Navigating Design and Leadership with Gil Lara – Lessons from Nearly 15 Years at Sprout Social

all right today we welcome Gil Lara Chief creative officer and co-founder at Sprout social with nearly 15 years at

Sprout social Gil built an in-house design team shaped the brand and fostered a culture of creativity and

caring deeply at leading social media management platform Gil’s Journey began in Hands-On event and exhibit design at

Freeman in Las Vegas he took a leap of faith moving to Chicago to join sprout

socials founding team where he helped establish Design’s influence in SAS which was uncommon for 2010 he showed

that designers could have a seat at the table all the way from the start and outside of work Gil’s creative Pursuits

blend into his personal life he’s a fan of the filmmakers like Adam McKay Martin

scar Stacey and sometimes he actually channels those into video projects including a hype video for his firstborn

uh which as a dad I think is incredible um he and his wife enjoy Real Estate projects together and he’s shared family

culinary Traditions at work like cooking demos that he’ll do um and during paternity leave he even authored a

children’s book my hip hop story um Gil it’s awesome to have you here today

thanks for having me man this is fun this is um I appreciate you having me I can’t wait I got to check out this uh my

hip-hop story I think after this is this a book that’s like published and I can go find it’s published and ready to go U

it it hasn’t had the sales and marketing plan that it deserves but it was something that just came out of a a passion project between me and an artist

buddy of mine and before we knew it we had a book that was uh that definitely stands out it’s a really cool book for

all ages what what’s the most random object you’ve ever used for design inspiration or most recent

one you know just got back from a trip we did an international trip and you

know those are great for inspiration in general and you know something that I saw I took a picture of it’s so silly

and so specific but something like um hardware for shower like that ual

controls and how just the not just the Aesthetics but it was really about the

the defaults that were there that struck me as like oh my God I got to remember this not just for like the next time I

have a real estate project and we’re doing shower stuff and all that but also just in general just a good reminder of

like you know the Simplicity matters and the you know default controls mean a lot right and so it was it was positioned in

a way where it’s not going to the the the faucet part’s not going to be pointing at the user or whatever right

and then it always defaults to the to the certain shower head so I was just like oh man what a great piece of inspiration that’s just you know and

those are things you find when you’re just out in the world you know unexpected it it seems kind of odd to me

though I’ve never found a shower control that actually helps you permanently set

a preference for the temperature like I get in every time I go exactly to the same spot did this have anything like

that oh yeah you got you got to level up man those are those are definitely there okay it forget it and then if you have

shower for two people could have like preference on each you know so oh man okay I feel like I’m years behind it

sounds like um so H how did you you know like looking back early Gil starting his

career out you know I’d love to know a little bit about first how you got into design and what what became and like

what made you realize it was something you might want to do every day well going really early you know I’m

from Southern California and I was influenced by a lot of the urban art so

I got into a little bit of graffiti and that was you know my definition of the art world at the time um that ended up

opening some different doors for me um getting into like uh mural making you

know street art things like that um and but then it just kind of kept going right I got involved in this program where I learned a lot about Screen

Printing and photography and press and then all the digital stuff that came so you know what I found is that as I

continue to chase the sort of Arts it just kind of keeps unfolding right and so went through a whole chapter of doing

event design and and you now now software design and you know there’s going to be much more ahead you know

this whole children’s book thing I told you it’s like different forms of of channeling design and art um and finding

ways to kind of you know help users and and make a dent in

the universe you know um is doing graffiti a little bit like a Fight Club

where you’re not supposed to ask about graffiti you know like you know is there a lot of experiences you had where

you’re kind of like oh I’m GNA I’m going to tag this thing or is this more like more traditional like you found a canvas

like how did that work you know different forms like um it’s funny if I’m if I’m doodling to myself during a

phone call you could still you could still see it it’s still there you know and then uh it’s it’s something where

there was there was everything from the tagging but it it there’s there’s so many different facets of it what you can

do with with a can what you can do with aerosol art um you know whether that’s canvases or or large installations on

wall um and there’s a whole community of people behind this and I recently discovered on a VR app there’s there’s

an app where people are reconnecting and doing um street art in the virtual world it’s a great way to connect with other

artists oh wow so so like you can put the VR headset on and then you can either you know go out and spray paint

whatever medium and then you can kind of see and watch other people or or their work or what’s that like yeah you can you can collaborate on pieces with

people live uh you can you can you can work on a piece I was working you on a piece with somebody from Poland just

having a conversation sharing tips uh is definitely an unexpected way to level up

your game when you think about doing something on large scale layering your paints you know picking up stuff from

you know different cultures and regions incredible oh when when did you start transitioning from being a uh you know I

don’t know street artist or a little more casual into something that was you know a big project or something that you

were maybe more excited about that helped you develop the sense of maybe I’ll be a designer Maybe maybe that’s

the direction I want to go yeah I I think once um I realized that there was

a Commerce aspect in a business side uh and and real demand for you know uh the

Arts I got involved in this this graphic arts program in my hometown which really changed everything for me there was a

gentleman who ran this this shop so we’re you know it was kind of like an after school program this guy was kind

of like a like a Sensei Master type that knew just a lot about everything and you

know learned how to use a heidleberg press like an old press learned about screen printing lithography like at the

time Photoshop 3.0 was available on a computer in the corner of the room but he was adamant about saying hey you got

to go into the dark room and develop your own film and learn how to dodge and burn and then you can use Photoshop 3 uh

and and and that was a you know a crash course and and that opened up you know local jobs and places that I worked at

