Name: Being a First-Time CEO Is Like Being a First-Time Mother
Uploaded: 2016-12-21
Duration: 4 min 40 s
Description: According to Houzz CEO Adi Tatarko

[ SOUND ] [ CROSSTALK ] Are you a good CEO? I don't know. [ LAUGH ] I'm trying to get better, all the time. I think that in many ways, there are lots of parallels between being a mother and being a CEO. You're not born with it most of us not. I mean if you're a serial CEO entrepreneur yes so you can get better every time you do it. But when you're doing it the first time big time you have to grow with it. So [ CROSSTALK ] Exactly. Giving birth to your first child. And then growing through different phases, right? Now I have a teenager even at home. And so you need to reinvent yourself as a parent again and again and again, and grow with your child. Same with a company, it doesn't come with a manual that tells you exactly what to do. But if you work with your heart and soul, and you're truly passionate about what you do, and you love what you're doing, exactly with your kids, it's gonna pay off. I know that initially, you tried to limit the number of middle managers to keep the organization flat. How has that worked, and have you been able to preserve that as the company's grown? Yeah, in many ways we did, because we felt that lots of middle management is not necessarily gonna create the most productive innovative environment that we wanted Many times, people are [ UNKNOWN ] with bureaucracies and and policies and lots of meetings instead of actually building and innovating and creating. So by removing that, we were able to empower lots of very, very creative people to just go with their ideas. I know that international has been a huge priority of yours. Why is that? Why is that so important? Because we realize, like Many other things that we realized as we started growing that with House we're able to facilitate a global design language. All of the sudden you are not just capped into what you see in your neighborhood or in the few local stores that you are aware of. All of the sudden you are exposed to designs in other parts of the world and you can actually Talk to designers in other parts of the world, or architects or contractors, and consult with them. And you have access to products from all over the world. And now people are talking the same language on how this is the global language. And we felt like if this is so prominent and in so many countries, we literally have users from every single country on the globe. When we are running our surveys every year Users are participating, including from the Vatican. Every single country. So when we look at that. The Vatican, you mean? The Vatican. They're outfitting the Vatican. We do have people from the Vatican filling out our surveys, and telling us about remodeling activities. Not the pope though. He's very [ UNKNOWN ] I didn't. We are not. It's anonymous. [ LAUGH ] So you. He has a little bed only. We only know that they are coming from the Vatican, but it's super interesting. So we started launching in different countries back in 2014, about two years ago. And since then, it grew quite a bit. We have 45 % of our new users are coming from outside of the US, and the communities are very prominent. So we are talking about both Homeowners and the industry players, the professionals and the brands, and the activity is crossing borders now, so we get, last year, three percent of our interior designers already conducted the work outside of their country. So the globalization is a big play for us. You said a quote that I really like " Don't enter to exit ". Yeah, that was a very good one, good advice that we've got from one of our early investors and he. Kind of said it as a friendly advice, he said, do it because you are really passionate about what you're gonna do. Because it's gonna be a long crazy ride, and you need to enjoy the journey. So don't enter in order to exit, and that's all right. You and your husband both run this company, you have three children. It's a cliche to ask, but how do you How do you juggle? You mentioned it earlier but what have you learned about that? I think that, first of all, understanding that you can't do it all. It's a myth you just can't do it all. But you can definitely do the most important things. So focus is a keyword. Both at home and at work. And you just define what is the most important for you to do at home with your kids? And what is it the most important that you specifically, nobody else, will do at work. Where are you needed the most? And then put some boundaries around it, it's very, very helpful. So we are very focused, I think, and actually helps a lot. I think it even makes us better. I can definitely talk for myself. I think that the fact that I have kids and three one and the third one was born while we were running house. He's almost three now. It's very meaningful in terms of my ability to be even more focused on what really matters. [ MUSIC ]