Dave Bodnarchuk - Awesome Sauce

Part 2 of our discussion with Dave Bodnarchuk. The pandemic lockdown put constraints on society that turned into drivers for Dave's business, Election Buddy. Also, who doesn't want Awesome Sauce to be one of their corporate values?

Show Notes

Dave Bodnarchuk is at Election Buddy.
Derek Hudson is at derekhudson.ca.
See full show notes at the Essential Dynamics Wiki.

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Join Derek Hudson as he explores Essential Dynamics, a framework for approaching the challenges facing people and organizations. Consider your Quest!

Reed: 00:20

And it's Essential Dynamics again. And I'm Reed McColm, your essential host with our dynamic guru, mister Derek Hudson. Derek, you there again?

Derek: 00:30

I'm back, Reed.

Reed: 00:31

I'm glad you are.

Derek: 00:32

It's good good to see you again.

Reed: 00:34

Yeah. And I'm very glad to welcome back our our guest, mister Dave Bodnarchuk, and we're going to have an interesting conversation. Know it.

Derek: 00:45

Hey, Dave. Welcome back. Thanks for Thank you. Thanks for not giving up off giving up on us after the first round.

Dave: 00:53

Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Derek: 00:56

So so, Dave, we talked in our previous episode about, you know, your journey to get to ElectionBuddy, commented and you just kind of teased out a little bit about what happened sort of the day the lockdown hit in in March 2020. So take us back before that and tell us a little bit about how you started elect the ElectionBuddy part of your business and where you were sitting when the pandemic lockdown crashed down on us.

Dave: 01:26

Yeah. Sure. So long and short of it, I met my cofounder at something called Demo Camp. It's a local Edmonton institution. It was it was probably one of the first three where you'd given a presentation, and he reminded me a lot of me back in that day, and this is a long time ago, it was back in 2011, you know, we worked together, he was going on to become a medical doctor and he wanted to make sure that this legacy of know, voting for students really, really continued.

Dave: 01:53

He was an engineering student at the time. He created a small platform to allow student organizations to conduct their votes and elections, and that's well, you know what? I think this has some interest because it was compatible with some of the market segments that we were looking at. I really like Brady. He's still, you still a partner today and fantastic dude, and we just kinda hit it off.

Dave: 02:13

And so we, you know, we put something up in net to test the theory that people would come in, use a product they could do themselves, try it and test it before paying for it, and then have it grow without any kind of marketing fee. That's what we were really trying to test that time. And, you know, it was a slow growth, we knew it was going be a slow growth because people typically host their votes once a year, you know, for member based organizations and so we just kind of put it out there and took the feedback, reiterated, learned some good lessons along the way and then made the decision back in 2015, spent a couple of years to refactor the product and get it ready for that next level and that next journey based on all the customer feedback that we Rolled that out in April 2017 with our next version and got even more traction, so we were growing at a rate of about 40% for the previous two years prior to that, and then to 70% annual in that basis. You know, arguably in '11, we were super excited to get our first paying customer, which was $19, and that was probably the only customer that we had in that month that we actually paid.

Dave: 03:27

Right? But, you know, up until then and but we started to grow at a pretty good clip. We had a good reputation in the marketplace. We started to see some people, some very interesting organizations use us, especially in, you know, that that year of '17 and '18 in terms of paying real money to get certification around an election in an easy to use product and that's and that that kinda led to the the concept of, well, this needs some more focus, we added some people, we added some bodies and got ready for for that next level of of the journey, but we didn't predict, as I say, the the growth that we were gonna have with COVID for sure.

Derek: 04:06

So, Dave, if people could use your initial product for free, what was the tipping point to get them to pay?

Dave: 04:15

Well, what we provide our free product at a level for 20 users. So boards would come in and use it. Small student groups would come in and use it, and then they could try and test it until they felt comfortable. That was a big, big thing that we wanted to do. We didn't want people pay for software that they wouldn't use or didn't feel comfortable with, right?

Dave: 04:33

Like, was literally that simple. Yeah. But we had to create a model that was different. And that's that model still in terms of that it's called now today freemium, that concept of freemium we brought to the election space before many, many others did, and it really, really helped us grow. Right?

Dave: 04:51

You know, when we combine some of those different sections, it was just a good way for us to go. And and it was also our way of giving back. We wanted to make sure that we provided a competitive product at a reasonable price to try and create accessible democracy around the world. That's the goal.

Reed: 05:08

Okay. You had you you mentioned that you have a product that was free or that you were so glad to have one guy paying for. How and no marketing. That was your goal, was you didn't want to have to market it. You knew it was slow growth.

Reed: 05:26

So what happened? What changed? With COVID, you could have died out. Why didn't you?

