Paul Boudet is the co-founder and CEO at Meetric.app, a venture-backed SaaS product helping managers have super productive meetings.
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1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your career background and current role?
I’m a bit of a jack of all trades. In the last 10 years, I’ve been a software engineer, marketer, designer, sales manager, operations director, ecommerce consultant and founder.
I’ve always been drawn to the tech world – that’s where the biggest human innovations are and I want to be part of that world. I lived in San Francisco, London, Paris and most recently, Sydney.
Right now, I’m the co-founder and CEO of Meetric.app, a 1 year old, venture-backed startup helping managers have super-productive meetings.
2) What does a day in the life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?
I tend to put my alarm clock around 7am but never wake up – my partner tends to drag me out of the bed by 7.30am.
After a quick coffee and a pain au chocolat (I’m French), I read for 30 minutes anything I bookmarked throughout the week.
Then it’s Meetric time, from 8am to 6pm. I look at the numbers, check emails, plan a list of tasks for the day across growth, product, networking and general admin. The list is always a stretch to achieve in one day – but it pushes me to be efficient with my time.
I’m all about getting things done, making decisions with the information available and keep moving. Meetings are kept to a minimum to minimise disruptions and usually done Monday & Tuesdays so most of the week is meeting-free.
After 6pm, I turn off everything, play some sports and relax at home or out and about.
3) Does your current role allow for flexible or remote working? If so, how does that fit into your life and routine?
At Meetric, we take the best of both worlds and meet in our office two days a week for some face to face time and work from home the other three days. I do believe the future is a hybrid workforce, with some being completely remote, and I definitely see the future Meetric team following that path.
4) What does work-life balance mean to you and how do you work to achieve that goal?
In France, we have a saying that you don’t live to work, you work to live. Even though work is a huge part of my life, it’s not my whole life.
For example, I don’t have Slack or my work email on my phone (so I don’t check them in the evening). Does it make me bad at my job? Absolutely not. I have strict rules I put upon myself of not checking anything related to work after 6pm on weekdays or over the weekend until Sunday 4pm.
I actually find there is a huge benefit to my work and my strategic thinking of being able to turn off my work brain for a few hours. Call it mental well-being or mental health, but it keeps me grounded, productive and stress-free.
5) In the past 12 months, have you started or stopped any routines or habits to change your life?
I downloaded an app named Habitica – it’s a real life RPG in which you can ‘level up’ if you complete your daily routines e.g. drink 5 glasses of water or don’t check emails after 6pm. It sounds silly but it helped me in being more disciplined!
6) Do you have any favourite books, podcasts or newsletters that you’d like to recommend?
Recently I’ve been listening to A Promised Land by Barack Obama on Audible – he narrates it so it’s hours of his smooth, deep voice in your ears – pretty cool.
I’m also a big fan of autobiographies, a few favourites:
- Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, Nike founder
- Total Recall by Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Open by Andre Agassi
And newsletter wises, this one: Lenny’s Newsletter.
7) Are there any products, gadgets or apps that you can’t live without?
My laptop, Meetric.app, Notion and Trello.
8) If you could read an interview about work-life balance by anyone, who would that be?
Elon Musk – he probably doesn’t have one, but you never know.
9) Do you have any last thoughts on work, life or balance that you’d like to share with our readers?
Don’t forget: you don’t live to work.
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