FAST COMPANY: How do you change the strategic direction of your business?
DYLAN SMITH: First, you want to make sure that everyone's on the same page. If your team doesn't understand why you're changing things and what you hope to accomplish, you're probably not going to get the results you want. So you get that feedback from your team, from your investors, from your customers. And actually, when Box shifted its focus from consumers to the enterprise was listening to our best customers, understanding where they wanted to go, and how we could help get them there. And another thing is to realize is that you're probably not going to nail it the first time. As you're changing things, you want to keep listening to customers, keep looking at the data and just get a little bit better every day.
How do you change the strategic direction of your business?
Dylan Smith, CFO, Box+
Dylan Smith is Chief Financial Officer and co-founder of Box, where he leads finance, investor relations and other miscellaneous operations. He has been instrumental in Box's growth and development since starting the company with co-founder Aaron Levie while in college. He has been named one of BusinessWeek's top 5 Entrepreneurs under 25, and was also a finalist for Silicon Valley's CFO of the Year. Prior to Box, Dylan spent his time earning Box's seed funding through various entrepreneurial endeavors.
Dylan received a bachelor's degree in economics from Duke University.