The full transcript of my conversation with Steph
This transcript was generated using Descript. So it might contain some creative mistakes.
I've sent my next book in advance to Service Design nerds from all around the world to see What resonates What can be improved and How to go further after you read that book.
In this second stop of this international book tour, β we go to my home country Switzerland to discuss the chapter: How To Handle Money Like A Friend Would? with βSteph Cruchon.
Steph is the founder of Design Sprint Ltd, one of the first agencies focused on Design Sprints and the creator of the Design Sprint Quarter.
In this conversation, we explore topics like:
How to create inclusive pricing?
How to speak about money and go beyond money when interacting with job candidates?
How revealing to job candidates their real worth leads to better experiences?
As Steph is a Design Sprint nerd, we've also geeked out about this method by exploring ideas like
How can you reframe the Design Sprint as a liftoff engine for companies?
How can we go beyond the one week Design Sprint and explore the Design Sprint Quarter?
βThanks so much to Steph for this lovely book critic and insightful conversation.
Daniele Catalanotto: Hey, Steph, so lovely to have you here
Steph Cruchon: today. Hey Daniele, so thank you so much for having me. Really cool.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's so cool to have you to discuss. This book, Service Design Principles 301-400, and I've selected you for a few reasons that I have to share.
One thing that I really like about your work and your approach is, for me, you are this Design sprint nerd, who does it in a way that is not the dogmatic way, not like everything else is shit but in, in a way that, Hey, this is what we do.
This is how we do it. This is why we do it. And in a non preachy way. Today we're discussing a topic which is about money and how we can handle money in experiences in a way that is more like a friend world than someone who wants to piss you off.
And I think you have a few things to bring in because you've been an employee, you are now an entrepreneur, you have employees, you've seen many companies, and you've also worked in the finance sector with your design space. So I think you're bringing a good mix of stuff.
Steph Cruchon: Okay, that's cool. I guess it's also because I'm Swiss, right?
So if you think money, you think someone's Swiss. No, I don't know. I don't think I'm really an expert about money in general. But yeah, I'm happy to talk about it because I think it's an important topic. And when you look on LinkedIn, all these people who have a lot of.
I'm not this kind of guy. But I'm really happy that yeah, I get to review your book and to get the first chapters just before everyone else. So yeah, thank you.
Meet Steph Cruchon
Daniele Catalanotto: So let me start with this. When you are in a party, birthday party, wedding, the social stuff where we have to be.
Yeah. And you met someone new. How do you present yourself?
Steph Cruchon: Usually I'm with my wife, and she's the one who starts them. She chats with someone new. So it's always oh, so by the way, I'm the husband of , so that's pretty much the way it starts. And I love to, chit chat about. Basic things like kids, life in general, before getting too professional too fast, but at some point I know, I don't know how it is in other countries, but in Switzerland, quite fast You need to tell who you are and what you do in life And I think it's bad that people they judge someone about, his career and what he or she's doing in life So So, yeah, I ended up saying, okay, I'm a specialist of design sprint, I'm a designer.
People are like, okay, so you do logo and stuff, so I need to explain, and I guess it's fine. What do you want to hear? Basically what I say is, because if I say design sprint, no one gets what it is, it's too, it's like service design and stuff, it's too so what I say is that I help companies innovate in basically five days, so it's a super short workshop, it's five days, and yeah, it's basically a workshop.
Crash course of innovation. We come to the company, for five days. We start from getting the best ideas of everyone, aligning people. Then we decide on what we want to prototype. We create a prototype and we test. So it's what you could do in UX design for a month and we do it in five days.
So yeah, we help people innovate. And that's, I've been doing that for the last eight years full time, yeah.
Daniele Catalanotto: And as your secret friend in the, in that party, I would then come and say, Hey Steph will never tell you that, but he worked with all the companies, EPFL, Adobe, Nestle and obviously all the big stuff that we all know.
You would obviously say nothing because you're a Swiss guy and very polite, but I will then push him and say,
Steph Cruchon: you should check his work. But this is the thing for example, like my parents, they still don't know what I do for real, they for them design sprint, it looks way too complicated.
They're like, ah, so you work with computers, right? And I'm like, yeah. But yeah, sometimes you have to just name drop the clients and I think the best way to sell the design sprint is to say this methodology was invented at Google Venture. So people hear, Oh, Google. Okay. That guy is very smart. I'm like, no, I don't work at Google.
It wasn't been invented at Google. But then, yeah we spent in the last eight years full weeks. Of work for, yeah, companies like Adobe WHO, as you said, EPFL big pharma company like Roche Nestle, all these big companies, but also, and I think it's very important, startups that were once small, now some of them are very big, like Climeworks in Switzerland and yeah, and I've seen firsthand, spending Weeks of work with these teams it's always an adventure, right?
Because it's always a new problematic, a new challenge, and you get to spend the time with the teams. So yeah, very cool. I think in eight years, it's been more than 80 different companies more than 150 sprints. If you look at the stats, yeah, quite a ride. Yeah, you've been busy. You've been busy.
Yeah.
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah. What's the difference between what you guys do and any other design sprint guy? Because basically it's a recipe, so you can, anybody can use it.
