Eli Harrell On Building People Focused Products Through Effective Team Design

Host of Products with Purpose and co-founder of Valhalla.team, Eli serves purpose-driven entrepreneurs and people who are working to make the future a better place.

His main ways of doing this are by supporting and guiding founders in their growth as conscious leaders and strengthening their belief that we actually can create the future we desire.

His company Valhalla does this by helping purpose-driven companies building tech products to be sure they are building exactly the product that will create the impact they desire.

He’s a student of the human experience and a philosophical thinker who desires to inspire others to build lives and businesses around deep purpose so that we may all become better ancestors to future generations.

Eli discusses How Valhalla is helping Purpose Led businesses develop more sustainably Through Prioritising enhanced Impact processes.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Indio Myles] - To start off, could you please share a bit about your background and what led to your work in social enterprise?

[Eli Harrell] - I grew up with a little bit of a non-traditional childhood. I was home-schooled, and my parents were entrepreneurs. I was the eldest of eight kids, so I grew up working with my parents. I had this very entrepreneurial spirit; I wasn't on the education to employment path that a lot of people start out on. I've always had this entrepreneurial mindset and approach to life, so I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. But it wasn't probably until my late thirties, after building and helping start quite a few businesses in many industries, that I finally realised the core concept of business isn't necessarily for the purpose of creating wealth for the owners. It's a sustainable model which allows us to pull energy and resources together towards solving a problem and/or making the world a better place. It took me a while to realise this meaning, which I was looking for in life. I wasn't getting it through business originally because I was not focusing on those aspects. I ended up totally shifting to prioritising partnerships with people who have worldviews, values and hierarchy aligned with myself. Whether they are businesses or charities, it doesn't matter. I want to help organisations, models and products creating an impact and a better future. I want them to be solving the problems we really care about or that we are desperate to solve right now. That was the shift that happened to me in probably 2017-18, when I finally realised I've got to be creating businesses that are just putting impact first.

As Co-founder and the Chief of Purpose at Valhalla, can you please share how you are helping purpose-driven tech enterprises and firms improve their ventures?

I went into business with the only entrepreneurs I knew at the time who saw the world in business and humans similarly to me. We started a software company, because technology is such a powerful tool for amplifying, leveraging and magnifying impact. My business partner Derrick loves technology. I'm more human-centric; my passions lie in the human experience and worldview level thinking, but he loves technology. We started a software agency with the idea that we would spawn companies. We wanted to create enough resources, expertise and leaders to spawn companies that would solve meaningful problems in the world. About two years into that, we realised that:

A) the agency model most people use is broken and doesn't really work that well for tech start-ups, and:

B) why would we spawn this long path to starting companies when we could just find people who are already working to solve problems we care about and make them better?

Over five years we've evolved our company into one that is known for amplifying the impact of purpose-driven tech companies. The way we do that is mostly centred around building teams. We really focus on helping tech companies that are early on their journey, maybe in the first three years of getting a little bit of scale or they've got an MVP in the market. We help optimise their team dynamics and processes. We think everything centres around teams, but there are several pillars of product development we help make sure are really optimised, so that impact is more likely to happen. Let's say you're a tech company or an impact driven entrepreneur and you're using technology to deliver that value to the world. You’re not necessarily a ‘tech company’, but maybe tech is at the centre of what you're doing. Maybe you are not super technical yourself, maybe you don't have a tech knowledgeable co-founder, and so you've got to master the art of building an amazing product that serves the people you're trying to serve. If you don't do that, the impact you want to see in the world is far less likely. We work with the entire ecosystem and all the disciplines that go into that with a team centred focus. We help companies build out the teams they need, even if they have no team at all. If they do have a team, we help fill gaps in it. We have this interesting model I haven't really come across before, but we've crafted it out of watching what doesn't work and what we think people really need. We build culturally meshed teams, where they're super part of both Valhalla’s and our client's culture. We build these long-term partnerships and help them reduce the management overhead of the whole process. We basically become embedded partners with these impact tech companies.

How can entrepreneurs optimise development processes and whilst continuing to bring positive change into their business model and product offerings?

It’s complex, there's a lot of moving pieces, and like anything with a lot of complexity, you've got many spokes in the wheel and you probably can't master them all at the same time. Like any question ever, the answer is, "it depends!" It depends on what product you're building, how complex it is, who is it for, and what expertise do you already have? But probably the number one piece of advice I would share is just develop relationships with people who are experts in those areas.

Consistently, with every part of your business, have a regular check-in, where you get a pulse on what you're doing well or what needs improvement. It’s a powerful tool to have access to external feedback.

