Building an Integrity Culture: Co-Founder Conversations

In this conversation, I sit down with Huddle Co-Founders Stephanie Golik and Michael Saloio.

Huddle is a platform for designers and builders to invest in startups with their time.

Stephanie has spent her career building alongside founders at studios and leading design and product at fast-growing tech companies. She was an early design leader at Cruise, building user experiences for self-driving cars. Before that, Steph was Head of Product at Mapfit (acq. by Foursquare). She's a proud Cuban-American born, raised and currently residing in Miami.

Michael is a product and team-focused entrepreneur and investor. He’s spent his career working with technology executives and investors. As an investment analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., he followed some of the biggest names in technology including Cisco, EMC, and Apple. Prior to Oppenheimer, Mike covered special situations at Sidoti & Co.

Over the past five years, Michael reimagined his career to focus on early-stage businesses. He was the first employee at SuperPhone, a messaging application backed by Ben Horowitz, Betaworks, Bessemer, and more. Since 2014 he has consulted with, invested in, or advised more than 35 startups that have raised more than $200M in venture financing.

I met Michael years ago and have tracked his rise…when I saw that his latest venture raised 3.3M and was a co-founded company, I reconnected to include him in my co-founder conversations series.

My question throughout this series has been simple - what does it take to build and sustain a powerful co-founder relationship?

Michael and Stephanie shared some of the insights and principles that helped them do exactly that.

The biggest aha was the umbrella concept of an Integrity Culture, and how many powerful values fall into place with a focus on Integrity.

As Michael points out, it’s not just “I do what I say I will” it's also about a culture of Coaching and Feedback to help everyone right-size their commitments and to give themselves (and others) feedback along the way when they find themselves falling short.

Stephanie and Michael share a conversation format that they use over the course of each week to keep their team on track and in integrity!

Integrity Culture also implicates one of my favorite words: Interoception, a concept I learned from Food Coach Alissa Rumsey.

Michael and Stephanie’s vision of an integrity culture is one where you commit to a thing because you are intrinsically motivated to do it, not through force or pressure…you self-select the thing you are going to do. And that means you know what you want! Interoception is the ability to feel and know your inner state.

Some additional keys to a powerful co-founder relationship that line up with the other conversations in this series are the ability to have Healthy Conflict (rather than an unhealthy “peace”) and the regular asking and giving of generous and generative deep feedback.

One other insight that was fresh for me in this conversation was Michael’s idea of a good co-founder relationship as one that is “Energy Producing” vs. energy sucking. A powerful co-founder relationship is like a flywheel - the more energy you invest into it, the more energy it throws off.

Be sure to check out my other co-founder conversations, like this episode with Jane Portman and Benedikt Deicke, co-founders of Userlist, on how they connected through shared communities and learned how each other really worked through real-world, previous projects.

You may also enjoy my interview with Carolyn Gregoire and Scott Barry Kaufman, the co-authors of the 2015 bestseller, Wired to Create, where we unpack how they managed their working relationship.

And if you really want to dive deep into the idea of being a conscious co-founder, make sure to check out my conversation with my friend Doug Erwin, the Senior Vice President of Entrepreneurial Development at EDAWN, the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada.

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Links, Quotes, Notes, and Resources

Huddle website

Minute 16

Michael Saloio:

A lot of my challenges in the early days were, I had to define my own schedule. Sounds like really basic stuff, but going from an investment bank where there's pretty clear structure and a way of doing things, highly professional, and then having to wake up every day and figure it out, was that I had to really plan my week, like really relentlessly. And it came down to just doing what I said I was going to do. I have a much broader definition of what integrity is now. I became really obsessed with the... I still am very obsessed with the idea of integrity, but I wanted to build a culture where instead of it being based on hours and management, it was based on setting really clear values and goals and letting people self... I don't want to say self-identify, but letting them say what's possible for them.

And then kind of challenging whether or not that was possible. And then holding them accountable to doing what they said they were going to do. But more than that, calling themselves out when they weren't going to do it. That seemed like a much better model to me than being scared or making them wrong for not doing something, you know?

Minute 17

Michael Saloio:

The way that we do things is on Monday, we have a meeting. It's a standup where we all say what we're going to do for the week. And then on Thursday we have a check-in where we're really honest about whether or not it's going to get done. And we give ourselves the opportunity to ask for help. And that's it, you know? And so instead of feeling like you have to hide or you have to be wrong for not having done something, it's like, "Hey, look, I said, I was going to do this thing and it's just not going to happen this week because these three things happened." So at least it opens up a conversation to, "Well, what do we have to do to actually get it done?"

