Amy Spurling is the Founder and CEO of Compt, an innovative HR software company that transforms employee benefits through personalized and tax-compliant Lifestyle Spending Accounts (LSAs). With a background as a three-time CFO and two-time COO, Amy is passionate about creating environments where companies and their employees can thrive together. Under her leadership, Compt has become a crucial tool for enhancing employee satisfaction and productivity. With over two decades of experience in venture-backed startups, Amy has successfully driven over $200M in financing and led two acquisitions to close. Her expertise and forward-thinking approach make her a leading voice in the HR and tech industries.

What does “entrepreneurship” mean to you?
Amy Spurling: To me, this means following an unprescribed path. Instead of joining a company to complete its objectives – it’s about starting or joining a company where you are driving the strategy and building something that is disrupting the status quo.

Tell us about your first experience with entrepreneurship.
AS: After business school, I landed in a small boutique investment bank where I was part of a team of five. What I saw was how they courted small companies that had interesting and innovative ideas but needed help bringing them to fruition. This lit a spark for me. I quickly realized that my strong preference was to help build one company rather than support a portfolio from a distance. That drove me to dive into one start-up technology company as it positioned itself for exit. The adrenaline rush that comes from building to exiting a company had me hooked!

What is your company’s origin story? What is the biggest reason you started your business? What did those early days look like and teach you?
AS: I started Compt because I didn’t have a choice. After 20 years as a CFO/COO – managing finance and HR – I saw how the market had moved for compensation. No longer was it about negotiations in the job offer process. Candidates would walk into an interview knowing their market value, and they expected you to pay within that range. This is why market transparency is a fantastic thing – it is one more way we can move towards pay equity. What this means though is that companies have to find other ways to compete for talent. Many companies in the 2010s started offering various employee perks – childcare, student loan repayment, pet insurance, snacks, etc. What happened though is that expectations of employees (and rightly so) were that they wanted something that related to their personal needs since this is their compensation. And everyone wants something different. I started Compt because I was tired of telling employees no, spending lots of money on this key component of their compensation, and making everyone unhappy. My goal was to allow for employee personalization while making finance and HR lives easier overall. I hoped someone else would build the platform because I desperately needed it if I was going to be the COO scaling another company. When no one did, I decided to build it myself.

What do you wish you knew when you started? Is there anything you would do differently?
AS: The biggest adjustment for me personally was the change in leadership style I would need to go from CFO/COO to the CEO seat. In the CFO/COO role – I was frequently the counterbalance to the CEO. I was used to being forceful and lobbying for my ideas and approaches so that we could actively debate them and come up with the best plan. What I found as CEO, though, was that if I took that same approach, I would bulldoze right over my team. So, while the intent of sharing ideas, challenging each other, and building together was the same, my approach had to be much softer so that others could have their voices heard.

What does “success” look like for you? We’d love to hear your biggest, boldest dream. What do you think will help you achieve it?
AS: There are many kinds of success for me and many paths that will take me there. Success for our product would be to impact millions of people’s lives – giving them equal access to their compensation as well as supporting their individual needs no matter where they are located. Success for our company would be to eventually be acquired by a philosophically aligned partner for a fair price. Success for our team would be to live their best lives post-acquisition – likely in the new company, but also with the funds from the acquisition to invest in their own dreams. All of these things add up to what will make me feel like I have successfully met my personal mission.

What is your superpower as an entrepreneur?
AS: The ability to build a phenomenal team while being very capital efficient and also ensuring everyone has the ability to have a work-life balance. While this sounds a bit like utopia – and could look like a superpower to some (because so much of what we do bucks start-up norms) – in reality, it’s based on our guiding principles. We want to build the best team, which means understanding that you need to have lots of perspectives, life experiences, and backgrounds represented. It also means that to keep them the best team you need to give space for them to rest, recharge, and spend time on things outside of work. This allows everyone to bring their best creativity to work, which helps us come up with the best solutions.

What is your proudest and darkest moment so far? Share a key high and a key low from your journey if you can.
AS: One of my proudest moments was when we signed up our first paying customers. That made the whole process of building the company real. We knew we had built something that people wanted and could impact people’s lives.

