0:00

If you're looking for another show to

0:02

add to your rotation, I recommend checking

0:05

out the chart-topping business podcast,

0:07

What's Your Problem? Hosted by former

0:10

Planet Money host Jacob Goldstein,

0:12

What's Your Problem? explains the problems

0:14

really smart people are trying to solve right now.

0:17

Each episode features entrepreneurs

0:19

and engineers talking about the future

0:21

they're trying to build

0:22

and the problems they have to solve along

0:24

the way. It's a show all about the people

0:27

trying to figure out how to do

0:29

things that no one on the planet knows

0:31

how to do. From using AI

0:33

to predict human health to building a

0:36

quantum computer that actually works

0:38

and beyond. So don't miss out.

0:40

Listen to What's Your Problem? wherever

0:43

you get your podcasts.

0:44

Like so many entrepreneurs before her, Susan

0:47

Tynan started a business to solve a problem.

0:50

So it's a classic entrepreneurial

0:52

story that I had a personal experience

0:55

and I believed I

0:57

could do it better. So I took four

1:00

national parks posters to a local

1:02

frame store and I had a really bad experience.

1:05

They cost $400 each to

1:07

be framed. They took several weeks.

1:10

The man working at the store was

1:12

rude to me. You know this was not fine art and

1:15

I had taken the posters in because the posters

1:17

had a lot of sentimental value to me. I had gone

1:19

on hiking trips with my sister and collected

1:21

the posters over the years and

1:24

I

1:24

thought why would this why would it cost so

1:27

much? Why would it be such an unpleasant experience

1:29

and more importantly I'm never gonna do that again.

1:31

And she didn't.

1:33

Instead in 2014 Susan

1:35

Tynan started Framebridge. It's

1:38

a custom framing business she started online.

1:41

Framebridge now also has 19

1:44

brick-and-mortar locations on the East Coast and

1:46

in the Chicago area. As

1:48

a serial entrepreneur Susan

1:50

Tynan says it is critical

1:52

for startup leaders to develop a clear sense

1:55

of what they're good at. To

1:57

move fast learn from mistakes.

2:00

and prepare for a hard but

2:02

potentially rewarding journey.

2:23

Hi everyone. We have

2:25

a podcast about courage and commitment

2:28

in turbulent times. I am Ranjay

2:30

Gulati, a professor of business administration

2:32

at the Harvard Business School. Susan

2:35

Tynan grew up in Cleveland where her father

2:37

ran a tugboat company. She

2:40

earned a BA in English at the University of Virginia

2:42

and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Over

2:45

the course of her career, Susan

2:47

worked at the consulting firm Accenture. She

2:50

was a performance and management advisor

2:52

in the Obama administration and

2:54

she held a variety of jobs in several tech

2:57

startups. I began

2:59

my conversation with Susan by asking

3:01

how she arrived at the role that seemed to

3:03

suit her best. Serial

3:06

entrepreneur.

3:10

I'm an action-oriented person. I

3:13

believe you can always find a way. I

3:15

want to get moving on something immediately

3:17

and I think I felt too

3:19

constrained in other environments. It

3:23

was going to be someone's problem. I think I

3:24

would rather or my problem. Could you say

3:26

something about linking it back

3:29

to your family and your childhood

3:31

because you did grow up in a family business. I

3:33

did. My dad was the president

3:35

of a tugboat company. And so it was

3:38

a really, obviously, a heavily operational

3:40

business and he was very devoted

3:42

to his work. And I grew up

3:45

really respecting that, understanding

3:48

that to be a leader was

3:50

not glamorous. It

3:53

was always on. And

3:55

my dad really was a great role model

3:57

in terms of he was a

3:59

leader.

3:59

leader who really felt responsible

4:02

for the welfare of his team.

4:05

Could you think of any moments, any specific

4:08

moments that ring in your head

4:10

from the time you were growing up when you

4:13

saw him having to do something? That,

4:15

you know, that we joke a little

4:17

bit. My mom used to joke, we learned all swear

4:19

words early on cause we had an answering machine.

