Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Eric, thanks so much for joining us.
Erik Mirandette, Tulip
Yeah, Hey, thanks for having me.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So we're gonna talk about Tulip, which is a fast growing tech company in the Boston tech scene, that it's a manufacturing app platform that lets users create apps without writing code. So definitely interesting kind of, you know how that works in terms of the use cases and how it affects companies. So we're gonna get into that, let's talk about tulip, like, what do you guys actually do, and you know any history of the company?
Erik Mirandette, Tulip
Yeah, so Tulip is an industrial application, no code app platform. So what this means is, it's a place where somebody who's an industrial operations engineer or manufacturing engineer, who may have no background with computer science, they might not know how to code, but they can get into this no code platform, they can build an application that solves very specific problems in their operation. So if you can build a PowerPoint presentation, if you understand if then logic, then you can use this tool pretty effectively.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
And like, I've noticed the trend with no code apps, it just seems like that is very front and center across all different industries. But to your point, manufacturing, so underserved in so many different ways. So I imagine the the opportunity here is quite significant.
Erik Mirandette, Tulip
Yeah, massive opportunity. I mean, if you look at industrial operations globally, what you're what this, this employs about 300 million workers globally, which is about 13% of the global labor force. So when you talk about a big problem, I mean, it's big on a scale that like, it almost boggles the mind. You know, it's, it's, it's massive. And what's crazy about it, right, this computer, that we're talking through the clothes, that we're wearing everything around you everything that you're going to interact with today, this all this stuff was built somewhere by someone at some point in time. And if you look at the systems that enable the production of this stuff, it's just it's, it's, it's crazy. It's, it's, it's like stepping back in time, oftentimes, it's like going back into 1980. You know, it's largely paper based processes, you know, when you do interact with systems that are clunky. They're rigidly defined and hierarchically administered, which is kind of the antithesis of the way that the internet works, right? So the whole idea behind Tulip is bringing these modern tools to the manufacturing operation to these industrial operations.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Now, as far as your background, like your journey into the tech industry is not a typical one, when I visited your LinkedIn profile, I saw things like special agent, Air Force. So talk about your career path to where you're at today.
Erik Mirandette, Tulip
Yeah, I get that I get that a lot. It's a it's a bit of a non sequitur, it is, you know, goes from the military and, itno startup space, you know, but I mean, if you think about it, so my background, I spent a little time in the nonprofit space. You know, earlier in my, my, my life, primarily based in North Africa for about three years and went on to serve in military in a variety of intelligence collection roles, particularly human intelligence and counterintelligence operations. And then left that did a brief stint in early stage VC before coming, before joining Tulip full time in the early days. But if you think about, you know, while it may feel a bit of a non sequitur, if you think about what are the things and what are the themes that, you know, that are important to be successful in my previous military roles, I mean, one, its operating with very small, high performing teams, amid an unbelievably high degree of ambiguity, with a very clear objective, a very clear mission, but the you know, the means by which you are going to accomplish that mission are largely left for you to define the person on the ground with with the team, right. And I think if you apply that to a start, and by the way, that's like what I love, that's what i what i do all day, you know, and then there's a development piece to it, that I that I love, as well, you know, bringing in early troop and taking on a big scary mission, and then seeing just months later seeing them, you know, sort of take these missions on their own and bring up the next generation. I mean, that's, that's a, you know, very satisfying for me personally, but if you apply that to the work that needs to be done in early stage startup, and this was true of Tulip when it was, you know, five people and it's true of Tulip today, where there's, you know, just north of 100 people, you know, what is it it's, you know, you're operating where the stakes are high, you know, you succeed or fail as a company, right? Where there is an unbelievably high degree of uncertainty, nobody knows what the future will hold. And where you're operating from a place of constraint, you know, almost the definition of any real startup. You know, you don't have enough money, you don't have enough people, you don't have enough time, you don't have enough, you know, tech, the list goes on. Right? And despite all of these things, and I think you could even argue because of these things, in many ways, you get the job done better than it had been done previously. Right. You have to drive and create efficiencies that that hadn't been discovered previously, because frankly, you don't have the luxury of operating inefficiently. Right? And I think the the type of challenges And the type of culture that are able to take those things on and execute successfully, are very similar to the type of teams that I, you know, I led during my military time. And it's, you know, I gotta tell you, it's a it's, it's a ton of fun.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So talk about Tulip growth, like you guys are hiring for a bunch of different roles across many different functional areas. So talk about kind of the the growth plans ahead.
