Conversations with Jacob Clarke

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacob Clarke.

Hi Jacob, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself. 
I grew up in Temecula, California, a small wine town that only recently started to get a name for itself. I went to a very small school where I had a graduating class of 43 people. I knew everyone’s first, middle, and last names. We were a tight group, but I really had no exposure to the real world until I went to school in Sacramento. I worked my way through college, taking campus jobs and waiting tables to pay for rent and textbooks, averaging a full-time work schedule with a full class load. 

After graduation, I started my career working in higher education doing various roles related to student affairs at Sacramento State University, my alma mater. I just didn’t get the fulfillment I thought I needed to really flourish, and I wanted to be more challenged in my career. I was really looking to explore other options, but I had no idea where to start. 

In the fall of 2015, a friend of mine who worked in marketing at a small startup told me that he desperately needed an intern. The work he had was piling up and resources were limited for him to hire paid help. I raised a brow and, without even thinking about it, offered to do it for 10 hours a week to start. Fast forward 3 months, and I was absolutely hooked. The company was called AngelHack, and it focused on running events and general innovation programming to fortune 500 companies. I was hired on to help with internal operations initially and then quickly found my permanent career path in account management and customer success. At an early age, I found myself meeting with top executives from multi-billion-dollar organizations, making suggestions on how to build innovation programs and help reduce R&D costs. It was a wild ride for over 3 years. I traveled the world for work, going to Africa, Europe, South America, and many cities in the US that you probably haven’t heard of. I loved relationship building, I loved project planning, and I loved helping people reach their outcomes. 

Naturally, this led to a desire to go from a consultant to working more directly in a SaaS tech company, and I stumbled on the health tech titan PatientPop (now Tebra). I drove to Santa Monica every day to help small to medium medical practices grow their businesses, and we grew the business pretty heavily in the 1.5 years I spent there as a Customer Success Manager. But healthcare tech wasn’t my passion; I wanted to dig deeper into supporting the entrepreneurs of the world. The people that were a bit rough around the edges, built a business by being scrappy, and truly “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps”. That’s where I fell into eCommerce. 

I took as a first hire within a new business vertical at an eCommerce enablement company called Tapcart. We build mobile apps for eCommerce stores. The company grew very quickly while I was there. Not a month after I started, we closed a $50m Series B round of funding led by Left Lane Capital, and we used that cash to skyrocket the business. I grew my team, and we built an amazing repeatable playbook where we saw amazing outcomes for our customers. It was fun, and I had a wild time. After a few years, I was approached by my now boss and CEO of EcoCart, Dane Baker, to come and lead my own Customer Success Department. Candidly, I was hesitant at first. I was at a company that was growing extremely fast and was quickly becoming a brand name in our sector to go to a smaller startup that was just about to close their Series A. But I enjoy building, and my boss at the time told me it would be dumb not to take the opportunity. So, I listened. 

And here we are. The Head of Customer Success at EcoCart, a growing startup, building my own department where I was an individual contributor not 3 years earlier. Every day is a challenge, but it’s an exciting challenge, we’re empowering brands to be champions of sustainability in the eyes of their consumers and we’re making true impact on the world. During my time here, we’ve helped brands offset millions of pounds of c02, giving jobs to underserved communities who are trying to offset the terrible things we’re doing to our planet. This motivates me to keep pushing to be better for myself, my team, and our customers every day. 

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
What is leadership if not for constant obstacles and challenges? It’s our job as leaders to see through the obstacles we see every day and drive our team past them to the point where it seems like a distant memory. But like any growing business, the challenges only get more complex as you go along. Some days, I wake up to a message from someone on our team telling me they think a top 10 customer is going to churn. Other days, I leave a meeting with the other executives with a mountain of work to do that will help us eventually build a better product for our customers far in the future. 

Not every action we take will see an immediate result. Sometimes, it’s a slow burn, and other times, those actions don’t have a positive effect. Building a startup is also about realizing that you’re going to probably miss or fail more times that you succeed. But we have to keep our eyes on the prize and motivate our teams to also join us there when we cross the desert to the oasis. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
The things I’m most proud of while working in Customer Success are, first and foremost, the teams I have been able to foster and build. I believe in hiring the underdog. The person who may not have the exact experience or background you’re looking for but rather the person who has a strong bias for action and will fight harder than anyone else to learn and grow. I have seen many people on my teams over the years rise to the occasion and demolish their goals. It’s all because they were willing to listen, be coached, and work with me to win. 

Secondly, I’m proud of the wins we have been able to create for our customers. I try to talk to customers very often, and I usually ask them what we’re doing to help their business. Right now, I hear more positive than negative, and that really motivates me to keep going. 

The thing that sets me apart from others is a strong bias for action and how I lead with extreme empathy. If you hire great people, sometimes the best thing to do is get out of their way and let them go. I try to lean into this practice even when things aren’t going so well. I believe if you let people own things and take accountability for the losses just as much as the wins, you will always see a net improvement. This has always been the case for my teams. 

Contact Info:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobduarteclarke/