What It Really Takes to Lead: Hagan Kappler on Career, Courage & Doing the Hard Things

288. What It Really Takes to Lead: Hagan Kappler on Career, Courage & Doing the Hard Things

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[00:00:41] Hagan Kappler: So I called the company and said, thank you for the offer, but I’m gonna stay. And the next day I drove to the office and I couldn’t walk in the front door. I just couldn’t do it, and I knew that I had made the wrong decision.

[00:00:58] Ellen Scanlon: Welcome to How To Do the Pot, [00:01:00] the award-winning podcast, redefining what cannabis looks like in women’s lives today.

[00:01:05] I’m your host, Ellen Scanlon.

[00:01:13] You just heard from Hagen Kapler, the founder and CEO of Daisy, a pioneering startup that makes home technology work the way it’s supposed to, easy, intuitive, and tailored to your life. Today’s episode is a special one to celebrate Mother’s Day. I’m highlighting women who are not just building companies, they are building better futures for all of us, and I’m so excited to share this conversation with my friend and former business school classmate from UVA’s Darden School.

[00:01:45] I. Hagen’s new company. Daisy helps people make sense of the tech chaos in their homes. Think of it like the tech support you really want. Smart home services that work seamlessly. And don’t leave you asking [00:02:00] chat, GPT How to reset your wifi at 11:00 PM. Hagen is also a mom to four kids. She’s a wife, a resilient and innovative leader, and someone who has taken some bold leaps in her career, including one that almost didn’t happen.

[00:02:18] Hagen’s career path includes some of the biggest names in business. She graduated from Williams College, then worked at Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Starbucks, and now she’s leading a high growth startup that’s raised millions of dollars to create the first national brand for home tech services. In today’s episode, you’ll hear why moving across the country with her young family helped Hagan unlock the next chapter of her career.

[00:02:45] How a harrowing and very public Me too experience reshaped the kind of company she’s building. I. Why trusting her gut, especially when it wasn’t easy, has led to some of her biggest wins. [00:03:00] One thing I also learned is that Hagen is not a cannabis consumer, so I’m grateful to her for coming on the show. So I actually don’t know this.

[00:03:09] Does cannabis play any role in your life?

[00:03:12] Hagan Kappler: Oh my gosh. I was afraid you were gonna ask this. It doesn’t. I tried when I in college. I think, and I had one good experience and then I tried again when I was in Amsterdam because we were with some guys and I was trying to be cool, which I think is like exactly not the reason to like do drugs, right?

[00:03:36] And like not what you talk about on your podcast at all.

[00:03:42] I’m pretty much strictly like a margaritas and wine and even red wine I hardly can do anymore ’cause it gives me a headache. So I’m falling into like a purely tequila and water person these days. Sparkling water is like my jam. Yeah. Except for that one Amsterdam. And my best friend [00:04:00] was with me and it was like this horrible experience of like.

[00:04:04] Everything went like fast and s slow at the same time. I was like paranoid the cops were gonna come. It was like classic, terrible. She certainly will never try it. So, um, yeah, that one bad experience turned me off.

[00:04:18] Ellen Scanlon: So, I’m sorry. Well, thank you for coming on a show that’s dedicated to educating about cannabis and having had that bad experience.

[00:04:25] I’m sorry about that.

[00:04:29] If you’re curious about how powerful women build things, businesses, families, lives, this episode is for you. Have you read My Substack yet? In my most recent post, I featured a great interview with another amazing founder and mother, Kaitlyn Krebs, the CEO of biotech firm, Nalu Bio. Substack is where I share behind the scenes from the podcast exclusive brand discounts, and give you my personal recommendations for [00:05:00] things that inspire me.

[00:05:01] From books to podcasts, to products, to fun things, to do all in one place, straight to your inbox. If you’re already a reader, you can upgrade to a paid subscription for just $6 a month. It helps me keep this work going and I really appreciate your support. If you haven’t signed up yet, please check it out.

[00:05:22] I’d love to have you there.

[00:05:36] What inspired your interest in business? I wanted to build something and that isn’t the way that a lot of young girls our age were socialized. So how did your interest begin?