Steph Cruchon: No, you're right, actually, there is a great book, wait, it's here, it's behind me, so you can look for the book on Instagram, so basically, my friend Jake Knapp, he's the guy who invented it, he used to work at Google Venture back then, and he came up with that crazy cool recipe, Five days workshop, best crash course of a few weeks, design thinking, you pack all of this together, you make a very good week, a very efficient week, and he wrote the whole recipe in the book.
Luckily, I was probably the first person in Europe to discover it very early, it was 2015, something like this, so he was currently writing the book and basically I discovered it super early and, by luck, and I got the domain name designsprint. com, I was the first one to offer the service.
Yeah, and I created a connection with Jake and all of this. So it gave us an advantage, of course, but then I think we stayed true to the recipe. It became very famous, right? The design sprint, a lot of UX agencies or companies do run design sprints now, or they say they run design sprint. But when you look, they would, because the clients would be, Oh, we don't have five days, let's do it in one or two days or whatever.
So they just run. The workshop, any type of workshop, and they call it Design Sprint to make it, easier to sell or cooler or whatever. And on our side, we were like, no, let's be very Swiss, we have a very good recipe. It's five days, we're going to do it really well. We won't compromise.
We will do the prototyping, run the tests. And yeah, it's what made our difference at the end of the day is to be very close to the book. So we give the redesign sprint experience for any. Type of company, I think it's very reassuring for them because they know what they are buying and we guide them along this path.
So yeah, they have to commit five days, very important, but at the same time, that's how we can achieve results. And I think it's what makes the difference versus a lot of companies or consultants who do offer a one, two days workshop, it's a bit different.
The Design Sprint Quarter
Daniele Catalanotto: And I think one other thing that makes a difference, at least from what I've seen and noticed in your work is one thing that I've found very interesting is this design sprint quarter thing, which to me, at least that's the effect that it had on me, which was.
Oh, it's not just this, sometimes, American premise, where it's one week and we solve world hunger and it's Oh, say, Hey, yeah, one week we get started, we get to a very good point, but then you have to think a bit larger about it. And maybe, can you just give a bit of a sense of,
Steph Cruchon: Of what you did there?
Sure. So basically you can write design sprint quarter in Google. You will find, a very long article that I wrote back then and a very nice timeline basically of how basically an innovation quarter should look like when it integrates the design sprint at the beginning, because we didn't want just to run sprint with the clients and then to leave, right?
We wanted to give them a very good tool. It's okay, now that we have run the design sprint, it's on you. You have to push the project forward to make sure that you get budget, that you get, stakeholders alignment, that people are excited about the projects. Otherwise... It's innovation, right?
It's going to die out very fast and you need to push that forward. So yeah, we gave that very clear timeline of, okay, here you are here and that's where you have to go until you get an MVP, basically. So we made a bridge between classic agile scrum and all of this, like how you build the product with the very beginning, which is the design sprint.
Like when you get the first. Validated prototype and we try to create that timeline and I think it's, it works well. I think to this day I still have people, don, it was we released it in 2018, I think. And to this day I still have ev every day some people downloading the timeline and stuff.
And I seen that, in some companies like on the wall, which is very cool because they're like, okay, that's our small contribution to the design space. Yeah. Yeah, and
Daniele Catalanotto: that's definitely something that I think is really helping the community, in reframing this especially when things get very well known, like DesignSprint is quite famous, then there is A distortion happening sometimes, I think what you did with this design quarter for me, it really helped me also to sell or explain internally.
Okay guys, design sprint. Yeah. Get excited about it. But just here is one of the nerdiest guys I know doing design. And here is what he says about it so that it takes longer, and that's, yes, the events, the moment where most of the. Energy goals is, of course, this week. There is stuff before, there is stuff after, and we have to realize that we should not get into the distortion field of this of it being too famous, and I think that's that for me was again, very Swiss and reassuring, this kind of yeah, there is hard work behind it, and it's not like a secret thing where you can come in and you go out and everything is solved.
And I think that's something that I really appreciated about about your approach.
Design Sprints as liftoff engines
Steph Cruchon: I wrote a couple of years ago an article, I think design spins a bit like the role of SpaceX if you think about the NASA mission, right? NASA, they want to land something on Mars. It's the very big mission.
It's like innovation. And SpaceX, they are just hired to do the lift off. It's that initial, push so that you are in space and you can accomplish the mission. And I see our role like this. We are a small rig, a very important one because without us, sometimes there is no liftoff. So the project doesn't go anywhere and it's not even starting, but then, yeah, you need to be able to, to land.
So yeah, that's the way I
Daniele Catalanotto: see it. Wonderful. Let me switch a little bit gears, I think people have a good understanding about you and we'll come back to that at the end for people to know where they can discover more about these different tools and your work. Let's come back to the book and one question I have.
The good stuff: the format
Daniele Catalanotto: So you read the book, you have read the chapter that I sent you in advance and my first question Was there something in there that resonated with you?
Steph Cruchon: Yeah, a lot. So first, I felt really honored to to get to read it before everyone else. I think it's super cool. And so thank you for that. And I liked also the way that you don't try to look smarter than, like impressing with a lot of pages and lots.
