Here's what vulnerability in leadership actually looks like with Matt Tait

Tiffany Sauder: This week I talked to Matt Tait and I think I'll use his own words to describe him. He has a four year old startup, like a company that has a hundred employees and 700 customers, a wife who also works and has a big career and three kids under 10 years old. Talk about hashtag life and he recently posted on LinkedIn. And said, I'm on this pursuit of vulnerability and I just had to reach out and ask him, tell me more. What about your life is prompting you today to really look at vulnerability and it's such a big thing to be doing in and around all of these massive things that are happening in his life. And I wanted to know why I choose now listen into our conversation.

Well, there's a LinkedIn post that got us in the room together. Yes. And so I'll read it and then I've got some questions and we'll just see where the conversation goes. so Matt put on LinkedIn I find being vulnerable hard. As a CEO, a man, as a husband, as a father,it'd be good to get better at it. I'm working on it in all areas. Let's see how far my desire for change leads me, even though the need for change is great. So what happened right before you posted this to get you to bring this into such like consciousness for you?

Matt Tait: So I actually learned something unique with that post. And that is before posting something that deep, tell my wife first. Yeah, because right after I did, she came downstairs and asked me the exact same question you did. And I think ever since the pandemic, I think one of the things that I took as good out of it was untethered me from an office, but it also kind of untethered me from the daily routine that I had had of who I was and how I wanted that person to be. And, and that is all facets of our personality, and I think a lot of times we, we have multiple people that we are every day. And that's just a fact of how we act with our employees, how we act with our children, how we act with our spouse. How we act with the guy driving too slow, it must be on the way here. And, I found that I wanted those people to be much more similar, and I wanted to go deeper into who I was. And, you know, I've been on that journey since the pandemic started. And I would say probably since, my wife and I highlighted it really quickly in the pandemic, that we needed to really figure out what our own balance was, and who we were and who we wanted to be going forward. And it made the pandemic, quite frankly, a really fun time for us. It sucked in a lot of ways for everybody. And it did for us, particularly with three little kids running around at home. But it gave us kind of permission to go see who we were.  And for me, that started a journey in who I was. And how I wanted to actually be truly authentic with the people around me. and I'd kind of reached a point a couple of months ago where I, I wanted to actually start exposing that journey to other people and, you know, and I, I'm really lucky that I've got a great support system in my family. I've got an amazing team at work. I've got really good close friends, um, but I think this job that we take leading organizations is a very isolating one, and it caused me to isolate a lot of emotions outward. And, and while I talked to them with certain people, I didn't let them be exposed to a lot of people around me. And so, I made the decision that I wanted to start exposing that outward, and to my team. And then I said, you know what, there are a lot of other CEOs that are out there, and a lot of men. Particularly, I think. For people of our generation, guys in particular, emotions are kind of a two dimensional thing. And there are a lot more dimensions after that.

Tiffany Sauder: Emotions are a two dimensional thing, you see that very vividly. I don't know what that means.

Matt Tait: It's probably like a, better to say it's like a two layered thing, and there are more layers. Okay. And everybody always uses that kind of onion as a layered approach. And, uh, and I think that we can get into the general layers of, like, who we are on a happiness, sadness basis. But then, vulnerability goes much, much deeper than that. And, and I think we can even get into a second layer, which is, I genuinely really feel like I love my children. I, I love my wife. But then there's another layer deeper, which is, like, at some points in my marriage I'm insecure. At some point as a dad I'm insecure. What does that mean? What started that with me? Um, as a boss, I'm insecure all the time. I'm around some really amazing people at work, that have done some really, really cool things, and sometimes I wonder, would they be better at leading this company? or would we be better doing something else? Or, you know, those, those types of insecurities, I think, tap into different layers of emotions that I, had always kind of checked a box on and then went away from it. Or painted over or hidden from it. And, and I think to truly take a next level step in my own happiness and in being good at all the things I want to be good at, which is not just work, is also at home, that I actually have to start figuring out what those layers are and how to express and deal with them.

Tiffany Sauder: Can you give me an example of a place where you've kind of began to exercise this muscle of vulnerability inside your organization and how you would have, uh, less vulnerable Matt would have shown something to the organization versus how you're kind of trying that now.

Matt Tait : So it's funny, I actually just had a conversation, kind of leads to this with my nine year old daughter. I've got three little kids, and my nine year old daughter, Madeline, is very much the, like, type A, teacher's pet, do everything right, lead everything, and has to be first at everything. Doesn't matter if it's first to the bathroom, first to finish a race, whatever.

