What Every CEO Can Learn from Chamberlain Group's Reinvention

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[00:00:26] What does it take to transform a 70-year-old industrial hardware company into a tech business competing in the age of AI? Well, my guest today, he spent the last several years answering that question in real time. His name's Jeff Meredith. He's the CEO of the Chamberlain Group, a company many of you may know through its LiftMaster products and its long history in access solutions.

[00:00:54] But under Jeff's leadership, the company has evolved into something very different because they build a software and AI-powered ecosystem around intelligent access. In doing so, they've grown its MyQ platform from hundreds of thousands of users to more than 15 million. It's a phenomenal story, this one.

[00:01:17] So, today we'll discuss what it means to choose the harder path in leadership and why Jeff left a successful career in big tech to join a company that many initially might have viewed as a garage door manufacturer. Instead, he will share how Chamberlain attracted world-class software engineers, AI specialists and data scientists, how the company built reoccurring digital services on top of their trusted hardware foundation,

[00:01:45] and why intelligent access could become one of the most practical applications of AI in our everyday lives. And I also want to touch a little on leadership itself today, because he's got a refreshing perspective on vulnerability, trust, and why leaders should be spending more time at the whiteboard teaching than issuing directives from the corner office or an ivory tower somewhere. So, if you've ever wondered how established companies reinvent themselves,

[00:02:15] how leaders can earn trust during periods of widespread technological change, or where AI can genuinely improve daily life beyond the headlines, this conversation's got plenty to offer. But enough from me. Let's get started today and hear how Jeff is helping shape the future of intelligent access, while leading one of the more fascinating business transformations that I've seen. Let's get him onto the show now. So, thank you for joining me on the show today.

[00:02:43] Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do? Absolutely, Neil. It's great to be with you. My name is Jeff Meredith. I'm the CEO at Chamberlain Group, based in Chicago. We are an access company most known for the brand of LiftMaster products. Our LiftMaster operators are in 36 million homes, actually, in the U.S., so a very broad representation of our products.

[00:03:08] And more recently, we've started to move to a digital platform that we've coupled with our operators called MyQ, and we have that app available to 15 million users already. We've progressively ramped that over the last several years. So, we've moved from a traditional hardware company to one that now has a focus on both hardware and software with our digital app. It's an incredibly cool journey and, indeed, story behind you guys.

[00:03:35] You have a very rich history, like you said there, Alan. Chamberlain Group has been around for more than 70 years. No to many people listening for garage doors or access hardware, et cetera. But I've got to ask, what convinced you that the future of the company would be software, AI, intelligent access, rather than just simply building better hardware? Is there a story there? Yeah, absolutely. I joined the company about eight years ago, Neil, and I'd worked predominantly in tech companies throughout my career.

[00:04:05] And honestly, I was looking to stay in that general industry when I got an outreach from a recruiter for Chamberlain Group. And when I began to study the company, honestly, I was like, I don't think I really want to go to work for a garage store opener company. I worked in tech my whole career. But then I actually did a double take, and I began to study the install base of the company.

[00:04:30] And as you mentioned, we've been in business for 70 years, and we've built an amazing install base, a very reliable, trusted product line in both residential and commercial operators. But our presence alone made me question, what else could we do with the access hardware install base that we've built?

[00:04:54] And the company had initial visions of overlaying a software ecosystem to be able to help people to move in and out of their lives, their homes, their businesses, industrial settings, with just a more seamless approach using a digital mechanism or digital tools. And so for me, you know, I went from no thanks to, wow, this is really an interesting opportunity.

[00:05:20] And one that if you use technology with a real customer focus mindset and overlay that on an existing hardware base, that's one of the things that, you know, I think really drew me to it is I didn't have to create new customers. We already had customers. We already had presence in 30 million plus U.S. households. We had to overlay software and expand what we offered people, but we didn't have to create the foundation of the business. The foundation was already really well established.