[00:05:49] Hagan Kappler: I have to admit that I don’t know if I necessarily had an interest in business. You know, I went to liberal arts college. I was a history major.

[00:05:58] I was always good at math, [00:06:00] but not necessarily interested in it. To be honest. My dad was a business person and I really admired and looked up to my dad, so I think I was always going to follow in his footsteps in some way. Goldman Sachs recruited me out of undergrad and taught me everything I needed to know, and what I loved about business was more just the interactions with people.

[00:06:23] On great teams, the connections and bonding with teams. Laughing, you know, solving problems, working hard and accomplishing something, looking at data and telling a story about it. I think I struggled with kind of those Sunday scaries for most of my career. So I wouldn’t say like, I loved going to work to work.

[00:06:43] I, after I had my babies, I always wrestled with. Okay is now the time when I give it up and do this instead. But, um, meaning stay at home. And I think it was not until really a few years ago finding mentors who got me [00:07:00] excited, found kind of things I was interested, like technology. And also because I got better, you know, I knew more having gone to Darden, where I started to feel like a little bit more confident.

[00:07:10] I think confidence helped me. Enjoy. I think those things helped a lot. Inspire now. Yeah. Loving what I do.

[00:07:18] Ellen Scanlon: I appreciate you saying that because the Sunday thing is, oh man, it’s tough. I’m also in August, like I fear August and Sunday. I feel like those are like the two when I’m like been my most anxious states and my son just started kindergarten and it was like such a wonderful transition.

[00:07:38] School has been so great for him and suddenly I’m kind of looking at all of these fears that I always had over sort of the new year of school starting and being like. Maybe it just doesn’t have to be that way. I mean, he’s so excited every day. And um, it’s funny when your children are like very opposite from you and it’s inspiring.

[00:07:58] Hagan Kappler: It is. It’s also [00:08:00] difficult. Sometimes I wonder why can’t my children just be exactly like me? That would make things so much easier. It turns out they’re not. So it be good and bad. Yeah.

[00:08:12] Ellen Scanlon: Today.

[00:08:16] So maybe you can just talk a little bit about some of your proudest moments from some of your vast accomplishments. If there are moments from particular companies that stand out to you that you can identify now that you are running Daisy as sort of a breadcrumb trail of, of what got you there.

[00:08:36] Hagan Kappler: When I was at Starbucks, I launched blonde roast for the company, was the first foray into lighter roasted coffee and.

[00:08:45] I led everything from formulating the product to helping to influence the frontline baristas that this was, you know, a good idea given that company had been founded on the idea that dark roasted coffee equal [00:09:00] good coffee. And so I had to go back and say, well, I mean, we do customize their drinks for people who want like 10 degree mocha latte non-fat.

[00:09:10] So why should we have only one kind of drip coffee? You know? So walking people kind of through that and really making sure that we were first listening to our team members and understanding how our team members felt and then successfully launching that. I think other times in my career that I’m, I’m proud of, you know, probably has to do with some of just the leaps of faith that I.

[00:09:35] For example, I was at big companies and moved the family. So for example, I was running m and A for Ingersoll Rand, $30 billion global company. Awesome. Really fun. Really interesting. Very rewarding job, and ended up taking instead a role in Memphis, Tennessee that required [00:10:00] to run.

[00:10:05] That was kind of a leap of faith, but I’m proud of that because it taught me a lot about franchising and running a business. I was running Merry MAs, which was a 40-year-old brand, and then also was promoted in Ran Service Master Clean 92-year-old brand. I had stayed at Ingersoll Rand. I. Would’ve had an opportunity to run, probably even Biggers, but it would’ve taken time.

[00:10:29] You know, I would’ve had to stick it out. I would’ve had to go through kind of the more traditional paths to do that. And I think I know a little bit of having the guts to say, I just don’t have. The patience to follow those traditional paths. Then we ended up selling Service Master Brands to a big private equity company, work Capital.

