Heather Johnson, MBA - WINNING with Core Values and Culture

Host Carrie Richardson sits down with Heather Johnson, MBA, the CEO and co-founder of Goyznta, to explore her journey from the nonprofit sector to leading a successful SaaS company in the MSP space. 

Heather shares how her passion for equality, sustainability, and helping small businesses has shaped Goyznta’s culture and mission. She discusses the challenges of self-funding a startup, blending work and personal life as a married business owner, and the importance of maintaining mental health in entrepreneurship. 

Hear Heather's advice for other founders, insights on scaling without losing personal touch, and her vision for the future of the MSP industry.

Episode Highlights:

• 1:47 - How Nonprofits Inspired a Tech Business: Heather shares her transition from working in nonprofits to co-founding Goyznta after meeting her husband, an MSP CEO.
• 4:41 - Keeping It Personal at Scale: Heather talks about how Goyznta maintains a close, supportive relationship with their clients, even as they grow.
• 5:50 - Sticking to Core Values During Tough Times: Heather explains why she and her husband have never prioritized their own paychecks over their company’s culture and values.
• 6:58 - Merging with Eureka Process: Heather discusses the smooth acquisition of Eureka Process, focusing on culture alignment and the integration of new teams.
• 10:35 - Visionary vs. Integrator Roles: Heather shares how she and her partner balance visionary ideas with the practicalities of implementation.
• 11:41 - Building a Developer Team with Interns: Heather describes their unique internship program with a university in Amsterdam, including how they’ve fostered a diverse and skilled dev team.
• 19:07 - Mental Health for Entrepreneurs: Heather emphasizes the importance of maintaining mental health from the very start of the entrepreneurial journey.
• 22:07 - Goyznta and AI's Role in Business: Heather discusses the challenges and opportunities of incorporating AI while considering the company’s environmental footprint.

Notable Quotes:

• Heather Johnson on staying true to company values: "It's more important to us to cut back than to do something that we feel is not in line with who we are."
• Carrie Richardson on entrepreneurial conflict: "Your best thinking got you working 18 hour days. At some point, you're going to have to listen to someone else's opinion or thoughts."
• Heather Johnson on mental health: "You need to find time and build i

Carrie Richardson and Ian Richardson host the WIN Podcast - What's Important Now?

Serial entrepreneurs, life partners and business partners, they have successfully exited from multiple businesses (IT, call center, real estate, marketing) and they help other business owners create their own versions of success.

Ian is certified in Eagle Center For Leadership Making A Difference, Paterson StratOp, and LifePlan.

Carrie has helped create and execute successful outbound sales strategies for over 1200 technology-focused businesses including MSPs, manufacturers, distributors and SaaS firms.

Learn more at www.foxcrowgroup.com

Book time with either of them here: https://randr.consulting/connect

Be a guest on WIN! We host successful entrepreneurs who share advice with other entrepreneurs on how to build, grow or sell a business using examples from their own experience.

Transcript

Carrie Richardson: 0:53

Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Carrie Richardson and I am the host of when what's important now. And today I'm asking that question of Heather Johnson, who is the founder of Goyznta and Goyznta makes owning an MSP suck a little bit less. Heather, tell us how you do that.

Heather Johnson: 1:13

Gozynta does a few different things. We have software and that's how we started. When you use software, you don't want to rip your hair out trying to figure it out We're very serious about making our software very user friendly. Over a year ago we purchased Eureka process. now we have a consulting arm of Goyznta called Goyznta Eureka. So now we're looking at making running a business suck a little less.

Carrie Richardson: 1:37

When you figure that out, please share your secrets with me. Tell me about the beginning. How did you decide to work with MSPs?

Heather Johnson: 1:47

It's pretty interesting. I was a nonprofit girl. I love the nonprofit world. I love helping people and that's really what makes me happy. I was working at Hartford International University at the time. I was organizing some events at the White House for peace building and it was really a great time in my life. My career was popping off, I was actually getting my MBA at the time and decided to go on an online date. I was single two kids and was thinking, okay, maybe it's time that I meet someone and went on a date with the CEO of an MSP in Massachusetts and we hit it off instantly. They had to shut down the restaurant because we were talking about like HR and what we were using forever. We started dating. One of our dates was IT Nation. Other dates were entrepreneurial groups where we gave advice. We just hit it off.

