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Here we speak with Brendan Noud, co-founder and CEO of LearnUpon, a pioneering Learning Management System (LMS) company that has revolutionized the way companies deliver training to their employees, partners and customers.
After identifying a gap in the market for customer-centric LMS solutions, Brendan and his co-founder, Des Anderson, built LearnUpon from the ground up with a commitment to innovation and customer support. From the early days of offering 24/7 support through 12-hour shifts to becoming an industry leader with over 1,500 customers, Brendan shares the insights and values that have defined LearnUpon’s success.
Brendan Noud has previously worked for companies offering learning management systems and services and spotted a gap in the market for something bigger and better. Fed up with the lack of innovation and customer-centric values within the Learning Management System (LMS) environment, Brendan decided to start his own company, and LearnUpon was born.
Together with its co-founder, Des Anderson, they developed LearnUpon to support the learning needs of businesses. From the start, Brendan and Des placed a big emphasis on customer service, ensuring customers could get in touch and get the support they needed. Before first joining in 2013, Brendan and Des took turns working 12-hour shifts to provide 24/7 support to their customers. Fast forward to today, and they have a global business with over 1,500 customers.
LearnUpon’s mission is to partner with companies who believe that delivering great education is essential to achieving great results. They focus on helping organizations deliver effective learning that bridges the gap between employee, partner and customer training and business goals.
With Brendan leading LearnUpon, the company has achieved widespread recognition and won multiple industry awards. His leadership has driven substantial growth, with LearnUpon now serving customers across industries and establishing itself as a leader in the LMS landscape.
What is the most important problem you solve for your customers?
At LearnUpon, we help companies deliver engaging LearnUpon experiences to their employees, partners and customers, all within one centralized solution. We strive to ensure that the learning they provide impacts what matters, such as performance, retention and growth.
Why did you start your company: did you want to break the status quo, or was it a gap in the market that you could fill?
My co-founder, Des, and I have both been working in the leather industry for over 20 years. We spoke to so many people and companies who were unhappy with their learning solution. They were dated, bloated, and lacked a focus on what really mattered: the user experience.
We decided to invest in building a solution that we believe meets the needs of real businesses, with a focus on making the learning experience as engaging and simple as possible and the administrative experience as automated and efficient as possible.
What are your brand values?
LearnUpon has many brand values, but the most important is to “put the customer first”. Nothing is decided, built or achieved without asking the question: are we putting our customers first? We are a customer-oriented company; we build for their needs. Our roadmap, our community, our conference: it’s all about the customer experience and putting it first.
Is team culture an integral part of your business?
From day one, we had a strong vision of LearnUpon’s corporate culture. It has developed considerably since then. Today, our Culture Code maps out the shared beliefs, values and practices that are important to us. We encourage all employees to celebrate when these values are lived and feel comfortable highlighting instances when they are not.
These fall into a few categories: putting customers at the heart of what we do; leading with curiosity, asking questions and learning from mistakes; lead by example in a constructive and caring manner; and delivering quality, which we believe is best done through diverse voices and experiences.
Above all, we hire great people and trust them to do great work, seeking to build a team that is adaptable, resilient, collaborative, compassionate, driven, humble and fun. Culture is the most important part of running a successful business.
What do you do to go the extra mile and show your team that you appreciate them?
We offer plenty of perks to show our appreciation for our team, but it’s the day-to-day actions that truly shape our company culture. We trust our team members and encourage them to take risks and explore new ideas.
Moreover, we believe in complete transparency. Every month we hold a company-wide meeting where we openly share updates, celebrate our successes and learn from our challenges.
It is this trust and openness that our people value most.
Do you think your messages are speaking directly to your consumers in a clear way?
Transparency is big at LearnUpon, especially with our customers. If a prospect talks to us and we don’t think we are the right solution for him or her, we are transparent. And we will direct them to another solution that we believe is the right one. We also encourage everyone on our team, from sales to product to customer success, to be honest and open with our customers. This helps us build authentic relationships, and this is reflected in our reviews and retention rates.
How often do you review the data you bring in and focus on your KPIs, and why?
Every decision we make is data-driven, whether it is qualitative or quantitative. We continuously monitor customer metrics such as satisfaction, NPS, retention and product adoption. We also give our customers the opportunity to talk to us, whether it’s one-on-one on calls with our Customer Experience teams, within our customer community or at our conference. We want to know how we can continuously improve to meet their needs.
This is also a major priority for the happiness of our employees. We conduct two surveys every year. An end-of-year survey to assess team sentiment and a mid-year pulse survey. It is crucial that we know how our employees feel and whether we are living our company culture.
Does technology play a much bigger role in the daily operations of your company?
It’s huge. As a technology company, we want to be at the forefront and use the best technology internally and offer it to our customers. We have robust processes within the company for using the latest technology, and we also have a strong roadmap for our customers around AI. We also have a major focus on automation. The time of our customers and our team is valuable; that’s why we want to provide solutions that help them do more in less time.
What is your attitude towards your competitors?
The learning technology space is filled with competitors. It’s a busy space with an estimated 1,000+ learning solutions currently on the market. At LearnUpon we don’t consider it a bad thing to have a competitive market. For us it means opportunities. It means that there is a growing market and a growing demand for corporate learning.
Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?
Keep your company’s values in mind from the start. When Des and I first started LearnUpon, we wanted businesses to have the best support in the industry. But for the two of us, this meant splitting up the 12-hour shifts so we could provide 24/7 support.
That drive for the best customer support has never diminished. Instead, it has expanded to include LearnUpon’s extensive customer experience team, which still offers 24/7 support.
It can be a lonely and pressurized place as the company’s leading decision maker. What do you do to relax, recharge and sharpen your focus?
I consider myself incredibly lucky to have Des, the co-founder of LearnUpon, by my side. I have known Des for more than 20 years; we both came up in the industry together, and I can always rely on him to be a sounding board for ideas and ensure we make the right decision for our team, our customers and LearnUpon as a whole. Plus, playing sports with my kids is always a great vacation!
Do you believe in the 12-week working method, or do you use much longer planning strategies?
We have a long-term vision, but to achieve that we work in quarters. At the start of each quarter, we create team- and company-wide OKRs that we all work towards. The entire company is kept informed of progress every month. It keeps everyone committed and focused on a common goal.
What three things do you hope to achieve within the next twelve months?
At the beginning of each year we review and revise our business objectives, our product vision and our positioning in the market. We want to have certainty about those things. Team growth is also an important point of attention. We’re opening new offices and growing teams, and we’re committed to continuing to bring the best talent into our business.