Orum.io

Imagine your company as a rocketship with only 50 seats. Who are you bringing along? 🚀 That’s how we think about team building at ⚡Orum.io⚡. Before I came here as VP of People, I worked at companies small and large — and I found there’s a magical unlock that happens around 50 people. ✨ You have lots of different perspectives and teams, yet you’re never too many degrees separated from anyone else. Relatively easily, you can keep everyone focused and building in alignment. Of course, those 50 people on your rocketship must be the optimal group of people for your growth stage company. Here’s how we find ours: 🚀We seek a combination of experience and scrappiness. When you hire fewer people, you might be tempted to bring on the most experienced people you can find. But you can’t have a company full of just C-suite and directors. At a startup, people need an element of grittiness — a desire to work through hard problems — a comfort with rapid iteration. A person could be a highly skilled engineer or marketer who’s just not comfortable with the inherent ride that is startup life. We need folks with an ability to stick with it on the rocketship. 🚀We clearly define what’s needed, and open a role only when necessary. When your company has an emerging need, it’s easy to conclude that you’ll need to bring someone on. But you have options — and even if you ultimately decide you need a FT role, the position must be scoped correctly.   You can do this in a few ways. You could redefine an existing role, or alter the purview of a whole team. Perhaps you bring on a contractor for a few months. You could try fractional support, which we’ve done at Orum with engineering. These methods don’t take up seats on your rocketship, and you might find temp support gets you where you need to go — no new hires necessary.   Or these methods may help you conclude that yes, you do need a FT role. The process with our fractional engineering leader did just that, allowing us to tweak hypotheses about what we truly needed and onboard a new team member who was a strong fit with those needs. 🤝   🚀We track to business financials and priorities.  For early stage companies, I’d encourage deep understanding of key business metrics. Hiring is an investment, and you can’t track the return on that investment otherwise. Does the cost of this person unlock revenue potential? Or, how many more widgets do you need to sell to pay for this salary?   Sometimes, this helps you look at the problem differently. Maybe you're drowning in customer support requests, so on the surface, it feels like you need more CS reps. But the truth is…you need to fix the problems with the product that are causing so many customers to reach out. You may actually need to fill that seat with an engineer, not CS. In conclusion: It’s easier to hire for quantity, not quality. But with only 50 seats on the ship, it’s critical we do the work to hire well — to keep us rocketing higher. #hiring #culture #startups

I’ve been asked a million times about how I raised millions of dollars in venture capital to start ⚡Orum.io ⚡ 💰 But we never talk about the pressure of ACTUALLY PAYING BACK THOSE MILLIONS TO INVESTORS & SHAREHOLDERS. 😨 So let’s get into it. 😉 While #fundraising is hard, it is a whole new level of pressure after a round closes to make it worth it for your investors — not only returning their money over time, but earning them 5x, 10x, or maybe even 15x. 🤑 I just don’t hear people talking about what this pressure can mean and how to deal with it. Here are some things that have worked for me: ✅ Work with a coach. This is advice I give often — but that’s because it’s worth every dollar. It’s so valuable to be able to turn to a truly objective observer as you start to face the myriad challenges of running a #startup. I work with Steve Schreck weekly, and this has been the biggest single thing that has helped me grow as a founder. ✅ Stay close with your board and investors. “No surprises” is an adage for a reason, and it rings especially true when something that goes wrong. Don’t keep your circle in the dark. Maintaining a close line of contact with your board can help you rapidly problem-solve. The people who backed you are here to help make you successful. ✅ Use a North Star metric that everyone can understand. A single metric becomes your lens through which you look at everything. It all becomes far simpler — from tracking targets, to evolving business plans, to answering the question “is this working?” Everyone on the team must understand how their work ladders up to the broader business, because it requires the entire team rowing together to win. Founders alone don’t create success. ✅ Celebrate wins. Small wins add up. Take the time to step back and enjoy the little things, providing fuel for the marathon ahead. I love to celebrate Orum’s birthday every year, and to stand in awe of how far we have come – while also spotlighting  how far I still want us to go. I am an #entrepreneur for a reason. I love the challenge of bringing a vision to life, and I thrive in the messy and complex. But that doesn’t make me immune to the emotional 🎢ride that is startup life. Talking about the pressures that come after fundraising isn’t a sign of weakness. Let’s normalize having more conversations about this…starting now! I’d love to hear from you in the comments. 🎤

