Creating a New Program at a High Profile Scaling Startup

A conversation with Mindaugas Petrutis, Program Director, On Deck Design

This week I interviewed Mindaugas Petrutis, Program Director of On Deck Design. As a company, On Deck helps people start companies, find their next role, and invest in their careers. We talked about what it’s like to build a brand new global program at a highly visible scaling startup.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

I'm going to let my guest today introduce themselves.

I'm Mindaugas, I am the Program Director of On Deck Design and I'm often mistaken for a designer. I've never been a designer, but I've been building communities for designers for the last seven or eight years.

Tell us about your career and how you ended up at On Deck.

Around 2003, I realized that what I was good at was connecting people. And I started thinking, "Could this be a job? Is that a thing that exists?" It's taken nearly 20 years to actually do that job on a global scale, which is really interesting to think about. 

I tried to study business in college but dropped out after one year, had no interest in the traditional structure of school. It was not for me, and then I went down this weird path of working in hospitality for 10 years. Started out bartending in bars and clubs, kind of owned a small bar at one point and wanted to open a restaurant. I lived on this holiday-type island and spent a lot of time working in that industry. Then I did a stint in London for a couple of years where I discovered recruitment. I liked it because it’s technically connecting people to people and helping people discover jobs that they hadn't thought of or helping them get better positions. After that, I went back to hospitality again, and then when I had this dream of wanting to open a restaurant, I realized that I will never make the money to own a restaurant while working in one. So, I had to make what felt like a tough decision at the time, "Okay, what can I do in order to get to a place where I can have the money to do this?"

I thought, "You know what? Maybe I should start a company at some point." I was back living in the Canary Islands at the time. There were no opportunities to do that there, it was a small island. So, I moved to Dublin, Ireland. Arriving, I had pretty much no money, no contacts, had never worked in tech and there was no specific company that I thought I would start. It was just this weird pipe dream, "That's the end goal that's going to get me there." Right? That obviously played out very differently. So, I went back into sales, which I had done before, then went back into recruitment. When I was working for this recruitment agency, I was hiring business analysts and PMs, and engineers. I didn't really connect with those roles as much for some reason, because I just didn't really understand what they did on a daily basis. I couldn't really go deep enough into what they did.

One of my colleagues had the design desk. One day she asked me to help her source a couple of designers. That moment is still so vivid in my mind. I remember looking at a CV, and there was a link to a portfolio. I clicked it, and this whole new world just opened up. It was something I didn't realize, that there were these teams of people working behind these products that I use or services that I use, designing the experience that I'm familiar with.

I'm a visual person. I like art and photography, so I just connected with that immediately. My colleague happened to be leaving the company not long after. So, I made it my mission to take over her desk and become a design recruiter. This led to a couple of funny incidents with the design community, which helped me understand what they wanted, how they wanted to be approached, and that led me into building communities, then opening up my own design recruitment company. That failed and we’d need a whole separate conversation about it but it did take me down this path of where I am today.

How did your role with On Deck Design come about?

When I shut down my company, I reached out to some folks I’d been working with at InVision and I said, "Hey, I've built this design network. I'm really passionate about building design communities, and you guys do it really well. And I wonder if there's maybe an opportunity to join you."

They replied with an idea, "Hey, actually, we're building out a team in Europe. You should speak to the person doing so." And then, they introduced me to the SVP of International at the time. I went back and forth talking to a bunch of people, they didn't have a community role at the time, so they were trying to figure out where to put me. In one of the conversations, someone said, "You know what? We feel like you'd make a great customer success manager." honestly had to Google what that was as a job as they were telling me this. I thought, "You know what? I've done components of all of it. There were tools like Salesforce you have to use, I never used them before, but I was confident I can figure that out. And I said, "You know what? Let's do it." I went through the formal interview process then for the CSM role and got hired.

So they took me on as their first customer success hire for the small to medium business side in Europe. I was very transparent with my manager who hired me even during the interview process saying, "Look, I'm taking this role just as a foot in the door. What I really want to do is build communities. So I will be knocking on people's doors to find if there's an opportunity within InVision to do that."And he said, "Totally get that, fully supportive. As long as you hit your goals, I'm going to help you do it. And when that day comes, you can go and do what you really want to do."

It was really great to have that freedom and support. Obviously, you have the responsibility and accountability in your role but are also able to look for those opportunities. So I started DMing a bunch of people within the company saying, "Here's what I want to do. Here are some ideas I have of what InVision could do" Eventually there was an opportunity that came up to join the EMEA marketing team to build out the leadership community in Europe. I did that from scratch. That led me to join another team, which was building the Design Leadership Forum, a global design leaders community. So, I joined them to look after the international community.

