For the 151st episode of The VentureFizz Podcast, I interviewed Mike Zani, CEO of The Predictive Index.
Let’s face it. Your company is only as strong as your team and Mike knows this first hand. As a former Olympic sailing coach, you can’t compete unless you have a winning team of people that mesh well. Yet, finding and hiring the right people that help you climb that mountain together is really hard.
It was Mike’s own use of The Predictive Index at a former company that opened his eyes to how effective their behavioral assessment tool was in terms of hiring. It was so effective, in fact, that he and his partner, Dan Muzquiz, went on to purchase the company to help expand its value for helping companies with designing and executing their talent strategies.
This interview actually takes place at the company’s first annual Optima conference, which brought together the best minds in business to learn cutting edge strategies for designing, hiring, and inspiring high-performing teams. We discuss why they started this talent optimization conference and its importance.
In this episode of our podcast, we cover:
- Details on his background - growing up on the water and racing sailboats and what his experience as a coach for the US Olympic Sailing Team was like.
- How he got into the business of buying businesses.
- The history of The Predictive Index and the value it provides to building teams.
- How they SaaS'ified the business and their plans ahead for growth.
- Advice on scaling a company once you hit product-market fit.
- How to let things go.
- And so much more.
Did you know that every Monday morning, we send out two weekly digest emails? There is one for Boston and one for NY. It is your weekly email to stay connected to all the “must-know” information from the local tech scene. It includes information on companies, jobs, events, deals and more. Go to venturefizz.com/email and look for the “Weekly Tech Buzz” to sign up.
You can listen to the podcast in the player below. To make sure you receive future episodes, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or SoundCloud. If you enjoyed our show, please consider writing us a 5-star review—it will definitely help us get the word out there!
Keith Cline is the Founder of VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter: @kcline6.