Imagine selling water, sports drinks, soda, snacks and candy at convenience store locations across the United States. Now imagine not having any real data about how those products are selling — or why. Now, times that by 100 years.
When an industry hasn’t budged in a century, the only way for an organization to knock it out of stasis is through drastic innovation and empowerment. Enter Skupos, a platform dedicated to helping convenience stores and their Fortune 100 suppliers discover missing data on product placement, pricing and consumer behavior across the entire c-store industry.
“Our clients haven’t had access to the granularity our data provides,” said Katie Mach, manager of enterprise client management. “We can provide them with product insights and really open up a black hole that they’ve never been able to tackle.”
Becky Asch, director of product management, agreed. “We’ll be able to tell a client that their promotion performed really well on a highway, but didn't perform well in cities. We can help brands effectively utilize every dollar of trade spend and then track it and optimize it in the future.”
To break through the convenience store industry and effect real, lasting change, Skupos empowered a workforce that is creative, agile, experimental and cross-functional. What’s more, employees at Skupos are encouraged to transition to bold new roles and allowed the freedom to pursue ideas that lead to major leaps in both career and company growth.
“One thing you might be noticing,” said Jamie Stevens, the company’s director of people, “is that Skupos is a runway.”
To learn more about the culture of innovation and empowerment at Skupos, Built In Colorado sat down for an extended conversation with Stevens, Asch and Mach.
Becky, can you talk about the career journey that led you to Skupos?
Asch: Before Skupos, I had been working at a public company where I was managing mergers and acquisitions integration. During this process, I found myself looking at the other side of the table, hungry to be on those teams at the moment they were scaling rather than with a larger company that was going to acquire them. I decided to pivot and look for a company in that stage of growth.
When I came across Skupos, I was able to check all of those boxes. I didn’t have a background in convenience retail or point-of-sale (POS) scan data, or even the consumer packaged goods (CPG) space, but I did have a background in small business and knew I had the skills to help people figure out how to work well together. So, I joined Skupos as the director of program management, and stood up a number of cross-functional, go-to-market initiatives.
What happened when the global pandemic hit?
Asch: When COVID-19 hit, we had to pivot to figure out where we could plug in to see the most growth and not retract during this difficult time. As part of that pivot, we actually moved up development on a product that we had been planning to build, which is called “Skupos Engage.” We did it while we were all moving to remote work for the first time, not knowing what the future looked like. In the end, we successfully accomplished our goals — while working from our couches — and launched Skupos Engage last November with a couple of our key pioneer customers.
Skupos Engage
How did working on Skupos Engage lead to your career transition at Skupos?
Asch: Once we launched Skupos Engage successfully, I realized that I was interested in leading our enterprise product suite from the product side. I was asked by leadership if I would be interested in making that shift, and I couldn’t turn down an opportunity where I felt like I had a lot of leadership support, not to mention the opportunity to work with a rock star team.
In my old position, it was as if somebody else with a vision gave me a coloring book and told me to color in between the lines. In my new role, I feel like I have the green light to draw the actual pages and pictures myself, while helping the company add color where they need it. My role is much more about setting a vision and a strategy rather than simply executing the strategy. That’s where I am today, and I love it.
Katie, what about your journey at Skupos? You were given the opportunity to work with a lot of big clients from the start, right?
Mach: I had spent the better part of the last 10 years wearing a ton of different hats with small startups. When the opportunity came at Skupos to work almost exclusively with very large brands, it was something I couldn't pass up.
When I first got here, I was signed on to join the team working with some of our largest clients, like Pepsi, Coke, 5-Hour Energy and so forth. As COVID-19 hit, we had to pivot away from the product I was hired to support at that time. In its place, our VP of strategy and I worked hand-in-hand with the Coca Cola bottlers to build a project that we call “Skupos Insights,” and got to learn Tableau and figure out the CPG space in order to build dashboards and get our clients to see the full value of Skupos. I was able to make a big impact quickly by supporting our brands and getting revenue in the door in an uncertain time.
Skupos Insights
We’ve heard you’ve also seen career development. How did working with bigger brands set you up for growth?
Mach: As we grew brands, Skupos was very supportive of letting me trust my own instinct and build out what client management looks like at Skupos. As Becky moved up, we needed someone to take over and manage what client management would look like holistically, especially as we started hiring more people. Becky approached me about moving to that role, and the change was natural and a good fit.
Jamie, you said you’ve also embraced your instinct for innovation, and were rapidly promoted as a result. How did that come about?
Stevens: I joined Skupos last February, and I came on board as the workplace experience and culture manager. Three weeks later, the global pandemic hit and we had to pivot both of our offices to fully remote. And because a lot of my job was based within the physical workspace, I probably would have been the first person laid off.
However, I was able to unicorn my role into creating connection and community and culture in a remote world of uncertainty. I pivoted into a remote culture leader and was promoted to people success senior manager. Today, I'm the director of people. It’s been an exciting year’s journey. I'm just honored to be able to bring my skill set and voice into a startup and make some really big impact alongside these two women.
What are some of the changes you were able to make?
Stevens: During the switch to remote, I heard feedback that we didn’t hear the CEO’s voice as often as the team would have liked. To be clear, Jake is really involved and relatable as a CEO. He is one of the most humble leaders I’ve ever worked for. When the pandemic hit, I was hearing in my one-on-ones that employees were missing his voice. We did hold monthly town halls, but in this remote setting they wanted to stay more connected to the business through Jake. That's when I got the idea for a fireside chat.
I wanted our employees to hear from Jake weekly, and on each of those weeks he would invite a different person at the company on for a podcast-style conversation. It was really well received, and it started with me sharing feedback and Jake saying, “Yes, let's do it.”
What were some of the most memorable moments in the fireside chats?
Stevens: We had Jake bring on an enterprise customer for what became a really powerful conversation. It was nice to hear directly from the customer about what they love and their requests for the future. I also liked how the fireside chats highlighted a lot of our new hires, and Jake would ask them ice breaker questions like their favorite convenience store snack. We even had a chicken wing eating contest. Overall, I think these initiatives have humanized all the leaders within the company — and accomplished that task in a remote environment, which is tricky to do.
Overall, what’s the secret? Why does the Skupos environment work so well in empowering its employees?
Mach: One of our core values is to seek and share the best idea. So even if you are not at the C-suite table, your voice is still being heard and sought after. At Skupos, if you raise an idea, someone’s going to listen to you and help you see where you can take it. And maybe your idea doesn’t work in the end, but you’re not reprimanded for that. It’s just kind of like, “Okay, what’s next? What did we learn?” I think that spirit really embodies the culture of taking a new idea and running with it.