Dave: 05:33

Well, at the end of the day, you know, with COVID, people were shut into their houses. And, if you're a professional association or a member based organisation, you still want your engagement to continue, you still need to run the business of running that organisation to continue. They couldn't do it in person. You know, prior to COVID, the two, there was basically a subset of organizations that would, if they were geographically dispersed, they would run remote elections and a lot of folks would use our product, you know, whether it was the largest car club in North America, whether it was an insurance association, you know, doctors, a medical college, a technical college, you know, university alumni groups, lot of geographically dispersed organizations. But many associations or unions would say, look, we still wanna conduct our meeting in person, it's still easy to fill up a ballot box when we're doing those votes.

Dave: 06:30

So what we with COVID, that changed. So they didn't have a choice, they couldn't go to a meeting, show their hands to vote on something, and there wasn't the level of integrity within the virtual conference platform, so we just fill that niche. We buy both the concept of a meeting vote, where you participate in an online or on-site meeting and you vote on your candidates or vote on your bylaw amendments or the motions that are going on your meeting, along with what we would call a remote election where very similar to the federal election or your the provincial elections or the municipal elections where you're voting on your candidates, but doing it for over a given time period, but from the convenience of your own home remotely at the time that you wanna vote. So we're one of the few platforms that handled the full Claudia scope of voting, and I think that's really, really helped in in managing our growth as well.

Derek: 07:25

So so, Dave, March fourteenth, you realized that the world had changed. When did your inbox get jammed? Was it, like, on the Monday, the fifteenth?

Dave: 07:36

No. You know, it The U the majority of our businesses in The US like, we've done elections in now I think a 95 countries around the world, but there was about a two month lag, so we really started to see the trend change in that May, June timeframe, and where we really knew, like June and July and from about June 15, August fifteenth were typically very slow moments for months for us. But basically when we compared that to previous year, like we were growing at literally an exponential rate. And, you know, the lucky part that we had was, as I told the team at the time, we're just trying to figure out how to help people because they're panicked. They don't know, like the level of uncertainty that was out at the start of COVID and arguably that still exists today, was really, really high.

Dave: 08:26

So our motto is, well, let's just figure out how we can help people. And we were at the time, you know, a pretty small team and our motto was just, well, let's do what we can, help the folks, figure it out and it'll serve us as well, and we've been really fortunate it has. And I got some fantastic folks on our team that have really answered the call during COVID. I can't say enough great things about them.

Derek: 08:49

So Dave, Essential Dynamics is the name of the podcast and the framework. And one of the one of the elements of it is this idea that in the system, there are drivers and constraints. And I'm interested in your journey because at one point, you said, well, it's gonna be slow growth. And so your constraint to growth was market knowledge and acceptance, and so that's, you know, that's a good reason to try the free product. And then things changed, and the constraint was people couldn't gather.

Derek: 09:24

And that turned into a driver for you. And so now you have all this attention on your business. Your constraint moved into the organization, which was capacity to be able to respond to all that. What was it like when you had to, you know, respond to this, you know, sudden increase in in business? And where did how did you decide what you needed to add next?

Dave: 09:52

Well, the the biggest thing for us, it's a great question, I kind of giggle a little bit. I mean, I can tell you some of the stories that both myself and the team have have really addressed during that time period. We had folks from a large association in an African nation say, look, we can't deliver an election, can you do this in a week for 35,000 folks? And we did. Know, big, one of the big challenges that we had was with all the growth, making sure that our infrastructure and delivery systems didn't break.

Dave: 10:22

And again, testament to the team, we we did not have a failed election during that time. So even though we were growing at a nine x rate with both our free as well as as the paid elections that were being done and, you know, new users at a nine x rate, the systems managed, they they held up. So, you know, we had done again, a testament to our co founder and the development team, they spent a lot of time operationalizing to make sure that we could get the data in the right places, making sure systems didn't go down and making sure things didn't come up. There's less confidence in elections that go on and in Africa, there's a real trepidation to make sure that the vote's not rigged. For us as a third party, there's still a level of scepticism.

Dave: 11:09

We had people checking every seven seconds to make sure that votes were being properly cast, and that almost took down our servers. Were working with our cluster, we went to the highest level that we could get and we were at 95% capacity until we figured out, the issue was people were just not comfortable with results. So we scaled that back, put it onto a separate area, made sure that they got unique results, but did it on a separate area, did it every five minutes and we went from 95% utilisation literally to 3% on the basis of that little fine. And that was again, all based on the team because everybody was trying to figure out how to help. And that's, you know, we've had a good year, we've had a good series of growth, but you can't do that without a team and we've always tried, you know, one of my mandates is try to figure out how you can operationalize and automate, right?

Dave: 12:03

Like for us, that was always, that's been in my DNA, it's always been in that DNA, so when the growth occurred, we were able to manage that growth because we weren't constrained by delivery, we were able to actually add services and get the people focused on the right things, that really we were just responding to market demand. So we were pretty lucky, but we also did it, we were always doing it with that automation because we didn't have the resources just to hire people. Right?

