growth Strategy at 2024 CAGNY Conference

The Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:KHC) Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) Conference Transcript February 21, 2024 11:00 AM ETExecutivesCarlos...

The Kraft Heinz Company (KHC) Management Presents at Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) Conference (Transcript) | Seeking Alpha

The board of The Kraft Heinz Company ( NASDAQ:KHC ) has announced that it will pay a dividend on the 29th of March...

Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ:KHC) Has Affirmed Its Dividend Of $0.40

Kraft Heinz (KHC) has released an update. The Kraft Heinz Company announced key updates during the 2024 Consumer Analyst Group of New York Conference, sharing the n...

Kraft Heinz Shares Strategic Insights at CAGNY 2024 - TipRanks.com

By Robb M. Stewart Kraft Heinz has its sights on steady growth over the coming years as it plans to invest in areas such as technology that will be driven by...

Kraft Heinz Sets Path for Sales Growth in Coming Years - MarketWatch

Kraft Heinz outlines growth strategy at CAGNY conference

Kraft Heinz outlines growth strategy at CAGNY conference By Investing.com

PITTSBURGH (AP) — PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Kraft Heinz Company (KHC) on Wednesday reported third-quarter net income of $262 million. On a per-share basis, the Pittsburgh-based company said it had net income of 21 cents. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were 72 cents per share.

Kraft Heinz: Q3 Earnings Snapshot

Company president and soon-to-be CEO Carlos Abrams-Rivera said Wednesday that price increases across three-quarters of the company’s portfolio and reduced food-stamp benefits have pressured demand, but that Kraft Heinz would stay disciplined when it ...

Kraft Heinz Says It Won’t Go Crazy on Discounts

The Kraft Heinz Company KHC posted solid third-quarter 2023 results, wherein the top and bottom lines increased year over year, and earnings came ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Results continued to gain from sales growth in the company’s three key pillars — foodservice,

Kraft Heinz (KHC) Raises Profit Guidance on Q3 Earnings Beat

Kraft Heinz Co (NASDAQ:KHC) shares moved higher in early trade ... while projecting lower sales on the lower end of its guidance range. For 3Q, the food and beverage company reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.72, a 14.3% increase ...

