Offsite - T3 2018

Leavenworth, WA

Back to the Pacific Northwest, we hit the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains for our T3 offsite. Finding a cabin about 30 minutes north of Leavenworth, WA this mountain backdrop had plenty of hikes, seclusion, and crisp mountain air. The first few days of September in the Northwest is special. The temperatures are crisper at nights and the foliage a little bit brighter as we head into the fall months.

With 25 people on the team, we used a combination of a large cabin and car camping to sleep the crew.

An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops

DAY 2

We start every morning with a self-service breakfast followed by customer service before jumping into our first team session. Everyone on the team does customer service so staying current during the offsite is always a team effort.

Generally, on the second day, our sessions are about making us stretch. They help us get out of the day to date to think about scaling Moment. And because we spent T1 discussing how we grow our revenues, we spent this offsite discussing how we scale the team.

What Should Moment Accomplish

The first session of the day was thinking big about what Moment should accomplish in 2019 and 2020. Without providing anything other than the question...what should we accomplish, groups of 4-5 brainstormed ideas.

A random list of things people think we should accomplish...


2019

  • Subscriptions.
  • Retail distribution.
  • In-app distribution.
  • Multiple photography apps.
  • A great return process.
  • Guerilla marketing.
  • Supporting young creatives.
  • Mobile photography awards.
  • Master classes.
  • Being invited to phone launches.


2020

  • Moment stores.
  • Entry priced lenses.
  • Donating to a cause (like 1%).
  • $100M in revenue.
  • Selfie lens.
  • Ability to recycle our products.
  • Really good at advertising.
  • Content creation studio.
  • Feature film.
  • Top 50 grossing app.
  • Brand goes beyond just mobile.

Once we did this exercise we changed the exercise to what Moment has to prove over the same time period. Proof is generally tied to business proof which is a different way to look at the same time period.

The team settled on...

2019

  • Growth - our continued growth rate is always the most important proof point.
  • Frequency of purchase - proving we are more important in people's lives, while better understanding our customer payback window.
  • Scaling the team - moving from product owners to business unit owners.

2020

  • Growth - again this is the most important metric but also showing our revenue streams broaden beyond just our gear.
  • Members - proving we can go from a CPG to a marketplace business.
  • Cash - moving to a free cash flow model.
  • Scaling the teams - have sub-teams within teams.
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops

CROSS TEAM BRAINSTORMS

For the first time, we used time at the offsite to bring teams together to work on cross-team ideas. These are projects we've been talking about for a while but haven't spent the time diving into them.

We took an hour to go through the following...

1) User ID -> Memberships
Talking through how we join shopmoment with our mobile apps so we have one customer ID across them all. This work will lead us to Moment memberships.

2) Free -> Paid Content
Talking through what it would take to get to paid content which could be used with a Moment membership and subscription business.

3) Holiday Collections
Talking through a series of holiday product collections we're launching to ensure nothing is missed on the details.

COMPENSATION 2.0

At Moment our compensation philosophy is based on a comp model, which rewards people as they improve at their craft. The first version had five levels and was built around how people solve problems. Agnostic of functions we're looking for people to develop repeatable frameworks for solving hard problems, documenting, and delivering solutions that others can build upon.

We discussed the 2.0 version of our compensation which will move from problem-solving to ownership. As you take on more ownership within a team and company your compensation increases.

With this 2.0 framework in mind, the team did two brainstorms.

1) Within Teams - discussing what would be expected from Level 1, 3, and 4 with a cross-functional team the groups uncovered that ownership and consistency across teams is a concern.

2) Within Functions - Secondarily we did the same exercise in functions, allowing the teams to think about the same levels for functional ownership.

The combination of the two discussions will solidify our 2.0 Compensation plan.

After a long day of discussions and Apple announcements, we took a break for an almost sunset hike. Our attempt to drive to the top of a mountain was stalled near the peak because of the local forest fires. Instead, we ended up driving a long ways to end the day at the local lake.

An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops

DAY 4

The last day of the offsite is always long. The teams spend all day creating goals and organizing their work for the next four months. T3 is always our largest trimester as we go into our busy holiday season.

Before getting started we reaffirmed our our team wide T3 goals...

  • Revenue > $7.5M (stretch goal of $10.7)
  • Brand Reach > 850K
  • Gross Margins > 55%

The group then broke into teams and worked on their goals. This is a long process of discussion, planning, and prioritizing. In the end, the teams came back with...

  • Marketplace: 7
  • Content: 13
  • Gear: 8
  • App: 7
  • Travel: 6

The offsite aside we ended the day with a heavy heart. We lost a @moment team member. After a courageous battle with cancer, his time was up. We shed a lot of tears, shared some needed hugs, and appreciate the rest of the evening together.

An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops
An image without an alt, whoops