Transcript
WEBVTT
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Conversations from the front lines and marketing. This is be tob growth. Hey
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friends, welcome into B tob growth. I'm your host, Benjie Block.
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Today we're joined by Jason McClellan.
He's the CMO at Algolia. Jason,
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welcome to be to be growth.
Thanks been you excited to be here.
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So let me set up today's conversation, Jason, because you have really two
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interesting case studies in PELG and product
led growth, because you've come at this
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from what I would say is opposite
ends of the spectrum. Right. So
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you have time at Adobe, which
is this massive public company. Everybody's familiar
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with it and you are successful and
the pivot wasn't exactly, I don't know,
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receive very well. We'll talk about
that in a second, right,
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yeah, then you have this time
at Roku, which was bought by sales
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force, but it started as product
led growth model from the start and it's
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able to create all this buzz because
of it. So we're going to walk
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through both of these because I think
it's just great for our audience to feel
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these things out and then we'll talk
about product led growth on this episode.
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How does that sound to you?
Awesome, I look forward to it.
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Cool. All right, let's talk
about adobe. First, give me the
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genesis of product led growth at Adobe. When does that conversation surface? How
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does its surface? Let's provide some
context there. Yeah, I mean if
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we take the way back, mischine, to I don't know, ten years
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ago, something like that, what
you have is you have a twenty year
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old software company that makes boxes of
expensive software that you know you go buy
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through a best buycom and the problem
statement we had is everybody in the world
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knew that, Hey, I need
photoshop, like photoshops, with the real
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pros use photoshops like you know that
the best tool for photographers and creatives.
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You Download Photoshop, you open it
up, you get this blank page.
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You know like well, now what
I remember that with premiere pro yeah,
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I mean all the tools. I
mean you know it's like Ferraris, but
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you know you're not used to driving
a Ferrari, which I've never driven,
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to be clear, not used to
driving Ferraris. You know, you can
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take you a little to get used
to. And even like the most ardent
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pros or whatever, a photoshop would
only use like one percent of the capabilities.
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And so it was realized as a
company problem that people were buying it.
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You know, they're paying. At
the time I was like nine hundred
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bucks for the software. Now it's
like five bucks a month. I think
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it's still five bucks a month.
People were buying this software but they weren't
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getting the full value. For many
people would come into the trial and it
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would just bounce instantly because they'd launch
it and like well, now would I
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don't know what to do, and
so like that was the initial statement.
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Is like well, what if the
product can actually show you what you're supposed
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to do, you know, based
on like are you a hobbyous photographer?
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Are you professional photographer? Like,
what do we think that next ride action
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is for you? Yep, I
got the product, kind of learned from
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you and actually show you, and
that began a, I don't know,
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three your journey of building out the
infrastructure, you know, building out the
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team to be able to do that. HMM. So what's you say?
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It takes about three years. Tell
me how you guys got the timeline and
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the me you start to make a
shift that large, because that's no small
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thing to trigger. Yeah, I
mean the way we started, and we
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did the same thing at Heroku.
The way we started was using the marketing
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systems. You already had email.
Yeah, right, which is hey,
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as a business owner, I've got
a hypoposis what I need to show and
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when. What have I send you
an email on day zero or day five
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or day fifteen on that that mean? The issue of the email is,
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you know, we would have open
rates of like five percent, ten percent,
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so the message wasn't getting the people. But that was a way to
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be able to start like running experiments
like pretty quickly and just get to feel
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for like are we able to move
the needle, like, are these even
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the correct hypothesis? The part that
took long. There's multiple parts. One
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is building the products elementary is such
that you're actually capturing the data points that
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you need. And obviously, like
most products, don't move as fast as
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anybody would like, just the nature
of the beast. And so working with
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your PMS and really trying to understand, like what are those key inflection points,
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how we're going to capture the data, like what's the data we need
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to capture to sort of prove out, like is that an inflection point,
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and then building in the capability for
dynamic experiences to actually show you something so
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Benjie comes in and see something versus
Jason coming in and seeing something. I
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showed Benjie what I think is more
relevant to him. Building that at most
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companies is a multi year process because
you have your day to day sort of
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product road map. Additionally, the
other never ending journey that was incredibly hard
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for us was building the I mean, for simplicity I'll just called the customer
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day to warehouse. Yeah, but
it's a data model that has all that
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telemetry. So the data model that
pulls together like what was your marketing journey?
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What was your product adoption journey?
Ultimately it was your sales journey.
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Then helps you understand like okay,
what are the look alikes like? What
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are the sort of you know,
patterns that? Who are your real personas?
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What are the real customer journeys?
So, you know, building that
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data model that helps your team get
educated on like what are the millions of
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people? Are Hundred of thousands or
tens of thousand, whatever your numbers are
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people that are using your product,
like what are they actually doing? HMM.
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And pretty quickly you start to see
where you're spiking or wor kind of
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like the oil gushers are like oh
well, you know, there's ten types
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of customers and they go through five
types of journeys and if I run a
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test on the step one of,
you know, customer a's journey, can
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I move the needle? I mean
that was a multi year I mean it
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took, you know, two plus
years to even get like the basic infrastructure
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of it. Should be getting faster. Now there's companies like game, game
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and what another try to automate this. Then, you know, a couple
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years you can get like the data
model up and then you know, years
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at like a never ending journey of
optimizing that, like capturing more telemetry and,
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you know, sort of better understanding
the insides. Hmm, tell me
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how it was received, some of
the things that you would avoid if you
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could go back and maybe change it? Yeah, it's a good question.
