Creatively Showcase Your Product in Action, with Evan Davies

WEBVTT 1 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:16.719 Conversations from the front lines of marketing. This is be tob growth. Today 2 00:00:16.839 --> 00:00:21.000 I am joined by Evan Davies. He's the head of marketing, partnerships and 3 00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:25.320 maker growth over at Coda. Evan, were so glad to have you on 4 00:00:25.359 --> 00:00:28.120 the show today. Man. Yeah, thanks for having me. I got 5 00:00:28.120 --> 00:00:32.200 to say you're probably the first person that I have ever interviewed who has maker 6 00:00:32.280 --> 00:00:35.600 growth in their title. So break that down for me a bit, tell 7 00:00:35.640 --> 00:00:40.799 me what that entails. Yeah, I you know, it's makers. Makers 8 00:00:40.840 --> 00:00:45.719 are the customers of Coda and I think marketing, at least from my point 9 00:00:45.719 --> 00:00:49.719 of view, is all about understanding your customers, empathizing with them, working 10 00:00:49.759 --> 00:00:53.520 with them to tell your story. So definitely a big part of my job. 11 00:00:54.280 --> 00:00:58.600 I love that as a as a title and yeah, you just having 12 00:00:58.640 --> 00:01:00.840 them as the center and then you knowing that that's part of your role. 13 00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:03.519 It's got to be pretty cool to be like that, close and kind of 14 00:01:03.519 --> 00:01:07.680 in the action. Today. Really, I invited you on the show because 15 00:01:07.799 --> 00:01:12.000 I want to pick your brain and have a conversation around the code of Gallery. 16 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:17.560 It's an approach in a method that I think marketers more broadly can learn 17 00:01:17.640 --> 00:01:23.319 from. Maybe let's just start with a high level sort of explain what the 18 00:01:23.359 --> 00:01:26.799 idea for the other gallery is and where that sort of started. Yeah, 19 00:01:26.959 --> 00:01:30.439 for sure, and probably worth starting even from the beginning of just what how 20 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:34.560 we think about marketing in general. I CODA and and just my philosophy on 21 00:01:34.599 --> 00:01:38.879 this is a started, maybe as a bit of background to I a lot 22 00:01:38.920 --> 00:01:42.799 of my philosophy on this has been informed by a career that's been spent in 23 00:01:42.879 --> 00:01:46.560 a bunch of different areas. Inside of you to be company, to book 24 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:49.439 any tech companies, from product to customer success in sales and now to go 25 00:01:49.519 --> 00:01:53.480 to market. So a lot of the ways we think about our marketing strategy 26 00:01:53.519 --> 00:01:57.599 here is based on that. And just as a quick background or I've I 27 00:01:57.799 --> 00:02:02.200 started, I cut my teeth in product as a PM at accenture. was 28 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:08.520 working actually pretty an early stage team inside of obviously very large company building out 29 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:15.520 a new technology stack for trading practice that was being rebuilt when I, when 30 00:02:15.560 --> 00:02:19.360 I joined the company from there, moved into a services role inside of a 31 00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:23.199 inside of a product team. So I actually joined box pre IPO and kind 32 00:02:23.199 --> 00:02:30.479 of their hypergrowth days building out their box consulting arm, which is basically their 33 00:02:30.520 --> 00:02:36.479 internal services team. But I quickly expanded to thinking about how to productize and 34 00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:39.879 operationalize a bunch of different services offerings that we had and think about how that 35 00:02:40.439 --> 00:02:46.240 supports our overarching company strategies of growing into BB companies, going up market it 36 00:02:46.800 --> 00:02:51.800 professionals, that sort of thing. And then was joined code as our kind 37 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:54.840 of earliest go to market higher in two thousand and seventeen, back when we 38 00:02:54.919 --> 00:02:58.439 were in stealth mode. We're actually a different name at the Times. My 39 00:02:58.759 --> 00:03:02.120 favorite first projects worked on was renaming the company. For Those Unfamiliar Code as 40 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:06.680 this a new all on one doc for team. So think best parts of 41 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:12.080 Docs, spreadsheets, applications all in one flexible tool. And since I know 42 00:03:12.120 --> 00:03:15.919 a lot of your listeners are marketers, I think everything from how you manage 43 00:03:16.919 --> 00:03:23.400 launch briefs and Messaging Strategy Development, the actual launch calendar and asset creation to 44 00:03:24.120 --> 00:03:30.919 even signing off reviewing content to actually crane Dow Boards on Channel and campaign performance, 45 00:03:30.919 --> 00:03:34.840 all that stuff can happen inside the Coda and my team, as we 46 00:03:34.919 --> 00:03:38.400 think about what the gallery represents, is responsible for all parts of our marketing 47 00:03:38.039 --> 00:03:44.879 motion, from product marketing to PR and communications to how we engage and enable 48 00:03:44.960 --> 00:03:49.039 our sales force to God and tell our story. But it also includes this 49 00:03:49.159 --> 00:03:53.199 kind of ecosystem component, or this maker component, which is how do we 50 00:03:53.400 --> 00:03:58.360 grow the understanding of our product through our user base, through our maker community, 51 00:03:58.439 --> 00:04:01.879 which is the group of people who are really leaning into the product, 52 00:04:01.960 --> 00:04:05.719 building amazing things that we would have never thought of and bringing those out into 53 00:04:05.759 --> 00:04:12.039 the world and engaging our our target audience. And so you ask the question 54 00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:15.719 at the beginning of you know what the gallery where came from, why it 55 00:04:15.800 --> 00:04:17.879 exists. There's a lot of reasons for it, but I think you know 56 00:04:17.959 --> 00:04:21.240 at the beginning when we were in stealth, you know our biggest first question 57 00:04:21.360 --> 00:04:25.120 is like how we going to what are we going to do when we launch 58 00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:29.240 this product? Like it's a horizontal tool. You can build any kind of 59 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:32.040 will with it. You want any kind of solution. How are we going 60 00:04:32.079 --> 00:04:35.759 to anchor or messaging strategy? Can't you can't just say the tool for everybody? 