Hi, my name is Caneel. I have taught at Stanford's d.school and The London School of Economics, and I hold a PhD from The Haas School at Berkeley. I focus on leadership coaching and culture building for quickly scaling and changing companies.
I am the founder of Kickass Enterprises, a boutique consulting firm offering growth strategy services to high growth and early stage startups. (kickassenterprises.com). I have been a startup executive in charge of growth (Britely, acquired by Groupon) and have consulted for some of the world's greatest startups and companies including Tumblr, Path, Aspiration, Nutmeg, Mozilla, Wells Fargo, Disney, Panasonic, Sunpower, and Cisco.
I have 15 years of experience working with innovative organizations and startups, and a PhD in Organizational Behavior from one of the top programs in the world, UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. My areas of expertise are organizational culture, authentic leadership, creativity, conflict, and team dynamics.
Are you trying to do something unconventional? Carve your own path? Set the world on fire in your own way? Whether you're a startup founder, an MBA, a PhD student or an independent thinker trying to kick ass in a large organization, I can help.
I have been on faculty at Stanford's d.School, co-founded by IDEO's David Kelly, where I taught Designing Creative Organizations and design thinking. I have years of experience coaching teams and organizations in user centered design and have published original research on design team dynamics.
I have advised dozens of startups founders and held growth and marketing roles inside several startups. With a PhD in Organizational Behavior, I help entrepreneurs overcome the strategic, organizational, and psychological roadblocks to bringing their idea to market, growth, and scaling without compromising their vision or losing their soul.
Great question! Here are the basics:
The Lean Startup by Eric Reis http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898
Running Lean by Ash Maurya http://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Works-Series/dp/1449305172/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=03VER05GWM6QV80D49ZH *excellent, concrete, super actionable
The Startup Owner's Manual by Steve Blank http://www.amazon.com/The-Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-By-Step/dp/0984999302/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0JNJVNK8B46D6M98W1A5 *the bible!
Lean Customer Development by Cindy Alvarez http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Customer-Development-Building-Customers/dp/1449356354/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429290160&sr=1-1&keywords=customer+discovery+validation *focused on methods you'll need to use to validate feature and value prop ideas
When in doubt, **stop debating**. You are not your customer. Get out of the building. Don't build unless you're testing what you build, and ready to throw away what you build when you get answers.
Good luck! Books are helpful as background, but for specific advice on where you and your company specifically should invest time, set up a call with me. https://clarity.fm/caneel
That depends on what is unique and "evergreen" about your approach. A lot of companies exist to encourage conversation in the workplace. I'd focus not on the product's features but on the end result - the benefits, and in particular, the emotional benefits of using the product.
For example, Clarity.fm supports conversations but it's not called "Expert chat" - what a boring brand that would be! Instead they have chosen the territory of "clarity", which is the feeling you WANT to have when you have finished using the product. It's the brand's promise. I am willing to speak with an expert, and to pay them, when what I want above all else is Clarity. I could hunt for answers on the internet, but it's often overwhelming with a lot of conflicting advice. When you speak with an expert however you feel a sense of clarity.
So for you, what is the unique value prop? What is the feeling you are promising to create? Happy to discuss. Calls with me are free right now. Give me a ring and we can brainstorm.
- Caneel Joyce, http://kickassenterprises.com
Caneel is extraordinary! Im not sure if she is a jedi or if she has some superhuman ablity.
She has the keen sense to help you develop your thinking ability to make better business decisions. Words really cannot describe her ability, but she is truly amazing and im extremely excited to see how my business evolves under her advice.
Certainly one of the most informative calls I've been on! Caneel helped provide a step by step road map of some of the things that we need to do moving forward and this clarification will be extremely beneficial to our strategy going into the immediate future! Thanks Caneel, we will reconnect soon!
Perceptive, kind and on point! Caneel was able to quickly get to the bottom of a difficult situation, put me at ease, and succinctly recommend a workable solution. In a short call she earned my highest recommendation! HIGHLY RECOMMEND!
I recommend Caneel for her compassion, listening skills, and creative ideas. She did the research on my company and came up with kick-ass strategies to help us grow. I plan to use her services again.
Very insightful
Caneel was able to quickly grasp the nature of our complex problem. She jumped back and forth easily between explaining some of the basic fundamentals that we lacked, and addressing the specific nuances of our task. Our problem required bridging the fuzzy world of design with quantitative metrics and Caneel navigated both worlds with ease.
Caneel joined our little startup and totally shifted the way we thought about our customer and how to engage them. Her fresh take on what we were trying to accomplish was a welcome addition to the team.
Her contributions were not limited to the paradigm shift that she initially brought. Time and again Caneel was able to reveal things about our customer, our business model and interactions that flew in the face of what we thought we knew.
She was key in accomplishing everything we did as a team. Her creativity, insight, and generosity are second to none.
As a participant in the Haas@Work program, I experienced Caneel's innovative brainstorming frameworks and team building skills. Her energy, out-of-the-box thinking and tremendous leadership enabled our team to exploit everyone's potential in a very short time frame. Her brainstorming techniques were highly effective and I would consider Caneel's expertise outside of the Haas@Work program to help on other business issues.
Caneel is an incredible resource that I didn't realize I needed. Our film production business was struggling with some internal tension around decision making and priorities between production and creatives. Caneel came in and really helped us analyze and understand our group dynamic and uncovered areas that needed attention. Our sessions were engaging and ran smoothly. The work that we did was infinitely valuable and has helped us grow and transition our organization into a tension-free zone.
Caneel is energetic, insightful, trustworthy, and dependable. She has an excellent work ethic and is always up for a challenge. A pleasure to work with, I highly recommend working with her if you have the opportunity.
Stop reading – you need to work with Caneel. She’s smart, strategic, creative, knowledgeable and just plain fun to be around. Whether helping you think creatively about driving value for yourself and your organization in negotiations or coming up with the overarching management structure and culture, you can be sure her unique insights will position you right where you need to be – and miles beyond the rest. Seek her insights whenever possible.
Caneel is super bright and great to work with. She is well-versed in many facets of Organization Development, especially focusing on creativity and innovation. She has a unique knack of looking at situations from a multitude of perspectives; this allows her to help others do the same. I highly recommend her for helping organizations move beyond the status quo.
