Life360 is Hiring a VP of People
Hi, Chris Hulls (CEO) and David Rice (COO) here. Life360 has been rapidly growing, and as such, we have a new need to elevate our team in much bigger ways. As a company with strong user traction and product market fit, we believe that the ultimate strategic differentiator that will help us stand apart in our next phase of growth will be the quality of our people and culture. We are seeking a leader to partner with us to make this one of the standout elements of Life360.
The Life360 Elevator Pitch
We’ll start with the quick elevator pitch. If Facebook is for friends and LinkedIn is for professionals, we are the same thing for families, but with a strong focus on safety and coordination. With features that range from location sharing and place notifications to automatic car crash detection and emergency dispatch (on average, we send an ambulance to an accident every hour), Life360 is used by tens of millions of families around the world to make life safer and easier.
While the Facebook for Families pitch isn’t new, we have the stats to back it up. Some examples:
- One in 10 families with kids in the US use our product everyday, and we have nearly 30 million active users worldwide.
- Beyond just having amazing market fit, we have an exceptional attachment rate to premium of 18% — Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) has gone from ~$1m to over $75m in just a few years.
- We have deep resources at our disposal — over $50m is in the bank and we are approaching 200 members of the team.
And, we just recently launched our new Membership strategy, the biggest launch in our company’s history — focusing on 3 tiers of premium family safety memberships:
Given the strong traction we have, we believe success is ours if we continue to scale our team with amazing talent around the globe.
Why we are hiring a VP of People and Culture
While our day-to-day is running well, the world is evolving and so are we. It’s clear that managing a fast-paced organization in this “new normal” requires fresh ways of thinking and we are looking well beyond just HR. So aside from maintaining the the nuts and bolts of getting people paid, dealing with immigration, and keeping the company compliant, you’ll be joining our other key executives (examples: Samir Kapoor — CTO, Jeremy Liegl — GC, Jon Troutman — VP Design, Ariana Hellebyuck — VP Marketing, Jonathan Benassaya — CPO, Russell Burke — CFO) in shaping the people and culture functions of Life360 as we enter our next chapter.
Areas of Responsibility
Culture
We believe that culture isn’t just our values on the wall, but our key attributes that define who we are, how we work, and how we make hiring, separation, and promotion decisions. You will be responsible for finding ways to continue to develop these values and norms, ensuring they are adopted widely across the organization, and holding us accountable to meet them.
Recruiting
While we have a successful recruiting track record, we know it can be even better. We have ambition to scale beyond simply having a great pipeline process to having a reputation for being an amazing place to work with inspiring colleagues. In this role, you will have the power to oversee how our brand gets noticed by potential employees across the world.
Talent Development
Our managers do great work, and we’d like to create programs and systems that help them develop faster in all they do. From creating curriculum for up-and-coming managers, to helping the leadership team work more cohesively as a group, you will be responsible for ensuring that the talent we already have on the team continues to grow.
How We Work/Facilities
We’ve been opening satellite offices around the world and started remote hiring before the pandemic hit. This remote-first trend has now massively accelerated and you’ll be responsible for making us thrive in this new environment — managing our evolution to remote-first but also responsible for our facilities around the world.
Reviews, Communication, and Feedback
We are a transparent company and seek to build a culture of candor. We want wins to be widely shared, constructive feedback to be readily received and given, and both the formal and informal processes we have to be understood, consistent, and widely adopted. You will be the point person to ensure this runs smoothly throughout the organization.
Compensation, Benefits, Leveling & Compliance
While much of the decision making here falls to our individual managers, we are at a size that requires consistency and education across the organization. You will be a cross-functional facilitator here to ensure all departments scale. Additionally, you will drive company compliance with employment laws and regulations.
On day one, you will take responsibility for our six person People team (4 in Talent, 2 in HR) and our five person EA/Facilities team. You will scale these functions as we grow. This role reports to David, who runs what we term our “company operating system” — keeping everything working together as the company continues to grow/scale — but you will also be working very closely with Chris, who as founder/CEO is very focused on culture and values.
