1338: 3 Product Principles to Lead a Growth Organization w/ Eric Crane

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.080 --> 00:00:08.910 Welcome back to beb growth. We are joined today by Eric Crane. He 2 00:00:09.150 --> 00:00:13.630 is the CO founder in COO at flat file. My name is James Carberry 3 00:00:13.669 --> 00:00:17.710 and the founder of sweet fish and I'm really excited for this conversation Eric. 4 00:00:18.030 --> 00:00:23.179 We're going to be talking about applying product principles to lead a growth organization. 5 00:00:23.940 --> 00:00:26.699 Just in our pre interview that we were just doing right before I hit record, 6 00:00:27.219 --> 00:00:32.939 it's clear you that you you've got a lot of really compelling thoughts around 7 00:00:33.060 --> 00:00:35.729 this, and so so I want to dive right in. But before before 8 00:00:35.729 --> 00:00:39.130 we do, tell us a little bit about flat file, just so our 9 00:00:39.289 --> 00:00:42.130 listeners have a little bit of contact for what we're going to be diving into 10 00:00:42.130 --> 00:00:45.450 today. Yeah, sure, thanks for having me on. James. Suggest 11 00:00:45.490 --> 00:00:48.289 to tell you a little bit about what flat file does. We solve this 12 00:00:48.409 --> 00:00:52.479 problem that we call data on boarding. So just like you, when you 13 00:00:52.600 --> 00:00:55.799 on board a new customer, you need to train them to get the most 14 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:59.840 out of your software and new system, similarly, when you on board their 15 00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:03.799 data, you need to train it to get the most out of that data 16 00:01:03.040 --> 00:01:07.590 living inside of your software system. So, whether it's a list of employees 17 00:01:07.629 --> 00:01:11.549 or leads or contacts inventory, these customers are oftentimes coming to you with their 18 00:01:11.590 --> 00:01:17.269 data, wanting to see its value in your system, and we provide tools 19 00:01:17.390 --> 00:01:21.980 for not only self service but also manage data onboarding process that makes it very 20 00:01:22.060 --> 00:01:25.939 easy for your customer and your team to get that data in as quickly as 21 00:01:25.980 --> 00:01:29.260 possible and make it as usable as possible. I love it. I love 22 00:01:29.340 --> 00:01:34.370 it so so, talk to me about why this, this idea of applying 23 00:01:34.489 --> 00:01:38.609 these product principles to lead the growth of flat file? Like, why is 24 00:01:38.689 --> 00:01:42.170 this something that's top of mind for you right now? Is it something that 25 00:01:42.250 --> 00:01:46.049 you care so much about? Well, so, probably starts just with my 26 00:01:46.129 --> 00:01:51.319 background. I've never really come from a traditional marketing or sales background. Okay, 27 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:53.760 I've merely been exposed to that is a part of the process and for 28 00:01:53.879 --> 00:01:57.159 us in particular, that means that, okay, we're not going to rely 29 00:01:57.239 --> 00:02:00.920 on institutional knowledge, and you might think that's a bad thing. Right, 30 00:02:00.959 --> 00:02:04.709 you got a growth leader who doesn't have marketing experience. What's going on? 31 00:02:05.349 --> 00:02:08.270 But what it actually helps us do is take the all of these different principles 32 00:02:08.310 --> 00:02:14.909 and processes and tools that we've learned across different areas and, in combination with 33 00:02:15.110 --> 00:02:19.379 a first principles approach be able to craft what is the ideal go to market 34 00:02:19.500 --> 00:02:22.620 motion for our business? I love it. I love it. So we 35 00:02:22.780 --> 00:02:28.020 talked in our pre interview, Eric, about three three of these product principles 36 00:02:28.939 --> 00:02:32.849 that you have used to lead growth at flat file. The first one you 37 00:02:34.210 --> 00:02:39.569 that we talked about was this focus on iterization and prioritization. Talk to us 38 00:02:39.610 --> 00:02:45.319 about why, why this product principle has been so critical as you've led the 39 00:02:45.439 --> 00:02:50.879 growth work. Yeah, so something I always ran into on the product side 40 00:02:50.879 --> 00:02:53.400 of the business and what do you know, it has started happening on the 41 00:02:53.759 --> 00:02:59.110 marketing side of the business. was just overly