"It’s not about working hard but more about working smart."
Gilles Bertaux Tweet
Gilles Bertaux is co-founder and CEO of Livestorm, the world’s leading end-to-end video engagement platform. Livestorm enables powerful, yet pain-free video engagements at scale. Our browser-based, end-to-end video engagement platform facilitates easy collaboration while capturing actionable insights. You can use Livestorm for on-demand, live, or pre-recorded events. Our solution supports all the workflows around a video engagement; including landing pages, registration, email follow-ups, sharing video recordings, and more.
Powerful end-to-end analytics helps you track and measure audience engagement. Our seamless integration with tools like Pipedrive and Intercom helps you manage all of your insights in one place. As a first-time entrepreneur, Gilles co-founded Livestorm in 2016 along with Robin Lambert, Tom Forlini, and Vincent Garreau. In 2020, Gilles raised $30M in series B to accelerate Livestorm’s presence in Europe and the US and scale its go-to-market strategies towards mid-market and Enterprise. Now 5,000+ companies trust Livestorm to organize their meetings, webinars, or online events. Livestorm has been recognized by G2 as a Leader 2021 in the categories “webinar” and “web conferencing”.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to Valiant CEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Gilles Bertaux: I’m Gilles Bertaux, CEO and co-founder of Livestorm, where he shapes the future of end-to-end video engagement. As a first-time entrepreneur, I co-founded Livestorm in 2016 along with Robin Lambert, Tom Forlini, and Vincent Garreau. The company quickly gained traction in Europe and North America and has nowadays over one million participants each month on its platform. In 2020, I raised $30M in series B to accelerate Livestorm’s presence in Europe and the US, as well as to scale its go-to-market strategies towards mid-market and Enterprise. I am an active member of the tech scene and a frequent speaker on startups, growth, and remote company culture. Before Livestorm, I worked as a Product Designer at Totems (an Instagram Engagement platform acquired by Stripe in 2014) and as a Growth Hacker at Mention. Livestorm is an end-to-end video engagement platform that enables you to connect, engage, and capture actionable insights in one place.
Livestorm is a browser-based platform that doesn’t require a download or setup. You can use Livestorm for on-demand, live, or pre-recorded meetings or events. Livestorm supports all the workflows around a video; including landing pages, registration, email follow-ups, and sharing video recordings. Powerful end-to-end analytics helps you track and measure audience engagement. Our seamless integration with tools like HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Intercom helps you manage all your insights in one place. Livestorm is built with ease of use in mind. We serve companies of all sizes, from startups to Fortune 500s. Brands like Shopify, Honda, Spendesk, Front, Workable and Wish trust Livestorm for premium video engagement during meetings, webinars, or online events. Livestorm’s customers come from various sectors including technology, education, healthcare, government, media, real estate, and much more.
Who has been the most influential person(s) in your life and how did they impact you? How did that lead to where you are today?
Gilles Bertaux: My life partner. It’s a tough egoistic journey. Finding someone capable to put up with your choice and delaying theirs is quite exceptional. We’ve been together for 10 years and 5 of those were while me being CEO. I have been telling her about Livestorm for literally 50% of our time together. That’s commitment.
2020 was a challenging year for all of us, particularly for businesses. How did the pandemic impact your business? Please list some of the problems that you faced, and how you handled them.
Gilles Bertaux: Covid-19 has created a sharp shift towards digitalization and the need for video communication. Because of Covid-19, people need a way to connect with others, work remotely, and collaborate even if they can’t physically be in the same place.
At the beginning of the crisis, Livestorm’s technology was allowing companies to continue their operations remotely despite the difficulties posed by Covid-19. Overnight, the usage of Livestorm was multiplied by 30 and the business was booming. To be honest, we did not expect such exponential growth. We had to quickly re-organize the priorities of our teams to maintain our high level of customer service. We had to hire fast and accelerate the development of some priorities from our product timeline. Our Engineering team had to quickly scale the infrastructure to support the demand and our Customer Success team was receiving a phenomenal amount of requests from new customers.
Our team had to quickly refocus to overcome those challenges and keep on delivering a high customer experience. We implemented new processes, created squads, and advanced by two years in two months. I couldn’t have been more proud of our team, it’s thanks to their resilience and adaptability that we managed and came out stronger from this unexpected growth spurt. Within a few months, we multiplied our revenue by 8X. I’m happy to say that our momentum is still going.