Kraft Heinz raises full-year profit forecast as 3Q earnings top estimates

Kraft Heinz

kraftheinz

Welcome to another fascinating edition of our "Behind the Startup" series. Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Gennady Volchek, the visionary behind a trailblazing platform in the blockchain industry. With a rich background in leveraging emerging technologies and a deep dive into the realm of blockchain, Gennady Volchek shares his journey from early ventures in digital publishing and VOIP innovations to the inception of Shping. Shping, We also explore Shping's unique approach to partnering with major consumer goods companies and its future goals in a rapidly changing market. Shping's Mastermind Gennady Volchek Talks Blockchain's Role Against Counterfeits Ishan Pandey: Hi Gennady Volchek, great to have you here for our "Behind the Startup" series. Please tell us about your background and what motivated you to venture into blockchain industry and build Shping? Hi Ishan, Glad to be here. Gennady Volchek: Absolutely, happy to delve into that. My journey into the blockchain realm is just another chapter in a series of ventures fueled by a passion for leveraging emerging technologies. At the age of 18, I started a publishing company in collaboration with the world's largest ethnic newspaper. Faced with the challenge of long-distance transportation and the need for news to stay current, we managed to digitize printing templates, making them downloadable via FTP—cutting-edge tech at the time :)—enabling us to print and distribute papers across Australia on the same day they hit Eastern Europe shops. Fast forward to the early 2000s, we pioneered the first VOIP call on the public internet using Cisco hardware, cutting the cost of international calls for our members by around 90%. While I've been watching Bitcoin in the media for a few years, I started being fascinated by blockchain technology around 2016, right when 's universal rewards platform was in the making. That's when I realized that universal rewards should be powered by a universal ledger. Shping Ishan Pandey: How has Shping transitioned from its initial emphasis on product authenticity to transforming into a turnkey loyalty and rewards program for brands? : Shping has pivoted from a track-and-trace solution aimed at assisting brands in tracking their products through the supply chain, enabling end consumers to access the product journey for authentication and province verification. Like many startups during the way of working on one solution, we have discovered additional value in our approach of connecting consumers and the brand, further reinforced by feedback from our pilot clients. We realized that both shoppers and brands were struggling with a lack of a secure and transparent channel of communication. Gennady Volchek We quickly realized that this can revolutionize how brands market and communicate with their customers, which is a US$1.5 trillion industry. That's why we decided to develop Shping with the view to revolutionize the brands-to-consumer-to-brand communication. Ishan Pandey: In your opinion, can blockchain effectively address the increasing complexity of counterfeit goods? : Just for clarity, I would like to explain that our track and trace module leverages a centralised database and has been built from the ground up on EPCIS standards developed by the GS1 organization. It's important to understand that the proper implementation of industry-standard track and trace technology is capable to safeguard businesses and shoppers against counterfeit and other illicit distribution irrespective of the method of how your data is stored, i.e., centralised vs decentralised ledger and each has its pros and cons, but blockchain is not an underlying technology in that instance. Gennady Volchek Ishan Pandey: Can you share some insights into Shping's integration with Coinbase Wallet and how it aligns with the company's overall strategy? In the realm of rewards programs, seamless redemption is key. While many aim to reward in some kind of convertible currency, the complexity and cost make it a challenge thats why we usualy see use of gift cards or in store discounts.  Since Shping—a universal rewards platform using ERC20 utility tokens enabling any brand to instantly reward any shopper around the world. Gennady Volchek: With the app integrated with Coinbase making onramp of ramp one-click away. Imagine a shopper in London writing a review on Australian Corn Chips, earning instant rewards from that brand,  converting them to Euro, and using earning towards buying those chips—all in under a minute. Ishan Pandey:How does Shping successfully establish and maintain partnerships with major consumer goods companies, such as Coca Cola & Kraft Heinz, gaining their acknowledgement and trust? Additionally, what benefits does the platform derive from these collaborations? One of the biggest challenges for FMCG brands is the lack of a direct communication channel with their end customers, making them heavily reliant on retailers and social media for information dissemination. Shping breaks this barrier, allowing brands to establish a one-on-one relationship with in-store consumers. This not only enhances product knowledge and education but also enables brands to directly reward consumer engagement and loyalty. For instance, instead of paying a social media platform to showcase a new video, brands using Shping can pay consumers directly for watching it. Gennady Volchek: Shping enables brands to manage their marketing communication strategy and activate offers and specials directly without the need for an intermediary. This significant shift empowers brands to influence shoppers' buying activity while cutting one of the biggest costs of marketing. This is why more and more brands like KH, Pepsi, and Coke realise the power of Shping and making it part of their marketing strategy. Ishan Pandey: As the winner of "Best Emerging Application Start-up Company 2023" by APAC Insider, what do you attribute Shping's success to, and what are your plans for sustaining and expanding this success in view of evolving consumer behavior and technological advancements? Gennady Volchek: As the honored 'Best Emerging Application Start-up Company 2023' by APAC Insider, we attribute Shping's success to our commitment to purposeful innovation. Winning this award indicates that Shping is perceived as a positive force for users, a recognition we're humbled by. Our journey revolves around reshaping how shoppers are rewarded for their value to the corporate world. Unlike traditional programs, Shping allows brands to directly invest in consumers, providing tangible rewards that ease economic stress. Looking forward, our plan to sustain and expand this success is rooted in genuine innovation. We're not just innovating for the sake of it; we aim to make a positive impact in people's lives. In the face of evolving consumer behavior and tech advancements, our humble goal is to address economic challenges, creating a win-win for both shoppers and brands. This award fuels our dedication to meaningful innovation. Ishan Pandey: In what ways does Shping differentiate itself from other loyalty and rewards programs in the market, and what challenges have you faced in this competitive landscape? Gennady Volchek: Most existing rewards programs are typically run by retailers since they usually have a direct relationship with the end consumer. Rewards are often funded by the squeezed margins of retailers, which naturally cannot be very significant. Shping introduces a new concept by connecting brands and consumers, enabling brands to leverage blockchain technology to redirect their marketing spend directly to the end consumer. This makes the rewards tangible and substantial enough to alleviate economic stress amidst inflation and the rising cost of living. The paradox is that while shoppers receive more, it actually reduces the marketing costs for the brand. This reduction could lead to brands lowering the cost of goods, making them more affordable and further enhancing the lives of everyday shoppers. Ishan Pandey: Looking ahead, what are the key goals and milestones Shping aims to achieve in the next 1-2 years, and how do you plan to navigate potential challenges in the market? Gennady Volchek: The next few years look incredibly exciting for Shping. We've always viewed Australia as our test market—a place to roll out technology, test features on our planned roadmap, and pave the way for international expansion. I'm thrilled to share that our international expansion plans are already in the works. We'll be announcing our next market during our final AMA of the year, streaming live across our social channels on December 22nd. So hope Hackernoon readers could join us for our next AMA. Don’t forget to like and share the interview! Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our brand-as-author program. Be it through direct compensation, media partnerships, or networking, the author has a vested interest in the company/ies mentioned in this story. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR

