Guidebook was founded with a mission to connect people with the places in which they spend their time. Today, thousands of organizations use Guidebook to create their conference apps, corporate meeting apps, and other mobile apps for events. As co-founder and CEO of Guidebook, Jeff Lewis has overseen the company’s growth from startup to over 100 employees and 30,000+ apps created. In this latest “Small Business Spotlight” interview, he shares how he grows himself and his employees along with his company.

1. What made you decide to start/make the jump to your company today?

I was happily working for a company that was experiencing phenomenal growth and prepping for an IPO when a few of my old friends asked me for advice on a few of their side projects. They were looking to move back to Silicon Valley to create a startup. I thought one of the projects, if tweaked a bit, had a lot of promise. Originally I was just going to come up with the business plan, but then I caught myself thinking about the potential company we could build. I thought of the value we'd be creating — improving the visitor experience across a wide variety of places, like conferences, museums, university campuses, national parks and countless more — would allow us to build an enduring business. The opportunity was too good to pass up, so I made the leap.

2. How do you balance the multiple hats that you are required to wear?

I’m the non-technical co-founder of a technology company, and at some point along the way I’ve had to perform all of the non-software engineering jobs we offer. In the early days, before we would post a job opening, I would work the position until I understood it well enough to find someone who would excel at the role. Then I'd set out to recruit the best candidate I could find. After I did this four times or so, I realized performing this process was my job. This realization helped me balance my different responsibilities, since I expected the perpetual change. As the company grew — Guidebook is now 100 people — this approach has really paid off. We've managed to hire talented and responsible people, so I don't have to go back to "re-wear" any hats. Nowadays I spend most of my time helping others perform their jobs as effectively as they can.

3. What are the top three company priorities that you focus on?

Direction, People, and Alignment.

I've found that if I put my company in a position to work on meaningful problems (Direction), attract and retain a high-performing team (People), and ensure everyone is working in parallel by carefully setting goals (Alignment), then almost everything else falls into order.

4. How do you prioritize initiatives? Walk us through how you determine where you invest time, people, and dollars.

I always try my best to maintain an open line of communication with as many colleagues as I can, across all departments and levels of seniority, so I can monitor the pulse of the business. At any time, there are always a few well-socialized initiatives floating around the company. The better ones tend to be supported by more people.

At Guidebook, initiatives generally aim to seize new business or to improve our operating efficiency. The key is to get behind the right projects and to make sure you have the right person in charge (this isn't always the person who came up with the idea in the first place!).

5. Walk us through the characteristics that you look for when hiring top talent.

Guidebook has become known for our smart and dedicated team and our unique culture. So while we conduct a pretty rigorous interview process, we also put a lot of value into hiring interesting people. I always ask candidates to tell me about their hobbies. When I see someone light up when discussing their passions, then it's not hard to see how they could become enthusiastic about their work. Like attracts like, and we’ve managed to build a virtuous cycle.

I firmly stand behind the idea that companies should never settle when hiring. Even if you desperately need to fill a position, it's better to leave the role vacant than to hire someone mediocre. The hidden costs are simply too high.

6. What are the keys to your company’s successful growth?

Guidebook offers organizations the ability to easily create and maintain mobile apps so they can offer better visitor experiences. The vast majority of our clients come to us after using our product first-hand as a user. If we want to sustain our rapid growth rate, our number one priority must be to continue to deliver the most innovative solution in the market.

Of course, very few products achieve widespread adoption without being actively promoted by Marketing and Sales teams. It's always challenging to find new ways to acquire customers en masse, but we're up for the task!

7. What is the one piece of advice that you want to share with executives of other small businesses?

Your business is likely very similar to many other businesses. Even if you do something that's one-of-a-kind, it's likely only unique in one aspect. Take the time to learn from the successes and failures of others. At its core, Guidebook is a software as a service (SaaS) business, so we can benchmark our KPIs against thousands of companies. I imagine flying blind would be very scary. Instead, we have the confidence to push our business to its limits.

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