Process Before Profit: Andrew Abraham on Building Culture That Actually Scales

What happens when you hire great people, but still don’t get great results?

In this episode of Leadership Levers, Andrew Abraham, CEO and co-founder of Heybuddy, shares how early hiring mistakes forced him to confront a hard truth: talent doesn’t compensate for missing process.

As a young founder building a customer-consciousness platform for CPG and e-commerce brands, Andrew initially believed people were the most critical lever. But after scaling too quickly without operational clarity, he realized something deeper — even star players fail without structure and clear leadership direction. 

Andrew walks through:

• Why process — not people — was the real bottleneck in early growth
• How direct accountability starts with the leader, not the team
• The difference between hiring talent and aligning personnel to the mission
• Why servant leadership creates cultural gravity
• His belief that entrepreneurship is a deeply spiritual journey — and why leaders must listen to their hearts as much as their metrics. 

For leaders building in high-growth environments, this conversation is a reminder: sustainable performance isn’t built on charisma or hiring velocity — it’s built on clarity, alignment, and systems that allow great people to win.

Seeking to align your culture, boost performance & impact your bottom line? Let’s chat—no sales, just real talk about your challenges. Not ready? Join our PL3 Community for free insights & connections. 

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

William Gladhart 0:00

Welcome to the Leadership Lovers Podcast. I'm your host, Will Gladhart, CMO at The Culture Think Tank. At The Culture Think Tank, we empower leaders with metrics that strengthen culture, drive performance, and return. We're here today to learn about the actions leaders have taken to address organizational change. Today, our guest is Andrew Abraham, CEO and co-founder at Heybuddy. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Andrew Abraham 0:31

Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it, and I've been looking forward to this time together.

William Gladhart 0:36

Absolutely. Let's begin by having you share with our audience a bit about yourself, your background, and your organization.

What Heybuddy Actually Does

Andrew Abraham 0:43

Yeah. Well, hello, everybody. My name is Andrew Abraham. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Heybuddy. Hey Buddy is a customer consciousness tool. So what we've created is a virtual shopkeeper that integrates into CPG and e-commerce websites to have real-time conversations with customers who are visiting your website. And we turn those conversations into analytics and insights for your company to better speak to its ICP. So what we mean exactly by that is deriving insights from the conversation and being able to help you in your sales, marketing, advertising approaches. Prior to Hey Buddy, I was serving on as a CFO of a meta metabolically healthy chocolate company called Sinless Streets Chocolate. And other than that, I'm a proud UT alum.

William Gladhart 1:22

Very nice. I like that uh you described in depth that uh the type of technology and type of company that you provide, but also I think that's a huge benefit to not only your end user and customer to be able to understand who it is they're talking to, what they actually want from you as a leader and both and also as an organization. So we'll be discussing three questions today as a warm-up to our conversation. Could you share with us why you believe a healthy culture is critical?

Andrew Abraham 1:51

Yeah. I mean, some time ago, it was like a few years ago, there was a graph out there that went super viral. And basically what it depicted was the amount of time we spend with our parents. And then there's a there's a myriad of other graphs that came out shortly after that graph the amount of time we spend with our our parents, our friends, our family, and all sorts of different categories of our communities after the age of 20. And quickly I realized that that time with the people that we love the most declines. So where does it go? It goes towards work. If you're a normal person and you're working an eight to five, you're looking about 40 hours. And to just keep that in with respect to the total hours you have every week, that's 168 hours of the week. So almost a fourth is spent. Now, if you're like Will and you're in the private equity space, you're probably spending anywhere upwards of 60, 80 plus hours a week. And so what that means to me is the people that you work with are not your company and the interactions with them are not just company culture. That really does become your family. And so to me, it's you know, you're not just picking your company, you're picking your family. And as a leader of my organization, I feel this huge weight, this huge responsibility in curating a good company culture because what we're doing is we're actually curating a large part of people's lives. And I think that's really important.

The Three Ps And A Process Gap

William Gladhart 3:02

Yeah, I think that's a I believe that's a really great point. We don't realize uh many of us don't realize how many hours we do spend at work with our fellow co-workers. And as a leader, you certainly are shaping that entire experience. And as your company grows, also, it's been our experience that leaders tend to struggle in three key areas people, process, or profit. So in your role as CEO, could you identify which of these areas presented a cultural challenge? And sometimes it's a combination of multiple Ps.

Hiring Spree Lessons Learned

Andrew Abraham 3:32

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I think the biggest thing is process for sure. Being a young entrepreneur, I'm still kind of really learning what I and just to kind of preface, I think there are three four infinity stones when it comes to being the best CEO out there, right? So the first one is understanding finance and accounting, the second one is sales and marketing, the third one is law, because you have to understand the frameworks in which your business can operate. And the last one to me is organizational behavior and management. And so as a young entrepreneur and as a leader who's emerging, I'm getting, you know, really accustomed to learning great processes that actually work within my organization. So, Will, just to give you an insight about me, I'm obsessed with the Porsche 9-11 Turbo S. That is my dream car, and I'm so obsessed with it, I know one day it's gonna happen. And when we look at the MSRP, right, it's 230,000. So that's profit. Porsche has a clear idea of how much you can make on each sale. Then you have obviously people, you have the parts, you have the engineers, you have everything in between, but the car doesn't get built without a process. So, what I've learned quickly as an entrepreneur is you can have star players, and you know, they can be highly intelligent, very talented people, and you can also have a great offer, right? As a company, you might have a great, you know, B2B SaaS solution like we do at Hey Buddy, but without the right process, you failed to deliver to your end user. Without that, the others uh the others don't really matter too much. And so, with my own experiences, it's been processed for sure.