[00:05:50] And so for me, that was the story. You know, a lot of hardware companies try to move into software, and they don't do it in a way that is integral to the business. They try to bolt it on. And we really changed our mindset to say we're about the entirety of the experience, not just the mechanical open and close of the door. So much I love about your story here, because it's not just a hardware company jumping on the AI bandwagon, but you've evolved with what your customers now expect, and you have a lot of them.

[00:06:19] And you've grown the MyQ user base from something like around 700,000 to more than 15 million users. So it's a huge success. But I've got to ask, what were the biggest lessons from making that shift from selling products to building an ongoing relationship with your customers, ultimately through software? What did you learn along the way here? Yeah, it's an interesting journey, Neil, that we've been on.

[00:06:44] And I often use this metaphor when I talk to the company in that in the past, when we just sold you a hardware device, if you have a garage door opener, that lasts 12 to 15 years. And the only time that you really interact with it, if it breaks or you have a problem with it, put that in the context of a friendship. If your friendship is one that you only interact every 12 to 15 years or when there's a real problem, it's probably not like the best friendship that you've ever had.

[00:07:12] It might not even be considered a friendship at all. But now we move to a dynamic in which people use our app or receive notifications seven times a day. So the nature of our friendship has changed dramatically, right? Now we're a much more integral part of people's lives for the way that they move in and out of their house, or the way that they actually know if their kids are home from school. In the US, 70% of people with a garage use it as the front door of their house.

[00:07:41] And so that's the primary entry point. And so what's changed for us is our relationship with our customers and their dependence on us has really amplified. If you think about that, people use our app with frequency. And so they use other apps with frequency and they have a certain standard for the experience. You know, you use Spotify with frequency, right? So we had to build an exceptional app.

[00:08:09] So I'm really proud of the fact that our app has over 2 million reviews. It's a 4.8 star app. It's not a hardware company trying to play around with software. It's truly a high quality, best in class app. So we've had to really up our game in terms of our customer experiences and what we deliver for our customers. And I'm really pleased with a lot of the changes that we've made internally. And we've gone all in.

[00:08:32] I mean, if you look at the composition of our engineering teams, if you look at the use of our UX, our designers, our data analysts, we've really invested not only in the kind of foundational technology from IQ, the reliability and the app itself, but the people that deliver those experiences. And over the last 10 years, I've spoken with so many traditional manufacturers that have all been on a journey of trying to chase digital transformation.

[00:08:59] But very few of them are able to successfully attract software engineers and now AI specialists, PhD data scientists, for example. And at the very beginning of our podcast, you mentioned that you yourself had reservations about joining the company due to a preconception that, hey, it just sold garage doors there, which, of course, you now know is not true. It's so much more and so much bigger than that.

[00:09:23] But how do you build that credibility within the talent community and convince them to join you at the Chamberlain Group? One of the tried and true dimensions for talent attraction for me is if you're doing really cool work, legitimately interesting, innovative work, you can attract talent. And I think a lot of what we've done is really interesting and compelling work. You know, when you think about scaling an app to 15 million users, that's an interesting piece of work.

[00:09:52] When you think about all of the data that we generate, we have four petabytes of data that we've taken off of the user experiences. And so when you think about managing that level and quantity of data for machine learning and AI purposes, it's really interesting work. So I think at the end of the day, the first thing that you have to do is you have to make sure that the talent that you're going after is going to be challenged and do something interesting when they get here.

[00:10:18] If not, they're going to get tired and move to the next thing and feel like they're not being challenged and not growing in their careers. I think we also have to have some interesting and visual external things that attract people. We've done a partnership with Amazon for package delivery. We've done a really in-depth partnership with Tesla to embed MyQ in automobiles.

[00:10:40] So you have to have some things that draw visibility to your company because top talent wants to know that the company is actually progressing and not just because you tell them, because they see it externally as well. So for us making the commitment to give really interesting work as well as to make sure that we have an external persona that people look at and say, there's some interesting stuff happening. There's some cool stuff happening.

