For Frank Weishaupt, a former senior vice president at CarGurus, the occasion that made him decide to add his first CEO role to a resume that already included COO and CRO roles was a three-hour long meeting. He met with the two co-founders of Owl Labs, a video conferencing startup that launched in 2014.
Owl Labs is the maker of the The Meeting Owl, a hardware device that aims to improve the conference experience for remote employees. Its IoT-powered software allows the device to show the whole room and automatically focus on the person speaking, improving the interaction between on-site and remote participants to the meeting.
Weishaupt took the reins from Max Makeev, who has been CEO since 2014 and is staying on to work on product development, manufacturing and sales.
Here are five questions we asked Weishaupt about his new appointment and that meeting with Owl Labs that really won him over.
When did you first hear about Owl Labs?
While I was at CarGurus, we actually had a couple of meetings. I've used [the product]. In May, I received the call from the executive recruiter, who put me in touch with both Max [Makeev] and Mark [Schnittman], the two co-founders. They went through a number of candidates, I believe I was the first one they met with... While we're just announcing this now, I got started in October; so it was a pretty long process, where we got to know each other very well.
Can you describe for me the moment when you thought "OK, I want to take over as CEO"?
As a team, during the interview process, we went through a planning process and really looked at what product plan would look like for the next several years, what all our thoughts were on the challenges in the market were as it related to remote meeting participation: not being able to be heard and be understood. And, you know, as we started going through that planning process, I really got a sense of the unique market position that Owl Labs has... When we left that planning session, it was about three hours long, at that point I really knew that I wanted the role.
What are you taking away from your role at CarGurus that you think is going to help in this new position?
I have some large scale experience in my background. CarGurus was the first place where I really started from scratch... I've built a team from scratch; it was a global team and it was a team that had tremendous scale. It gave me a real first flavor for what is like to be en entrepreneur. While [Owl Labs] has a lot more momentum and it's further along, it's still very early on and I feel like I'll be able to bring that element of building to scale to the team.
Speaking of scaling Owl Labs, the press release mentioned that one of your primary focus is going to be “to expand [the company] from a video conferencing product to a comprehensive communication and productivity solution.” What do you have in mind?
We are in the process of building out the team and we're going to scale... a lot of things that we're going to work on over the next couple of years... Now, we’re trying to think through productivity in general; we're trying to think through problems like 'How do you create an environment where people who are remote can be a part of the physical collaboration in the room?
You have significant experience with exits. It might be premature, but is there a particular exit route that you envision for Owl Labs?
No, I feel about it this way: if you build a great company that has a great culture and satisfied and delighted customers, that would take care of the rest.