Stephanie Golik:

What I really loved about it, within our culture that I've started to see is like, it really is... culture is, you get what you recognize or what you praise, I think is the phrase. And it feels like we just really praise when people step up and say like, "Yeah, I said I was going to do that. And I didn't, and I'm not sure if it's still important." Just that level of honesty. Besides that, it's just like, I think a real bonding and humanizing thing to do for a team. It also just gets us back to performing. We move past the... there's a lot of effort in hiding and feeling crappy about not doing something, right? That's just effort that doesn't... we're just kind of trying to say, like, "It doesn't need to be there. We're all humans and we're all trying to do our best and build this thing together."

Minute 22

Stephanie Golik:

And in that moment of deciding to continue to work together and move to this other venture together and take this risk, I felt like I could give him some feedback and we went for a walk in Soho and I gave him really direct feedback and we had a really great conversation that also was a prompt for Mike to also get into coaching and a couple other things, which was like... being really good at taking feedback is an incredible quality. And I think having that kind of experience early on in a working relationship where it goes okay.

You get feedback. It not just goes okay, but it actually really furthers your ability to work together. I think it set the stage for lots of versions of that conversation that have happened over the years, both ways. But you know, there's lots of working relationships where it's just not as easy to have an honest conversation about something that's, again, not working for you or making you feel a certain way and you end up holding it in, and/or doing other things to skirt around it that just don't get to the core problem because you don't have that level of kind of open dialogue. It feels like we established that open dialogue pretty early on, like long before becoming co-founders. So by the time that we got into this more deeper relationship and engagement, we had a lot of that foundation, which I think has been really helpful.

Minute 42

Michael Saloio:

I wrote a blog post on this, it's called You Don't Need a Co-founder, which is so funny because we're sitting here saying that co-founders are amazing. But what I meant by that, I meant a couple things by that. One is, what you really need is people around you. The relationships can take a lot of different shapes or forms. I had some kind of shotgun co-founder wedding type vibes as well. I would just say go slow. It takes a lot of time to understand whether or not you're going to be able to build a company for... Just think about how much time you spend working.

You're going to go into something with someone that might take seven years or 10 years or longer, if you keep going with it. Right? So it takes a long time to understand whether or not you're going to have healthy conflict resolution or whether your skill sets are matched. Right? Another thing we haven't talked about is like, Stephanie is a designer and builder, I'm an ex finance guy who's kind of good at sales and business development and vision. And we're both actually really, really visionary people. But we have the ability to actually make things together. There's a skill match as well. And also our company works with founders, right? So we see a ton of partnerships. So, I guess two things. If you're going to go into work together on something, you got to make sure that you have complimentary skill sets, which is very basic. But two is like, go slow. Get to know somebody. Go into battle with people that you know how to work with.

More about Stephanie and Michael

About Stephanie:

Stephanie Golik is a founder at Huddle, where designers and builders invest in startups with their time. She's spent her career building alongside founders at studios and leading design and product at fast-growing tech companies. She was an early design leader at Cruise, building user experiences for self-driving cars. Before that, Steph was Head of Product at Mapfit (acq. by Foursquare). She's a proud Cuban-American born, raised and currently residing in Miami.

About Michael:

Michael Saloio is a product and team focused entrepreneur and investor. He’s spent his career working with technology executives and investors. As an investment analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., he followed some of the biggest names in technology including Cisco, EMC, and Apple. Prior to Oppenheimer, Mike covered special situations at Sidoti & Co.

Full Transcript

Daniel Stillman:

We're live. Welcome to the Conversation Factory. Michael, Stephanie, thanks for making the time for this conversation and finding a room where Stephanie, maybe somebody won't bump through, which is all good.

Michael Saloio:

Yeah. Thanks for having us.

Stephanie Golik:

Nice to be here.

Daniel Stillman:

Thank you. So, all right. We need to give some context to the people. Can you explain a little bit just about your company and what it's all about? And then maybe we can talk about the origin story of the two of you behind that.

Michael Saloio:

Sure. Steph, you want to tell Daniel here what Huddle is?

Stephanie Golik:

Sure.

Michael Saloio:

What's a huddle?

Stephanie Golik:

What's a huddle? Well, Huddle is a builder community. We are a community made up of over 250 now independent builders from around the world. And the Huddle platform connects all of those independent builders with startups who need help in the early stages of company building. So, we form teams for them of these builders, make up of product development and marketing talent. Anything to add, Michael?

Michael Saloio:

We are a seed stage company based in Miami, Florida, where we both are currently. Stephanie recruited me down here during the heat of the pandemic to start our company together. And we've been building Huddle officially since October 2020. That's when we launched. I guess we started in the summer of 2020. And Stephanie and I have been working together in different ways since 2015.

Daniel Stillman:

Whoa. How did you two meet all the way back in 2015? What's the meet cute?

Michael Saloio:

The meet cute?

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. Yeah. That's the phrase, Stephanie, I think you maybe know it. I mean, it's like in a rom com, it's like how the two people stumble upon each other. It's the-

Stephanie Golik:

The moment.

