I think that we have gone through phases. There have been tough times and crunch periods, however, there has been one very important thing throughout — empathetic leadership. That has been important in both securing funding and also ensuring that we have happy and engaged staff.

On the funding side, our CEO has done an exceptional job of making sure that we have had clean term sheets with VCs that were a good fit for us. The company turned down term sheets from bigger and more “famous” VCs because the terms were unfavorable or because the VC partner was not the right cultural fit for the company. That has kept some of the crazy away.

For the people side, it was particularly important in the Crimson Hexagon deal. As Giles wrote in his blog post, when we first started seriously talking about coming together, it was clear that both companies had been tackling the same problems, solving them in different but also similar ways. But what was more important to me as that they had equally intelligent, kind, empathetic and long tenured staff: a sign of a good workplace.

It’s always people and culture first. Any skill can be taught and learned.