[00:11:04] The last thing that I would say, Neil, is honestly, in our business, because we have the really strong foundational hardware business, there's a stable foundation. Not all tech companies have a stable foundation. And, you know, a lot of people that are in startups wonder, are we going to be around in six months? Am I going to be around in six months if we have to resize the company?

[00:11:24] And I think you can do the really cool tech work in our company, but you also have a solid foundation that the business is built on that you know that we're credible and we're going to be here for 70 more years. And you are operating in an incredibly exciting space, but also a competitive one. I mean, the Chamberlain Group now operates for attention in a market that includes companies like Ring and Nest, to name but a few.

[00:11:48] But what advantages do you think Chamberlain brings to the intelligent access space that newer technology companies without that seven years experience that they might overlook? What do you bring different to the table here, do you think? You know, I think the biggest thing, and it's what I said at the outset, in terms of our existing install base, you know, we're already present in 36 million homes in the U.S. That's the most of any access and security company that's out there. That's built over many years.

[00:12:17] Now, we have to overlay a digital footprint against that, but I don't have to sell my first piece of hardware to 36 million homes because they already have it. And so I think that's a really important leg up that we have in this space. The next thing is we can actually open and close doors and lock doors. There's a dimension of monitoring and sort of visualizing what's happening. There's another dimension of taking action.

[00:12:45] And so, you know, we've recently launched a video door lock for the front door. So we've expanded from the garage door to the front door. That gives us the capabilities to lock and secure both access point at the garage as well as the access point at the front door. So we can monitor and understand what's happening through camera and vision technology.

[00:13:06] But we can also, you know, the example I oftentimes use is if I'm approaching the door and I've got my work bag and my gym bag and dinner that I grabbed and it sees me, it can unlock the door so I can go in. But probably more importantly, if there's somebody that shouldn't be in my home and it approaches the door, it can lock it or it can close the garage door. So this ability to have contextual understanding but then take action is a really important differentiator for us.

[00:13:36] And on a personal note, when I was doing a little research on you, I was reading how you spoke about that moment where you had to choose the hardest path when you left Lenovo. I mean, when you look back now, what made that challenge worth taking on? What did you see in the Chamberlain group that others might have missed? It must have been a very nervy moment at the time. I've been on a similar path myself and know what it's like when you have to make that decision. But tell me more about that moment when you look back.

[00:14:02] At various times in our career, we're faced with crossroads moments where you can say, do I want to take the expected route? You know, I was looking at a couple of companies that were well known in the tech space and that would have been the expected route. And most people that I worked with at Lenovo would have thought that that was a normal route for me to take. Many of them were like, what are you doing going to a garage door opener company when I came to Chamberlain? But many, many have reached out and were like, I see the vision that you had.

[00:14:30] So for me, it really is the hard path is the challenging path. And I like to grow and learn as a, you know, not just as a leader, but as an individual. And putting yourself in uncomfortable situations where, frankly, you just flat out don't know the answers and you have to figure it out. And you're not just running a playbook that you've run in the past, but you actually have to invent the playbook and then iterate through the playbook continuously.

[00:15:00] You know, that's been the challenge here is, you know, transforming a company. And many people talk about transformation, but honestly, going from a company that is 70 year old industrial hardware manufacturer to where we are today is a massive transformation. And frankly, I've gotten some things right. I've gotten some things wrong. You know, I've fallen on my face a few times here and had to get back up and keep pushing.

[00:15:25] But the satisfaction of working with a collection of people here that we're all sort of going after this big transformative objective. And then when we pull it off or we have dimensions of success, there's just a great deal of pride in that. For me, the hardest path also has kind of the best upside potential to it, but it's not a given. You could also fail, but you could also lose the game. So, yeah.

[00:15:48] So, you know, for me, the opportunity to win with a collection of people that all had the grit and determination to go after the goal with me has been really rewarding. And when talking about leadership, it's often associated with certainty and confidence. And what I love about you and your stories, you often advocate for vulnerability.