And I, we had a conversation about letting her siblings win, and I said, hey, sometimes to be a good leader, you need to follow. Great leaders can lead from the front and the back, and everywhere in between. And we kind of had some conversations about that. So, over the last month and a half, my company, Decimal, has taken some major strides in focusing on the service based aspect of what we do. We do some technology stuff, and we're also a high service organization. And we really came to a decision point on which one of those two, technology or service, What are we going to focus the hardest on in 2024? And we're all technology entrepreneurs. And so we very much wanted to go one way, and we actually ended up going the other way. And where this conversation to your question got me is, we do quarterly offsets. We are a remote only company, and so I rarely, if ever, meet anybody. As I mentioned, this is my first time in an office in four years. but I do get my leadership team together on a quarterly basis, uh, cause there's a lot of value in face to face and in between time. And so what I found is different with me is I will start with the questions and then sit back and let other people express their opinions. I always tell everybody I was a terrible lawyer, but what I was actually really good at was depositions and just getting people to talk. I've been able to use that skill in these meetings to let my team start to talk things through and express things and, um, what that's really allowed me to do is to really gain a full understanding of the entire landscape and scope of any decision that we make. And then also to start pointing them down the path towards making a decision themselves. It may be contrary to the decision that I'm going to make. But it at least allows them to fully flesh out their own opinion and their own thought. and so in that meeting I used that desire to go deeper and to change. It allowed me almost a sense of humility to step back and say let's let these other smart people have this discussion. Let's facilitate this discussion in a really good way and see what came out of it. And I think we've come up with a really great. Next step, and I think it's going to be an awesome 2024. But it's also the exact opposite of what everybody would have expected the outcome would be.

So

Tiffany Sauder: that's so, actually a really interesting example. My definition of vulnerable, as I try to keep that top of mind for myself, is the willingness to be open to an unknown outcome. Which is exactly what you're saying. Like, hey, we had some really big decisions we had to make. My invulnerable self is going to go in and try to control this conversation to get to the place that I think it needs to be or wants to. My vulnerable self is not necessarily going in and stereotypically talking about all my emotions. And I think vulnerability can get pegged with those attributes. Instead of saying, no, I was just open. I was withholding judgment from it, saying, I'm not going to be scared of where this conversation is going to go, I'm going to be open to where these smart people might take the conversation.

Matt Tait : Yeah, I think that's a good point, and I think,  being vulnerable can also be correlated with being comfortable in your own skin, and one thing that I'm at being is, It's able to sit and think in the middle of a conversation, which, as you know, probably having done it, it's a very awkward thing to do, but I don't have any problem doing it. I also find that other people will fill the void, and that's usually beneficial. That's

Tiffany Sauder: such an attorney thing to say! It is, but it's also My husband negotiates for a living and he's like, just let them talk.

Matt Tait : But it's also like, give yourself time to think. And I rarely find that my first thought's my best thought. And so, being comfortable in doing that, I think is, is that, I don't know. And I think, growing up, and what I'm noticing having boys and girls, is there are very much gender stereotypes and there are very much gender facts. And I think just generally how boys and girls kind of feel about things going in, for right or wrong. And the stereotypes, oftentimes, were right and wrong as well. And at least for, I think, a lot of men growing up in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s, vulnerability in getting in touch with our emotions was, I would say, I'm better than my dad, definitely better than my grandpa. But, I'm not good.  And I'd like to get good, because I also look at as I, I mean, you were this way. We bossed through a pandemic. That was an unprecedented time of forced vulnerability for the world. And that also meant that we were forced parenting during this unprecedented time. I found that in order to do that, I had to immediately quit. And just be open to the fact that my life was a disaster. And that was okay, and so is everybody else's. What I chose to do was maintain that wall being down, or rip it down as I saw it coming back up. And I think that's one of the things that has given some of us the permission to kind of untether and break down that barrier in ways that I don't think I would have done or been okay with prior to.

Tiffany Sauder:

I only know post pandemic Matt, if I would have met pre pandemic Matt, what would I have seen in your day, and like what you're wearing, and like the way your time was constructed  what are the things that just practically look different in that

Matt Tait : way? Practically look different? I, I used to be in good shape and I never worked out before the pandemic.