61 00:04:35.879 --> 00:04:39.199 Yeah, it's almost like too much white space, right. Yeah, 62 00:04:39.279 --> 00:04:43.160 exactly. It's like it's a huge opportunity, but it's also a huge kind 63 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:46.360 of challenge. And so if you can imagine some of the earliest parts of 64 00:04:46.360 --> 00:04:50.160 that conversation, we're okay, what's our core positioning and messaging? What's our 65 00:04:50.319 --> 00:04:55.720 main target audiences we really care about very deeply. But then there's this other 66 00:04:55.800 --> 00:04:59.800 part, which is how do you inspire potential users with what's possible with Codea? 67 00:04:59.839 --> 00:05:03.560 We already knew in the earliest days of talking to our customers that really 68 00:05:03.639 --> 00:05:08.560 clicked for them when they saw a compelling example or the way another person was 69 00:05:08.680 --> 00:05:13.279 using it. Less so like the perfect onboarding experience inside of the product, 70 00:05:13.839 --> 00:05:17.399 and so we knew we wanted to create a space to host some of those 71 00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:21.680 best examples. We kind of split the difference between, okay, partially going 72 00:05:21.720 --> 00:05:25.639 to be used for inspiration better also, for many will be used to get 73 00:05:25.720 --> 00:05:30.079 started. People take one of those pieces of content and probably want to try 74 00:05:30.120 --> 00:05:33.560 it out. And it really is evolved significantly since there. But that was 75 00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:36.680 kind of the first inception point of the gallery and it was truly when we 76 00:05:36.800 --> 00:05:41.959 launched, it was like fifteen individual docks. It was kind of a very 77 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:46.160 simple single landing page, code iohe Gallery, and it's ground a ton since 78 00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:49.480 then. Yeah, well, maybe talk about how it's evolved as well over 79 00:05:49.680 --> 00:05:53.920 time. The reality is, like, not everyone listening to this is going 80 00:05:53.959 --> 00:05:57.519 to be working with a product that's like open source and we're not all going 81 00:05:57.560 --> 00:06:00.759 to maybe apply this in the same way, but there's several fascinating pieces to 82 00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:04.879 creating something like a gallery and we're all thinking about like how can we make 83 00:06:05.079 --> 00:06:09.160 our product more accessible, how can we show it in use, and that's 84 00:06:09.199 --> 00:06:12.759 some of what fascinated me originally about the gallery. Is like, I don't 85 00:06:12.759 --> 00:06:15.399 work with an open source product, but if I could show how the thing 86 00:06:15.519 --> 00:06:19.920 that I have is can be used and give examples, templates, that sort 87 00:06:19.959 --> 00:06:23.920 of thing, there's a lot of use in that and I think a lot 88 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:28.560 of our listeners would be in that space. I know one thing that you 89 00:06:28.639 --> 00:06:33.759 guys have done a lot is think strategically about partnerships and within the gallery, 90 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:36.560 how does that kind of work? How has the gallery impact of the way 91 00:06:36.600 --> 00:06:43.120 you think about partnership specifically? Yeah, I am. I mean it's interesting. 92 00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:46.079 I think part of like you mentioned, not every company is an open 93 00:06:46.120 --> 00:06:47.680 source product, so it's hard to think about, you know, the same 94 00:06:47.839 --> 00:06:50.279 kind of strategy. The end of the day, I feel like the gallery 95 00:06:50.399 --> 00:06:55.360 is the best parts of customer marketing, which is definitely a big theme awesome 96 00:06:55.680 --> 00:06:59.079 in marketing in general. I was listening to your previous podcast of Russelan, 97 00:06:59.439 --> 00:07:03.879 who's actually somebody of a few times before. Is that thrive, but the 98 00:07:04.040 --> 00:07:09.639 idea of customer marketing and telling really compelling stories through what your customers are able 99 00:07:09.639 --> 00:07:14.240 to accomplish the product. I see this as an evolution of that and you 100 00:07:14.319 --> 00:07:15.959 know, you mentioned partnerships as a component of this. I see the best 101 00:07:16.079 --> 00:07:20.879 customer marketing relationships were creating our feel like partnerships at the end of the day. 102 00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:25.240 They don't feel like a point in time. We're building one thing together. 103 00:07:25.360 --> 00:07:28.639 We're doing one CO marketing push on this asset that says like, you 104 00:07:28.759 --> 00:07:31.839 achieved x amount of value with our product and and I can now put in 105 00:07:31.879 --> 00:07:35.480 a sales deck and then send that out to people. It's really about these 106 00:07:35.720 --> 00:07:41.560 the folks were working with to tell our story are deep advocates of the products 107 00:07:41.600 --> 00:07:45.120 and this is an opportunity for us to not just tell a great story that 108 00:07:45.199 --> 00:07:47.360 we can re use in other parts of our marketing and sales motion, but 109 00:07:47.519 --> 00:07:54.480 opportunity to deepen that relationship and and have that customer feel connected enough to revision, 110 00:07:54.519 --> 00:07:57.560 to advocate for us and to help us grow through word of mouth. 