focused effort towards the perfect solution 42 00:02:59.150 --> 00:03:02.270 or the perfect campaign? Yep, and what ends up happening is when you're 43 00:03:02.270 --> 00:03:07.830 trying to craft the perfect campaign, you might end up launching something that's great, 44 00:03:07.110 --> 00:03:10.150 but it's going to happen much later than you would have otherwise, and 45 00:03:10.229 --> 00:03:15.860 especially in the earliest stages of a business. The number one resource we have, 46 00:03:15.979 --> 00:03:19.580 beyond investor dollars, beyond customer dollars, is time, because we have 47 00:03:19.699 --> 00:03:23.860 to learn about our market, we have to understand how they speak to us 48 00:03:23.099 --> 00:03:28.009 and we have to understand how to speak back to them and under like really 49 00:03:28.129 --> 00:03:34.810 just build that institutional understanding of what the appropriate way to position and sell our 50 00:03:34.889 --> 00:03:38.449 solution is. And so for us that meant things like, hey, instead 51 00:03:38.449 --> 00:03:43.639 of doing a full product launch, why don't we just iterate on it little 52 00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:47.560 bits? Will launch officially in this one channel with limited visuals and messaging, 53 00:03:47.599 --> 00:03:53.960 learn about response to that and then iterate based on the data in the anecdotes. 54 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:58.110 So we receive back. What was that Channel Er? Oh, I 55 00:03:58.189 --> 00:04:01.110 mean, I'll give you a great practical example of this, because we didn't 56 00:04:01.150 --> 00:04:04.430 think this would make any sense. One of our products, the flat file 57 00:04:04.550 --> 00:04:09.949 portal, is largely sold to product management and engineering teams. Okay, and 58 00:04:10.500 --> 00:04:14.819 we thought, okay, we go advertise this on stack exchange on every single 59 00:04:15.060 --> 00:04:17.300 CSD type keyword and we're going to get people clicking all over the place. 60 00:04:18.459 --> 00:04:24.259 The thing is we also ran a test on instagram. So not targeted towards 61 00:04:24.290 --> 00:04:28.089 product managers, not tarted towards engineers, and what do you know? We 62 00:04:28.209 --> 00:04:33.009 had zero sign ups from the Stack Exchange campaign and to date the instagram campaign 63 00:04:33.050 --> 00:04:39.160 has by far been our best performing campaign. Wow, man, that's super 64 00:04:39.240 --> 00:04:43.680 interesting. Do you what's your take on why? One outperformed the other in 65 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:46.000 such a significant way. Yeah, so a lot of it just has to 66 00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:49.120 do with understanding your market. So when we took that back in and we 67 00:04:49.240 --> 00:04:54.829 learn from the folks who are signing up from instagram versus the folks who weren't 68 00:04:54.949 --> 00:04:58.910 from Stack Exchange, it's all about timing for us, especially with the flat 69 00:04:58.949 --> 00:05:02.829 file portal. These product managers and engineers have a backlog, they have sprints, 70 00:05:02.910 --> 00:05:06.110 they have to plan things out in advance and when we were hitting them 71 00:05:06.699 --> 00:05:11.620 where they were every day, we're all of a sudden getting to build it, 72 00:05:11.779 --> 00:05:15.339 like dig into that top of mind thought that they had going on, 73 00:05:15.579 --> 00:05:16.540 like, Oh man, I just got done with work, I'm going to 74 00:05:16.579 --> 00:05:19.819 go check the Endsta like, Oh man, we were just talking about data 75 00:05:19.860 --> 00:05:23.490 import today and I got a plan that out from my road map. Okay, 76 00:05:23.490 --> 00:05:25.970 I'm going to reach out to these folks. I can't tell you how 77 00:05:25.970 --> 00:05:28.329 many times I've had people say you, I never do this, but I 78 00:05:28.490 --> 00:05:31.129 clicked on your instagram ad and now I'm talking to you. So yeah, 79 00:05:31.610 --> 00:05:36.560 just because we were doing focusing on these much smaller launches into different channels and 80 00:05:36.680 --> 00:05:42.560 with different messaging, we're able to find these lead users who are engaging with 81 00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:46.480 us ahead of like a full sort of market deployment. Yeah, so the 82 00:05:46.639 --> 00:05:50.550 lead users