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The concepts were intuitively received in the
company. So the idea of most products
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seemed to have this blanks page problem
or blank slate problem, like you uh
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your product, you get a white, white dashboard or a welcome screen like
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okay, well, now what what
I do exactly? So the concept of
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showing people the right step, the
right next step, at the right time
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was so intuitive that there wasn't any
pushback at the concept. The push back
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at all companies I've been a part
of has been more around who it's a
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drive that user experience. Right,
like is that a product activity? Is
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that a sales activity? Is at
a marketing activity? Is that like a
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quote unquote growth team that sits somewhere
in between product, sales or marketing?
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You know, how do you sort
of fit within the security model to make
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sure that you're bringing in somebody like
a customer I oh, or an in
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game butt ioh or whatever that,
you know, like it's it's built into
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your product, right, and so
you want to make sure that your security
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team like knows and trusted. You
know, the product team tends to worry
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that the marketing team is going to
put like flashy yellow by now buttons,
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you know, on sale today on
they get it while it's time, and
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so, honestly, like that took
a lot of the time. Is just
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sort of showing people that you could
do baby steps. You're going to be
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mindful of the customer experience. You're
not going to trash the product and make
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it look like Nascar. Where did
you let it sit? Like who owned
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it? Yeah, it's a good
question, because it was. It ended
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up being co owned at all companies
that I've been at like that, which
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is sort of like carving out a
dedicated so here's the part that I feel
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strongly about, more so than the
than your structure. Parts of the function
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are marketing, the e parts of
it our data sciency, and parts of
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it our product key. So you
need people who come from those kind of
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backgrounds. But ringfencing the team,
which is saying, okay, we're going
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to create a squad of three people, by people to people, twenty people,
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whatever the sort of level investment is, and then you say, okay,
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you guys, you're not focus on
the day today business. They get
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out of the fired drills, get
out of the you know, like you
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got to ship, like product features. Your job, as is virtual team,
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is iteration, experimentation, learning and
if, when you're first starting at
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eighty percent of your test fail for
the first couple months, that's totally fine
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if you're just trying to build them. Hustle of running a test and building
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these spikes or these steel strings that
go from end to end. On we
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had a data insight, we had
a hypothesis, we tested the hypothesis and
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we had a learning it doesn't even
matter if your test actually worked and let
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you know, improve things. It's
more like we were able to see something
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from end to end and get it
in execution with the idea of try to
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get one in market, you know, in two weeks, four weeks,
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and then eventually you'll get like too
and market in two weeks and eventually,
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you know, you just have this
thing where you've got dozens of tests going
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at any time, but that's sort
of building the steel thread across teams and
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that that's steel threat of being able
to measure, monitor and adjust. It's
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incredibly hard and so start simple,
start focus and just start. I was
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wondering with this sort of test squad, if you will, did you have
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these people on your team already at
Adobe? Did you hire specifically once you
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knew that you wanted to create a
special iteration squad, or how did that
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slush itself out? You Remember?
Yeah, it was both, and same
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thing at Roku, same thing at
all Goalia. It's both like. So
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there were some people on the team
who had the skill set in background.
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They had the inclination, like you
know, they had like the will and
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desire of like this is something I'm
really passionate about and every I want to
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help build here. So started out
with that, right, you know,
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product people and marketing, email marketing
kind of people or life cycle nurturing kind
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of people who are like I'm really
interested in the end product experience. To
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start out with that, as we
found our legs and we started hiring outside
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experts, by the people who come
from companies who are known for doing this,
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and so it was a mix of, you know, sort of the
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inside people who know the product,
and same thing here at all Goalia is
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it's a mix of people who really
know the product, how the bell pursues
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the product, but then outside people
who've actually done this at scale and so
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hopefull you get the synergies right,
of the people who are like no,
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I understand developers and developer life cycles
and specificity of how they use our product.
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And you have the outside people.
Yeah, I know how to do
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this to you know a million developers
and hopefull you kind of get it's like
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chocolate and peanut butter. Hopefully you
get the best of both worlds. Yeah,
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chocolate and feedinbter. That's a good
I like that analogy because I also
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am hungry and chocolate and peanut butters
sound great. So more food and knowledge
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are you might get a couple more
of those. That's great. Okay,
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so we have adobe as our first
case study. Now let's let's go to
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Heroku. You've mentioned a couple times, but self serve from the start,
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very different story. Give me a
quick compare and contrast. Yeah, so
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the difference with Heroku from the start
was it always had a premium option,
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right, you know, sign up
for your credit card, build real stuff
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for free and once you start building
more real stuff, we start charging you.
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That was kind of the end of
the job when I joined Roku,
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which is like hey, we got
a credit card thing. Developers lots and
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they're just growing. But ROKU had
the same problem adobe had, which is
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at the time Heroku was the first
aptive has right, everybody loved her rope,
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I mean Massa, Guy who founded
Ruby, worked for her rope,
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who's we just had, you know, tremendous, you know, developer affinity.
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You sign up for Roku, you
get a blank page. Right,
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people are like, well, I
can literally build anything. I mean like
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we work and Uber and stitch fix. I mean amazing companies were built on
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Heroku. So you know you can
build anything. But you launched the APP
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and you're like, well, what
do I do? HMM. And so
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very similar thing is, you know, if you're a ruby developer versus a
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job a developer, or if you're
a hobbyous developers to professional developer. We
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had hypothoses around what you needed to
do. Right, like every developer needed
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to connect to a get repo some
sort, or most developers did, which
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is like where's your code stored?