Tiffany Sauder: I, I used to be in good shape and

Matt Tait : I never worked out well. I used to be in good shape. Then I got fat for like 20 years and I never worked out. Got it, got it, got it. Oh, got it there. I got it. So like, I, I didn't take care of myself. and then pre pandemic Matt was also a lot more sar. Mm-Hmm. . And I'm sarcastic in general. It's just my sense of humor, Um, but I think doing it in a mean way versus a non mean way is totally different. and I had a tendency to be exceptionally impatient, which I am anyway. Driving up here with all of the traffic circles has a tendency to bring out some impatience in me occasionally. But, I think I'm a better person, and I'm more patient. And, you know, I'm

Tiffany Sauder: wrong a lot. I was going to ask you, and maybe you just said it, when you're, I think deepest intuition is wanting you to be vulnerable, and you quiet it, what do you cover it up with? And the answer might be sarcasm. 100%.

Matt Tait : That's your default, yeah. I'm also really good at understanding other people's vulnerabilities, and I genuinely like deep conversations. And so it's very easy for me to turn a mirror on other people and have a deep conversation. had a lunch a couple of weeks ago with somebody and he was like, I've never told anybody this.

I hear that a lot. Because I genuinely enjoy deep conversations, but I've always been very good at getting other people to be deep and using my own vulnerability more tactically than authentically. Do you think that's innate

Tiffany Sauder: to who you are, or do you think that's like a, uh, almost an intentional byproduct of just becoming an attorney, where it becomes this, it can be a pursuit of truth,  Or is it just part of you, you think?

Matt Tait : In my case I think it's just part of who I am. I was never a good lawyer, I was never going to be a long term lawyer. When I met my wife, I told her I wasn't going to be a lawyer, and at some point I'd start my own company, and I'm a terrible employee, So for me, I think the law and the legal training was more a added arrow in my quiver rather than a giving me of some personality trait.

I think, I do see it with long time attorneys and long time lawyers, particularly negotiators or litigators, but for me, it's just, I think, who I've been. Yeah, and uh, to be fair, it's inherited. My mom is really good at it too. and so growing up around her ability to do that, uh, I think very much helped me gain the ability to.

Did you

Tiffany Sauder: see what's happening to Decimal today? Did you see it?

Matt Tait : So the first three years, yes. to be fair, when you start a company, you put together a three year pro forma. Yeah, and Usually it's totally a guesswork and it's never true. Ours ended up being really crazy how close to the truth it ended up being. acquisitions later and kind of what's coming in the next three years. possible but improbable is what I would have said. we lucked into a really great space at a really good time. As you know. Everybody hates their own finance and accounting. I always joke that the worst three things about running a business are HR, IT, and accounting. And,we ended up with a good team at a good time and in a good space. And one thing that I do,like doing is boring things to help other people do exciting things. And this fits that bill pretty,

Tiffany Sauder: pretty well.

Um, you had either the good fortune or the, like, burden now of having a lot of luck right out of the gate. What does that pressure of like, you know, now being decimal and being Matt, what does that do in your mind?

Matt Tait : Nothing. I mean, to me, it, it, it didn't, it doesn't change the pressure. It doesn't change how I think we need to look at things.  I still am the same person that started the company with my co founder, Jacob. And, um, and then we added a leadership team. I think what it really means for me, what I've found to be fascinating, me pricing this, is my job changes a lot. And, in so many ways, what it means is I get to do less. And I miss it. Like, I miss a lot of Having my hands in things. I miss a lot of hopping on sales calls. I miss a lot of talking to clients on a daily basis.I miss being able to talk to everybody on my team and get to know them really well. I miss a lot of the things that I can't do anymore. But it doesn't mean I still can't figure out how to do them some more. But, I also am told things I'm not allowed to do too. And that probably grates on me more than anything. Yeah. Because the minute I'm told I can't do something is the minute I'm immediately mentally figuring out how to do it.

Tiffany Sauder: Obsessed over it? Oh, 100 percent. So that's interesting. So, as you walk around with this like sense of like, hey, Decimal's really on a tear right now. You don't wear that any differently than the first day. No, I It's incredible. Yeah, that's

Matt Tait : awesome. I mean,

I expected that we could do something that was pretty cool. And it hasn't all been great. I mean, I always joke, pardon me for the language, I joke that every organization is a shit show. It's just a matter of where and how. And when you're growing as fast as we have, and we've grown substantially, and I think we'll grow a lot more by orders of magnitude in the next three or four years. it's a rollercoaster. And a lot of it's really, really hard. And I think we're doing it at a time where It's a tough economy for it. it's like people used to agree when there was a recession and when there wasn't a recession. And now we can't even agree that we might be in a recession or we might not be. And, to be fair, the economic indicators don't agree on that either. And we haven't been immune to that. And our 2023 wasn't what we thought it would be. Partially because a lot more of our clients are going out of business. Yeah, which is entirely unpredictable. So, to me it's still a daily challenge and it's just different. there's no ego trip on that I expected us to be here. I expected that we could do something that would help a lot of people. And I think we are. We're not perfect at it, but I also don't think we ever will be.

