PDF Summary:Reboot, by Jodie Fox

Reboot explores the rise and fall of Jodie Fox’s global business, Shoes of Prey—an innovative start-up that allowed customers to design their own shoes. Fox offers an honest look into her successes and failures as an entrepreneur, proving that there’s always value in the process of owning a business, even if your business doesn’t work out. She also provides advice on dealing with many of the situations you’ll encounter should you build a global business.

Throughout this guide, we’ll discuss topics such as how to start your business, how to negotiate cultural differences as an international entrepreneur, and how to manage mental health struggles as a business owner. We’ll also use examples from Fox’s time with Shoes of Prey to illustrate her points. In our commentary, we’ll discuss strategies for developing a business idea, offer advice for identifying and navigating cultural differences in business, and explore additional tips for taking care of your mental health.

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However, over time, she noticed that the suppliers were always dressed well, wearing their nicest jewelry and driving expensive cars. She realized that they communicated the success of their businesses through their appearance.

By dressing simply, she left the suppliers feeling unsure that she represented a serious business. She started wearing expensive clothes and jewelry to meetings instead, convincing suppliers that Shoes of Prey had money to pay them.

How to Dress for Success in International Business

As Fox notes, when deciding how you should dress for business interactions, think about how you want to be perceived, and dress for the role you want to fill. However, don’t dress solely based on what you think that role looks like. Consider what that role looks like to the people you’ll be working with, especially if they come from a different country.

Fox initially tried to convey that she was a serious professional with her minimal garb. However, she misjudged how her Chinese partners would perceive her. You can avoid making similar mistakes by researching what’s considered appropriate business attire in the country you’re visiting or by reviewing your outfit choice with someone you know and trust from that country.

Example #2: How Local Holidays Affect Business

Furthermore, understand the important holidays where you do business and how they’ll affect your work. Fox learned this lesson when she and her co-founders failed to account for the effect Chinese New Year would have on their manufacturing. They knew that Chinese suppliers closed for two weeks during Chinese New Year, but they assumed that a reduced crew of workers would be available during the holidays since that’s common practice in Australia, where they’re from.

When they asked about keeping some staff on during the two weeks, their suppliers were upset that they didn’t understand the importance of the holiday or what it would take to keep the factory going with a reduced staff. Fox and the team worked it out by paying the workers a much higher rate during the holidays. Still, Fox and her co-founders could have prevented the problem with better cultural understanding and communication.

(Shortform note: If you have international employees, as Fox did, consider integrating their national and religious holidays into your corporate structure from the start. When you only include time off for holidays in your home country, you may leave your employees feeling disrespected and disheartened. To create a respectful culture around holidays and avoid the conflict Fox experienced, ask your regional leaders to create a list of the most important holidays in their country and share it with corporate. Put those holidays on the corporate calendar. Establish the expectation that everyone at the company must respect all culturally significant holidays and those who observe them.)

How to Map Cultural Differences

As Fox suggests, understanding other cultures is a vital part of international business. However, navigating nuances of communication and interaction with global partners alongside the other everyday stresses of running a business can feel overwhelming. To make this process easier, systematize your understanding of cultural differences using Erin Meyer’s method for measuring them, as explored in The Culture Map.

Meyer outlines eight categories for measuring cultural differences—communication, feedback, thinking, leadership, decision-making, trust, disagreement, and time perception—each of which includes a range of possible behavior between two extremes. Every country’s norms in each category fall somewhere between the two extremes. You can judge how different your country’s cultural expectations are from another country’s within any category based on how far you are from them on the behavioral range. You can then modify your behavior toward people from that other culture accordingly.

Hire Employees Local to the Other Country

Fox and her co-founders’ early struggles to communicate effectively with international partners highlighted the importance of hiring employees local to other countries. These employees could help them navigate the cultural differences, the language barrier, and the practical aspects of the business when Fox and her co-founders couldn’t be there.

If you’re working with suppliers in another country, consider hiring local employees to fill the following roles:

• Someone with professional networks in the country who can connect you with employment agencies. This will make it easier to hire more employees later on.
• People to set up your local office and manage the packing and shipping of your product
• People to manage everyday communication with suppliers, ensuring that daily operations are smooth and quality standards are met

(Shortform note: When hiring employees to run your international offices and manage relationships with suppliers, make sure you can trust and build rapport with them. You’ll depend on them to get an accurate picture of your international operations, which will require frequent and open communication. To find strong, trustworthy candidates for these roles, hire someone to help you with recruitment first.)