Revolutionizing Loyalty Programs: Gennady Volchek Unveils Shping's Blockchain Journey

বিপ্লবী আনুগত্য প্রোগ্রাম: গেনেডি ভলচেক শপিংয়ের ব্লকচেইন যাত্রা উন্মোচন করেছে

Revolutionierung von Treueprogrammen: Gennedy Volchek enthüllt Shpings Blockchain-Reise

Revolucionando los programas de fidelización: Gennedy Volchek presenta el viaje blockchain de Shping

Révolutionner les programmes de fidélité : Gennedy Volchek dévoile le parcours Blockchain de Shping

वफादारी कार्यक्रमों में क्रांतिकारी बदलाव: गेनेडी वोल्चेक ने शपिंग की ब्लॉकचेन यात्रा का खुलासा किया

ロイヤルティ プログラムに革命を起こす: Gennedy Volchek が Shping のブロックチェーンへの取り組みを明らかに

충성도 프로그램 혁신: Gennedy Volchek, Shping의 블록체인 여정 공개

Revolucionando os programas de fidelidade: Gennedy Volchek revela a jornada Blockchain da Shping

Революция в программах лояльности: Геннеди Волчек рассказывает о блокчейн-путешествии Шпинга

Sadakat Programlarında Devrim Yaratan: Gennedy Volchek, Shping'in Blockchain Yolculuğunu Açıkladı

Cách mạng hóa các chương trình khách hàng thân thiết: Gennedy Volchek tiết lộ hành trình chuỗi khối của Shping