The pandemic led to a myriad of cultural side effects, including one that was quite unexpected that is informally known as “The Great Resignation”. Did this widespread trend affect you in any way?
Gilles Bertaux: No, but we were on the side of the fence, our business (and market in general) had a huge bump inactivity during the pandemic. We grew our headcount from 30 to 170, so it was quite the opposite. Sadly, among our hires, many had lost their job because of economic layoffs.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4 million Americans quit their jobs in July 2021. How do you feel about this trend? Explain.
Gilles Bertaux: Events of that magnitude affect every aspect of your life. You question your aspiration, your way of life, your couple, your social relations, your job, etc. Moreover, the pressure you have felt during the past 18 months has probably bundled inside. In some cases I believe it’s natural, and healthy, to reconfigure your life. You get like a “pandemic epiphany”. Maybe you needed that push to change your career, become an entrepreneur, focus on your family full-time, or change to a 100% remote position.
According to a study by Harvard Business Review, Employees between 30 and 45 years old have had the greatest increase in resignation rates, with an average increase of more than 20% between 2020 and 2021. That can be quite an alarming rate. What advice would you share to increase employee retention?
Gilles Bertaux: Early / Mid-career people are still building their life paths. They try to figure out their next best move or find the right work-life balance. It’s not surprising. My best advice is to listen, listen to these new expectations, maybe you will be able to align, maybe not and that’s ok. But if you don’t listen at all and don’t try to adapt (e.g offering remote flexibility) you will lose most of them.
According to a Nature Human behavior study, In 2020, 80% of US workers reported feeling that they have too many things to do and not enough time to do them – a phenomenon known as “time poverty”. What is your take on the work-life balance? Explain.
Gilles Bertaux: People sometimes misunderstand this notion. The work time balance means that you work to live and not the other way around. It’s finding the right balance between your professional and personal life. Work does not interfere with your area. One of the biggest misconceptions is that you have to work 24/7 to be successful. Hours and hours of work don’t mean that you are working well. It’s not about working hard but more about working smart. You can be successful at work and still have a beautiful and fulfilled personal life.
A more recent survey by Joblist asked about 3,000 respondents if they’re actively thinking about leaving their job. That survey found that 73% of 2,099 respondents who answered this question on their employment plans are considering quitting. How are you preparing for the future to counter this potentially persistent problem?
Gilles Bertaux: People quit for many reasons: end of a cycle (they have been in your company for a while and they need some fresh air), organizational change they don’t align with, or like the above pandemic effect and shift in career. But for any of those reasons, you will have a different solution. You cannot act on people in need of fresh air, it’s natural. But you can act on salary (but don’t create inequality), creating a stimulating environment (e.g projects), creating a more healthy environment in which they can gain time (time is a currency) to allocate to hobbies or else. People will quit, Covid or not, people will leave at some point. All you can do to retain them is make sure you did your best to create the best, most appealing, environment.
Thank you for all that, our readers are grateful for your insightful comments! Now, if the Great Resignation isn’t your greatest concern, what is the #1 most pressing challenge you’re trying to solve in your business right now?
Gilles Bertaux: We continue to consolidate our market position as a global company and keep expanding in dynamic markets with a focus on the United States. To do so, we’re investing massively in our brand awareness and sales development. At Livestorm, we’re always looking to serve the needs of our customers. That’s why we’re constantly working on new features and improvements. We’re currently integrated with over 20 apps such as Pipedrive, HubSpot, and Intercom, with plans to roll out 100+ additional integrations this year. We recently launched our public API which provides Livestorm customers and integration partners with a new way to access their data, automate processes, and connect Livestorm with any other leading marketing or sales applications with just a few lines of code.
Before we finish things off, we do have one last question. If you had 10 Million Dollars to spend in one day, what would you spend it on?
Gilles Bertaux: As a CEO, and given that this is company money, I would normally invest it ensuring the company’s future: growth channels, benefits, payroll, etc. But since I cannot do all that in only one day, I will ensure the company’s future by not spending it and keeping it in the bank for rainy days.
Mike Weiss, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Gilles Bertaux for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Gilles Bertaux or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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