In my latest SHM 24 conversation, we'll talk to Jennifer Dulski, the founder of Team Performance Software Rising Team. They recently raised $8 million in funding and we'll find out more about this new HR tech startup.
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Alright, broadcasting live from the GP booth at SHRM 24 in Chicago. And my guest today is Jennifer Dulsky. She's the CEO of a company called Rising Team. Just got $8 million in funding. We're going to talk about that, but Rising Team provides the industry leading team performance platform. Its software enables companies to increase employee engagement and retention, scale talent development and improve culture and connection. Jennifer, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Great. So congrats on the funding round $8 million, I think I was back in early June.
That's right. It it's led by Zeal Capital Partners and other existing investors came back into people like Peterson Ventures, female Founders Fund and Roble Ventures. Yeah,
So it's tough marketing HR fund, HR tech funding. So congrats on that, but what's the origin story of the company? Let's start there.
So I've spent most of my background working at big tech companies. I've worked at Facebook and Google and Yahoo and I helped to lead change.org for five years and I am basically building the tool I wish I had had as a leader of teams, which is the case for many founders. I was lucky to have executive coaches and be sent to amazing trainings, but I always felt like I was being taught to fish and then I had to go back to the lake, which was my team with the binder on how to fish instead of a fishing pole. So rising team essentially builds tools that equip managers to bring to life the things they learn about driving high performing teams with their teams on their own without an outside facilitator.
In the press release it says, lemme find the phrase here, leaders in hybrid and distributed workplace. So is this more of a remote first type of product?
Absolutely not. I'd say we have customers that range from large Fortune 500 companies to nonprofits and government agencies and schools. Some people do it in person, some people do use it remote and hybrid. Essentially it's software that equips managers to run these interactive, deeply connecting sessions with their teams. And it is true that it's especially helpful for teams that don't work together in person. It's also true that sometimes even teams that work together in person are not very intentional about doing things like that, so it helps them too.
Give me an example. One of these sessions, walk it through.
So we have three different types of what we call kits. The first are development kits, which are on the skills of high performing teams. So you take a topic like psychological safety and we create a kit that does everything an outside facilitator would do. So it starts with learning goals and some ground rules and then a warmup activity and then an exercise The team does, it's all software guided so anybody can lead it. You just kind of follow the steps and the team does it synchronously, whether they're in person or remote and on a device. So they're on either a laptop or a phone and they're entering data. So for instance, in psychological safety, you might create a user manual where you're talking about things like what times of day do you prefer to work and how do you like to receive your constructive feedback? And the teams are connecting and gaining insights about each other. The benefit of having it go into software is that we then also can filter it into an AI coach that knows everything about your team. So that's the other core part of the product.
Okay. So why is this the right time for a product like this in the market and also for the funding as well?
Yeah, so there's a few key factors. One is, as you said, hybrid and distributed work. So more than ever companies we're now at 75% of all tele workable jobs are hybrid. So people need that deeper connection with their teams. The second is that managers are more burned out and overwhelmed than they've ever been. Gartner says 75% of managers say they're completely overwhelmed. And so companies don't really have tools that scale to the frontline manager level. Usually when they do leadership
Development, this is a manager tool then
It's a team tool. So unlike, it's actually a really good point because usually the way we train managers is in groups of managers. We put them in cohorts together and we don't give them anything to bring back with their teams. Instead, we train managers by giving them this software and having them facilitate a session with their whole team. Two key benefits, one is they learn it better by practicing it themselves, and two, the team is involved so they feel more valued.
Who do you sell this to? Is it HR or is it some other aspect?
Yeah, so we tend to go in through functional or divisional leaders at companies like CIOs or CMOs or a head of a division. Sometimes we go in directly through HR too, especially at very large companies. There's always a partnership with HR though. Even if we go in through, say a VP of engineering, they're bringing their HR partner with them to help make sure they believe in the tool and they'll help them implement it and so forth. Honestly though, we try to make it as easy as possible. We do all the leader training and so forth. So once they are bought in, there's very little work on their side to do.
Oh, team performance. Can you put it in the bucket of performance management as sort of a HR technology?
It's not performance management. So we don't do yet at least performance reviews, it's more team performance in the sense that the better your team understands each other and can resolve conflict and feels psychologically safe and so forth, the better they will perform. And we have a lot of data about, we move right now things like employee engagement, ENPS manager effectiveness scores between 20 and 80%.
What was your first customer experience? Tell me about that.
Our first customer is actually the bank of Hawaii. They were really interested and interestingly they work a lot in person, they're hybrid, but they do work a lot in person. But they wanted something that they could scale out to their whole organization. So originally they had been doing things mainly for senior leadership and they wanted something to scale and we tend to use a pilot approach. So they started with a pilot and then they saw the results from the pilot and then they rolled out to their entire organization. And we also built them some custom kits. So we have a lot of in-house pre-made ready kits for people to use, but they also wanted things on their own leadership principles and their own operating excellence principles. And so we made them interactive workshops based on their content too.
Do you have a favorite feature of the product?
My favorite feature is our new AI coach. We call it rd. So it's AI with RT for rising team in the middle. We are trying to be clever there, but it's essentially, again, I wish I had had this tool because my team, for example, we've done dozens and dozens of these sessions together. My team has told me so much about themselves, but I can't always remember everything they told me. Now I have an AI coach who's available to me 24 7, who remembers everything my team ever told them. So I can ask it questions like Susan is feeling burned out, how do I support her? And it will give me specific answers just to Susan, like Susan likes only working on two to three things at a time. Help her with her to-do list, or Susan likes running in the middle of the day, remind her to take a break. And then it gives me a completely different answer for other people on my team.
They almost getting to employee engagement there helps the managers to just stay in touch with that employee.
Exactly. Much better managers. The other thing is it's available to every team member too, not just the managers. So this is why I say it's team performance. An individual contributor can also say, how do I tell my manager, I think this meeting is a waste of my time. And it will give you specific answers tied to the preferences of that manager.
What's your biggest challenge right now?
Well, it's a tough market out there, right? Everybody has a lot of priorities and so our goal is to help people understand why this is a priority and I
You'll do some educating in the market, right? For these
A little bit. And what I tend to, it's basically time pressure is the biggest hurdle. So people say, we're so busy we don't have time. Rising team only takes three to four hours per quarter. So it's less than 1% of people's time to see the kind of results we're talking about. And that's why I try,
You're not in it every day. Then as
You're not, you might use the AI tool every day, and we also have mini kits that take 10 to 15 minutes. So you might use those once a week and your team meetings. But to get the results of engagement boost and manager effectiveness boost, you only need to run two to three sessions a quarter, and that's less than 1% of your time. And I tell people, if you don't have 1% of your time to invest in understanding your team, it's no wonder they don't feel valued by you. Sounds
Like it would make the managers better too. Better perceived by
13. Much better. And the favorite story I use to talk about this is from Maverick. Did you see Top Gun Maverick? Yep. Yeah. So you know this scene where he takes them to the beach to play flag football and the Admiral comes over and he says, what are you doing playing games? We have this critically important mission and Maverick says, you told me to make them a team, sir, there's your team. You just can't. No matter how important your goals and mission, you can't set aside caring for and understanding for your team. That's why people quit. They don't have managers that care about them. And so we tell you in just a few hours a quarter, you can guarantee your team will stay and feel valued by you.
Very cool. Well Jennifer, thanks for your time today. Tells the audience where to go learn more about your company.
It's rising team.com.
Awesome, thanks. Thank you.