Start With A Win - Elevating People by Creating Workspaces of the Future

Episode Date: February 23, 2022

As a founder and the CEO of Vari, Jason McCann’s mission is to help companies create environments that elevate people. Jason co-founded VariDesk in 2013, and the brand quickly became synonymous with sit-stand desks. Today, the company name is Vari, and it has grown into a workspace innovation company that provides everything high-growth businesses need to unlock the potential of their workforce. Jason and his leadership have been widely celebrated over the years, including recently being named CEO of the year by CEO Magazine in 2021.Adam and Jason start the conversation by talking about the origins of VariDesk and the sit-stand desk. Jason developed the product with his co-founder, and they started by listing the desk in Sky Mall Magazine. It quickly became the #1 selling item in Sky Mall’s history! After years of success with the original VariDesk, the company began to expand into other functional workspace products just for their own company. But when people visited their headquarters, most people said, “I want this!” Jason and his team realized it wasn’t just the products, it was the culture that had been created. This prompted them to elevate their vision and push into creating workspaces of the future.Our bodies were designed to be active, and when we sit down, that’s when our bodies go into recharge mode. Over the last 50-60 years, we made it so easy to sit down, and we removed all of the things that encourage movement. Jason believes that innovation happens when people get to interact and move. So Vari creates “moving workspaces” where walls and seating move, transforming static offices into living, breathing spaces.When people shifted to working at home when COVID first hit, people were sitting on futons hunched over a laptop. Chiropractors have had record years due to tech neck! So, through COVID, Jason’s focus has been: How do we create healthy, productive workspaces so you can continue to thrive and be at your very best when you need to be?Considered an essential business, Vari’s team returned to their office in June 2020 due to the ability to have a moveable office that could be transformed into a safe working environment. Over the last 24 months, Vari has transformed over 2,000 offices across the country. When it comes to the future of work, Jason believes that flexibility is here to stay. We must continue to embrace change as leaders and adopt the mentality of “innovate or die." The ability to be flexible, moveable and innovative allowed the company to thrive throughout this season.The company was addressing a pain point. First was back pain, then it was how to buy office furniture. Vari wanted to simplify and sell furniture direct. Today, more than 4 million uses of Vari’s products can be found in 120 countries around the world. And it’s all happened by listening to the customer and doing what’s right. Adam shared a study which found that customers are twice as likely to pay for something that stops pain than something that makes them feel good. The two round out the conversation by touching on the importance of leading with empathy, love and grace in this new season of business. Listening as a leader is more important than ever, and we have to put ourselves in our team’s shoes. We have to understand what they’re going through so we can serve them better. That’s what we as leaders have been put on earth to do.Episode Links:https://www.vari.comOrder your copy of Start With A Win: Tools and Lessons to Create Personal and Business Success:https://www.startwithawin.com/bookConnect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ Leave us a voicemail:888-581-4430

Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. And coming to you from Denver, Colorado, home of Remax World Headquarters, it's Adam Conto, CEO of Remax here with Start With A Win with a very cool guest in the studio, virtual studio today. I guess we all operate virtually anymore here anymore. We have with us Jason McCann, who's the founder and CEO of Very. Used to be known as Very Desk, but they call themselves Very now, which is awesome because why tie yourself to a desk when you can build all sorts of other really cool products that help people. So Jason's mission is to help companies create environments that elevate people. I guess a play on words sometimes, sometimes not. But Jason co-founded Veridesk

in 2013 and the brand quickly became synonymous with the sit-stand desks today. Very really has grown into a workspace innovation company that provides everything high growth businesses need to unlock the potential of their workforce. You know, when you're sitting down, you lose all your energy. And when you stand up, somehow it gives you this ability to really function with your full potential. So Jason has been, you know, his leadership is widely celebrated over the years, including recently being named CEO of the Year by CEO Magazine in 2021.

Jason, welcome to Start With a Win. Hey, Adam. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here today. Awesome. Hey, take us back to the beginning here. Why did you go, hey, sitting down sucks. Let's build a desk that you can stand up with. How'd that come about? Yeah, my business partner, Dan, I was president of his company and he was having back pain and he would stand at a cardboard box to feel better. And we talked to his doctor about it.