4:21

And so if something goes wrong in the tug business,

4:24

you certainly hear about it. You hear about it with colorful

4:26

language. So I remember some of those sort

4:29

of crises, but what I remember

4:31

more is the stories of my

4:34

dad really investing

4:36

in team members, just believing in

4:38

people. I remember a young man who took

4:41

over the business, who's now not a young

4:43

man anymore, coming over to the house and my

4:45

dad was so excited about him. And

4:47

I remember when he established a

4:50

welding scholarship at a local community college

4:52

in order to have a pipeline of talent come

4:54

to the tugboat business. So I really remember

4:57

he seemed most

4:59

proud of the accomplishments of the people who worked

5:01

for him.

5:02

You know, one thing about entrepreneurship

5:04

is risk and

5:07

risk comes with, you know, fear. It's

5:09

a very emotional thing. You know, not the risk is

5:11

not for everybody. How

5:14

do you think about risk and

5:17

fear and courage, all these

5:19

things that are inherently part

5:21

of what entrepreneurs have to do?

5:23

Yes.

5:24

I think my relationship with risk

5:27

has evolved, but

5:29

you certainly have to be able to contain

5:31

it or manage through it at all

5:34

parts of the entrepreneurial journey. When I was

5:36

first dreaming up frame

5:38

bridge and making the decision to

5:40

start a startup venture, I

5:43

just forced myself to sort of put a box

5:46

around the risk and I could get

5:48

very comfortable with two things. I wasn't going

5:50

to be unethical and

5:53

I wasn't going to be negligent.

5:55

And I said, well, I can control those things. I'm never

5:57

going to be unethical and I'm never going to be negligent.

6:00

So I can take investor money, I can

6:02

try this, and if I fail,

6:05

so be it.

6:06

One of the most wonderful things about the United States

6:09

is if you fail as an entrepreneur, you're

6:11

not permanently penalized for it. And I thought,

6:13

you know, I really can, I can control those

6:15

things, and I can also give myself a time horizon.

6:18

And so that's how I sort

6:20

of got my arms comfortably around risk

6:22

before I started the business.

6:24

Are there any particular moments when

6:27

you felt like, oh my God, I'm

6:29

over my head over here. This is like

6:31

crazy risk.

6:32

Yes. And I think there

6:35

were sort of snapshots throughout

6:37

the past nine years building this business. I

6:40

remember a moment sitting

6:42

in our first warehouse. The

6:45

first delivery was custom

6:48

boxes for our finished product. Our

6:50

finished product is we make custom frames, but

6:53

we hadn't made any at the time. We didn't even have the equipment

6:55

or the team. I thought it was very

6:57

important we had branded boxes, and the boxes

7:00

took up nearly the entire workspace.

7:03

And I thought, oh no, like

7:05

what have I gotten myself into, and sort

7:07

of what kind of audacity did I

7:09

have to start a business with

7:11

a large manufacturing component when

7:14

I really, this is not where I've come from. And

7:16

so it's funny, but I remember truly sitting

7:19

on a red folding chair I had bought from a Target

7:21

near the warehouse because there was nothing to sit

7:23

on waiting for the delivery and then seeing that the boxes took up the

7:25

whole warehouse and thinking, I'm

7:27

going to drown under these boxes of frames

7:30

nobody bought.

7:43

The willingness to take risks is

7:45

an essential character trait in leaders

7:47

of all kinds, and so

7:49

is the capacity to manage the personal

7:51

hesitation or sense of fear

7:54

that comes with taking risks. Prudent

7:57

business leaders develop personal and

7:59

professional services ways to manage

8:02

fear

8:02

and even convert fear into

8:04

an asset.

8:06

I asked Susan Tynan

8:08

how she deals with the

8:09

fear that comes with risk. Does

8:12

she look to others? Does she look

8:14

within?