And so, you know, day zero
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make that really easy. You know, like are you get hub, are
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you get lab or you something else? Team developers tended to want to add
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people to a team. And if
you're adding people to a team, then
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you know, you tend to care
about you know, Maybeci see the sort
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of other things. And so on
day zero it's like hey, you know,
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are you a circle kind of person
or your travis kind of person?
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And I really showing you, like, I mean literally, it's like,
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you know, ten step to developing
your APP or zero to hello world,
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and is running those experiences, which
is like okay, if I, you
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know, show you adding people to
a team or adding a data store,
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furst like does that drive your adoption? Is being able to build that at
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scale. So very similar problem because
we had the blank space, different business.
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I was ahead of Adobe because adobe
was, at the time, you
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know, nine hundred dollar big box
software. We just had to get people
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to sort of activate, would be
the modern term. Hiroku was cheap software,
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free, you could get started.
But the issue is ninety nine percent
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of people didn't get started right because
you open it, I've heard of this
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thing. Now what do I do? I got to go out and like
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to dig to a bunch of dogs
and reference architectures and try to figure out,
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like how do actually get started?
Will just bring that into the product.
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Too overwhelming. It's too overwhelming.
So it's like, okay, I
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guess I'll go I'll work on this
later. And people wouldn't. Yeah,
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you just keep putting it off because
it's like I know I can do something
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great some day, but I got
to learn a lot before I actually jump
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in. So I see the issue. Potentially they're okay, well, here's
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a deal. Like when we talk
product led growth, like it's in our
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lexicon. We know it, marketers
know it's baked in. I would say
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Wall Street wants, you know,
these SASS companies, to move in that
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direction. You guys were you know, we've been doing this for a while
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now, but it's not a small
shift. And and you see be tob
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SASS companies getting product led growth wrong
often because you have these case studies.
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You've been in this world, so
you see them maybe not going far enough
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right, like you would say.
They go what one step in there,
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like in the shallow and dipping their
toes in. Is that right? Yeah,
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I mean I see a lot of
this and the guys over it open
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view and and sorry, I need
to change my lexicons. I stopped saying
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guys. I California kids. I
call everybody doing guys. I'm working on
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changing that, but we all have
bad habits. But the folks over at
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open view put out a lot about
this that. You know, product led
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growth isn't just fremium. A lot
of companies feel like, Hey, we
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have a premium model, sign up
on a credit card or pay as you
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go credit card model like done.
You know, we sort of like lower
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the barrier to entry, that people
don't have to talk to a sales team,
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they get the sign up a found
the credit card and that's cool.
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I mean that's an acquisition channel and
definitely something that most companies should be considering.
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But yeah, that's like step one
out of ten. Right. I
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mean product led grow up. It's
in the name, like the product.
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The product isn't it's not a credit
card based sales or whatever. It's called
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product led growth, right, which
is like the product. Actually should know
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your customer, your user, and
the product should show them in the right
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place what they should do next.
Right. It's always about that next right
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step. There's very few companies that
are doing that really well because it is
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a multi year, you know,
sort of exemence and expensive investments. It's
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an expensive bed. When you look
at the companies that are doing this well,
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you know, the stripes and Tuilios
and snowflakes, and I mean smaller
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companies like launched darkly. The Go
to market efficiencies are insane, and so
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you see this all the time from
the VC and Wall Street reports or whatever.
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You know, you should have net
present payback, you know, or
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Roy sort of metrics if you go
to market or that are like astronomically insane,
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which is like your user requisition cost
is very low, and I know
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I just for how a bunch of
terms, Sarah, so I may know
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if I need to go slow or
sort of revisit, but basically the financial
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incentives are there and if you don't
have a true product leg growth motion,
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I see, I foresee, that
it's going to be hard for companies to
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compete three, five years from now
financially. Hmm Right, sort of like
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in the like to Wall Street or
to VC's, where it's just like wait
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a minute, like if I get
a dollar to these other folks, you
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know they're going to grow, you
know, sixty percent, hundred percent,
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you're on year, and they're going
to have, you know, ninety percent
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margin because customers are doing most of
their own self. Served I get a
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dollar to a traditional company, it's
going to be, you know, ninety
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percent. You're going to have,
you know, seventy percent of your money's
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going to like sales and marketing,
just sales and marketing for acquisition. Then
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you got thirty percent. You're sort
of squeezing your DEV team or whatever.
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Thirty percent. He ever building a
new product that's going to be like her
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two in future innovation. So I
know I went off on a little bit
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of a tangent there. But,
yeah, you're at step zero, step
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one. You need to start making
the investment. I don't see how you
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can sort of fit within the right
frameworks of what the finance teams expect yours
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from now if you don't. And
I think that's a really like important point
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to take in for a second,
because right now you can sort of hide
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behind the term like, I must
imagine slapping a sticker on it that just
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says like product led growth. Right, and it's okay right now, in
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the immediate, because it's still a
term that's just being thrown around and a
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lot of companies are like one step
in so they can claim the term.
