Meet The Disruptors: Nicolas Darveau-Garneau of Coveo On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
“Start with the future state,” …too often I find myself thinking about things starting where things are today and trying to improve them incrementally. When I want to really transform things, I start with the art of the possible, where things could be in five years and work backwards from there. It makes a really big difference in terms of mindset.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicolas Darveau-Garneau.
Nicolas Darveau-Garneau is Chief of Growth and Strategy Officer at Coveo, a leader in AI-powered personalization, recommendations and search for digital experiences. He is a former Google executive, where he worked 11 years and most recently served as Google’s Chief Evangelist.
Mr. Darveau-Garneau has been an Internet entrepreneur since 1995. He was part of the founding team of MSN.com; was the co-founder of four companies (imix.com, Liquor.com, BigDeal.com, and Fanhood) and an investor/advisor in over 50 Internet companies.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
The most important thing to know about me is that I failed kindergarten (seriously!). The upshot was that my mom spent hundreds of hours teaching me math, reading, and writing. When I went back to school, I skipped the first grade. Early adversity helped toughen me up.
Career-wise, I was sitting in a computer lab in 1994 and saw the Internet for the first time. I was completely enthralled and knew right then that my entire career would be around digital experiences. I was then fortunate to spend a summer at Microsoft as part of the launch team of MSN. Right after business school I started my first Internet company and have been part of the industry ever since. I’m really proud of the (mostly) positive impact the Internet has had, democratizing access to information for nearly the entire world.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Digital transformation is key to survival. Customers expect extraordinary experiences everywhere, not just on Amazon or Netflix. But creating an amazing, personalized experience across an entire customer journey (web, app, email, customer service…) is very difficult. Amazon and Netflix have large AI teams to do this. Coveo helps any enterprise create great customer experiences without having to build AI teams. The impact is usually a significant lift in customer satisfaction, profits, and loyalty and a significant decrease in the cost to serve customers.
Imagine building an Amazon-like experience in 6 months and generating a significant shift in ecommerce profits.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I’ve made so many mistakes and continue to do so. One of my biggest mistakes early in my career was to not mentor enough. If a team member was not immediately contributing to my liking, I was very impatient and did not invest enough time with them. I lost great people in the past because of this. I haven’t made this mistake again and will invest as much time as necessary to coach and mentor team members.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
My mom is my hero and my mentor. She was a single mom with three kids and very little money and she worked two jobs while going to school. She never complained, she worked hard, and she gave everything she had. Without her, I don’t know where I would be.
Another mentor is Gordon Buchanan. I met Gordon at McKinsey and he taught me more about business than anyone else. We would sit down often over a great scotch (which he paid for!) and would take me through business situations he had encountered and explained them in depth. He also spent countless hours advising me on how to get admitted to a top MBA. Gordon and I are still close today and he was my main advisor when I was considering joining Coveo.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Disruption is not the key. The key is customer delight. Sometimes, customer delight can be accomplished best through personal contact. Sometimes through digital. Often, it’s a combination of both. When thinking about disruption, start with the customer and what would absolutely blow them away. A good example is Asbury, a car dealership group. They transformed themselves from a very traditional car company (sales at all costs with relatively low customer reviews) to an extraordinary company that delights customers. They started with simple things like putting bows on cars after they are sold. They then improved their car service operation by videotaping the underside of cars during inspections and sending those videos to customers to explain repair estimates; and now they are the only car dealership in the world to fully sell cars online including real-time financing, real-time trade-ins… an extraordinary transformation that started with one idea: improve Yelp reviews.
Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
“Start with the future state,” …too often I find myself thinking about things starting where things are today and trying to improve them incrementally. When I want to really transform things, I start with the art of the possible, where things could be in five years and work backwards from there. It makes a really big difference in terms of mindset.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Well, I just started at Coveo. It’s an extraordinary company with great success and even more potential. My goal in the next few years is to make sure every single large enterprise knows what Coveo can do and tests our platform. When companies see what we can do, they are blown away. Coveo can help thousands of companies dramatically improve their customer experience and impact their bottom-line.
My goal is to help every large company 10X their customer delight.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
This Ted Talk on “how to tie your shoes” really hit home with me. It’s a constant reminder to continue to question things and improve every day. There is nothing more simple than tying a shoe. But I had been doing it wrong my whole life. What a lesson!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Live in the now, man.” As a tech executive, I spend a lot of time thinking about the future. But I try hard to live my personal life very differently and be in the present. I was not like that when I was younger and regret it deeply. It’s important to dream and think about the future. It’s important to look back and learn from the past. But 90%+ of our time on earth should be spent living in the now. Enjoy your next sandwich. Kiss your child. Phone a friend.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I’m very proud of what the Internet has brought to the world but unfortunately it has caused some divisions and balkanized society based on political opinions. I wish the discussion online was more civil. Robust, combative even. But more civil.
How can our readers follow you online?
I post on LinkedIn often.
Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!
Meet The Disruptors: Nicolas Darveau-Garneau of Coveo On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
