Posted: November 14th, 2015
Business
Building Company and Culture—Mickey Millsap
Mickey looked out of his office window in downtown Austin; a rush of apprehension and exhilaration coursed
through his veins. He, Matt, and Jay had seen uShip grow from merely an inspiration born of Matt’s mom’s
shipping frustrations to a rapidly-growing business poised for its next stage of evolution. Now, six months
after having received its first $2.7 million from Benchmark Capital in California, the founders were bringing
a new player onto the management team. After three years of toiling in the trenches of guerilla marketing,
they were ready to welcome their first high-profile hire as director of marketing. It was a new era for
uShip. It was time to begin growing up as a company, time for the founders to demonstrate to the board and
the VCs that they could step up, build the business, build its culture, and embody the vision they had
promised.
Mickey chuckled to himself. Marketing was quite the trench-work in the early days. With their first
business plan, the founders had crafted an elaborate regional marketing plan focused on the Dallas-Austin-
Houston-San Antonio corridor. However, they quickly realized that while they could focus on regional
shipping needs in Texas, they could not control where their customers would want to ship their items.
Someone in San Antonio could want their couch to go to Ohio. Thus, they went from a regional marketing
scheme to a national one overnight. At the time, they scrambled to try and figure out how they would find
their customers and transporters on a national scale. They certainly had been creative in devising a
solution.
They began by recognizing that eBay had a shipping problem. The large-item business on eBay was constrained
by shipping needs. It did not make sense for someone to buy a kayak from a seller in Michigan, only to have
to pay several hundred dollars to have it shipped cross-country. These shipping constraints were limiting
large-item transactions on eBay. So, Jay, Mickey, and Matt started emailing the sellers of large items on
eBay, suggesting they consider uShip for their shipping options. Next, however, they had to find
transporters. Fortunately, Craigslist was already providing a forum for people who were looking to transport
items. So, the uShip founders went on an emailing rampage, sending over 500 daily individual messages to
sellers on eBay and transporters on Craigslist, trying to introduce them to uShip. Mickey recalled the long
hours of sitting in MBA classrooms along with Matt and Jay, sneakily using class time to send out emails –
this did not always end well in Professor Nolen’s class during their last semester (let’s just say they
weren’t in the top 10% of the class!). The three quickly figured out that they could not hold the daily
burden of these email demands, but they had no money for a staff. Their creative solution: interns!
Matt, Jay, and Mickey recruited UT undergraduates and a team of about five interns ended up solidifying. Jay
set up an email program, and the interns could earn a modest amount of money for generating hundreds of
emails to potential uShip users. The founders, however, realized that the pay they were offering was
probably not enough to keep any interns engaged for long. So, they made concerted efforts to help the
interns feel like part of the uShip family. They all went out for happy hours and fostered a sense of
camaraderie, giving the undergraduates an uncommon experience in being part of a start-up family.
Mickey reflected on the days of guerilla marketing and the decision to bring interns onto the team. That
decision really had been more than just a creative way to cover some early marketing needs. Interestingly,
it had laid the groundwork for building a horizontally connected organization, with founders and interns
bonded and interested in where this company was going. Now, six months after securing VC funding, with uShip
situated for powerful growth, investing in the camaraderie and cohesion of the staff was key. They now had a
staff of 20, most of whom were quite young. Keeping the motivation and innovation of the staff alive was
key.
They had become a company highly oriented toward building morale and a sense of family. Organically, they
put in place regular events to bring everyone together. The first Friday of every month, they would send the
newest employee to buy the staff breakfast tacos—on the company dime—and then gather together and listen to a
presentation offered by one of the staff members. These “First Fridays” became an exciting forum in which
young associates could pitch their ideas to the whole staff, including management. Everyone was there, and
everyone’s ideas were weighted equally. A good idea was a good idea; it didn’t matter what your seniority.
It was a way to level the field and help everyone feel a part of the family. First Fridays soon grew into
periodic group activity days in which paintball, tubing trips, or community service activities helped bring
everyone together.