Daniel Stillman:

The moment. The moment of serendipity that brought the two of you in this big, crazy topsy turvy world. How did you two actually meet?

Stephanie Golik:

When our storylines converge?

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. When did your storylines converge?

Stephanie Golik:

It is a good story. So, I was just starting out in my career in 2015. I had previously been in architecture. I had just moved to New York. I was starting to get into product design, user experience design, working on side projects. And Mike actually hired me at my first full-time job. He was helping to run a product studio at the time. Mike interviewed me and it was like the best interview I've had to date. We just like, had a great convo over some hot mint tea and just immediately had a great rapport. And the two of us just ended up really enjoying working together and ended up leaving that studio, jumping to another studio together. And just over the years, have continually found ways to kind of come back and work together on things.

Daniel Stillman:

Hmm. Michael, do you remember that? You had a laugh.

Michael Saloio:

Yeah.

Daniel Stillman:

You were like, "Mint tea. I remember the mint tea."

Michael Saloio:

Well, I'm laughing because the best interview I've ever... It probably was my best interview too, all things considered, now that we're here building this company together. But the reason I laughed was because I had no idea how to interview a UX designer at all. And I think I just really liked Stephanie and I liked that she was building and designing things just in her spare time and was sort of a self made, self-taught product designer. And we were like a really scrappy bunch at this studio. So, she kind of fit right in. But yeah, it was a really casual conversation at the Crosby Hotel in Soho, which was around the corner from the office we worked at 73 Spring Street.

Daniel Stillman:

Wow.

Stephanie Golik:

Shout out.

Michael Saloio:

Shout out to 73 Spring Street.

Daniel Stillman:

So you were like the spark of... I mean, for the lack of a better word, attraction of the scrappiness, that you admired this quality in her. And the other thing I'm hearing is that the conversation was just really casual, but also engaging and fluid.

Michael Saloio:

It was casual. Well, you said it really well. It was casual, engaging, and fluid. It was also very centered on making things and building things. So, that's actually a cool part of the story too, is upon first meeting, we dove right into our passion for startups and building things.

Stephanie Golik:

Yeah. And I also remembered, besides it just being easy to talk and start riffing and collaborating and all that stuff was that Mike sort of jumped past the job we were even talking about and was asking me bigger questions about the next 10 years and got us into much more interesting conversations than many interviews I've been on. So, that was impressive to me as well.

Daniel Stillman:

That's really interesting. What was the question that zoomed out and started to create that bigger image? That's so interesting.

Stephanie Golik:

I think it was something along the lines of like, "For a second, let's just like, screw this job that we're talking about. Really. Let's keep it real. We're having this conversation about like building stuff, like what do you want to build? What do you want to do?"

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah.

Stephanie Golik:

And so to have that kind of branch in the conversation in our first chat, I think was pretty telling.

Daniel Stillman:

That is interesting.

Michael Saloio:

Wow.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. Do you remember this, Michael? And I'm curious if you remember-

Michael Saloio:

I did do that.

Daniel Stillman:

...Stephanie's answer.

Michael Saloio:

I don't remember asking that. Let me rephrase that. I do remember asking that, but I didn't remember until now, like re-remember that I actually asked that question. Do I remember what her answer was? I don't think I do. Do you remember what your answer was?

Stephanie Golik:

I think it was that I want to start my own company. Not a huge surprise.

Daniel Stillman:

She said, "I want to make Huddle, this sort of like, you know, agency that's..." No, sorry. That's a bad joke. You predicted Huddle in 2015. Obviously.

Michael Saloio:

We kind of did. We actually talked about that today in one of our internal meetings, that although we started Huddle really officially in the summer of 2020, we've kind of been working on this since 2015 in some way, shape, or form.

Daniel Stillman:

Say more about that.

Michael Saloio:

I do remember that you said you wanted to start your own company, for sure. I also remember in a later conversation that you wanted to be an empathetic leader. Do you remember that conversation?

Stephanie Golik:

Yeah, I do. I do. I don't remember what the context was, but I remember we had a good chat about what I wanted to be. And somewhere it landed with, like, "I really, really look up to strong leaders that have a really warm, empathetic quality." And that's what I would strive to be.

Daniel Stillman:

That's a really nice tension, like strong and warm at the same time. That's beautiful. It's really interesting, Michael. Because I know that, I guess we were just talking recently. I can't remember now if it was 2018 or 2019, where you were thinking about this, a community based approach, like where did the community element come into the conversation for the two of you?