111 00:07:57.639 --> 00:08:01.160 I think there's so many strategies folks on this now everyone talks about community is 112 00:08:01.199 --> 00:08:03.720 like, Oh, communities the like holy grail of like how do you grow 113 00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:07.199 in the early days? I see this is a very core part of that. 114 00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:13.120 It's building relationships with your user base such that they feel connected and excited 115 00:08:13.240 --> 00:08:16.920 to promote, promote you. Word of mouth is the best, best acquisition 116 00:08:18.040 --> 00:08:20.839 channel you can have in this is one way to do that and this is 117 00:08:20.879 --> 00:08:24.160 a very public way of word of mouth. So it's it's not quite just 118 00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:28.480 word of mouth, it's like word of mouth through a megaphone. Give me 119 00:08:30.360 --> 00:08:33.600 an example of how this works, like these partnerships and how this is used 120 00:08:33.720 --> 00:08:39.000 in in the gallery? Yeah, yeah, I think I'll give a few 121 00:08:39.080 --> 00:08:43.720 different examples which kind of speak to different target audiences that we work with with 122 00:08:43.879 --> 00:08:48.559 Coda. I mean CODA is used at tens of thousands of companies, but 123 00:08:48.639 --> 00:08:52.519 it's also used individually. It's used in small teams and start ups. So 124 00:08:54.320 --> 00:08:56.879 we often have to kind of segment our strategy and figure out, okay, 125 00:08:56.919 --> 00:08:58.759 how do we best support those different use cases? And so the way that 126 00:08:58.799 --> 00:09:03.279 we do this gallery base marketing is, is this somewhat a line to that 127 00:09:03.879 --> 00:09:07.320 so starting with kind of like the example that I think people be most familiar 128 00:09:07.399 --> 00:09:11.799 with is like the turning the case study on its head. You have a 129 00:09:11.879 --> 00:09:16.600 customer with a brand that's reputable credible, they use your product. You find 130 00:09:16.639 --> 00:09:20.360 a really compelling scenario that you want to share broadly in some story of like 131 00:09:20.480 --> 00:09:24.840 what the value is they achieved with your product. Companies like Phigma or Uber. 132 00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:30.200 We've done kind of those types of relationships with and you know we start 133 00:09:30.279 --> 00:09:33.840 with a similar thing. That's probably expected. You work with that team to 134 00:09:33.919 --> 00:09:37.799 build out the story. You understand what the problem they had was, why 135 00:09:37.919 --> 00:09:41.360 Coda was a great solution with value they achieved. We go a step further 136 00:09:41.519 --> 00:09:46.480 in that model, which is our goal, is to make their idea actionable 137 00:09:46.639 --> 00:09:50.440 for the person who reads that piece. I think, like you, there 138 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:54.240 are millions of blog posts out there of case studies of product usage, of 139 00:09:54.399 --> 00:09:58.159 like how can I do XYZ process better? But the moment that you can 140 00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:03.200 actually quickly take that idea and turn into action or try it for yourself is 141 00:10:03.240 --> 00:10:05.440 what it becomes powerful. Code obviously is a unique position to do that because 142 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:13.320 our product is a mixture of content and and actual implementation. But I think 143 00:10:13.399 --> 00:10:16.480 everybody can if they think about it this way. You can find creative ways 144 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:18.360 to do that within your product. And so with Phigma as an example, 145 00:10:18.480 --> 00:10:22.480 they run a lot of their product roadmapping process on CODA. They do a 146 00:10:22.519 --> 00:10:28.279 lot of their product requirements development and review inside of Coda, and we worked 147 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:33.240 with one of our main champions there, who's the head a product, to 148 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:39.480 kind of codify this this experience that they've created into a template that also had 149 00:10:39.559 --> 00:10:43.559 this kind of longer form case study and really start focusing on like the small 150 00:10:43.679 --> 00:10:46.840 experiences that made it delightful. It's not just about like here's this big product 151 00:10:46.919 --> 00:10:52.039 solution you can go adopt in your org. It's like here are the philosophies 152 00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:56.759 that this person who implemented the product has, here's what's unique about how pigma 153 00:10:56.879 --> 00:11:03.320 operates that made the solution compelling and here's where you can play with it and 154 00:11:03.399 --> 00:11:05.120 see it for yourself and action. And for other products you can just be 155 00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:09.840 as simple as showing the screenshots with the gifts or the you know, a 156 00:11:09.960 --> 00:11:13.600 video walk through. For products like ours, it's we want you to be 157 00:11:13.639 --> 00:11:16.480 able to touch and feel the solution that they use every day. As you're 158 00:11:16.559 --> 00:11:20.679 reading about it and that just creates kind of a really it's both a brand 159 00:11:20.759 --> 00:11:24.320 association. You know, CODA plus Phigma. Obviously we have a really great 160 00:11:24.360 --> 00:11:26.960 relationship with that team. They use our product, we partner with them in 161 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:31.759 a bunch of different things, but it's also creating this understanding of the individual 162 00:11:31.919 --> 00:11:35.200 user behind the solution. You get to know Yuki, you get to know 163 00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:41.600 his philosophy on product management and US having a close relationship with him means that 164 00:11:41.720 --> 00:11:46.919 he's more likely to take that story into other other conversations with other product managers, 165 00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:50.279 cpos and you know, we've we found ways of kind of connecting. 