Lessons Learned at Bandwidth
This post is part of a series that I’m doing to respond directly to reader questions.
Today’s question is: “What are the most valuable lessons you learned at Bandwidth?”
For those who don’t know me, I spent eight years total at an amazing company here in Raleigh called Bandwidth (or Bandwidth.com in the early days). The company was on the Inc 500 Fastest Growing three years in a row in the mid 2000s. It was a rocket ride. I was the CTO there for three years.
I narrowed the list to five, but I could probably list 20. Maybe I’ll do another post with more at a later date and time. It was fun to think about these.
#1 – Urgency
It may seem obvious to most of you that urgency is important in an early stage company. However, I’ve seen lots of evidence to the contrary. There is a pace at which normal companies move (and I’m not talking about IBM or any other of the larger enterprises, I’m talking about a normal 20-30 person company) and an authentic startup.
When I started at Bandwidth, I thought I was ready. I’d been a part of two very small, fast moving companies right before joining. I promptly got run over for about two to three months. There was an urgency that I could feel every day. My work mattered, and it mattered now. If I didn’t do my job, the company suffered directly and immediately. We worked very hard, and occasionally played hard. But there was no messing around.
#2 -No Rear View Mirror
We made a lot of mistakes as a company. I made a lot of mistakes individually, both acts of bad judgement or just plain screwing up. Not once, ever, was any mistake that I made brought back up in some future conversation with the leaders. It was as if they didn’t remember. The only thing that mattered was now and the future. The past was done. Forget it. Move on.
Furthermore, in the middle of colossal failures (systems being down, customers screaming, hell breaking loose), the question was always “What do we need to do to get it working?”, not “What did you do to screw this up?”
It’s hard to overestimate the effect that this had on me personally and professionally. I knew I was free to take risks, to try things that were bold and new because failure was tolerated and even encouraged. And I knew that, though I would have to answer why something was broken and ensure that it would not happen again, it was never a referendum on me personally.
#3 – The Team is Everything
My first year there we took the annual company ski trip to Park City, UT during Sundance week. It was my 3rd or 4th month on board. I had never done anything like that at any company. The entire company was invited, and almost everyone went. I got home from that trip and remember thinking “Where did they find all of these amazing people, and how did they know to hire them?”
We had people with the strangest backgrounds that crushed it at their work. I couldn’t believe I got the chance to work with these people every day. And it was fun. Really fun. It was insane hours, but it was fun.
#4 – Drive Fast, Take Chances
We ran up against the redline all day every day. There were many times I didn’t know if I’d get paid. I knew it was tight all the time. And I didn’t care. I would’ve worked there for free.
#5 – Suck Less Every Day
We heard this all the time from David and Henry. The smallest gains in some hard-fought battle would be met with genuine excitement. “Yes! We suck less every day!” There was no insincere talk about stodgy values. It was about getting better, one day at a time, and stringing enough of those together to make a real difference over time.
I’m sure there were day where we sucked more than the day before, but there weren’t many.
There you have it. Five lessons from the early days at Bandwidth. If you’d like to hear more, let me know on Twitter or whatever channel works for you.