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But when it bears out, when
you can actually see the efficiencies and those
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that are doing it well versus those
that are lackluster in it, you're going
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to start to see Wall Street react, you're going to start to see the
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like everyone react, right, because
you've Ben you can actually bear out who's
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doing this effectively versus who's just sort
of slap to sticker on it. Yeah,
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I mean you're right. Like you
you've got I wouldn't say you have
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time to start. You have time
till you're uncovered, meaning that if you
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say I slap the stick around and
I've got a premium thing. You know,
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you've got two, three years before
it becomes real and people are like,
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okay, wait a minute, leading
indicators aren't indicating you're actually making enough
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investment here. Yep, but I
wouldn't use that. I wouldn't use that
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as a delay tactic. And again, because I don't know. I've done
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this now at three or four different
companies, spending on how you count,
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and I keep trying to find ways
to do it faster. HMM, but
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there's always something, you know,
like sort of organizational disconnect or sort of
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operational and maturity or I haven't run
into people having doubt, but I'm sure
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that I hear from people that exist
a lot of companies, which is I
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guess it's a real thing. It's
just another like marketing term. So it's
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a multi year process walking down that
street a little bit what. Like you
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say, you're trying to get faster
each time you do it and you run
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into issues each time. We'll talk
timeline in a second, but what does
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that look like and just dig into
some of those, those road blocks in
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a sense, that you end up
end up hitting. Yeah, number one
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is what I mentioned earlier. is
at the high level you're like yeah,
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this is intuitive, we should totally
do this, but then you very quickly
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run into what, who does it? And that's repetitive at every company.
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It's repetitive every company. It's I
guess it's a product thing. Products like
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now we want to make sure that
you know, our user experience is pre
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see, we don't trust outside orgs. We don't trust other companies to like
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run part of the experience, maybe
because of a security issue sometimes, I
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don't know. I'm speaking abroad.
Stereotype product people versus marketing people. I
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mean we hit some are in our
stereotypes, usually product folks. Yeah,
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they care a lot about the actual
product experience, but they tend to not
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be sort of go to market driven, right, which is, Hey,
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I'm building a very specific thing that's
supposed to monetize and I need to really
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understand who the exact user is,
and I put this inflection points and where
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they abstract value. Like I feel
like this is changing, but I feel,
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you know, in my experience with
a lot of product folks whatever,
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like they're more oriented towards I'm a
visionary and I want to build really cool
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stuff, HMM, and you know
somebody will buy. It's like if you
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build a day will come, which
just can't be true. Marketing folks right
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can be I don't know how I'd
put it, you know, cheesy,
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I guess, at times, or
were it's just like that. God help
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us. We can't. We can't
help ourselves from like talking marketing language and
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stereotypically like the product teams like I
don't want that in my product right,
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like I don't want superl Tos or
whatever all of my product, you know,
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like the best search everywhere, the
best apt of fast platform or you
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know like the world's greatest whatever.
And so building that trust and kind of
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getting inquirity over like who's going to
drive? What is accountable for what,
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how the team's going to work together. So both sides were like, okay,
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we've got the speed and Tanchtion that
marketing can brain, but we've got
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the the sort of credibility and you
use your experience that the product and can
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build. I haven't been able to
find way to sort of like make that
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a two week conversation instead of like
a three to six month conversation. Pay
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Everybody. Benjie here as a member
of the sweet fish team. I wanted
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to take a second and share something
that makes us insanely more efficient. Our
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00:18:36.440 --> 00:18:40.319
team uses lead Iq. For those
that are in sales, or you're in
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sales ops, let me give you
context. What once took us four hours
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to gather contact data now just takes
one. That's seventy five percent more efficient.
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We are so much quicker withoutbound prospecting
and organizing our campaigns is so much
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easier than before. I highly suggest
that you check out lead Iq as well.
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You can find them at lead iqcom. That's L ADIQCOM. All right,
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let's jump back into the show.
But we've got the the sort of
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credibility and you use your experience that
the product and can build. I haven't
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been able to find way to sort
of like make that a two week conversation
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instead of like a three to six
month conversation. HMM, because even if
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you claim that you have that alignment, it's not like it's this overnight success.
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It's a recurring conversation. I'm sure
it's a recurring conversation and unfortunately I
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feel like there's also a bit of
a lack of trust, for lack of
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a better word, between or like
organizations right, like companies, want marketing,
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but they're not always really true what
marketing does, and especially if you're
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selling developer tools, it's really easy
to react and as a marketer can be
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really hard. I mean, like
most of the marketers that I've hired,
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and I also come from a developer
background, of identified people who come from
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developer or product backgrounds. Most marketers
don't have that right and so they get,
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you know, sort of API versus
head list or composable versus you know
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whatever, like mixed up, like, you know, not understanding, you
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know, sort of code repo versus
a data store. You know, it's
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like the terms don't come out right, and so your product person, you're
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just like, oh my gosh,
these people in my product, like it's
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going to drive a terrible experience.
HMM. And so what marketing needs to
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do, a well marketers need to
do if they want to make traction,
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is pitch this idea of small experiments
to show that they can move the needle
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and build trust right, which is
like hey, give me, give me
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an inch or whatever, this one
little spot here, whatever, I think
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I could help you move the needle, and I could, I could do
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it in a way that you're like
that's a that's a great product experience.
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Like I didn't like like marketing in
the door and all of a sudden it's
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like flashing NASCAR signs all over the
place. And so, but I highly
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recommend to people who are trying to
do this for the first time pick a
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small thing, you know, sort
of get clarity on like rolls responsibility.
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The APIS between team. Pick that
small team and to start building success.