um in my hometown to just get my foot in the door um starting at the bottom you know working at a print shop making

deliveries doing binder cutting business cards and then just continued to chase it from there and the opportunities kept

coming why do you think he would you know you mentioned you sort of like Mr Miyagi Sensei Master why do you think

that he had this thought of start with the physical before you go to the digital what was the sort of thinking

there if if you could ever discern it ah just having a deep appreciation for what it takes and understanding the essence

of it right and you know the one point there was a tool in Photoshop shop

called Dodge and burn and somebody who never has done actual photography may not even know what that means but it’s

actually a method where you hold your hand in front of you know the lens and you know on on the light for controlling

exposure manually and so you know those are things that you pick up when you are you get the the tactile handson and the

appreciation for it um I think it uh I think it I think it Fosters great work

really when you have that that that deep understanding and can see all of it that’s what I I’d like to think he never

explained that to me but he just I just did what he said and it served me well okay I love that that’s awesome uh so

you know you you started um this this shop learned all these different tools resources started did you eventually get

into uh Photoshop and start spending more time there or or did you still spend heavy heavy amounts of time in the

in the physical world even at that store it quickly shifted um I you know the big

opportunity for me and the big the first big life change I had was when I had an opportunity in Las Vegas where um you

know the the conference and trade show industry was booming and so you know there was a company called Freeman that

was you know running digital print you know giant injet inkjet printers 247 to

support all the mega shows that were happening around you know the the the early.com days and so that it wasn’t

just Tech conferences it was Conference of every single industry you know if there was going to be a conference or trade show that was the capital for it

right right and so um the what I had to offer was just knowing just enough to be dangerous to to to run the printers and

and um and then as a result um you know spent a lot of time in in programs like Photoshop and illustrator and things

like that but I would look at all the artwork that was coming in and say God who’s designing this stuff if the designers just knew a little bit about

some production knowledge I could level up their game and and that’s that was actually the thing that led to me

joining the design team was offering that as my currency to them saying like hey you I can show you a thing or two

about how to increase some efficiencies when we get the artwork and uh and so we did like a really great exchange of

knowledge I you know and then I spent the next several years learning about all kinds of design right it wasn’t just

the um the signs and the the graphic designs it was started getting a structural design in 3D software and

AutoCAD drafting things like that so I really started to expand my you know my definition of design going from like

small world small town you know graffiti to all all of a sudden just seeing this much larger universe that I didn’t even

know existed right and and and it kept me in it for years I stayed at Freeman for many years just learning and and

growing and um yeah it was a great place for it you mentioned that you kind of uh

as a form of currency you you brought some of the kind know tradecraft skills that you had developed to this this team

do you ever find that you know they e either weren’t appreciative or weren’t open to the young guy kind of suggesting

the new way or or were they generally like the types who were like hey that’s awesome you know I I’ll always remember

the the manager uh at the time who was able to facilitate those conversations

in a respectful way right because I was like once I did join the design team I

was definitely the youngest person on the team but um I was hungry you know I

I and and I I feel like I approached those conversations respectfully right I feel that it helped because they had

something to teach me it felt like it was Mutual right and and so yeah I’m I’m

grateful for people like Greg who who were able to do that that’s awesome so

you you got a really deep dive into the sort of physical world learning all the

skills and and then eventually you know you’re you’re helping build Sprout Sprout social and so you’ve been

building this this product this platform for like 15 years uh you know after nine years in event design um presum I mean I

I know you mentioned that there’s a lot of things that you can kind of bring between the two worlds but what what

what like starkly defines or differentiates these two worlds where you you kind of feel like you maybe had to grow into and work towards one versus

leaving the other or or do or do you always just kind of live in both yeah I mean it’s a quite a shift to

make when you spend several years designing an large scale IRL experiences

um you know you’re working even just like your color environment you’re working in CMYK not RGB right those are

two two totally different worlds um but I think that um you at one point I

definitely felt like i’ spent so many years in print and in IRL that I felt so

behind in catching up with digital experiences and like touch devices were coming and all of that but uh you know I

had some people around me my co-founders that really pumped me up and and helped me believe that I could learn it just by doing you know just diving in and and CH

and taking also the um the unique perspective of not having all the constraint and all the baggage and just

saying hey why don’t we just do it like this right and so I think there were there were definitely some things that

at the time where I just took directly from print and applied them to the early uh you know minimalist approach that we

had when we when we formed Sprout the early versions um and it was definitely designed by somebody who partially

didn’t know what they were doing but was you know hungry enough to keep learning and more importantly hiring people

around me that really knew it well so that I could learn from them and and that was the real key to growth over the

past like several years this whole time can you talk a little bit about the sort of formative story at least for you I

think you mentioned you know you got in your car and basically drove to Chicago like what was that like and why did you

decide to do that I mean that’s a big change you’re moving to a new city love to hear more about that yeah the first

time I made a wild move like that it served me really well right going from Bakersfield with nothing and hopping on

a Greyhound bus to just start a new a new career and an exciting new job in Las Vegas and then several years go by

you know here I am in my 20s later 20s but I was like I I still the I still have the ability to make moves right and

