How Red Squirrel fractional leadership stabilized a startup’s engineering culture
Fractional Leadership
Ascent, an AI-powered regulatory compliance platform, faced a critical challenge in engineering team culture and leadership during a pivotal growth phase post-Series A funding. Red Squirrel's fractional VP of Engineering was instrumental in revitalizing the team's culture, emphasizing relationship building, psychological safety, and efficient recruitment. This engagement not only stabilized the engineering culture but also led to successful fundraising, a significant increase in the engineering team's size, and aligned talent with the company's vision.
TL:DR
Ascent is an AI-driven regulation technology platform that helps companies understand exactly what they need to do to stay in compliance. Ascent invented a new type of technology called Regulatory Knowledge Automation (RKA) that generates a complete set of obligations targeted to your business, and keeps them up-to-date automatically. Using this technology, businesses can know exactly what they need to do to comply with regulations, without throwing more money and people at the problem.
About Ascent
As Ascent was growing after raising their Series A funding round, they faced a significant challenge with its engineering team's culture and leadership. The company had trouble retaining engineers. They had a technically strong CTO who needed additional support in managing the growing engineering team. This challenging situation jeopardized Ascent's growth trajectory.
The Challenge
The solution
Red Squirrel engineers were already supporting Ascent in developing a greenfield product offering. To address the culture issues, Red Squirrel provided a fractional VP of Engineering. This leader was focused on revitalizing the engineering team's culture, enhancing morale, and stabilizing the workforce.
The fractional VP of Engineering’s duties included:
Prioritizing people and relationships.
Creating psychological safety for team members.
Actively listening and incorporating feedback.
Rebuilding the engineering team and recruiting a full-time Director of Engineering.
Enhancing communication and collaboration within the team.
“The patience to understand a problem completely, the ability to face challenging time constraints and people management with unparalleled empathy, and a genuine thoughtfulness makes working with Dave and the team a true pleasure.”
- Brian Clark, Founder, Ascent RegTech
Results
“[Red Squirrel has] Competency. Their ability to truly understand the technical requirements and customer needs, and propose and build thoughtful, efficient solutions using the most modern tools available (key for any company seeking to compete effectively).”
- Brian Clark, Founder, Ascent RegTech
Fractional leadership’s strategic involvement helped Ascent regain stability, strengthen its technical foundation, and position itself for continued growth and success in the regulatory technology industry.
After the six month engagement:
The engineering team's culture stabilized, reversing the talent drain and fostering a more positive environment.
The engineering team grew in size and was reshaped with the right talent, aligning with the company's goals and vision.
Ascent successfully raised a Series B funding round of $27 million, facilitated by the improved culture and streamlined operations.