彻底改变忠诚度计划：Gennedy Volchek 揭开了 Shping 的区块链之旅

With venture capital investment rates in Latin America down to , those unfamiliar with the region may wonder why there’s been such a drawback. $563M in Q1 2023 Although it’s undeniable there’s been a steep drop in , it isn’t down to a lack of potential in the region. Rather, the economic instability that’s playing out globally is causing investors to play a much more cautious hand than in previous years. investment For – a region that has relied heavily on foreign capital – a general trend of investors prioritizing their existing portfolio companies and geographies closer to home had a sizeable impact on overall investment figures. LatAm In reality, 2023 has seen a number of industries continue to show positive signs despite the reduced amount of investment capital. What’s more, areas such as e-commerce, marketplaces, and B2B SaaS are still at much earlier stages of adoption and penetration in comparison to markets like the US, meaning they still offer plenty of runway for growth. To learn more we spoke with , Managing Partner at early-stage fund , to gain his insights on how growth trends in LatAm are likely to pan out across three industries that have caught his eye with their potential in 2023. Diego Noriega Latin American Newtopia VC 1. Online commerce continues to consolidate and diversify Although the pandemic drastically accelerated the adoption of online sales globally, the impact was particularly significant in LatAm. In April 2020, right after the pandemic started, revenue . While online market sales in other geographies cooled rapidly after the pandemic, LatAm is still firmly on the up, and experts predict that will be created if LatAm catches up to the penetration rates seen in the US and China. e-commerce increased 230% in the region trillions of dollars of value This can be seen playing out in the most recent sales figures from regional e-commerce giant Mercardo Libre. While its United States equivalent, Amazon, has been in light of tough market conditions, Mercado Libre is firmly on the up: E-commerce sales grew by , with remarkable growth in Brazil and Mexico driving much of these gains; and the e-commerce giant 13,000 new jobs in April. cutting jobs 21.5%, reaching $34.45 billion in 2022 added Within this, social commerce is growing in popularity, creating an even more diverse landscape for sales in LatAm. In Mexico, social commerce sales grew by . In Brazil, it’s expected to grow by and is predicted to surpass in the near future. 42% in 2022 44.9% on an annual basis e-commerce here “As this trend gains momentum in the region, we witness a remarkable growth of platforms creating a dynamic ecosystem for sellers, micro-influencers, and content creators,” commented Noriega. Social commerce is already enormously popular in markets such as China where live-stream shopping generated . And it seems that major international brands are already eyeing the potential of LatAm, with TikTok accelerating expansion of to Brazil and Shein actively recruiting for growth roles in both and . $132 billion of sales in 2021 Shop in the Americas Brazil Mexico Yet Noriega believes that local players have a unique role to play in the growth of social commerce. “What’s truly exciting is how regional startups are playing a crucial role in shaping the future of social commerce by addressing specific gaps and pain points unique to each country or segment. We’re actively investing in companies like , a micro-influencer network for beauty products, and , a platform that helps creators monetize their careers,” said Noriega. For Me Beu “Drawing inspiration from the success stories of emerging economies like China and India, Latin America has all the ingredients to become a thriving hub for social commerce. It’s a race to see who emerges as the winner in this exciting arena,” he concluded. 2. B2B Marketplaces remain largely untapped Though the online infrastructure for consumers has rapidly matured in the last few years, B2B transactions in LatAm are still mostly reliant on traditional analog sales processes, with orders and payments flowing via email, SMS, fax, and paper check. Understandably, this creates inefficiencies for both suppliers and buyers across the supply chain. Solving this with smooth, online marketplaces for B2B transactions will provide significant value to the market. A study from found that 50% of B2B decision makers in Brazil are open to making new, fully self-serve or remote purchases in excess of $50,000, and 21% would spend more than $500,000. McKinsey “Vertical marketplaces are going to replace much of Latin America’s B2B economy, bringing it online and disrupting legacy supply chains and suppliers. Analog processes require lots of manual labor and often put large distributors at an advantage. Online wholesale marketplaces will help to solve many pain points and help smaller businesses (both suppliers and buyers) during current economic challenges,” said Noriega. “We come from behind in terms of the industry’s transformation, yet a number of companies are already addressing the need to transform the industry. is doing a fantastic job in orchestrating its product-market fit for Argentina’s construction ecosystem, with plans to expand to Brazil. is helping the autoparts industry to increase the digitalization of the whole value chain, with fantastic metrics in Brazil and rapid growth in Mexico,” Noriega continued. Nuqlea Alephee As B2B marketplaces mature across Latin America, it’s likely that multinational brands will increase their presence in the region. Kraft Heinz Co it will offer its products through BEES – Anheuser-Busch InBev’s online marketplace – to drive product adoption in Latin America, particularly in Mexico, Colombia, and Peru. recently announced “The fragmentation and analog nature of LatAm’s B2B supply chains, in general, have limited their ability to operate more internationally. As new online marketplaces modernize these supply chains and bring in new efficiencies, multinationals will be all too keen to tap into these emerging markets,” Noriega advised. While the current climate makes fundraising harder, early-stage investors like Newtopia see the huge potential of B2B marketplaces and are instead looking to help portfolio companies build sustainable business models and refine their product-market-fit to lay the groundwork for the future. 3. Pressing need for B2B SaaS solutions Globally, most organizations are used to adopting some combination of B2B SaaS solutions to streamline and modernize workflows like finance administration or human resources (HR). Yet in LatAm, the adoption process in B2B has been more cautious. Much of this comes from habit and tradition, further supported by low labor costs that make it harder to persuade a decision-maker to switch over from manual processes to a new software tool. As a result, fast-growing US B2B companies with well-oiled and tested sales machines often find . sales stalling upon expansion into the region Yet Noriega believes this is soon likely to change as the industry across LatAm matures. “B2B SaaS solutions have the potential to drive transformation across various industries in the region. With their business models rapidly becoming more predictable and less risky, they have caught the attention of US investors looking towards Latin America,” shared Noriega. Many rising stars are highlighting the investment potential of B2B SaaS in the region. , a Mexican B2B corporate spending management solution, just closed a funding round. And in Brazil, where the market is expected to reach , cloud sales are expected to get a further boost from the launch of system. Its solution will help global and regional companies to sell cloud, ERP, IT services, or SaaS subscriptions across Latin America, tapping into the investment in data projects in Brazil. Mendel $60M $80 billion in 2023 EBANX’s new high-value-ticket automated payment $2.9 billion “These types of companies are asset-light and typically have a clear path to profitability from their inception, which is particularly crucial in the current context where investments have decreased by 50% year over year. These factors make B2B SaaS in Latin America an attractive prospect for investors seeking stable returns and growth potential in the region,” he concluded. New horizons for investors in LatAm While there’s no doubt that a sharp drop in international investment has been an additional challenge for companies across Latin America there are many sectors that look set to buck the trend. From the captive audience of social commerce, the potential of marketplaces to transform wholesale buyers processes to the asset-light potential of B2B SaaS, the region offers investors a number of opportunities to find attractive deals with huge long-term growth potential. This article was originally published by Katie Konyn on The Sociable.