I visited Chicago a few times you know one of my smarter friends lived in Chicago somebody that was definitely

worth hanging around and you know I got a lot of energy from um is Justin my my

co-founder uh and CEO for many years um and so one of the times I left Chicago

when I was visiting I said well next time I come back I’ll I’ll be living here and he was like okay I’ll I’ll believe it when I see it um but I

remember him being supportive too like sending sending links to you know some places and things like that to make it a

little bit more real and then before I knew it I told my my employer I said you know what I think I need to go to Chicago I don’t really have a really

good reason other than just to change it up again um I’ll either get a new job out there or um or I’ll be happy to take

this one on the road and at the time they didn’t have a lot of people working from home at all so I was one of the first and they trusted me to take the

job on the road pack up one car full of stuff moved to Chicago because I felt like I just needed a change of pace and

it was a great opportunity to be able to do that I’m so glad they trusted me to do that because um over the next few

years it was like yes we were working on our day jobs but nights and weekends you know we had a fire in our belly to

create something new and at the time there were a lot of app developers

experimenting with the Twitter API and things like that coming up with different um ways to bring value to the

to the market and in our case you know you know there was at one point um when people ask me like the founding story

from a designer’s perspective I was actually in Las Vegas I would travel back to Las Vegas I was opening up a

mega show and Justin calls me on my next tell and he’s like all right we need to

we need to kind of really put all of our energy on this social inbox That’s Where It’s At let’s stop all the other experiments and go hard on the social

inbox I said okay so I fly home the next day I come home he has um created a lot

he he was really excited about this idea that we had kind of you know tinkering with and pushed it along but right away

I saw that it needed you know it needed a designer’s touch right and uh and then

that was always my you know my currency at the time was just like any anything that my business counterpart needs I

have so much value to offer whether it’s like helping name the company securing the domain figuring out our first logo

and you know getting a business card done getting the V one of the product uh done iterating on new features

um staying back home and working with the other co-founders while the other two travel to go get funding like just

deep in it and putting all of my energy toward that and then um you know slowly one by one everybody started focusing

100% of their time on the product which is super inspiring um starting with Justin he was the first one that quit

his day job which sent quite the signal to the rest of us and I’ll always be

grateful um you you mentioned I think when we when we talked uh earlier that that there was a sort of a time where as

you guys were maybe building more of the office that you were able to kind of go back to your roots and and sort of like

design the office in a physical way and and think about some of the you know whether it’s AutoCAD or whatever the software was but like what was that like

for you what was it you know were you like so excited to get back to some of that yeah you know for the first first

few years it was really figuring out product design marketing funnel all the the core

things that you need to run a digital business business right and then you start building out a team and you start

building out you know a an organization right you’re hosting events you have a

space that you have to live in we’re we’re moving from out of the incubator sort of that we were in um you know that

our investors help us get into into like a real office where we had a clean slate

and so it was like oh I’ve kind of been in uh in similar territory before I can help with some of these designs and I

can get back into AutoCAD I can of do a few of these things and that was that was really fun to be able to take a

creative uh you know brand designer on my team under my wing and show them how to do large scale and how to build

something that really is a reflection of the brand because I’d done things like this I hadn’t done a lot of like

commercial spaces ever but it was it was adjacent to it and a really cool opportunity and those things just kept

coming like I said doing big events you know um there was definitely some of those those full circle moments

including hiring local artists to come in and you know do a meaningful mural

that meant something to our team um and partnering with them on that so yeah those those full circle moments were

quite beautiful and satisfying uh go going back a little bit to the uh the social inbox when you when you guys

first started was it all Twitter was this trying to connect a bunch of different tools to sort of have an omni

box you know what was the approach there yeah if you remember um around the time

2009 2010 is when we officially started uh Twitter was on its way up right as uh

you know a a lot of the headlines were kind of like the micro blogging platform and some people were saying what are you

going to say in 140 characters and why does it matter and then celebrities were grabbing handles and certain businesses

were grabbing handles and that was our big thing is every business should be on social right and um at the at the time

also we integrated Yelp early on to kind of show that context of like okay you’re a business plug in your Yelp plug in

your Twitter account and then if you remember a lot of the the location based Services started coming out so we absolutely integrated with four square

right goala was one of them at the time um and and and really starting to get the location aspect of it and you know

at our at the time you know some guys in our in our 20s you know we spent a lot

of time in bars and restaurants so we were thinking a bit about small business but it was really interesting to expand

out of those use cases and start to see what agencies were doing in Social and the big opportunity in Enterprise of

course course H uh let’s talk a little bit about some of the customer development and some of the customer

experiences that you’ve had over the years you know as you started to build uh this this product so you know for

example like when I when I worked at Facebook we had phrases on the wall uh one was H feedback as a gift and Cheryl

Samberg talked about talked about that a lot um I imagine that over the years you’ve gotten a lot of feedback you know

you know we talked about your your experience with Freeman and kind of working with those guys um you get the

feedback from your team your customers um I’ve worked with lots of designers some of them I think take take feedback

really well and sort of listen and hear it others there’s no way that they’re going to hear that feedback uh you know

how how do you receive feedback what’s it like for you how do you approach using the feedback especially I think

that’s the you know the critical part yeah um I firmly believe and continue to

believe that when it comes to feedback and and data Gathering um is that you

should use it as an input a strong one but it it is still an input because you have to blend that with everything else

that you know about your business or everything that you should know about your business right and so you can’t

just take the feedback and apply it straight to the thing that you’re working on right I I really do think

that that it’s more important to be able to learn how to filter it learn how to find a deeper meaning in it um learn how

to be patient and absorb a lot of pain right I remember those times we would we would do a big customer survey and sit

down and just read all the feedback com kind of coming in and be like oh this is grueling but we have to feel that pain

right because at the end of it we’ll find we’ll have a deeper Insight something will strike um it’s a big

motivator to to innovate it’s a big motivator to to to put something out there to kind of help um so I’m talking

