“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” -Benjamin Franklin
Let’s get excited.
Do you remember when you were in your early twenties looking for a job? What were you thinking about at that time…? What’s my future going to be… will I be successful, fall in love, buy a house, have children, be rich… You had lots of unknowns during that time and a lot of big decisions ahead of you. Now that I am a little older, I want to remind you, that at that age, you also had a lot of energy. Exciting and heady times for everyone.
A really big question looming in your life at that time probably was what your job/career is going to be. You sort of know what you like, and you have ambition, although how much ambition isn’t always clear. So, you go job hunting in your field, talk to your friends and try to find a cool place to work. I remember Gabi’s (VP, Business Operations) story about when she was considering joining the company that she spent time looking at the Tahzoo’s Flickr page (I assume this was mostly because our website was only 1 page and didn’t actually tell you anything about what we did- but that’s another story) seeing our first Christmas party where we were giving away iPads at a cool whiskey bar in DC called Jack Rose. She thinks to herself “well that would be a cool place to work”. At that stage in life, you were also probably looking for a place to work that’s cool and where you can learn a lot.
Most of you may not know this about me but I was on staff at a Presbyterian church as a youth director. I did not have the job for a long time, but it had a lasting impact on me. I was responsible for the middle schoolers’ 6th grade to 9th grades. All I’ve got to say about that job is that it is a really tough age, with lots of changes and confusion about everything. I also really loved middle schoolers because working with kids that early meant that it was not too late to keep them off bad paths in life. The moral compass may be unsteady for children at that age and sometimes they just need someone to talk too to keep them from getting in with the wrong crowd, doing drugs, committing crimes or worse. They are just trying to figure out how to grow up.
I think it’s where I first learned about how much I loved teaching and helping people. For me, it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve done in my career. More than all of the other successes I’ve had and by some measure. Helping people grow and mature in their career is my life’s calling, it’s why I started Tahzoo. Here is what I was thinking “If we could bring together a group of smart and happy people, we could make a hugely positive impact on the world as marketing technology evolved”. We’d learn together, focus on something noble, like great customer experiences and try to make millions of people a little bit happier every day.
As all of us know, it’s been a long road to get here, Tahzoo will be 10 years old next year! Shout out to Piti, Dara, Matt, John K, Gabi, Emil, and Chris W you are a part of the foundation of this company. We are finally doing really exciting work these days.
It’s just awesome! And folks, I am super excited, but I have to be super honest, it’s time to go hire some people and do it quickly. The reason bringing this up today is that I want all of us to get on the bus about hiring fresh out of college young professionals, with no more than two jobs on their resumes into our business.
We are only going to hire people who are interested in consulting and we will have two types of consultants; business and technical. There is no need for specialization in your first job. We want folks who are eager to learn and work hard, over time they’ll settle into the career trajectory. They need to be smart and happy and willing to work really hard because as we all know consulting is not an easy gig. We have more than enough work for them to help with client projects and the many initiatives we have going within the company.
In the meantime, what a great opportunity for someone to come work at Tahzoo, learn the ropes from all of you and be part of something pretty cool. Let’s ramp our social presence – start sending them content! Examples would be; where are you in the world? What cool thing is happening at Tahzoo, did we just have an international virtual happy hour from the US to Africa to Asia? Are you thrilled about a great presentation? Or dead tired flying back from Taiwan? Let’s build some buzz about our company and the cool things we do.
Each of you has so much to offer to a relatively inexperienced person fresh out of college. Think about all the experiences you have and all the perspectives you have about how to be successful at a successful company. So, help me and the rest of the company hire some great folks.
Please get the word out, let’s go get some great people. We will mentor them, steer them in a good direction and create some Tahzoo superstars!
Let’s go be great!
Brad