Meet Trailblazing Partner Matt Bullock of Spinify

Matt Bullock is all about fun and community. After nearly 20 years, the founder of the largest payments company in Australia, eWAY, decided it was time to jump back into the startup world again, bringing his knowledge, energy, and enthusiasm for all things Salesforce to the table to start Spinify in 2016. This CEO and founder never hesitates to talk about how he loves being part of the large Salesforce community and sharing common stories with others in the ecosystem. Learn more about Matt in this interview.

What do you love about your job? How does it fulfill your career passions?

Matt: [Spinify] is about gamifying the workplace to achieve more by engaging, motivating, and coaching. Seventy percent of the workforce is disengaged, and we want to change this by taking fundamental KPIs and making them come alive through things like dynamic animation and video. We turn work into fun for people — and making people happy and more productive at work is as good as it gets for me personally.

Tell us some of the challenges and lessons you’ve learned on your journey.

Matt: You obviously make lots of mistakes as you go – but one of the biggest ones? Not becoming an ISV partner in the beginning. I just said, “Well, what do I need to do that for?” But being able to do certain things like proactively provide upgrades of a customer’s package, plus have access to a customer’s data to make debugging quick are huge benefits that I could have leveraged.

In the initial days, there were a lot of bumps. But, if I [had become an ISV partner] in the beginning, then I would have had way fewer bumps because I would have the visibility needed. There’s a lesson.

You’ve been a user in the Salesforce world a long time —  how do you keep learning?

Matt: For me, it’s no different than anyone else; trying to keep up with Salesforce is a hard thing! I have a constant thirst to learn more and also share what I have learned; talking about Salesforce is super fun, and I enjoy understanding what challenges other users face and try to solve them. Plus Trailhead, of course.

So when do you sleep?

Matt: I don’t. [laughs]

So you don’t sleep, but how are you blazing trails outside of work? What hobbies and passions fill those hours that you’re not focused on Spinify?

Matt: I’m a builder in all aspects of my life, and so Lego is my answer. What I like about Lego is I can completely focus on building something and forget about everything else. And at the end, I’ve made something. I’ve built something.  

I recently built a Voltron model, and I also built the Millennium Falcon, which is the biggest Lego ever. It’s just utterly ridiculous how big that thing is and how long it took. But there’s a huge sense of accomplishment with it.

One more question: what does being a trailblazer mean to you?

Matt: It’s an honor, and it’s about helping others. I have so much to share — my mistakes, my learnings, my experiences — and at the end of the day, it’s about helping others do things a better way. All the different things that I do in life is because of what I got out of Salesforce. Salesforce is in my blood. I enjoy giving back and helping others learn about Salesforce and what you can achieve.

Learn more about Matt in this post, and check out Spinify on AppExchange.