This is something we try to provide. Even if somebody's not working with us, we will help them do a quick scan of their product development ecosystem, team, and say, "here are the places where you're killing it and things are super strong." But we will also say, "here are the places you might want to focus your energy.” This is to bring them up to the next level and evolve these areas. Customer feedback systems or product management skillsets are often areas where companies haven't yet matured themselves, and so I think the first recommendation I would give is to start a three-month cadence of getting external perspectives on how you're performing in different arenas. Account for all the different spokes the whole process, so that you can keep identifying where you are doing great. But also, you can ensure your team is on the cutting edge, for example, you could be learning AI and how to use that in development.

As host of the podcast series Products With Purpose, why do you think it's important for stories of change led initiatives and entrepreneurs to be actively shared in the community?

It’s incredibly important for a number of reasons. Number one, we need models. For example, I was home-schooled in the eighties and nineties in the US. Back then, nobody had ever heard of that, and my mom was considered crazy. Some people even yelled at us when they'd see us in the grocery store during the week saying, "you should be in school." But now, there are enough models for that, so people look at it and say, "oh this can work, this can be good." It's not so weird anymore. We really need models to have the guts to do new things. If you haven't seen anyone else do it, it's just really hard to be the first. Second of all, learning is crucial.

Hearing stories of other people's experiences can not only show you what to do, what not to do, where to look or who to connect with, but also it can give you the courage that what you're doing might be just on target.

The last idea I would mention right now which I focus on a lot in the podcast (and have just launched new content around) is we need to believe. It's so important; if we're dedicating a large portion of our lives toward being changemakers, we have to believe to some degree that the work we're doing can make a difference. When you're only surrounded by the news, or depending on who you happen to have in your sphere of influence, the data coming into your brain every day is probably not the most uplifting stuff. That’s what I'm trying to do with the podcast, have a place where you can tune in and hear stories that make you realise, "oh my God, there are people out there solving the problems I worry about. I can just stay focused on the one I'm solving and be part of a big movement in the right direction." This is instead of feeling like everything is heading in the wrong direction, which is what the news will often convince us of.

From your experiences, have you observed any key pieces of advice you would give to a purpose-led individual who wants to start their own social enterprise?

Talk to a lot of people, whether it's just sharing an idea you haven't gotten out of your head yet. I just actually started a social enterprise here in The Philippines I've been thinking about for seven years; and part of me was beating myself up because I didn’t start it early enough. But I thought about the idea a lot, talked to a lot of people, got feedback on my ideas, and got enough positive feedback that I realised, "I have to find a way to get this launched." Once I started putting that vision out to people, I could not believe the amount of support that existed. It overwhelms me when I think about how many people are out there, whether it's capital or helping with their time, skills, or network. It's unbelievable how much people will support you if you just put the vision out there.

Just keep working on articulating the vision and keep telling people about it and what you want to see change in the world. You'd be surprised how many people will support you, and when they want to, let them.

Accept if somebody wants to give some of their time to help you. Put effort into making it easier for them to help you and create systems so that people can collaborate or contribute. That's one big thing that I'm trying to get better at. My enterprise is called Emerge Philippines, and we want to help 5 million Filipinos by the year 2030 to take radical ownership of their own learning and growth. It's self-development and believing that people can change their future by moulding themselves.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently that you believe are creating positive social change?

I recently interviewed James Hatchman. He's the founder of Voice of Health in Melbourne, and I really love their approach to providing access for mental health. What I really love about their model is they’re creating a platform that helps train any of us (that want to get better at it) in active listening. This involves learning how to be present and hold space for people that are struggling, and then connecting these people that are really struggling or in a bad space with someone who's been trained on active listening. I love what they're doing, but there are many I've come across. That one just pops into my mind.

To finish off, are there any books or resources you would recommend to our listeners?

There are two I will pick because they're recent for me. My first recommendation is Longpath by Ari Wallach, and I'm talking about this so much in my podcast lately. In the future, I'll be talking about it even more. This is a very short book, easy to read, and for any of us out there who are thinking about or already committed to steering the future in a better direction, this is a beautiful book that gives us language. The subtitle of the book was in my bio, which is basically about becoming better ancestors for future generations. There are incredible metaphors in this book about the time we live in. This time feels so unstable, there's so much change happening, and people are really scared about it. There are some metaphors I'm going to let you guys figure out; I'm not going to go into it and spoil it. There's some incredible language in that book I would recommend to any change makers out there. The second book I would recommend is called 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Detmer and Diana Chapman. It's the best leadership book I've ever read when it comes to just building a heart-centred organisation.