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The First Customer
The First Customer - The Transition from Services to Product-focused Business with CTO Len Covello
In this episode, I was lucky enough to interview Len Covello, CTO and Co-founder of Engage People.
Len discusses his early influences, including growing up in Toronto and being inspired by his father, who was an entrepreneur in the catering business. Len's passion for technology started at a young age with his first computer, a Vic 20, and continued to grow as he developed basic programming skills and built websites during the early days of the internet. His journey into the tech industry involved transitioning from professional services to building a product-focused business. Engage People was born out of identifying a significant opportunity in the legacy loyalty programs industry, where they now work with major financial institutions and global brands.
Len emphasizes the role of strategic partnerships, industry conferences, and leveraging consultants with deep connections in the loyalty space as key drivers for Engage People's sales and growth. Len also highlights the challenges of scaling quickly and the importance of maintaining product quality through diligent processes and respect for quality assurance roles. Len offers valuable advice on building a portfolio, the power of relationships, and the evolving focus of Engage People as they continue to transform the loyalty program industry.
Dive into the vibrant pulse of innovation with Len Covello's insights on mastering the tech frontier in this episode of The First Customer!
Guest Info:
Engage People
http://www.engagepeople.com
Len Covello's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/len-covello/
Connect with Jay on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayaigner/
The First Customer Youtube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/@thefirstcustomerpodcast
The First Customer podcast website
https://www.firstcustomerpodcast.com
Follow The First Customer on LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/company/the-first-customer-podcast/
[00:00:27] Jay: Hi everyone. Welcome to The First Customer podcast. My name is Jay Aigner. Today. I am lucky enough to be joined by Len Covello. He is the CTO and co founder of Engage People, transforming loyalty programs around the world through technology. He's up in Toronto, Len. How are you doing, buddy?
[00:00:42] Len: I'm doing great. Pleasure to be on the show.
[00:00:45] Jay: Thanks for being on here, man. so tell me where did you grow up and did that have any impact on you being an entrepreneur later in life?
[00:00:51] Len: I'll say the location didn't have an impact. I grew up here in Toronto, probably get from the accent, the Canadian accent words that you'll get throughout this, this podcast. My father was an entrepreneur and I think that's really what drove the fact of me wanting to be entrepreneurial right down from, you know, I'm talking elementary school days when I was out.
You know, cutting grass or shoveling snow, things we do up here in Toronto for people, always had that business mindset and always admired, just the benefits that paid off from putting in the hard work and kind of being in control of your own destiny. So that's really what drove the entrepreneurship mindset that's in my family.
[00:01:23] Jay: Love that. What did your dad do?
[00:01:25] Len: So he ran a catering business in the construction industry. So, back in the day, before we all had Starbucks on our way into work, there was these trucks that drove out and they drove to the construction sites. And, you know, from just a coffee in the morning, or back in the day, a lot of cigarettes were sold, down to the chocolate bars, chips, and even a can of soup.
If we can imagine eating that type of food.
[00:01:47] Jay: I loved the lunch truck I gave me a flashback because we had that like, I don't know 15 years ago when I was working somewhere that you know Everybody would go out back and there's the lunch truck and there's you know The stuff that I don't even know if it was safe to eat, you know, you pull out the back of a
[00:02:00] Len: not sure.
[00:02:01] Jay: And,
[00:02:02] Len: we wanted it as kids. We wanted it. But, yeah.
[00:02:05] Jay: that's awesome.
all right. So, tell me a little bit about your journey into the tech industry. How did you get into it? And then how did you kind of get into a leadership position like you are today?
[00:02:15] Len: So early on, I've just always loved technology, loved computers. And again, you know, our first computer in the house was a Vic 20. So for most of the people listening today, that was your press play on a cassette and it loaded the application that way. So, from elementary school, had a couple books on how to program and wrote some pretty basic stuff.
So it was always, you know, Something I love doing and understanding that, got into the later high school years and internet was really blowing up at that point in time. So a lot of the sites were still information based, and got into that. So started building with some of the old macromedia tools.
So shockwave and flash. I love the UI and UX experience. And I think that. Really translates into what we're doing today. So it wasn't just the functionality, but it was the fact that had value. kept that going built sites for friends for bands. And ultimately, that turned into me deciding that this is something I wanted to do.
So to the chagrin of my parents at the time, it was done with, post secondary education and university. and I want to Run and, you know, give this a shot in a company. So that's, ultimately what drove the technology bug in my, kind of in the bones, it's still there today.