She said, well, if you feel better standing up, just stand up more. And that was sort of the solution for it. So we started to look online and Google and look for a standing desk and couldn't find one. They were either too complicated to assemble, took eight to 10 weeks to show up, or simply it was just so expensive. And he said, I've got an idea for a product. Dan's very good at product. So our industrial designer sat with us and the three of us over about a two to three hour period, Dan started to describe what became that first Veridesk.

So we built the prototypes and started to show it to companies here around the Dallas Fort where they're at, and they liked it. Sitting was the new smoking was the hot term that Dr. Levine from the Mayo Clinic had coined, and we were off and running. We did an ad in SkyMall Magazine and became the number one selling item at SkyMall's history, and people started buying it online. We said, okay, and as we started to build this relationship with fans, we expanded into mats and monitor arms, fully electric standing desks. And really as our business grew, we did walls that move and moved into other categories like soft seating and collaboration just to expand our product offering for ourselves. And when people would tour our headquarters, they said, well, I want all of this. And what we realized is they weren't describing just the space and the amazing products,

but really the culture that we had created at Veridesk at the time. And so we elevated our vision, expanded it, dropped the word desk from our name a couple of years ago and pushed hard into creating the workspaces of the future. I love this. This is really kind of a cool concept because you hear an entrepreneurship where people talk about that somebody doesn't want to buy

a half inch drill bit. What they want is they want a half inch hole. So people don't necessarily go, I wish I had the coolest sit stand desk possible, but ultimately they want to feel good and energized when they're working, right? I mean, isn't that what we're all going after? Kind of that hope of, please save my back, Jason. That's right. Yeah, we talked about it. You address a pain point out there, especially as entrepreneurs, you're addressing a pain point. And so for us, it was initially Dan's back pain. Then it was how to buy office furniture, just like y'all have simplified that amazing transaction of buying homes.

But for us, it was how do you buy office furniture? We had to go to a dealer. It was a complicated process. So we did the Tesla model. And we said, we're going to actually simplify it and sell furniture direct. And that's allowed us to grow to now over 4 million users of our product in 120 different countries. So we built a business from an idea, monetizing really pain, Dan's back pain, and turning it into a tremendous business. And now with over 300 employees in several countries, and we ship 30 different countries on a daily basis, but all by listening to the customer and doing what's right.

That's an important note. I mean, you listen to the customer, you learn what their pain points are, because studies have shown that customers are twice as likely to pay for something that stops pain than to pay for something that is a feel good. So, I mean, when we move people away from pain, they're much more likely to embrace that purchasing feeling of hope. And that's really cool. I mean, first of all, you're helping all of us work longer in life instead of sitting there hunched over our keyboards.

I mean, what are the doctors saying about this? Is this something that the medical industry has recognized as being helpful? Yeah, I think what happened was our bodies over thousands and millions of years, we were designed to be active. And when you sit down, that's when your body goes into recharge mode. And so what happened is over the last 50 or 60 years, we've made it so easy. You've got a comfy chair, a lazy boy, you've got an easy ride to work. We basically eliminated all of the steps and put you on moving escalators, but reduced all these friction points. But those friction points are how your body is designed to burn off energy, burn calories,

to engage your brain and get the blood flowing so that you're more creative. So to now think about space doing that, and for us, it was initially a desk. And nobody recognizes organizations needed to transform cultures. We're all, as CEOs, trying to recruit and retain amazing talent. We're trying to elevate our cultures. We're trying to drive innovation. Well, innovation happens when people get to interact and move. And so could we create workspaces where the walls move, the seating moves, and start to think about workspaces of moving, living, breathing thing. So just like your personal workspace, now your entire organization can thrive like a beehive and be energized like that. So again, it's us continuing to push the envelope on what's the future of innovation really like. Very cool. I remember the first time I was walking through the halls at Remax headquarters and I saw one of your desks in one of our offices and I walked past and I'm

like, what is that? And then I went in and I started messing with it and raising it and lowering it and standing there going, this is amazing. Because I'm not a short guy. I'm 6'2 and almost 6'3. I've never made it to 6'3, but, but yet in close. Um, and desks are not quite made for somebody with a taller torso. So you're kind of hunched over all the time going, this is nuts. Why am I doing this to myself? And the reality, my chiropractor even was telling me, stop sitting at your desk, you're ruining yourself. So, um, then I started gathering people up and kind of herding them into the office that some brave soul bought one of those and installed it at work. And I'm going, let's get a whole bunch of these things.