Carrie Richardson: 2:38

So romantic.

Heather Johnson: 2:39

It was wonderful. It was like I met my soulmate for sure. And then after we went to IT Nation, he was telling me about some products that they were representing there. that the MSP had created. They had a development arm. And he decided that maybe we would branch these off and make its own company because they needed attention. And I said, Oh, I'm not going corporate. People go from corporate to nonprofit and it doesn't usually happen in reverse. I like the helping people And he said, But we would be helping small and medium businesses. You could get behind that, right? I thought about it and was like, okay, that sounds good. And then he said, one of the reasons I want you to do this is because you are so passionate about things like equal opportunity is and diversity and sustainability and bring that into the business right from the start. So at three people, we were already thinking about our carbon neutrality. So that was our start. We had an existing client base, and this is something that normally people don't start with, but we had about 900 MSPs already using us. They weren't paying a fortune for us because it was subsidized through connect wise This is our Mobius product which was an integration between quick book actually nine different accounting software and connect wise. We brought it in house and built up and really stayed true to who we were, like a small business, helping other small businesses. I did the support for many years. We stayed at three people for a long time. So it was me doing everything that wasn't development, essentially two developers and me. And, I got to talk to MSPs all the time that had issues with their software But we talked about other business things, them not having enough customers. And we talk about marketing strategies. We've grown and had really loyal customers because of that. It was always like, You had a friend that you come and talk to that knew your business.

Carrie Richardson: 4:36

And how do you maintain that at scale? How are you managing that now?

Heather Johnson: 4:41

Very similar. I do use the LinkedIn method to tie people together and go have an aha moment. I just really want to get to know my customers. So I have gone through everything that I should know and try to refresh it as it comes up, but it is hard to do at scale. It's hard to keep that family thing, but also I don't do support anymore. Now that I'm the CEO, we do have a support staff, but we do hire for people who really love to help and care and I'm watching that grow. It's so exciting and rewarding. I don't know if somebody calling us or putting in a ticket with us expects from us always to know that their daughter's wedding was three months ago. Although we do remember that a lot, but more that we really genuinely are upset that they are having a problem. So I think that carries forward and the legacy lives on.

Carrie Richardson: 5:30

You build the business you want, you build the business you want to work for. I know that when I'm worried about revenue, my North star gets a little shaky. It's very hard to say no to business. It's very hard to say no, that's not who we are as a business. That's not how we operate. And we want to be true to that, but I also want to pay my mortgage this month.

Heather Johnson: 5:50

It is scary. I've had times where we haven't been able to take a paycheck. With the husband and wife team. It makes it really hard to pay the mortgage and we're both not taking a paycheck. We've tried to stay true to it, even if it means, we're really putting ourselves in a bad situation. We've never been the top paid employee in our company ever. It's more important to us to cut back than to do something that we feel is not in line with who we are. Because I think that's the most important reason we're doing this.

Carrie Richardson: 6:19

You built a culture first business from the very beginning.

Heather Johnson: 6:22

Since Brian and I were so in sync about business and we're talking about it anyway, it was like, so how do we make this work? And what happens when we have 10 employees how are we going to hire for this? How are we going to make sure that this stays true as we go forward? And we've had to let people go that are, have not been in the culture. We have the no asshole rule. We just can't afford it no matter how good you are. And we've kept true to that, even though it's been super painful. And it's slowed down some of our development but that the most important thing is the culture and that people are happy. we want our people to be happy working with us.

Carrie Richardson: 6:58

Tell me what it was like to acquire another business. Now you also have other leaders, other ideas, maybe a culture that was a little different from Goyznta how did you make it work?