[00:03:27] Jay: Dreamweaver and geo cities and angel fire days, like the good, you know, the good old days of the internet
[00:03:33] Len: Yeah, it was a lot simpler.
[00:03:35] Jay: yeah, back before they killed flash, you know, it was a good time, you know, all those flash games and websites and stuff that was, the wild west, I think of the, you know, the internet back then,
[00:03:44] Len: It was, I think our security and compliance team, if they were, you know, if they were around back then, they would have killed the way we did things, you know, direct FTP access into servers and directly in databases. But.
[00:03:55] Jay: Yeah,it was certainly, a different world. I want to get into Engage People, but I am curious,how much do you pay attention to personal brand and kind of, you know, have you done things? do you kind of, speak at places? Do you have kind of a, you know, cognizance to your social media presence?
what is personal branding kind of means you as a tech leader, because it's just a flashy CEO who's maybe not a tech guy, you know, he's doing all, you know, kind of used to the marketing sales kind of world. I love to hear from the tech folks. Like how did you maybe come out of your shell?
Maybe you had it naturally. Like, how did you build your personal brand? How are you continuing to do that?
[00:04:27] Len: It's not natural. I am the guy that would love to be in a pair of track pants or pair of shorts, wearing flip flops or whatnot, baseball cap. And I would love to be doing that. That's that comfort space for me. And I think that's where I'm most effective in those days still exist, whether it's at night or on weekends or get to spend time with the team.
It is really important. And I'll explain how I connect the dots and why it's important to me. so we've hired, you know, marketing here in a PR firm to help us with that because even my co founder, Jonathan, our CEO to the similar vein, we're a lot about substance and less about show, but what was pretty obvious.
And even early on in the entrepreneurship journey was the fact that. You need to convey to people that you know what you're talking about, and you need to get in front of people so you can show that. And a lot of times that's hard to do, so these people have to have a belief in you, they have to have an understanding that you're working with the right types of clients and that they've trusted you in the past.
And that you are a subject matter expert. I'm a firm believer. Our organization is built on some pretty amazing people here at Engage. And when we get into the room with any of our clients, we can help transform their business. We don't think it's rocket science. It comes natural to us, but it's about great people, but.
We'll never get to that spot if we don't take care of our brand. So, you know, LinkedIn profile X, formerly Twitter, these are things that I wouldn't do, when it comes to the personal side of my life, I'm not a social, media kind of guy. there's no Instagram account. There's no Facebook account for me personally, but for the business that is important.
And that translates into getting opportunities to speak at conferences and that's helped with my confidence, right? Early on, in an, as being an entrepreneur, you never really knew. What the difference was between you and these larger organizations that had the big accounts and what they were delivering and what you'll easily figure out is there's not much, if anything at all, right?
they've got bigger teams, bigger offices, you know, more expensive, overhead essentially, but as far as what you can bring, and I'm always conscious of this. Now, the young guys that we hire are really the trailblazers. And I like to think. You know, I played somewhat that type of role when I was younger, but really that's where the great ideas come from.
And you take the experience that you have and you bring that together. And that's what brings, you know, tremendous value, but you'll never be able to show that value back to your questions. If you don't have a brand out there,
[00:06:57] Jay: Yeah, I mean, it's a great point. And I do wonder, I mean, I hear it a lot is I've got these skills, I've got experience, but I don't have, you know, a portfolio where I don't have this, you know, social proof to show people that I can do these things. How would you recommend, you know, somebody that's they've been working somebody somewhere for a few years and they're trying to start their own thing, whether it's consulting or whether it's, you know, some sort of freelance gig or whatever it is. How would you suggest? They convey that experience to people that may not, you know, have an easy way for them to see that.
[00:07:33] Len: you're going to have to find a way in. and that's what we did early on. Specifically myself, when I started very young, it was taking on projects at lower rates than probably other people were doing them for, but it was to build a portfolio. You know, I did some of my own personal projects that's just to get things out there.
So I would, you know, be in forums, be in different communities where people were talking about advancing technologies. Again, back in those days, they've advanced a lot more these days. You know, you'd put up tutorials on how to do things or how you executed things, get your code posted on the internet. And that helps you.
With the community, and then when it comes to clients and proving yourself, it's really about taking a chance, you know, when we first started, and this is the very early days before we were into loyalty, we were professional services organization, and it took sending out emails just to a bunch of companies and.