3 Growing Business Sectors in Latin America in 2023

3 Sectores Empresariales en Crecimiento en América Latina en 2023

3 secteurs d'activité en croissance en Amérique latine en 2023

2023 में लैटिन अमेरिका में 3 बढ़ते व्यावसायिक क्षेत्र

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3 setores de negócios em crescimento na América Latina em 2023

3 lĩnh vực kinh doanh đang phát triển ở Mỹ Latinh vào năm 2023

3 2023 年拉丁美洲不断增长的商业领域

Labor shortages and rising transportation costs are pushing consumer brands to increase efficiency. Having the right stock on the shelves is more important than ever, and the growing demand for data-driven insights is inspiring new AI-based predictive solutions. In 2021, the producer price index, a measure of wholesale prices for goods and services, 9.7%. Due to supply chain issues and inflation, many big consumer brands have raised their prices. This trend is projected to continue through the coming year. was up In March, Kraft Heinz plans to on several of their products, ranging from a 6.6% increase on Velveeta cheese to a 30% increase for a three-pack of Oscar Mayer turkey bacon. Procter & Gamble, too, price hikes on fabric care products, such as Tide detergent and Downy dryer sheets, coming at the end of February. raise prices announced But higher prices alone aren’t enough to fight inflation or guarantee a net profit. Shoppers can turn to cheaper alternatives. That’s where technology comes in: to help brands stay ahead of the competition. AI could help big companies increase efficiency with better inventory management, improved customer experience, and data-driven insights. Not only do the major consumer brands feel squeezed from inflation; the private labels, too, have tried raising their prices to absorb the increasing cost of goods. However, these brands have less power and control over pricing in wholesale channels than the major brands. In a situation, where the margin squeeze is imminent and unavoidable, AI-powered merchandising could help private labels boost efficiency & sales. Predictive Merchandising Predictive merchandising is currently one of the most promising segments of the AI retail market, expected to reach 19.9 billion by 2027, according to a , published by Meticulous Research. new report Key companies operating in the space include Amazon.com, Google, Intel, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, and others. But the field is dynamic — new players and solutions are emerging. For example, in early February, Onebeat, an AI-powered startup helping retailers and brands analyze their customers’ needs, received an initial $5 million round of funding. Pivot, a Miami-based startup allowing brands to pick the ideal location and in-store space to showcase their merchandise, raised a pre-seed venture capital round. And an AI-based SaaS startup, Inspector Cloud, which lets vendors receive insights to increase stock performance, recently raised a new round, bringing its total investment to $1.25 million. Using eleven different neural networks, Inspector Cloud recognizes goods, collects data, and provides reports. The platform also allows merchandisers and sales reps to save store visit time, eliminating the need for manual operations. Currently, around 40,000 merchandisers and sales reps around the world are using Inspector Cloud. The platform processes over 50 million images monthly. A few big FMCG companies, including PepsiCo, Unilever, and Nestle have already implemented the startup’s solution. Conclusion The future looks bright for AI-powered startups that provide predictive merchandising services. A recent study from IBM revealed that 72% of customers out of 19,000 people shop at physical stores, despite the preponderance of online-only options. Reasons given include touching and feeling products before buying them online. As long as consumers choose a hybrid shopping model, merchandising will keep driving sales. As a result, more brands and retailers will embrace AI to learn about their customers, receiving data-based insights and recommendations.