8:15

I have very supportive people and my family,

8:17

my spouse who I met at HBS,

8:19

he's been wonderful, but the truth

8:21

is there is no one external I

8:23

think who can help you in

8:25

those situations. It has to come from yourself

8:28

and so I deeply believed in the idea

8:30

for frame bridge. I believed someone

8:32

should reinvent custom picture framing and

8:35

I believed that people had wonderful things that they wanted

8:37

to commemorate and they'd do it more if framing

8:40

were easy. So I have to go back

8:42

to that idea and I had to in the early

8:44

days and I have to today to say this should

8:46

exist and I can do it and

8:49

so I just if I can go

8:51

back to why it exists and

8:53

then just make forward progress against the problem.

8:56

I just immediately start what are

8:58

our options, what do we do next, sort of leading

9:00

the way out. I get through

9:02

it and I think it's really

9:05

just been a really a deep

9:07

belief that the business should exist and

9:10

why shouldn't I be the person to start it

9:12

and now that we're so

9:14

conclusively on our way, I definitely

9:17

should be the person to keep pushing it and so

9:19

I think that has been enough.

9:22

But there have been many, I mean probably

9:25

every 18 months with this

9:27

business, there has been something extremely

9:30

challenging. Can you describe

9:32

any moments of extreme fear? You

9:34

gave one example where you had all the

9:36

boxes show up and you're like what am I doing in this

9:38

business? I don't even know anything about this business. There

9:41

are a couple.

9:41

We've had two periods

9:43

where we got into extreme operational

9:46

backlog. So people had place orders with us

9:49

and in many cases given us their art

9:52

and we fell behind in production

9:54

and so we went from being able to deliver

9:57

to customers in days to weeks.

10:01

in a business like ours where you can't scale

10:03

up quickly, you have to train people, it can get

10:05

bad quickly. And so those

10:08

periods were really challenging because

10:10

not only I had to lead through them knowing

10:13

we would perform poorly financially during

10:15

that period, those cohorts of customers

10:18

would not perform the same way that other cohorts

10:20

of customers were because we were under-delivering

10:22

to them. And then I think just because

10:25

my pride generally carries me forward,

10:27

it was hard to know that we were under-delivering

10:30

so badly to people. I think the

10:33

downside of knowing what

10:35

you do is important is knowing if you let people

10:37

down, it's important

10:38

too. And how did you make

10:40

this so personal

10:42

that you are gonna use this as a way

10:44

to inspire yourself through difficult

10:46

times? Yes, so I have

10:48

truly fallen more in love with the

10:51

business over time. I

10:53

was really inspired by the fact that this

10:56

was

10:58

sort of a dusty industry nobody was looking at.

11:01

And I had worked in other industries, some industries

11:03

everyone was competing in. And I thought,

11:06

no, I found an industry, I went to Harvard Business

11:08

School, I'd like to tackle something interesting,

11:10

but there's an industry I'm interested

11:12

in that I think can do better for customers that has

11:14

a value chain with a lot of pieces and if it should

11:16

be removed, I bet I can tackle

11:19

it. So that was really the initial excitement,

11:23

but truly over time, but not even much

11:25

time, as soon as items started

11:28

coming into us, I saw how

11:30

special they were. And so now

11:33

it's just not hard at all to tie

11:35

back the importance of what

11:37

we do to our team. Truly

11:40

every day, we frame thousands of items

11:43

that are either the pinnacle of someone's

11:45

career or something just deeply,

11:48

deeply memorable. It's

11:50

things like a dog collar from

11:52

a dog who's passed away or

11:54

the last time I was in one

11:57

of our factories, I saw a certificate for

11:59

the thoracic surgery. of the year. I thought,

12:01

well, I think a lot of study

12:03

and hard work over years

12:05

went into that and what a privilege

12:08

that we get to be the ones to commemorate

12:10

it. Do you think people in your organization

12:12

realize that what they're

12:14

doing in some way is commemorating people's

12:18

highlights in their lives? We

12:21

don't just frame anything, we frame things

12:23

that really matter.

12:24

Yes, I think people do understand

12:27

it. I think it is why most people work for FrameBridge.