Reed: 12:32

That's remarkable. Just if you're really helping the world with this company, where do you go to now? What happens what's the next quest for ElectionBuddy?

Dave: 12:44

Well, you know, our as I mentioned, our purpose is accessible democracy around the world. So we're gonna focus on working with really, really great partners to help deliver in that quest as you talk about it, as well as making sure that we can still do it, which is core to our roots. We're not, you know, we don't have aspirations of doing large federal or municipal elections, there's some really good folks that do that in that business. But for member based organisations, there's some really large ones of those as well, like there was a presentation yesterday by one of our customers, the AFL CIO that talked to, that there's a new president there and they were showcased with Joe Biden based on some of his mandates. So there's lots of large organizations in the world that need help with their votes and we'll be there to help both the large and the more larger organizations that we help, the more that we can stay true to our roots was making sure that if you're running a small group of, you know, up to 20, up to three fifty, and you just want integrity in your boat, we'll do that at a very reasonable price for you as well.

Dave: 13:48

It's kinda what the team is grounded in.

Derek: 13:50

So so, Dave, you've said a couple of times about how you think of your team, and I've I've not picked up on it, but I gotta go back to that. So Essential Dynamics talks about the people side is the people, you know, that we take along with us on our quest. And I'm always looking for these dynamic forces. And on the people side, it's the the way I characterize it is there's individuals, and then there's the group. And people are messy.

Derek: 14:19

People have their own objectives, their own quirks. You're trying to form this, you know, integrated system, high performing team with a bunch of people who are, you know, unique in their own ways. Sounds like you've done a great job of doing it. What are some tips you have for people who are trying to build teams?

Dave: 14:41

To me, it's all about defining the team member within your you know, you hear about it a lot. What's your core culture? What's what's your corporate values? For us, you know, the moment I started to institute that back in 2015, that just changed our game. We hired to it.

Dave: 14:58

We make sure we do performance evaluations based on it, we're just in the big process of reviewing that to make sure it now with our expanded team that it meets, you know, our quest and what our culture is. So, you know, getting people that align to those values are big deal. I'm one for automation, we internally term that as awesome sauce, right? Coming up with creative, elegant solutions to address real world problems, right? And if you find people like that, for us, they tend to be a fit, and it makes everything else go a little bit easier.

Dave: 15:30

When you have people that you can have the smartest people in the room that that don't align to that team, they're not gonna help, and you can have people that are great, great team players but don't necessarily have some of those other skills that some VA players want. So it's it seems like a never ending journey to kinda fill in those, and and the only other tip that'll make is do it with thresholds. The people that you need need when you're a small organization versus a midsize organization versus a large versus a fortune 500 company, they're very different at those stages. You know, there's analogies that I've heard in podcasts, like, we start out with pirates and then you go to the navy or, you know, a bunch of different things, but but I found that to be true and and but we've been fortunate to keep, you know, many of our folks right through the entire right through the entire journey and and they're good people, I can't say enough about them.

Derek: 16:21

So so are you telling me that awesome sauce is one of your values officially?

Dave: 16:25

Yeah. It was. It was it was a word that that my cofounder had coined, and, you know, we we explained what that means, but makes us a little bit a little bit unique. We we called them the eating values, so we we talked about, excuse me, ethics, tenacity, empathy, awesome sauce, and motivation, right, as as part of that part of that carry through. So and we're just literally going through an exercise to change that to reflect the new organization as well.

Dave: 16:58

So the

Derek: 16:59

Don't lose awesome sauce, please. Please.

Reed: 17:01

I know. I I have to agree with that having lived as an example of awesome sauce all my life. So thank you very much for bringing that up. Dave, you are remarkable, a wonderful inspiration. Thank you for what you're doing, and thank you for joining us today.

Reed: 17:16

If people want to get ahold of you, how do they do that?

Dave: 17:20

ElectionBuddy.com. Visit the site. Again, we're a simple to set up high integrity cloud based voting platform that allows member based organizations like professional associations, homeowner associations, unions, universities, and religious groups to manage their board elections, bylaw amendments, or anything that they need to vote on, whether it's virtually on-site or a combination of both.

Reed: 17:45

What a pleasure to have met you. Thank you for talking to us. Barrick, how can people get hold of you?

Derek: 17:51

Well, when you're done with election buddies, swing on by to derek hudson dot c a, and and we can talk about how to think about cool things like the Quest. Yeah.

Reed: 18:01

Yeah. What a great day it's been. Thank you very much for joining us, Dave. I appreciate it. Thanks, guys.

Reed: 18:07

We appreciate it, I should say. And for Derek Hudson and Brynn Griffiths in the studio, I'm Reed McCollum telling you to consider your quest.