are actually the second principle that that we're going to talk about, 83 00:05:51.069 --> 00:05:55.829 and this is not something that I was familiar with. So explain to our 84 00:05:55.870 --> 00:06:00.029 listeners what is this concept of lead users? Yeah, so from a product 85 00:06:00.029 --> 00:06:03.189 perspective, when you think about a lead user, that someone who is has 86 00:06:03.269 --> 00:06:09.779 a need that they're going to solve and your solution is a part of solving 87 00:06:09.899 --> 00:06:13.139 that meat. And from the product side, what that means is that they 88 00:06:13.180 --> 00:06:15.339 don't care if your product isn't all the way there. They just want to 89 00:06:15.459 --> 00:06:20.769 engage with it to ultimately craft a solution. So it's almost like the very 90 00:06:20.810 --> 00:06:26.329 first part of the innovators, if we're thinking about the product adoption curve. 91 00:06:26.610 --> 00:06:29.970 Yeah, it's those very first few who said I'm going to put in extra 92 00:06:30.089 --> 00:06:33.439 effort to make sure that this works for me, and that concept is applicable 93 00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:39.319 even on the marketing side of the business to, instead of thinking about the 94 00:06:39.519 --> 00:06:43.199 product side of thingings, howing someone use this? Instead, it's how is 95 00:06:43.240 --> 00:06:46.920 this resonating with folks? And so whenever someone to reach out to us and 96 00:06:46.040 --> 00:06:50.389 start telling us about our product road map or what we should be, you 97 00:06:50.470 --> 00:06:55.949 know, targeting in terms of use cases. We would lean into that conversation 98 00:06:56.230 --> 00:07:00.149 with that individual so we can learn more about their perspective on our positioning, 99 00:07:00.980 --> 00:07:04.139 on, you know, the way we were pricing our product, the way 100 00:07:04.180 --> 00:07:10.540 we were packaging it up, and ultimately that knowledge was invaluable to us in 101 00:07:10.620 --> 00:07:14.060 order to scale the business like we are today. And so what were you 102 00:07:14.180 --> 00:07:16.730 guys doing to go about getting these lead users? Is it was? It 103 00:07:16.889 --> 00:07:20.370 just kind of the going back to the story just shared a few minutes ago, 104 00:07:20.490 --> 00:07:27.129 of testing different channels to see where there seemed to be an appetite for 105 00:07:27.250 --> 00:07:30.360 folks looking for the thing that you were doing exactly. It was all about 106 00:07:30.399 --> 00:07:34.519 iterating and testing and I've got another conversation I've got with some of the folks 107 00:07:34.519 --> 00:07:40.519 that start up brians coming out later this week. But basically the concept that 108 00:07:40.600 --> 00:07:43.839 we have internally is like we're not going to stick to standards. Already talked 109 00:07:43.839 --> 00:07:47.189 about that before, but just because you raise money and investors expect in eighteen 110 00:07:47.230 --> 00:07:50.509 to twenty four month runway on that money does not mean that we were going 111 00:07:50.550 --> 00:07:54.870 to have eighteen to twenty four months of runway when we deployed capital out to 112 00:07:54.910 --> 00:07:57.910 a channel, we saw that that channel was successful, we double down and 113 00:07:58.029 --> 00:08:01.459 triple down until we saw that channel getting exhausted. And so it's not necessarily 114 00:08:01.500 --> 00:08:05.220 about the time it takes, but about how much information we could collect and 115 00:08:05.339 --> 00:08:09.699 used to iterate on the business in a short amount of time as possible. 116 00:08:09.339 --> 00:08:15.569 So the value of those lead users obviously in in the way you engage them. 117 00:08:15.610 --> 00:08:20.290 The way you learn from them, has a pretty significant impact on the 118 00:08:20.449 --> 00:08:24.329 shaping of the product, especially in the early days. It informs your product 119 00:08:24.370 --> 00:08:26.759 roadmap. What are some of the other ways that you guys have have gotten 120 00:08:26.759 --> 00:08:30.839 a ton of value from these lead users? Oh yeah, so. I 121 00:08:30.959 --> 00:08:35.919 mean a great example of this would be just going to them with wire frames 122 00:08:35.159 --> 00:08:41.429 of not your product but of your campaigns and your messaging and saying, hey, 123 00:08:41.509 --> 00:08:43.509 does this make sense to you? Yeah, I