Don't have a sales background. it's not something that came core, but it was taking that opportunity and you'll get called back, right? if you shoot out 20 emails, someone will reach back out. There's definitely people looking for value and it's negotiating that value the first time. And usually the person on the other side will understand that you're bringing something to the table.
So you obviously have to have the skillset, but you do need to build your portfolio. And then it just snowballs from there.
[00:08:52] Jay: Yeah,I really love the flip from professional services to product. I think a lot of smart entrepreneurs do that because. You're not, you know, you can bootstrap, right? you can make your money doing professional services and you can, you know, spin that into some sort of product. So let's talk about engage. where did the idea come from? I mean, you said you're doing professional services, kind of walk me through, what's the kind of, you know, the snapshot journey of how you came up with the idea. and then I want to talk about the pivot obviously into, you know, being a product brand,
[00:09:23] Len: Yeah. So we were professional services. We were building web applications for a myriad of companies. So going out there, looking at the needs they'd have, could have been a QSR that needed a revamp of their web application, including online ordering. you know, it could have been a real estate industry.
It really didn't matter at that point. we were working with companies, understanding their needs and deploying solutions for them. And then we were introduced to a company in the loyalty space, very legacy, which the industry was at the time. So printing the catalog and you get that shipped to your house and You know, your points balance was coming in a monthly statement and you could call the 1 800 number to place an order.
And we just looked at that industry and said, this is right for evolution. so we got a project initially, which was a professional services contract to work on a specific client. They were revamping,their loyalty program. And we took pieces of that. So again, baby steps, it wasn't doing everything all at once.
but we did that work for the specific client and. We didn't know what loyalty was before then, outside of what everyone does know, you earn some points when you fly or you travel, and we got introduced to this industry. And then when we started to pick it apart, there were just so many opportunities to evolve the industry that, It became core to what we did.
[00:10:35] Jay: beyond that first. Client that kind of kicked this all off for you guys. Who was your first customer and how did you guys get them? And what was the offering that you gave them as a product?
[00:10:47] Len: So the story of engage is really interesting. So the way we pivoted from professional services is, we did work for a company in the loyalty space who had some clients. And that was very helpful for us because they had big name clients. So our 1st. Client was this organization. So it was a company called the Fairlane group in Toronto, who we ended up acquiring as engage grew.
And our 1st public client was a company called Enbridge gas. Who's a large gas distributor here. in Canada, and subsequently TD bank, which is 1 of the largest banks, In North America, so we were able to leverage or piggyback on the credit of this organization and develop solutions. And that just grew and, initially the owner of the company we're doing work for in the loyalty space saw the value and invested in our company.
and in turn, we grew. at a speed that we were able to acquire, fairly and bring that into engage. So 2015, we actually merged in a couple of companies. We were providing services for, and that was the birth of engage.
[00:11:52] Jay: I will say that's a very unique story. you don't hear that super often where you get to acquire, you know, previous clients, it's kind of like the wraparound, effect. And I liked that a lot. Now, did you, Do you guys still target the same type of client that you did at the beginning? How has that, you know, kind of, how's your ICP evolved over time?
And what does that look like today compared to back then?
[00:12:15] Len: we've evolved tremendously and we can't take the credit for that. We had some really great mentors along the way that. Switched us from trying to be a lot of things to a lot of different people to being very focused as an organization. So, our offering has turned into products as you mentioned early on, and we target the financial institutions in the loyalty space, predominantly North America, but we do this globally as well.
So we've got clients in the APEC region. So clients in Australia and that evolution was us understanding what we were really good at. And the things we shouldn't do.
[00:12:48] Jay: Oh, good. so, how do you guys keep your sales? Pipeline full today. What I mean, you mentioned, I think we talked about a little bit of a conference beforehand. I mean, what are your general means for sales? Do you have a sales team now? are you. Is the conference route kind of, are you doing it, by you speaking at places and getting engagements?
Like, what are the kind of the main pillars to, to bring in a new clients for you guys?
[00:13:11] Len: So we've tried different things along the way, having our own sales team, hiring people to do that, because what we do is so niche and it's understanding the players in the industry so well for engage, building a large sales team. Didn't end up being the best strategy. So we do have a head of partnerships and sales in the organization.
what we found most effective for us is attending these conferences that are our loyalty specific or FI specific. And we work a lot with consultants. So what we learned is the value. Placed on a consultant that already has connections into specific, partners, specific companies, is worth its weight in gold, at least for engaged.
