Every year on the Conquer Local podcast I sit down with Brendan King, the CEO and co-founder of Vendasta. This episode marks the fifth time we have had this annual conversation, and every year I walk away with a sharper view of where local commerce is going and how the role of the CEO changes as a company scales.
Brendan leads a 750 person company today, which is a very different organization from the one we had a year ago. What I love about Brendan is how honestly he talks about the job. He admits the role is harder to do as an individual contributor, and that scaling forces you to work on the business instead of in it.
The Ecosystem That Powers Local Business
Vendasta sits inside an ecosystem of vendors, channel partners, and small businesses. Brendan described it best himself:
“For a vendor, it’s massive distribution. For a channel partner, it’s a platform to scale and grow and sell any product they need to. For the small businesses, it’s a way to buy all their technology from one trusted provider with one login and one password.”
Every participant has a different reason to be in the ecosystem, which is exactly why describing it in a single sentence is so tricky. But when it clicks, the leverage is enormous for everyone involved. I have written before about the sales side of this story in how we scaled Vendasta to 50,000 channel partners.
The Next Generation of Small Business Owners
One of the most interesting threads in our conversation was how much the small business owner has changed. The new generation is digital native. They are shooting their own Instagram reels, producing their own TikToks, running their own podcasts, and managing their point of sale tech without blinking.
That does not mean they want to do everything themselves. A successful woodworker still spends two thirds of their time on their craft. They need trusted partners for the other third. As Brendan put it, small businesses that are successful are always going to outsource what they cannot do well in house.
The implication for agencies and local experts is simple. The bar has been raised. If a small business owner can do it themselves with a few clicks, your service needs to be meaningfully better, faster, or more strategic than what they can do alone.
This same trend is showing up in younger buyers. I dig into that in why your sales strategy needs to include Gen Z buyers.
The Three Things a CEO Can Actually Do
Brendan’s reflection on the CEO role was the part of the conversation I keep thinking about. When your company passes a certain size, you cannot be an individual contributor anymore. He narrowed his job down to three things:
- Provide the resources the company needs to grow.
- Set the vision and the culture.
- Hire and develop the leaders who drive the rest of the business.
That is a helpful lens for anyone stepping into a senior leadership role. The higher you go, the less your personal output matters and the more your ability to enable others becomes the job.
Why One Login, One Password Matters
If you ask me, the future of local commerce belongs to platforms that simplify the tech stack for small business owners. Every minute they spend logging into yet another dashboard is a minute they are not serving customers. That is why the ecosystem model Brendan describes resonates with me. It compresses complexity into a single experience for the operator and gives the platform enough scale to reinvest in the product.
What I Took Away From This Year’s Conversation
A few things stuck with me:
- Scaling changes the job. Senior leaders who cannot let go of individual contribution will stall their organization.
- Small business owners are more capable than ever, which means service providers need to be more strategic than ever.
- The ecosystem model is a force multiplier when every participant understands their role.
- Annual check ins with your CEO are a gift. If you lead a team, schedule one with your own boss.
What does the CEO role look like at your company today compared to 12 months ago?