How to Hire Employees in Another Country

Fox and her co-founders temporarily hired a local employee to help them recruit employees in China. This is a great way to find potential international employees, but she doesn’t explain how to navigate the tricky legal and logistical process of hiring international employees. There are three main options you can use depending on your business needs:

Option 1: Establish a branch or subsidiary of your company in the country. This will allow you to legally hire employees there. Incorporating and registering a business in another country can be a lengthy and complicated process, so this option is best if you plan to establish a physical location for your business abroad and hire the employees indefinitely.

Option 2: Hire international workers as independent contractors. This means you don’t have to offer benefits or put workers on the payroll. However, every country has a different definition of what constitutes an independent contractor, so make sure you understand the country’s unique parameters. Otherwise, you may find yourself owing back pay, taxes, and benefits later on.

Option 3: Partner with an Employee of Record (EOR). An EOR acts as the official employer of your employees. They’re responsible for legal compliance and HR tasks. This option makes hiring international employees quick and easy because the EOR is already an established entity in the country.

Understand the Needs of International Customers

As Shoes of Prey grew, it began expanding into new markets, including Japan, Russia, and the Netherlands. During this expansion, Fox discovered that cultural differences matter when communicating with customers as well. Customers in different countries have varying customer service expectations, and you may have to make adjustments to your processes to keep these customers satisfied.

For example, Fox and her team worked with a partner in Japan who informed them that Japanese customers expect their parcels to arrive in perfect condition with elaborate packaging that enhances their experience of receiving the product. To avoid any issues with customer satisfaction in Japan, they shipped shoe orders first to their Japanese partner, rather than directly to customers. He acted as an intermediary, finishing the packing process and hiring special couriers to ensure the packages were still pristine by the time Japanese customers received them.

(Shortform note: The Japanese market is well-known for its emphasis on quirky products, and their standards for packaging are uniquely high. Japanese customers expect the packaging of products to have an appealing design, practical usability, and top-quality materials. Given these specific expectations, it was wise for Fox and her team to partner with someone who fully understood the culture.)

Cultural Distinctions in Customer Satisfaction Research

A recent study shows that traditional customer satisfaction research, which focuses on customer ratings of products and services, fails to account for important cultural distinctions. The most valuable information doesn’t come from customer ratings, but from the underlying assumptions that contribute to them. In Fox’s experience, for example, Japanese customers generally hold the assumption that a product is higher quality if it has nice packaging.

Paying attention to these assumptions can help you determine how best to connect with customers in different countries. For example, one product in the study had consistently high quality ratings across all countries, which suggested similarities across markets. However, the reasoning behind the quality ratings differed depending on the region. Most importantly, customers factored in cost as a primary measure of quality in all regions except Latin America.

With this research in mind, it would likely benefit your company to price your products higher than competitors in regions other than Latin America—the higher price will suggest to customers that it’s a higher quality product, making them more likely to buy it. However, in Latin America, you’ll have to find a different way to indicate the quality of your product.

Lesson #3: Making Big Decisions

In addition to understanding cultural differences while running an international business, Fox’s third major lesson was learning how to make big business decisions when you can’t predict their outcome.

When you’re building a business, you’ll frequently face choices that require you to act without knowing whether your decision will work out or not. Fox struggled with these decisions, becoming overwhelmed with the possibility of making the wrong choice.

(Shortform note: Entrepreneurship is inherently uncertain—most start-ups lack a solidified business model and depend on outside funding, so they’re especially vulnerable to economic disruptions. This means that every decision you make as an entrepreneur about the direction of your business carries a lot of financial risk, which can be a source of great stress. Fox wasn’t alone in her struggle with this unpredictability—research shows that uncertainty during decision-making activates the amygdala (the area of our brain that responds to fear or threat) and reduces activity in the striatal system (the part of our brain that responds to potential rewards). This means we’re actually wired to crave certainty.)