[00:10:49] That was a huge career highlight for me. It was really the culmination of everything I’ve done in my career. We ended up getting to a great outcome in terms of a sale price for the business [00:11:00] under a great timeframe in the middle of Covid. I didn’t get paid a lot of money or hardly any money for doing that deal.

[00:11:06] It was just purely, you know, huge sense of accomplishment and I felt like I, I left that business way better shape than I found it. I remember working for Unit United Technologies. I was like a manager. I had a someone who was a really nice mentor to me, and this company was recruiting me to come to Charlotte for a bigger job and more pay, and I think I joined that company when I was pregnant with my second child.

[00:11:31] I wasn’t sure how into business I was going to be versus like how I sort of navigate motherhood and business and I felt not prepared for that at all. During the course of my career there, I felt rejuvenated. I knew that I could do more. I felt like I was doing more than my, you know, director or like higher level colleagues or my male colleagues.

[00:11:54] And, you know, someone at Ingersoll Rand saw that in me and, but I, I didn’t really wanna move, I didn’t wanna [00:12:00] uproot the family and, but I kind of had to take that leap. I remember sitting on the stairs and like not being, not sure what to do, you know, because there’s no real. About when to know in your career at that level when you know, my kids now are four and two and I had a very supportive husband, so I just, it was really up to me.

[00:12:21] And so I remember opening, remember Cheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In and I remember like looking for like the chapter that told you like when you’re supposed to know. Why you should move your phone. I remember like being like, where does it say like, how am I supposed to know what to do? It turned out to work.

[00:12:41] It worked out fine.

[00:12:42] Ellen Scanlon: How do you make big decisions like that? Do you write, do you take walks? How do you practice leadership? And then how do you also bring that back to the decisions that you make as CEO of your own life?

[00:12:58] Hagan Kappler: I run and that’s how. [00:13:00] A lot of problems and come up with idea from anything. From like where to go for dinner tonight to, yeah, what should I do next in my career?

[00:13:10] I do pros and cons, less like crazy, and I think over time though, I’ve built a little bit of muscle memory around just kind of what feels right in my gut. On that example, the pros, cons said, you should just stay. There was just more pros to stay than not. Certainly, I felt uncertain, so I called the company and said, I’m sorry, thank you for the offer, but I’m gonna stay.

[00:13:34] And the next day I drove to the office and I couldn’t walk in the front door. I just couldn’t do it. And I knew that I had made the wrong decision and I hadn’t told anyone that I had decided. And I had told I was, I wasn’t sure what I should do. And they sort of given me like a measly counter offer or whatever.

[00:13:53] But. Even that is always like so insulting, like, okay, now I’m worth doing more, but I wasn’t worth doing more yesterday. [00:14:00] So I called the guy back and I said, oh, I’m sorry I made a mistake because your offer still stand. And I, so I think sometimes you have to even like try on the idea and see how that feels, you know?

[00:14:13] Ellen Scanlon: Oh, I kind of got the chills. That’s a, that’s a big day.

[00:14:19] Hagan Kappler: You have to trust your gut. Yeah. Even if it’s a little bit embarrassing to have to call the guy back

[00:14:26] Ellen Scanlon: post the gut. Yeah. I’m sure they were thrilled. We both started our careers on Wall Street. I was working with mostly men. I’m imagine you were working with mostly men when we went to business school.

[00:14:37] Our classes, 19% women, not even 20% women. How do you think about being the only woman? In the room. I remember, especially early on in my career and figuring out how to get comfortable, I had this persona that I called boring Office Girl, and I love fashion, but I didn’t wear like the clothes I wanted to work and Right, right.

[00:14:58] For me anyway, [00:15:00] unfortunately, I think it was about trying to be invisible when I clearly wasn’t, but just trying to like not make a big deal out of being a girl. I mean, when you say talk to dozens of private equity firms, I just know that there are not very many female partners at private equity firms.

[00:15:15] So like you’re really operating in a very male dominated world and how do you think about it as you are progressing along in your career and now you’re the, now you’re the boss. My style

[00:15:28] Hagan Kappler: you like, I lean on my sense of humor that can kind of throw people off a little bit, but I think in a good way. I don’t really follow some of the traditional best practices, I guess, in terms of running a business like team in terms of being black and white and non-emotional.