It took off. Now, I think pretty much all of our employees have sit-stand desks now. And it's thanks to you guys that that is that way. But the reality is I would venture to guess that the co-pays for back problems and the chiropractor and therapy and things like that has gone down as a result of this because it certainly has for me. Yeah, there's definite benefits to it. And they started to see that once people were active, as COVID hit, it was an interesting phenomenon. As people shifted back to home, suddenly they're sitting on a futon or a sofa and they're crunched over a laptop that they

probably took from the office, their work tools. And suddenly they're crunched over and the chiropractors were having record years these last couple of years because of tech neck. And we've all experienced it. You almost get carpal tunnel in your thumbs when you're using your iPhone or the old library back in the day too much, but people were literally crunched over. And so as they were starting to think about, okay, now I've been crunched over, what am I going to do? And so now we're hearing people talk about what are those seamless tools now so that I can have a healthy workspace, whether I'm at an office or a workspace or whether I'm at home, thinking about what my home office needs

are going to be because I may be there one to five days a week or as part of the time as we start to think about flexibility in the future. But you're right. I think as we see these pendulums and spaces continue, it's like, how do we create healthy, productive workspaces so that you can continue to thrive and be at your very best when you need to be in all different facets of your life? That's a great point. That makes me ask an interesting question. You talk about COVID, and be at your very best when you need to be in all different facets of your life. That's a great point. That makes me ask an interesting question. You talk about COVID and I mean, obviously we're still in the middle of some things, but let's talk about return to office. And there's an expectation now. I mean, first of all, thank you for propping people's computers up because I'm sick of looking up their nose on Zoom when they set their iPad or their phone on the table and start Zooming.

And thankfully, your desks raise up the computer a little higher so we can look eyeball to eyeball when we're talking here. But how has your company adjusted to the you know, the return to office? Have you guys implemented like a hybrid approach? I mean, what's going on at the company that kind of invented being in the office and making it cool and fun and stuff like that? I mean, are you guys seeing a lot of people implement this? Yeah, I think for us, you know, I think like everybody, we went home for a little while and then we were considered an essential business so we could operate. And it really tested us. I reached out to our teams in Asia who were about 10 to 12 weeks ahead of us. And they talked about two meters apart, distance-based design, all the things that are very common now. And we put up plexi shields. I literally,

over a three-week period, we transformed our headquarters, moved all the walls, spread everybody out. And we were already back in the office in June of 2020. So we were very early on the learning curve. So our team members were already back. And so we sort of hit the ground running. As we recognized for the team members that were going to work remote or work from home, we started to set them up with the same tools and it became, okay, this is going to last a while. So over the last 24 months, we've transformed over 2 000 offices across the country because what they're finding now is we need space for teams for huddle rooms for gathering for that culture collaboration and communication that happens when people are

together that natural oxytocin is generated and these ideas happen but also when you need focus space or the realities of COVID, whatever variant is out there that we might need the ability to work from home, how do we have the same tools? So whatever day, how does that work? And you've seen Zoom and MS Teams and all these great platforms come in with new technologies on the software space and on the physical space. We see, whether it's building owners that we work with or companies, we're literally transforming their spaces. For other ones that are saying, our teams are going to work remote now for a long time. We've literally allowed them.

They log into our site. We take all the orders. We ship out thousands and thousands of work from home desks every day. And clients get them. And you and I can build anything I make in less than five minutes. We're like the opposite of Ikea. And so it's allowed us to actually kind of thrive through this particular chapter, which I think as leaders and organizations,

that's what you want to do is really your values get tested, your business models get tested, but this is where your teams lean in and fight the good fight and really find a way to not only to survive through these challenges, but ultimately thrive and elevate your business models. This is some really important points here. I want to touch on a couple of key words that you said here. Things such as collaboration and teamwork and happy, ergonomic, hybrid, things like that. I mean, there, there are a lot of different leadership aspects here that we need to be paying attention to particularly, you know,