Heather Johnson: 7:10

When we first found out about Eureka process we asked them if they would do our onboarding for Mobius. We didn't really have the staff still to be able to do onboarding but we were finding that people were getting on our product and thinking it wasn't working. It just didn't do what it needed to do when it wasn't set up. So we had Eureka Process and Alan Edwards take that over. And so we got to understand the culture. Our daughter, one of her first jobs was doing marketing at Eureka process. I had a very good sense of what that culture was and that it was very much in line with ours. We always wanted to have a consulting company, and then we thought: we really love that team. I wonder if this is the right time to bring that team on. So we did. It took about six months, for everything, the due diligence and to go through everything. But the culture. I know like I sound like it's Disney World, but it really was like a small world moment. We just all were happy to see each other. Everyone knew each other already. Everybody was pretty excited about what Goyznta stood for that Eureka was going to have some more backing and support and resources that they didn't have before. So it was really a lovely moment. Alan and I have always gotten along well. When you have two leaders of a company merging together, it's hard to figure out. But what we did, Alan is the president of consulting. So he rules that area and then we work and figure out things as we go along. There's always bumps in the road, but it has been a massively smooth process. Massively smooth.

Carrie Richardson: 8:47

That's not always the case. Tell me about how you blend sales cultures. You've got one company that's selling a SaaS product, and we talked about this a little before we went live. We're going from consulting to product. You're going from product to consulting. And there is a huge difference in how you plan for marketing, plan for sales, budget for both, how do you balance your sales goals? We are still primarily owner based sales. We're all, passionate about what we're selling, our team sells as well. Our strategy did have to change some. Our daughter was doing marketing for Eureka. So she was very well versed in how to do the consulting marketing and had been also doing Goyznta since. Early days. So she had a marketing strategy of how to word things different, approach things different. For SaaS sales people have a need and we're filling the need. And we like to say who we are, we're proud of who we are, that we're family run. We love to help other MSPs and that has worked really well for us for consulting. We've tried to be more thought leaders and then build into that. So it has been a different strategy, a different way of doing sales, but I think it's gone pretty well, especially since their team was already doing our onboarding. They already knew the SaaS products really well. Even that was smooth where I thought there would be more hiccups. We still have a little bit of room on our schedule. Now you've done it. That's like saying the traffic is really good today. Shouldn't have said that on that podcast. Between yourself and your partner, which of you is the, who's the visionary and who's the integrator? I would have guessed you were the integrator simply because you liked working with, I don't remember how many accounting systems you said that you integrated with ConnectWise, but it was a lot, and I don't know how to use any of them.

Heather Johnson: 10:35

I love to make things happen. You tell me what you want to have happen, and I'll make it happen. And I'm very good at that. I'm very type A. I can't stop until the checklists are all checked. So I was really happy with that role. However, the more I understood, the more I was seeing, the more I was talking to MSPs, the more I understood about the business, the more I started to have my own role. Feelings about what could happen. The leadership team all has some good visionary qualities. He is more of the visionary overall. And I would say maybe I'm more of the implementer.

Carrie Richardson: 11:05

So also being married to my business partner when we structured our business. Ian is managing partner because we found that somebody has to have the final say, like 50 50 wouldn't work for us. We would just stay deadlocked forever. So one of us had to concede the the leadership role and say I will support the decision that you make. How do you come to terms with Something you don't agree on.

Heather Johnson: 11:34

Yeah, that's great. When he was CEO, he did have the final say and now I do.

Carrie Richardson: 11:41

Take turns.

Heather Johnson: 11:43

Yeah, we take turns now. He is a developer. He's a brilliant developer. And one of the things that he wanted to do was to bring on a group of interns because what he was finding was developers he worked with were trying to find shortcuts. And that makes it difficult in the future to work on the code. So he decided to grow his own Developer team, and we've been working with a university in Amsterdam This year launched an internship program. So we have 5 interns. Currently, we have a dev team of 8, 6 of them are women, which is, Fantastic. His hands are full in the development area. I'm taking on more of the CEO duties. He's got that development team. And that's where his attention needs to be.

Carrie Richardson: 12:28

And how do you draw the line at all right work is done now and now we're a married couple enjoying our evening. How do you manage work conflict and home conflict and not have them overlap?

Heather Johnson: 12:41

Yeah that is a really good question. We do love talking about business.

Carrie Richardson: 12:45

You did go on a date to IT Nation.