know you emailed us 124 00:08:43.549 --> 00:08:46.870 a couple weeks back talking about flat file and then where you thought we should 125 00:08:46.870 --> 00:08:50.950 be. What's your response to this? Or, for example, we send 126 00:08:50.990 --> 00:08:54.509 out like a really light survey that just asked them to answer one question, 127 00:08:56.220 --> 00:08:58.860 but it was something that led them to want to ask more questions, and 128 00:09:00.059 --> 00:09:01.539 so it basically like hey, you know you answer this question, but then 129 00:09:01.580 --> 00:09:03.220 they were so I'm back and be like, I want to tell you more 130 00:09:03.299 --> 00:09:07.620 about this topic. And so whenever that came proactively to us, we knew 131 00:09:07.740 --> 00:09:13.929 that that was a very strongly held idea of how flat file should be position 132 00:09:13.049 --> 00:09:16.929 and how they could be one over, ultimately, as a customer, I 133 00:09:16.049 --> 00:09:20.169 love it. And we're these a lot of one to one interactions, or 134 00:09:20.169 --> 00:09:24.440 were you bucking them a certain way in your in your marketing automation platform, 135 00:09:24.480 --> 00:09:26.919 like how are you organizing all of this feedback that you're getting for across of 136 00:09:28.639 --> 00:09:31.080 a lot of different people? Yeah, mostly one to one interactions. It 137 00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:37.559 is anyone who started a business might be aware. Organization isn't always everyone's forte. 138 00:09:39.669 --> 00:09:43.070 So what we did was we just collected these in strategic docs. So 139 00:09:43.429 --> 00:09:46.669 we have this process that we run internally called strat sessions, where we can 140 00:09:46.909 --> 00:09:52.149 build information in a strategic document, ultimately come to an idea of a conclusion, 141 00:09:52.309 --> 00:09:54.820 but then share that with a team and do what we call farming for 142 00:09:54.940 --> 00:09:58.779 descent, so that farming for the scent would basically be like Hey, we've 143 00:09:58.820 --> 00:10:03.059 got all this information from the market, but we also want to leverage the 144 00:10:03.220 --> 00:10:05.700 knowledge of our team while still being all productive. So we're going to create 145 00:10:05.740 --> 00:10:11.889 this rum where everyone can interact and engage with this information, providing you dissenting 146 00:10:11.009 --> 00:10:16.730 opinions there and ultimately lead us to what the ideal next iteration is on that 147 00:10:16.929 --> 00:10:22.480 campaign or this channel or our organizational strategy in general. Gotta and and is 148 00:10:22.480 --> 00:10:28.159 that happening? Is that happening like on a everybody jumps on a call and 149 00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:30.840 you dissect it that way, or is it just like, Hey, here's 150 00:10:30.879 --> 00:10:33.879 the dock. By tomorrow at noon, have your thoughts on here. It's 151 00:10:33.960 --> 00:10:37.669 both, actually. So we share out the dock. We expect people to 152 00:10:37.750 --> 00:10:41.029 comment on the dock before they join the conversation and if they haven't commented on 153 00:10:41.110 --> 00:10:45.789 the dock or having explicitly said that they want to hear from the presenter, 154 00:10:46.309 --> 00:10:48.950 we say don't join the meeting because, yeah, then you can get back 155 00:10:48.990 --> 00:10:52.659 to doing whatever it is that you care about most. Yep, Yep, 156 00:10:52.779 --> 00:10:54.659 makes all the sense. All right. This third principle we're going to talk 157 00:10:54.700 --> 00:11:00.220 about, Eric, is product led growth, but you mentioned in our pre 158 00:11:00.340 --> 00:11:05.289 interview you know you can't focus too much on product led growth. You've got 159 00:11:05.450 --> 00:11:09.090 to do things that don't scale. So talk to us about where is that 160 00:11:09.250 --> 00:11:13.610 balance between product led growth, but but not putting too much attention on it? 161 00:11:15.049 --> 00:11:16.649 Yeah, so I think when you get under like four hours asleep per 162 00:11:16.649 --> 00:11:22.360 night, you should probably think about ways to automate things. But in reality 163 00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:26.000 it's just you miss out on so much great information if you overly focus on 164 00:11:26.159 --> 00:11:33.309 optimizing the customer acquisition part