Who You Are
- You have at least 10 years of People experience (including time at the VP level or equivalent) and have been at companies our size or bigger so you know what to comes next.
- You’ve worked at organizations whose reputation for people and culture excellence precedes them.
- You have worked in engineering and product-heavy companies, as this is 75% of our headcount.
- You know all the nuts and bolts of HR, and could do much of the work yourself if needed, but have demonstrated your ability to hire strong partners to run the day-to-day.
- You have incredibly high expectations for your people and also set a strong example with your own output and work ethic (this is not a kick-back 9-to-5).
- You have a development mindset and work to continually learn and improve, and can give us strong examples of things you do to stay current.
- Your references will tell us you are someone who can have difficult conversations and deliver tough feedback while also fundamentally remaining kind.
- You are an organized self starter and don’t wait to be told what to do. You will be part of our leadership team and thus need to be part of defining your own success.
Bonus Points
- You have worked in other tech companies with a B2C focus so you can resonate with the overall setup of our organization.
- You’ve been part of a company either as a #1 or #2 that has scaled from ~150 to 300+ people.
- You are an active user of our product, so you intuitively understand the value we are providing to our customers.
Compensation and Benefits:
- Competitive pay and equity compensation — we seek to be above average when benchmarked to late-stage private companies.
- The computer and work setup of your choice.
- Comprehensive health, dental, 401k and other benefits.
- $200/month Quality of Life perk.
Other Details
We are headquartered in SF and aim to hire someone locally, but given the new remote-first world, we are open to hiring the right person wherever they might be. We would expect you to come to HQ regularly though, and you would need to be able work during business hours in our time zone.
We’re centrally located near South Park (8 minute walk from CalTrain, 10 mins from BART, one minute drive after getting off the 101). We offer competitive benefits and compensation, and are publicly listed on the ASX (Australian Stock Exchange). We chose this non-traditional funding route instead of doing a late-stage private round because you get the liquidity of a public company with the upside of a private one. Our equity is no longer the proverbial lottery ticket — you can sell shares whenever you want.
Interested in learning more?
The world is small, so ideally you come in through a trusted referral, but feel free to apply here if we don’t happen to have any connections that intersect.
An Addendum: Some Words on Our Values
Because culture is such a big focus for the role, we’d like to share a work-in-progress version of our updated key values. We are serious about making these attributes not just words on the wall, but key tenets that we use to make hire/fire/promote decisions. We share them here in the spirit of transparency so you know the type of culture we are trying to build.
1. User Experience Excellence
We believe an amazing end-to-end user experience is our key competitive differentiator and we obsess about putting our customers first.
2. Be a Good Person
Everyone at Life360 respects each other and maintains a high sense of integrity. We recognize the fundamental value of each person.
3. Take Big Swings
We are ambitious and take bold bets. We celebrate innovation and are not overly-focused on incremental improvements.
4. Be 100% Dependable
You do what you say you will. If you can’t deliver, you communicate this in advance and are not afraid to ask for help.
5. Know Families
We focus on use cases that delight families. Everything we do has a family-focused angle.
6. Think Long-term
We make strategic decisions that pay off in the long run. We avoid short-termism.
7. Can-Do Attitude
We think big. We stay positive. When overwhelmed, we avoid the temptation to say why something can’t be done and instead figure out how to make it happen.
8. Engage in Debate
We resist the urge to avoid conflict and always provide direct feedback. We hold people accountable and engage in tough conversations when needed.
9. Highly Effective People
We maintain focus on improving the skills and results of all employees. We make smart changes when employees fail to grow or can no longer keep up with the team.
10. Simple Before Smart
We bias to simple solutions that reduce complexity and overhead. Build the Soyuz not the Space Shuttle.
While culture by definition is not carried by a single person, and in particular has to be modeled and exhibited by the leadership team, you will be the person that continues to bring these values to life and help us hold ourselves accountable to them.