Heather Johnson: 12:47

Yes, we did. We do love that. So it, that is pillow talk. We do talk about it all the time. It's, it is what we like to do. But actually more the home life stuff, if we have a problem, it is very difficult to not be like, I really am not very happy with you, but we're on a meeting with the whole team. And it's paint that smile on and no, this is the person I'm working with. And that other stuff is going to have to just sit on a shelf somewhere and we'll deal with it later. And then usually by the end of the day, I realized that really wasn't that big of a deal.

Carrie Richardson: 13:21

Somebody told me my my biography should be called"just buy paper plates" we're both busy. We're both trying to grow a business. Do we really have time to fight about who's going to do the dishes tonight? Throw them in the garbage, buy new dishes. I don't care. I'm not arguing about things like that anymore. It's too much energy that could be invested in doing something that we both enjoy or putting time and energy back into our business.

Heather Johnson: 13:46

I think one of the healthiest things we did for our marriage is have somebody come once a week to clean our house. Because there are so many things that were coming up because of that.

Carrie Richardson: 13:54

So you're already delegating things at home that free up your time. You're wearing every hat when you start the business, which was the thing you give up first?

Heather Johnson: 14:04

Oh I think marketing. I love marketing strategy, but I just don't know what looks good. And I think something looks amazing. And then my daughter who does marketing is wow. What did you do? I'm much more of a let's get things happening and I just don't have the time to be like, does this really look good or is it just done? So I think that was the best thing that I, the happiest thing I was to have go away.

Carrie Richardson: 14:32

Fortunately, you happened to know someone that you could trust. What's it like working with your children?

Heather Johnson: 14:39

I love it.

Carrie Richardson: 14:40

You have to say that she's going to listen.

Heather Johnson: 14:43

I don't know if it would work for all of our children. We have four. She is able to take constructive criticism and not get too upset I know there's been times where she has been upset with me during work and then has come over for friday night dinner. She's still able to put that aside and have that mommy time still even at 23. That, that's worked really well for us. It's sometimes hard to be able to say something that's critical. I've gotten used to it now because it's been four years now we're in a good groove with it.

Carrie Richardson: 15:17

What's the next strategic hire for Goyznta Eureka?

Heather Johnson: 15:21

A general admin person. It seems like there's a lot of small items that a lot of people are doing that could be doing something better.

Carrie Richardson: 15:34

And are you a self funded organization or did you take on funding

Heather Johnson: 15:37

No funding.

Carrie Richardson: 15:38

Here we go. We've got a SaaS company that's didn't have to go hunting for investors. What's your advice for SaaS founders who are starting up and don't have any capital and have to self fund their business? How do they get their first 20 clients?

Heather Johnson: 15:55

I don't know if that is the right path for everyone. Your growth is going to be slower. You aren't able to develop as fast. You're not able to grow as fast. Our top priority was To be doing things that we felt were bettering the world, and that's not going to be every investor's dream." Oh, I'd rather get less money and be able to, do some carbon neutral stuff," If somebody does choose to do that, it's really storytelling. It's really being vulnerable with who you are and why that product's important to you because people really do care. It's not just about the product. It is about the story at that time. They need to trust you, it's all about trust

Carrie Richardson: 16:35

So future glasses on what are the biggest challenges that MSPs are going to face between now and 2030.

Heather Johnson: 16:46

I've been working with the National Society of IT service providers. I'm their vice president. They're working on bringing professionalism to the industry. I think that's going to be a big thing coming up. I think there's going to be continuing education that needs to be done. I think it's something that's wonderful for the industry. So I think there's going to be more that comes with that. That's not something that NSITSP is going to be pushing. The government's already looking for that. And so we're trying to put our voice in that. Figuring out what professional is and being able to deliver on that. And that just raises up the entire industry.

Carrie Richardson: 17:19

You think there'll be a certifying body or will it be self certifying

Heather Johnson: 17:23

that's something that the NSI TSP is looking at We're in some of the CISA talks. We have a voice in the room now. For electricians. That governing body came in from the fire insurance company. There were so many fires that they decided to make their own accrediting institution so that there were less fires that they had to insure. And that's where the electrician came in. That's how their accreditation process came in is through a fire insurance company.

Carrie Richardson: 17:51

We won't even need to regulate because insurance companies will just say, if you don't do these things, we're not insuring you.