Tiffany Sauder: Is this the first fully remote team that you've built? Yes. Tell me about that, because I've built, for the most part, in person companies. We're hybrid now. Um, which kind of just means player's choice. Yeah. If you do your best work at home, then work at home. If you do your best work in the office, then here. But we still really hire just within a drive of the office. Right. Hybrid is maybe even a little, you know, of a luxurious definition of it, cause everybody's still here pretty local tell me about that, and, what have you learned, and

Matt Tait : learned a lot, and I think, for me, one of the things that we've learned, and I think we've built a really cool remote culture. We're improving it, but we've built a type of place where when somebody goes out, people just lean in. They do the things that you do when you're in an office and you're close to somebody. And we figured out how to generate that type of a culture with people you've never met before. And so I want to start with, I actually think that's one way that we've done a good job. Is in building a good workplace culture, I think you have to throw everything out the window. When you think about building a remote company. I used to joke with friends of mine that, like you run companies that have an office, whether high grade or, or an office. Yeah. Yeah, that you can lazily build a great culture, like without intentionally doing everything that you're doing. You can build a place that people want to work, that they want to work hard, that they want to work together, that they want to do things.

When you're remote, everything has to be intentional, because you don't have, The things that kind of bond together. People are like muscles, and in a body you have to have tendons and you need a skeletal system. You need a lot more to make a body go than just the muscles. And in order to do that in a remote company, you have to be very intentional about how you get people to spend in between time. How you get people to communicate in a different sort of way. Because you have synchronous and asynchronous communication. You have verbal and you have written communication. You have written immediate communication, and then you have written long form communication, email versus a Slack. And you have to really think through all the aspects of that. And be willing to accept that there are trade offs and things are different. And you have to think what's best for your type of organization. For us, a lot of organizations that do well remotely, project based, or are very behind the scenes, We're different in the sense that we're literally communicating with clients on a daily basis all the time. Because we're accomplishing something that happens every single day. And so, creating communication and work together in a team environment in that setting is very hard to do because you're doing it in between people doing things all the time that our client face off. and so, Figuring out ways to not keep people on islands and to kind of build bridges between That's what we're constantly focused on.  The other side is, is, really it's this kind of vulnerability and authenticity that you and I are talking about today. And I think this is where the pandemic really helped because we train everybody in one on ones to really start with a very serious, how are you? And it's not how are you at work, it's how are you? Because We generally care about our, the people that work with us and our team. And when you have an office, you can walk by and see somebody's body language. And you can see how they're feeling. Or you can see what happens when they drop off a call. When you're remote, you can't. And so you have to rely on that type of conversation. We also talk a lot about how, like, transparency. Defaulting to transparency is one of our core values. We talk a lot about how that's a two way street. I can be as transparent as I can, but I need people to be transparent with me. So we need to rely on the fact that when we ask the authentic, How are you doing? That you're actually giving us the real answer. And we also will ask it multiple times, because I find that it's kind of like a wall, and the more you hit it, the more it'll break down. So getting to that type of atmosphere and feeling, and then just also celebrating every little thing. You know, when somebody has a birthday anniversary, they do something great with a client, somebody gets a kudos and you get a highlight, you get a heads up and you get a meme or an emoji or whatever it is, we really work on that type of incremental celebration too, because it's not just diving into people's emotional state, but it's also trying to build them up and make them feel good. And so it's safe and good like, I want people to feel safe. Safe enough to be transparent. I want them to feel built up and strengthened too.

Tiffany Sauder: I'm an investor in a company that's a hundred percent remote. And you touched on one of them, the two hardest things we've found is celebrating and training. Those are the two things that we've found that are hard. And celebrating is like here, you know, if you're in the conference room pitching a half a million dollar strategy and you come out like, it went great! And everybody's like, yeah, we could feel like they walked out and they were happy and we knew it. And like, you're cleaning up snacks and there's like this whole physical motion to just being present. And so how, do you just do it through Slack?

