Behind the Brand®

Creating Loyalty in a Hyper-Competitive Industry with Kevin Edwards from SkipTheDishes

As the CEO of SkipTheDishes, Kevin Edwards has successfully led the company through an incredible period of growth. In this episode, Jeff Adamson and Kevin discuss what goes into achieving and managing accelerated growth. Kevin also provides insights on how to be an effective leader and lessons he learned from his transition into his current role.

Listen to the full episode here:

Casting Jon Hamm

Jeff: How did you convince Chris to invest so much in getting an A-list celebrity?

Kevin: We're talking about Chris Simair, who was CEO and hired me as Chief Marketing Officer at the time. It wasn't difficult to convince him once I took him through the premise. And the premise was, “Okay, we're this folksy Western brand that's coming to the big city, our competitors were already established. So how do we bridge the credibility gap? That's the quickest way to do it.” It was not an inexpensive proposition. It was the right decision at the time. Skip creative, up until that time, had been good. It had laid the groundwork [and] appealed to the audience we were targeting, but ultimately, you need to broaden that appeal. We just knew that it would jumpstart things for us. It was self-deprecating humour, not taking yourself too seriously. That's who we were.

Jeff: We had a choice between a lot of different actors. Why was Jon the right person for it? You have this juxtaposition of, he's not Canadian, but there are plenty of Canadian actors. So why not just go with a Canadian, and then with them, it's authentic?

Kevin: We were thinking we're a Canadian brand, born and bred on the prairies. Canadian values, Canadian attitudes. So let's get a Canadian. The scripts were such that we didn't want to take ourselves too seriously. We had three of the biggest Hollywood A-list Canadians we were talking to, and we were well down the road with one, we were in the negotiation stage. We had all the scripts positioned, “I'm a Canadian, I'm entitled, why wouldn't I want the best food delivered to my home?”

Then at the last minute, unfortunately, they had to pull out. On that same phone call, while they were apologizing, their agents mentioned Jon Hamm might be available. It was like, “Okay, well, there's one barrier. He's not Canadian.” But it's the tech business, you move quickly, and you have to adjust and pivot. Within 48 hours, we had scripts written for an American who wanted to be Canadian. Let's face it, Americans want to be Canadian. It wasn't too much of a stretch.

Jeff: I think you might be selling yourself a little bit short here. When we first met, one of the things that I liked about you was that you had this depth of knowledge. The reason I'm mentioning this is that you were able to spin up a Jon Hamm national TV campaign in only a couple of months from [starting] at Skip. You got it off the ground quickly. You have this depth of experience across a bunch of different industries over a long career, yet you have this energy and enthusiasm. I'm wondering, how do you keep up that energy and enthusiasm throughout your career?

Kevin: I don't know. I never consider what gets me out of bed every morning and excites me. I like people. I like [having] huge challenges to overcome, and I love the sense of teamwork that you need to overcome [them]. I love bringing people together. I love supporting the brilliance in innovation. That's where I get most of my satisfaction, and that's what motivates me. I was a hockey coach at a high level as well as a football coach, and it's the same enjoyment. I'm leading and coaching. It’s just such a great sense of camaraderie. And so that's what gets me out of bed in the morning. I just feed off the energy that successful teams generate.

How a Coaching Background Has Tied into Leadership

Jeff: Before Skip, you worked at Bell, Office Depot, Movember. These are some large global organizations, fairly mature companies, as well. Was the coaching aspect something that drew you to Skip?

Kevin: I had just done my turn at a global charity. I started consulting for six months, ended up doing it for two years, and loved it so much. I wasn't at the end of my career such that I was thinking about riding off into the sunset and just taking it easy. I get bored easily if there are no big challenges in front of me. I was in Melbourne at the time and got interviewed for the job at Skip and hadn't even asked where the business was. I just assumed it was in Toronto because it’s the centre of the universe, and the recruiter says,” Oh, it's in Winnipeg.” I thought, “Okay, well. Let's look at the opportunity”.

I've always looked at the opportunity versus anything else. I've gone from industry to industry, and there has not been a straight line ever. What was exciting was the challenge. I had never worked in tech before, but the challenge was brand, not tech. I was excited about being part of this youthful business, this incredible growth opportunity. That year, we were on our way to maybe a couple of 100 million. That was a significant trajectory, considering when you had sold the business, and so how do we explode this? You've got to have the right restaurants, you've got to have the right experience, and the tech has to be the best. I learned early on that the decision I made to come was a great one, and I'm very, very lucky to have been given the opportunity.

Jeff: You mentioned something earlier about coaching football and hockey at a high level. You've got a competitive drive in you, which makes you good in this role. Did you get a sense when you came in that this was a land grab? And in an intensely competitive industry?

