00:28:51 · Ben Pfisterer
[00:28:51] S0: So the... I'm a very firm believer that general advice should not be taken by everyone. So what I did and what we do is not what everyone should do. But what we did, there's kind of a few different things here. One is every little bit of saving or or expediting a process or stripping out bureaucracy, every little thing is gonna add up to a lot of things. So if you could strip out little things, you're gonna get faster and more efficient all the way. So all the things from, like, I don't believe in one on ones, don't don't have this. I don't wanna look at meeting rooms and see them full of people just having one on ones updating each other on what they're doing. Complete waste of time. Get together a bunch of people, make sure that you're updating collective together. But also when someone says that I can deliver by this date, you say, well, how do we do it faster? What do you need to do it faster? And so that never settling for that that urgency. When people say, hey. I'll set a meeting up with you next week. I said, well, why don't you walk up to my desk and ask me now? Let's solve it right here. Let's just keep moving. So that urgency and little things, a little examples keeps going, but also just the ability to see it that it's that it's working, I think the team has really regenerated off that. So they come... Might be a little bit doubtful about it at the start, but I'm saying don't build a massive GAT chart. I don't want someone spending three months building a GAT chart down to all this minutiae and detail, and then suddenly have to readjust it every day to keep up with the pace. Like, just just get a general idea of when this is gonna be done, and go for it. Run as hard as you can at it. Have no excuses. Give it your best shot. If we don't get there, we don't get there. But if you need help, let us know. We'll add more resources or we'll move things quicker or unblock blockages. So just that constant sort of hustling along. Also, too many posts... Reading too many posts on LinkedIn. Like, it's such a... It's an amazing asset, an amazing thing to get information, but it can be demoralizing because you constantly... People are saying, do this, do that, and you have to... To be a leader, you have to go this way and you... And and not believe in your own vision or make sure it's a collective decision or etcetera.
00:30:47 · Ben Pfisterer, Adam Miller
So, like, just come up with your way of doing it, and then just go hard at it. Absolutely push as fast as you can. And then, yeah, you... You're the only person that's gonna succeed or fail on how you do it, so do it your way. [00:30:58] S2: How do you think you tread the line between pushing someone to that capacity and then not burning them out?
00:30:58 · Adam Miller, Ben Pfisterer
[00:30:58] S2: How do you think you tread the line between pushing someone to that capacity and then not burning them out? [00:31:03] S0: Yeah. We talk a lot about this, and get quite philosophical when people join, and and and the bad truth of it is, life's life's pretty shit. Like, it... It's the most special thing ever you'll do, obviously, but it's hard. Like, you have ups and downs. You have really tough times, personal and otherwise. You will go through that, and you'll go through that probably when you're working here. So as a company, I absolutely promise you that we will be there for you. And if you if you are giving your all to this company and working as hard as you can, assuming that's what you want from your career, when you turn around and say, I need a break, I need to reach out, I need to unplug, I need a day, I need a week, I need something, we will never say no because you're working as hard as you can to do that. Now when I say work as hard, I do not want people working twenty four hours a day. That's ridiculous. You will burn out. Some people still do it because that's the way they're built and they love it. But every person has their own limit. So I always encourage people, know what your limit is. And you might know it until you hit it, but if you're working towards that and you hit it, again, we'll be there for you as much as we can. But if I tell you [00:32:06] S2: my limits four hours a day
00:32:08 · Ben Pfisterer
[00:32:08] S0: Then you're not right for Zeller. No. That's the thing. Upfront and scaring people off in interviews, like, I I just say it direct every time. We work hard. Like, like, there's no great company in the world that has achieved what they had without working hard. If you think you can gamer or you can be lucky or you can drift through, it doesn't happen. Now a great thing about everyone we hire in Australia in tech, there are limitless opportunities out there. We're not like a limited sector where this is the one bank you can work in, the one town or whatever. Like, is so many job opportunities. Find something that you love. And we've done this with people where we're realizing it's not clicking. We have honest conversations with them and say, hey. Are you sure this is what you want? And if it's not, how about we cut a deal? How about we give you the opportunity to go looking for a new job? And in the next whatever weeks you need to get that new job, you just give everything you've got. Like, you check us deliver between now and one, two, three, four, five, six weeks or whatever. We'll let you go to job interviews. We'll let you have a nice exit. You have good farewell and work both ways. Because, yeah, if Zeller's an office, don't want them working there. I couldn't think of anything worse than someone works a few years at Zeller, looks back and goes, I hated that. Like, that would be awful. So I want people to be there. I want them to be passionate about being there. But if they're not, that's okay. We are not the company forever, and that's okay. And as diverse as humans are, companies cannot be right forever. I can't build a company right forever. It's impossible.
00:33:32 · Sachin
[00:33:32] S1: Wow. I really love that speech. I think that's one of the best speeches about sort of hiring and culture I've heard in quite a long time. So you made a big launch, just last week about Zeller for Startups, and, you know, financial services aren't the thing to get everyone sort of excited with the new launch, but I actually got excited because I have to do the finances at our company, and it's shit. It sucks. Like, big banks suck. You're stitching together, like you said, lots of different solutions, and a lot of founders are always looking for new things in Startups. So what is special about Zeller for Startups? What what are you offering there?
00:34:03 · Ben Pfisterer, Adam Miller
[00:34:03] S0: Yeah. I think for us, the weirdest thing was we were out to build a version of a business bank and payment system, but we still had to get a bank account. So we got an early investment, obviously. So we had to... We're gonna put this money. So we, like every other startup, had to go through the process of opening a bank account with one of the big fours. And it was absurd. It was absolutely absurd. They had these front... These websites that say, you know, sign up in minutes. The second you click, you're not a current customer or you're not a sole trader. Good luck. You're off the branch. You're in the queues. You're only gonna get one product. Product's gonna be bad. Ours was horrific experience. It took weeks to open a bank account. You had to witness documents. You had to, you know, go into the branch to be eyeballed by the by the branch manager. At one point, someone have to find a fax. I don't... Still cannot believe that's a thing. Hopefully, it's not. [00:34:48] S2: We're a venture backed startup that's, like, doing decent revenue, and we still don't have a credit card. We're not allowed to get one.