You could have any of these chapters who have been. Three times longer, especially if you use ChatGPT, you can generate a lot of text. And you didn't do that. You made it very easy to read, to process. It's like one, two pages chapter. It's really to the point with one good example. And I really like this.
I like this. It's pragmatic. It's easy to read. It's so yeah. Good job about that. Really cool. And this topic. Talking about money and the role of money in all of this, I think it's interesting, it's important, because from my perspective, so I've been an employee so basically it's 20 years I'm in design and I've been the first 10 years of my career, I was an employee in big agencies, so I've seen this part, and now I have my own, so I've been also a freelancer, so like really like hustling, right?
Like studying and and being on my own. And now I have a small sized agency. We are still very small and I think it's important about what I'm gonna say later. But so I could appreciate So it's, the content from an employee's perspective, from a freelancer, and now from a company owner who is also a consultant, so I go to a lot of big companies so I can also see how they organize inside and how they do things.
So I think, yeah, it gives me a quite unique perspective on this. And what's very funny is that I would have read this as an employee. What I'm going to say like now would have been totally different, right? So it's interesting to see where you are.
Daniele Catalanotto: And so for you, so I see that your, we've changed with time, we've, you've been an employee, now you're an entrepreneur with a small staff. And what's one of the things that you read there, maybe that you thought, Oh, yeah. A few years ago, I wouldn't have said, yes, this is smart, but now I realize this is quite okay.
This makes kind of sense with the new lens that I have in front of my eyes because of my new experiences.
The good stuff: Pricing per country
Steph Cruchon: I'm going to start with this chapter, the price per country because I think it's a really beautiful idea. I really like that idea. I don't know how this can work because I feel that we don't have the right tools, especially in e commerce to make this work well.
And I think it's a pity. I think the concept is very good, but it's how do you implement it? It's quite ring a bell in me because I've been back to the days like how it's called a boy scout, doing the scouts like for long, for years. And the scouts, I don't know if they have that worldwide camp called the Jamboree.
I've been there too. Oh, super cool. I was too. Okay. So there is that Jamboree and it's like that camp that gathers the whole world, right? At, in one place. And it involves like traveling from the other side of the world sometimes. And you have I know it's two weeks. So this year it was in South Korea.
Yeah, they had all the all the drama and whatever but so they were in South Korea and the whole world had to come to South Korea and it makes it super expensive, right? I think when I used to be a scout, it was about 4, 000 for two weeks the package. And now I saw the numbers like 7, 000, which is absolutely a crazy amount of money.
But what they do, which is very smart, it's 7, 000 for Swiss people. And actually, if you come from Botswana you will pay maybe 500 or 1, 000. And I love that idea, meaning that they tax the rich to give to the poor countries and to give everyone the same opportunity to attend the camp. So I think it works at scale in this camp.
And that's probably something that could work better online on the internet, if eShoppings with I'm thinking like... Shopify should have a system this way, right? You could set different prices per country and make it both transparent, but at the same time not too obvious, so people are not...
Or they are not using V p N to pay cheaper. It's also the thing with the jamboree, what's so cool is that you know that as a Swiss citizen, you will pay more, but you understand also why, and you are proud of it because it's thanks to you. Some people from the other side of the world can come. Yeah.
Did you have that, that in mind when you wrote like the jamboree or it just you
Daniele Catalanotto: read? No, in fact, it's quite interesting because I didn't know that in the Jambo they did it, but it came more from. Very personal experiences where you know, I, as I'm selling books and they are quite pricey and what usually happens is just people buy them and say, Oh, thanks so much.
But I suddenly had people especially from Iran telling me, Hey, I would love to read the book, dollars and Iran doesn't work well. How do we do it? Because I'd love to buy it. And then it changed for me this perception because I didn't even think about it. I just thought it's a price.
I have to set a price. The price that I personally set is not one that is made to make lots of money because books don't make money, but it was more like a price so that people would read it because if it's high enough. You then say, Oh, I paid a lot. I'm going to read it because 60 bucks for an ebook, that's super expensive.
So I'm sure I'm going to read it. So for me, it was more that, that aspect, but then realizing that this wouldn't work because just because of of income and and other political situations. And then I was like, okay, cool. Just let me know what's an amount that you feel is. Reasonable for you, where you say, Hey, this is, I recognize that this is valuable, but at the same time, doesn't put you in a financial problem.
And then people just tell me, Hey, this is the price I could pay. Cool. Here's your special link for you and and your situation. Again, as you said, I was limited by the fact that the e commerce tool that I'm using doesn't allow that. And so I had to manually. Have the conversation, which at the scale I am is quite okay.
Yeah. But seeing that the Jambo does that at scale is something that is quite quite inspiring. Yeah.
Steph Cruchon: The I, I've encountered exactly the same thing, like we, at Design Sprint, we have sometimes the masterclass, so I. I run masterclasses. It's like usually two two days things like really like super intense.
It's it's not pre recorded videos, right? It's something live. It's a live experience with me and no, it's like real big workshop days and we give a lot of assets and all of this. So basically if you follow this course at the end, you can. I can make you sprint facilitators in today, but if you have what it takes to be that person, then you have all what you need to run your first design sprints, the assets and stuff and slide and things like this.