[00:15:48] But when I do feel like I want to, um. Send up a message that’s a little tougher. I think that can be frustrating and because I think sometimes it can come across [00:16:00] in a way that’s more negative than if a man were delivering that message so that you know, she’s a bitch or whatever, versus if she’s tough.

[00:16:10] But I think generally I try to frame that as. More of a positive, but you know, look, I, I know that there’s bias. I know that there’s microaggressions and more in macro. I like just aggressions. I face it to this day and I still don’t have a great kind of response. I had someone recently say he was introducing me to someone else in this industry, and he said, you’ll like her.

[00:16:35] She’s pretty like you. I know what to say to that. Obviously not appropriate. It’s obviously not negative, but it’s obviously like he wouldn’t say that effort to a man. I get asked a lot about the kids and stuff. I love talking about that with women and I think that’s important to talk about, but a lot of times I feel like it’s brought up as a way to almost like, how [00:17:00] are you gonna get this job done in a way that, like, again, my husband has the same amount of kids, obviously, you know, doesn’t get asked.

[00:17:08] I’ve been asked before when interviewing for other home services roles where, you know, the workforce is primarily men. How will I navigate that with, you know, a workforce primarily of men? And I, I don’t even understand the question. Like I, and I’ll answer these questions ’cause I’m in an interview by a private equity guy, but, so there’s no question that there’s, you know, prejudice and bias and all of those things.

[00:17:34] I try to use my differences to my advantage because, you know, I do believe that our differences, regardless of gender or race, I think are all kind of helping to, you know, make our teams more competitive.

[00:17:50] Ellen Scanlon: How do you talk to your children about your work and has it evolved as they’ve gotten older?

[00:17:56] Hagan Kappler: I think it’s gone from a lot of guilt and [00:18:00] feeling personally, like I felt guilty and sad about dropping them off at daycares and leaving ’em when I was still breastfeeding and, and frankly just not wanting to leave them when they were so young to now feeling really proud of the fact that I work.

[00:18:16] Part of the conversation starts with like how you feel about it. I think that helps a lot. There’s a lot of funny conversations too. You know, one time during Covid, so we were acquired by a private equity firm. The private equity firm put in some new leadership. One day in the middle of like, three of my kids had caught Covid, so there were just like bodies all over the house and there was this random meeting with, you know, my boss and the head of hr.

[00:18:45] And so I sat down for the meeting that I knew was gonna happen. It was fine. I had, you know, severance lined up, but it’s still terrible to get fired. So I sit down for this meeting in the dining room because the, there were just bodies in my office and I hang [00:19:00] up the call and my daughter comes around the corner wrapped in a blanket.

[00:19:03] ’cause she had covid and she goes, mom, what does it mean that they wanted to make a change? I’m like, oh my gosh, this is like such a weird time where. You know, on a don’t.

[00:19:25] Ellen Scanlon: So thank you for sharing with me the story that was featured in Forbes and talking about the sexual assault and, you know, your involvement in the Me Too movement. And I was just wondering if you would talk a little bit about it and, and what you wanna share today about what I can imagine was a hard time personally, but also to be caught up in such a, an impactful moment.

[00:19:49] Hagan Kappler: Yeah, thanks. In terms of being the only woman in the room and lessons learned throughout a career and the Forbes article [00:20:00] talks about not so much the fact that I was sexually assaulted. But I thought that what the reporters did really well was the fact that a lot of business happens outside of regular hours and it happens to people who don’t necessarily work for your company.

[00:20:14] So while everyone at the company I was working for probably, you know, watched the same sexual harassment videos or whatever, so technically we were all like had checked that box in terms of compliance. I was working in MA, so I was trying to do deals with. People outside of the business. And this actually particular individual was from the tech and media world.

[00:20:39] So already was kind of, uh, following a different set of rules that I wasn’t familiar with, or at least, you know, he proclaimed to be following a different set of rules. He had come, um, referred to me by my brother. So there was like a level of trust there. And I’m sure that he was manipulating, you know, that [00:21:00] reference a bit as well.