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But do that fast, right,
and then you grow quickly once you sort
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of have that steel thread, as
opposed to like we're going to go build
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a whole growth program and like overhall
the entire product and go to market.
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This is never going to happen.
HMM. Yeah, pitch small experiments.
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I like that as an easy first
step, and it does. It builds
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trust and you're not asking for keys
to the kingdom right up top, right.
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Yeah. Okay. So I asked
you to sort of bring with you,
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for lack of a better term,
the strategy, the steps that maybe
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we overlook more than just that step
one, the freemium offering, and I'd
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love for you to spend the last
maybe ten minutes or so that we have
375
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together, expanding on what you feel
are those next steps beyond step one that
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we need to be aware of and
starting to think about, strategize and implement.
377
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Yeah, it starts with really understanding
who your customers are. I mean,
378
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eventually, you know, when you're
doing the two year, three year
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investment in the data system and Blah, Blah Blah, you'll get smarter in
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the system will tell you who their
customers actually are. What I don't see
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and is people who literally sit down
with her customers and understand and even pre
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pre paying customers, customers you haven't
paid yet, sitting down and really understanding
383
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the day in the life, like
how do they adopt a product? What
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are the problems that they're trying to
solve? Where they're sticking points, like
385
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what works what doesn't work for them? Because that starts you. That gives
386
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you the ability to start to build
out that framework. You know the framework
387
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for. You know, do I
show something on Day Zero, day fifty?
388
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Is it about case of an APP
dead things about CICD, or is
389
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it about data sore setup? The
only way you can really understand is,
390
00:22:23.839 --> 00:22:26.519
I mean to sit down with the
developer or sit down with the photographer or
391
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sit down with it wherever your user
is and really kind of under sound like
392
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how do they get their work done? And so I would invest in that
393
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as a product and good like whoever's
on the growth team literally sit down with
394
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dozens of customers and can go,
okay, like I'm going to you're going
395
00:22:38.680 --> 00:22:41.799
to learn something every time, right, and you just kind of, once
396
00:22:41.839 --> 00:22:44.119
you get inside the four walls of
a company, forget, you know,
397
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you're like our products awesome. You
just kind of forget like how not awesome
398
00:22:47.799 --> 00:22:48.559
it was the very first time.
You try to launch and you like and
399
00:22:48.720 --> 00:22:53.200
the stuff is so not intuitive.
Dad Helps you determine your strategy, right,
400
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you know. Additionally, as you're
building out the telemetry, the other
401
00:22:56.519 --> 00:23:00.519
part your strategy is like where people
falling out? Is it like day zero,
402
00:23:00.680 --> 00:23:02.319
like hey, they sign up,
they don't know what to do,
403
00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:04.039
or is it they sign up,
your products not engaging enough so they actually
404
00:23:04.039 --> 00:23:08.599
followut on day fifteen or day fifty. So interview people who've bounced out while
405
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you're building that data system and is
really sort of understand like if you have
406
00:23:11.960 --> 00:23:15.240
an adoption problem, you have an
active use problem, you have a feature
407
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discovery problem, you have a hey, I'm telling you cool stories every month
408
00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:22.000
whatever to drive you back into the
product. Kind of problem, which is
409
00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:25.440
like let me show you all the
other cool things you can do. You
410
00:23:25.480 --> 00:23:27.000
can get that from talking to people
and that helps drive the strategy, is
411
00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:30.039
like where do I where do I
focus? First, like I've been at
412
00:23:30.079 --> 00:23:33.440
companies where it was an active use
problem, right, which we get people
413
00:23:33.480 --> 00:23:37.000
in, they activate, they think
they love the product, but after three
414
00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:38.440
months, nine months, they go
away and we can't get them back.
415
00:23:38.480 --> 00:23:41.759
And there's other companies that are like, you know, the photoshop thing,
416
00:23:41.759 --> 00:23:42.960
which is everybody in the world knows
it. Once it or at the time,
417
00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:45.519
Heroqu ever being the world knows it, and once it they launched it.
418
00:23:45.559 --> 00:23:48.640
I like I have no idea what
the heck to do. So they
419
00:23:48.680 --> 00:23:51.960
bounce and they never come back.
So just kind of depends on your strategy.
420
00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:53.480
Really depends on like what problem are
you trying to solve? Hope that
421
00:23:53.480 --> 00:23:59.720
helps make sense. It does.
It does what you think about once you
422
00:23:59.799 --> 00:24:03.480
have that information, and maybe there's
a pivot that needs to happen, a
423
00:24:03.519 --> 00:24:08.400
revamp. You talked about the experimentation
team. Is that then in their hands
424
00:24:08.440 --> 00:24:14.119
to start running small subsets of tests
and and then deciding how to how to
425
00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:18.079
pivot. Yeah, yeah, so
what I would do is, yeah,
426
00:24:18.119 --> 00:24:22.319
I would set up an autonomous and
ring fenced experimentation team and say these are
427
00:24:22.359 --> 00:24:26.079
your goals, right, like your
goal is you're going to run five experiments
428
00:24:26.119 --> 00:24:29.400
this quarter and you're just going to
prove that you can learn, like that's
429
00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:32.279
all it is. And quarter number
one is, hey, say we have
430
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:34.759
a day zero activation problem. Ignore
everything else in the world, like you're
431
00:24:34.759 --> 00:24:37.039
not in the fired drills of the
rest of the company, everything else in
432
00:24:37.079 --> 00:24:41.519
the world. Come back, come
back in a week with, I don't
433
00:24:41.519 --> 00:24:44.640
know, five hypothesis on what you
what needs to be done or whatever to
434
00:24:44.680 --> 00:24:48.200
improve activation on day zero. And
then within call it, two weeks,
435
00:24:48.240 --> 00:24:51.680
you actually have your first experiment out. And so it's like ring fence a
436
00:24:51.720 --> 00:24:55.640
team, give them very aggressive and
queer single goal and just say your goal
437
00:24:55.680 --> 00:24:57.480
isn't to come back and talk about
how you grew revenue twenty percent or whatever.