AI-Powered Predictive Merchandising is Shaping the Future of Shopping

After a successful start to his career in investment banking, Francisco decided to change course and start a software startup, which has now grown to over 50 employees. What’s your background, and what are you working on? So my name Francisco Homem de Mello, and I’m the founder of Qulture.Rocks. We make software that helps teams implement one-on-ones, OKRs, feedback, and performance conversations. I actually didn’t come from HR nor was a team leader before founding the company. My background is in finance. After I worked for 10 years in big investment banks, I took a sabbatical to explore other options in my career. I ended up writing a book called , that unpacked the management style and culture of the trio that owns 3G Capital, a major stakeholder in Anheuser-Busch Inbev, Kraft Heinz and Burger King. That’s where I fell in love with performance management and, connecting the dots with my previous experiences as an employee at big companies, decided to found Qulture.Rocks. The 3G Way The company was founded in 2015, we went through Y Combinator in winter 2018, and we currently have more than 30 thousand users in more than 10 countries. What motivated you to get started with your company? It’s interesting. It started with my experiences of being someone else’s direct report, in investment banking. I was really frustrated with the lack of feedback, the lack of one-on-ones, and the general lack of perceived purpose in what I was doing. When I wrote the book and had a glimpse of what great management could look like, and it all clicked. That’s what got me started and gave me the domain expertise I needed to start. But I hadn’t really been a manager up until that point. I didn’t know the other side of the story. And that came with founding Qulture.Rocks and managing our team, which is currently more than 50 people. I now can fully appreciate the challenges both sides of the table face, and I can say it’s much more nuanced than an individual contributor can imagine. That certainly gave me a gigantic boost in motivation for solving these problems. When I started Qulture.Rocks, I had a pretty solid financial standing, having some savings from my investment banking career. So I could, at the time, go for a year or two with no earnings and be ok with it. But it all came crashing down when my savings became dust when a private equity fund I had invested almost all my savings in blew up. That really spiced up my journey, and added a lot of urgency to getting to revenue and paying myself a salary. What went into building the initial product? The product got going when I was already fully committed to Qulture.Rocks. I didn’t really know how to code, so I started taking courses on Codecademy, Code School, and so on and so forth. I also took an HTML + CSS course in person at a local school, and there met a guy who was a CS dropout learning front end to build a CRM tool. I asked him for intros to former classmates that could give me private coding lessons, and that thread led to my meeting Qulture’s first two engineers, Fred and João, who joined me as interns, helped me build the product’s first iteration, and are currently Co-CTOs of the company. Since we were building software for companies that already had quite high expectations for performance management software, we couldn’t really ship an MVP. We had to skip that phase and deliver a quite polished product to start with. So our team, which basically was comprised of myself doing sales and customer development and two engineers writing code, spent almost 6 months just building an initial feature set, with no users. At the time, a former colleague who was a designer freelanced an initial UI we could use, and that’s where we started from. On the other hand, the initial specs were pretty clear, so we didn’t have a lot of discovery work to do. I was basically visiting customers, asking what performance review features they needed to use our product, and heading back in the building to build it. So our initial scope was really to get a number of companies to use us for their performance reviews. How have you attracted users and grown your company? I’d be hard pressed to say the answer is hustling. When I decided Qulture.Rocks was on, I started taking meetings with anybody who would meet me. Some examples of early meetings were a friend of a high school classmate who was an entrepreneur and could introduce me to the HR department of the company that had acquired his startup; my best friend’s wife who worked in HR; a friend’s coach who had headed HR at a startup. It was basically a meeting a week at best, and furious networking to book more meetings with anyone that would say yes. Those first three meetings generated six, which generated twelve, and so on. They compound. Content marketing was also a huge part of our journey. At that time I also started writing for our blog, shipping very opinionated pieces around people management practices, and people started to notice and look forward to taking meetings with me. I studied these things hard, and very quickly became sort of an authority on performance management and leadership, producing high quality pieces that really stood out from marketing department boilerplate. I sent these blog posts to a weekly email list I built with a mix of acquaintances, former customers, friends, and HR people. Finally, I started early on to do