And we've put the pricing quite high. It's like 1000 bucks. For the course, which I think is fair because it's what makes, it's what makes us live, right? We can't make it cheaper because the time I will spend also in preparation and stuff, I need to also get something out of this and to commit the time.
So that's very important. And at the same time, if it's too cheap people, as you said, they don't give enough value to it. So you need to find the right price points. I think overall we have it, but sometimes I got the same some people like writing, Oh, it's too expensive for me. Could you give me a discount?
And if it's done badly, we don't like to do it. And especially if it's, Oh, I'm a consultant at Deloitte and, and Deloitte pays. And of course I won't give you a discount, but if you come and you are a freelancer and you come from this country and you can explain me something. So this is really my advice to you guys who are watching.
Don't. Be afraid to ask, right? Because I'm super happy to, the worst feeling, I don't know for you, but for me, is that no one subscribes to my course, so no one cares. And I'm so happy when someone writes, okay, I don't have the kind of money you're asking, but I would love to participate. Could you do something?
And usually we say yes, and we find a way to make it work. And I've had some participants coming from the other side of the world. With the different time zones so they were attending. So for them, they had to wake up at like 3am in the morning to attend my course. And okay, maybe I lost 20 or 30 percent of the price on them, but at the same time, what I gained, it's amazing because these people be committed.
So yeah, really don't hesitate to ask. I think it's important. And
Daniele Catalanotto: I think that asks a question which I'd like to explore with you, which is obviously there is the technological side, how can we use systems that allow that at scale, the Jamboree where we have the case study.
People can just do a lightning demo, watch how it's done peeking a bit behind the curtain and seeing how it's done. And I think more and more tools slowly allow that because it's something that is becoming slowly more natural. But then on the other side, I think for smaller businesses, where you don't absolutely need it to be automated, I'm asking myself, how can we frame it, so that it is not like this paternalistic thing where you don't have the money, your life is hard, I'm the savior, I'm going to save you, which again is not the goal, because the goal for me was never.
That someone feels like they're getting a discount, but more that they get the price that is right to their context. Exactly. Which is
Steph Cruchon: completely different. Yeah. And it should look like the default price. So someone coming from I don't know India would get a price that is cheaper from someone from Switzerland without even seeing it.
And I really liked that idea, especially when you sell, masterclasses courses online or events or these kind of things, we have to make it more equal. I think it's super important. Yeah. And it has to go through, through technological solution. It exists already, like for v a t you can manage different v a t in this e-commerce.
So we should be able to manage different prices. Totally agree. Yeah. So I really like this part. The web parts. There was a part I loved, but I'm going to keep it for the end. And there is a chapter, two chapters actually, I felt a bit less comfortable with them. You want to hear which ones?
The bad stuff: revealing salaries
Steph Cruchon: Absolutely, because that was
Daniele Catalanotto: my next question. What are stuff that, where you say, ah, this, I wouldn't frame it like that. I wouldn't, this is my recommendation to improve it.
Steph Cruchon: Okay. I don't have recommendations to improve them because I'm not an author and you are. But it's the one that tell me the salary before I apply to this job.
And followed by tell me how you calculate salaries here. Because it's pretty linked, right? Yeah. I think, I'm gonna be a bit confrontational here, but I think you are you are, you wrote this from an employee's perspective. And I totally understand a hundred percent that if you're an employee, you want to know how much you're going to get, and it has to be fully transparent.
And I totally get it. It makes sense. As an employee, I would love the same thing myself, but now I've seen also. No, the, like the the other side, yeah, the other side, thank you. The backstage of this, and now that I'm a company owner and also I need to deal with HR and stuff like that, and I've been, I've run a lot of design sprint about HR situations, working with HR teams, seeing in big companies.
I see also the difficulties of this, so start with the, tell me how you calculate salaries here. So what you suggest in this chapter is yeah, this would be a very transparent grid, or basically classes or whatever, like this is how much you are paid. I've seen that working in very big companies like I have, for example, transportation companies or public state companies, they have that, they have classes, they have grids.
And it's very clear if you have been seven years in the company and you have done this and that and blah, blah, blah, and you have done this course, then you get paid this. Okay and I've seen, so in a way, it's very clear when you enter and it's easy to give someone salary, but I've seen it like being internally in these teams there are two main problems with this.
The first one is people feel trapped in the grid. Regardless of how well you perform as an individual or how, engage you on stuff, you are still trapped by your grid and sometimes it's very hard to evolve in the next, in the next row of the grid it creates some kind of hierarchy very clear hierarchy, meaning that you see you N plus two the boss of your boss and, like how much he makes or she makes, and I think it's, it works in very rigid hierarchical company.
When you have clearly the boss, the sub boss, and then you have a workers, managers, and yeah, it frames people in these kind of pyramids, but when you think about our industry, that is the tech industry, that is why a UX designer should get more than a UI or more than a front end developer.
You see what I mean? Like it's, maybe you can come with a rationale on this, but I guess making the grid is way harder. And you can be a terrible UX designer, or you can be a horrible front end guy, or you can be amazing, even if you're a junior. You see what I mean? So in this kind of context, I will have a hard time, at least for my own company, to make a grid of salary.
What do you think of this?