Matt Tait : We do it through Slack, we do it on all hands, like a huge portion of our all hands is celebrating the wins and testimonials and

Tiffany Sauder: And how frequently do you have those? Uh, every other week.

Matt Tait : Okay. Uh, we used to do weekly but I think we've just gotten to a point where that's too long. It's a heavy list, yeah. also, so we use a, a system called Lattice to really help with our workforce management. And people operations, and it gives us the ability to do kudos that publicly then goes onto Slack. And we really ask people to do that regularly. And you'll see about half a dozen a day, sometimes. Or at least ten a week that usually come through on the kudos channel. And it can be all different types of people. So one of the things that I've found is hard is Sales is the easiest way to get kudos. It is as close to instant gratification, or not, as you get. Somebody that's doing bookkeeping, it's really hard to find that way to do instant gratification. And so we really try to figure out how to celebrate all the small things too. And then it's, when we celebrate on a kudos, you tag a core value of the company. And so you're constantly tagging to those values. of, you know, doing the right thing, of being transparent, of moving fast and making things better, of working together and winning. those are kind of the things that we really try to stitch together, because I think you also ultimately want to find an anchor point, and company values, authentically done, are a good anchor point. And we actually waited to establish core values until we were maybe two and a half years old, because I've always thought that a lot of companies put out values that are writing on a wall only. And, we wanted them to be as close to an accurate reflection of who we are, and who we thought we could continue to be as anything else.

That's

Tiffany Sauder: really interesting. That's very The

Matt Tait : next time I'd say wait a year, but we probably waited too long, but Jacob and I are very irreverent people and so it takes us a while sometimes to break out of that irreverence.

Tiffany Sauder: I can see that. Would you build fully remote company again? I would.

Matt Tait : Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I really, I love being, I love working at home.

I've found a way to develop really good connections with people on a screen. I think we would do some things differently, of course, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. I don't know what it would be like to try to wear a belt every day either. So, I

Tiffany Sauder: like sweatpants. It's so funny. It's so funny.  What are you learning most about yourself? And we talked about vulnerability, but in this, you talked about your job changes frequently because this thing is a rocket ship and taking off. You're in this, you know, active, like, service to the organization, but what are you learning about yourself? how does your family need to support you in this journey that you're on, has that changed at all?

Matt Tait : One of the things that I'm finding is, so a couple of good and a couple of bad, I really like the change, and I like the new job.   and I like the adaptability that I'm forced into. I change slower than I would like, or I'll change partially and not all the way. I can be a little stubborn and hard headed, but I find that I do actually really like it. one of the things that I do think is tough about me that I need to work on getting better is turning things off and I'm very, very bad at it. And, um, oftentimes I'll come to the point where I will stop work around 5 so I can hang out with the kids. They go to bed around 7. 30 or 8. 00. Then I'll work for another hour and a half. And, um, I need to be able to turn it off and be able to spend more time with my wife and make sure when I'm with my kids I'm fully with them. I can put my phone down, but it doesn't mean my brain's not still working on a problem. and so I, that's what I'm really struggling to do better at.and like, the reality of my life is my wife is way cooler than I am and the job that she does is way cooler than what I do. And so, um, a lot of times we're just balancing kind of who gets priority and where that comes from because What she's doing is just as, if not more important

Tiffany Sauder: got going on.Is there a thing that's sort of the biggest source of tension between you guys as you're trying to fit all these pieces together? You've got the kids, you've got your two careers. Oh,

Matt Tait : I think, I mean, I think every couple always fights about time and money, right? Like, um, how are we spending our time? Am I doing enough? I got in a lot of trouble yesterday because I I worked out in the morning and didn't get ready early enough before church. And so she had the burden of trying to corral the cats to get them in the car and ready. And, and oftentimes, I'm more of a, I'll let everybody do things and she is much more of a, she wants them to get done when she's ready to have them done and not have to worry about it. And, and balancing those two personality differences is always a challenge for us. But it's also what makes us really great at being together as a family unit, as a couple. and so that's kind of the balance that we run into is, plus it's weird because I am totally, I am, I'm a CEO, I am the boss when I'm at work, I often get told what I get to do at work, but, when I leave, I'm okay not making decisions and, and that is something that I also need to work on is sometimes just. Uh huh. It can be

Tiffany Sauder: annoying to her. Oh, 100%.