events. Our first Qulture.Con, with about a hundred attendants, took place before we had launched our beta. That also helped gain the trust of those early prospects who ended up becoming customers. What’s your business model, and how have you grown your revenue? We have a pretty straightforward SaaS business model, so we charge a subscription fee per seat being used. One thing that really helped our start was that since the early days we took in customer revenue. I had a really hard time raising family, friends, and angel money (that only changed after YC) and thus revenues were critical to our survival. So we could never really afford to burn a lot of cash. I hired people with the amount of customers we closed, and cash was controlled on the back-of-the-napkin until very recently when we started scaling. pari passu What are your goals for the future? We live and die to unlock the potential of people and organizations. We want to make a big impact on how people relate to their professional growth, on a global scale. We’ll know if we are getting there if in ten years we get to a couple hundred million dollars in revenues, a hundred thousand organizations using us, and ten million users. Our plan is to get there by focusing our efforts on the tools people use to grow at work: feedbacks, one-on-ones, goals, and performance reviews. The stuff of that toolkit is something that isn’t going anywhere in the coming decades, and we’re still in day zero of what could be created in that space. What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced and obstacles you’ve overcome? If you had to start over, what would you do differently? Wow. So many challenges. I didn’t really appreciate it when other entrepreneurs said it only gets harder as the company scales, but now I totally understand where it comes from. One thing we’re really struggling with is hiring. There’s always this tough tradeoff between, on the one hand, filling positions quickly, and on the other hand, keeping the bar high. We hired a number of false positives in the past that ended up taking time and energy from the team and giving out the impression that we’re losing talent when we’re actually even relieved bad fits are leaving. Looking back, I’m not sure we could have done anything better, given our constrained resources, but it’s certainly something we’re working hard to fix as we now can be more picky with who we say yes to. On the tech side, a poor choice we made was picking AngularJS as our initial frontend framework. We’re doing a lot of work to get rid of it and migrate our stack to React, which looks really promising. Have you found anything particularly helpful or advantageous? On the reading side: In particularly rough days, I usually pick up “The Hard Thing About Hard Things,” by Ben Horowitz, and read a couple of chapters off of it. It reminds me of how much nastier my job could be. I’m also a huge fan of Paul Graham, whose essays are one of the main reasons we applied to YC, so I frequently reread some of his essays, particularly those that deal with the reasons most startups fail and doing things that don’t scale. Finally, I reread Sam Walton’s Made in America once or twice every year. It really inspires me on many different levels. I’ve also developed a healthy habit around keeping a pretty well-groomed to do list updated and on me at all times. I’m analog about it: it’s an Excel template file I print 30 or so copies every month, and keep them around. Once they’re filled up, I open another one. The template has two columns. On the right-hand side, I keep my to dos and follow-up items. On the left-hand side, my top three OKRs for the month, my top three priorities for the week, and some stoic journaling questions, like “three things I’m grateful for” and “three things I’ve learned.” These help put myself in a positive frame of mind. Exercising is really helpful, but something I’ve struggled with keeping a habit of. I’m a former Ironman triathlete, so it shouldn’t be that way, but since starting Qulture.Rocks my stress levels are much higher than back then, and when I’m stressed out I can’t seem to build up the courage to hit the gym. One thing that’s helped is to schedule personal boxing sessions. It’s really intense and, because of all the mental and physical effort it requires, I can stop from thinking about the company for a solid waking hour, which is impossible with weightlifting, running or swimming, activities that seem to only boost my thinking brain. What’s your advice for entrepreneurs who are just starting out? I’d like to answer that question further down the road, when it’s clearer I’ll have any credentials to do so :) Seriously though, only start a company if that’s your only option. Starting up is really hard. The challenges are endless, and you’re pushing a boulder up a steep hill. The only reason that justifies becoming an entrepreneur is if not doing so would constitute an even steeper hill to push a boulder up. Where can we go to learn more? Our blog, which can be found at , has many pieces I’ve written about OKRs, giving feedbacks and running one-on-ones. I also put out a weekly-ish newsletter called Unlocking Potential, , aimed at CEOs, executives, investors, and leaders at large, with stuff I’ve been reading and thinking about. https://qulture.rocks/en/our-blog/ https://1percentbetter.substack.com/ I’d love to answer your questions on the comments section below, so don’t be shy!!