Daniele Catalanotto: It's quite interesting. For me it brings a few elements. I think the one that, that came to mind for me is this notion of maturity, and scale, where obviously if the company is at the stage where, they've been in business for 20, 30 years. You arrive at the stage where you've tested a few things also in terms of HR and salaries, where you know, okay, this kind of works, this is fair.
And now, based on our experience, we can formulate a system. If it's all, everyone is paid the same, if it's a grid system, if it's based on location, that, that doesn't really matter. But using the experience, you can basically set a format and it makes sense, especially if you're quite a big organization.
And I think that's like a a subtext that we need to add here, which is at that scale at that level of maturity, this is something that that we can expect because it shows also this kind of level of, hey, You've tried a few things. Now it's maybe a good moment to learn from all these experiences and go with with a pricing or with a salary structure, which doesn't mean it can't change, as software, I think it's cool, can be very nice to say, Hey, this is the price is a salary structure we have for one year or two years.
And we're working with that. That's how we're going to work for that time. And that's how the. The rules of the game are for the moment that's definitely one, one element that's, that came to mind to me. And then the other thing for me is the question at the motivation behind that is for me, quite simple is like how much as an employee, again, I frame it as an employee or future employee, someone interested job candidate, let's say like that as a job candidate looking into your company, what's What can I expect?
. And it doesn't go only for money, it goes also for culture. Yeah. What's the size? Usually we do all these calculations in our head where we say, yeah, I know that maybe working with Steph, the money will be shit. But he's so lovely's
Steph Cruchon: not, it's not, by the way, it's not . Yeah. But,
Daniele Catalanotto: so let me say, if you're working with Daniella, the money will be shit.
It would be fair, but shit compared to working for a bank but the guy is quite nice. He has a lot of flexibility and therefore you're making your calculation and say, oh, okay. It sounds interesting. And to me it's this question, how can we make this? How do people do this bit of calculation so that they know, oh, it's worth my time and worth their time that I send a proposition that I send my CV.
And that's the question that I would like to ask you is, how do you frame that? How do you help job candidates to know if it's valuable for them and for you that they start an application.
Steph Cruchon: So yeah, it touches on the other chapter. So I have so many things to answer to that. But first I think even if you have a grid and I think it's good to have some kind of grid I think you need that grid, but it shouldn't be too apparent or too visible right away because you need some visibility.
I'm gonna give you a little anecdote. It's a very old one, so I think I can tell it. I used to be an employee in a big communication agency in Geneva. And one of the employee, like one one good friend, basically, who was a really good employee. I guess he was there since... Six years in the company.
So really someone important in the team. And one day he came to the bus and he said, I need a raise like that. And and the boss was like, okay, why? I need to be paid. I don't know. The amount wasn't, it was like a hundred, 150 more a month. I need to be paid that more. And the boss was like, okay, why do you come like that?
And today and stuff, he said, ah, because I'm going to be a dad. I'm going to have a baby soon. The boss was like, he reacted badly in the way they said, okay, first you can't ask me this way. Second you don't get paid more because you get a baby. So he answered from the boss perspective in a kind of probably rough way.
And the employee took it super badly. Because his request got rejected right away and because for him it was so important that he's going to become a dad. And also he made the calculation, he saw I won't be able to equilibrate my budget and blah, blah, blah. So he came with something that made sense to him.
And I think the lack of flexibility of the greed of the company that there was no reason that you got paid more because you're going to be a dad. And at the same time, for the employee it was so important. It created, like some kind of like a conflict from that day. With the top management and then from that day, everything that the managers were telling was bad, he really went to that mood that anyway, they are the worst and stuff.
And couple of months after, I don't remember if he got fired or if he left, but anyway, the same result, like they had to break up and he left to no one's benefit. And I think, they lacked some flexibility there. He had a point in a way. They had a point too, because you can't just.
people more because they have kids. So I, yeah I think... Solid salary grids, sometimes they can create stupid problems like this. So yeah, that's one example I have. At Design Sprint, LTDE, my company, we are not as mature as you said about, establishing grids and stuff. Many people too, but the approach I took is basically we are more or less paid the same.
So we have the same salary, meaning I need to hire people who are at least as good as me or better. That's the way that's the way I go. So meaning I don't make a crazy salary. I made, I make a good salary, but I don't make a CEO style crazy salary. Me, I make, the salary of my top employees basically.
And and so far it worked well for us this way. I don't know how sustainable this It can scale, but at least for a small size agency, it works. And I don't feel robbed personally. To, to your point before it's basically the chapter before it's show me the salary before I come to your company.
So I would like to know basically why you came up with this. Maybe you have something to share about that, right? Maybe I can answer this. It's basically,
Daniele Catalanotto: it comes from a feedback, so we, so let me come back a few years before. A few years ago we started a website called servicesdesignjobs.
com with a guy you might know, Mark Fontaine the host of the Service Design Show. And we've run that together for a few months. And one of the feedbacks we got a lot was. Can you please add the information of salary? That will be so helpful, because what we understood was that there are people who are in situations where there is a minimum that they need for family or other reasons, having a mortgage or something else where they're struggling.
If it's below that, it's not even a discussion. It's just, even they would love to go there. They could just say, I have the mortgage. I have to pay for it. I have my three kids. They go to school and this kind of stuff, and I can't remove them from school. And the mortgage, I've signed it for a few years.