a great deal of our listeners are they work out of their cars and then they go to a house or then they go to, you know, a coffee shop and then they go show a property or whatever it might be. And then they, they go to the office and, and go work in a team huddle or in a team environment. What advice do you have for the leaders that are listening when it comes to maintaining continuity and alignment within a team, as well as their physical health and happiness and just being humans with a smile, feeling fulfilled? I mean, you've learned a lot of lessons over the last couple of years, and I'm interested to hear what you have to say. Yeah. I think number one is during this particular thing, you've got to lead with empathy, love, and grace. I mean, it has been

the craziest challenges that so many people have faced, whether it's the frontline team members that are out there meeting with clients that are interacting, that are doing their best through business development or delivering that last mile of services that are a must need in the way that our businesses operate today. And when your teams are getting together, how do they listen in and lean and how's your family? How are you doing? And really opening up with questions about life and people care about that you care, not necessarily what you know. And so really listening as a leader has been more important than ever. I think for me, I went into over communicate mode. So I went into literally weekly on-hand Zoom meetings, daily emails to my team members. And just to tell them what was going on, I recognized I was having stress at 2 a.m. and at

3 a.m. And my wife's like, are you going to be okay? I said, hey, I'm trying to figure this out. I kind of thought COVID would be over and our business is shifting. And what she said to me is, well, if you're under stress, I can only imagine what the team's feeling. And so suddenly it dawned on me as leaders, I've got to put myself in their shoes. And so really thinking about your team members, your clients, and understanding what they're all going through so that you can serve them better. As leaders, we're put on this road to serve, be a beacon of hope and optimism, but also lead by example. So me just leading in, being totally authentic, I've shared with my team members that I ever thought I would, but I think I'm hoping it's made a positive impact on their lives and the ripple effect that they'll have on our clients'

lives, on our fans' lives, on their families' lives, and our communities. Some great points there. I hope everybody's listening well to those. All right, here's the next one for you, because you're kind of a futurist in the work environment here in the space that you guys operate in. When I say the future of work, what do you as the CEO of Veridesk, I mean, what comes to mind or very now, because you're more than just a desk. I mean, what comes to mind when I say future of work? And how do we deal with that moving forward? Yeah, I think for all of us, you've got to lean into a couple of things. One is flexibility is here to stay. You've got to continue to embrace change as a leader.

And you've got to continue to innovate or die. And so you start to think about those things. When you start to think about your business model is flexing and changing as you're leaning into the challenges that are ahead of you in the near term, but also continuing to elevate up and think about your business in the long term. And you as a leader, and it really is all of us have got to continue to find ways to innovate. And we think about that in three ways. One is simplifying everything. How do we simplify it for everybody, for our sense, our schedule, and our team members? How do we find a better way to do things?

What is that new spark of innovation? And the last thing is how do we elevate people, cultures, and communities? So you think about your legacy at the end of your journey here. I'm 52, so hopefully I've got another 48 laps here left. But you think about those things. So did I build healthy relationships? Did I make a positive impact out there? And did I really create positive memories?

And so that's how I sum up things. But I would say you've got to constantly think about those as you're thinking about the future. True words spoken from a true leader. Always looking to help people get better, elevate your business, elevate the environment that you operate in. So some great key points there. So Jason McCann, I have a question for you that I ask everybody that I have on the, start with a win here. And this is an important question to us, especially somebody as really self-conscious as you in both your business and yourself. I mean, you mentioned your family and things of that nature. You're truly dedicated to a holistic

leadership environment. And we all have these little traits and habits that we engage in every day in order to achieve those things. And that's how we start our day with a win. So Jason, how do you start your day with a win? Yeah, I wake up every morning. I have two words for V right now. It's presence and grateful. So by remaining present in these moments, go through a meditation process and thinking about what I'm grateful for and who am I going to serve and make a positive impact on. That really lights, really starts up my day as I watch the sunrise, a quiet moment by myself and really soaking in that time. That's how I started off. Present and grateful. Two incredible words spoken by a great leader, Jason McCann, CEO of Vary.

We appreciate you being on the show and thank you for saving my back once again with your amazing products. And I can't wait to see what you guys come up with next. You're building the work environment of the future for both hybrid and office space. So thanks for what you guys do. And thanks for being on Start With A Win. My pleasure. Thank you for having me.