To handle big decisions, Fox used the following strategies:

Move forward before you feel ready. If you spend too much time deliberating during each step of building your business, you risk halting its progress completely. You likely won’t ever feel fully ready, so become comfortable with being unsure.

(Shortform note: In Courage Is Calling, Ryan Holiday also emphasizes the importance of making decisions before you’re ready. He argues that if you never take risks, you’ll never give yourself a chance to learn and grow.)

Choose the best possible solution for problems that arise, not a perfect one. Choosing a flawed solution is better than not moving forward at all because you’re waiting for certainty.

(Shortform note: To find the best possible solution, start by clarifying your problem. Once you have a clear idea of the issue you need to address, list some possible options for solving it. Then, weigh the pros and cons of each option, and move forward with the one that seems like it will generate the most favorable range of outcomes.)

Keep your solutions as simple as possible. You might waste valuable time and money trying to make complicated ideas work. For example, when deciding how to determine customer shoe size, Fox and the team tested several elaborate ways for customers to measure their feet before realizing that simply asking the customer their regular shoe size gave them the most accurate results.

(Shortform note: Fox’s advice to keep your solutions simple aligns with a well-known design principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid, also known as the KISS principle. An American aeronautical and systems engineer coined the term in the 1960s to capture the idea that simplicity should be the key goal when designing anything. Product and service users want things that are easy to use—they don’t care how clever the designer was, or how much work went into designing a complicated system. In keeping with that idea, Fox ended up choosing the method for determining customer shoe size that involved the least amount of work for the customer.)

Lesson #4: Creating a Strong Company Culture

Now that we’ve discussed Fox’s advice for overcoming decision paralysis as you build your business, we’ll cover some of the lessons Fox learned further along in her journey. In this section, we’ll discuss her advice for establishing a strong, positive company culture using clear policies, expectations, and support for employees, especially during times of transition.

Set Up Structure and Expectations

Fox recommends establishing administrative policies and structures early on to create clear expectations for employees. She and her co-founders didn’t do this in the early years of Shoes of Prey, and it caused confusion as the company grew.

(Shortform note: Experts agree with Fox’s assertion that companies should establish clear rules and policies even when the business is small. HR policies are like laws: They create a common set of expectations, understandings, and standards of acceptable behavior at a company. Additionally, they ensure that a company is legally compliant, protecting the company from litigation and promoting fair, consistent treatment of employees. Clear expectations (laid out in job descriptions, performance standards, objectives, and so on) give employees goals to work toward, helping the company to grow. Employees who know what’s expected of them are more engaged, productive, and satisfied at work.)

When the company moved from Australia to the United States in 2015, it hired a human resources manager who created the following policies to support the new volume of staff:

An annual employee survey that helped Fox and her management team identify themes of feedback they needed to address. Additionally, they implemented three smaller employee surveys throughout the year to track their progress on the feedback from the annual survey.

(Shortform note: Annual and quarterly surveys are a good way to show employees that you value their feedback and that they have input in the direction of the company. Experts argue that quarterly surveys requiring no more than 10 minutes to complete are optimal for ensuring participation, preventing survey fatigue, and providing management with relevant, actionable information. Every survey should have a clear focus and goal so employees aren’t confused about its purpose. Additionally, write survey questions that yield actionable results: Many companies use multiple choice questions for this purpose because the data from them is easy to compile and analyze.)

Lunchtime training sessions on professional development topics. (Shortform note: Regular training keeps employees aware of current expectations and increases productivity and performance.)

Frequent individual meetings between employees and the HR manager to discuss what’s helping and hindering the employees’ motivation. (Shortform note: Meeting one-on-one with HR instead of management enables employees to give honest feedback without feeling the pressure of criticizing their supervisors directly. If you’re the HR representative conducting these meetings, come prepared with a list of questions to guide the employee feedback. Ask questions that reflect the aspects of the employee experience your company wants to measure, like inclusivity or recognition for good work.)

Clear promotion tracks and employee hierarchies. (Shortform note: Having a clear promotion structure improves employee retention. Research shows that 35% of employees who voluntarily leave their jobs do so because there’s a lack of career development and promotion opportunities. Promotion policies should define how, when, and why an employee is eligible for a promotion, with specific and measurable goals.)