So I still want that. And I still have to go with them. And I find it quite interesting to say, Hey, yeah it's It's something that a specific group of people would very appreciate, and on the other side, a lot of people then who don't need exactly that same amount of security, let's say, are quite appreciative of the transparency.
So it's like a, it serves a specific group quite well. And the other part is that many people like the transparency, but here it's not so much about knowing, hey, this job is exactly, I don't know, 5, 000 per month, blah, blah, blah, and this, but more hey, For this kind of role, it starts around this and then say, yeah, obviously there will be criterias, your experience matters.
There is, there needs to be flexibility. And I really liked your point about flexibility. I think the notion of grid, I think the word also, it gives, especially for us Swiss people, we are designers with grids and we know how it can be a very frustrating. I think.
Already the word grid is showing how it can be jaily in a way and how it can, people can feel trapped in it. I think there, there is a notion that is quite interesting, which is this notion of letting people know, where could it start? So that you just say, Hey that sounds fair obviously could be more, could be a little bit less based on, on, on various criteria, but it gives me a sense that.
With that I conclude, or not, which is quite interesting
Steph Cruchon: to me. Yeah, sure. I totally get it. From the employee perspective, you need to know if you want to commit the time to even apply to the interview and all of this and I get the feeling, it's one thing you... Create your whole portfolio and you rewrite your CV and stuff and then you come and, oh, so what's gonna be salary like?
And it's like half of what you were thinking, this is last time for everyone. So definitely it should be a rough indication. Exactly like a range and stuff. This, I totally agree with that, but it's also very important. Okay. I'm taking. Again I'm sharing the perspective of a small company owner.
Indeed. The very big corporates are so good at bugging the system. If it becomes a law that the salary needs to be written, they will optimize everything so that the salary will look huge. And cutting all the other benefits that they could give. And, for example, if you work at Design Sprint Ltd, I believe, we have very good salaries versus what you look around and stuff.
Because what we do is very hard, it's very exposed, it's very, it's a very senior role. So we do have good salaries. I believe someone With the same experience and who work at us could make more if you will be or she will be working at in one of the Big four like Deloitte, EY or whatever or Microsoft.
Of course, they will make more money But what we bring what we have is that A lot of advantages, right? We have the work from home thing. We have the, we totally trust you. We don't look at your schedule, your timesheets, your whatever. You are totally free to do your thing. You are free to bring some ideas.
And we've been, modifying the course of the company according to what people wanted to work on and to do. So all these benefits probably they don't, they are not shown in a cell, in just a number of the salary, but they are here. And it makes. It makes interesting to work at us and my fear is that if it becomes a law, a rule that you need to write, you're going to make a hundred and then the big companies, they will always win.
Everyone's going to want to work for Microsoft or
Netflix or whoever. And then all that ecosystem of smaller scale companies who do bring a better life, better work life balance more ownership, more, they will be just. It's not interesting anymore because you just go for the big number and that's it. So it's my fear with this, but I totally understand that, yeah, it needs to be arranged.
Like really, you don't want to, you don't want to lose anyone's time. Especially on the first, like I'm super transparent on the salary. During the first interview but yeah, I would prefer to keep it a bit blurry before because I think it's a discussion that you have, that you need to have with the person also according to personal, personal situation of the person, I think that's important to hear also not to be totally stuck on one specific salary and then I don't know what you think, but I'm always very uncomfortable to You set a salary, like when you hire someone, and you're like, okay, that person needs to be worth this, so I can pay him or her this, and it's quite a gamble, right?
And I think the real salary can really be calculated a couple of months after, because you know exactly what the person is worth. And maybe you still want to work with the person, but maybe the person is not worth this, or maybe you should pay that person more because she's worth this. And that's the...
Yeah, I think we give way too much of importance to that first negotiation of the salary and that first, discovery of the salary. And we should give more importance for what comes after a couple of months after or the year after, because things should be re evaluated after maybe the first year.
What do you think of this? I
Daniele Catalanotto: have to say, I love the conversation because for me, the conversation is exactly what I'd love people to have as an interaction with the, any book which is the book is just any book is just giving you a starting point for reflection and never, at least in my world, never should it be a rule that is true in every case.
But instead, being a provocation, a positive provocation that you say why are we not following that idea? Or why are we following this idea? Is it still something that we want to do? And then this brings you to thinking about stuff which goes further than the initial idea, and any book is just there to help you to start a reflection, and where you end the reflection is obviously much more qualitative and useful than just.
The one the one information and there for me, what it brings is that's what I appreciate about our conversation is, this fact that we say, Hey, money is one aspect. Yeah, exactly. There are many aspects. So there are for me, two things that I really appreciate. One is money is one aspect and the other one is thinking about time.
And so if we go for the first one, which is money is one aspect, we could reframe it by saying, let me know what I will. And then it gets obviously for each company very different, and then we don't have this fear of the big corporate world eating the jobs for the small ones because big corporations can't compete on very specific stuff from small companies if they show it well, because a small company that shows, Hey, we are three, four or five people.
Your colleagues, your managers, the guy doing HR is the guy next to you. So when you have a problem, you don't have to wait three weeks to hear, yes, we received your email. We will see with your. One plus if it's if it's okay, and we will come back in three months, this kind of stuff, this is valuable.