about feedback in the context of customer feedback but um when it when it

comes to feedback amongst individuals and helping one another I think um

feedback coming in is is really has to be seen as something that is um that is

kind right if you can get to that point if you can get to that honesty and break through it you know um is is if you can

make it clear if you can make it actionable if you can make it specific if you can you know let people know that

it’s it’s just feedback it’s to help improve right and if you could break through that that’s that’s

transformative you know if you could really get to those things and and have a team that is is really having strong

feedback Loops there there are a lot of tools now you know you mentioned surveys

um and other tools like uh meeting recording gong you know what whatever it is uh or I should say whatever tool you

use there but um there’s lots of ways to pull that feedback in as well as obviously just like taking a zoom call

or a Google Hangout just like talking to the customer going to meet in person um what’s your favorite or preferred way I

mean I’m sure you like to get lots of different Avenues of feedback but like what’s been your biggest aha moments is

it is has it been surveys has it been in person is it conferences talking to customers directly lately it’s been

sitting down with a customer looking them in the eye and feeling their pain there’s nothing more Mo motivating than that right so um there there have been a

few of those moments recently where you got to sit down with a big customer and and really hear what they have to say

something that we thought was so great the enhancements that we’re making but didn’t realize the little bit of

friction that we introduced or just how how much change that provides to their

workflow by that just a little bit of extra friction that was maybe an oversight and you get something like

that fixed right away and and what what happens when uh you know you start to find that your customers either

directionally they want something hyp specific and you’re kind of trying to

figure out what the right feature product is there to build how how do you kind of balance those things yeah

sometimes it’s a bit of a journey right like um being able to kind of absorb

that over time and having a good mix of that that quantitative data that you’re always looking at but then the

qualitative by talking to customers reading surveys all that stuff and then just living in your business and you

know having having your convictions and putting stuff out that you believe in right and so one thing that I think of

you know as I think about like all these really dense rfps and these features that exist today I go back to several

years ago there was um there was this way that we had we had we had the

ability to communicate directly with our customers inside of the product right and um you know we had this like

messenger that would be this bar that would flash and so uh Justin our CEO would occasionally go in there and be

able to say something to all the customers and you know there was there was something where you know when these

when these big catastrophes these world events would happen like a 911 or in this case it was Boston Marathon you

know we have customers that have stuff scheduled in our platform and we want to be thinking on their behalf and say Hey

you might want to reconsider your scheduled messages right now consider pausing them or things like that just to

be considered for what’s going on in the world right and at the time that was um that was just something that we did

right that was something that we believed in we turned something that we believe in into just putting it out in the world and Advising customers and

when we did that you know we got we had some you know a lot of Praise And thank yous from our customers for for helping

them that way and it was like oh that’s a feature right there that’s something that we should build is something where you can kind of like pause messages

systemwide and we talked about different ways of doing it we started working on it and then fast forward later on the

market caught up and you know that’s a feature that’s now like I said on rfps that’s like do you have this particular

thing right and um you know it’s it’s fun to be on the side where you’re able

to see it see the trend take something that’s of value to your to to what you

believe right as a as a software developer as a founder and and make it so make it real put out in the world

in and doing that before the Market’s begging for it before it’s turned into something that’s just cookie cutter

right so you get you get the opportunity to shape them in a way that has some heart and soul in it and has some

intention that’s really a reflection of the brand it’s a reflection of the company so um that’s one that comes to

mind when I think about you know um having convictions and having those convictions turn into actual

features I I love the uh convictions turning into features um the the CEO you

know pause all messaging kind of dialogue that seems um yeah when

I think about even just for today most of the products that we use um I don’t know even the email tools

they don’t they don’t have these kinds of sophisticated pause all um and I’m just thinking about over the years how

many times companies have kind of gotten themselves in sort of maybe uncomfortable odd places because they

tweeted at the wrong time inadvertently and you know there there was no like offense necessarily intended but had

they had this feature um it would have been great so yeah I can I can see where that would be very smart so that’s very

great example I love it and on that note you know I think that um the number one way to kind of be

at the Forefront of that is just using your product like having a use case in your own product that you’re developing

and and finding the use cases on your own and you will find stuff that you’re passionate about you should right and

when I think about some of the early things that we built it was a it was a nent Market there were only a few players that were doing what we were

doing so when it comes to a social media scheduler you know the features that we were building you know it was just what

what do we want right um there should be a way to just kind of throw something into the queue and and have it you know

live without without all the complexity of picking a certain date and I remember how we figured that out and then I

remember seeing a competitor their take on it later and then then the market demands it right it’s just like a checkbox now so um use the product right

and and and another piece is just if you’re an early adopter of of any Tech or product that’s a great way to catch

it as well right when I one that I think of is we have social social reports

inside of the platform and you know the common way several years ago was exporting as a PDF or sending it over

email or to schedule a series of emails to always deliver the PDF if you’re using other products you already see

it’s a share link right and that share link should be live and we saw that coming a mile away and so we started

working on that before customers were asking for it was like by the time it caught up it was like yes we know this

is exactly the way modern sharing happens you mentioned a few times this idea of like a checkbox an