438
00:24:57.519 --> 00:25:02.039
Your goal is I built a s
steel threat and and ran an experiment
439
00:25:02.039 --> 00:25:03.680
and learn something, even if that
thing is, hey, this in moving
440
00:25:03.720 --> 00:25:07.319
needle at all. Thing number two, ish I guess I would say,
441
00:25:07.559 --> 00:25:11.720
is have that team dotted line and
like directly to the exact team. And
442
00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:15.880
this worked at Adobe, worked at
Roku, worked at we're doing this now
443
00:25:15.920 --> 00:25:18.279
out of our Goalia, where it's
a CEO, the chief product officer,
444
00:25:18.319 --> 00:25:22.519
and I meet directly with the team
a couple times a week. So that
445
00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:25.359
way that also cuts through the noise
right like the team is getting stuck where
446
00:25:25.359 --> 00:25:26.359
they're like, well, we actually
needed this guy over and finance to do
447
00:25:26.400 --> 00:25:30.279
something for us and you needn't return
our phone calls. If this is such
448
00:25:30.279 --> 00:25:33.799
an important thing for the company,
you need to have those frequent feel teeth,
449
00:25:33.319 --> 00:25:37.640
the exact team check ins where you're
ensuring that you're sort of you're knocking
450
00:25:37.680 --> 00:25:40.400
down walls for this team, like
they're not getting stuck on stupid stuff.
451
00:25:40.440 --> 00:25:42.039
Whenever you're trying to do, I
mean in general product like growth or not,
452
00:25:42.240 --> 00:25:45.279
when if you're trying to do something
new out of company, just by
453
00:25:45.279 --> 00:25:48.440
the nature of humans, you're going
to get stuck on stupid stuff, and
454
00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:49.759
so you need to have like you
can't just like bury in the organ be
455
00:25:49.799 --> 00:25:52.559
like Hey, growth, you got
to figure it out. It's going to
456
00:25:52.599 --> 00:25:55.359
be important. Three Orson out of
Wall Street will never work right. Like
457
00:25:55.400 --> 00:25:57.079
you need to see level exacts or
the VP level exacts whatever, who are
458
00:25:57.079 --> 00:26:00.039
actively involved and will help them break
that be a but be there for advising
459
00:26:00.359 --> 00:26:03.880
and also help them break down walls
and be like no, like we've got
460
00:26:03.880 --> 00:26:06.880
to make real progress in two weeks
or a week or whatever the timeframe is,
461
00:26:07.079 --> 00:26:08.799
and so don't get stuck in the
bureaucracy that even the smallest two companies
462
00:26:08.839 --> 00:26:12.920
has. So now that you have
this wealth of knowledge, you've done it
463
00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:19.400
several times. You have implemented things
like the dotted line between this experimental team
464
00:26:19.440 --> 00:26:23.359
in the exact team. You said
it's still pretty hard to speed up this
465
00:26:23.400 --> 00:26:29.599
process. So what has it looked
like like in your time now at Algalia?
466
00:26:29.640 --> 00:26:33.200
You've been there what about a year? Yeah, so how do you
467
00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:36.240
see it being different? How is
it a better, Well oiled machine,
468
00:26:36.279 --> 00:26:38.599
even if it still takes a while? Walk me through that. Yeah,
469
00:26:38.920 --> 00:26:44.799
so the part that I I'm amazed
at the world hasn't advanced further on.
470
00:26:44.960 --> 00:26:48.880
It's part of the reason why it's
so hard is all the companies I've been
471
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:52.359
at had a reliance on hiring our
own data scientists to build those data models.
472
00:26:52.400 --> 00:26:56.039
I do hear that recurring issue.
Yeah, and you would think that
473
00:26:56.079 --> 00:27:00.319
at this point, I mean they're
like machine learning has come so far,
474
00:27:00.480 --> 00:27:03.119
I mean it's built into everything right, that you would think that in there
475
00:27:03.160 --> 00:27:04.960
are companies that do this and I
think it's still kind of early in the
476
00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:07.440
journey. You would think at this
point there'd be, I don't know,
477
00:27:07.519 --> 00:27:11.759
ten different companies that, like,
this is what they do. Is and
478
00:27:11.799 --> 00:27:12.759
I know people who do this as
a service. You know, it's like
479
00:27:12.799 --> 00:27:17.480
a professional services kind of company,
which is producties, you know, self
480
00:27:17.559 --> 00:27:21.039
learning databases. You segment or whatever
to sort of plug in all the bright
481
00:27:21.160 --> 00:27:25.519
telemetry points and then over time,
this sort of unstructured database is able to
482
00:27:25.640 --> 00:27:27.559
kind of self learn and say,
like and segment has forget the name of
483
00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:30.480
the product that they want a couple
of years ago. They have a product
484
00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:33.960
that tries to do this and it's
pretty cool, but it's not as it's
485
00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:37.720
not as self sufficient as I would
like it to be. So that's thing
486
00:27:37.799 --> 00:27:40.319
number one. Is I mean you're
going to go spend six to twelve months,
487
00:27:40.319 --> 00:27:41.599
whatever it is, building a data
model and and you know, like
488
00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:45.640
the like literally building the models around
that that help you understand like your true
489
00:27:45.640 --> 00:27:49.240
customer types and your true customer journeys. Like what has a correlation? We
490
00:27:49.279 --> 00:27:52.599
call them a high value action.