Provide Support During Difficult Times

Another important facet of Shoes of Prey’s company culture was the extensive support it gave its employees, especially in times of transition and struggle. Fox offers suggestions for the following situations:

Example #1: Moving to a New Country

When Fox and her co-founders decided to move the company to the United States, they offered all 24 of their Australian employees the chance to move with them, and 22 decided to do it. Fox found that the following support measures helped her employees make the transition:

Make a checklist with information about the administrative side of moving, like visa paperwork, taxes, and health care costs. Moving to a new country can be overwhelming, so you’ll significantly help your employees by doing this research for them.

Rent a house in the new country where your employees can stay before they find their own housing. This takes the immediate stress of finding a place to live off them, thus allowing people to move to the new country more quickly.

More Ways to Support Employees During a Move

Fox provides useful tips for how to support employees during a company relocation, but her strategies may not be enough in every situation. An administrative checklist won’t always provide the full picture of what it’s like to live in the new location, and companies with a larger staff won’t necessarily be able to rent accommodation for all their employees. If your company’s circumstances don’t match Fox’s experience, here are some tips to supplement her advice on supporting your employees during a move:

• Tell the employees about the move as soon as possible, and keep them informed of any new developments. This will give them time to prepare and limit gossip that may spread false information.

• Ask employees for their input on the new location. They may not have a say in where the company moves, but they could have valuable ideas and suggestions about establishing the new space.

• Offer opportunities for employees to visit the new location prior to moving, if possible, and compile information about the area (transit options, day care services, restaurants, and so on). This will help them get used to the idea of living there.

• Offer assistance, like helping employees to find a new residence, granting time off or flexible hours while they’re moving, and giving relocation bonuses.

Example #2: When the Company Is Struggling

Fox also provided extra support to her employees in the company’s final months. By this time, she was the only co-founder still working at the company. After several failed attempts to scale the business, it was struggling financially, and eventually, Fox had to let some team members go. For those who remained, she offered the following support measures:

Holding regular meetings with her employees to discuss the company’s financial outlook and the steps she was taking to save the business. Transparency helped build trust in a precarious time.

(Shortform note: If you have to communicate with employees when the future of your company is uncertain, as Fox did, there are a few things to include in your approach. First, consider your employees’ perspective—what would you want to hear in their position? Address as many of their fears as you can. Additionally, admit when you don’t know something (for example, whether or not there will be layoffs), and avoid glossing over unpleasant news. Downplaying hard truths won’t stop them from coming to light, and it will reflect poorly on you later on if your employees feel like you deceived them.)

Reducing employee hours instead of deferring their salaries. The company couldn’t afford to pay their employees for full-time work anymore, but Fox didn’t want to lay anyone else off or ask them to work without pay, so she reduced the number of hours they worked instead. To lead by example, she also reduced the number of paid hours she worked.

(Shortform note: As Fox demonstrated, reducing employee hours can be a better alternative to layoffs, furloughs, and salary deferment when you’re trying to cut costs as a business. However, pay attention to how reduced hours will affect your salaried (exempt) employees—in certain circumstances, reducing the hours of salaried employees can hurt your business. Since salaried employees receive the same pay no matter how many hours they work, they’ll be making the same amount of money while doing less work. If they agree to reduce their hours and their pay, they may lose their exempt status and become eligible for overtime pay, which could be another added cost.)

Offering employees the chance to look for other jobs on company time, as long as they did it discreetly. Fox also sent her employees’ names to other companies in the industry and offered them references.

(Shortform note: To further support your employees as they prepare to find another job, pay them severance or unused sick time and vacation time (if you can afford it). Additionally, if you’re based in the US, take advantage of your state workforce agency—many states have teams that help employees and employers manage company closures. They provide job counseling, job placement, interview training, and internet access for job searching. This may be particularly helpful if employees can’t search for jobs on company time, or if you don’t have contacts who are hiring right now.)

Lesson #5: Dealing With Mental Health Struggles as a Business Owner

In the last section, we touched on some of the strategies Fox used to establish a solid company culture at Shoes of Prey. In the final section, we’ll discuss how to manage your own well-being as a business owner. We’ll explore some of the lessons Fox learned when dealing with mental health struggles during her time at Shoes of Prey. She provides strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome as an entrepreneur and managing depression and burnout when building a business.