[00:16:10] So can you share a moment when you were apt to maybe admit you were wrong or show emotion that actually ended up strengthening trust within your organization? I think all too often everyone tries to be the know it all that has all the answers, but it's not always the way, is it? I think you have to be real as a leader. If you're not authentic as a leader, it's going to be really hard for anybody to trust you. And I'll tell you, when I first came in the company, I've described myself as hell on wheels.

[00:16:37] I was going 100 miles an hour and trying to change everything initially. And I didn't take the time to listen to people and actually learn the culture and learn about the company. I just knew what my vision was for the future. I didn't earn trust first. And so people kind of looked at me with a lot of skepticism. And I had a realization that, wow, this is I'd earned trust and respect at Lenovo and people knew that I was authentic. But I didn't take the time to earn that when I came here.

[00:17:05] And so backing off of that and really kind of thinking through how to be seen as a real kind of genuine person and building trust amongst a new set of colleagues was something I had to step back on. And I'm ambitious and I'm a go-getter. And so sometimes taking a pause to make sure that you build the relationship and trust with people so that you can actually achieve ultimately what you want.

[00:17:33] Because without rallying the entire company against the mission that we had, we weren't going to pull it off. As I have reflected on that, my start here was a little rocky. But I think I reversed out of that and realized kind of what I needed to do differently. But you're right, vulnerability to me, when you fail as a leader, if you don't say you failed, when you don't admit it and you don't publicly express that you could have done something better, you miss an opportunity to show authenticity and actually to build trust.

[00:18:02] It's not weakness to me. A lot of people view it as weakness. I don't really view it as weakness. I mean, I don't think anybody expects you to get everything right 100% of the time. I think realness is much more of the way I would describe it than weakness. 100% with you. And another line I read about you that I absolutely love that I've got to read here, I read that you described leadership as teaching, stepping up to the whiteboard rather than directing from the corner office. So refreshing to hear.

[00:18:31] But I've got to ask, what does that philosophy look like in practice? How has it helped shape the culture that you were building at Chamberlain Group there? Yeah, you know, I came from a long line of teachers, mom, dad, sisters, uncles, aunts, everybody was a teacher. So maybe that's just sort of embedded in me. But when you're trying to do things that you've never done before, which is by definition what a transformation is, you truly have to coach and teach people through it.

[00:18:58] You can't just step back and say, all right, guys, we're going to actually build out a LTV subscription model for our new business. Literally nobody in the company has done that before. And so if you just bark commands from the sidelines rather than get in the game with the team, it really doesn't help people move down the path of transformation. Now, you have to be careful. You can't you have to teach and coach, not do it.

[00:19:25] And I'm not the best at this sometimes because sometimes I dive in and do it. You know, I try my best to use the whiteboard, use paper. I use white paper and I'll just sketch on it and I just give people like at the end, I'll give people like here's 10 pages of my thoughts on this topic. And it's funny because I interviewed somebody not long ago and they took the job and they came back on the first day and they're like, I still have the like 10 pages.

[00:19:53] So it's like it wasn't a whiteboard, but it was effectively the same as a whiteboard. But I think, you know, taking the time to kind of think through things with people collaboratively, not as a directive, but as a joint thinking is proven valuable for me. And how we access our homes and indeed workplace over the last 70 years has changed so much.

[00:20:17] So as AI becomes embedded into our homes, vehicles, businesses and communities, as we look to the future, where do you see the future of intelligent access going? What will it look like in the next three to five years? And do you think it will change the way people think about security, convenience and everyday interactions with the physical world too? Where do you see all this heading? I think in many ways, AI is looking for real world applications right now. Yeah.

[00:20:45] And access is an area that I think can legitimately offer real world application of AI. Let me give you a couple of examples. So as I said, 70% of people use the garage door as their front door. So rather than a notification, like if I'm in the office and I'm working to five, my daughter's getting home from school at between three and three thirty, I can get a notification that says your daughter, Megan, just got home from school.