So that's the recommendation I'd make is the effort to get to a cold introduction versus having a very fast warm introduction by someone who's trusted. for us, it's definitely worth the cost of doing that and as an organization, we don't need 1000 clients. we're talking, working with some of the largest brands in the world.
when it comes to loyalty, when it comes to banking, hotels, airlines. So again, having, A really great introduction has been the best way for us to go about our sales.
[00:14:20] Jay: Yeah, I could not agree more. I think, it doesn't feel, you just get beat over the head by all these different potential sales methods and, you know, all these B2B companies that try to say they're the next best thing to get you leads and all this sort of stuff. But really, I mean, face to face or phone calls or whatever, like talking to someone and building up a relationship.
And then maybe even it's not today, maybe it's not next week. Maybe it's not next month. Maybe it's six months from now. They go, Oh man, we really need to spin up this program. Let's talk to Len because we, you know, we know that he, this is what he does. And let's at least have a call with him. Right. And then you start that call.
It's a nice warm conversation and you kind of go from there. I can't tell you how many clients have come back to us. It, you know, my company, we do software quality assurance. Based on conversations I've had a year ago where they're like, Hey man, like you, you know, we'd love to talk to you about helping out with this part of our process because we like you as a person and we want to, you know, see what a relationship and that's some of the biggest clients that we have today came from personal relationships.
So I love that kind of, you know, hand to hand, you know, face to face approach. It seems like a really good one. what are the
consultants you guys, sorry, I was gonna say, what are the consultants you guys. You mentioned using consultants to get those sort of introductions. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
[00:15:39] Len: Yeah. Typically people that have been in the space for some time, move into the consultancy world. so they could have been running large programs across a few different organizations. They understand they have those connections and at this point in their life, it's something they want to move on to and just provide that type of value.
we know who they are, they tend to be at the industry focus shows as well and we've built relationships, you know, I couldn't agree with you more, the relationships are worth their weight in gold. We just got off a call with someone we've been speaking to do back in 2016. I think I did a quick check on the email and they've moved on to another organization.
They're leading that team. And just having a great relationship with that individual, and sometimes agreeing that it's not the right time to work together, but, you know, still staying in touch. It can pay off considerably. And that's what this 1 looks to be doing as well.
[00:16:27] Jay: Do you guys do traditional marketing? Are you out there buying ads and, you know, doing that sort of thing? Or is it, what's your marketing approach?
[00:16:36] Len: So, it's still focused on the shows, and there's a few publications in our industry, so we'll sponsor those. Events, at certain times where it makes sense, obviously be on stage and talking to very specific things in our industry that helps, continue with the credibility and get brand awareness out there.
we've, I think we've done a great job with that so that when we attend these shows now, we know most of the organizations and most of the people there, or they've at least heard of us on top of that. what we found to be effective is sponsoring, content or sponsoring research papers. because now we've got a sponsored piece that's got value in front of someone as opposed to half page ad or some banner ads on a specific website is we're bringing value to people so they can read about that.
So these are the types of things that work for us. It goes back early on about bringing substance to people. So, so less flashy and really about bringing value.
[00:17:29] Jay: So as you guys scale up and especially as a technology company, and you know, this is a, a selfish question. Cause I always like to ask about product quality. how did you keep quality up? How do you keep quality up today? Like, how do you make sure, I mean that, and I think I heard it, you know, one time really eloquently, Put was, you know, having a poor quality experience for your product is like, you know, you know, a department store that all this flashy stuff and it has all the best merchandise and they have all this stuff and then you walk up to the counter and the guy's a jerk.
Right. And it's like, that person's probably not going to come back to you. Spent millions of dollars to put this experience together and you messed up with the end piece, which was like the one thing that people are going to remember, how do you guys deal with product quality and make sure it kind of stays top of mind across the organization?
[00:18:15] Len: It wasn't perfect. You know, be fully transparent. There was a point in time where we were scaling so fast. There was so much demand for what we were doing, that we scaled, at a level we shouldn't have. Right. We didn't do it properly and the quality was suffering. and we were conscious of that as soon as we started to see the results and we had to put things in place.
So now it's a very diligent Q. A process. It's about respecting the individuals and those rules. So, very much a difficult thing about transitioning from You know, a small entrepreneur into an organization is understanding that the people around you surround yourself with, you need to have people that are strong enough to tell, you know, or to walk you through why it's not the best idea to do certain things and for you to have trust in them, because as an entrepreneur, you know, you're built to say yes to everything and figure out a way to make it happen.