Michael Saloio:

I can tell you where it came in for me in 2018, 2019. Without going too deep down the rabbit hole, I had worked at a prior startup called Super Phone, which was about owning your audience as an artist or creator. And the founder of that company, Ryan Leslie and I, had many a late night chat on just the power of relationships in general. And we talked about the concept of a thousand true fans and how changing the 20 to 30 people in your text feed every day is life changing. Like if you scroll through your text feed, that's your life. Your life is the communication and conversations and relationships that you build with people. And that led me to start a dinner series about wanting to connect people who might not ordinarily meet. Primarily because Ryan was an artist and had all of these people that I had not really bumped elbows with working in finance in New York, for the first part of my career.

Michael Saloio:

And later on, as it relates to Huddle, I was building what looked like a more traditional product and startup studio and basically realized that the most important thing I could do is put the best people in the room. That was it. I kind of had the epiphany as a first time entrepreneur that I wouldn't be better at company building than anybody else. And it was really the entrepreneur and the people that the entrepreneur surrounded themselves with, that was the most important part. I didn't think that I was going to develop a better sprint process or stage gate process or I didn't have any of that stuff. I just knew that I liked founders and I liked creativity and I liked startups. And people just started organically coming to me and Stephanie, because Stephanie and I were always helping our friends launch companies on the side by helping them with their pitch deck and building their app.

Michael Saloio:

Or building whatever they were building. And people just started organically coming to us and saying like, "Who's the best designer you know? Who's the best developer you know?" And I had organically built this list of people because of the dinner series. And so fast forward to 2020, all that stuff. Talked a little bit more about the community and how we launched. But for me it was like, the epiphany that I kind of needed to get out of the way more than I need to get in the way. So instead of like, coaching and strategizing with the founder, it was better for me to just create a container or a space where I could put people who were really good at what they did in the room. And the magic would happen from there.

Daniel Stillman:

Yes. Yeah. What does that spark for you, Stephanie?

Stephanie Golik:

Yeah. That's super interesting. Yeah. I feel like the way that I kind of arrived at some of these things is like, more through the lens of some of the things I learned in architecture and kind of that just made me think of it, Mike, with creating the container. It's like creating a space for facilitation of a thing to happen is just very interesting and exciting to me. I love designing and building things that become interfaces or tools for people to connect and do things together. And that's really what community building is. It's like, just creating that space and that interface for people to meet and do things, in its simplest form.

Michael Saloio:

And I think we both just wanted to make it easier for people to make things together. Stephanie and I worked inside of a lot of different startup studios and accelerators. And it also always seemed like they did a really good job with mentorship and advisory, but they were always looking for a designer and always looking for an engineer. And so fast forward to the pandemic, everybody's working from home. A lot of our friends and collaborators are starting new things, maybe because they were worried about their income or maybe just because they had more time in their day to work on things that they wanted to work on now because they didn't have to go into an office.

Michael Saloio:

And so at the same time, you had all these people who also had spare time to start freelance, like a lot of the way that people start as entrepreneurs, including us, is just by becoming a freelancer. Becoming a freelancer is a great way to become an entrepreneur because you do things on your own for the first time. You start an LLC. You have to figure out your accounting. You have to meet collaborators. And so the two worlds were just kind of colliding. It felt very much like at the same time, that we were like, "Oh wow, there's going to be a lot more people starting things. And they all need to connect with design and development talent. So maybe instead of a studio, we should be a platform that facilitates that."

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. And that goes to your point, Stephanie, of like, being the architect of a system of conversation, a space where people can gather. In the last conversation Michael and I had, one of the things that really impressed me was the culture of the company you two are trying to build. I'm wondering if you can say something about what an integrity-based culture means to you? How do you feel like you're doing that on purpose intentionally with the space that you're building for yourselves? Not to put you completely on the spot-

Michael Saloio:

Do you want me to take that first? I hired a leadership coach in 2016 for the first time after a conversation with Stephanie actually, which is a different story. And-

Daniel Stillman:

Did Stephanie give you some feedback?

Michael Saloio:

And one of the things that I realized about myself in trying to become an entrepreneur that I needed to improve upon was just having a plan and sticking to it. A lot of my challenges in the early days were, I had to define my own schedule. Sounds like really basic stuff, but going from an investment bank where there's pretty clear structure and a way of doing things, highly professional, and then having to wake up every day and figure it out, was that I had to really plan my week, like really relentlessly. And it came down to just doing what I said I was going to do. I have a much broader definition of what integrity is now. I became really obsessed with the... I still am very obsessed with the idea of integrity, but I wanted to build a culture where instead of it being based on hours and management, it was based on setting really clear values and goals and letting people self... I don't want to say self-identify, but letting them say what's possible for them.

Michael Saloio:

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah.

Michael Saloio:

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. I'm watching you nod Stephanie. Say more.

