IAM725- Founder Passionate About Creating User Experiences

Passionate product manager and two-time founder with knowledge in implementing business ideas and developing SaaS and mobile tech. Co-founder and CEO @airfocus. Loves to create elegant products and user experiences.

• CEO Hack: Setting up processes to get things fast and automated
• CEO Nugget: Getting focused
• CEO Defined: Being responsible, present, seeing the bigger picture and taking ownership

Website: https://airfocus.com/

E-book: get.airfocus.com/prioritization-ebook

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Transcription

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[00:00:02.20] – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

[00:00:30.00] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Malte Schultz of air focus dot com. Malte, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:40.39] – Malte Scholz

Hi. It's nice to be here. Thanks for the invite.

[00:00:44.20] – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do before we jumped in was to read a little bit more about Monse so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Monse is a passionate product project manager and two-time founder with knowledge in implementing business ideas and developing SaaS and mobile technology. He's the co-founder and CEO of Air Focus, and he loves to create elegant products and user experiences. Monday, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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[00:01:10.59] – Malte Scholz

I'm very, very ready.

[00:01:12.40] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about your CEO story. We'll let you get started with your business and all the awesome things you've been working on.

[00:01:23.40] – Malte Scholz

Yeah. Sure. So, yeah, I'm one of three cofounders, and I also run products here at Airfocus. Airfocus is a product management software as a service solution that helps product management teams prioritize what to do next and then as the result of better prioritization create awesome, more effective road maps. That's really in a nutshell what we do, and I, run a team of fifteen people here, and, we all love, making customers happy.

[00:01:53.70] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. It's definitely, something that's always important to definitely do. And, I know, people that may not be familiar with Air Focus. Can you take us through exactly, like, what it does and how it works for clients in so many different ways?

[00:02:07.70] – Malte Scholz

Sure. So I guess most of the companies, that are listening to your podcast, are already using Slack or Trello or other get-stuff-done tools. And, we do the same. They work great, but, where we see a lot of problems is not in getting stuff done, but in actually getting the right stuff done. Done. So we're talking about strategy. So what are the next top ten things that you should do this year or maybe this quarter? And, finding out what they are is, it's called prioritization, and Effocus provides a solution that really helps you do that. And then, we are completely integrated with, all these get-stuff-done tools that I mentioned before. And, so it's a needless experience in kind of, identifying what you should do next.

[00:03:02.40] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense because I think so many times, you know, like you said, you know, people and organizations definitely wanna get more things done, but I think all things are not equal. And to be able to kinda understand what really moves the needle forward or really helps, you know, these organizations and even these individuals get closer to their goals is definitely huge. And I love the fact that it integrates with these, you know, other existing kind of, I guess, organizing apps, maybe your project management app is probably a better term to use. Yeah. But the fact that it just kinda takes those things to another level as well.

[00:03:36.50] – Malte Scholz

Yeah. Exactly. I mean, I built the company, just out of pure frustration and pain because I was very frustrated with how decisions were made in different projects and products that I've been working on. And I just wanted to really solve my own problem, so to speak. And, didn't have in mind to build a company or, like, a big, big enterprise or anything. I just wanted to to to build a better tool to help myself, and then I learned, well, this is something that a lot of people struggle with. So, let's let's open it up to the public.

[00:04:10.69] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And I appreciate you for breaking that down because I think so many times, you know, organize or people are looking to, you know, build a huge company. And that, of course, is a great, place and time for that. But I sometimes find, like, the best ideas are those things that you kinda solve within yourself, and then, you know, you tell a few people or a few people find out about it, and they the shoot thanks next thing you know, it starts to build, you know, create that snowball effect where you're helping out them, then they're helping out more and more people, and then you create an entire company because you were just kinda solving your own problem.

[00:04:41.60] – Malte Scholz

Yeah. Exactly.