RFP um I I don’t know about you but sometimes when our customers request

sort of either competitive features or features that I’m not as excited about but they’re maybe part of a something

that we ought to build did you find that you know there’s sort of a difference between like innovating or building with

conviction and then just sort of doing things because you I don’t know you felt like you needed to just do them to have

that did your soul die a little bit when you were designing and building those or or were you kind of just like all right it’s just part of the business there’s a

lot of things that are just part of the business especially in in our line of business where we U are connected we

have Partnerships at all the big social networks right and those social networks have strategies of their own and other

things that they’re doing that that impact you know the platform Partners right and so there’s going to be changes

that are made and we have to be able to just take those changes move on them you

know sometimes those things are a value ad for the customer and we can proudly say hey we made the change quickly other

times it’s it’s just non-glamorous work and um over the years I watched our

product teams anticipate this in our road maps leaving a little extra padding for the inevitable leaving a little

extra bit padding for just the things that are going to happen and uh and it’s cool to see how much we’ve matured

around that anticipate anticipate it turn it into a strength right yep I I like the idea of leaving

some room for the inevit so when you look back at the beginnings of your career as a designer versus now what’s

changed what’s similar and what would what would you give advice to

yourself yeah um it’s changed a lot right and especially crossing over from one industry to another um but the thing

that that comes to mind for me is that the definition of design in in

organizations it it varies by quite a bit right uh it could it could vary by large degrees so what I say to people is

that like if you’re not defining what design is at your organization someone else will Define it for you right and so

uh at a certain point we just made sure that we are a part of onboarding you know telling each person each cohort hey

this is how we think about design at this particular company you may come from a design you may come from a company in which design is doing the

thing at the end and making it pretty you know we’re a company where we part partner early and design can impact you

know anything if you if you partner early and think about the use cases and follow the follow the process deeply

empathize understand people workflows use cases then build something really great um and so for me um I’ve learned

that by just being in design for years and years and years right and so my even my own definition of design has evolved

over the years that it’s all these other things now it’s it’s a it’s a practice that runs pretty deep right and um uh

when I think about the lessons in that because it is so uh sophisticated and runs pretty deep and everybody has a

different definition of design you know you have to really check yourself when you show up at the table as a designer

how you want to show up do you want to show up as a as a people pleaser designer and just do what the partner is

asking for in a very onetoone direct way or do you want to show up with some opinions and ask people to take a minute

to zoom out and and really try to understand the deeper problem that we’re trying to solve that’s a hard thing to

do it takes a lot of nerve and you know to be honest in my career I’ve aired more toward the side of being a people

pleaser designer because I want I want to be uh I want to be liked I want people to like to work with me right I

wantan I want to earn what it’s done for me is it allows you to earn trust so that when you have something that you’re

really serious about some you know some strong convictions you have the you have the room they’ll listen to you right

because they know that you are also a designer that can just get done right and if you can do that you really

prove yourself and then you you earn the spot to kind of say let zoom out so I I

as much as I want to do that all the time I think you kind of have to do both you have to know when to when to kind of

play each card and my but my advice to myself is I would have been just in my

career more opinionated more assertive Rock the Boat more um h i I think that

you ultimately ultimately lead to better outcomes when you do that and it’s your duty to do that there’s there’s there’s

a thing called healthy tension and anytime teams are working with designers they should especially realize that

healthy tensions exist and that’s okay that’s a part of building something great yep I I would 100% agree with the

healthy tension aspect of things I think over the years I’ve worked with sales and marketing and there’s always some

tension between those two teams they need more leads they need to close the leads you know product and Engineering it’s like we want to ship it faster well

we want it to be perfect or stable or reliable or beautiful you know there’s all these sorts of things that you’re always having to balance which is tough

and I think that’s one of the best Parts about being you know in the role that you are where you get to take ownership

and opinionation uh taking an opinion to build these great products um so yeah

100% agree with that that’s that’s great um so what about uh you know thinking about your um suggestion to be maybe

more opinionated um just just going way back actually uh when you when you drove out to Chicago were you yet married and

do you think if you hadn’t been married would your wife have been like yeah let’s do that or do you think she would have thought you’re crazy you know I

found the right one that that was willing to just be adventurous and and and roll with it and go with the flow um

but yeah I think a big part of of making that decision was that I had the independence right um we didn’t have to

overthink it I didn’t have like a whole family to think about I really could just do one car full of stuff and and and move across the country but uh

fortunately uh you know once I made it to Chicago within within a year I had

met my wife within the next six months after that we had started Sprout so uh

yeah it’s been it’s been quite a journey she’s also a designer and yeah we mentioned earlier that you know we work

on some projects together and it’s really cool working with her because we see totally different things like we’ll

approach something and I care way more about how it functions and she’s gonna spend the time looking very closely at

you know samples and materials and you know color chips and things like that that I I just don’t always see so you

know together we we end up doing some pretty great work together oh that’s awesome again probably that healthy

attention right like you you find ways to to make something incredible while you know sweating the details yeah um

let’s see so when Gil is not building F you know building a family building Sprout social um what are some of your

favorite ways to think about learn about stay relevant and and you know continue

to find ways to level up your your expertise in design um well number one you know when

I think about like where I spend time on my own social networks like I I love

like a YouTube Wormhole like that that is a great place where you can you can just follow the algorithm of course but

I like taking charge of it and being like this week we’re gonna go on a a Brian ches tear or you know if you want

to revisit some Steve Jobs or some Scott bsky like that’s there for you I love doing stuff like that um and you know

you could watch that stuff but for me I’m an auditory learner and I think it’s a really great time for auditory