166 00:11:50.919 --> 00:11:54.399 The thing is that the philosophies the FIGMA has on product to a bunch of 167 00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:58.159 other companies that are interested in how pigma runs and how they operate, and 168 00:11:58.320 --> 00:12:03.799 we try to help mediate or make that those conversations happen. I love the 169 00:12:05.240 --> 00:12:11.919 idea of content and implementation, story and interaction kind of happening simultaneously, because 170 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:16.279 we all have interacted with enough content on the Internet where you're like this is 171 00:12:16.320 --> 00:12:20.960 another blog and another basically like static page that's telling me how to do something 172 00:12:22.399 --> 00:12:26.320 but not giving me like a way of interacting with it, and I don't 173 00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:30.759 think you have to have. You guys obviously are in a unique position, 174 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:35.360 but I think it's easier to just default to a blog format than to think 175 00:12:35.480 --> 00:12:39.399 like how can I make what I'm doing more interactive, even if it's breaking 176 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:43.519 it down and some is video, some it's like do you could use different 177 00:12:43.639 --> 00:12:46.120 types of mediums all in one longer form piece of content? That would just 178 00:12:46.600 --> 00:12:50.639 make interaction easier, right, which is one of the first things that I 179 00:12:50.679 --> 00:12:54.320 would like in as I was looking at your guys as gallery, I'm just 180 00:12:54.399 --> 00:12:58.440 like, man, we have to be creating more interaction. And I know 181 00:12:58.559 --> 00:13:01.600 people are doing this on the sales demo side right, like getting rid of 182 00:13:01.759 --> 00:13:05.360 maybe the person that has to run the demo and you could just test out 183 00:13:05.399 --> 00:13:07.559 the product. But actually think there's ways marketing should be doing this as well 184 00:13:07.960 --> 00:13:11.320 and just implementing this in the content we're creating. And so I find this 185 00:13:11.840 --> 00:13:16.720 absolutely fascinating and worth all of our time to just like dig in and ask 186 00:13:16.759 --> 00:13:20.279 ourselves a few more questions to go like how can we make our content more 187 00:13:20.360 --> 00:13:24.120 interactive and not just maybe a blog? Yeah, yeah, I mean even 188 00:13:24.200 --> 00:13:31.200 just thinking about the dynamics of mean we offer and think of the content that's 189 00:13:31.200 --> 00:13:37.000 publish the gallery. Each individual piece is its own almost small APP it's, 190 00:13:37.120 --> 00:13:39.320 you know, the more the market place feels almost like a you know, 191 00:13:39.480 --> 00:13:43.480 the new kind of APP store, but you know, it might feel like 192 00:13:43.639 --> 00:13:46.200 a blog when you first lay in there, but then as soon as you 193 00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:50.000 start interacting with stuff. Each of these is a compelling, unique solution which 194 00:13:50.080 --> 00:13:54.399 is both a new entry point for the product but also an opportunity for folks 195 00:13:54.519 --> 00:14:00.480 to to kind of build up a set of docks that represent their philosophy. 196 00:14:01.120 --> 00:14:03.240 It's an implementation, it's almost a set of products that they're they're putting out 197 00:14:03.240 --> 00:14:09.000 into the universe and they can build their own communities and their own interest groups 198 00:14:09.080 --> 00:14:13.759 around that content as well. Like Bei, there's some gravitational pull when you 199 00:14:13.840 --> 00:14:18.440 have a okay, here's how I think about managing product. Here's a specific 200 00:14:18.519 --> 00:14:22.399 way that I've implemented that philosophy in a company that I work at, and 201 00:14:22.519 --> 00:14:28.000 invite people to comment on it, to kind of share their own versions of 202 00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:31.279 that. You know, another example of this is actually something that we've started 203 00:14:31.320 --> 00:14:37.120 building out internally, which you keys this this pigma example fits into this larger 204 00:14:37.600 --> 00:14:41.519 story of our founders SASHIMA Rocho used to work at Youtube, RAN PROC design 205 00:14:41.600 --> 00:14:46.519 engineering on the youtube products for a number of years before we founded Coda, 206 00:14:46.399 --> 00:14:50.879 and he's just had, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of conversations 207 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:56.639 with thought leaders, heads of products, engineering design, all these different folks 208 00:14:56.720 --> 00:15:01.279 with unique perspectives and how to run these team, teams, these organizations, 209 00:15:01.840 --> 00:15:05.879 how to build great products, and so we've actually turned this into this this 210 00:15:05.960 --> 00:15:09.840 book that he's running called rituals of great teens and the ideas. How do 211 00:15:09.879 --> 00:15:13.960 you like take all these unique perspectives and bring them together and kind of show 212 00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:16.960 them side by side and allow people to kind of navigate and experience not just 213 00:15:18.159 --> 00:15:20.080 the like content side of it, but experience what it feels like to actually 214 00:15:20.120 --> 00:15:24.320 have those implemented in your own teens and feeling a little bit like a choose 215 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:28.960 your own adventure of like Hey, I have this I'm trying to figure out 216 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:31.799 how to solve planning at an organizational level and evolve it for my fast growing 217 00:15:31.879 --> 00:15:35.720 team that's now distributed all the way down to I just want to do I 218 00:15:35.799 --> 00:15:41.639 want better one on ones with my with my team, and you can find 219 00:15:41.919 --> 00:15:48.879 really compelling customer example of just their philosophy on oneones in general, Code Agnostic, 220 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:52.360 and then you have the like and here's how you can try it for 221 00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:56.399 yourself in one click version. Yeah, which is really compelling. It is 222 00:15:56.440 --> 00:16:00.960 really complete. Okay, I want to talk a little bit about some of 223 00:16:00.039 --> 00:16:04.480 what you were just saying and like team rituals and incentives I or I know 224 00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:10.120 have become too new focuses. But let's before we get there, let's stay 225 00:16:10.240 --> 00:16:15.039 kind of in fact, let's rewind. Let's go back into the past a 226 00:16:15.080 --> 00:16:17.120 bit and talk about the beginning. You had mentioned. It was like what, 227 00:16:17.320 --> 00:16:22.000 fifteen docs kind of just sitting there like this is