Kevin: I don't even remember the number of cities we were in that year, [it] might have been 60, so our coverage was good. We hadn't come to Toronto. That was the next frontier. It was a very coordinated effort. Some teams were out ahead of others. It needed to be a land grab, especially when you're building a national brand, you've got to be national. Just think about how quickly we scaled in such a short period, and we're still scaling.

Jeff: Knowing what you know now with this role or this experience, how different is it from the expectations you had at that time?

Kevin: I came on board as the guy responsible for marketing. Raising, coaching, and building a marketing team. Within four or five months, I ended up taking responsibility to lead the business.
I have to step back, which is the complete antithesis of my character. I want to be in the weeds, to understand what people are working on, how they're thinking, how they're viewing the next year or two. Because I believe my role has always been to assign responsibility, [make sure] everyone understood their accountabilities, but then to clear the path. My job is not to do. My job is to create the conditions that people can be successful. It was hard, for six months, to get out of the weeds. And there are parts of the business I didn't understand. I'd only been there for five months. I didn’t understand partnerships and how we move to new cities. There was a lot of learning for me.

“My job is not to do, my job is to create the conditions that people can be successful.”

Moving into the Role as CEO and Building Relationships

Jeff: What's interesting about your experience is you obviously progressed and took over roles and got promotions, but at Skip, you came in and took over from Andrew Chau. He was one of the co-founders of Skip and is now the CEO at Neo Financial. That was one founder you took over for, and then four or five months in, you're taking over for another founder. How different was that from the previous appointments that you've had? Was it the same, or have you found that you had to approach it in a different way?

Kevin: The hallmark of my career, I would say this to everyone, is you've got to figure out a way to be about brilliant execution. If you see yourself as the leader of a business or a team, you've got to find a way to execute. Execution happens on many different levels. One of them in particular is just how you build relationships in the organization. Number one, you’ve got to have great people around you. And they have to want to travel with you.

No matter where you are in your career, and what level you're at, you have to engage. You have to have the people that are working for you want to follow you. They have to see themselves in that mission. Everyone has to understand the role that they play, and you appreciate them for the role that they play. Once you get that, you can conquer all sorts of challenges.

Jeff: Skip operates so tightly, because it's so connected in every different way, and everything is on-demand. How did you go about building those relationships across the company? Were you going in operations and sitting with the teams? Or was it just speaking with leaders? Did you have a process?

Kevin: I don't know if it's a conscious, deliberate process. I accept that I don't know a lot, but I also have a responsibility to close that gap as quickly as possible. If I'm going to be asked to make decisions and be responsible for decisions that teams are making, I need to understand why we're making those decisions. As you mentioned, in three-sided marketplaces, every one of those things needs to be in balance. Every one of those teams who are responsible for your customers and restaurants needs to be talking to one another, and working together because ultimately, the goal is shared.

Jeff: You mentioned something earlier that I want to come back to [about] being in the weeds and that you like being in the weeds, but then all of a sudden you need to rise up. I think a lot of people struggle to let go of the role or function that they once had. Did you find that was a challenge for you?

Kevin: We were only five months into elevating our brand, we had a lot of plans, and I had to be less about understanding all of the details. [When I was] in the weeds, I needed to understand every facet of what we were doing. Then all of a sudden, I needed to apply equal weight to all other parts of the business. It was hard. I have to be honest with you. It's still hard. You can't steer things. You've got to let things go. You've got to let people travel.

Jeff: How did you go about doing that? How do you provide that coaching and say, “Hey, I would do it another way”, while at the same time empowering them to do it their way, too?

Kevin: It's about recognizing when it's your opinion versus asking “Have I experienced this differently? And do I know that this is not the direction? Or is it just my opinion?” Those are two different things. Having the wisdom at a certain age when you've made that mistake five times, being able to say, “Hey, listen, I don't think that's where we should be going”.

I do that across other parts of the business now because three years in, our company has grown so much. We've hired so many new people. They've inherited other people's work, but they see the world differently. If there are mistakes to be made, make them because we're stretching, because we're innovating, because we're trying to go into new places, don’t make them because people don't know where we went before.

Managing a High-Growth Environment

Jeff: I like what you said there. It's not making a mistake because you weren't aware of the details of a certain part of the company. You're making that mistake because you're pushing yourself. When you hire people, especially in the marketing world, do you give them a warning sign? Even where you're like, “Hey, I know you have all this experience. But here's how it's gonna be different here,” because Skip is an on-demand, three-sided marketplace?

Kevin: I don't think anyone can truly be prepared for this business. We've hired people from very traditional businesses, but I think people are finding that it's a sense of freedom to take in some very traditional backgrounds and have them use those skills and learned experience and apply them to a fast-growing tech business. We need to hire people like that, right? They need to be inquisitive. [What] I want to hear in a conversation is somebody who is frustrated because what they're doing is the same old. What they want is to leverage whatever experience they've gained and be part of something bigger and challenging. Every day you're uncomfortable, and you're operating without a net. Those are the people that excel the most.