During this time I also realized there was this side thing that I've always done, which was mentoring people breaking into their first design role or people transitioning careers into design. I really enjoyed seeing the results of that. What I wondered though was "How can I make this my full-time job? How can I find a way to take a group of people? How can I find a way to take a group of people, design an experience for them around specific challenges and help them accelerate?"

I started looking for a new role. I probably was looking for about a year maybe and On Deck just came into my universe. It just popped up on my Twitter feed one day. At first, I was like, "I don't know why people are going crazy about this thing?" I'm usually the one... I'm like the sceptic on all the things that people are excited about. But it just kept popping up, and one day, I gave in, "You know what? I'll take a look, I'll see what this is about."

I opened up their landing page, immediately got the concept because it was something that I'd been thinking about for a couple of years. I scrolled down to their careers page. They were hiring for generic program director roles at the time, just looking for people to build fellowships that they cared about. I reached out saying "Hey, if you haven't thought about building a design program, you should. And I'm the person to do it." I ended up going into the interview process via an intro from one of the team whom I reached out to cold for an inside peak into On Deck. And here we are. I've been here just over a year now.

How big was On Deck when you joined and how big is it now?

I think I was employee 36 or something. Now it’s 250 or more.

Talk about a rapidly scaling startup. I feel like every month I'm seeing a new one that's being launched. It’s so exciting because I went through On Deck Writers, which is how you and I connected through David Hoang, who I met through On Deck Writers. How many programs are there now?

There's a lot. There are two sides to the business. There's the careers side of the business, which are career acceleration programs like mine. There's probably around 11 now. I think we'll probably have about 15 in the next few months overall.

Then there's the startups' side of the business, which is how On Deck originally started, first with dinners then the Founders program. We recently added ODX, which is a hundred million dollar accelerator to help people start companies.

That’s a good amount. When you started a year ago, you were not anywhere near 20 programs, right?

No. There was the Writers, there was Founders, and maybe a couple of others. From a careers perspective, I think Design and Chief of Staff were the first two that launched on the careers side of the org.

What is On Deck Designers and who is it for?

I started picking up  very specific, common themes of challenges that people were having at specific stages of their careers. The one that I really understood and thought I could help or build something with was the senior and above level. There's a lot of amazing stuff that exists for people who are entering their career in design. The big gap or breakdown I noticed was that senior and above level, the support seemed to just disappear. But actually, the challenges just keep getting bigger, right, like the transition from an IC to a manager. That's a huge, huge thing that you go through, and a shift in your career and your mindset. 

I really wanted to focus on this group of folks. So now, we have tracks essentially that help people break into management or up-level existing managers. That's one track. The other one is the first designer at a high-growth company. It's a highly challenging role. Then the other track is beyond senior IC. We wanted to build something that acknowledged not everybody should be a manager, and not everybody wants to be one. So those folks can often get a little stuck. "How do I keep progressing as a senior designer without having to compromise on pay and titles?" Because we all know, those things are important, obviously. So we built a whole thing around that.

It's a problem on the more engineering side, absolutely a problem. The career paths aren’t always there. People are starting to look at it like LeadDev has StaffPlus as they call it. I love that you’re doing that for designers.

What does a program director do? I assume you had to create the program from scratch.

Yeah. That was one of the reasons why I really enjoyed joining at the stage that I did. It's become clear to me over the past year, I'm very much a zero to one person. Yes, you will have some support on some logistical things. You can borrow things that others have been doing and are working more on the operational side, but it really is up to you from the beginning to understand who's your target audience, who you're building this for, bring that audience with you, and build out that initial community.

You have to be able to have that network and bring the folks along from the very beginning. It's a lot of being in the weeds, everything from building out strategy down to executing, to get that first cohort off the ground. And then the idea is you focus on delivering a great experience and start building credibility. So then it becomes easier technically as you start maturing the program a little bit.

Our job, I think, is very unique in what we do. It really depends on the stage of your program, what you might be focused on. When you announce a new cohort, which we did the other day, you start receiving applications. Your job is to review them, interview people, and extend offers. While at the same time, like now we have multiple cohorts running at the same time, focusing on managing a team, thinking about the long term. It's a very complex role for sure.

Yeah. I mean, it's a big role. It strikes me you have a lot of autonomy and responsibility.

Yes, both of those things. You are hired to essentially bring it to life. It's a tricky thing to do, building out the experience. And again, people will come and maybe suggest things, but the buck stops with you really on how you execute and build out the program.