So we have like high, medium and
491
00:27:52.599 --> 00:27:55.400
low value actions. It's like what
are the activities that people do that have
492
00:27:55.480 --> 00:28:00.440
high correlation to long term monetization,
or medium correlation or low correlation? It's
493
00:28:00.440 --> 00:28:03.319
all manually built. At the companies
I've been at anyway, overly answered,
494
00:28:03.359 --> 00:28:08.319
but that's like big tent pole number
one is I'm surprised it's not more productized.
495
00:28:08.799 --> 00:28:14.720
Tent Pole number two is company.
Again, like companies like segment and
496
00:28:14.839 --> 00:28:18.640
game die that I owe and others
are solving this rudder stack with some other
497
00:28:18.680 --> 00:28:22.880
ones. Getting your unstructured data,
so getting that telemetry into that data model
498
00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:26.480
across like everything right, like your
web journey, your marketing journey or product
499
00:28:26.559 --> 00:28:30.039
journey, your sales journeys are getting
things out of sales for each of those
500
00:28:30.119 --> 00:28:33.119
uses different technologies. And then this
is like segments, bread and butter,
501
00:28:33.319 --> 00:28:37.240
for sure, but at many companies
that's actually hard right, because it's like
502
00:28:37.240 --> 00:28:41.319
three or four different ops teams are
all using your own different technology stack,
503
00:28:41.359 --> 00:28:44.039
you know. So it's like different
languages, different teams, different organization,
504
00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:47.400
and you're like I got to get
all that stuff into a data warehouse.
505
00:28:47.880 --> 00:28:49.319
If you're at an older school kind
of company, they're going to say,
506
00:28:49.359 --> 00:28:52.599
well, we have a CRM,
like I can't we use that? You're
507
00:28:52.599 --> 00:28:53.839
going to go waste like a month
or two months burdens you have in that
508
00:28:53.839 --> 00:28:57.279
conversation of like this isn't a crm, like this is something when to building
509
00:28:57.279 --> 00:29:00.200
a red shift or snowflake or you
know. And so it's just like the
510
00:29:00.279 --> 00:29:03.200
human nature. I mean this is
going to rapidly change, I don't know,
511
00:29:03.240 --> 00:29:06.359
over the next two, three years
is more. People will like this
512
00:29:06.480 --> 00:29:08.319
is the way that things are done, but while it's still new. It's
513
00:29:08.359 --> 00:29:11.480
still new right, which is people
are like no, we already have a
514
00:29:11.559 --> 00:29:14.079
database, we have a customer data
basis or crm. Like what do you
515
00:29:14.119 --> 00:29:15.279
need this other weird thing? What
do you mean? You want to use
516
00:29:15.319 --> 00:29:18.640
segment? I don't want to use
segment. When use customer ioe or whatever
517
00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:22.000
the thing may be, it's like
that's months, easily months of conversations,
518
00:29:22.039 --> 00:29:25.000
unless you have like a CEO or
somebody at that level who's like, guys,
519
00:29:25.039 --> 00:29:26.200
you have a week, figure it
out, come back with the recommendation.
520
00:29:26.279 --> 00:29:30.400
Yeah, do you come back with
that now? Because you've experienced it
521
00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:34.000
in you kind of yeah, that's
that's where you've been able to find speed.
522
00:29:34.079 --> 00:29:36.880
Yeah, I mean that's what we
did at all, goalie, is
523
00:29:36.920 --> 00:29:40.160
we literally have a weekly meeting now
with the CEO, exactly, and the
524
00:29:40.160 --> 00:29:41.680
front line. Yeah, the front
line folks on the product and the the
525
00:29:41.680 --> 00:29:45.160
marketing side are reporting. You know, they report out to the CEO every
526
00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:48.079
week. You know I'm there in
the head of products. They're literally for
527
00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:52.200
exactly that reason. You can't avoid
it, right. Yeah, you kind
528
00:29:52.200 --> 00:29:53.559
avoid its human nature, right.
I mean it's anovators a limit, like
529
00:29:53.559 --> 00:29:56.000
there's a book rid about this like
twenty years ago. All Right, why
530
00:29:56.039 --> 00:30:00.000
would I work on your weird new
experiment when this other thing makes a company
531
00:30:00.039 --> 00:30:02.839
mine? Like you're weird new experiments. You ever going to get prioritized?
532
00:30:02.880 --> 00:30:06.240
Like it's just human nature. Wow. Well, I think it's super insightful.
