Claire Lew - Baremetrics

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This week I talk with Claire Lew, Founder of Know Your Team, where they build software and and produce resources to help you become a better manager! In this episode we talk about culture shock of moving a lot as a kid, how painting and art play a part in being a better leader, how an intervention at her first company led to what she’s doing today, how a random meeting with the guys at Basecamp led to her becoming the CEO of Know Your Team and a whole lot more!

Show Notes

1:00- Painting
3:14- Helping people deeply
4:57- Hobbies to keep you sane and be a better business owner
5:38- Therapeutic outlets vs. an escape
9:05- Childhood
10:45- Moving, growing up, and making friends
13:43- Cultural differences
15:27- Learning to relate to others
17:21- “Don’t go to college”
19:44- Biggest influences in entrepreneurship
20:21- Building and starting your own company is a job
21:16- Student government and entrepreneurship
22:58- Paying attention to what you’re scared of
24:40- A desire to please and external validation
26:37- “What did you study” vs. “What did you learn”
27:58- Shifting to entrepreneurship while in college
29:30- Brainstorming all the problems they wanted to solve in the world
30:49- Building an in-person software school- The Starter Week
33:45- Intervention from co-founders
34:55- Most important lesson — self awareness
36:02- Self identity and means of motivation
37:15- Reflecting about what to do in life
37:42- Inspiration for the journey
39:40- Learning and organizational change. The science of leadership
43:15- Testing a hypothesis on solving the problem
44:08- Getting honest insights from people within the company
44:45- Intro to Jason Fried (Basecamp)
47:29- “Time is ticking and I’m running out of money”
49:30- Everything lining up perfectly
51:17- Moving into the CEO role and talking to customers
52:22- Creating a vision
54:00- Having a functioning piece of software
56:22- Transitioning and changing the business model for Know Your Team
58:18- Switching from speaking to writing
59:50- 700 demos
1:01:01- Organic traffic
1:01:55- Mismatch of audience and product…let’s change the product
1:04:13- “We’re not growing”
1:07:29- Writing and releasing guides
1:08:16- Responses from existing customer base
1:09:36- Running out of time
1:11:52- How much of this stuff matters?
1:13:02- The next year for Know Your Team

How to reach Claire: Twitter, Know Your Team, Podcast- The Heartbeat, Email: claire@knowyourteam.com