I tend to operate on short-term memory with tough times. It’s not that there haven’t been hard moments – there have. I keep my focus on the good moments that come after that learning moment. For every obstacle that got placed in our path – whether it was COVID-19 sending some team members into despair, difficult investor conversations, having to make hard choices when team members needed to transition out, etc. – there was always something we learned and ultimately improved upon. So, while things haven’t always been rosy, it’s what comes after those moments that stay in my memory.

What are your personal driving principles, your top values?
AS: My driving force is equity. This extends from compensation across teams (pay gaps should not exist!) to opportunities for team members to advance, to access to health care, to the right to make the choices you need to make in your life without others dictating how you should live.

How have your personal principles and values shaped your company’s values and principles?
AS: Our entire platform is built from the principle of allowing for employee personalization, autonomy, and equal access to their variable compensation. Our software was created to make that possible for people.

This guiding principle has also shaped how we approach things like parental leave across the team. I am childless by choice, but that does not mean that others should be. It also means I should not be dictating what their parental leave should look like – every family is different. Every child in every family is different. So we outline the amount of time (3 months) that can be taken in the first year, but it is up to the parent to take that time as they see fit. This could be all at once when the baby is born, broken up in chunks, or even used on a part-time basis. It is up to the employee to make sure they use it in the way that best suits their family.

What role does mentorship play in your world (as a mentor or mentee)? Tell us about what makes mentorship valuable to you and your business.
AS: Mentorship is an interesting concept. I think for many it seems like a person or few people who you go to for advice, guidance, and you rely on when you are struggling to solve a problem. Often, people seem to look to someone who has gone before them as the seasoned example of a mentor. For me – that has come in a different form. I try to learn something from everyone I encounter. I find that ingenuity, ability to solve problems creatively, and inspiration can come from the most disparate of sources. I would say that I have learned as much or more in my career from people who are younger and coming up behind me as I have from those ahead of me. There is so much about the way we have done business historically that needs to be turned on its head or ignored completely. I find that connecting with the most diverse group of people possible helps me see challenges in new lights, draw inspiration for solutions, and completely throw out the status quo paths for approaches that have ultimately created more opportunity.

Can you share some insights into the market or industry you operate in? How have you navigated challenges and changes in the market landscape?
AS: Compt was started nearly 7 years ago. In that time we have been through a global pandemic, a banking collapse, and numerous industry microcycles. In short – it’s been a rollercoaster. The way we have navigated this is to listen to our customers – they tell us what they need for support. We listen to our employees – they tell us when stress levels are getting really high (and they are not unlike our customers!). We pay attention to the world around us – because that enables us to support people in new ways. One example was when Roe was overturned, we were able to immediately support companies who understood the importance of access to healthcare for their entire team. Because of this, we were able to be at the forefront of supporting companies with out-of-state care stipends for their teams.

Many entrepreneurs continue to perfect their daily routines to support their work and greater vision; would you mind sharing your morning routine or a regular ritual that grounds your work each day?
AS: I typically wake up around 6 am and spend 30 minutes in bed checking my email/social media/etc.
I try to go for an hour walk at least 3x a week, followed by a shower.
I have a eucalyptus aroma shower spray that makes my morning routine feel like a spa visit.
I meditate for 5 minutes each morning before jumping into the full day of planning.
After making coffee, I settle in, triage my email, tasks, and meetings for the day – and start cranking.

How do you manage the work-life balance as an entrepreneur? What strategies have you found effective in maintaining your well-being?
AS: I try to manage myself as I manage others. It is easy and clear for me to see that people need to take breaks, have reasonable work hours, and that time to recharge is a must. In order for my team to believe that, I have to walk the walk. This means turning off the laptop at night and on weekends. It means taking real vacations where I am offline. It means allowing the prioritization of my well-being to be part of my workday (i.e., if I take a walk to clear my head). For me, movement, quality sleep, and time to recharge are essential for me to do my best work.

Where do you turn for inspiration?
AS: I think you can find inspiration anywhere at any time – you just have to look for it. Right now, I’m reading Hidden Potential by Adam Grant, which highlights new ways to think about both company and personal growth. One of my other passions is backpacking through the wilderness. I find that being fully disconnected from devices and being solely focused on where I put my foot next helps clear my mind – and usually brings about breakthroughs on things that may be challenging me.