Today I’m excited to share our latest #OrumOdes — a series shouting out the amazing partners, vendors, and products that we at  ⚡Orum.io ⚡use and love. This installment is all about Addition Wealth. 💰 Addition makes personalized financial insights inclusive and accessible for all employees — especially those at startups, who may have more complex comp and planning questions. 🤔 It speaks to my soul as a Certified Financial Planner 🤓, and as a founder/CEO seeking value-adds for my team. 🤝 There are plenty of financial planning services out there, but my friend Ana Mahony built Addition with a particular focus on startup employees who may receive equity-based compensation. 🤑 That’s a major differentiator that informs all of Addition’s offerings. It’s a focus for Addition’s financial planners, whom our employees can speak to one-on-one and to discuss any financial topic — unlimited. 🗣️ It’s part of the educational sessions and webinars Addition runs often, and it e tools that let you game out how different scenarios would affect your finances. 📊 As a lean startup, we have to choose wisely when investing any limited dollars beyond true OpEx for running the company. 💱 Addition is a no-brainer 🧠 — it’s a really powerful product, and one I’m proud to offer to Team Orum. I’m not at all surprised that it’s one of the most utilized benefits we offer. Thanks to Ana and the Addition team! 🎉 #orumodes #financialplanning #fintech

Realtime Payments is more than a future state, it's a tool that can make a difference in people's lives today. This was a fun project to be part of. I like payments, but I really like solving problems for our customers. Our Flexent team recognized a challenge our clients experience with accessing their funds. Unfortunately, in the trucking industry its very common that many small operators rely on fuel cards to buy their groceries from a truck stop because that’s the fastest way for them to get paid for their deliveries. For these clients, the speed of money movement is critical. By leveraging our payments knowledge and strong partnerships we are able to deliver real value using #FedNow and #RTP directly to client bank accounts. Kudos to our Flexent Freight Funding, Project Management, and Chesapeake Payment Systems Teams for coming together. Thanks to our friends like Stephany Kirkpatrick, CFP® at Orum.io that innovated with us to connect modern payment systems with some of our legacy technology. Watch the full interview with Proactive Investor News here: https://lnkd.in/eNcibjBT Checkout the Flexent Freight Website here: https://lnkd.in/eXp3NTdM Flexent , Chesapeake Bank, Kevin Wood,  Jamie Johnson, CRCM, CERP, AAP Gregory Gittrich, Hunter Pawloff, Matthew Suttmiller, Melissa Hicks, PMP Rusiru Gunasena, Keith Gray, Dan Gonzalez

✨ My summer reading list: 5 book recommendations ✨ I’m a busy CEO, startup founder, and fintech leader with lots to do, learn, and read about. 🤓 But what do I most often read when I get into bed at night? FICTION. Pure, escapist fiction. 😌 When I open a book, I’m transported to a place where my mind can rest, my creativity can be refueled, and my whole self is further developed — which has a direct impact on my work, even when the books have nothing to do with #fintech or #founderlife. 🌱 With that, here are a few of my favorite fiction reads for 2024: 📕 Fourth Wing https://hubs.li/Q02G9YRb0 & Iron Flame https://hubs.li/Q02G9YZt0: Frankly, I’ve never been interested in fantasy novels. But this pair — the first two books in the “Empyrean” series — sucked me into a world of beautifully personified dragons and I can’t get enough. I can’t wait for the third book in January! 📙 Colors of the Dark: https://hubs.li/Q02G9ZCL0 This intricate, unique take on the abduction/serial killer mystery really took me by surprise. It’s as much about the process as it is about the characters; this tale covers everything from survivor guilt to the intrigue of what happened to a girl named Grace. 📔 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: https://hubs.li/Q02G9Z0g0 I finally picked this one up after about a dozen recommendations, and it truly lives up to the hype. It’s about developing video games, but that short description belies the fascinating exploration of the theory behind game design, the difficult journey to become a creator — and why, in the end, we all crave connection. 📗 A Love Song for Ricki Wilde: https://hubs.li/Q02G9Y9X0 Sometimes, you just need to believe in what fate can bring. I’m a longtime fan of Tia Williams, and I love the fantastical, romantic, time-travel aspects of this NYC-based story that centers on a special Harlem flower shop.. 📘 Long Bright River: https://hubs.li/Q02G9Y_h0 Culled from Barack Obama’s reading list, this is a newly minted all-time favorite. It’s a page-turning police procedural that takes place in a part of Philly racked by the opioid crisis, and full of wild twists I never could’ve predicted. I’ve read 38 books so far this year and I’m always looking for more — please drop your beach reads and book recs in the comments! 👇 #readinglist #summerreading #reading