This is stuff that people should know, I think, in advance. And there, obviously, money is one aspect. There are other benefits. There is also culture. And knowing all these elements together is something that is, I think, definitely quite inspiring for people to know, oh, this is worth my time. Not only because I made the calculation in my head and I think it works, but also because there is this relationship where, Oh, they invested time in telling me this could be worth your time.
So I'm invested now because, you did. A step in my direction. Now I'm invested in
Steph Cruchon: going in your direction. This discussion, this negotiation in a way is very healthy because it's okay, maybe the discussion is going to be, okay, I need more money because I need to pay my mortgage. Okay. How can we finance more money for you?
Maybe you can take this this role or this task more maybe you can work more days. Maybe you can these kinds of things. Yeah, maybe you will reduce on your benefits in order to get more money. And we, at least we have that flexibility and that's why it's important not to. Frame too much and have someone who really has, a very too clear vision when he comes or she comes, because then it's not a discussion anymore.
It's not reflecting exactly what people need, but yeah.
Stehp's favorite part: Tell people their true worth
Steph Cruchon: And maybe I can share the parts of this chapter that I love the most. It's linked to this, right? But it's so wait, it's at the end. It's at the end of the chapter. Basically, it's the page when it's yeah, tell people if they are worth more than what they think and I really love this.
It really resonated because it occurred to me, actually. Yeah. When I was a junior, I think it was my first real job in an agency and all of this, I've been like typical graphic designer student and, I was doing a bit of web mastering, but I was restarting my career Yeah, And you have that gap between you are not a student anymore, you're not at school anymore, and you need to get your first job.
And for me it was the most miserable time of my life. I was on the dole for three months and I felt horrible at that time because you are full of energy and, willing to build great things and you have all that knowledge from the school and all that energy and you come and no one wants you, no one cares because you are a junior.
And I felt really bad and going to the dole, your first experience with the work of. Professional work is to go to the door to, and I felt really bad about that. And so yeah, I went to my first one of my first job interview, like CS1. And I was expecting to get back to the day, something like 3, 005.
Swiss francs, like US dollars. And for, with this, I was really happy, right? Because I was switching from being a student to getting this. For me, it was the world. And I came there during the interview and stuff. And during the first interview. He asked me, what are your salary pretensions?
I don't know how to say that in English, but what do you expect? Yeah, what do you expect as a salary? And I told my number and I was like, ah, he's never going to work. And he stopped a bit. He was a bit like, ah, actually, if you fit for that role, you deserve more, like you deserve more.
And I was like, so surprised because he didn't, as you said, he didn't try to use the situation. He didn't try to to use the fact that I was young and naive and they didn't know my worth to basically trick me and to take advantage on me. And he basically gave me something that wasn't absolutely crazy, but that was more, that was better.
And that was really fair. And I think that extra mile. He went off telling me straight, so I accepted the job, of course, because I had a very good positive opinion about the company. It's hey, he could have screwed me, he didn't do it, he gave me... a very good first salary and basically, I became very very loyal to the company.
I stayed six years I think in the company, it was my first job as a junior. And it's amazing if you can keep your junior six years in the company by just being a fair person and being fair I think That's absolutely amazing. So yeah, this resonated a lot. And I think that's a very good HR advice, actually, because you, yeah, maybe you can make some more money by taking advantage.
It's going to work for a couple of months and stuff until anyway, the person is going to realize that he or she's not being being paid enough and and then it's going to feel betrayed and it's going to leave the company. So it's not a good calculation. And I love how you're able to, yeah, to play the long game and to understand, okay if I treat people badly, if I'm not fair with them, if I don't tell them what they are worth, you're going to end up leaving me, right?
We love this.
Daniele Catalanotto: Love your story because... Even if it wouldn't have worked out, imagine at that job, they're saying, Hey, you're worth more. But in the end they say, there was another guy who was just better than you. The memory you would have of that company would be these guys treated me well, even if they didn't need me.
And then maybe years after you would go back and say, Oh, now I'm at the right level. Now I can come back. Or, you will say to friends and colleagues. Hey, you should go there because these are nice people. They helped me suck less at job interviews because they told me what's my worth.
And so it works in both cases. Yeah. Either it creates loyalty when you're in, or it creates this kind of appreciation that, oh, I've been seen not as a as a number that people can play with, but as a human who can learn from experiences that he doesn't have yet. And you can share that. So it's a
Steph Cruchon: beautiful story.
I had this three month of DoLE and I had another job interview before this one. And that other job interview, if I think back now, it's even more amazing in the way that I went to the interview. So I was a young graphic designer. I could make websites, I could make a lot of things like video, early 3D and all these things.
And it was a company, they were making stickers for cars. You see the idea. And I went to that interview. I showed him my Crazy portfolio with back to the days, but with all the schoolwork and stuff and the interview ended this way. He said, You are great, but I'm not going to hire you.
And I was like, why? For me, it was like the world was collapsing. And he said, because you will feel bored. You will feel bored at my company. You won't stay. And I need someone who stays, who will be fulfilled with me. So he saw that I couldn't stay long enough and he told me that straight.