Stephanie Golik:

Yeah. What I really loved about it, within our culture that I've started to see is like, it really is... culture is, you get what you recognize or what you praise, I think is the phrase. And it feels like we just really praise when people step up and say like, "Yeah, I said I was going to do that. And I didn't, and I'm not sure if it's still important." Just that level of honesty. Besides that, it's just like, I think a real bonding and humanizing thing to do for a team. It also just gets us back to performing. We move past the... there's a lot of effort in hiding and feeling crappy about not doing something, right? That's just effort that doesn't... we're just kind of trying to say, like, "It doesn't need to be there. We're all humans and we're all trying to do our best and build this thing together."

Michael Saloio:

Yeah. I love how you said it's a bonding experience too. It's a really bonding experience to just be honest about what's happening.

Daniel Stillman:

Mm.

Michael Saloio:

I also love what you said about the, it's like a tire with a slow leak. It's literally not working. I really think about integrity as something working, like a system working. It can be your human working, like being in alignment with which is actually authentic to you or what is actually authentic to you. But at the company level, it's the same thing. Where are the leaks? You know? And if you're always just focusing your attention on plugging the leaks, then the wheel's not turning, it's literally not working.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. It's interesting, like that Thursday meeting could feel like being ashamed. So I'm curious how-

Michael Saloio:

It could be.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. So like, how do you facilitate that to make sure that as you're saying, Stephanie, people feel... This maybe goes to Michael, your point of like, an energy producing partnership. There's that feeling of like, "Oh, I'm blocked," or, "I don't know if it's important anymore," or, "I need some help." What makes that conversation, that Thursday conversation, possible?

Michael Saloio:

Nothing is wrong. Something's not working.

Daniel Stillman:

Hmm.

Michael Saloio:

Hey, something's not working here. Okay, great. What's not working? Let's problem solve around what's not working and get it working.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah.

Michael Saloio:

It's the elimination of something being right or wrong. To me, at least.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. Stephanie, do you want to say more about your nods?

Stephanie Golik:

I'm actually just agreeing. I was thinking if I had anything to add. I think that really is the core thing, is that it really is that removal of right and wrong in it. And we're all sort of working towards the same thing together, so it's acknowledgement of something that might not be working. I was also thinking of some of the... We actually frame our check-ins through a series of questions that we all sort of answer. And so I was thinking about some of those questions that we ask and whether they kind of also open up more of an opportunity for that.

Stephanie Golik:

We ask at the end of the week, things like, "What did you learn?" And sometimes that becomes an opening for people to also kind of open up about like, "Well, I learned that this wasn't working," or that this thing has changed. It's also that lens of like, we're constantly trying things. We're committing to trying things. And then figuring out what's working and kind of just being as transparent as possible about what we're learning along the way.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. Yeah. That's something I'm always curious about because in any good story, there's peaks and valleys, like as you say, like sometimes you hit a wall and something doesn't work. I'm curious how the two of you manage your relationship as co-founders, if you've dealt with friction between the two of you.

Stephanie Golik:

Yeah. I mean, well, I'll tell the story that Mike alluded to. Because I think it's [inaudible 00:21:25] story.

Michael Saloio:

It is.

Stephanie Golik:

So, this is before Mike and I were our co-founders. This is back when we were actually working at the first studio, our first working experience together. And we were considering hopping over to this other studio to continue working together. And I think this all comes back to the rawness, realness of that first conversation. Mike and I, I've already, at that point, I think gotten to the point where we were really honest with each other and I think that's really Mike's doing. Mike is very, very raw, very honest. Very direct. I'm less so, but I think he's taught me a little bit of that. And I felt like I could give him critical feedback.

Stephanie Golik:

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah.

Michael Saloio:

Yeah. And yeah, I remember the feedback and it prompted me to enroll in leadership coaching. I wanted to improve. The feedback was very directly... It was basically, "Hey, I like these three things, but here's the one thing that I'm not okay with, and this is what I'm going to need to leave and go with you to this other shop." And I was just like, "Cool. I really appreciated it." And then I went and worked on it. I'm skating around it a little bit maybe, but it was around... I think a prior version of me, and still a little bit today, because it's hard to work past these things. I basically struggled to make choices. And so I wouldn't say my thing confidently or I wouldn't make a decision confidently and then something wouldn't be getting done and I would get angry and resentful that it wasn't getting done.

Michael Saloio:

And I realized that I was really struggling to make powerful choices and have confidence to just make decisions. And I was like, "Man, I really want to be able to make really powerful choices and stick to them even if they're wrong." Because I knew if I wasn't making that choice or if... let's say I wanted someone in the office to do something by a certain time and I wasn't asking for that and then I'd be resentful that it wasn't getting done. And so there wasn't just clear expectation setting. And I totally agree with everything that Steph said, or maybe not agree, but it certainly resonates that by the time we became co-founders, we had a way to have healthy conflict, basically.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah.

Michael Saloio:

So yeah, there still is friction. I tell Steph this all the time, when we do have friction, I leave the room feeling better than having gone in it, which does lead to this concept of like, energy producing partnerships. You can have a partnership that has friction in it where the friction produces results and performance.