12:30

I think it's my duty to tell

12:32

those stories more so that people

12:35

understand it's really through the specific

12:37

stories that team members

12:40

feel the connection. I think

12:42

that's why most people work for FrameBridge. I

12:44

truly think if anyone doesn't feel that connection,

12:47

they probably shouldn't work

12:49

for us. Let's talk about

12:52

fear, adversity, that the idea

12:54

just propelled you through. There were

12:56

moments where even your sister told

12:59

you, this is a bad idea. Even

13:01

the investor who originally encouraged you

13:03

to develop this idea, once you

13:05

developed it, said, in hindsight, I don't think

13:08

it's a bad idea. It's not a good idea at all. Yes.

13:11

How did you keep going?

13:13

I think certainly investors along the way

13:15

were loyal to us, but some along the way said, wow,

13:18

this is more of a capital intensive endeavor

13:20

than probably I signed up for. It is a tough

13:23

business. In some ways, I've reframed

13:25

it over the years to say the answer

13:28

to why hasn't anyone done

13:30

this before is not that the customer

13:32

doesn't want it. The customer wants it very much. The

13:35

reason no one's done

13:36

it before is because it's hard. That

13:38

drives me.

13:41

I think, oh, okay. The

13:43

fact that my team

13:46

and I are going to do this, we're

13:49

going to do it. We've assembled the right people to

13:51

do it. That's the reason it doesn't

13:53

exist before because nobody else assembled this team.

13:55

You had to be good at manufacturing, technology,

13:58

design.

13:59

It's hard to pull it all together and

14:02

so we must have on that team.

14:25

Susan Tynan has worked at a variety

14:28

of consumer technology startups over the course

14:30

of her journey. One was

14:32

Taxi Magic, an early ride-hailing

14:35

company. Another was Living

14:37

Social, an online marketplace

14:40

that was eventually acquired by Groupon. I

14:43

asked Susan what sorts of do's

14:45

and don'ts she learned on

14:48

her journey. I really credit other

14:50

people's startups,

14:51

all of the other startups I worked

14:53

for in understanding

14:56

the value of speed and I think

14:58

now that we recruit some really

15:00

terrific executives who come from larger

15:03

companies, they have to adapt.

15:06

With the exception of our picture frames that have to be perfect,

15:08

everything else should ship a little faster. I learned

15:11

that most of all, that speed mattered more

15:13

than perfection and then I did

15:16

learn though that when you take your eye off

15:18

the customer, eventually

15:21

you're going to pay for it. There are ways to make money

15:24

diminishing the customer experience and

15:28

you can probably make a few

15:30

of those choices in the interest of margin

15:33

but one of those choices will be sort

15:35

of the unraveling. I really think

15:37

the long-term best interest of the business

15:40

is the long-term best interest of the customer. One

15:42

of our company values is Build to Last

15:44

and we created that value when we first started

15:47

which for a venture backed company is almost

15:50

a radical thing to say.

15:52

As you got into this, I'm sure

15:55

there were other kind of heroic

15:57

leaders that you encountered, leaders,

15:59

youth, are bold, decisive,

16:02

courageous, purposeful.

16:06

Could you describe some of them to us

16:08

and what you may have learned from them that

16:11

helped you develop as a leader?

16:13

Yes. Well, it's interesting because I

16:15

am a consumer person and so many

16:17

of the leaders I admire are

16:19

consumer people too. And

16:22

so you have on your podcast, you handle really

16:24

big impact issues

16:27

and how leaders saw

16:29

them but I think I've always admired people who

16:32

bring joy to people in different ways. And

16:34

so I think Howard Schultz was audacious

16:37

to say everybody

16:39

should enjoy European espresso, people

16:42

that drank coffee in their homes and didn't really care

16:44

about how good coffee was. I think

16:47

that is amazing. And

16:49

I think it's a contribution to society

16:51

to say, why shouldn't everybody enjoy this

16:54

thing that I enjoyed in Europe and why don't

16:56

I expand this brand? And obviously

16:58

the job creation story that came

17:00

with it as well. But

17:03

it's truly leaders like that that inspire me.

17:05

Now this is a speculative question because neither

17:08

one of us is talking to Howard right now.

