A conversation with co-founder Larry Foxx on leading with passion, building a strong team, and loving the work you do.

At Red Rover, it’s not just about innovative software — it’s about the people who power it. Meet Larry Foxx, co-founder and Chief Customer Officer at Red Rover, who, with decades of experience in the industry, brings a unique blend of passion for people, innovative leadership, and a drive to build something meaningful. 

In this interview, Larry shares what excites him about his role, the core values that keep Red Rover growing, and how a strong company culture and unwavering dedication to customer care are essential to Red Rover’s success. From team dynamics to navigating rapid growth, Larry’s insights offer a behind-the-scenes look at what makes Red Rover stand out in K-12 workforce management.

What drives and inspires you, personally and professionally? 

My wife and I love to travel. We’re recent empty nesters. We decided a couple of years ago that we would take off in an RV and see the United States, Canada, and Mexico [laughs]. We’re on the road at least three-quarters of the year. It’s fun to meet new people wherever we go. We love playing golf together — we’re not good — but we love playing. We’re involved in churches wherever we go.

As far as what gets me excited to get up in the morning, I love my job; I love the team I work with. I have fun building this company and contributing to a culture I think is super healthy. I don’t have the ‘Sunday Scaries,’ as they say. Taking folks through the process of learning the software — teaching them how to implement and serve districts well is the joy of my life. 

You don’t work a day in your life, truly, when you’re doing something that you love. 

What worries do you have when thinking about the future of Red Rover?

What keeps me up at night is wondering: Can we grow at this pace and keep what is so precious to us? Red Rover is in a period of pretty explosive growth, which we love and had planned for. But one of the things that I know Dani, Mike, and I are firm in is our belief that culture is everything — the team is everything. So as we see and experience this growth, keeping the culture of the organization is so important. Making it a place people enjoy working at.

We hire people we believe can truly care about the customer because that’s not something you can teach. If we keep hiring people who exhibit the same passions and care for people, I think we’ll be in good shape.

Who’s had the biggest influence on your work ethic and leadership style?

I really admire my dad. He taught [me about] work ethic. I remember trying out for the basketball team, and I think I played eight minutes my entire basketball career. [Laughs]. [My dad] said, ‘Son, you are not going to be the most talented, but the one thing that you can do is make sure nobody works harder than you.’ I’ve sort of tried to take that in my own personal life — that strong work ethic. When you care about customers, when you care about your employees, when your job is not a drag, it makes it so that you really can pour the time and effort into it and it doesn’t feel like a burden. 

What’s it like to build a company and lead alongside co-founders Mike Sheldon and Dani O'Shaughnessey?

We have tried really hard to hire smart people, but really, we want to get out of their way. We have a firm belief that if we hire the right people, that align with the vision of the company, that are smart, not egotistical, we can set the direction for the company. 

[When we conceived Red Rover …] we knew what customers needed; we knew we could build it. And it’s been the joy of our lives.

Dani is genuine and quirky. Mike is logical and smart. And I just bring a ball of emotion. I think I would bring the cowbell to the relationship. [Laughs] I’m going to advocate for the emotions of the customer. The three of us just make a good team. 

For Red Rover, what’s the ultimate marker of success?

Success to me is whether the customer succeeds in what they’re trying to do. If you’re not having fun, the customer is probably not having fun either. Being able to deliver service, being able to answer questions. We don’t just want to send [customers] articles and video references (although we create those). We try to answer their questions quickly, get them on the path to success, and anticipate things they might run into. We want to see customers really using the product features, and saving them time to do more things that further the education of kids in America. 

What makes the Red Rover team stand out from the crowd?

What I love most about the team is the eclectic nature of where these customer service people come from. Musicians, someone from a plumbing supply company, we’ve got teachers, dog breeders, pastors, a banker. Pulling all these people together that are united in their care for the company, and mission of providing top-notch support. 

We have competitions to see how quickly we can answer chats. We try to keep it at 30 seconds. I think that’s my favorite thing. All of these people didn’t grow up in support. But being able to get the vision of the company and know that this is a great career, a great place to grow professionally, and individually, and be part of something bigger. That’s my favorite part: making something beautiful. We’ve got all these people coming together and saying, ‘I want to be a part of this and seeing how that grows organically over time.’ We don’t have to do much recruiting. It’s a joy.

What’s Red Rover’s philosophy when it comes to customer service?

We talk about this ‘secret sauce’ and it is not complicated. It’s really, truly, caring for the needs of the customer — coupled with software that’s intuitive. I think what makes us so special, we don’t have to spend a lot of time on how to use the software because it’s intuitive, so we have more of a consultant role. It enables us to provide more value. We can take the time with the customer. 

We have a couple of integration experts and they will always ask the questions the customer isn’t asking, because we want to solve the questions they’ll have two weeks from now. 

Our whole philosophy is that we created this product, and you’re going to love it. Let’s get you comfortable with that, and then we’ll show you another product, and you’re going to love that just as much. 

It’s always a compliment to us as a team when [a customer says] ‘Have you ever thought about building something over here because you would be the first company that we would think of to build a solution in that area?’ 

How do you ensure customers feel taken care of?

The suggestion board really helps us know what items are out there and customers can vote. Or, they can talk to each other about how they’re solving a problem. It’s a community; it’s very active. Customers have put in around 1,500 ideas. I think it’s so active because people see that we comment on it, we are in there merging requests. We’re proud of the fact that customer service folks have a true relationship with the development team. The development team also has a lot of respect for the CS [customer support] people, which is rare. It’s really indicative of the spirit or culture we’ve tried to foster. We are churning out a lot of great stuff in a very short period of time.

Do you have any customer service anecdotes you’d like to share?

A customer recently came in and asked: ‘I want to create 250 professional development days for various teachers, and I don’t want to do it 250 times.’ We had just released that feature the night before and put it behind a feature flag so nobody knew about it. [The customer was] so impressed. Man, that made her day. And that is what gets us excited from a customer service perspective. Being able to anticipate those needs through what the customers vote for and being able to roll things out quickly and address the customer's needs. It gets super exciting. We geek out on it. It’s such a fun culture and we want to maintain it forever.