Learners where you can just kind of have something that you can pop in one and go do something and multitask um so I I

love I get a ton of energy um from from stuff like that and there’s been a handful of podcasts out there that been

giving me a lot of energy as well so a lot a lot in the ears but um you know

the cliche is true also about just getting out and just change change up your environment and go do things right

could be as simple as just agreeing to go out to dinner which sometimes my wife would have to tear me away because I’m

so obsessed with all the work I’m doing and it’s like just just do dinner and then you go out to dinner and you get inspired by something you have a great

conversation or whatever right and uh but it could be as large as an international trip you know and those are just littered with all kinds of

inspiration which I talked about earlier right you know and I think about the time I was able to give um a meaningful

talk in the organization about accessibility only because I had experienced the subway system in Tokyo

that was full of all kinds of inspiration uh in a very real way that can that can fuel you know all kinds of

experiences and really a differentiator for about when we think about what we’re trying to do for like this idea that

that accessibility is for everyone uh just just thinking about the Subways in Japan I live there for a few

years when I was very young and uh my mom I I don’t remember this very well but my mom always remembers kind of

being like gently push to fit into the Subways because they were so well used and so um but that that’s an incredible

system so I I think that’s a great way to a great place to look for inspiration on how you can do things in a way that’s

very different than the us or Europe or otherwise and to be specific you know the kinds of things we’re talking about

here is is like the the the unique jingle that each train has or like the

idea that if you follow the sound it leads you know the trickling water leads to the restrooms or the the birds

chirping will like lead you to outside and these are yes these are for people that have you know limited abilities but

they’re also for everyone they make the whole experience delightful right so I always thought that was s such a cool

thing and um and when you travel to different places you see the degree uh and the level of intention of design in

in varying degrees right and and when when I was in Japan I saw a lot of really cool inspiration like that so so

you have this like you know sometimes you’re very intentional about these wormholes on YouTube others it’s sort of

dinner and or International trips do you find that like when you visit a new place like Tokyo and you kind of have to

take the headphones off and you really have to be in the moment to see all these things because it’s so easy to be

distracted right I assume that’s a big part of being a des ER absolutely right you got to know kind of when when you

want to uh insulate yourself you know so I I do find myself when I’m in my routines is when I’m very much in my

ears but when I’m out of my routines I try to be present right yeah very cool okay um so let’s see um you you

mentioned a couple great leaders Scott bsky uh Brian chesky so you know Brian

Brian is like you one of the early founders of his business Airbnb and youit Sprout um and in in his case you

know he’s a designer by by background as are you so you kind of come from a different perspective like you mentioned

trying to have new hires go through these onboarding steps and and hear about how design influences and is

important within the organization um what do you feel like all employees by the way not just all employees yeah oh

okay that’s great that’s that’s even better um what do you feel like have been some of the most biggest advantage

of this and and kind of maybe also um being at a position of I don’t know if you want to call it privilege power um

respect authority what what have you been what have you done with this role that you’re you’re proud to kind of talk

about or share yeah I think um I probably touched on some of them here but to be like very specific is you know

I talked about the accessibility thing like having somebody in the organization to really Champion accessibility uh you

know if you have a design leader who’s looking at all that stuff like that’s you know a great a great way to kind of have somebody catch that and make it a

differentiator we’ve done other things that you know all companies should do at some point which is figure out how to

scale design and build a legit design system that’s something that we’ve done we built something called seeds which

it’s not just for you know the product it really is this larger design system it talks about the meaning of why things

are the way they are um has it points to resources so whether you’re somebody who is like coding and looking for a code

snippet or certain type of component or you’re somebody like on the front lines you know customer facing where

like it’s all there right and that’s a really good design system would cover all of it so we’ve been able to do things like that but I think the thing

that’s been really cool that and unique is when you start figuring out okay if you’re at the helm of design in an

organization what are all the interesting things you can point design and creative resources to that are

typically not getting it right if a design discipline is nested in one particular part of the or um and for us

it was like really thinking about the employer brand thinking about the the workplace and the employee experience

right there’s so much opportunity there and each time that we’ve put a little bit of energy toward it it it’s given us

all this Runway and you you talk about what makes a company special well you know if you can capture the soul of it

and express it with a team of creative people and really allow people to see the personality of the company the brand

of the company you know there’s so much richness and there’s so much to work with right and so I think that being

able to kind of take the time and take some cycles and and and bring that to life has been huge right um I think of a

time where you know we were we hadn’t we were in between hiring like a marketing officer we didn’t really have anybody at

the helm really pushing us and pushing the brand several years ago we do now we have an incredible CMO named Scott um

but several years ago there was a little bit of a lull and you know I wanted the designers to feel inspired so we took a

couple of days and did kind of like a brand Jam or like a swag Jam and it allowed us to just expand on you

know the the brand personality and come up with these different experiments and expressions right so because we felt

like we are we are more than just power social media software like you know we want to capture the essence of that what

else is true about us so one of the designers made a little sticker that said always be growing you know not

thinking much of it that became a huge Mantra and if you go visit our headquarters in Chicago it stands as a

large you know 12 foot uh sign and and that people really um that mean

something to people there’s been programs named after it and it’s like if you take the time to fuel these these

programs and fuel your brand it’ll give you tons of Runway and things that you can you know you have you can Coast off

of those things and really um just get gain a lot from it as a as an employer

and as a as a company as a brand uh you you you didn’t really touch on it much but you know I’d love to

little know a little bit more about uh video so you know you highlighted early on that you built this or you made this

like hype video for for your you know your kid um I would imagine that video

as a medium is something that your company you personally you know you think about all the social media content

it’s it’s so so much video right how how has the introduction of video or content

that you infrastructure that could support it or you know videos within your company how have you guys used V

video over the years and personally professionally yeah um really great question because it’s something that I’m

super passionate about um I remember in our earlier days we would work with you know okay we got to launch a product

video let’s work with an agency who has you know some video producers and motion folks um but I got really inspired by

another company out there named zendesk who had an in-house video team and I went and sat down with them had lunch

with them talked to them about the benefits and I said you know what this is what we’re going to do and so we built our video team the start of it in