Daniel Stillman:

Yes.

Michael Saloio:

Or you can have a partnership where the friction produces something that I would call energy draining, where you leave the room a little bit confused or not feeling so good. And those are just more challenging. It's like a car that kind of constantly breaks down that you have to take to the shop. You want to be able to leave the shop cruising really fast, windows open, in Miami, wind blowing through your hair. You don't want to be taking the car to the shop all the time. And you know, then you get on the freeway and a tire blows out or something. I don't even have a car yet. I'm recently in the process of moving from New York to Miami, so my car analogies aren't that good. Yeah. You don't want to be in breakdown in the breakdown lane couple times a week. It's just too draining.

Daniel Stillman:

You know, I want to unpack a few layers because Stephanie, the feedback you gave to Michael, there's an implication here. One of my theses about conversations and relationships is, there's a conversation that we're all having with ourselves. And for you to be able to give him that very, very clear feedback of like, and to design the conversation, to say, "These are these things I like. This is what I don't like. And this is a blocker for me." To be able to express yourself clearly in that way does is non trivial, right? And that is the work. So we say it's energy producing, but you did put that energy in so that he could hear you.

Daniel Stillman:

Then he has to put the work in to say, "I'm willing to do something about that." And then what we have here is, there is an energy producing partnership because it becomes a flywheel, as you said, Michael. We're all putting energy in, but the energy creates forward motion, forward momentum. It creates feedback loops, right? It creates results. But not for nothing, doing that work on your own to say, "Here's what I want and what I need," and doing that work on your own, Michael like, "Okay, well I'm going to do something about this feedback." Those are conversations that you each had with yourselves that the other person can't help you with, necessarily. That's time you put in.

Stephanie Golik:

Yeah. I love that. It really is true. It is putting the energy on both sides that can produce that results. Because if it's missing on either end, there's effort that's needed. And I do think, to Mike's point around like, you keep having to take your car back to the shop or you keep going the shop. It can get draining. That's why it gets drained. Right? Because there is effort. And if it keeps happening or if it doesn't feel like you're coming out of it with a well working, like a significantly better working relationship, it is a draining thing. But yeah, it's work. It's work on yourself to receive feedback. It's work on yourself to learn how to give good feedback or to have those, be able to articulate those kinds of things.

Stephanie Golik:

I don't even remember how I originally articulated the feedback, but it was because we were thinking about this larger decision about changing jobs. It was something I was thinking about quite a bit. And felt this little nagging thing and felt like I was willing to put in the energy to figure it out. It felt there was something at the sort of heart level. That you want to make it work. And you're willing to put in that little bit effort to kind of dig in and figure out like, what is that feeling? How could I express it in a way that it might be constructive? And then, Mike of course did a lot of the effort on his end to take it and listen fully in the conversation, which is also hard.

Daniel Stillman:

But you also did that step of listening to yourself first.

Stephanie Golik:

Yeah, absolutely.

Daniel Stillman:

Which is nontrivial work of like, you know-

Stephanie Golik:

An interesting way to put it.

Daniel Stillman:

What am I feeling? You sensed something and you're like, "Wait, this is bothering me. What is it that's bothering me? Can I express it clearly?" I think it's sort of an ongoing joke that we want someone who can read our minds. And it's just obviously not a thing. That work of listening to ourselves and then the work to be able to express ourselves in a way that someone else can hear. And as you said, Michael, any hard conversation, we always feel better afterwards if we put the work in. And I think people, this happens all the time. We're like, "Oh my God, there's this hard conversation. I don't know what to do." It's like, well, if you face it and you sense into yourself and you do the work before the conversation, it's always going to be better after that conversation.

Michael Saloio:

Yeah. And if you express yourself authentically inside of the conversation. I like what you said about the flywheel and about putting energy in that actually creates more momentum on the other side of it. That's a really cool way to look at it.

Daniel Stillman:

Thank you. Yeah. I've been thinking about the... somebody talked about it in a recent interview.I did. I'm not remembering who now. They talked about Jim Collins' flywheel effect in Good to Great. And every company needs to have a flywheel, but I think people need to have flywheels. And clearly partnerships have to have flywheels too.

Stephanie Golik:

Yeah. It reminds me too of something that Mike and I talk a lot about, which is just the understated importance of like, just commitment, which is like, in some places, a dirty word. But truly just committing to the thing together. I think it does. It allows you to kind of push through some of those more energy draining moments or put in the extra energy to figure it out. It's sort of like marriage.

Daniel Stillman:

Yes, totally. Michael, what's coming up for you?