Jeff: It's completely different. A lot of companies would be happy if they grew in double digits, year over year. Oftentimes, Skip is growing by double digits, month over month. How have you found decision-making different in hyper-growth versus steady-state growth of more mature industries?

Kevin: We were on a pretty impressive growth trajectory anyway. With the pandemic, the last 18 months have changed that significantly. We just got there probably a year and a half, a couple of years sooner. I think the best evidence of how good this business is, how great the people are that work here, that lead here, that innovate here is the fact that we were able to. So it's one thing to have an opportunity to grow at triple digits. It's another thing to be able to handle it.

The customer experience suffers because you're going from zero to 60, virtually within 30 days. We were able to take that on and be great as a business. That's because of the people that roll up their sleeves, get on a call, figure this out, no question. Our previous trajectory was manageable. But to flip that switch overnight really speaks to our capability and excellence as a business.

Connecting with Canadian Roots

Jeff: A lot of people don't understand when they look at an app, so Skip for them, it's an app or a website. There isn't as much awareness because, again, an app like Instagram or something can grow virally. There are still operations involved, but you're not physically moving people and food from place to place. So when you have that type of triple-digit growth, it impacts everything. There are so many moving pieces. Is there anything that you wish Canadians knew about Skip or about the business model itself?

Kevin: We are a Canadian business founded by five young men. Built by a very dedicated group of people. Dozens of people built this business in Canada, on the prairies. We weren't born in Silicon Valley or other tech hotspots. We were built here. And we also have all of our infrastructure here. All of our tech was built here. I don't think it's boasting, [and] I think it's a fact. We have the best platform, and how do we prove that? Because we're profitable. We have achieved that.

I think as Canadians, we're underappreciated. That's what fuels us. What I would tell everyone is that while we may be owned by a global business, we still have all of our infrastructure here. We have hundreds of engineers here in Canada. When you hit our app, you've got 3600-3700 Canadians working behind the scenes. Our customer service is all here, and we're proud of that. We're going to continue to talk about that.

Our competitors aren't earnest about the way that they built their business. Canada, to many, is a bit of a branch plan. It's another market to conquer, but this is our home. I wouldn't suggest that anybody cares more deeply about restaurants and our partners than we do. We live on those streets where those partners have been struggling the last couple of years, and we care deeply. I think that's a bit of the Canadian spirit.

Jeff: That's well said. It does make a difference. The orders you're placing are keeping friends and family employed, creating income and jobs in Canada. Skip has offices in Calgary, Toronto, and Winnipeg. I've heard you talk a lot about why that's so important. I'd love to hear your take on why it's important that Skip is here in Canada because a lot of companies could take their jobs elsewhere. And that happens all the time.

Kevin: We will always be in Winnipeg, where we will always have the majority of our infrastructure, our employees. [The people in Winnipeg are] earnest, honest, loyal, and not distracted.

I often say, “You know, I have a conversation with somebody in Toronto at a mixer or a networking event. They're looking over your shoulder to see where the next best conversation is. In Winnipeg, people look you in the eyes, and they want to talk about you. They're interested in you." It's a wonderful place. They're also really nice people. I don't think that this business would [have been] as successful, certainly as quickly as we were if it were built anyplace else. It's important that these businesses succeed on people's dedication, talent, and skill. In a place where right around the corner is another opportunity, you may not be able to retain everybody. Winnipeg is the reason we are where we are.

Jeff: I thought the same thing when I moved to Winnipeg. I had never imagined myself living there. When I got there, I was living out of a suitcase for a while. I was just shocked at the people who were there, and I'm wondering. Why do you think there's such a difference between people's expectations of what Winnipeg is like and what it is like when they get there?

Kevin: I think Winnipeg suffers from a few Winnipeg jokes. I'm [from] Toronto, right. I was born and raised here. My family is here. I was even very surprised at what I found when I moved there. But you know what, Winnipeg people don't care. They don't care what Toronto thinks about them. Some of my best qualities are because I was raised in Toronto, but some of my new and best qualities are because I lived in Winnipeg.

Jeff: I want to touch on what you think the real value Skip provides to Canadians is. I want to touch on some of the brand side. People see it as [just] food delivery. Do you see it as being something different?

Kevin: If you just hold us up as an example of a great tech business that was built and has achieved success here in Canada. As an example to other Canadian entrepreneurs or people building startups. Shopify, us, Neo is another example of that. It is possible here. It's not only possible, it is likely here because we have the talent here. It can be done here. You can stay here [and] be true to your employees and your original principles. You can build a tech business here in Canada and the prairies, as we have both proven. We're an example of what you can achieve. In terms of what the brand means for Canada, you have to differentiate.