[00:21:15] She's safely inside. Right. So I get that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, week one, week two, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, week two, Monday, good Tuesday. Wednesday, it's four o'clock and Megan hasn't gotten home from school. I get a notification that says, just want to give you a heads up. You know, your daughter, Megan, it's four and she's not home yet. She usually gets home between three thirty and three forty five every day. That's a model that we established. We established a norm. Right.

[00:21:43] And then we saw a deviation from the norm. But now I can check on my daughter, Megan, and I'm able to confirm, oh, she was she stayed late for band practice. It wasn't anything, but it was good to get the heads up. Right. So to me, that's a tangible example of how we can use vision based contextual understanding to build norms and then help people to have a more current and relevant set of understanding.

[00:22:13] So if you look at the home security industry today, and I think it's pretty ripe for disruption, it hasn't really changed much in 40 years. It's passive. There's sensors everywhere. If a sensor is triggered, you know, an alarm goes off. Somebody calls you. Oftentimes there's false positives in terms of the alarm wasn't necessarily there, but it doesn't give you contextual understanding. It also what I talked about before, it won't close or lock doors.

[00:22:40] And so if I see somebody approaching, you know, my front door that shouldn't be there, I can secure it. I can't just watch somebody walk into my house and steal my stuff. I can actually lock the door. And so I think use of AI and particularly the vision, the contextual understanding through vision is what's going to transform access going forward.

[00:23:05] And I'm really excited about the work that we're doing today and that we'll continue to do to sort of be the leader in this. That's a powerful moment to end on. And for anyone listening that would like to find out more information about anything we talked about today, connect with you or your team, et cetera. Where would you like me to point everyone? Yeah, I think our website, chamberlaingroup.com is a great place to start. MyQ.com is also a good place so you can see some of our latest work that we're doing from an app standpoint.

[00:23:33] But yeah, it's been great to chat with you today, Neil. I really appreciate you having me on. Appreciate you allowing me to tell the story of my company and what we're doing over at Chamberlain Group. Yeah, thank you so much for sitting down with me, sharing such a powerful story. I mean, in seven years, building a team of PhD data scientists growing from 700K users to 15 million app users competing directly with the likes of Ring and Nest.

[00:24:01] And also the leadership that made that possible, stepping to the whiteboard versus commanding from the corner office. And this journey you are on now leading the future of intelligent access. Pure gold for my side. I will get the links added. And I encourage everyone listening to check out everything we post there. But Jeff, thanks for sharing that story today. Appreciate it, Neil. Take care. I think there were several themes that stayed with me after this conversation. But maybe the biggest was Jeff's willingness to embrace discomfort.

[00:24:30] Whether it was leaving a familiar path in the tech sector or transforming a company with decades of history. Or openly discussing mistakes that he made as a leader. Jeff repeatedly returned today to the idea that the growth that we all need often happens when we step into situations where outcome isn't guaranteed. And I think that's a message that applies far beyond technology.

[00:24:55] And while many AI discussions remain focused on possibilities and future scenarios. Kudos to Jeff for coming on here today and showing examples that feel practical and relatable. Using AI to understand context. Anticipate needs and improve security without creating additional friction. I think all these things offer a compelling glimpse into how these technologies are becoming part of our everyday life.

[00:25:23] But I think, away from the tech, one of my favourite takeaways there was his belief that leadership is ultimately an act of teaching. And in a world that often maybe over-celebrates certainty and authority and influence, Jeff argues that trust is built through collaboration, authenticity and helping people understand the path ahead. But there are a few takeaways from me. I've looked here, what stood out to you most from this interview?

[00:25:53] Was it the transformation from hardware to software, the future of intelligent access or Jeff's perspective on leadership and vulnerability? And over to you. Where do you see the next wave of practical AI applications emerging in your daily life? As always, techtalksnetwork.com. You can work with me, speak with me, meet me. There's so much over there and 4,000 interviews. So have a look. But that's it for today. So thank you for listening as always.

[00:26:21] Hopefully I will get to speak with you again tomorrow. Bye for now.