And that's changed in our organization and we're better for it. So. Really, you've got to have people around you that understand that the quality is important. Everyone's got to buy into that as an organization. And, you know, we've got obviously reporting structure, but we're very flat when it comes to people, you know, having their opinion or speaking up and giving them that opportunity to speak up.
And it still happens to this day where we're looking at a timeline and someone will raise it and say, Thank you. You know, if we do it this way, our test coverages just aren't there or we can't get through all of this. We'll have automated testing, but there's still some things and we don't want to risk that, you know, if you think about our products don't just touch our customers, but it touches their customers as well.
So, so while we have Bank of America as a customer, they've got 30 million plus card holders that could be interacting with this environment. And it's really important that we protect their brand.
[00:19:54] Jay: I love that. I love everything you just said. that's a great, especially the, promoting the concept that, people should be able to tell anybody that they're wrong and not in a derogatory, rude, you know, unconstructive way, but in a positive constructive way, it just makes everybody better and the product better and the company better.
And I definitely live by that, as well. Like I want. People to tell me I'm wrong. If you've surround yourself with the S men, I don't think you're going to be as successful as having balanced opinions across the group. Now, next question for you.if you had to start engage over today in 2024, with all the stuff that you've learned, what would be step one
[00:20:40] Len: Huh,
that's a great question because there's so many different ways to look at it. And, you know, we got here. So we've had to have done some things. Right. I think timelines is a big thing. I look at it and there's. Such an emphasis on hitting a timeline. And meanwhile, everyone in the room knows it's unachievable or you're not going to get there.
So there's this balance of not saying no immediately because a client may look around for someone that will give them a timeline, but understanding what it takes to build something. and we got there, but in hindsight, we may have sat back a little bit more, had teams unaffected by other projects and really let them build a product, but build it in a fashion where you.
You don't have to be perfect. So I profess that to everyone is there's, you know, a certain mindset of getting to perfect. And you really don't ship anything at that point, because there's always a way to make something better. It evolves. So, you know, understanding that right spot, and I think I would limit features as well.
So rather than trying to build this huge monolithic application, which we don't have for microservices based anyways, but instead of trying to do everything for everyone, it's really getting out there and having some solid foundational features and then releasing, you know, that's specific to our story, but that's one of the things I would look at and probably do a little bit differently.
[00:22:02] Jay: of it? All right. Last question. non business related, non engage related. if you could do anything on earth and you knew you couldn't fail, what would it be?
[00:22:13] Len: Wow. I. Love sports, like absolutely adore sports, you know, to spend a day as a pro athlete and it wouldn't matter what would be something I would really cherish the opportunity to do. So, love attending events, love that involvement. I still try to play myself, but you can pick it. It could be a ball player, a hockey player, a soccer player.
It wouldn't matter. But if I could, you know, do any of those things, that would be a fantastic experience for me.
[00:22:43] Jay: Beautiful. Love it. Are you a big hockey fan up there? We're a hockey family, so I have to ask.
[00:22:48] Len: Yeah, my oldest son plays. I played growing up. but again, I love all sports. So, you know, my oldest boy just, he started playing lacrosse last year. I don't know a thing about the sport, but I just enjoy it. You know, we'll visit our clients in Australia and there's cricket matches there and I don't have any background on that.
But I just love watching people execute at such a high level. it's a pleasure to watch. So,
[00:23:11] Jay: Yeah, I totally agree. All right. Len, you're fantastic, man. I love the story. you know, it feels like you're a really good leader for your organization, and I appreciate you giving us some of your time today. If people want to reach out to you directly, how do they do that? And if they want to reach, engage, how do they do that as well?
All right,
[00:23:27] Len: so social media is perfect. I see everything that comes in. LinkedIn is typically preferable. but you can hit me up on, x. com or formerly Twitter. And, I read all the messages I go through them. So that's a great way to reach out. And then ultimately you can hit our website, Engage People. com. we've got some contact.
forms on that site and they all come in and we read everything. So feel free to send any questions out and you know, it doesn't have to be related to our industry. If you're looking for help or guidance or something back to that, you know, having the courage to send that first message. Definitely love to pay it forward.
[00:24:00] Jay: Len. Well, hey, it's Friday here. So, enjoy your weekend, brother. Thank you for your time. We'll talk again soon. All right.
[00:24:06] Len: Definitely appreciate the opportunity to chat.
[00:24:08] Jay: Thanks Len. See you, buddy.