sort of what we're 228 00:16:22.039 --> 00:16:25.039 going to start with as a gallery. You have to have some sort of 229 00:16:25.159 --> 00:16:29.080 like snowball effect to get something like this rolling. What do you think was 230 00:16:29.159 --> 00:16:33.039 most important to make this something you guys wanted to feature on the site have 231 00:16:33.240 --> 00:16:37.200 as like a cornerstone of what Coda is like? How do you gain that 232 00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:44.919 momentum? Yeah, I mean there's definitely a supply and demand aspect to this 233 00:16:45.360 --> 00:16:48.799 and I'd say the first few years that the gallery was was up and running, 234 00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:52.919 all of the content was was curated by someone at Coda. There was 235 00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:56.919 no way to kind of publish yourself. You'd like thought of form, you'd 236 00:16:56.960 --> 00:17:02.000 submit and then somebody in the company would take a look and and then ultimately 237 00:17:02.039 --> 00:17:04.799 surface in the gallery experience. And you know, just that friction alone creates 238 00:17:04.839 --> 00:17:10.359 a bit of a you're not going to get as much inbound interest or growth 239 00:17:10.519 --> 00:17:14.200 of the supply side when you have that. It did let us do a 240 00:17:14.319 --> 00:17:18.519 bit more of like early exploration, quality control, make sure that we're understanding 241 00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:22.559 what why people are bringing things in. So it created this explicit moment for 242 00:17:22.680 --> 00:17:27.119 us to evaluate why do people care about publishing here? What are they trying 243 00:17:27.160 --> 00:17:30.599 to bring into the gallery? But during that time, I think a lot 244 00:17:30.680 --> 00:17:33.720 of this was also just having somebody whose full time job was thinking about this 245 00:17:33.839 --> 00:17:38.119 experience. I hired somebody very early named Al who is a big community advocate 246 00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:44.240 for ours, Al Chen, and he, you know, he basically take 247 00:17:44.359 --> 00:17:48.440 up took on this experience of okay, you know, both figuring out what 248 00:17:48.519 --> 00:17:52.359 people are coming to gallery and trying to submit and helping facilitate that process. 249 00:17:52.640 --> 00:17:56.079 But he was also thinking about what are all the different places where we can 250 00:17:56.160 --> 00:18:00.240 find solutions on the Internet in our customer base that would make sense to feature 251 00:18:00.359 --> 00:18:06.359 here either as inspiration for our users or as it getting started kind of material 252 00:18:06.559 --> 00:18:10.559 for people had just signed up, and just having somebody who's spending the time 253 00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:18.640 searching for the right composition of content aligning that to our mainline kind of strategies 254 00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:22.240 as a company was really affected, at least at that building that initial supply 255 00:18:22.400 --> 00:18:25.920 up so that it was you came to the gallery, it wasn't just twelve 256 00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:30.119 things. It was like an inspiring set of hundreds of documents and he did 257 00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:33.279 a lot of early story mining as well with our existing customers. So being 258 00:18:33.319 --> 00:18:36.599 able to you know, I'd say when in doubt, when you start look 259 00:18:36.720 --> 00:18:41.079 inward, find, you know, find the customers who are really building something 260 00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:44.799 awesome and find ways of telling their story effectively. You'll be able to mind 261 00:18:44.839 --> 00:18:48.000 a ton of gold from that. Yeah, having that person to that's just 262 00:18:48.079 --> 00:18:52.119 like owning and thinking through like how are we constantly improving it, and being 263 00:18:52.160 --> 00:18:56.559 a community advocate ends up being a big proponent of this. Even though there's 264 00:18:56.599 --> 00:19:00.920 like part of this is that it's content strategy, it's also very much communal 265 00:19:00.200 --> 00:19:06.559 and customer facing conversations, and so I like it's a mix of like almost 266 00:19:06.599 --> 00:19:10.160 what you need, even personality wise to own something like this. Yeah, 267 00:19:10.440 --> 00:19:12.079 yeah, and you could either say it's Oh, we need a content marketing 268 00:19:12.200 --> 00:19:17.680 person or we need a community champion type member. I think these two is 269 00:19:17.839 --> 00:19:21.440 very related roles, especially in a company like ours, and they should hard 270 00:19:21.480 --> 00:19:25.200 to find the Unicorn and folks who are really good at everything in that in 271 00:19:25.319 --> 00:19:29.359 that realm. But it was is great early experience working with that on this. 272 00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:33.319 And then, yeah, I think one of the other things is, 273 00:19:33.599 --> 00:19:36.519 just as you evolve your strategy, it's you know what, how do you 274 00:19:36.559 --> 00:19:38.920 productize some parts of this experience? I think was really important and luckily, 275 00:19:40.559 --> 00:19:44.319 you know she's you're coming from Youtube and thinking a lot about what it means 276 00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:48.880 to grow via your users and and put them friend center and your in your 277 00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:52.720 marketing. You know, was already we were already heavily invested from a product 278 00:19:52.799 --> 00:19:56.319 perspective on making this experience great and feeding it. And so in a couple 279 00:19:56.359 --> 00:20:00.839 of years later, we actually productize the publishing feature. So that became a 280 00:20:00.920 --> 00:20:06.799 core part of our product experience. We built a bunch of UI components as 281 00:20:06.880 --> 00:20:10.400 well as reporting elements that made it obvious, you know, when you're publishing 282 00:20:10.480 --> 00:20:14.039 you have this really great you know, experience. You want people to have 283 00:20:14.160 --> 00:20:18.359 a great France landing on the content you create, as well as some analytics 284 00:20:18.480 --> 00:20:22.279 