[00:21:01] I was working on a bunch of different exciting projects. This was potentially big deal. I was building out this idea, building out this potential strategy. The guy was weird. The guy was making inappropriate comments to me, but honestly, nothing I hadn’t heard right out of the gate outta college, being on the training floor or down on the New York Stock Exchange where I worked for a little while.

[00:21:28] I mean, I had been working late nights in dark team rooms at McKinsey and with only men. You know, have people been inappropriate or, you know, in terms of comments, you know, about how I looked or something like that. And especially in financial services, of course, but nothing that I always felt like I couldn’t handle.

[00:21:50] I just felt like when this guy, you know, made a pretty aggressive pass at me, um, I just was like, oh, that I unprepared for. As [00:22:00] I said in the article, you know, okay, well now I’m prepared and now hopefully I can try to at least prevent it from happening from this particular guy. For other women, the Me Too movement was pretty powerful for me because I immediately went to a lawyer and I immediately went to my company and I just wanted to do something about it, and there really wasn’t anything I could do legally.

[00:22:22] It was a, he said, she said in Vegas, right? And so what the Me Too movement did was it empowered me to go talk to Fortune Magazine ’cause I knew an editor there. And then within a day they had found another woman who had a very, had the exact same story. And then they found like dozens of other women who had the same story.

[00:22:45] So, you know, I felt like I was able to bring that to light and it was like the scariest thing I’ve ever had to do. I didn’t know what the reaction would be. I thought I would, it was petrifying and embarrassing to have to talk publicly about, [00:23:00] you know, what happened. But the support was really overwhelming and it was all support.

[00:23:05] Yeah. I ended just being so proud. I. I’ll be proud to tell my kids that I did that, but also I brought 65 people to a conference last fall. And you know, we talked about just safety really quickly, and I said particularly to the women, if you could just be careful. Things happen at tech conferences, alcohol and everybody should have fun.

[00:23:28] But also just, you know, know to be careful and if you see a team member, just maybe check in and make sure you’re okay. So at least you.

[00:23:37] Ellen Scanlon: I’m really proud to know that you did that. It’s interesting because I’ve definitely had my share of very uncomfortable situations and I have one or two that I feel like they really crossed a line.

[00:23:50] Right. And I was afraid. I was afraid of what would happen and the consequences. And I think what I felt around me too was. There’s a moment in time [00:24:00] when women’s stories are being heard, and the more that that can be amplified and create ripple effects of change, just like that’s the opportunity because this has been going on forever.

[00:24:11] It’s going to continue. But if you bring 65 people to a conference and they hear at the beginning of their career, you know, make sure someone knows where you’re going, whatever those small things are, right, it’s just a different. Energy to a working environment. You’re here to work. We respect you for working.

[00:24:28] We know you’re a human. You’re gonna have fun. And here are some guardrails and no one ever, I mean, maybe my mom said that to me, but it, you know. Yeah, that’s right.

[00:24:38] Hagan Kappler: That’s right. And I think, yeah, that’s exactly the point is, um, I hope that my daughters don’t have to. You know, and so I might as well, I, I think there’ll be more progress and until there is, we just have to Yeah, be careful and look out for each other.

[00:24:57] Ellen Scanlon: Yeah. Thank you for doing all of that, um, [00:25:00] very. You know, another brave moment.

[00:25:04] Hagan Kappler: No, no, no. Thank you. And I, you know, it’s honestly, it’s like I said, it’s, I was proud. I’m proud that we did it. It’s in the past and it’s all these experiences kind of, they stack up and they make you more prepared for where you are now.

[00:25:17] So I think that’s the other message too, that when you’re a woman or anyone going through kind of a career that you know, even like the worst experiences will, one day you’ll look back on and be like, okay, that was. Good learning, that was helpful, but, but generally it doesn’t mean things are done or things are over.

[00:25:36] It’s just a learning that strengthens you for rather you or for your teammates.