How has your role changed? And do you have a team now?

You're the first person to come in, and start building this out. You have a specific vision. And then as the program matures, you start hiring a team if it works. Right? You start on your own, then you hire in a team when you get closer to kicking off your first cohort. A program associate joins to help you do a lot of the ops and no code stuff plus experience. 

Right now we have two program associates and a program manager on the team. One is focused on the experience side of things, the other is focused on the more education side of things. We also have what we call program partners. So those are folks like David Hoang, as you mentioned him earlier, who are very experienced design leaders. They essentially work with us part-time to help us build out modules and educational content. They also run one-to-ones with fellows, answer questions in Slack and much more. It's been pretty interesting to take that journey going from one person to a team of about eight or nine people.

In one year. So have you managed other people before?

I hired people for little things that I was doing before, but it was never a full-time thing. So, technically, no. If you'd asked me, just before I joined On Deck, if I ever wanted to manage a team, I would've categorically said, "Nope."

I just had no interest, no dreams of building out a team. What I found though, when I joined On Deck and started building my program, I realized how big of a thing I was working on. And I quickly realized that this is much bigger than me and not about me, and there's no way I can do this without a team.

That thinking shifted very, very quickly to the point now where I actually really love working with the team and managing a team. So, that's been an interesting self-discovery for sure over the past year.

That's really incredible. You're launching your fourth cohort. What's been your biggest challenge over this time?

There have been different moments. During the interview process with On Deck, because I really wanted the job, and I really wanted to build this vision that I'd had for a couple of years, I convinced myself, and I think I projected in the interview process that there was nobody else in the world that could do this.

When I got the job, that confidence went out the window very quickly, because this kind of imposter syndrome came over, and I really struggled with it for I'd say the first few weeks where it was like, Okay, I'm here now. And everybody's looking at me, "We hired you for a reason."

There was this realization, "I'm doing this." I always wanted to do this. First, I built a community in Ireland, so it was very localized. Then I did it on a bigger scale at InVision. And now, all of a sudden I was doing it on this global stage, and if it was to go well or fail, it was going to be very visible. I became very aware of that and I struggled with it massively.

But as I started doing more research and clarifying my narrative, I essentially built a lot of it with the community. So I reached out to my network, and I was like, "Hey, I'm building this thing. Here's how I'm thinking about it. I ran a few different stages of research where it was the first people you know, and we all know that usually, they're going to be like, "Oh, whatever you're doing, it's great. It's amazing."

Then I refined. Then I went to people I didn’t know so well like people I follow on Twitter and they follow me so, we've interacted maybe in some way. And got feedback from them, "No, this is great. This is really needed." So that confidence started building a little bit.

The test was reaching out to somebody who's highly respected in the design world and has held probably one of the biggest design roles in the world. We don't know each other. I DMed her cold on Twitter and said, "Hey, I'm building this thing, would love to understand if this is something you'd find as needed in the industry or how you understand the concept." I got a DM back very quickly saying, "Yes, this is amazing. This is needed. And here's a couple of people that I know that should be a part of this." She referred me to a couple of fellows.

"Okay, we're good to go." and it was that confidence that carried on the rest. That imposter syndrome was a struggle to the point where I was like, "Can I actually do this?" So, that was challenge number one.

Then, I think the other one is when you actually announce it publicly, you always have that fear. "What if nobody cares?" Even though I validated and I felt good, there's always that fear. And then, we announced it, and people cared and that was fine. And then, the next stage is when people start accepting their offers, and they're going to be joining the cohort. Now I’m thinking "I need to build a great experience for these people." There are a hundred people that are joining and you're dealing with different personalities. And then, there's that next big thing. So, at every stage, you're running into constant challenges.

The next biggest one was hiring the team and realizing that "Hey, when we had one person, just two of us, we're very much in execution mode." When another person joined and another person joined,  I started realizing "Hey, I actually now need to focus on the career growth of these folks." I had to really start learning about those things. The incredible byproduct of me building the program was adding the design management track, which, it's all about building a great culture, career path conversations, growth coaching, one-on-ones, all of those things. I actually became the best student of this thing. I have to be on all the sessions. The first one, it was, "Oh, I'll just be here in case the team needs me." But I started listening, and was like, "Wait, this is incredibly relevant for me. I need this."

I started paying attention, and then I started implementing certain things with the team and then I started seeing results or a positive impact. That’s when it became like, "Oh, actually, I like this thing." I don't know if I'm good at it. You'd have to ask the team. But I'm enjoying it.