17:11

Even he had lots of skeptics and

17:13

lots of naysayers along the way that he was going

17:15

to scale this thing up like he did. What

17:18

do you think energizes people

17:22

to persevere in the face

17:24

of adversity and naysayers

17:27

and

17:28

lack of validation and patience

17:31

and you're not making money and your investors

17:33

are asking for you to turn a corner, your

17:36

customers are clamoring, you don't have the right employees

17:39

sometimes. I mean, it's

17:41

a lot to take on in those early

17:43

years for an entrepreneur. I mean, is

17:46

it the idea that propels them or what?

17:50

When you ask that question, it sounds like

17:52

the answer is obstinance and maybe a little

17:54

bit. But I think it's vision. I

17:57

really think it's vision. I think it's the ability to

17:59

look beyond. the pain,

18:02

the short-term pain, because you

18:04

believe in what you're building. I do think

18:06

throughout the entrepreneurial journey you

18:09

get through things. You know, I've had

18:12

critical leaders leave and you

18:14

think how am I going to get past this? And then you do and then

18:16

you gain the confidence, all right, you can get past that.

18:18

And I think once you build up a few of those, you

18:22

certainly don't feel invincible, but you do feel like you

18:24

have a toolkit to

18:26

handle adversity. And so I think

18:29

that's it. I would say the other

18:31

thing I forgot that inspires me a

18:33

lot about Howard Schultz and

18:36

consumer leaders like that is attention

18:38

to detail. You know, I read a exchange

18:41

where when they were first bringing, when

18:43

skim milk, non-fat milk, was

18:46

the trend, they agonized

18:48

over whether to bring it to Starbucks because it didn't froth

18:50

as well. And we

18:53

agonize about a lot of details like that. And I

18:55

enjoy reading stories, obviously Steve

18:57

Jobs being the king of this, but reading

18:59

stories about leaders who do

19:02

sweat the detail.

19:03

Could you give me an example of one where you

19:05

really sweat the detail on something in

19:07

your business? Yes.

19:08

So we use

19:11

different hardware on the back of different frames by

19:13

the size of the frame. And for

19:16

some frames we have wire on the back and

19:18

we use a wire that is

19:20

coded. And it's coded

19:22

so that it doesn't leave a black mark on your wall. And

19:25

so I made that decision when we started the company. And

19:28

every time we get a new member of operations

19:31

or procurement or someone says, that

19:33

coded wire is hard to work with, any

19:35

sort of automated tool to use

19:38

it doesn't work with the coded wire, costs more

19:40

than the regular wire, does the customer care about

19:42

the coded wire? And every time I say,

19:44

don't touch the coded wire. And so

19:46

I think holding the standard is

19:48

another aspect of my job. Again,

19:51

I think there are always pressures that

19:54

conspire to erode the standard.

19:56

I have another leader I admire. Please tell

19:58

me.

19:59

Myer, the restaurateur who

20:03

runs Shake Shack. But he's a famous restaurateur

20:05

and he wrote a book called Setting

20:07

the Table. And he has an anecdote

20:09

in that that has been very inspiring

20:12

to me. I talked to him and he signed

20:14

the page and of course I framed it because

20:17

I really appreciate this anecdote. It's

20:19

about reframing your position.

20:22

And it's an anecdote about how in the restaurant

20:24

business if you want the salt and pepper shaker

20:26

to be in a certain place on the table, you want it to be in the center of

20:28

the table,

20:28

you can train the team, it goes in the

20:30

center of the table.

20:31

And every time you walk by, they're not in the center,

20:33

you move them back. Customers move them

20:35

and then you move them back. And you can think, what

20:38

have I done wrong in the training, the

20:40

tools, the hiring, that these don't

20:42

go in the center of the table every time, even though I've set

20:44

that standard. Or you could reframe

20:47

it and say, my job

20:48

is to show people where the center of the table is.

20:51

Hey, it's Adam Grant. The

20:53

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20:55

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21:20

As you think about advice you give to entrepreneurs,

21:23

for those who are contemplating

21:25

entrepreneurship as a career, what

21:28

advice would you give them?