and understanding of how people are engaging with your content as kind of an initial 285 00:20:22.359 --> 00:20:26.880 incentive and the fast forwards. Now we've built a bunch of other components in 286 00:20:26.039 --> 00:20:30.559 that, everything from kind of the monetary incentives, like we rolled out a 287 00:20:30.599 --> 00:20:36.119 maker fund at our block party last year. We built a REB sharing program 288 00:20:36.240 --> 00:20:41.839 or filiate program around this, to just making publishing a delightful experience and and 289 00:20:41.079 --> 00:20:45.839 one that kind of has some obvious gravity to it, building the kind of 290 00:20:45.880 --> 00:20:51.480 community and engagement around that content inside of the gallery. Let's talk about the 291 00:20:51.519 --> 00:20:55.480 evolution and then I want to kind of come up for air in the conversation 292 00:20:55.759 --> 00:20:59.160 on what you would do if you were like maybe somewhere else. So that's 293 00:20:59.200 --> 00:21:03.680 where we'll go with the the rest of this. Let's say, I know 294 00:21:03.839 --> 00:21:07.000 you I mentioned it a second ago, but there's kind of new to new 295 00:21:07.079 --> 00:21:11.359 focuses that have surfaced for you guys, team rituals and incentives. Maybe break 296 00:21:11.440 --> 00:21:14.759 down those two and how they've begun to play a role in in your efforts? 297 00:21:15.640 --> 00:21:19.119 Yeah, I think I'd say are to kind of categorize these things. 298 00:21:19.640 --> 00:21:26.480 The rituals is a story arc that we can help kind of drive. That 299 00:21:26.759 --> 00:21:30.039 will help us prioritize who we work with and how we kind of take all 300 00:21:30.079 --> 00:21:33.839 these all these unique stories of code usage and tell them in a way that's 301 00:21:33.880 --> 00:21:38.000 concrete and compelling for a new audience. And the incentive side is more how 302 00:21:38.039 --> 00:21:42.200 do you create this motivation for the long tail that would kind of continue participating 303 00:21:42.759 --> 00:21:48.519 in the ecosystem and all the individual makers out there who may not be totally 304 00:21:48.559 --> 00:21:51.400 bought into cody yet? What? What are the reasons that they should engage 305 00:21:51.480 --> 00:21:53.039 with the product more deeply? But, sorry, rituals, I mean I 306 00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:57.920 think this. I mentioned the book earlier, rituals of great teams, and 307 00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:03.279 you know, one of the classic challenges with motion like this is very quickly 308 00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:10.319 you just have this whole vast expanding amount of content that exists about what your 309 00:22:10.359 --> 00:22:14.480 product can do and how it can help solve specific problems for specific types of 310 00:22:14.599 --> 00:22:17.920 users, and there's only so much you can really do to kind of categorize 311 00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:22.880 and and structure it. Our gallery kind of has two dynamics for doing that. 312 00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:26.240 One is use case or target audience type categories. You know, if 313 00:22:26.319 --> 00:22:30.079 your product manager go here, if you're a marketer, you probably want to 314 00:22:30.119 --> 00:22:33.000 go here. And we have the other dynamic of the maker themselves, the 315 00:22:33.079 --> 00:22:37.759 maker profile. So for somebody who like a UK, who's a cpout a 316 00:22:37.799 --> 00:22:41.720 company, who's published a few different docs on the platform, has a place 317 00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:45.480 to kind of centralize all of his perspective and the things that he's built. 318 00:22:45.960 --> 00:22:49.599 But beyond that, you know, for the average person who's looking around for 319 00:22:49.680 --> 00:22:56.240 a product or for a company that is has authority and is building some deeper 320 00:22:56.359 --> 00:23:02.279 thought leadership on things like product management, on I'm kind of building great great 321 00:23:02.319 --> 00:23:06.440 teams and great products. You need to be focused a bit and you need 322 00:23:06.480 --> 00:23:11.839 to have like a compelling through line. So the rituals effort was partially a 323 00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:17.000 reflection of our CEOS experience and exposure all these great ideas, but also away 324 00:23:17.079 --> 00:23:21.599 for us to kind of pull all these stories together and one kind of narrative 325 00:23:21.680 --> 00:23:27.000 around what it means to run a great team a great process. And you 326 00:23:27.079 --> 00:23:33.559 know, both the context for why it's important to like address these often not 327 00:23:33.799 --> 00:23:37.559 really thought about things in your daytoday life, like how I run my to 328 00:23:37.640 --> 00:23:40.640 do list or how I run my one on, how I set up my 329 00:23:40.720 --> 00:23:44.640 meetings, get caidence or my calendar. Those things or maybe an afterthought, 330 00:23:44.759 --> 00:23:47.880 and some of our content speaks to you. Should think of that as building 331 00:23:48.319 --> 00:23:51.000 a product in and of itself and that will make you more effective as a 332 00:23:51.079 --> 00:23:55.119 leader or as a as a somebody who's kind of at the ground floor building 333 00:23:55.160 --> 00:23:57.799 up these products, as well as kind of just bigger picture, like how 334 00:23:57.839 --> 00:24:03.519 do you run and early stage company and build out these process from zero to 335 00:24:03.640 --> 00:24:07.279 one versus scaling them from, you know, one to a hundred two thousand? 