Founder Interviews: Francisco Homem de Mello of Qulture.Rocks

By Noah Jessop — a refrain too-often heard in Frontier markets. Seeking sanity, people often resort to metrics used to measure an investment in other mature markets, like food or other commodities. But these metrics are bad heuristics for quantifying the fundamental shifts happening at the frontiers of the global economy. “This time is different” Let me explain: The Market When Warren Buffett bought a controlling interest in Kraft-Heinz, it looked like a classic case of value investing — a struggling, yet venerable brand that could be reinvigorated through modern management techniques. For example, the deli meats were manufactured in a Wienermobile-era factory and a Black Forest ham might have to ride up and down in an elevator multiple times on its journey from piggy to packaging. Forget advanced Japanese manufacturing techniques, they barely had an assembly line. That’s the kind of easy improvement a “contrarian with a calculator” likes to back. Quickly, the weekly output of the factories increased putting Buffet into the black on his investment. The transaction was heralded as a masterpiece of market efficiency. by 17%, But while profits soared, the market softened. Consumer demand for processed cold cuts was falling as the demand for grass-fed, heritage breed, and other highfalutin meats grew like a growth hormone-infused Holstein. Value investing is a good strategy in stable markets, and it has worked wonderfully for Berkshire Hathaway, but it’s important to remember the value mindset is a tactic — and like all other tactics, there are good times and bad times to deploy it. Applying it in the context of early-stage tech is almost always a mistake. Tech commentators are quick to call out when startup multiples seem too optimistic to ever be reunited with an underlying notion of value. By some account, this is a fair criticism. Imagining that the cold cut market would triple in size over the next few years is ludicrous. Conversely, imagining the same for Amazon, Facebook, and Google in their early years would have been mind-numbingly conservative. Venture economics aren’t predicated on easily modeled 20% gains, but the unlikely 2,000X returns — which tend to only exist on the frontier. The Frontier What’s the Frontier? New technology, new industries, new methods, things that: Don’t resemble anything else built before, e.g. a hosted crypto wallet like Coinbase, or; Are a newer, better versions of something in a rapidly maturing market e.g. a social network as the internet becomes fully-deployed, like Facebook. Value-minded pundits are quick to note that the multiples paid to companies on the frontier are out of whack with “real” assets. But the rules are different on the Frontier. In order to pay the current multiples demanded, there has to be a fundamental bet on something far bigger: . a future cash flow of truly unknown size Perhaps this cash flow will come from a yet-unknown business model, as was the case in the early days of Google, or from the disruptive potential of an asset, like GM’s acquisition of Cruise. William Janeway — and longtime venture capitalist — draws a line in the sand rather elegantly: “if an investor can determine what the mature cash flows may become for the investment, it’s all for naught.” studier of risk capital The fact that a potential investment has stratospheric multiples carries little information. These multiples are just an indication that the market believes that there be a remarkable future for the venture but comes with no guarantee of certainty. But that doesn’t make them bad bets. might The Trap The trap that many smart investors stumble into is mixing these two distant worlds. They seek safety within the Frontier, finding what they believe to be “sane multiples” or taking well-trodden business models applied to the new world. But this, more often than not, the most dangerous bet to make: one gets exposure to plenty of new market risk, while likely capping the overall upside. Short of a true “picks and shovels” offering (a “Market” business with a large unserved market on the Frontier), a diversified investor would be far better splitting their exposure between “safer” or more established assets and playing for true volatility around the frontier. Investors and entrepreneurs alike should know: are they playing in the Market or the Frontier? If the latter, they ought not to swing big — for the future is unknown. And up for grabs.

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