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I recently left Microsoft after 23 years to become the Chief Revenue Officer at Nerdio—a fantastic startup focused on helping Managed Service Providers build successful cloud practices with a focus on Microsoft Azure. 23 years at one company and now 30 days at a second company represents the entirety of my formal work experience. I’ll admit that leaving Microsoft was frightening. I didn’t quite know what to expect the day I started work at Nerdio. I felt prepared based on the incredible education I received at Microsoft; I like to think I was put in almost every situation one can imagine over the course of my tenure at the company. But I had never experienced working in a startup and quite frankly was both excited and a bit nervous.

The past 30 days have been amazing. The learning has been intense, fast-paced, and more than I could have ever expected in such a short time. I’d like to share three of my most important take-aways from my brief tenure at Nerdio. 

Every Resource Matters

At a startup, not just every dollar but every minute of every day makes a big difference. I find myself constantly thinking about trade-offs we can be making to accelerate our business but doing so knowing that resources are scarcer than I was used to and allocating to the wrong priority could impact the success of our company. People tend to believe the scarcest resource at a startup is money, but I have experienced early on that it is our time and people. Nerdio is a well-run company with many great processes in place. But like any company we can always optimize and find a way to do things better. And it all starts with knowing if we are getting the most out of our people, we are allocating our time against the most important priorities, and as new opportunities come up if we can afford to deprioritize one activity to take on what may be a new investment of our time which could yield substantially more benefit for Nerdio. 

Move Fast but Don’t Rush

I remember being in a meeting with Steve Ballmer once where he talked about the Nintendo Wii. Nintendo had just released this amazing gaming device that allowed you to wave a controller with your arm and participate in a totally new way in a game. Microsoft didn’t have anything like that for the Xbox. It would have been easy for the company to come up with a device that mimicked what the Wii could do, but instead we moved fast but didn’t rush and came up with the Kinect which really was a major step-change in the industry, allowing the gamer to be the controller and become totally immersed in the game with your body. The past 30 days I have found examples of places where I think we need to move faster. Each day needs to count in a big way and each day we need to be moving the ball much closer to the goal. There have been times early on in my tenure at Nerdio that I felt a decision needed to be made to dramatically accelerate the pace. But I remembered Steve Ballmer’s example of the Wii and the Kinect and asked myself if the decision I was making was the product of a well thought through strategy backed by data. Our CEO and Founder has been a great partner in the initial steps of my journey making sure I have the right background and data to take smart decisions. I will certainly make some mistakes, and probably have already, but will know that in the back of my mind I am trying to achieve that balance between keeping the team moving forward with real pace while not rushing to take important decisions.

The Truth is with the Partner

My previous CEO, Satya Nadella, talked a lot about culture. And one important principle when crafting a culture is to always be a “learn it all person” as opposed to a “know it all person.” In my first 30 days at Nerdio, I have met with more than 30 Managed Service Partners, several Distributors, other ISVs, and numerous industry executives. All to learn what we are doing super well at Nerdio and should continue and where we need to improve. There is a tendency to hunker down in the corporate headquarters and try to find the answers within the walls of your company. It is certainly important to spend enough time with your colleagues absorbing learnings and gaining their perspective on the challenges we face. The insights I have received from Nerdio employees have been amazing. I chose to complement that by spending 70% of my time in the field because that is where the truth lies. There has yet to be a partner interaction where I did not come away with a greater understanding of the business and actionable feedback that we will incorporate into our long-term plan for growing our business. It won’t end with my first 30 days at Nerdio. I have challenged each member of my team to spend 70% of their time with partners so we have continuous feedback that will improve how we go to market and provide partners with the best product and service we can offer. 

The first 30 days at Nerdio have been amazing. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Here is to many more years with my colleagues building a phenomenal business that helps more and more partners bring our mutual customers to the cloud.