Some have said that this is a commodity business, and I disagree. How [we] approach customers, the business, our partners, how [we] manage [our] business is unique. We celebrate that. We distinguish our brand by having a sense of humor and, being self-deprecating, being true to who we are. When somebody opens up the app, we've got to have a great assortment. We've got to represent the restaurants in your area. We've got to have a great customer experience, which we do. I don't expect [Canadians] to buy from us because we're Canadians. I expect them to hang around because of the experience and what we offer.

Jeff: I love hearing the refrains “we can do this” and “why not us?” There are a lot of people who look at different food delivery apps. For Skip, that ability to be uniquely Canadian is one differentiator. You guys are also launching other new verticals as well. You're not just resting on your laurels of being Canadian. I've heard great things about Skip Express Lane. Can you tell us a bit about the motivation behind doing that? And why is that so important?

Kevin: I think it's important to our global business, our parent, Just Eat Takeaway. We look to new areas of growth. Convenience emerged and became a really important category during COVID. Running out to your local convenience store for things you needed in a hurry, suddenly, you could do that through an app. We're not unique in this space, but what we've done is we've built a convenience business ourselves. Bringing on-demand and being great at it. We are proving this case for our global business. We didn't invent this. Our competitors are in this space, too. We just plan to do it better, and we plan to earn the highest reorder rates from our customers because we're that good at it.

The Future of Food Delivery

Jeff: Is the assortment of items something that is going to be able to be updated and curated to the local tastes of every market, or is each Express Lane fairly similar?

Kevin: If [we’re] going to be in Winnipeg, [we] better be delivering Jenna Rae Cakes, reflecting the taste of that market. People feel very loyal and possessive of things from their area. An aspect of it is that local flavour, those local things that you can't live without. It could be a bag of chips made in a local factory, or beer and spirits that are local. You do need to reflect the kind of on-demand convenience assortment that's expected. It could be diapers, a flat of Coke, or ice cream, and all of those things are high on the list of items. It's also reflective of who we are. We're Canadians. We appreciate all of these places in Canada that have uniqueness. Vancouver is not the same as Toronto and not [like] Portage La Prairie or Saskatoon.

Jeff: The fact that you've built these relationships with businesses to become an additional distribution channel is quite clever. For [someone] who, maybe getting Jenna Rae Cakes was going to be a 30-minute drive, or maybe they're closed, this is going to make [their] day. They hit a button, and it's there in 20 minutes. That's a big deal. That's going to have a huge impact as you scale across the country.

Kevin: It has for restaurants. Look over the last year and a half, [and] our industry has taken a lot of broadsides. We didn’t close restaurants, and the last thing we ever wanted was for restaurants to struggle. The business is about incremental revenue for restaurants, often outside their regular core dinner hours. It was never intended to be a single source of revenue for any of these restaurants. It’s meant to be complementary and maybe cover additional costs, [and] to expose their brand to a wider audience.

We’re caught in the pandemic, and we still have to operate a business. We’ve still got 3500 - 3600 people in Winnipeg behind that app. We still see ourselves in the same way we did three years ago, but the pandemic has changed that. Businesses like you’re talking about, local companies, now have the opportunity to expose their products or make them available at any time‌ across an entire city. That is why this business was built in the first place. To bring it to other categories, packaged goods, or other feature items is exciting!

Jeff: Even before we started, we talked about the move to remote work. What do you see as missing from that? What have you seen in your organization that has been missing from people not being face-to-face?

Kevin: I don't think we’re going to know that for a while. I’ve said [this] a number of times, I think innovation happens face-to-face. Innovation happens in a casual conversation at lunch. It happens when somebody passes somebody’s desk. A light goes off in the middle of the night, and somebody rushes into the office the next day and grabs a coffee, and says, “Here’s what I was thinking about.” I know that we’ve got great platforms now, but the energy of someone standing with a whiteboard marker, and then somebody grabs that marker and takes it the rest of the way. We’ve lost all of that.

Jeff: Where do you think food delivery is heading? What’s next?

Kevin: We’re grabbing hold of what’s next. For us, we are on-demand. We are, “What can we get to you in 30 minutes.” You think about it, and it’s like a big pipe. How much can we put into that pipe and still maintain the customer experience? The franchise is food delivery from restaurants, but what else can we put in that pipe? We’ve built a strong and sustainable business to sustain a customer experience by putting other things in that pipe. That’s ultimately where it’s going. A lot of stuff you don’t need in 30 minutes, but maybe if you can have it in 30 minutes, it might change your perspective a little bit, right? I think just building a business to meet the challenge of new customer expectations. That’s where we need to focus.