2015 and it was talk about a total shift of what we were able to produce once you

have somebody inside the organization who is living and breathing the culture who understands the product on a deeper

level and the evolution of that product you know we were starting to do all kinds of things with video um not just

sort of like the obvious like product launches and things like that right um at one point we were on a tear for um

you know doing our annual kickoff and getting you know I have these very you know visceral memories and moments of

everybody piling into an auditorium the countdown the anticipation and then just playing like the most epic video you’ve

ever seen where people are laughing and crying and dancing and every emotion

possible and just having this real connection to the company that lasts for years right and you know that’s one

example of of taking something like that and really uh activating it and uh at

the time I remember that annual kickoff we would do when we were very much in person it would follow with like oh our

holiday part is next week well why don’t we Rebrand the holiday party to the annual kickoff party and carry all the

energy into that so we took all those same brand elements we took um you know all the outtakes and slow-mo and b-roll

and when you would walk into this party it would just be a live expression of the company as you know it and nothing

makes people happier than seeing their friends on screen being celebrated being sometimes uh roasted uh all those things

you know are are really fun and so um learned a lot just by having some creative people around on the video team

to really show what you can do and uh it’s you know when I talk about learning inside of an organization learned all of

my video stuff at Sprout by the amazing video people that are there awesome I I

think it’s so cool to you know continue to show this important trait that you’ve demonstrated of progressively learning

new mediums new tools over the years and just uh you know learning from experts around you um I’d love to know you know

you’ve been working at at sprout a long time right and you’ve you’ve ridden multiple waves you know social media um

mobile has has sort of like taken off video AI now um tell us a little bit

about you know what you guys are working on at Sprout and what you’re most excited about either within Sprout or

just externally in the design world over the next few years totally okay so at Sprout um hope uh shouldn’t be surprised

by this but with the with the a AI developments H we have really latched

onto that looking at everything that we do and being able to really enhance that

um it’s something that the market is demanding but it’s also something where yes we’ve had some of these you know a

feature set that’s already been powered by some AI capabilities but now we’re just really supercharging that because

the market is ready right and so when you think about every single thing that every aspect of sprout for those not

familiar right Sprout is a social media management platform where you have you know customer care Suite that’s there

people responding to messages you have your marketing use case or you have scheduled messages in there right people

reviewing you know doing a message approval things like that then you also have the analytic Suite where people are doing deep Dives on big data and you

know using that to fuel their you know competitive competitive intelligence or you know product design um things like

that not to mention some of the other tools that we have for employee advocacy right or um the influencer product that

we recently acquired so there there’s a pretty large sprawling feature set at Sprout so what happens when you take

that layer on what we call AI assist to enhance every single function it’s like

this stuff was just uh it’s ripe for this right when you think about you 10 years of of social data set that we have

at our at our you know access to when you’re looking at a platform that’s just processing you know so many records

billion messages or billion social records per day right and being able to really channel that and provide insights

to customers that are actionable right from the start right and so you know every business function there’s

something in there for everybody right when you think about sales teams or product development teams or even you

know support uh teams like I mentioned customer facing teams like this is a a great way to drive Revenue you know uh

customer satisfaction of course and and even the product Innovation side that I mentioned right and that that AI assist

layer kind of uh channeling through the whole product is something that really

enhances what what we we’ve always believed right which is that every organization should be on social every

organization to their ability should be engaging With Their audience and you know that’s that’s a that can be a lot

for organizations depending on what Their audience size is and what their team size is right so when we think

about having this platform in the middle of it it just helps with the operational efficiencies and helps people tap into

their more creative side and spend time doing the fun parts of social because it’s it can be a really fun place to

operate but you know uh at volume and at scale it’s pretty daunting so this this

feature set is is essential and it’s it’s definitely an exciting time as many

other Industries um are are seeing right now yep yeah I think AI at least you

know from what I’m seeing both with our customers but also just personally um you know when I’m in driving in the car

and my kids ask me a question I just turn on chat GPT and talk H you know if it’s uh if I’m working on a blog post or

a podcast I can take all the content like for example this after this call you know I can take the transcript I can

create a blog post and social media content and sort of endless amounts of ways you you can be creative and and

communicate with your customers which is which is really exciting and I I think uh it’s pretty interesting too to think

about like the the volume that you guys are already at which is significant and then taking an opportunity to assist

that sounds like it’ll be great for you guys going into the future absolutely great for our customer customers and and for us as a business as well um yeah and

then the the product is sprawling like I was I was trying to give you a quick overview and it’s like oh it keeps going there’s so many different parts of our

product line um but yeah I think every single one of them is being impacted every time I see something coming in

from the product team um there’s a new you know prototype to review there’s a new technology being reviewed there’s

it’s it’s it’s pretty rapid and with that said to kind of speak to the second part of what you were asking what else

I’m excited about um in the business is just figuring out ways to elevate how we’re presenting the product because we

have this really cool problem in that you know we don’t have this place where

we’re trying to con where we’re showing concepts of things that can be and we’ve nailed exactly how to to show the

product in its dream state it’s the opposite where the product is is maturing at such a rapid rate and we

have such a rich feature set in so many use cases to talk about um that it’s a

bit daunting for us it’s a bit overwhelming for us to be honest right and so um you know i’ I’ve spent a lot

of time with the team just saying okay how can we break this down and tell a great story about this feature set here

and and recently we put out an a video for AI assist that I’m super proud of because it hits on all the things that