[00:25:42] Ellen Scanlon: I’m very impressed. Thanks.

[00:25:44] Hagan Kappler: Thanks.

[00:25:45] Ellen Scanlon: Um, let’s talk just a little bit about Daisy. What are the thorniest problems that you’re trying to solve with Daisy?

[00:25:55] Hagan Kappler: Great question. So the average home has 22 [00:26:00] connected devices, and that’s just an average.

[00:26:02] Generally when I tell people that, they’re like, either they’re like, that can’t be, or they’re like, no, that’s way too low. But if you start to think about it, you, you need your internet too now, you know, work from home or do a podcast, but there’s like the AV for when you need so. Watch Bluey or whatever you need your downtime or your introverted time or playing speakers, right?

[00:26:26] But the problem is that people are so overwhelmed with all these devices and they’re so frustrated that they don’t work nearly any of the time. And in fact, people are returning ’em 50 to 60% of the time when they try to install them themselves. And so there’s not only this kind of thorn in the side of the consumer, but there’s thorn equipment.

[00:26:51] Either someone else is coming in and installing it properly or the consumer doesn’t quite get it right. And so there are 20,000 of these guys who [00:27:00] are working really hard and love technology and are installing equipment in people’s homes generally for, for homes. But we do some small businesses as well.

[00:27:10] They’re generally focused on installation. And so what Daisy is trying to do is two things. So one is. Buy, buying and franchising. We’re trying to help these small business owners just take off their plate. Things like accounting and finance, take off the HR side. The stuff that like.

[00:27:32] Don’t love or the best at, and they just wanna get back to doing the technology side. Or maybe they’re tired of doing the technology side and they’d rather work on the business, you know, doing acquisitions. So there’s that angle of daisy. And then we’re also launching recurring services. So rather than just install and then runaway, we’re offering ongoing services to, um, help people every quarter keep up with their technology, inform [00:28:00] them about what’s changing in technology.

[00:28:02] Remind them of, remind maybe technologies that they like, a motorized shade that maybe they were thinking of installing in the baby’s room and now the pricing has come down, or technology has improved. And, you know, just technology’s overwhelming. It’s constantly changing. How, how am I supposed to stay on top of this?

[00:28:20] Pretty complicated stuff. So that’s the premise of Daisy and, and we offer support. As I’ve mentioned for the front line. And so they’re most important to us because we just feel like that’s where all the value is, is that relationship of our salesperson or service person or technician and our customer’s home, making that connection.

[00:28:41] So, uh, whether that’s, you know, making sure they’ve got really good technology and a CRM or making sure they’ve got great training or maybe making sure they can call someone to get help. Um, those are some of the things that we’re, we’re offering.

[00:28:55] Ellen Scanlon: Thank you so much for this conversation, and my very last question [00:29:00] is, you know, you’re a second time CEO, you’re a mom of four, you are a wife, you run a venture backed startup.

[00:29:07] What are your future ambitions?

[00:29:10] Hagan Kappler: I’d love to write more. I’d really love to write more about my experiences and advice because I think that, um, there’s just things that I wish I had known. I think I can kind of do it with a sense of humor and you know, with Daisy, I think we’ll be a multi-billion dollar player and I would love for us to be just a household beloved brand in the same way that Starbucks is.

[00:29:33] That’s a, a big ambition for me, but I also want it to be a company that people love, like love it in every sense that people would kill to work here or people would love to own one of our franchises. You know, that’s really important to me. I don’t really have ambitions for my children except for I just, you know, like all parents, I just really want them to be happy and yeah, just make sure I’m there for them when they need me there, whatever that means for them.[00:30:00]

[00:30:04] Ellen Scanlon: Thank you for listening to How to Do the pod. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. We love new listeners. For lots more information and past episodes, visit do the pot.com. Are you one of the thousands of people who love how to do the POTS newsletter? If you’re not getting it, please sign up on substack or@dothepot.com.

[00:30:27] You can also find us on all the socials at Do the Pot. Thank you to our producer Nick Patri. I’m Ellen Scanlan, and stay tuned for more of how to Do the Pot.

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