Michael Saloio:

Yeah. Oh, so what's coming up. So, what actually came up for me is, I was listening to different podcast earlier this year called Invest Like the Best, Patrick O'Shaughnessy. And he has an investor's field guide and the founder's field guide. And he has an episode with Mike Maples from Floodgate, who has just epic quotes on startup building. And one of the things he says is, "The future isn't something that happens to us like the weather. The future is what we decide to create." And I just couldn't agree more with that. And that really is a big way that I look at commitment too. There's so much emphasis in the startup ecosystem about testing and ideating and seeing what works and what doesn't work, which is clearly very important.

Michael Saloio:

And also you have to choose to do the thing and really choose it. I think there's too much emphasis on ideating. The way that I look at entrepreneurship is like, I just know what I want to make. And I'm pretty ruthless about making it. In my head, it's already done. Because why not take that lens? Does that mean it's necessarily going to work? No. I don't know it's going to work. Maybe that's where the testing and ideating comes in. But in my head, Huddle is built. It's already done, you know? And like, I don't think that's arrogant. I think it's, I have to choose that lens. I have to choose to be that confident about it. Because I don't know if it's going to work, anyway. Right? Like when you commit to something, you don't know that it's going to work, but you have to commit to it, because then once you commit, we have no idea what's on the other side of our choices and our commitments. We think we do.

Daniel Stillman:

Well, I mean, it obviously works on the team to team, like, project to project basis. Right? It's the question of like, what does it look like at scale? Which is always an interesting question.

Michael Saloio:

Yeah. But my choice to get up every day and just choose that this is what I'm doing, and I see what it looks like in the future and I'm going to take steps today to build it. And I'm really committed to it. The question as to like, what should I do or how should I do it, it kind of melts away. It's just consistent action towards the goal. I hope that lands.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah, it does. Well, I mean, it also sounds like that's something that you've worked on you. From what Stephanie, you were saying earlier. I think, Michael, you've struggled with what I think a lot of us struggle with, which is optionality. Right? Making a decision and choosing to build one thing and not another is always hard.

Michael Saloio:

Yeah. I've spent a lot of time not committing to things staying on the outside of things.

Daniel Stillman:

Did I read that right?

Michael Saloio:

Yeah. Completely. I spent a lot of time trying to find the "right thing."

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah.

Michael Saloio:

Which is a cop out for taking responsibility for the thing that you really want to do.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah.

Michael Saloio:

At least for me-

Daniel Stillman:

And that goes back to integrity, basically like, what do I really-

Michael Saloio:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I should have said that like from I. I shouldn't have said you.

Daniel Stillman:

But no, it's all good.

Michael Saloio:

I ultimately have to do the thing that I really want to do.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. Well, and that's the point of the thing. So, we're coming close to the end of our time together. There was one other topic I did want to make sure that we hit upon, which is failures. Because we're talking about what I like to call a bucket of puppies. Everyone loves a bucket of puppies. If you've ever seen a bucket of puppies, it's adorable. And you two have a positive flywheel and an energy producing partnership and open communication. And I suppose we could just like, everyone could just take this podcast and just listen to it backwards slash inverted and say like, "These are the lessons. If you notice these things, leave the partnership right away, or don't start a company with them." But you know, Michael, you did talk about lessons from failures and you know, when it comes to being a conscious co-founder and intentional, co-founder, I'm wondering if the two of you have any anti patterns from your own experience. Things I did in the past that didn't work include blank.

Michael Saloio:

Oh yeah, I do. So, I-

Daniel Stillman:

Wait, hold a second before that. Because Stephanie, I want to check in with Stephanie first because I think she had something.

Stephanie Golik:

Honestly, the only thing that comes to mind, I mean, there are definitely many, but the one that comes to mind for me, that's definitely very partnership oriented is really that this is a true for me statement that may not be true for everyone. But that going it alone doesn't work for me. Going out and trying... I'm a very... I don't know. I am a builder. I feel like I can go off and kind of build what I want to build or do this idea that I want to do. And in the past, that's led me to just kind of take on a project or an idea solo and try to just be the person that makes it happen on my own.

Stephanie Golik:

There's been a number of little heartbreaks along the way with that, with things that didn't fully, really, really get off the ground, really get a chance. And I think that having a real co-founder partnership has been a real learning for me in why the co-founder route is the route most taken. Because really, that level of partnership, and that level of commitment on both ends, I think it's really, really important to actually getting hard stuff done.

Daniel Stillman:

That's really good advice. I think going it alone is tempting.

Stephanie Golik:

It is tempting for some more than others. For me, it was very tempting and I did it multiple times. And here I am. I probably wouldn't do it again, honestly.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. Thank you. Michael, what was on your mind?

Michael Saloio:

Did you say anti patterns?

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. When we talk about lessons from failures or partnership, Stephanie's giving us a like, "Don't even try to not do a partnership," which is an anti, anti, anti pattern, I think.

Michael Saloio:

Got it. Well, my anti patterns. I think I relate to them more as failures, but positive failures.

Daniel Stillman:

Positive failures.