William Gladhart 4:54

Okay, I think that's really valid. Uh, and I like that you use that Porsche example as a goal because that car didn't get to the dealership floor by just happenstance and just show up. There were a lot of different pieces, just like your organization, there's a lot of pieces that happen before there's even deployment of a product or a solution. As you kind of reflect on that, what challenges impacted you either positively or negatively as you have been leading, as you've been growing, hey buddy, etc.

Andrew Abraham 5:23

For me, it was let's call it a suboptimal experience because I don't necessarily see things are bad as bad or good because we learn from them, but it was suboptimal that at the very start of Hey Buddy, I went on this hiring spree because I thought people was the most important thing, right? Like I need to get all the most talented people in the world that I can find and who I can quote unquote afford. And what happened then was they weren't delivering the results that I had hoped as a leader. And so quickly, you know, I was thinking like, hmm, maybe I over-indexed on their agency, or maybe I over-indexed on their uh ability to be a self-starter. I'd take a step back and meditate on it. I go, no, that's the wrong modality of thought as a leader. As a leader, I believe in radical accountability. And so I quickly realized I myself, as a leader of an organization, have not laid out the proper foundation, i.e., the right processes in which these people can come together and you know start to progress and start to grow within my organization. And so hiring too quickly taught me that without the right process in play, you can have the right people, but they're not going to go the right direction without proper process. And so that's what I learned very quickly and was very glad to learn very early on at our company.

Servant Leadership And Mission Fit

William Gladhart 6:29

Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. Uh it's very difficult for people to understand their role and also become self-leaders if they don't have clarity from you as the leader about the next steps, the direction, what the process is. So I think that's a really great lesson for other leaders to not only reflect on, but think about how their choices and decisions, whether that's in hiring, whether it's in process, impacts the entire organization. What was maybe the one thing that you identified to help impact your culture positively?

Andrew Abraham 7:00

Yeah, I think the biggest thing was really being able to meditate and um really start embodying what I, you know, what is commonly known as is servant leadership. So often, you know, whenever we talk about it in society, CEO or leader, these are these like honorable roles that we elevate, right? And I think the right leader does the opposite. Uh he descends from his ivory tower, comes down and understands everybody. So, what I mean more precisely is if you're listening and you're a CEO or you're a leader, look to serve those that you work with. Ensure that they feel seen, heard, and loved. And when it comes to hiring the right people, for the questions I now ask, given my experiences, what I've learned is ask them about their personal mission and agency in life. And the right, the right talent for you is not the right person that can come in and take an interest in what your mission is, but the person whose personal mission is so aligned with your company that joining your organization and and supporting what's going on is one-to-one directly correlated to their personal mission in life. And so, with that, it's actually being able to understand them and to build a real relationship with them where they're where you can both become vulnerable and you can align, again, the company's mission and their mission and make it one thing. So everyone shows up happy and ready to go. And so that all comes from a heart of servant leadership where you look to serve those who are around you to truly understand them as you go.

William Gladhart 8:26

Yeah, I love that. Uh we've had several CEOs recently mention that shift to thinking about and also asking either prospective employees or current staff members, how do you fit? How do we align with what your personal mission is, whether it's career goal, whether it's giving back, whether it's volunteering, those elements and then wrapping that in because that becomes part of the overall culture, but it also becomes the ethos of the organization. As we wrap up today, is there anything else, Andrew, that you'd like to share or add for fellow leaders?

Leadership As A Spiritual Practice

Andrew Abraham 9:00

Yeah, well, if I was given a mega mega phone and I could speak to every leader in the world, every entrepreneur in the world, my message is very simple. Whenever I speak and get to spend time with the most prolific investors, entrepreneurs, and leaders, they have one thing in common. There is this overarching theme or idea that it echoes in the chambers of their hearts. And often it's when they're when they're young and they they grow up and they keep on forward. And so what this means to me when I think about this persistent dream that lies deeply in their soul, I think that entrepreneurship is a and leadership is a deeply spiritual game. Everything that we are called to work on, like our soul gravitate towards, these are what I believe in my heart, in my soul, this is the divine ordination of the creator being unraveled in real time. And so if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a leader, is understand how deeply spiritual this quote unquote game is. Guard your heart, really dig deep into your heart and ensure that everything you do is correlated to your highest and most authentic/slash genuine self. And when you do that, not only do you start working on the problems that actually mean something to you and matter the most, but the way that you do it is so you, it's so human that you naturally get to solve most of the problems that come with come your way, meaning the right people will gravitate towards you, the right customers will align with the way that you speak, communicate, and serve them, the right investors will see your energy and go, hey, I want to get behind that person. So just just realize it's a deeply spiritual game. Guard your heart, guard your soul, never give up.

William Gladhart 10:33

Yeah, I love that. Andrew, I've enjoyed having you on the Leadership Lovers podcast. Thank you, and I appreciate your insights.

Andrew Abraham 10:39

Thank you so much. God bless you. Take care, Will.

William Gladhart 10:43

Thank you for joining us on the Leadership Lovers Podcast. Find all our Leadership Lovers episodes on the Culture Think Tank website at www.theculture think tank.com or listen on your favorite streaming platform. We'd love to hear from you about the challenges you have faced as a leader. Tune in weekly as we invite leaders to share their experiences in strengthening culture and performance one action at a time.