of your product experience before you really get a good 165 00:11:33.350 --> 00:11:37.429 understanding of that market. Okay, miss out on all those lead users, 166 00:11:37.470 --> 00:11:41.029 because what ends up happening is you create this funnel that does guide people who 167 00:11:41.230 --> 00:11:46.340 fit the part parameters are criteria that funnel to ultimately purchase and be, you 168 00:11:46.419 --> 00:11:50.460 know, hopefully happy and active customers. But it's harder for you to tell 169 00:11:52.019 --> 00:11:56.860 how happy are they. What ultimately drove them to purchase? What are ways 170 00:11:56.980 --> 00:12:00.700 in which they could have purchased faster? What are the things that held them 171 00:12:00.740 --> 00:12:07.649 up? And all that information gets lost when everything is overly automated. So 172 00:12:07.889 --> 00:12:11.129 what I generally prefer our team does is say, Hey, let's let's do 173 00:12:11.250 --> 00:12:16.120 that thing that doesn't scale and let's do the thing that is a manual process. 174 00:12:16.600 --> 00:12:22.600 Build the institutional knowledge about how people should be converting and adopting our products 175 00:12:22.279 --> 00:12:28.799 and then ultimately be able to bake that into an automated flow or to some 176 00:12:28.919 --> 00:12:33.149 sort of marketing automation. And so what are some of those things that you 177 00:12:33.230 --> 00:12:37.830 guys did at flat file that you're just things that you knew weren't going to 178 00:12:37.870 --> 00:12:41.309 scale but that had to be done. My favorite comes from earlier this year 179 00:12:41.350 --> 00:12:45.899 where we took all the pricing off of our website. So, but if 180 00:12:45.980 --> 00:12:48.340 we have a product that can be self served, and we know it can, 181 00:12:48.460 --> 00:12:52.100 but what we weren't learning enough about was the value of our product to 182 00:12:52.179 --> 00:12:58.649 our customers. And so we were seeing customers who easily were getting tens of 183 00:12:58.730 --> 00:13:03.250 thousands of dollars of value per you're out of our solution signing up for seventy 184 00:13:03.250 --> 00:13:07.289 nine a month. And commensurately, other folks were saying, Hey, I 185 00:13:07.409 --> 00:13:11.129 need a fifty percent discount on this seventy nine a month. Yeah, and 186 00:13:11.690 --> 00:13:15.960 we were focusing all of our attention in the wrong place. And so he 187 00:13:16.039 --> 00:13:18.080 said, you know what, if we're already having these conversations, let's have 188 00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:24.559 a conversation with everyone. Let's understand their needs, understand the value they see 189 00:13:24.559 --> 00:13:28.950 out of this and because it again, we address such a broad problem that 190 00:13:28.029 --> 00:13:35.309 exists across multiple segments. We just didn't really know exactly how those customers will 191 00:13:35.309 --> 00:13:39.110 ultimately perceive the value. And then, based on that feedback, we were 192 00:13:39.149 --> 00:13:43.419 able to not only iterate on our products and are pricing, but also iterate 193 00:13:43.580 --> 00:13:48.779 on our messaging and the way it provides values to our customers and ultimately relaunch 194 00:13:50.179 --> 00:13:54.139 self service with flat file, but with a much better plan structure that was 195 00:13:54.179 --> 00:13:56.610 aligned with the value our customers saw out of the solution. Where did you 196 00:13:56.649 --> 00:14:01.250 guys ultimately end up on that? Like what were some of the insights that 197 00:14:01.330 --> 00:14:05.370 drove what you're pricing is now and your messaging is now? Yeah, so 198 00:14:05.570 --> 00:14:09.080 a great of it's just related to the model. So flat file can work 199 00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:13.039 for fortune five hundred businesses. We've got several public companies that use us all 200 00:14:13.039 --> 00:14:16.039 the way down to like an early stage start up, and when you're early, 201 00:14:16.039 --> 00:14:18.200 say starter founder, you just want to throw that credit card in and 202 00:14:18.279 --> 00:14:20.879 it going. Yeah, and the other thing too, is that you don't 203 00:14:20.879 --> 00:14:24.309 want to have to like worry about, Oh, I'm in this plant here, 204 00:14:24.389 --> 00:14:28.070 but I've got this time box discount and when it expires and have to 205 