Building and sustaining a business often involves overcoming various challenges. Can you share a specific moment where your entrepreneurial resilience was tested, and how did you navigate through it to ensure the sustainability of your business? What lessons did you learn from that experience?
AS: At one of the earlier companies I worked at as a CFO, I didn’t realize when I was hired that they were contemplating an acquisition as they hired me. The CEO was working that path quietly – even as I was onboarded. I was their first CFO so they weren’t quite sure what my role would be in that. Well, right at the end, as the agreement was being negotiated, the entire market collapsed, and the deal went away. Unfortunately, we had been banking on that for funding – and now that was gone. This was when I was brought into the loop. Unfortunately, we had to do large scale layoffs while also trying to raise capital in a rapid fashion.

Ultimately, we survived as a company and ended up on a great growth trajectory, but having to lay people off – some of whom had only been employed for a matter of weeks – left a big impression on me. I firmly believe you should always have a plan and a backup plan at all times so that you take the utmost care of your team in the process. I also believe that hiring people to the team for prospective future growth is very risky. I prefer a measured approach that enlists many triggers that allow more predictability in the business as well as creating paths for growth. Every person on my team has bills to pay, people that are important to them, and a life to live. That should not be taken for granted.

Do you have a favorite quote, mantra, or words of wisdom to get through the tough days?
AS: I am a fan of mantras – they usually come in the form of a song. Which song depends on the situation, challenge, and my mood. I’ve been known to look to Bob Marley (don’t worry, about a thing, cuz every little thing’s gonna be alright), to Beyonce (I’ma keep running, cuz a winner don’t quit on themselves), to Janis Joplin (freedom’s just another word for nothin left to lose). I have a song for every day and every mood. 🙂

What is a problem that keeps you up at night?
AS: There is really only one thing that keeps me up at night – when I’m trying to resolve an HR issue on my team. Challenges in go-to-market, fundraising, customers, etc. – they don’t keep me up at night. Those are things that every business tackles. Trying to resolve HR team issues, on the other hand, is nuanced and takes so much of my time, energy, and mental capacity because I care deeply about the people I work with. If someone is not working out all of a sudden, I will rush in to diagnose if they need more support, training, additional resources, etc. I want no stone unturned in finding a path forward before making the call that they might not be the right fit for where we are at this moment in time. I think this is both a strength (I take the well-being and financial livelihood of my team very seriously) and also a weakness (I keep people too long, to the detriment of themselves, the rest of the team, and myself). That said, when you find a situation where you can resolve the issue, it makes the rest so worth it that I likely won’t change.

How do you think about helping others through your work?
AS: I firmly believe that not only does the platform we have built help companies build and support more diverse teams equitably but that the way we are building Compt (how we structure our teams, design our culture, focus on the well-being of team members, etc.) is a guide for others who want to build a tech company in a different way. With a team that is 56% female, 40% POC, and 18% LGBTQIA+ – we are bucking the norm of the 90% homogenous team to show that better tech is built by diverse minds.

Have you faced any significant crises in your business, and how did you manage and overcome them?
AS: In the early days, we lived angel check to angel check – so we rarely had more than a month or two of funding in the bank account. That was the case even as we hired our early team. Life on the financial edge was certainly stressful, but what I knew would be part of the process. To manage this, though, I stayed completely transparent with my team at all times. They needed to make their own risk assessment as to when we were too close to the line of being out of cash. Because of this transparency, though, I didn’t lose a single person – even when we got down to two weeks of cash left. We closed our Seed Round the next week. The lesson here for me is to be truthful and upfront with your team and never stop pushing!

What advice do you have for fellow (and aspiring) entrepreneurs building and leading teams?
AS: My advice is to make sure that you don’t neglect your wellness. Working 20 hours a day, not eating healthy, not sleeping, not making time for movement – it all takes its toll on you over time. If you aren’t rested, well, and healthy – you will burn out, get sick, and, at the very least, not be at your creative best. There will always be more to do than can get done in one day – make sure you make yourself and your family a priority!

What kind of an entrepreneur do you want to be known as – as in, what do you want your legacy to be?
AS: I want my legacy to reflect the transformative impact of our work at Compt and within our communities. My vision is a world where pay equity is no longer a topic of discussion because it has been universally achieved. I envision a future where every founder, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, or physical ability, has access to the resources necessary to create remarkable innovations. While these goals are ambitious, and the road to achieving them is long, I believe in the power of incremental change. By developing a platform that empowers companies committed to these values and by building our own tech company as a model of inclusivity and equity, we can contribute to meaningful progress.

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