Matt Tait : She doesn't necessarily want to make the decision. Somebody has to figure out what we're going

Tiffany Sauder: to eat tonight. Uh huh. Uh huh. Do you guys have help inside your

Matt Tait : home at all? We do. We're really, really lucky in a couple of ways. Um, number one is we do have people that come over and clean the house for us. Uh, in fact, Friday, I had to do a, uh, client conversation on the Zoom I turned off car in the garage because the cleaning ladies kicked me out. Uh, I took a selfie and posted it on our Slack channel for the

Tiffany Sauder: team. I've been there like in the guest room closet, yeah. Oh yeah,

Matt Tait : I had no actual space. I tried the basement, then they kicked me out of there. so that helps just kind of keep things sane. I like working outside, so I do most of our yard work. And we have a couple acres, so it can be a lot. But it's, I like, I'm an introvert by nature. And, uh, being able to put in headphones and go more than one for two hours is very nice for me.  and then we do have nannies that come and pick up the kids. Cause our kids get out of school around 2. 30. And so from like 2. 30 to 5. 30, they are two great college women that come and they'll help me at days. and then we're both lucky that, uh, both of our families are huge and are here. And so, uh, my wife Sarah's parents will take the kids on Friday and my parents are in town.

They'll come and take the kids

Tiffany Sauder: and so how do you structure that with you working from home because I'm assuming after school that the kids come home

Matt Tait : Sometimes they will sometimes they'll go to the children's park or you know, whatever I'm also in the pandemic gave me a nice Superhuman ability to tune other things out. Yeah, and so even though I ironically I don't have a door on my office And it's right off of our living room. Oh my word, you're insane. I can sit there and, uh, focus entirely on work. Um, unless somebody's screaming right outside door.

Tiffany Sauder: will the kids not go in there? Like do you have Oh no, they'll come in and say hi. Okay. Oh yeah. And if they're playing, you're just not interesting enough for them to spend a lot of time in

Matt Tait : there. No, They also know that it's, you know This is what's happening. Right. Yeah. And I think the pandemic can be that. Understanding for little kids to just get the sense that, oh, mommy and daddy do go to work, and when they're working, they need to be able to work. You know, my six year old in particular, I'm sure I will come and, you know, crawl up, but she also, now that she's becoming a teenager at six, she gets embarrassed by the fact that any time somebody comes in, I will turn the camera and make them say hi to whoever it is. Because it's rude to interrupt a conversation without saying hi and excuse me. Um, and so that does give them a

Tiffany Sauder: little renaissance time. Uh huh. yeah, my youngest is three and I will sometimes sneak in the house and work from our home office and if she finds me in there, she wants to come sit on my lap. Oh really? It just drives me nuts, yeah. I mean, it doesn't drive me nuts, it's sweet, but I, I'm like, if I could just be in this room by myself, I could be done in 40 minutes. If you're here, it's going to take me an hour and a half. Oh yeah. And I'm like ruled by efficiency, so it's very hard

Matt Tait : for me. Well, I think that's. You know, and you probably get this, two working parents with kids and everything else, like, you're on a schedule, and when things break out of that schedule, it can domino your

Tiffany Sauder: day. Yeah, it's really hard. It's really hard. one of the things my husband and I did, cause I tend to, just thinking about, uh, you solving some for your wife, this might be a good tip for you guys, is, he's inconsistent because he travels a lot, and so I sort of was like, I'm just gonna assume, It's like all my job, and then that way, if you're here, it's helpful, but if you're not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not pissed, you know. Except for what we eat on Friday night. For some reason, that was like the thing that pushed me over the edge. Like, what restaurant we were going to go to, if we were going to go out to eat, or if we were going to grill. So like, Friday night dinner is his job to solve, and it is such a like, oh, I don't have to decide. And it's like, contained, it's part of the, yeah, it's part of the program, it's like very helpful, so.

Matt Tait : we've started to develop. It's kind of like that. I like grilling. Like, I'll cook Sunday morning breakfast every Sunday. And, uh, and then I like grilling or smoking or whatever it is. And so I'll usually be in charge of a meal or two a week. and one of the things that my wife really asked for was on Sunday night, we'll sit down and look at our calendars and look at the week and just have a conversation. And it was really funny because my nine year old, uh, Elliot, He is the one that really wants to be a part of that. He's like, I want to know what's going on. Yeah, your firstborn. Well, so, I have nine year old twins. Oh yeah, that's right. And so, uh, usually he's the laissez faire one, or just whatever. But he mentally wants to know what's going on. Do I have cub scouts? Do I have baseball? Do we have art class? Like, whatever it is that they're doing, he wants to mentally be able to mirror for. And, um, he's not good, even if it's something he really enjoys. It's a surprise. That is fascinating. Someday I'm going to throw him a massive surprise party. You

Tiffany Sauder: are the worst. This is the irreverent part of you coming on. Oh, 100%.

