The #SGCSummit2017 Conference was about Growing With Purpose.

During one of the sessions, we heard the story of FreshBooks’ humble beginnings from co-founder and CEO Mike McDerment during his session, “How I Overcame My Fear of Growing Headcount.”

Mike talked about his fears and concerns as his company grew: specifically, he didn’t want the culture to suffer as they experienced growth. McDerment said he also didn’t want the product or their customer service to suffer as a result of growth.

McDerment shared some of his tips along the way to help FreshBooks successfully scale their culture, keeping their values intact along the way. “These are culture hacks—deliberate hacks that have downstream effects on your culture,” he says. Here is what I took away from the conversation.

“As you scale, you have to take on more of these in a purposeful manner,” he explained.

First, he made sure team members always had proximity to their customer. 

As you scale, it’s easy for parts of a company to become more distant from the actual customer. You want to work against this tendency, said McDerment. “How do you keep everyone in the business close to the customer?” he said.

McDerment knew he needed to put into place practices that would help all team members be empathetic towards customers if he wanted to successfully scale their high degree of customer intimacy.

One way they keep that proximity to the customer is that everyone who comes to FreshBooks gets customer service experience. “Everyone at FreshBooks spends their first month in customer service. Everyone,” said McDerment, calling the practice the “single most important culture hack that we put in place.”

The team also uses quick surveys in their customer service department (who they call “rock stars,” not reps) so that they can get a sense of how customers are really feeling about their level of service. Those are just two examples of how they make sure everyone on their team has their finger on the pulse of the customer.

Proximity to leadership is another focus they’ve had as the company.

The company, today, has grown to more than 250 employees. “That’s where the number of people starts to become really problematic, because people don’t feel connected to the leaders if there is [too much] distance between them,” said McDerment, a lesson he really saw first-hand after they hit their 150th employee.

The last focus is “proximity to each other.” 

One thing you can’t miss when you scale: relationships within the company. One thing McDerment does is “think like a designer”—where he focuses on the design of the office so that he can create an environment where people naturally interact with each other as much as possible. McDerment has been involved in the design of FreshBooks’ last three office spaces because he wants to cost-effectively design a space that supports their values, collaboration, and connectedness. “I think connectedness is what helps us keep proximity to one another,” he said.

He’s opposed to having an office with two floors, which can end up separating workers and dividing up teams, which works against cultivating an environment where team members are close to one another. “I want FreshBooks to be like the best cocktail party you have ever been to,” he said, explaining that at a cocktail party, you’ve often been invited by a friend that you know. At the same time, you certainly don’t know everyone. “You probably know a few other people in the room, but you probably don’t know everybody,” said McDerment.

The idea is that you have a core group of people you know, many familiar faces, and people you don’t know, but you’re excited to meet and connect with.

His other key points for the group included:

• Continue to consciously communicate your vision, values, and expected behaviors as your team grows

• It’s okay to “stay fearful” as you grow with the intention of staying purpose-driven. “The day I’m not worried about this, is the day we are in [serious jeopardy],” said McDerment.

• Learn culture “hacks” from other companies and make them your own