21:30

The biggest benefit

21:33

of entrepreneurship, I think, is the

21:35

learning journey. I do not believe

21:37

there is another path I could have learned so much. I

21:39

just don't. So that's wonderful.

21:42

So I would do it if you were interested in the learning journey.

21:44

I would also certainly

21:47

caution students or

21:49

anyone interested in entrepreneurship. It

21:51

is a long path and it is

21:53

a grueling one. It

21:56

has been all-consuming to me

21:58

for now nearly a decade. And I don't

22:00

think I knew that going in. I

22:03

don't think there are many ways to

22:05

do it without allowing

22:07

it to be that consuming. I think

22:10

there are very few stories,

22:12

we hear them, but I think there are very few

22:15

true stories about

22:18

a quick business with a quick flip and

22:20

a great financial outcome for the founder without

22:23

a lot of toil.

22:26

What does consuming mean to you when

22:28

you say consuming?

22:29

The better part of every

22:32

day, I think about this business.

22:34

What is the most difficult decision you've had

22:37

to make as a CEO? If you think about your career,

22:39

can you think of one or two really hard

22:42

decisions?

22:43

We had to close down

22:46

a factory, our original factory in Maryland.

22:48

We were consolidating into one

22:51

of the facilities we have now in Kentucky and

22:53

we were going to focus. We

22:55

needed a consolidated facility because we were going to

22:58

invest more heavily in automation actually,

23:01

but we had to close the facility. And doing

23:03

that, these were our regional team

23:05

members who helped us build the very

23:08

first frames. And that was really

23:12

hard. It was really hard. And I remember

23:14

actually one of my investors bumping into

23:16

him, I won't say his name, but he said

23:19

like, why are you taking this so hard? And

23:21

I thought, oh, well, have you ever stood in

23:23

front of a factory of people who worked hard for you

23:25

and believed in you and tell them for

23:29

some economic reason you're shutting

23:31

it down? Yeah, it was hard. But

23:55

he stressed that many successful business

23:57

leaders

23:59

stories.

24:01

And the stories that effective leaders tell

24:04

go beyond narrow, feel-good

24:06

narratives. They convey the

24:08

larger purpose of the enterprise. Susan

24:11

Tynan says this is one of the key

24:13

lessons she learned in her two

24:16

decades as an entrepreneur, and

24:18

it came to her over time.

24:21

I undervalued my role

24:23

in storytelling, in making

24:26

sure people understood the importance

24:29

of our values or the connection of what they

24:31

do to what we deliver for customers.

24:34

That seemed almost like a trope. It seemed

24:36

like just sort of a sweet founder role

24:38

rather than the chief executive, but it's the same role

24:41

and it's critical. And if I'm not

24:43

constantly reinforcing that, no one

24:45

is. I learned probably

24:48

the first third of my

24:51

frame bridge journey, that if

24:53

I didn't bring up our net promoter

24:55

score,

24:56

anytime I brought up another metric, it

24:59

was going to slip, and it did.

25:01

And so my role

25:02

always has to include

25:05

the voice of the customer.

25:07

What do you think are some of the biggest mistakes founder

25:09

entrepreneurs make as they scale

25:11

the organization? Sometimes people

25:13

like to say it's time for founders to even

25:16

leave. I

25:17

know, I know some people

25:19

write about this. I do think

25:21

you have to know what you're good at and what you're not good

25:23

at, and you have to be honest with yourself. The good thing

25:25

about this path, again, is you test

25:28

yourself in a lot of areas, so you do get to know

25:31

things that come naturally to you and things that don't.

25:33

But something that I've evolved in my thinking

25:37

is there are some functions of the business

25:39

where the leader has to be more

25:41

of my surrogate. This is how we bring

25:43

the brand to life. This is how we treat the team. And

25:46

there are some areas of the business are operating

25:49

leaders who are really talented, who run retail

25:51

and customer service and operations. Thank

25:55

goodness they have a skill set I don't have. And

25:58

so I need to seek them out and respect them. their

26:00

complementary strengths. And so really

26:02

understanding across

26:04

the company how much I should

26:06

be seeking people who are amplifying

26:10

the vision and also

26:12

respecting the functions that really do have

26:14

a concrete set of skills that may be different

26:17

than I am. I

26:28

am not a big fan of the term work-life

26:30

balance. It implies that the work

26:32

we do is somehow in opposition

26:35

or in competition with the rest of our time.