00:14:28.110 --> 00:14:33.070 leave. Run into that with a couple software providers and we're leaving them and 206 00:14:33.909 --> 00:14:35.590 instead what we're doing is we're saying, hey, at the low end it's 207 00:14:35.710 --> 00:14:39.419 mostly page. You've got right, you're going to use this a little bit, 208 00:14:39.539 --> 00:14:41.860 but it's not going to be significant. We want to make sure that 209 00:14:41.940 --> 00:14:45.139 that is, you know, reflected, given that that's what you desire as 210 00:14:45.139 --> 00:14:50.299 a business. So that informs both pricing and just how the messaging around that 211 00:14:50.379 --> 00:14:52.970 pricing as well. Right. Absolutely, because as you scale up in terms 212 00:14:52.970 --> 00:14:56.330 of the size of the business, then we needed to offer more flexibility. 213 00:14:56.409 --> 00:15:01.490 Hey, we've got a fixed price and then a variable model, and also 214 00:15:01.529 --> 00:15:07.240 understanding that some of our largest customers weren't necessarily buying us because they were processing 215 00:15:07.279 --> 00:15:09.799 a ton of volume do the system, but rather because of some of the 216 00:15:09.879 --> 00:15:15.600 things that came with the platform side of things, so like customer success, 217 00:15:15.639 --> 00:15:18.200 a shared slack channel, you know, custom s la that we could at, 218 00:15:18.519 --> 00:15:22.590 you know, be it held to, and so that's why we really 219 00:15:22.669 --> 00:15:26.909 needed to have all of those conversations earlier in the year to really understand how 220 00:15:28.029 --> 00:15:33.429 that model should actually change over. And do you foresee yourself going back and 221 00:15:33.590 --> 00:15:35.980 doing something like that again? A couple years in. Like, how long 222 00:15:37.059 --> 00:15:39.019 do you rest on? I guess that that work that you guys did earlier 223 00:15:39.059 --> 00:15:43.779 this year before you dive back in and see a do weet doness need to 224 00:15:43.820 --> 00:15:46.419 change again. Well, I mean, we're already doing it right now too. 225 00:15:46.620 --> 00:15:50.570 So we got another product that we just launched called the flat file concierge. 226 00:15:50.690 --> 00:15:52.809 It's in a private Beta right now, but we're taking the same exacted 227 00:15:54.129 --> 00:15:58.649 couch, which is having a conversation with every single customer making sure that we 228 00:15:58.850 --> 00:16:03.169 have a good understanding of the value that they prescribe to the solution to the 229 00:16:03.289 --> 00:16:08.480 problem of data on boarding, but in particular in a more complex space. 230 00:16:10.159 --> 00:16:15.000 So whereas the flat file portal was all lined around self serve, embedded data 231 00:16:15.080 --> 00:16:21.789 import, flat file concier is just more for that higher complexity, managed implementation 232 00:16:22.029 --> 00:16:25.909 type of approach to day to onboarding. And so because it was a new 233 00:16:25.990 --> 00:16:30.269 type of customer stakeholder that we were interacting with, we wanted to make sure 234 00:16:30.309 --> 00:16:34.139 we followed the same exact process learned from the users understand how they would not 235 00:16:34.340 --> 00:16:41.100 just use the product but also what type of positioning and messaging would resonate with 236 00:16:41.259 --> 00:16:45.500 them. Makes Sense, Erica want to I want to talk about so we've 237 00:16:45.539 --> 00:16:49.090 talked about three product principles here. The focus on iterization and prioritization, your 238 00:16:49.129 --> 00:16:53.730 lead users, and then product led growth with without obviously spending, you know, 239 00:16:55.129 --> 00:16:59.490 going too far there. But that third principle, it actually led you 240 00:16:59.570 --> 00:17:03.759 guys to down the path of category creation. That's something we've got an entire 241 00:17:03.759 --> 00:17:07.680 series on this show about category creation that John rougie leads and this is a 242 00:17:07.720 --> 00:17:12.640 fascinating idea for me. But while you were doing those things that didn't scale, 243 00:17:12.720 --> 00:17:17.750 you were having these conversations. It ultimately led you guys to realizing, 244 00:17:18.109 --> 00:17:21.309 Hey, there's a space here. We need to create a categor gory to 245 00:17:21.430 --> 00:17:26.269 really define the the problem that we're solving. Can you walk us through that 246 