Heather Johnson: 17:58

That's happened before history repeats itself and it does make a lot of business sense. One of the things that the NSITSP is doing is trying to figure out because even just the definition of what is professional. That's a long discussion that not everyone will agree on. But, that's one of those things. It might not be popular, a popular thing for an MSP to listen to, but it is happening and they can get involved with it. We have people working with legislation that are volunteers at the N. S. I. T. S. P. They don't have a background in it. None of us do. We're just, I have a. Nonprofit background. That's what I'm bringing to the table. But we're looking for so many more MSPs to help get our voices heard. So that we're not being told what needs to happen. We're having a voice and it can have some control. So that is the important part is for MSPs to get together so they can be heard.

Carrie Richardson: 18:50

If you don't vote, you don't get to complain. entrepreneurship is challenging. What are your tips for somebody starting any kind of business? Not necessarily an MSP company. What are the first things anybody should consider before they hang that shingle out?

Heather Johnson: 19:07

Your mental health. You have to protect your mental health from the beginning. That was one thing I was really passionate about because as I've said a few times now, I'm a type a person and I was an HR director and was talking to other people about their mental health at the last place I worked. And people would say, but your eye is twitching. You're doing two master's degree. You have three jobs. You're a single parent. Like. When are you taking time out? I'm like, Oh, I'm good. I like do so well under pressure. Like I'm fine. And then I had a panic attack and it changed my ability to be able to handle stress because I would get to that level. And one of the things is when you're starting a business, you are going to be pushed to that level. You are definitely going to be pushed to that level. So you need to find time and build it into your life. Whether it's a 12 o'clock appointment with yourself to deep breathe, or it's, making sure you Take up yoga or gardening or anything that makes you just relax a little bit. You have to do that right from the start because it's going to be quite a ride and you need to take care of yourself.

Carrie Richardson: 20:12

I believe it's something that we don't talk about enough. But it's necessary. Like your best thinking got you working 18 hour days. At some point you're going to have to listen to someone else's opinion or thoughts and adjust for, or you can just work your way into a heart attack and not enjoy your own success.

Heather Johnson: 20:33

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's so true. And that's one of the things with our Eureka's growth program is that is built into the fiber of it. When doing a consulting program, I wanted to make sure we wove that in, that there is a mental health capacity. There is a making sure that we're like nurturing other relationships outside of work and having a work life balance. It's so important. Cause yeah, what's the point of it all if we're Just miserable and stressed out and ripping our hair out all the time.

Carrie Richardson: 21:01

Somebody said it's a challenge and then it's a chore and how do you get back to the point where you're doing things that you find interesting and challenging? I don't want to do the same thing at work every day. I'm bored. Let's do something. And everyone's no, we just figured this out. Please go away.

Heather Johnson: 21:18

I'm like that too. My goal for this year is to have focused initiatives. So that must mean I do that too. That the rest of the team could tell me like, all right, you just. You just let us work on the one that you just said. Let's just work on that one. Yeah, I can relate to that very much. Thank you so much for joining us today, Heather. I hope I will see you in Orlando for IT Nation. No, we are keeping our carbon footprint down. We won't be there this year because now we live in the Netherlands. So a trip from the Netherlands to the US is quite a lot. As far as the environment is concerned. And so we want to make sure that we're really conscious of it. So we just do one trip to the US. So any events that are in June. Maybe you'll see me.

Carrie Richardson: 22:07

So one more question then, how will Goyznta utilize AI in their business, considering that carbon footprint. How do you balance the value that AI brings to a business with. environmental impact?

Heather Johnson: 22:22

That's a really good question. And one I don't fully have an answer for. So far we haven't used a lot of AI. Brian being a coding purist isn't somebody who's going to be using too much of that. I have used it for editing but so far it's been pretty minimal.

Carrie Richardson: 22:37

It was a pleasure meeting you, and thank you for joining us on WIN today. I'm super excited to hear that you've got so many women working in your software development team. That's not something I hear every day, and I'm excited about that, thank you for sharing, and hopefully other people follow your lead.

Heather Johnson: 22:54

Thank you, and thank you for having me on, Carrie. I really appreciate it.