Marketing & Sales at Waterfall

Back when I started, Waterfall CEO Matt Sechrest told me, “Waterfall is not seeking growth, but growth on top of growth. We’re focused on the exponential.” Experiencing this first hand has shown me the ideological shift startups go through when scaling. To become a bigger company, all employees have had to shed the belief that “Wearing many hats” is a sustainable option. Focus has to become the name of the game. To be honest, this transition can be a challenge at first, especially for someone like me whose last job started out of a basement and who appreciates an open culture. Nevertheless, as the number of employees, projects, deals, and dollars rise, focus can’t just be a plan. It’s a necessity, where each team member feels the spotlight shine just a little bit brighter on their own work product.

Since I am concurrently pursuing a degree in business, I’ve taken the opportunity to interview a number of people at Waterfall about their jobs, goals, roles, teams and strategy. I noticed something interesting throughout my conversations: raw confidence. Like any small company trying to make a splash, any given day can bring both victories and setbacks. What has been so insightful to see is the ripple effect confidence has throughout an organization, particularly as it relates to celebrating wins and analyzing areas for improvement. Throughout all the highs and lows, from huge deal closes and heartbreaking losses to technological innovation and frustration, I’ve never seen anyone at Waterfall play the blame game. Instead, everyone pulls together, thinks about what to do and how to react, and then confidently decides how to build a stronger company moving forward. No victory or setback is ever viewed as an indicator of a perfect or flawed company. From my perspective, each moment in this stage of our company’s lifecycle is seen as an opportunity for improvement, to take the next step forward. Every event–good and bad–feels like it belongs to everyone.

Throughout school, I have studied the curve of disruptive innovation, the metrics of success, the cases of tragic company downfalls, and countless formulas, plans, strategies and jargon. Confidence and celebration are two that are left out of the curriculum. Building a culture where people believe their work matters, don’t fear failure and strive to evolve both personally and professionally has been one the key takeaways of what it means to work at our company. I’m excited for what’s in store next