26:37

Instead, I

26:40

encourage leaders to develop a well-articulated

26:42

life purpose, one they pursue

26:45

only partially through work, a

26:48

purpose that is broad and profound.

26:51

For Susan Tynan, work must

26:53

be meaningful if it requires her

26:56

to be away from home. I

26:57

have two daughters. I had a

26:59

baby at a time when I

27:02

had a very exciting job working in

27:04

the budget office for the White House. And I

27:06

remember thinking, well, I can leave my baby because what

27:09

I'm doing is important. And

27:11

so it was almost the opposite of people

27:13

saying, I'm going to ease into a role because

27:15

I have a lot going on. It truly

27:17

was the opposite. It was like, no, if

27:20

I take a big job and I feel

27:22

a passion there, I won't feel that

27:24

it was a bad decision. So that was sort

27:26

of what got me started on this journey. But I think

27:29

I do believe if you are satisfied

27:31

with what you're doing, and I think certainly

27:34

if you're someone who has an entrepreneurial paying

27:37

or an idea and you want to pursue it, you're

27:39

going to be satisfied if you actually pursue it. If you're satisfied

27:41

with what you're doing, I do think you're a better partner

27:44

and parent. I do

27:46

view one of the reasons

27:51

I'm building the business I'm building is

27:54

to

27:55

represent not only female

27:57

leaders, but I think female leaders in this state

27:59

of life. So I started

28:02

Frame Ridge with a baby

28:04

and a toddler. Maybe

28:06

that's not advisable but but you know it all

28:09

it is all come together and I think the experience

28:12

my children have had watching me

28:15

build a business that's very concrete to them right

28:17

this is not ethereal this is really concrete

28:19

we build picture frames for people and mom's

28:21

never home during the Christmas season those

28:23

things make sense you know what maybe

28:26

a secondary or tertiary reason I do this is

28:29

to show other women that they can that

28:31

they don't have to in any way tamper

28:34

I think their dreams and and

28:36

then to show my daughters

28:39

what advice would you give your daughters about

28:42

career and finding something meaningful

28:44

to do how do you think one

28:47

goes about doing that because my mother

28:49

gave me that same advice as well that

28:54

do something that doesn't feel like work and

28:56

I never understood what she meant back then but now I do

28:59

how does one do that like where does

29:02

one look

29:03

I will encourage my daughters to

29:05

work but to experiment

29:08

I don't think it's reasonable to know

29:10

where you'll

29:12

end up it would not be reasonable for me to think

29:14

that I wanted to disrupt

29:16

custom picture framing you know that isn't

29:18

something someone thinks I'm at a young age but so

29:21

I think every step in your career is building

29:23

but I think every step in your career is also figuring

29:27

out what you like and don't like and I

29:29

found my way to entrepreneurship

29:31

and I found my way to consumer businesses

29:34

and I think every

29:36

step makes sense in

29:39

hindsight so I think just encouraging them not

29:41

to think that they're going to take a misstep but

29:43

to know that that step is going to be more

29:46

learning and more refining

29:48

of what they ultimately want to do

29:50

on the idea of entrepreneurship

29:52

and risk why do you think most

29:55

of us in the world are risk averse

29:57

why do we struggle with doing

30:00

courageous things?

30:02

Well, failure does not feel good. It's

30:04

very hard to fail without

30:07

it being a reflection of some personal

30:10

failing. And so I think

30:12

every setback or challenge

30:14

we've had at Framebridge over the years, I understand

30:17

the hand I had in it. And some things

30:19

are a global pandemic or some things are the

30:21

funding environment change, but I think most

30:24

things can be shaped by

30:27

you. And so I think I don't think people want

30:29

a mirror into their own shortcomings.

