How is business continuing for the industry now working from home is the new normal? Source talks to Nate Cavanaugh, ceo, about how Brainbase has adapted.
With the licensing industry now working from home due to COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, Source talks to key licensors, licensees and agents to find out how they are keeping business going.
Today: Nate Cavanaugh, ceo, Brainbase.
How is the team’s day now structured, with everyone working from home?
It’s business as usual. We’ve always given our team the option to work from home. All of our meetings moved to Zoom video calls, and we use Slack and Asana to help the team communicate and track goals, but the structure of our days have remained relatively unchanged.
Could you provide a rough timeline of your day?
Strategy, sales, product, recruiting, fundraising, repeat.
How is the communication with customers continuing? How important is it to continue keeping these lines of communication open during this time?
Our customers are a mix of licensors, licensees and agents. We’ve made frequent communication with them a top priority to understand how we can help. Since our Assist platform helps licensing teams collaborate more effectively and remotely, a key priority for us is ensuring that our customers are using our products to make smarter, revenue-generating decisions and to streamline processes where possible.
Which projects are you able to move forward on right now?
We are moving forward with all of our projects, including marketing campaigns, business development, product innovations and customer onboarding. We’ve noticed that many licensing teams are taking this time to evaluate what technology their teams are using, and some have turned to us to explore the solutions we provide that make licensing teams work smarter, not harder, in times like these.
What piece of advice would you give about how best to continue to feel like a team while WFH? How are you keeping up morale?
Basic things, like making sure everyone turns on their video cameras for all meetings. We also do remote video lunches and remote happy hours. Building great products and signing up new customers also helps keep the team’s morale high.
Best thing about WFH?
Meetings start and end on time!
What’s the one thing you’ve discovered about each team member since WFH that you didn’t know before?
Our team is very resilient. Everyone has rolled up their sleeves to meet deadlines and to ensure we continue to build best in class products for our customers.
What advice would you give to people in the business who are worried about the future?
It’s clear that change is coming to the industry. I would encourage people to stay optimistic, to be open-minded to new ideas and, when possible, to join the companies that are building the future of the industry. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
If you or your team would like to take part in this feature, simply email Samantha Loveday on saml@max-publishing.co.uk.