Michael Saloio:

I had many a partner. They were all super high performing, quality human beings. And many of those partnerships had either mediocre results or were just failures. They didn't work out. And everyone went off to do amazing things afterwards. But what I learned from me is that I would often enter the relationship being really inauthentic about what I wanted. I joined two different businesses as like a minority partner. And what I really wanted was to be the CEO or be the co-founder. And I wasn't super real about that at the time.

Michael Saloio:

I had to go through those things to learn that about me as well. But those are my learning lessons, is that enter the partnership and be like really raw about what you really want out of it. And that's something I think Stephanie and I did really, really well too. Because I was going to go it alone for a hot minute. Because I was like, "Yo, I don't know if I can do this again. I just keep trying out these things and they're just not working out." And so yeah, I was tempted to go it alone too. But we have the ability, based probably stemming from that initial conversation and many conversations like it, where we can just be really super truthful about what what we wanted.

Daniel Stillman:

Yes.

Michael Saloio:

Yeah. Honestly creates a lot of trust. Right? It's pretty simple. It's harder to do in practice, but.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah.

Michael Saloio:

Yeah. I wouldn't say the fatal flaws of any of these failures was any one particular thing other than just an inauthenticity about... I'll just speak for myself, what I wanted out of that relationship. But I think if you talk to some of my ex partners, they'd say similar things.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah.

Michael Saloio:

Yeah.

Daniel Stillman:

That's really beautiful. And I forget what it comes down to-

Michael Saloio:

Or who knows what they'd say?

Daniel Stillman:

Well, I mean, it comes down to... in a way, Michael, what you and Stephanie are saying is very similar. It's like, if you want to be in a partnership, you have to know why. You have to know what you want and what you want from the other person. And to be really clear and direct about that, which is pretty much what we've been saying this whole time. We should call scene very soon. What haven't I asked you about partnerships that I should be asking you? What haven't I asked that I ought to have asked?

Michael Saloio:

I don't know if this is something you should ask, and I hate to give advice, but I think generally speaking, and I wrote a blog post on this, it's called You Don't Need a Co-founder, which is so funny because we're sitting here saying that co-founders are amazing. But what I meant by that, I meant a couple things by that. One is, what you really need is people around you. The relationships can take a lot of different shapes or forms. I had some kind of shotgun co-founder wedding type vibes as well. I would just say go slow. It takes a lot of time to understand whether or not you're going to be able to build a company for... Just think about how much time you spend working.

Michael Saloio:

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. Totally. Any closing thoughts from you, Stephanie?

Stephanie Golik:

Yeah. I think I agree with all of that. Yeah. My recommendation or thought would be that like, if you can, work with, partner with someone that you've known and you have some of that kind of just normal relationship stuff in place with. Because it's still two human beings that are in a relationship, it just happens to be around co-founding a business together. But there's a lot that's just relationships stuff. So having that, I think you have a little bit of a head start. But at the very least, starting out with those open, as open, raw, and authentic of conversations as possible about things that are sticky and uncomfortable, like commitment. Even if it is that today, the commitment isn't fully this or that, I think is really, really important. A lot of people skirt around that stuff and then someone's committing more and it just starts to become more complicated than it's worth. So, I think the authenticity just happening as early on as possible is really important.

Daniel Stillman:

I love it. Well, you two. Thank you so much for being in a huddle with me today. If people want to know more about Huddle or the two of you, where in the internets should they go to learn more about the things that you all are...

Stephanie Golik:

You should head to huddle.works.

Daniel Stillman:

Especially if you are a early stage founder who needs something really, really powerful built. If I understand correctly.

Stephanie Golik:

Absolutely.

Daniel Stillman:

And Michael, you and I have talked about this, you need more people in the Huddle too, right? Lead designers and creative strategy people and those types of folks as well.

Michael Saloio:

Yeah. Ultimately, we're building a really high end, high quality builder community. So, we have a lot of people who are ex high growth tech company, ex founders, ex product leader at a FANG, or-

Daniel Stillman:

A MANG, I think we call it now.

Michael Saloio:

Ex agency executives, and we're making it really easy for them to build independent careers inside of Huddle by connecting them with really amazing startups that just desperately need their help.

Daniel Stillman:

All right, y'all. Well, I will call scene. Thank you so much, you two. You two are awesome.

Michael Saloio:

Yes. Yeah.

Stephanie Golik:

You're awesome.

Michael Saloio:

Thank you for having us. And thank you. I've told you this many times but you are the best asker of questions I've ever met.

Stephanie Golik:

[inaudible 00:47:11].

Michael Saloio:

It was really a pleasure. It was just a really flowing conversation. I'm like, "Whoa, what just happened? How long have we been doing this?" But that was really fun. So, thanks for having us.

Daniel Stillman:

Oh, it's my pleasure. All right. Now I'm really going to stop recording.