00:17:26.470 --> 00:17:30.220 story of how those conversations ultimately led you to the category that you guys are 247 00:17:30.220 --> 00:17:33.339 now in the midst of creating? We have so the benefit of having those 248 00:17:33.380 --> 00:17:37.900 conversations with everyone who is signing up for the products was just that they were 249 00:17:38.059 --> 00:17:42.140 trying and they were failing to compare us to something else. We're saying, 250 00:17:42.180 --> 00:17:47.529 Oh, is this like this? is like this, and digging in deeper 251 00:17:47.650 --> 00:17:51.529 we realize okay, the things that were displacing, like the the solutions that 252 00:17:51.569 --> 00:17:55.609 were displacing are largely just sweat efforts, right, like I say, our 253 00:17:55.609 --> 00:17:57.490 biggest competitor is sweat. It's like, Hey, we're going to go make 254 00:17:57.599 --> 00:18:02.799 our end user fill out of spreadsheet template or we're going to have our implementations 255 00:18:02.920 --> 00:18:10.319 team right excel macros. We weren't really displacing any previous solution other than services, 256 00:18:10.839 --> 00:18:12.829 and so there's not a product out there that's really comparable to what we 257 00:18:12.950 --> 00:18:17.470 do. Sometimes people will bring up our PA, sometimes they'll bring up data 258 00:18:17.509 --> 00:18:19.990 preps, sometimes they'll bring up etl and in fact we have flavors of all 259 00:18:21.069 --> 00:18:23.750 of those things inside of flat file. But there wasn't any sort of clearly 260 00:18:23.829 --> 00:18:27.500 defined space that we operate in, which led us to this concept of data 261 00:18:27.579 --> 00:18:32.900 on boarding, and that again also comes from our customers, because for them, 262 00:18:33.619 --> 00:18:36.859 what are they often doing? They're often on boarding a customer, onboarding 263 00:18:36.900 --> 00:18:40.940 a vendor, and that language came directly from them and we just said okay, 264 00:18:40.940 --> 00:18:42.970 Hey, data onboarding. Does this make sense? And in fact we 265 00:18:44.049 --> 00:18:48.250 started marketing data onboarding well before we were act like solidifying that as a category 266 00:18:48.490 --> 00:18:52.809 we're trying to create. And the residence was great. I mean we had, 267 00:18:52.329 --> 00:18:56.559 I think at this point we now have a thousand companies on the conciers 268 00:18:56.599 --> 00:19:00.400 weight list because we focused a lot on the problem of data on boarding. 269 00:19:00.799 --> 00:19:04.759 is where we started, and then now we're getting to learn from that thousand 270 00:19:04.839 --> 00:19:10.750 company Weight List about the ideal solution to that problem, which is turning into 271 00:19:10.789 --> 00:19:14.990 this conciers product. What did it look like when you went to engage with 272 00:19:15.349 --> 00:19:19.349 some of your lead users around the the different names were you? Was it 273 00:19:19.430 --> 00:19:22.069 a lot of one to one emails, just asking people like hey, when 274 00:19:22.109 --> 00:19:26.380 we say when we say this, what does that make you think? Or 275 00:19:26.980 --> 00:19:30.660 how did you message that as you guys were processing what the name of the 276 00:19:30.779 --> 00:19:34.140 category could be? Well, yeah, even before we come up with the 277 00:19:34.180 --> 00:19:37.539 name of the category, it was just taking calls with all these folks, 278 00:19:37.569 --> 00:19:41.410 knowing we didn't have a product to sell of them, but what we did 279 00:19:41.529 --> 00:19:44.809 have to sell to them was a problem and we knew what this problem was. 280 00:19:44.930 --> 00:19:48.930 Right, okay, we got data files from a customer and we're not 281 00:19:48.009 --> 00:19:51.569 going to go have them clicking import button in a webath. We've got to 282 00:19:51.650 --> 00:19:55.000 provide them a higher level of service, for whatever the reason it's. And 283 00:19:55.119 --> 00:19:57.680 then we just have these conversations with them about that problem, how they'd try 284 00:19:57.680 --> 00:20:03.279 to solve it today, and we consistently heard that similar terminology over and over 285 00:20:03.319 --> 00:20:06.519 again. Hey, we're we're on boarding this, customer are on boarding. 