336 00:24:07.759 --> 00:24:11.359 And so this ritual's concept helps us tie together all this, you know, 337 00:24:11.480 --> 00:24:15.640 diverse out of content into a central kind of playbook that people can navigate 338 00:24:15.720 --> 00:24:18.759 and search around. And I think for other marketers out there, you know, 339 00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:22.039 we're always looking for these great stories. You know, this is this 340 00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:26.960 is just kind of how do you package up this huge amount of in some 341 00:24:27.119 --> 00:24:33.079 cases user generated content, other cases assisted content that we're working with these partners 342 00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:37.599 on, into something compelling and easy to understand at the highest level for friend 343 00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:42.559 users. I love the just thinking of repackaging what you already have. You 344 00:24:42.599 --> 00:24:47.279 have so many stories, you have so much content you already have, giving 345 00:24:47.319 --> 00:24:49.720 it a different format, giving it a different feel, but it's like you're 346 00:24:49.720 --> 00:24:52.079 not you didn't have to go out and do a bunch of new work right 347 00:24:52.200 --> 00:24:56.519 like like you're there's already content in house that you can then use, stories 348 00:24:56.559 --> 00:25:00.960 you already have, and that's a big thing right now. I know we've 349 00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:03.559 talked about even here on B tob growth over the last few months. It's 350 00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:06.279 just like, how are you actually utilizing the content that you have, the 351 00:25:06.319 --> 00:25:08.319 stories that you do have? How are you putting those in front of people 352 00:25:08.799 --> 00:25:12.519 in a consistent way where it's not like we've all been guilty of this, 353 00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:17.319 but like we made the content and now we forget the content right and like 354 00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:19.640 we never revisit what we have, even though we've done the work to get 355 00:25:19.680 --> 00:25:25.200 the story. So I think that's an easy takeaway, Evan, were coming 356 00:25:25.240 --> 00:25:27.200 to the end of our time together, but I want to go just okay, 357 00:25:27.640 --> 00:25:30.359 you done the work on the gallery. It's it's here. It's something 358 00:25:30.440 --> 00:25:33.359 we can go look at, people can go interact with it. CODA DOT 359 00:25:33.480 --> 00:25:37.200 ioh gallery. I wonder for you, when you think of this, if 360 00:25:37.240 --> 00:25:40.960 we were to put you somewhere where maybe it wasn't, you know, open 361 00:25:41.039 --> 00:25:44.480 source, where it's not just going to be as straightforward as as this. 362 00:25:45.960 --> 00:25:49.119 Maybe apply it for our other marketers listening, like, are there a couple 363 00:25:49.240 --> 00:25:52.559 key learnings that are rattling around in your head, going hey, you guys 364 00:25:52.559 --> 00:25:56.200 should be thinking about this, even though it's not the same product. This 365 00:25:56.440 --> 00:26:00.519 is an easy maybe take away from this episode and this conversation. Yeah, 366 00:26:02.440 --> 00:26:04.480 I think. But three, three points, I'd say. One is start 367 00:26:04.519 --> 00:26:10.559 early, to is put your customers front and center and treat them like partners. 368 00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:15.240 And then the third would be experiment and make sure that you're thinking about 369 00:26:15.319 --> 00:26:18.200 this in a full stack way, from not just a marketer perspective but how 370 00:26:18.279 --> 00:26:22.200 that flows through to product and engineering and how you kind of productize the experiences. 371 00:26:22.440 --> 00:26:26.240 So going through those this was part of our strategy from the very beginning 372 00:26:26.279 --> 00:26:30.200 and we knew it was going to grow into something much bigger, which, 373 00:26:30.359 --> 00:26:33.119 to a certain extent, gave us this North Star that we were shooting for 374 00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:37.440 that we thought would be years in the making but got us. You know, 375 00:26:37.519 --> 00:26:40.880 before we launched the main website the product, we also have the gallery 376 00:26:41.079 --> 00:26:45.759 up up and running and a spirit of like making early investments that then you 377 00:26:45.799 --> 00:26:49.480 can kind of ship away out over time, starting right at the beginning with 378 00:26:51.400 --> 00:26:53.920 addressing this. This idea of how do you do customer marketing, how do 379 00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.240 you how do you kind of build up this this base of really compelling stories 380 00:26:59.440 --> 00:27:03.720 and use of your product, is really important. I'd say also, like 381 00:27:03.240 --> 00:27:11.240 customer marketing, treating your customers as partners is incredibly important and you know, 382 00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:12.839 if you start this process early, it means you're going to you're going to 383 00:27:12.920 --> 00:27:18.319 mind all these great stories for for wire users found value in your product, 384 00:27:18.440 --> 00:27:22.200 but also you're going to build these relationships that last for many, many years. 385 00:27:22.119 --> 00:27:26.240 We still work with some of the some of the users that I was 386 00:27:26.319 --> 00:27:30.119 working with when we only had a dozen, when we were in stealth. 387 00:27:30.839 --> 00:27:34.200 That was those are still people engage with today and they're people who still promote 388 00:27:34.279 --> 00:27:38.039 the product and still kind of bring it to new companies and new experiences that 389 00:27:38.119 --> 00:27:41.799 they have. And so the more you treat them like partners, both in 390 00:27:42.680 --> 00:27:47.680 building up your team and your process, so that you're really thoughtfully engaging with 391 00:27:47.759 --> 00:27:51.440 them and feeling like it's a partnership, not a I'm trying to pull a 392 00:27:51.519 --> 00:27:55.000 marketing story from you so I can give it to my sales team. And 393 00:27:55.359 --> 00:27:59.440 similarly, on the flip side, you treating them as partners, also treating 394 00:27:59.559 --> 00:28:02.480 like a community. That is going to you're going to invest in over time, 395 00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:07.440 things like incentives. We talked about everything, for the monetary ones to 396 00:28:07.599 --> 00:28:11.279 the like. You know, how you involve these customers in events, in 397 00:28:11.839 --> 00:28:15.480 in kind of your strategy. That helps them build their brand, it helps 398 00:28:15.559 --> 00:28:19.440 them feel connected to yours and gives them a reason to participate much more actively. 