👋 Howdy! This is the Open Source CEO, the bi-weekly newsletter that fuels your entrepreneurial fire.

COMING IN HOT TODAY 🔥 

🍿 Super Bowl winning creative: Our interview with Melissa Rosenthal!
👾 ChatGPT for productivity: 10 tools to level up.
✍️ Notion gets an update: When buttons go viral.
🦪 Meet you at The Reef: Our friends at Oyster share their wiki.

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INTRODUCTION 🤷‍♂️

I am actually pretty excited for today’s edition. Why? Well, aside from the fact that I am smack bang in the middle of a newsletter honeymoon period, it’s because we get to hear from Melissa from ClickUp today.

A quick bit of backstory: In my pre-entrepreneurial days AKA childhood, I was expelled from school twice. The second time for ‘inciting a riot’ during an Italian class (true story that’s what they told my parents).

My school report alphabet really only had 23 letters and it started with D. But, I got A+ in art. Everything I touch turned to weird, pre-pubescent, devilish gold.

I tell you this to lead into the fact that I believe in art when it comes to business. Much more so than most. Not only do I think of Athyna as a big work of art but I also believe in the power of brand more than nearly anything else.

Brand, in my opinion works sorta like an NPS. If your brand is a 1-6 your brand sucks and it will likely detract from your ability to do business. Most brands live here.

If your brand is a 7-8 - you are average. Most good businesses live here. However, if your brand is a 9 or a 10 you set yourself up to outperform the competition and it can be in a MASSIVE way.

Cheaper leads, access to better talent, more engagement across every platform. We do this well at Athyna. A few weeks back we had a VP level engineering leader from Microsoft reach out and say “Hey Doc, I have followed Athyna for a couple of years now and just wanted to let you know if you ever need an engineering leader on the team, I’M IN!”

I/we shouldn’t even be able to sniff the proverbial talent jockstraps of an engineering VP from Microsoft, but we can. Because of brand.

ClickUp make my favourite videos on the internet [1][2][3][4][5], and the rest of their brand is fire too. And it is (relatively speaking) all thanks to Melissa.

Anyway, here she is.

LEADER OF THE WEEK 🎙

Melissa Rosenthal - CCO at ClickUp

Melissa is an award winning marketing executive and the Chief Creative Officer at ClickUp, focused on making the world more productive through best in class SaaS marketing!

Previously Melissa was the CRO/ Executive Vice President at Cheddar, a live video media company at the intersection of business news and culture.

For her brand work, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30, Business Insider’s 30 Most Creative People Under 30 and as one of Digiday's "Changemakers .”Prior to Cheddar, she led BuzzFeed's Global Creative Team. Joining the staff in 2010, Rosenthal was a key contributor to the creation and early success of BuzzFeed's branded content native advertising model.

Melissa has been a top global performer for nearly 15 years, let’s dive in and hear how she does it!

What is your main day to day job as CCO?

As Chief Creative Officer (CCO), my responsibility is to oversee and manage all aspects of ClickUp’s creative direction and branding. Including everything from social media to content creation, video production, motion graphics, and design.

One of the key focuses of my role is to make sure that the company's brand is consistently represented across all channels and touch-points. This means developing and maintaining a clear brand voice and messaging that resonates with the company's target audience. It also means ensuring that all visual assets, such as logos, typography, and color palettes, are consistent and aligned with the company's overall brand identity.

At ClickUp, we also believe that content should not only inform but also entertain and engage our audience. This helps us to stand out in a crowded industry and has enabled us to build a loyal community of users.

One of the ways we differentiate ourselves through content is by creating a brand voice that is distinct and recognizable. Our brand voice is friendly, approachable, and humorous, which reflects the values of our company and resonates with our target audience. We strive to maintain consistency in our brand voice across all channels, including social media, blog posts, and videos.

Overall, creating fun and relevant content that aligns with our brand voice is a crucial part of our strategy at ClickUp.

EXTRA READING: How to create a brand voice.

Explain your philosophy around leadership? How do you think about it?

My leadership style is very player/ coach. This means that I take an active role in the day-to-day work of my team, while also providing guidance and direction as a leader. As a player coach, I get to work collaboratively with my team members on projects, and get into the weeds and help out with the work when needed. Throughout my career this has helped me build strong relationships and enables me to stay informed about the details of the work being done.

At the same time, I set goals, establish priorities, and work with other stakeholders to ensure that the team is moving in the right direction on projects, while making sure that everyone is aligned with the overall vision and goals of the organization. This allows me to balance the needs of the team with the needs of the organization as a whole.