286 00:20:06.599 --> 00:20:10.309 Team needs to do this. And so that was what led this was not 287 00:20:10.509 --> 00:20:14.950 us, but actually the market leaning into that terminology and then when we solidified, 288 00:20:15.470 --> 00:20:18.470 you are positioning around it, on boarding. That's when we saw things 289 00:20:18.630 --> 00:20:22.660 really explode. I love that and I've heard David cancel from drift talk a 290 00:20:22.700 --> 00:20:26.859 lot about this idea of when you are designing a category, to get momentum, 291 00:20:26.900 --> 00:20:30.660 you have to be pressing into an existing problem. The the the what 292 00:20:30.900 --> 00:20:37.089 Andy Raskin says. You know you're you're clearly articulating kind of the old game 293 00:20:37.289 --> 00:20:44.049 and the new game, but if you're not pressing into something that is actually 294 00:20:44.049 --> 00:20:48.569 a real felt problem of the people you're trying to serve and you're just going 295 00:20:48.650 --> 00:20:53.640 through the motion of trying to create a term that you hope everybody will catch 296 00:20:53.720 --> 00:21:00.200 on and start using, it's not going to go anywhere because you've got to 297 00:21:00.599 --> 00:21:02.960 really I mean what you guys have done. You've taken the words out of 298 00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:07.470 their mouth. And you've built something around, around a felt problem and really 299 00:21:07.549 --> 00:21:11.789 designed your category. I love how you guys have gone about doing it by 300 00:21:11.990 --> 00:21:15.390 literally taking the words out of out of your customers mouths. Instead of, 301 00:21:15.910 --> 00:21:18.660 you know, trying to come up with something cute and fancy and then forcing 302 00:21:18.700 --> 00:21:22.180 it down their throat, you've done the exact opposite and it seems like you're 303 00:21:22.180 --> 00:21:26.779 getting a lot of success from that. Eric, this has been really helpful 304 00:21:26.859 --> 00:21:29.819 for me. If there's somebody listening to this, they want to learn more 305 00:21:29.819 --> 00:21:33.930 about these product principles or they want to dive deeper with you on kind of 306 00:21:33.089 --> 00:21:37.450 what you've done to go about designing and building the data on boarding category. 307 00:21:37.930 --> 00:21:41.769 What's the best way for them to stay connected with you and learn more about 308 00:21:41.769 --> 00:21:45.289 flat file? Yeah, so the website is just flat filed dot I. 309 00:21:45.410 --> 00:21:48.279 Oh, that's flat file is one word, and you can always reach out 310 00:21:48.279 --> 00:21:49.880 to me on Linkedin. That's probably the best place to reach out if you 311 00:21:49.960 --> 00:21:52.599 want to send me a message or an invite request. Just say hey, 312 00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:56.799 I heard you on the podcast with Bob Growth and wanted to learn a little 313 00:21:56.799 --> 00:22:00.670 bit more about your approach. More than happy to share with you some examples, 314 00:22:00.710 --> 00:22:04.910 templates and other principles that we've used to help scale our business. Awesome. 315 00:22:06.109 --> 00:22:11.190 You can find Eric on Linkedin. Eric Crane. His looks like it's 316 00:22:11.230 --> 00:22:15.980 rl of got it up here. Is linkedincom I in Eric Crane Tech and 317 00:22:17.460 --> 00:22:19.420 reach out. Let him know you found us are. You found him through 318 00:22:19.619 --> 00:22:25.859 BB growth and hopefully he can answer any additional questions you have based on what 319 00:22:25.940 --> 00:22:27.339 he's shared here today. Eric, thank you so much for your time today. 320 00:22:27.380 --> 00:22:30.650 This has been fantastic. I really appreciate it. Thanks, James. 321 00:22:34.289 --> 00:22:38.170 One of the things we've learned about podcast audience growth is that word of mouth 322 00:22:38.250 --> 00:22:42.089 works. It works really, really well actually. So, if you love 323 00:22:42.210 --> 00:22:45.640 this show, would be awesome if you texted a friend to tell them about 324 00:22:45.680 --> 00:22:48.880 it, and if you send me a text with a screenshot of the text 325 00:22:48.960 --> 00:22:52.359 you sent to your friend, Metta, I know I'll send you a copy 326 00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:56.160 of my book content based networking, how to instantly connect with anyone. You 327 00:22:56.200 --> 00:23:00.589 want to know my cell phone numbers. Four hundred seven, four nine, 328 00:23:00.589 --> 00:23:03.029 hundred, three hundred and three two eight. Happy texting.