Matt Tait : As your kids get older. I'm good at noticing everybody's vulnerabilities and when they're my children.

Exploiting it. Oh, yeah. Because they spend their whole

Tiffany Sauder: life just Their childhood is like a game of dodgeball.

Matt Tait : Oh, 100%. I'm as childish as they are. More so because I have the means and ability to

Tiffany Sauder: beat them. Yeah. Yeah. Are you the fun dad among their friends?

Matt Tait : Oh, sometimes. But I'm also the strict dad, too. Like, I play both ends of the spectrum and I think my wife's pretty much the middle. Where I'm, I'm either the super strict one or I'm the fun one. And sometimes I'm the fun one when I'm not supposed to be and sometimes I'm the strict one when I'm not supposed to be. So, yeah. It just

Tiffany Sauder: kind of depends. That's excellent. That's excellent.  Well, what are you most excited about as you look forward over

Matt Tait : 2024? I'm excited for a lot of things. I'm excited for the next phase of my house and my family. I think 2024 is going to be a fun year for us. And ultimately that helps anchor me at work. Particularly working in the house. I think when you can come to an office, you can totally divorce your two lives and mentally break away from it.

But when you're at home, you can't. And, except for my wife will tell you that when she works at home she can still do the laundry and dishes, and I for some reason can't unless she puts it on the calendar. Um, but for Decimal, I'm really excited as we look at the next phase of our company. You know, for us, the first four years, and we'll be four years old in January, uh, we're very much about breadth.

We can do a lot of, a lot of things for a lot of people in a lot of ways. And we still can. The next phase of growth for us, the next three acts over the next couple of years is going to be very much based on depth. Like, how do we get deeper with our customers? How do we get deeper with our partners? How do we get deeper into industries?

I think that's the next phase for us and I really challenged the team in March to look at the next three years and pull as much pain forward into 2023 as possible. And we've got amazing venture partners and Arthur Ventures and they'll tell you that what I did was totally weird and they don't see it very often.

And as is our ability to make a decision and just go. We really don't oscillate on decision making at all. Probably could do less change less frequently, but we pulled all that forward so that as we head into next year, we've got an exceptionally strong foundation with the right people in place. To really go and kind of 3x and to do it in a way that's much, much better.

Tiffany Sauder: So you looked at like the technology, the talent,

Matt Tait : the systems. We looked at the people. We looked at our technology and systems. We looked at how we were operating and the operations and delivery of what we were doing. We looked at our sales. And I challenged, and we looked at our internal finance and people operations. we pointed to major pain points that we expected to come up in the next three years. And you

Tiffany Sauder: said at this, at this client load, at this, that's what you were saying, right? Essentially? Yeah.

Matt Tait : How do we pull all that forward? How do we eat all the pain? Because you've seen it. As your organization grows, you have certain predictable pain points that you're going to hit.

Because you've been doing things differently than you will do them. And occasionally you have different people that are needed for different stages. And we've gone through a little bit of that too. And for us, it was, hey, we want to see what that is. Let's start to predict forward. And let's put the team and the company in a place that we can, because when you double a couple of pennies, it's a lot easier than doubling a couple hundred bucks.

And for us, we are really looking to triple over the next three years. And to do that, we need to spend as much time going out and doing that, and not shoring up the foundation walls.

Tiffany Sauder: So really practically, I think I read you have like 700 clients right now, customers. So you're saying, I want our finance and HR team to have the capacity to handle 2, 000 customers. I want our technology to be able to onboard, I don't know how many it is, 400 a month. I want this, like these are the markers you went out and said, this is the capacity I'm expecting you guys to

Matt Tait : run at. Exactly. And we'll also look at acquisitions. So we did our first acquisition the year  And, uh, it was a unique situation. KPMG called us and they said, Hey, we have this company we bought. They're a multi billion dollar company. So, initially, when somebody like that calls you, you ask, what did I do? But we've been slowly taking some of their really good employees and siphoning off some of their bigger customers.

And so they heard about us, and it was a business unit that I think just didn't fit with their go forward approach. And for them, they said, hey, would you like to just buy it? Us and we said yes, and that gave us a great acquisition, which turned into an amazing group of people. Like, I don't think I will have an acquisition down the road that will equal so many amazing folks brought in.

