Pierce Larick is the Founder and CEO of New Revolution Media, a visual content creation agency based in San Francisco, California. After celebrating the business’ seventh anniversary, Pierce shares his approach to management, how it has changed over the years, and how he built a motivated team to support the company’s development.
Pierce’s perspective on managing New Revolution Media has shifted since its inception. Driven by his intrinsic values and the desire to do good, he aspired to entirely lead with his heart. Despite it being an admirable approach, he found it does not always give the best results when it comes to business.
“I was almost too empathetic. I wanted to help take care of people. Previously, I hadn’t had the best time working in the startup realm, so I wanted to provide what I didn’t get as an employee and ensure my employees had a positive work experience. But the deeper I got into the foundership realm, I realized you can’t lead a business strictly on good vibes. You have to make tough decisions. You have to make cuts. You have to do very hard things for the benefit of the business. You have to treat the business as its own creature. In the beginning, I treated the business as secondary, but to have a successful one, it has to be a priority.”
Being inspired by a bad work experience to create a better workplace is a big driver for becoming an entrepreneur. A 2023 study by Guidant Financial shows that 23% of Americans start their own business because they’re dissatisfied with the corporate world [1]. But being a Founder teaches you lessons and offers you a unique perspective, and sometimes you have to put the business first for your employees to be happy and taken care of. Being good to your team may happen in a more passive way they don’t necessarily have privy to understanding.
“What employees will never truly understand is the amount of dedication and support that you have to provide to the business, and what we’re doing behind closed doors. We’re not communicating all of the sacrifices we’re making as Founders to make sure that this ship is sailing forward and it’s able to not only support them but support us. The amount of liabilities on our plate is so much higher.”
It’s a burden you take on as a Founder that you can’t pass on to your employees. Nor should they take it because also their stakes are not the same when it comes to the high-risk high-reward side. They are not as invested in the business doing well as you, the Founder, are.
Even though Founders will inevitably reap the main fruit of their company’s wins, Pierce thinks that successes must always be shared with the team. After all, they were an integral part of getting the results.
“Those really good times from a Founder’s perspective are almost like a drug. I can think about the really good experiences I had within my business and the feeling is ‘I did it, we’re good at this, and this is exactly what I’ve wanted to do ever since starting’. But the deeper you get in business, those celebrations are very short-lived. Something that employees don’t get to share in the same way is the experience of ‘we’ve won, this is my company, and this is a win for us’. This is a win for today. What’s my win for tomorrow?
“I’m very communicative about celebrations. I give my employees a bonus at the end of a good year. But I want to celebrate the small things too. So I sometimes say, ‘Hey guys, let’s go out to dinner to celebrate this’, and they’re like ‘Pierce, this is not that big of a deal.’ That’s what keeps me going too, sharing.”
But this leaves the employee experience a bit lopsided, as you do your best as a Founder to make sure your teams do not feel and share the losses in the same way that you want to share the wins.
Pierce identifies that along with providing a happy and healthy work environment for his teams, another driving force in his path as an entrepreneur is being true to himself, being honest, and transparent about his business. He feels that it is very important to keep this approach no matter how much his business grows.
“I want to do honest business. Screwing other people over would be an easy way for me to get rich. A lot of companies do that. But I want to grow my business in an honest and transparent way. It’s slower, but it’s like a tree trunk. When things get bad, as they did in COVID, or at the beginning of this year, with the mass layoffs, if you’ve built a supportive trunk, it pays off. If you invested in relationships, and all the people you’ve worked with had enjoyed it, they’re more willing to go out of their way to help you out.”
Finally, Pierce shares that his transparency is not limited to relationships. He believes that as a Founder, he has to admit his mistakes too and learn from them.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes. But I would be the first to tell you that. I always take responsibility. I always take accountability. If I’ve done something wrong, or I’ve said something wrong, I use that experience to grow. I don’t lead with ego. When I have messed up, when I haven’t done right by my team, one, I accept that responsibility, and two, I try to do better.
“Being a Founder is like parenting. You do the best you can with the tools that you have. A good Founder differs from a bad founder in the responsibility for their mistakes or losses and whether they use them as learning to be better in the future. I always strive to be a better version of myself, a better boss, a better entrepreneur, a better businessman, with each mistake that I make.”
As we see from Pierce’s example, being real, honest, kind, and true to oneself is a great model for being a good and successful leader and manager. To excel as a Founder, to be respected and supported by your team, you have to be committed to growth. It is the only way forward. To be a successful founder, a successful entrepreneur, your curiosity and desire to advance yourself have to remain.
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References: [1] https://www.guidantfinancial.com/small-business-trends/