[00:04:43.60] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for, what I call your secret sauce. And this could be for yourself personally or your business, but what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:04:56.50] – Malte Scholz

It's very simple. I just like to work very hard and, have have fun while doing, the things I do. And I would consider myself very organized. And I use a lot of different tools to, reduce waste and and automate things. I mean, that comes back to the reason why I founded the Eiffel because I just wanted to reduce waste and, save precious time. After all, life is short. And, yeah, that's that's really what drives me and, that's also how I work. So, I'm not sure it's very special about myself, but I'm just, a well-organized, hard, hardworking person. That's probably it.

[00:05:37.60] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to, switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:05:50.60] – Malte Scholz

Okay. Well, what makes me efficient is setting up, like, web very funny workflows in Notion. So Notion is the I'm I'm not even sure if we can call it a project management system, but it's, like this all-in-one platform that allows you to manage projects, but also, act like a Wiki or a place or a single source of truth. But I like to set up, processes within the company and for myself to, just get faster and, automate, a lot of stuff, by making sure, and that's very important, that everyone is aware of the of of what the other persons in the room are doing. So that's really, the secret sauce. And yeah. So one tactic that I could maybe share is, it's very nerdy stuff. It's about Notion.

[00:06:48.30] – Gresham Harkless

I'm nerdy, so please go ahead.

[00:06:51.50] – Malte Scholz

Yeah. They have a feature or a tactic called a link database. So basically, what we do with link databases, is all of the people in the company, write their tasks into the same database, but they all use different visualizations of their tasks. So, independent of whether you add a task on your board or just add another person, it always ends up on the other person's to-do list, in that, and then from from where you do that. So basically, our do list is a massive database, that's just visualized in very different ways depending on what you wanna do.

[00:07:27.60] – Gresham Harkless

Interesting. So let me ask you this because I definitely wanna nerd out with you. So does that give you kind of like a, I don't wanna call it or call it like a manual or something like that? But if you get different people that are doing different things, it gives them, maybe based on their assurance, the things that they do best, different ways by which they can accomplish those tasks.

[00:07:50.50] – Malte Scholz

Yeah. I mean, the most important thing is that, if multiple people work on the same project or the same, initiative they all are aware of the progress and the steps needed to complete the project or, achieve the goals. And, that's why, we try to communicate as much as possible on a per item base on the same tool, and really when it's needed, move to other tools like Slack or, you know, anything like that. So, when it's all centralized on a topic, then everyone is most productive, at least from my experience.

[00:08:27.39] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense in keeping everything, you know, and then as you said, the same database in the same place. It keeps everybody on the same, on the same page. And I think so many times, especially with organizations, if you're not documenting and, of course, there are numerous ways to do that as we kinda talked about through Notion. But I think when you have people, especially on a team that are working on certain projects and they don't document what they're doing, it makes it hard to, first of all, collaborate. But I think on an even deeper level, if that person moves on to another position or gets, you know, promoted or whatever might happen, you kinda lose that. You can lose that knowledge and information.

[00:09:08.89] – Malte Scholz

Yeah. Also, I feel it's like a a sign of respect if you document things well and it shows others that you care and everyone strives for, like, like like this level of recognition or like just respect, I think that's also going back to what we are as humans. Right? Yeah. If someone, just works hard and does his job and makes sure you have all of the information that you need, that's a sign of respect and it helps everyone, saves time and maybe spends more time, with their families.

[00:09:45.39] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That's that's huge. I never even thought about it like that, but it does kinda create that kind of, you know, caring attitude, the respect for other people as you said as well. Because when you do document, you do show exactly what you're doing, it saves that time. That time could be spent, as you said, on things that are maybe even more important to us or the most important to us is spending time with family and friends and things like that. And when you don't do that, then a lot of times you end up spending that waste as we talked about earlier on things that could have been done a lot more efficiently.

[00:10:19.70] – Malte Scholz

Yeah. Exactly.

[00:10:21.50] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. And this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you were to happen to a time machine, you might tell your younger business Self.