“We really are growing into a family,” Mickey mused. However, he recognized the challenge up ahead. In
making their first hire at the management level, there would be someone new joining the team of five managers
at uShip. Mickey and the others recognized what a tight-knit group the managers had become. The managers
thus far consisted of the three founders—Matt, Jay, and Mickey, Shawn Bose, a close friend and former intern
who was a year behind them at McCombs, and their original web designer who was now director of development –
they had been together form the beginning and were very close. The five managers knew each other well and
largely had seen this company through from the beginning. Mickey realized the new marketing director would
be in a tough position, coming into such a well-bonded group. Moreover, the board, the VCs, and the rest of
the staff knew this was a significant step in seriously growing the company. They had engaged in a national
search for the position. It was a search process that had unfolded over six months, waiting for just the
right fit. Now they were ready to welcome their new marketing director and take that next step.
Ready to begin as uShip’s new marketing director, Jeff ’s[1] credentials were flawless. He had extensive
experience with high-profile internet marketing; he was Ivy-League educated; his record seemed to reflect
exactly the experience that uShip needed. The team members readied themselves to welcome Jeff to uShip.
On Jeff’s first day, the managers took him out to dinner. Mickey got a sinking feeling in his stomach at
that first dinner. Gathered around the table, joking, and getting acquainted, Jeff stepped into the world of
politics, making a snide comment about women politicians and stating that he prefers his politicians white
and male. Stunned, Mickey wondered if he’d heard correctly. Really? Did Jeff just say that? Trying to be
inconspicuous, Mickey got up from the table and walked away, needing a little space. The others texted him,
encouraging him to be understanding with Jeff. “He’s just trying to bond with us. We’re a tough team to
break into. He’s nervous. We have to give him a chance.”
The next day at the office, Jeff noted the five women on the staff of 20 and chuckled, “Where’s the good
lookin’ girls in the office to hit on?” Later that day he joked that in the city from which he had
relocated, he and his buddies would play the “gay or European” game—identifying who was “gay” or “European”
based on appearance. Mickey commented that those remarks were offensive and inappropriate. Jeff had no
response and didn’t seem to register Mickey’s disapproval. The incident hung heavy in Mickey’s conscience
and awareness. It was only day two.
Wednesday night, Jay and Mickey went out with Jeff again in hopes of getting to know him better, feeling a
mounting urgency for him to show a better side. The three gathered at Little Woodrow’s for their favorite
steak dinner special. It was baseball season, and Mickey and Jay were both avid baseball fans, enjoying the
exchange of competitive banter over allegiances to rival teams. Jeff decided to jump in with his own quip,
stating that athletes of color were superior runners because they had so much practice running from police.
Mickey and Jay were stunned. Mickey was beside himself with disgust. The situation was quickly escalating
into a dilemma. It was only day three with their new marketing director.
The next day, Mickey arrived to the office, and as he walked in, he noticed a stark silence in the room.
Everyone was staring at him, just watching him. “What’s going on?” Mickey asked. He was then ushered into
a room by the director of development and shown an email that had been sent to the five women on staff. The
email was sent from [email protected]. The email read:
Dear Team. I think we need to engage in some team bondage activities. Let’s meet at Hooters on Riverside.
Mickey was livid. He knew immediately this had to have come from Jeff. He told the staff he was not
responsible for the email. The staff said they believed him. Mickey could tell from the feel of the room
that something had to be done. He looked at the faces of his staff. He could see the family feeling, the
camaraderie, the cohesion they had worked so hard to build fraying at the edges. This was a profound
violation of the group’s trust.
Mickey paced his office. He was livid! He needed someone else with him to confront Jeff about the email.
He couldn’t trust himself to maintain composure. Jeff attempted to deny the whole thing, but they had traced
the IP address to Jeff’s hotel.
The management team faced a difficult set of options. Mickey consulted with their employment attorney. As
CEO, Matt was the only one who could act instantly and fire Jeff. However, Matt was out of town, and the
team was having a difficult time getting in touch with him. There was a lot of pressure on the team. They
had searched for six months for Jeff’s position. The search had been intense and burdensome. The management
and the founders felt the scrutiny of the board, the VCs, and their staff. Could they fire their prized hire
after just 4 days? What would the funders and the board say? How would they trust the managers’ abilities
to hire and build the company? On the other hand, could they, in good conscience, keep Jeff on and try to
work with him around his wholly objectionable views, statements, and behaviors? Mickey stared out of his
office window, the questions unabating in his mind. What should they do?
Discussion Questions
1. If you were Mickey and the uShip managers, how would you proceed in making this decision? What
factors would you take into consideration?
2. In what ways would this decision impact company culture? How might the managers at uShip work with
the staff around this issue? Are the issues of racism and sexism something that should be brought to the
larger staff? How would you make this a company-wide conversation?
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