Shrad Rao is the founder and CEO of Wagepoint, which simplifies the function of payroll to help small business owners feel awesome about payroll.
What do you do?
I am the Co-Founder and CEO of a company called Wagepoint – makers of simple, fast and friendly online payroll software for small businesses.
How do you stay up to date with trends in your industry/field?
Talking to my customers and keeping up with HR bloggers like Laurie Reuttiman, Shauna Moerke plus reading publications like FastCompany, Inc., Forbes, Medium, etc.
Best way to stay on top of email?
You have 15 seconds to decide what to do with an email – it’s about the four D’s:
Do something about it
Delegate it so someone else can do something about it
Dump it so you don’t have to do anything about it
Schedule a Date to do something about it
What are your top five applications or programs?
Kissmetrics
Pipedrive
What is your best time-saving trick?
Put everything in your calendar as a task; you only have so much time in a day to do something, so if it’s in your calendar, you’ll get it done.
One non-tech thing you can't live without?
My cats.
What does your workspace look like?
Wagepoint has offices across Canada and the US, but the team is primarily remote. As such, my workspace is my laptop and wherever I’m working from that day.
Besides the fingerprints on my screen, I’d say my workspace is pretty clean.
Structure of typical day, how do you divide your time?
Emails, internal meetings, customer demos and sales calls. The trick is to do more of the things that are going to get you customers, so only dedicate a certain amount of time during the day to check your emails and set up specific times during the week to talk to your team.
What is the greatest piece of career advice/wisdom you've ever received?
“Take in more than you think you’ll need.” – Tommy Petrogiannis, CEO, Silanis Technology on fundraising as a startup.
Who would you like to see featured on Ways We Work?
Tommy Petrogiannis, CEO, Silanis Technology