And I think that's also a great gift, right? It's not about money or whatever, but it's about telling the worth of the person. It's I was very young. I just wanted to work and I wanted to earn money and stuff. So I was way more than willing to work for him. But he was like, no, it's not for you, man.
You need to find something else, something more diversified, whatever, but you can really express what you, what. What you can do. So I think this is cool. Maybe I've got lucky with this first job interviews I realized. But which is cool, because
Daniele Catalanotto: then it shapes the way you then interact with people too, because when, it's this thing where people have interacted with you in a lovely way, you will then interact later with other people in a lovely way, which is always.
Ah always pretty great.
Recommended resources
Daniele Catalanotto: So my last question for you, so you shared a lot, thank you so much for that. My last question for you would be, is there, are there resources that you'd like to share with the community to go further on these ideas and maybe others?
Steph Cruchon: Yeah, I don't know if I'm a big money guy or money guru and stuff.
Book: Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss
Steph Cruchon: So there's one book that I've read when I started my freelance business, it's called The Million Dollar Consultant, something like this. It sounds like, the title is really silly by the way it's a very old school way of thinking but I think that's a book that gave me a lot of confidence and how to handle. Like talking to big clients and not undercutting your price, not undercutting your worth.
Yeah. And knowing what you're worth and, it's basically, it's an exchange of service, right? You pay me money so I can do that for you. And I think this approach of knowing what you're worth, it was very core to the beginning of my business, especially on the design sprint, especially the fact that we didn't compromise.
Like they wanted me to undercut my price to basically run one day's workshop instead of five. I said, no I know what I'm doing. I'm the specialist of this. And I'm telling you that you need. to buy five days out of me. So that's how you're going to get a good a good result and good return on investment.
So it gives me the keys to negotiate, to know my worth, to use the right wording to, and not to compromise. And I think it was. It was a great foundation for the company, even as a freelancer. Now it's easier for me to do that because I have a track record and I can show what I have been doing in the last years, but it was way harder when I was studying.
And yeah, that, that book helped me. So million dollar consultants.
Follow Naval Ravikant
Steph Cruchon: If you are English speaker, you should follow Naval Ravikant. On Twitter, the guy is great.
He tweets about life, about work life balance, about money, about all these things. It's on Twitter.
Book: The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
Steph Cruchon: Someone took all his tweets and made a book about it. It's called the Almanac of Naval Ravikant really great. And I think he's probably one of the smartest, wisest tech guru and investment guru, and he has a lot to share about.
And if you speak French, there is Thibaut Louis, that you have probably seen because he screams on LinkedIn. And most of the time I would like to give him some slaps. Because he's so annoying and he's so young but at the same time he has that raw energy and he's really good at copywriting in general.
He manages to hook people about this topic and he manages to formulate so I can see myself, when I was studying years ago. And basically he figured out by himself a lot of things that I should have figured out by myself. And he's able to take these the situation and this comprehension and make it really short and snappy and easy to read.
So I think he's really someone great to follow.
Thibaut Louis. Thanks
Daniele Catalanotto: so much for sharing. I love how your examples are also examples of, you can appreciate the content and maybe not the style.
Steph Cruchon: Because you understand how it works, right? If you give the very big buzzword or the big, very big tagline, get rich fast, blah, blah, blah, is what people want. And that's how you get their attention. And most of the people, there is no substance after that, right?
It's like there is a clickbait title and that's it. You don't get Anything. And I think Thibault Louis or the other guy who wrote the book they managed to catch you with this easy simplistic clip bait title, but then there is some real content that is for real interesting. So yeah, this is the difference.
And even for me, it's a great crash course of marketing, right? It's interesting to see how they managed to catch your attention, but then to give you something in exchange that is actually valuable if you spend the time reading.
How to follow Steph's work
Daniele Catalanotto: Thank you so much for the conversation. many people will be eager to know more about you, your work, and discover a bit more.
What's the best way to either discover some of your work or get in touch with you? What would you recommend to
Steph Cruchon: people? If you're interested about design sprint, go to design dash sprint. com. That's my company's website. And we share a lot of tools, tips and tricks and case studies and stuff and photos there.
And I think it's a it's an interesting resource, right? If you are willing to run design sprints in your company, to see how we do it, and maybe you can hire us so we can run the sprint at your company. And otherwise I guess it's probably LinkedIn. I know it's not the trendiest social network.
Maybe I should be on TikTok, whatever, but LinkedIn is basically where Part of my life, like I'm there every day and I will share anything from like stuff we do with design sprint, we have also a side startup that I start to share a lot about because it's also an interesting small product and we, we have all these things going on and yeah, I try to give like a, my personal perspective on the thing.
So if you like what you have heard just follow me on LinkedIn, we'll be good friends.
Daniele Catalanotto: Awesome. So there is here an opportunity to have a new. Internet friend, I would highly recommend that you follow Steph's work especially the design quarter. Check his website. There's a lot of stuff in there and obviously the LinkedIn is it's also quite inspiring.
Closing words
Daniele Catalanotto: Thank you so much for the conversation, the time you spent reading the book analyzing it and making notes about it. I really appreciate it.
Steph Cruchon: Yeah. Likewise. Thank you so much for having me. Cheers. Thanks. Bye bye.