Leadership in Frappe has always been a thorny matter. (Isn’t all leadership a crown a thorns?). We have tried hiring leaders, electing leaders, appointing leaders but nothing has seemed to work. Maybe people in Frappe don’t want leaders, because everyone thinks they are already one, which is partially true. When it comes to work they can impact, everyone is definitely a leader - as they not only do the work, but also decide how to do it and the direction in which they want to take their work (Pick your own work). That works fine from an individual perspective, but from a team perspective, this leaves a lot of gaps. A company is like a machine with several moving parts. Having some parts perform well is not enough. The entire machine has to work together to deliver its value. The job of the leader is to not work on the parts, but the whole. And when the machine is complex, you need several leaders doing this job.
There are several reasons why leadership has not worked in Frappe. Probably the most important one is that we have not had a stable business model until recently. In the early years we dithered between products and services, later we were confused about our main source of business, should be hosting or implementation? Even our pricing model flipped between per user (SaaS) and hosting (Cloud). This is also called lack of “product market fit”. People who have had the motivation to lead earlier have been very focussed in scaling the operations, but not really questioning if we are in the right business in the first place. Maybe every startup goes through this phase, or I have been an unusually indecisive about our strategy.
My own style of leadership has been very “random”. I find it hard to manage the global perspective along with looking into the details of our insanely complex products, and interact with customers and our large and global community. My role as a leader is primary to set high standards everywhere in the organisation. This means that I have to consistently pay attention to things everywhere. This is clearly not scalable. There have been several occasions where I have not been paying attention. Since my own area of interest and expertise is product, design and engineering, these are the areas where I have spent most time, neglecting the business side of things.
Over the years, people who have attempted leadership have had certain charisma and that bit of extra energy, drive and restlessness to make their jobs mean something. Some came with very good pedigree and experience. Some were home grown leaders who have had the courage to step up for the team. While the experience with each one of them started strongly, at some point, I started feeling a personal disconnect with them, maybe unsaid expectations on both sides. The communication gaps kept growing until the relationships dithered and reached a point of no return. This could also be me in not setting clear expectations and communicating clearly. Frappe deserved better leaders and I had to fix this problem.
Neha Sankhe joined Frappe in July ‘23. She had reached out over LinkedIn and then dropped in to have a chat. At that point we had a position called “Dreamer” which had piqued her interest and motivated her to apply. She came from a strong professional background, with work experience in consulting as well as startups. At that point, after maybe three of four chats, we onboarded her as “VP - Growth” - a very ambiguous title. Working in Frappe for someone who comes with a “VP” title is very hard as anyone in Frappe will tell you that “no one listens to anyone”. In the first few months, she realised how hard it is to get buy-in. Yet, there were places she was able to make strong contributions - she made the first enterprise pitch decks, started talking to customers and building revenue dashboards, took on the very hard project of writing copy for the Frappe Cloud website and took voluntary ownership of projects that had no owners.
Last July, we had an in-person partner training that wasn’t going very well. I was inspired how she took ownership of the training and helped turn it around. I instinctively saw her as someone who genuinely cared about her job and went “above and beyond” to stand up for Frappe. At that time, I pitched if she would be interested in helping out for driving the business team at Frappe by taking a leadership role (Chief Operating Officer). I also validated this by having an internal poll as well as anonymous feedback. She had the right background, talent, intelligence and ability to work hard. The question was if she can understand the beast that is Frappe and help shape its future. I was at all points, very aware of the past history of leaders in Frappe and wanted to make sure that she was truly ready for the role.
Over the past six months, over several cups of lemon tea, Neha and I went on a crash course of learning on what it takes to successfully onboard a leader in Frappe. While Neha was very motivated from the get-go, she had been very “shy” and intimidated with me. While having fear of authority and seniority is natural, it was important that a senior leader should be able to get a measure of other senior leaders and know how to communicate important things. Lack of clear communication and expectations was one the core reasons why past leadership had failed. It also gave me an opportunity for me to give context on why certain things exist the way they do in Frappe.
Aspiring to be a leader and being truly ready are two different things. Being a leader is very different from being a manager. Your operating model cannot be “follow up”, but to listen deeply, find what makes people tick and inspire people to do their best. It was not about just the “work”, but also the “people”. There was a need to understand the broader vision for the next decade as well the core values that we stand for. To bridge this, Neha worked on a document that had the blueprint for the vision she had for Frappe, and her own operating model. We had several revisions of this document and finally we agreed on what the role means.
Frappe definitely needs a strong business leader, and we are lucky to have found Neha who is capable and motivated to take up that role. Our business strategy over the past couple of years has been “quality”. Our theory is that doing excellent work in whatever we do, whether training, marketing, sales or support, will result in a great business. Neha has personally demonstrated a commitment to high quality work and I am confident she will help us in continuously raising the bar. I hope everyone in the team and the community helps her achieve the goal for the team. Leadership will continue to be a crown of thorns, but it is a job that needs to be done. Will we get it right this time? I am confident we have gotten off to a good start.
Wishing Neha all the best!