[00:10:36.70] – Malte Scholz

Yeah. It's also related to what we do as a company, and, it's also, a brand name. So, it's about focus. And this is something I think that you will never perfect or get right. But again, it's about getting close to it and, and getting focused, independent of also counts for, for basically everything. So when you have a one-on-one with one of your employees, you wanna put the smartphone aside and just focus on that person. That's that's one thing. When you spend time with your daughter or son, you also want to do the same. So you wanna wanna focus on the moment, be in the moment, and, that also counts for for strategy and and how you run a company. Right? So, you can only, spend so much time, money, and resources on different projects and that's why you really wanna make sure that you're doing the right things, and more often than not, it means saying no to a lot of lot of things.

[00:11:43.20] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. It's so funny you said that because one of the things that was coming, you know, to my mind I think it was Steve Jobs or somebody who said that, you know, focus is not, what you say yes to is what you say no to because there's so many things that are gonna be competing for that time and energy that you're that you're spending. And as you said, I mean, it could be everything from, you know, having a conversation, you know, with, with a team member and being focused and present to them versus, you know, listening or paying attention to all the notifications that might be going off on your phone or your device that's, you know, being, you know, present and focused in that way.

And as you said, of course, too, when we're talking about projects and, of course, what you all do as well, it's so important to be able to kinda drill in and and always work on, I guess, that perfect that perfect focus, which is always, something that we're trying to strive for. But when you're able to do that, that's when you start to see, a lot of the impact that you can have with your focus and with your time, your energy, and and resources as well.

[00:12:42.20] – Malte Scholz

Yeah. Exactly. I hope I didn't sound like a yoga teacher, though.

[00:12:47.39] – Gresham Harkless

No. It hit home because one of my favorite books is The One Thing, and it reframed focus for me because I think it's so important. After all, you wanna be able to do that and, obviously, in yoga too, but definitely in business because the more you're able to do it, we all have infinite resources and you wanna make sure everything is as, impactful as possible.

[00:13:10.20] – Malte Scholz

Yeah. You got it.

[00:13:12.20] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. Someone will say, what does being a CEO mean to you? You?

[00:13:25.29] – Malte Scholz

Well, a CEO means to me, being responsible and really taking ownership and being aware of the consequences that your actions might have And, just just, being present and being being focused on, like, the big big things. And that's especially challenging for me because I like to work on small things and optimize, like, websites and stuff like that and products. But, to me, it's very often about stepping back and, trying to see the big picture because there are so many mistakes that you can make every day. And it's all about, making the best mistakes and doing the right things.

[00:14:09.60] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And, being able to kinda, I guess, be that beacon or at least see that beacon, you know, where you wanna go and where the ship, so to speak, is heading. And you had to have to be able to kinda, as you said, step back. Be aware, of course, of, the nuances of things, but make sure that you are ensuring that the ship is being sailed, for lack of a better term, in the right direction. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Walt, I truly appreciate that perspective and that definition. Appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you, find out about all about some things you and your team are working on.

[00:14:57.10] – Malte Scholz

Yeah. Thanks. So, you're more than invited to check out what we do. We have a free trial and I'd love to hear all of your feedback on the product and how it made you more successful. And, it's always great to to reach out to people. So, just shoot me a message on LinkedIn. It's linkedin.com\Maltescholz. And, yeah, looking forward to hearing from you. And if you want to learn more about the art and science of prioritization, we're releasing an ebook about that, just this week. So, check it out on airfocus.com.

[00:15:33.70] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much, Moe. What we'll do is we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well so that everybody can follow up with you. But, definitely appreciate you for reminding us of how important it is to focus and, of course, doing it in your business as well, making it so much easier for us to not only, organize things, but prioritize things as well, which is probably even more important. So thank you so much again, my friend, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:15:58.10] – Malte Scholz

Thanks for having me. It was great talking to you. Have a great evening. Bye bye.

[00:16:03.70] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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