I’m always talking about of like more showing less telling right the art of quickly conveying value in just such a

concise way you’re thinking about every millisecond on screen is an opportunity to really showcase the product and do it

justice and show the context of it um it can be a really overwhelming thing but I think we’re hitting a really cool

frequency right now it’s it’s also in this line of like it’s kind of entertaining there’s a Vibe it’s it’s

fun it’s intriguing um but uh yeah so that’s that’s an area that I’ve been spending time on working with the team

just continuing to beat that drum pointing to Industry examples who are doing it really well companies like

canva U figma um slack is another one that we’re always talking about um so I

I hope to be up there with the best of them next time we talk sounds like a great uh strategy and plan for the

future so speak speaking of future uh you’ve invested and devoted and put in

an immense amount of great work with Sprout over the last 15 years or almost 15 years so you know kind of what’s

what’s the future look like for you and what are you excited about well you know

15 if you count the year that we’re bootstrap it’s like nearly 15 years right um and I’m I’m at a point right

now where you know we we were trying to get to that next step we were we were

you know we wanted to kind of rebuild our our senior leadership team bring in New Perspective you know um we had to

hire our CMO we had to hire you know a head of product for the first time we have like a a chief product officer

who’s incredible uh somebody named Erica with who has this like incredible experience to bring to sprout um all the

founders you know we’ve all kind of been taking a look at what we’ve been doing and uh thinking like you know what’s

next for us and in my case over the past year uh um I have I have exercised something that in the industry we call

giving away your Legos right so being able to take a creative team and building it from scratch to what it is

today ended up being like 35 40 people incredible people uh and saying you guys are marketers please join Scott and the

marketing team and and then taking um you know the product design discipline and saying okay let’s let’s consolidate

here and join our partners in product management under you know New Perspective and new leadership and so

for the past year you know I’ve finding myself like oh I’m like a a a designed co-founder guy who’s still passionate

about about the business I don’t have any direct reports for the first time which has been really just a new chapter

a new way of operating um but I think long term it’s uh it’s not something that I wanted to stay in so I’ve um kind

of perfectly have started to find you know my the end of my run at Sprout so

come the end of this year I’m calling it my wrapup and I want to definitely leave on a strong note there’s so much that we

done there’s so much that I’m proud of and I’ve always said that I don’t I don’t want to stay too long and overstay

my welcome and over the past year it’s been very clear that you know what I have to take this as a Quee call it a

strong run and I can honestly look the new team in their eyes and say I trust you with this and I feel really good

about what we’re about to go do um it’s an incredible time for anybody joining

our company for sure um but I feel really proud to be one of the people

that was that you know brought it from zero to one uh zero to many actually I

wouldn’t just say zero to one I don’t know what the number is that we’re at now but uh if you’re going to go employee count we’re at400 and growing

and um yeah I just couldn’t be more proud and so for me um there’s you know

I have no shortage of interests and uh I’m in a very different place in my life now where I have different opportunities

that I I didn’t have when I you know packed a car full of stuff and moved to another city um moved across the country

now it’s you know really paying attention to what’s important to me and starting with family and wellness and

some areas that I have debt in right that I want to spend time in um and then also from there I don’t think I’ll I’ll

sit still very long I can see myself starting to get you know passionate about investing in various companies

there’s there’s definitely some great companies out there that I’m already tempted working with um joining some

boards things like that um but I think I’m I’m going to try to Pace myself here there’s um instead of putting all the

pressure on one particular business idea um I’d like because I’m not ready to retire um I think the next chapter

whenever I get back on the saddle will be more of a series of experiments right in areas that I’m passionate about and

then figuring out where’s the signal and and then maybe doubling down on that that sounds like one congrats uh

you know that’s that’s an incredible run and I think the best athletes you know the best creators eventually they either

pass the Reigns or decide you know hey I’m going out on my terms at the best time and and that’s great to hear for

you um so I’m I’m really excited for you that’s that sounds like a great plan yeah and and you know like I said I I

can honestly say that I feel really good about sprout and our level of maturity

and even our design maturity where you know design is now embedded in every part of the organization um it’s been a

part of our founding story um there are certain practices there are certain things that I don’t even touch and come

back and and see what they’ve become and it’s like oh this is this this group is clearly leveraging a design thinking

methodology or a a practice or you know it it definitely has has echoed and we

have some really strong people in the organization that are still carrying the torch um and it’s still it’s still a

great time to uh to join um if anybody’s interested a company that has strong design in their

DNA sounds awesome um and uh how do we find Sprout Sprout’s social.com what’s

the what’s the company domain now yep spress social.com uh and all the socials

you can find us uh the team is constantly putting out content engaging with our community um you know it’s a

team of just amazing kind big-hearted high- performing people that um that I

would encourage you to uh to meet and how about if uh somebody wants to find

you where where where do they find you are you invisible on social or what’s your approach there you know there was a

few years where I was quiet but I like the idea of of coming out a little bit more and and um spending a little more

time in the community uh the channels all you could probably find me on or LinkedIn um um I’ll leave my my info to

you as well as um um Instagram I think is a good place LinkedIn and Instagram might be my couple too awesome yeah well

Gil it’s it’s been great talking to you today and thanks for everything that you shared it’s been terrific thanks so much

for having me this is a lot of fun all right see you all right see you