Erik Mirandette, Tulip
Yeah, yeah. So today, we're just north of 100 folks today. And I think when you look at Tulip growth, it's not helpful to look at the, you know, what we are today, I think, like, the helpful places to look at what market are we operating in? What product and what problem are we solving? And then what is the scope and scale of a company that will have sufficiently addressed that problem. And to give a little bit of context, you know, if you look at industrial operations globally, it employs about 300 million people, which is about 13% of the global labor force. Massive, massive, massive problem that is being experienced by literally hundreds of millions of people, right. So if you look at great, we built a technology that, that we've seen solve these problems across a variety of different verticals. I think, today, we're in like, 23 different countries actively in operations. But if you look at like, the type of scale that sufficiently addresses this issue, you know, this is a company of several thousands of people, right, and it'll take us some time we're in frankly, we're, you know, we're always in a rush, but we're not going to grow faster than we should or than, then it's proven. But I mean, you know, at the time scale of 10 years, 15 years, there I think thousands of people working at tulip, and I think we have offices globally, right, we already have an office in Munich, we have a team in London, where you have folks distributed across the US. So, you know, let's, let's draw a line from north of 100 people today to thousands of people down the road. I mean, there's lots of scaling and lots of growing to do, and we've seen incredible traction in the market of of our products. So, you know, we're at a point where we're, in a sense off to the races, you know.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So what's it like working at the company? Like, what's the day to day like at Tulip?
Erik Mirandette, Tulip
Yeah, well, we, uh, you know, it's, it's an intense place, we have a lot to do. Right. So, we, we work hard, and we play hard. You know, we, I think, culturally, if I take a step back, you know, what are some of the attributes that enable people to accomplish objectives that I've outlined a little bit? You know, in particular, while everyone you know, we've transitioned the whole company to work from home work remote, and we operationally haven't haven't missed a beat. So I guess I'm one very proud of that very proud of Tulip. But two like, how does, how does that happen? I think some of the attributes, some of the cultural attributes that enable that type of transition are, one, there's a very high degree of trust, you know, we don't bring people on board, unless we are hundred percent confident in that person's ability, like get in, get the job done, you know, define priorities work, build relationships, laterally, north and south very quickly, in, you know, the people at Tulip are self starters. They look around, they identify problems, and then they, then they take initiative to solve those problems while communicating transparently with the folks around them. So it creates this very decentralized, problem solving machine, if you will, right. So I think one very high trust, two, you know, there's a lot of independence. And so, you know, people if they see a problem, they say, hey, I need to take this on, because important, the default assumption is that they're probably right, we should probably take that very seriously, right? So I think, I think another another attribute that is a, you know, pretty important, is Tulip is 100% a meritocracy. So, you know, I've got people, you know, who have been here for a couple of months, I've got people who have been here for several years. And when you sit down to debate the, the merit of an idea how their tenure with the company, or whatever position they held prior to coming to the company is almost irrelevant, right? Relevant only in the, in the fact that if there's learnings to be had from previous experiments there, there's merit there. But that's the extent of it. And then I think what what what a companies that is there's, there's no pride of ownership, right? I mean, the goal, we're all singularly focused on solving this problem, you know, with, if I have an idea, and then somebody else has a better idea, we go with that idea. And in as soon as we decide that that's the right idea. It doesn't matter where it came from, it's now our idea, and we build from there, right? So there's, there's, it's a generally very, it's a very critical place where, you know, any idea that's put forth is going to be examined critically. But it's a place where there is you know, it is collaborative in nature, and we're all working toward the same the same end state, right?
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Well, if you are interested in exploring opportunities at Tulip, you can check out all their job listings. As I mentioned before, they're hiring across pretty much every functional area in the company. So go to venturefizz.com/tulip, and you'll see all their job listings there. Eric, thanks so much for taking the time to walk us through all the things you guys are up to at Tulip.
Erik Mirandette, Tulip
Hey, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
