Cole Morgan, Snap! Raise Co-Founder and CEO

To be successful founding a company, you have to have a vision. You’ve got to believe strongly in that vision. And know when to let go and have other people build on that vision and that idea.

Know Yourself and Your Passions

To be a good leader, you need humility. You must understand that true success is about the team goals and not your personal achievements. Understanding what’s needed to succeed. Be humble and delegate where you need to. Knowing where I’m weak and where I’m strong allows me to act as a guide and gather the skill sets the company needs to make the organization great.

Your Values Shape Your Company

Every one at Snap! Raise knows my values: what I believe is most important. For me, that’s supporting coaches so that they can support kids. Snap! Raise is founded on the belief that “Every Kid Needs a Champion”: that coach, teacher, or group leader who makes profound differences in kids’ lives. I made it Snap! Raise’s mission to “Champion the Champion.”

Lean into Your Leadership Style

Every leader has multiple aspects of their leadership style. Good leaders embrace their strengths. I’d describe my style as energetic with a team-first focus.

I strongly believe that what we accomplish as a whole accomplishes a lot more than the individual efforts that funnel into everything. I trust the people around me. I teach my leadership team and all of the Snap! Raise people the mission, the vision, the values and the purpose of the company–why customers are important. I share what I think the product is going to look like in the future. Then I trust them to make the vision a reality.

Know / No Surprises

My go-to CEO hack, is “no surprises.” Empower your leadership and your employees. “Teach and trust” is my core approach. However, don’t be blind. I believe in being informed and involved to the extent that there aren’t any big surprises within the company.

Of course, in the greater environment, change happens. When something changes on you–don’t be surprised. Just absorb it, try to understand it, and react to it.

The most obvious example of this is COVID. Our goal is to help keep schools and group funded and supported. We had been doing that with in-person interactions. We were effectively shut down.

We had to reinvent the way that we engage with our customers and our coaches. We focused on tools and teaching/communication principles for our sales force and our customer service teams.

This caused us to innovate and adapt.

Read the Snap! Raise Story.