Managing Imposter Syndrome

Fox struggled with imposter syndrome throughout her time with Shoes of Prey. She felt like she wasn’t a true professional capable of running the business, even when everything was going well. Every time she came across a part of the business she didn’t understand, she took it as confirmation that she wasn’t meant to be an entrepreneur.

Over time, she learned strategies that helped her fight those feelings, including the following exercise: Every day, write down one thing you did well. Keep your record of these achievements in one place, like a spreadsheet. Whenever logic fails and you’re struggling to overcome feelings that you’re not good enough, refer back to the record of your achievements as evidence of your capabilities.

How to Combat Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome affects many people in the business world and beyond. As Fox experienced, its characteristic symptoms of self-doubt and feelings of fraudulence can be debilitating, leaving you unable to recognize your accomplishments.

Fox’s suggestion to keep a success log is a great start for acknowledging your accomplishments, but it may not be enough on its own—truly overcoming imposter syndrome often requires you to address negative thought patterns as they arise. Here are some further steps you can take to do so:

• Be aware of moments when feelings of imposter syndrome arise. Track what they are and what circumstances prompt them.

• Redirect fears that you’re secretly incompetent by frequently reminding yourself that it’s normal to not have all the answers. You can always learn and grow.

• Discuss your feelings with others. Knowing other people experience the same feelings or understand your experience can ease your burden by helping you feel less alone.

• Approach failures as learning opportunities. Figure out what the lesson is, and adapt based on what you learn.

Managing Depression and Burnout

Fox also dealt with depression and burnout throughout her tenure at Shoes of Prey. For many years, she worked constantly, sacrificing her relationships and her health to keep the company going. Eventually, she struggled to find any source of joy or meaning in her life beyond the business.

(Shortform note: Burnout is when stress at work leads you to experience fatigue, feelings of failure, and a loss of your sense of self. Research shows that 63% of entrepreneurs have experienced or are currently experiencing it. Factors that contribute to burnout in entrepreneurs include financial concerns, poor work-life balance, and general, everyday stress. The most effective treatment for burnout is stepping away from the job for a while, but that’s not always possible. If you can’t take time off, focus on getting quality sleep, spending time with friends and family, reconnecting with things you’re passionate about, and spending time in nature. These strategies can also soothe symptoms of depression.)

Strategies for Improving Your Mental Health

Over time, Fox learned to balance taking care of herself with being a business owner. She found several things helpful while managing her mental health struggles:

Find doctors and mental health professionals you trust who can help figure out the best treatment option for you. For Fox, taking antidepressants ended up being the best option for helping her feel like herself again.

(Shortform note: Before booking a full appointment with a mental health professional such as a therapist, consider setting up a 10- or 15-minute introductory appointment. Some therapists will allow you to do this without billing your insurance. Use this time to learn about the practitioner, their therapy approach, and the services they offer. The information you gather will help you decide if they’re right for you.)

Surround yourself with a strong community. Fox had a large network of friends, family, and colleagues she could lean on when things were difficult. This supportive community was especially helpful while managing her mental health during the company’s collapse.

(Shortform note: Fox had an established social network to turn to when she was struggling, but this may not be true for everybody. If you find yourself needing some extra social support, try getting involved in a new club or joining a volunteer group. These activities connect you with people who have similar interests and values, and they provide structured opportunities for building relationships. Alternatively, try adopting a pet—studies show that interacting with animals can have the same social benefits as interacting with humans. Pets are also great conversation starters when you’re trying to make new friends.)

Find passions outside of work. When it feels like work is taking over your life, make time for hobbies that are different from your job. If you work on a computer, find activities that get you away from screens. For example, you could take up a new sport, work on DIY projects around your house, or learn a new craft.

(Shortform note: In Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport offers some tips for choosing a hobby away from screens. First, choose a demanding hobby over a passive one. Demanding hobbies require you to learn a new skill or finish a task, which creates a sense of pride and satisfaction. Second, make something with your hands. Creating or practicing something inspires a sense of accomplishment. Finally, try in-person social activities that energize you through positive interactions with others, like competitive games and sports.)