Behind the Flame: Sofie

Welcome to Behind the Flame, a series created to showcase our incidentios.

Meet Sofie Vanhal, a Commercial Account Executive here at incident.io.

Q: What has been your favorite incident.io memory so far?

My favorite incident.io memory so far was probably our offsite in Barcelona. It was, I think, my second or third week with the company, I got to meet everyone all at once. We had a ton of really fun activities, including paddle boarding out in the ocean.

Q: What is the value that most resonates with you?

The value that resonates most with me is Raise the Pace, I always like to move fast and here it's never an issue. It's always encouraged to push the pace and it’s something that works not only across go-to-market but also the Engineering team, which is beneficial for me when I talk to prospective customers who want new features.

Q: What is your favorite benefit that we have here?

My favorite benefit is last Friday of the month, it means you always have a long weekend. It's a nice way to plan weekend trips and just get a breather every month.

Q: What is your favorite Slack channel?

My favorite Slack channel is probably #pets. I love sending photos of my own pets and then it's just a nice way to see everyone else's. We also have in-office dogs and they're often featured there so that's always fun to see.

Q: What is one piece of advice you’d give yourself on your first day?

One piece of advice I would have given myself on my first day was probably just to embrace every moment. I think when I started, I had a lot of travel planned and it was a little overwhelming. I think just be where your feet are, take it day by day and just enjoy every part of it. The last year has gone by really quickly and there's tons of stuff that I would love to go back and experience again.

Q: What advice would you give to any candidates interviewing with us?

I think advice for anyone who is interviewing with us would be just to really understand the culture here before you join. I think we have an amazing culture, but we also expect a lot out of our employees. And I think anyone that wants to join the company should be ready to work hard and move quickly. And we have hefty goals for this year, so I think expectations are definitely high.

Q: How would you describe the culture in three words?

In three words, I would describe the culture as fun, fast-paced and exciting. I think there's tons of excitement all the time.

Q: Which incident.io employee would you like to be stuck in an elevator with?

I think probably [Sales AE] Jack Buckmelter, I don't know if he'd be the best person to get me out of the elevator, but he would certainly keep me entertained while we waited for help.

Q: What does last Friday of the month mean to you?

Last Friday of the month means extra time with my family, time to recharge and make sure I'm refreshed when I come back to work on Monday.

Q: What is something that you're most looking forward to over the next year?

Seeing us grow as a company, we've had a ton of big releases on the product side lately, and I think it's really going to help us take off. I'm excited to see everything that we're going to accomplish, continuing to improve our product and build relationships with customers and see how we compare with the rest of the market in the next year or so.

Q: What's something you're excited or proud to have worked on?

I think I'm proud to have worked on helping build out our SDR team here. Outbound is really challenging, so there are always things we have to improve on, but we’ve built a really good foundation over the last year or so. It's exciting to see more outbound meetings being booked and I'm excited to see as well what the current SDR team will do over the next year.

Q: What is it like being a part of the Sales team?

The Sales team at incident.io is definitely much more collaborative than any other Sales team I've been a part of. On these teams, it can be really competitive and you have the feeling they don’t want you to succeed. Here, we have really high expectations, the goals are not softballs, we have a lot to chase and I think we're all better off if we can hit those goals. Any success is the team's success and everyone's super supportive when we need help, which is awesome.

Q: What was something that surprised you when you joined?

One thing that surprised me when I joined was obviously we have two separate offices on different continents. My expectation was that things would be a little divided, but it's actually pretty impressive, especially as a remote employee, how involved you always feel and how connected you feel with people even in the London office all the way from the US. It's one of the best parts of our company, we have people from different parts of the world and we somehow share a common culture and everyone has the same energy, drive and attitude when they show up to work.

Q: What's been your favorite customer interaction?

I don't know if I can point to one, but this is the only company I've been at where we've had people on LinkedIn celebrating us without us asking them to. People come up to us at booths at conferences and are always really excited to see us. It's a testament to the fact that we're not just in it for the sale or money upfront. It really is a partnership and I think it's always clear when we talk to customers how good they feel about working with us. It’s a good feeling when you're selling someone a product and you know that they're going to have a good experience after purchasing.

Q: Why do you think companies need a reliable incident management tool?

Companies need a reliable incident management tool because issues arise all the time. In the heat of the moment, it's really easy to forget important things to do. It's also really important to be able to learn from your incidents and prevent them in the future, especially with more competition in every industry. Building trust with your customers and providing more reliability, you're going to stand out against your competitors. It's also going to make life easier for your own engineers and your customer support team. Every company can benefit from having a reliable system to help guide them through stressful outages.

Q: How does incident.io recognize and celebrate achievements and milestones?

There's no shortage of celebrations and appreciation for people within Slack. In our weekly all-hands we're always celebrating achievements, big or small, whether it's a promotion or just a great booked meeting, these are things that we're always highlighting. We also have a channel called #gratitude where we're just shouting out people who are doing great work or being extra helpful. It’s great to see the appreciation for people and their accomplishments or even just their hard work and dedication.