Overall, this leadership approach involves striking a balance between being a hands-on participant in the work of my team while also providing guidance and direction as a leader. It requires strong communication skills, the ability to build relationships, and a deep understanding of the goals and priorities of the organization as a whole.

One of the main experiences that shaped this type of style was through my time at BuzzFeed. where I was thrown into leadership (likely before I was ready) and in a matter of months was managing many of my peers. I realized that in order to be successful, I needed to have a very hands-on approach while still managing the high level aspects of the leadership.

How do you build culture?

My viewpoint on building culture centers around the idea of forming strong bonds with the people I work with. When everyone is aligned and working towards the same goal, it fosters a sense of camaraderie and unity that is essential in a creative field.

By being in the trenches together, you're able to build a deep level of trust and respect for one another that can be difficult to replicate in other settings.

In addition to building strong bonds among team members, I also place a strong emphasis on aligning my team to a set of core values, especially at the company level. I believe that core values are crucial for building a strong team culture and creating a sense of shared purpose and identity. By aligning everyone around a common set of values, it creates a shared understanding of what is important and what the team stands for.

We also try to celebrate wins. Giving praise and celebrate wins big and small. To me it’s important to make sure that we aren’t just celebrating hitting major milestones but the small wins that amount to those core milestones over time.

Overall, my approach to building culture involves a combination of building strong personal bonds among team members and aligning everyone around a set of shared values. This creates a cohesive and collaborative team environment that is essential for achieving for us to achieve success.

Detail your recruitment strategy. How do you hire all-star talent?

My philosophy on hiring talent is focused on finding individuals who possess the right combination of hard and soft skills, as well as being a cultural fit for the team. Hiring the most talented person in the world is not the best decision if they don't align with the culture and values of the org and team and usually ends up being net negative for team dynamics, productivity and morale.

To find the right candidates, I look for a curiosity and an "x-factor" in everyone you interview. This means I'm interested in learning about what makes them unique and exceptional in their field. I ask questions about their strengths and weaknesses, and what they consider to be their greatest accomplishments. I'm looking for people who are not only skilled but also extremely passionate about their work. At a startup, there's also usually a level of sacrifice given in order to reach the top of the mountain.

Usually, our process involves a few soft interviews and then a panel of myself an others at ClickUp to make sure we are all aligned on the fit of the talent.

In addition to technical skills, I care a lot about soft skills. These include their communication skills, emotional intelligence, and ability to work well with others. I seek out people who are collaborative, adaptable, and willing to learn and grow.

Overall, I believe hiring is finding individuals who possess the right mix of hard and soft skills, who are passionate, and who will be a good cultural fit. By hiring individuals with these qualities, you're able to build a high-performing team that is capable of achieving great things.

What is the greatest creative you have launched and why?

A very hard question! I’m so proud of all of the creative we’ve launched. If I had to pick, I would have to say either our Super Bowl declaration ad, our Abedtool ad or our recent Evolution of GPT ad.

They play culturally where they’re making smart commentary about mainstream work challenges, tech trends, or a smart take on how history would have been made easier with a tool like ClickUp.

Do you run hybrid, on-site or remote and why?

The company as a whole heavily emphasizes hybrid work and the fact that we use our own awesome tool, makes it that much easier to work collaboratively with team members around the world. For creative specifically, we have found that due to the nature of production and collaboration required for our work, many of our team members prefer to be on-site.

That being said, while many of our team members work out of our HQ offices, others work remotely from cities around the world. This allows us to tap into a diverse talent pool and maintain a strong sense of flexibility and adaptability.

And that's it! Connect with Melissa on LinkedIn, follow her Twitter here and don’t forget to check out ClickUp for all your productivity needs.

TWEET OF THE WEEK 🐣 

TOOLS & RESOURCES 🔥

Two weeks ago we profiled Tony Jamous, Co-Founder & CEO of Oyster and today we actually have a pair of resources from the team at Oyster.

#1 - The Reef: Oyster’s Open-Source Employee Guide. A great resource to peak behind the scenes at how Oyster does things.

#2 - People Builders - A meeting point for innovative People leaders by Oyster.

I really respect the team at Oyster and most founders, investors and operators out there can learn from them a bunch from them! Happy readings!

That's it my lovelies. I hope it was valuable. I have one ask though: tell me what you thought of today's edition.

Also, feel free to reply to this email and spill your thoughts in a deeper more personal way as I'd love to hear from you.

See you next week. ✌️