399 00:28:21.079 --> 00:28:23.400 And the experimenting and working with the product team to kind of build out 400 00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:30.240 the the solution for this, I think. Yeah, most content marketing teams 401 00:28:30.599 --> 00:28:34.440 or folks who are in customer marketing are probably just working in the, you 402 00:28:34.519 --> 00:28:38.119 know, the box of I have a blog channel, I have a social 403 00:28:38.240 --> 00:28:41.759 channel, I have these like specific channels that I have to work with. 404 00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:44.880 What is to hit quotas? It yeah, and and and, in most 405 00:28:44.960 --> 00:28:47.599 cases, to your point, I don't have like a product that I can 406 00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:52.920 just push publicly through a through a publishing feature. I think if your product 407 00:28:52.960 --> 00:28:56.880 team is bought into this strategy and sees the value early, there's a lot 408 00:28:56.920 --> 00:29:00.160 of creative things you can do to both how you host this content and make 409 00:29:00.200 --> 00:29:03.880 it feel actionable, like we talked about earlier, to what are the different 410 00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:08.480 mechanisms for building out these incentive models inside of your product. It could be 411 00:29:08.519 --> 00:29:12.480 as simple as embedding like a discord feed into your into your blog, but 412 00:29:12.559 --> 00:29:15.920 those things require engineering work, they require somebody to think, you know, 413 00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:21.440 holistically about why and how you want that system to work, and so involving 414 00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:26.079 the product organ and experimenting with the things that resonate for your audience, I 415 00:29:26.119 --> 00:29:30.799 think are all really important to me. It ends up coming back to viewing 416 00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:33.920 customers as partners because ultimately, like if you're listening to the show, I 417 00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:38.519 know we have a variety of different stage companies and marketers that are in different 418 00:29:38.599 --> 00:29:41.319 spaces. So maybe start early. You Hear Evan say that, you're like, 419 00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:45.759 I can't start early anymore, but they're going. Okay, but we 420 00:29:45.960 --> 00:29:52.640 can make an active effort to make customers partners and there's so much that you 421 00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:56.200 can unlock there if you ask some key questions, get around the right people 422 00:29:56.279 --> 00:29:59.599 and start brain storming of different ways you could do that and you can make 423 00:29:59.640 --> 00:30:03.559 it mute truly beneficial, which is a big deal. Like there's a lot 424 00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:07.920 of value that both sides can add when you find the right partnerships. So 425 00:30:07.240 --> 00:30:11.039 that's one of the big takeaways I'm taking away from you, Evan, and 426 00:30:11.119 --> 00:30:15.200 I love experimentation. Maybe we talked about it too much here on me to 427 00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:17.599 be growth. I don't know, maybe it's just a word I really enjoy, 428 00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:21.759 but I would say like that on that end, if you can get 429 00:30:21.839 --> 00:30:26.640 the main idea and then iterate and watch it evolve over time, I may 430 00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:30.400 a customer, customer partners and experimentation and tandem is going to you're going to 431 00:30:30.440 --> 00:30:34.160 see a ton of marketing results if you can lock that down, Evan. 432 00:30:34.200 --> 00:30:38.880 Any final thoughts here as we as we close out? No, I think 433 00:30:41.119 --> 00:30:47.440 just excited that I feel like there's just so many new places for marketing teams 434 00:30:47.480 --> 00:30:52.240 to play and a lot of new products and even technologies that have been rolled 435 00:30:52.279 --> 00:30:59.240 out to make some of these experiences more more effective. New Tools that make 436 00:30:59.279 --> 00:31:03.279 it easier for you to implement some of these community building aspects, are incentive 437 00:31:03.319 --> 00:31:07.319 building aspects into your into your course stack. So think a lot of opportunity 438 00:31:07.440 --> 00:31:11.440 and happy to chat with anybody who's who's interested in learning more of how we 439 00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:12.799 done it. Yeah, tell us a little bit about that. What's the 440 00:31:12.839 --> 00:31:18.119 best way for people to connect with you and obviously we've plugged coded out ioh, 441 00:31:18.200 --> 00:31:21.960 but people should obviously go over the website as well. Yeah, Evan, 442 00:31:22.200 --> 00:31:26.000 Evan P Davies is my handle on Linkedin. It's probably the easiest place 443 00:31:26.079 --> 00:31:29.160 to reach me. Wonderful. Well, thank you for stop and by be 444 00:31:29.279 --> 00:31:33.440 to be growth today on fascinating conversation. Love the gallery. Want people to 445 00:31:33.480 --> 00:31:36.279 go check that out and thanks for breaking it down for us. That sounds 446 00:31:36.319 --> 00:31:40.440 good. Thanks for having me to our listeners. Thanks for checking out this 447 00:31:40.640 --> 00:31:45.200 insightful conversation with Evan. If you have yet to follow the show on whatever 448 00:31:45.240 --> 00:31:48.160 your favorite podcast platform is, go ahead and do that so you never miss 449 00:31:48.200 --> 00:31:52.519 an episode and if you would like to connect with me, ask a question 450 00:31:52.799 --> 00:31:55.599 or just have a conversation, I'm available and Linkedin all the time talking about 451 00:31:55.599 --> 00:31:59.079 marketing, business in life. So Search Benjy Block. You'll find me over 452 00:31:59.160 --> 00:32:02.559 there and it will be back real soon with another episode. Keep doing work 453 00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:17.880 that matters. B Tob growth is brought to you by the team at sweet 454 00:32:17.880 --> 00:32:22.039 fish media. Here at sweet fish we produce podcast for some of the most 455 00:32:22.119 --> 00:32:25.680 innovative brands in the world and we help them turn those podcasts into Microvideos, 456 00:32:25.839 --> 00:32:30.839 linkedin content, blog post and more. 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