It was also a vulnerable point for us. 'cause we had grown substantially, and I mean, we'd grown substantially, but we're bringing in a big

Tiffany Sauder: piece to add on to it. What percentage was the acquisition as it related to your course business? was kind of back to their roots a little bit.

Matt Tait : It was, and it was a shock because for us, like we move fast, we're irreverent, we talk a lot. And we did go down there and I think one of the good things we did is meet the new person. Mm-Hmm. . They had an office, we shut down their office. Yeah. And a ton of them stayed. Almost all of 'em. And uh, so that was a really good thing for us. It also taught us a lot about what to do and not to do. Mm-Hmm. , it gave us a new business. We've never done taxes before, but we got three amazing KPMG tax professionals. We learned how to integrate that into what we did, and so it gave us a lot that we hadn't really thought about and probably wouldn't have for a few years,but we will start acquisitions again in 2024, and acquisitions will be a substantial part of our growth. I really think that Decimal can be something that changes how this industry proceeds. And we're in an interesting place, accountants hate doing this work. They really view it as beneath them.

Tiffany Sauder: great bookkeepers are hard to find. They are? Yeah, they're really

Matt Tait : hard to find. They're hard to find. Hiring it is a tough position.

Tiffany Sauder: Yeah, and you're real vulnerable as a business owner if it's not done right. I can't tell

Matt Tait : you how many business owners have no idea how to get into their own bank account. And I don't know how to get into my QuickBooks account, but I can at least get into my bank account.

And so It really is an interesting view of how to look at it. The other part of it too is, it's something that for accountants is not something they like doing. But for a business owner, paying your bills, getting paid and tracking them all, is literally what keeps you up at night if you can't do it. And so, for us as we grow through acquisition, as we grow through that, I want to get to a point where we can really start to change how this conversation around the industry does it. And I think we've got a

Tiffany Sauder: chance. I'd say so too. buys a market or who named it? How did the name come to be?

Matt Tait : I actually, this is great.

So there were five of us. We initially started in a small accounting firm, mid sized accounting firm here, locally. And then in August of 2020 we wanted out for them. So part of that deal was we had to change the name. And if you've ever done naming an organization, it

Tiffany Sauder: is terrible. It's the worst thing for us to do. You throw out

Matt Tait : hundreds of things

Tiffany Sauder: and it's just The thing you love, you can't have. Oh.

Matt Tait : And so we, we ended up going through, and I think there was still four or five of us on the team at the time. And, uh, I got lucky and picked, I was like, why don't we call it Decimal? And we looked, and GetDecimal. com was available. We were like, this is great! And so we, we picked Decimal, we stuck with it, ended up being an amazing brand. Jacob, my co founder, and his dad, Michael, were skiing that next winter, and they said, hey, I wonder who owns Decimal. com. And they are very, uh, resourceful people. And so they figured out that it was owned by a, um, FinTech company in Australia that was going through bankruptcy proceedings. And somehow they were able to get the name and number of the CTO who was on a golf course. We 8, 000. No! Decimal. com And, uh, it was, it was awesome. And so we now, and it's great is, you know, like being able to walk into a room. So he says, I had never, I haven't carried business cards in decades. And somebody's like, Oh, what's your email? I'm like, mad at decimal. com. And I can remember that. I'm like, I know, so we got really,

Tiffany Sauder: really lucky. It's a cool name. it's like. Straight ahead enough that you know what you probably do, but not so literal that it's like bookkeeping4u.

Matt Tait : com. And it works, and it's fun, and we get different things. We've got this new automation that's going out to tell our customers what we do every week. And the marketing team, like, very cutely coined it the Decimal Points Email. And the team were rebranding them to be pointers. So there's a lot of kind of fun stuff that you can do as a play on words with it.

Tiffany Sauder: It's a sign of a good brand. I think so. It's got extensions to it, for sure. Well, Matt, congratulations on your success. Thanks for sharing your story. I think it's especially brave, um, to talk about vulnerability when you're on the journey of it. I think we're often Can talk about things in the rear view mirror as leaders. It feels safer to say this was the beginning, this was the middle, and this was the end. So thanks for

Matt Tait : stepping in. Well, I'm gonna go tell my wife what I talked about , so that she's not surprised that this hits

Tiffany Sauder: publicly. Sounds great. But thank you for the time. Appreciate. Yeah, absolutely.