In the beginning, you were doing everything. And then, your role has switched to more strategy and management. How hard was it to get out of execution?

You know, I feel like I got very lucky because I went through that delegation process in the past where I really held onto everything. And it was very much, "Well if I give it to somebody else, they're not going to do it right. They're not going to do it my way." I think a couple of years before, I went through this, but I was starting to become self-aware or very aware of the fact that I was thinking that way. And consciously or not, I started working on that. One thing that I realized when I started building this program was that it cannot sit on one person's shoulders. So I very intentionally, from day one, even when it was just me, I started building towards the fact that I want to build myself out of this program.

When people joined the team, it was much easier to start delegating things, and removing myself from the process. It became this comfortable, natural thing that I would actually get a nice feeling when I was like, "I don't care that somebody else is doing this because they're doing it better than me."

Whereas before, a couple of years ago, like fireside chats, for example, I would have wanted to run them all. Now I think, "Why would I do that when somebody else doing this gives our members a better experience, and also helps somebody on my team to gain that confidence, maybe learn a new skill, connect, build that network with those leaders that maybe otherwise would be hard to do." I already have all that. Yeah, let me remove myself from this." And it was a very easy, very kind of organic thing.

It sounds like you did that for two reasons: to build capacity in others and the realization that to make this program be what it needs to be, you need a team. It’s way bigger than you and everybody has a role in building this thing that I want to be really impactful.

100%. Because at the end of the day, it's not about us, right? I want this to be a long-term thing. I'm very aware that I won't be at On Deck for 10 years, I want to move into a very different way of working soon or “retire” haha but I would love for On Deck Design to still exist in 10 years' time. So, there's only one way to do this, is to build something that you can remove yourself from, and it just flourishes.

If you could pre-ODD, what advice would you give yourself?

Trust your instincts a lot more. I struggle with that sometimes or did at the beginning. And I think that that came from previous experiences where you trust your instincts, but then somebody tells you that you're wrong, and it trains your mind in a very specific way. Right? But that autonomy that you talked about earlier is what trained it back in a very positive way.

When someone says “you're wrong”, I always think, were you really wrong or was it a matter of approach?

Yeah. To add to that, saying you're wrong is one thing but it’s another when there is an imbalance of power in that situation. So they're not only saying you're wrong but also, you're not allowed to do the thing that you feel should be done or you feel right about. The imbalance of power...that's what trains it in a very negative way. And you start doubting yourself.

But in this situation, honestly, the founders Erik and David were great. Erik would ping me sometimes and be like, "What do you think about this?" At first, I thought I would just say yes to whatever he's saying because he's the founder. Then I realized they hired me for a reason so let me respond with what I really think. His response always was, "Yeah. You're the program director. I just wanted to float something your way." That was it. And that was also another thing that started building that instinct, that confidence back up. Where you are like, " Actually, my way of thinking, my instincts are right, and I should really lean on that as heavily as possible."

It strikes me with On Deck that what they're really doing is building leadership. You have autonomy. You own this. It's yours. And that's a way of building leadership and capacity, rather than it being very top-down, telling you what to do.

Yeah, a hundred percent. We obviously are maturing, growing up as a business. So different processes need to come in and get implemented. But at the beginning, I mean, we literally operated as our own company within a company, which was a really interesting way to build in your own bubble, but then be able to borrow from what everybody else is doing. But also not be affected by what everybody else was doing, if that makes sense. So, it was a very interesting relationship between the core business and your own program that you are building. Yeah, the autonomy comes into play very much where you have a lot of it.

Besides trusting your instincts, what is one of the things you’ve built capacity as a leader?

I'm learning how to unblock people and identifying what people are good at or passionate about. What's really cool now is to actually be able to support folks in that way. So the way I look at say, our team is, you have very specific career growth opportunities. Let's say you're a program associate. You can move up, be a senior program associate, and get promoted to a program manager, then maybe even get a program director role at some point. That's a very linear path. And that's available to everybody. But then I like to look at, what are the side things that actually, you maybe are really passionate about that we can uncover, and help you grow in those ways. So, that's the skill that I'm building over the past year and I'm really enjoying doing that.

I’m still growing but it’s been cool to uncover and take action on that. Not just tell somebody, "You're great at this thing. I don't know if you realize.” but, how can we do something with that? What are some pieces of what we’re building that you can fully own or experiment with? The On Deck Design team is incredible at this and we’re seeing small and big ideas leading to some amazing results that end up translating into the rest of the business or other programs. And that makes me incredibly proud. 

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