30:31

Have there been any crucible moments

30:33

in your life that you can look back and say, you know, that

30:35

was those are one or two defining moments,

30:38

whether you were playing a sport or

30:40

in high school or college or whatever

30:43

with your father that kind

30:45

of sometimes we have these kind of don't almost

30:48

have them. But if you have one or two that

30:50

you can think of.

30:52

I had a pretty idyllic

30:54

might be too shiny, but I put pretty

30:56

good upbringing. And so

30:59

truly the moments I remember are things like being

31:01

middle school president, things like that where

31:03

it was like, I like this, like I know

31:05

it's a little nerdy, but like I like being

31:07

in this position and I like the feeling

31:09

of attaining it. And so I think there were moments

31:13

like that that sort of gave me early

31:15

confidence. And

31:17

then I always

31:20

enjoyed work. I worked at

31:22

the Gap all through high school and

31:24

college and I loved that. I

31:26

felt a tremendous sense of pride

31:29

knowing what jeans would fit what

31:32

customers. I just loved that. I was

31:34

really good at it. I knew if you walked in, I knew

31:36

what jeans would fit you and you'd walk

31:37

out feeling great.

31:50

As listeners of the podcast

31:53

know, I've written extensively

31:55

about how important a well-articulated

31:57

sense of purpose is for businesses. and

32:00

for the leaders who run them. Purpose

32:03

can become an existential

32:06

intention. One that informs

32:09

every decision, practice and process. Purpose

32:12

has a vital animating force.

32:15

Susan Tynan says her purpose is

32:18

to build a fundamentally good

32:20

business.

32:21

And I think we're on our way and there's more work

32:23

to do. And so we're fundamentally

32:26

good because what we

32:28

provide to customers is good. They think it's

32:31

an excellent service. They like the end

32:33

products. But we behave in

32:35

ways we think are good. We provide

32:37

good training and compensation and benefits.

32:40

And our team members

32:42

feel like the

32:44

part of their career spent in frame bridge was

32:46

an important part of their career. And so

32:49

I think that's my purpose. To build on

32:51

lessons I learned earlier in my career and

32:54

just build a good business where

32:57

millions of customers are happy and thousands

33:00

of employees are fulfilled.

33:03

What do you hope people after

33:05

you would say about you as a leader,

33:08

the people who worked for you? What do you

33:10

hope they might say about you?

33:12

I would hope people said I helped

33:15

them figure out a way.

33:19

I think that's the most authentic thing

33:22

I can say is that

33:24

I never left them out there alone. And that

33:28

together we figured it out. And

33:30

that through that process

33:33

they learned something.

33:34

You've talked about the word resilience.

33:38

And I'd love to kind of close

33:40

out the conversation with resilience.

33:43

And how do you think about that

33:45

word? I think resilience

33:48

is

33:50

powerful because anyone can

33:53

have it. It's

33:55

intrinsic. Or you

33:57

can prove you're resilient by putting one

33:59

up. their foot in front of the other. It can

34:02

develop within you. I just said it was intrinsic, but I guess

34:04

it can develop within you. And it

34:06

is not reliant on external

34:08

factors. In fact, it's

34:11

only proven when the external environment

34:13

is challenging.

34:15

Susan Tynan is the founder and

34:17

CEO of the custom framing company,

34:20

Phoned.

34:26

A lot of my conversations with leaders in

34:28

the business world navigating the

34:30

21st century business environment, visit

34:33

my Deep Purpose website. While

34:35

you're there, you can also find out about my book

34:37

titled Deep Purpose. Companies

34:39

that are serious about establishing and working towards

34:42

a deep purpose find that it delivers game

34:44

changing results for the workers,

34:47

the shareholders, and the larger

34:49

society. So visit

34:51

with me at deeppurpose.net. This

34:54

podcast is produced by David Shin

34:56

and Steven Smith with help from Jen

34:58

Daniels and Craig McDonald. The

35:01

theme music is by Gary Meister. I'm

35:04

Ranjit Gulati. Thanks

35:06

for listening.