533
00:30:06.240 --> 00:30:10.720
I wrote down several notes from our
conversation here as far as next steps,
534
00:30:10.839 --> 00:30:14.920
and I'll read some of these back
to you, but I love starting
535
00:30:14.920 --> 00:30:18.400
with user experience. Kind of get
a day in the life, go to
536
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:23.599
data signals and analyze those. Second
then you have this experiment team that has
537
00:30:23.599 --> 00:30:27.359
a dotted line right to the exact
team, which is one of the only
538
00:30:27.359 --> 00:30:30.839
ways this is a long process no
matter what. You're in it for the
539
00:30:30.880 --> 00:30:33.440
long haul, but that's one of
the ways you speed up the process as
540
00:30:33.480 --> 00:30:37.960
you give that that direct, dotted
line, and then just know there's no
541
00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:41.079
shortcuts that this at least right now. You know, we're talking about this
542
00:30:41.079 --> 00:30:42.440
in early two thousand and twenty two. It's I'm looking for it to a
543
00:30:42.519 --> 00:30:45.519
made. Will build if you if
you know something that we don't know,
544
00:30:45.799 --> 00:30:51.359
then come talk to us, but
it's this is something to know that you're
545
00:30:51.359 --> 00:30:53.960
not going to do this overnight.
So, Jason, with all of that
546
00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:59.559
said, anything that you want to
throw in here at the end? Any
547
00:30:59.720 --> 00:31:03.759
last things we should be aware of
before we wrap this conversation up? Yeah,
548
00:31:03.839 --> 00:31:06.799
maybe before I do that. So
if anybody's listening to this and they
549
00:31:06.839 --> 00:31:10.720
found the sort of magic key,
I'm on twitter and Linkedin and good hub
550
00:31:10.759 --> 00:31:12.119
and good lab and, you know, sort of reach out and like I
551
00:31:12.160 --> 00:31:15.960
found the thing, man, go
use this. I'm sorry, going to
552
00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:18.599
get a million sales calls right after
this too. Yeah, I think the
553
00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:22.759
important thing is bite off small things
and get started. Like the only thing,
554
00:31:23.079 --> 00:31:26.440
the only way you can figure out
like what work for your company is
555
00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:29.720
by doing you know, I mean
go talk to people, go talk to
556
00:31:29.720 --> 00:31:32.200
smart people, you know, bring
that back in as like sort of expert
557
00:31:32.200 --> 00:31:33.880
outside expertise. I can help win
your management team if you need that,
558
00:31:34.039 --> 00:31:37.680
the people who are doing real product
led growth. It's still, it feels
559
00:31:37.680 --> 00:31:41.759
like it's still a small subset when
or small, small group of us.
560
00:31:41.759 --> 00:31:44.400
I mean it feels like there's a
dozen and I'm sure it's like a hundred,
561
00:31:44.440 --> 00:31:47.279
but I feel like we're all really
tight. I mean all the folks
562
00:31:47.319 --> 00:31:48.960
over at like clear bit and Mad
Kudu, and I'm not going to like
563
00:31:49.079 --> 00:31:52.519
drift. I can game a million
of these people. Like we have like
564
00:31:52.599 --> 00:31:56.599
Meetups, we've got slack channels.
You know, we talked, you meet
565
00:31:56.640 --> 00:31:57.319
up for beer, kind of things, like Hey, I'm down, like
566
00:31:57.359 --> 00:32:00.640
what do you see? Like what's
the lightest thing you're using? It's a
567
00:32:00.680 --> 00:32:05.039
really tight group and so join those
groups, right. I mean it's not
568
00:32:05.079 --> 00:32:07.759
at all like an exclusive club.
It's just people who are nerds, right,
569
00:32:07.759 --> 00:32:10.240
like we're all like very passionate about
like I guess we're building our robot
570
00:32:10.279 --> 00:32:14.400
masters, right. We're all we're
all right and about that it's like can't
571
00:32:14.440 --> 00:32:15.440
be a I do my job for
me, like why? Why do the
572
00:32:15.480 --> 00:32:19.359
sales guy still have to have a
stupid conversation around like what your product does?
573
00:32:19.400 --> 00:32:21.839
Like the product should be able to
show you and we've all been working
574
00:32:21.880 --> 00:32:24.400
on that for a decade or two. And so it's not exclusive at all.
575
00:32:24.440 --> 00:32:27.519
Like I mean, reach out to
people, people. Usually people are
576
00:32:27.559 --> 00:32:30.200
really happy to talk, you know, buy them a coffee or a beer
577
00:32:30.240 --> 00:32:32.279
or whatever in your end. So
plug yourself one more time, Jason.
578
00:32:32.359 --> 00:32:36.079
You said twitter, Linkedin or those
kind of the best places to find you.
579
00:32:36.160 --> 00:32:37.759
Just your name. Yeah, there
are. Those are the best places
580
00:32:38.039 --> 00:32:40.480
either. One of those is probably
the best. I know I have kind
581
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:44.720
of a long name, but you
know, this CMO of Algalia might be
582
00:32:44.759 --> 00:32:47.200
quicker than Jason McClellan. Too many, too many else and season there.
583
00:32:47.319 --> 00:32:52.039
Well, well, we'll have your
name in the description of this podcast,
584
00:32:52.039 --> 00:32:53.720
in the show notes, and you
can click over to his linkedin if you
585
00:32:53.759 --> 00:32:59.480
just check that out. But give
a quick plug push for Algolia and tell
586
00:32:59.559 --> 00:33:02.720
us a bit about what you guys
are doing and then we'll wrap. Yeah,
587
00:33:02.759 --> 00:33:06.759
so I'll goal is like the company
that nobody's ever heard of. Second
588
00:33:06.759 --> 00:33:09.440
biggest search service after Google. Google
choses as a partner for Google Cloud,
589
00:33:09.519 --> 00:33:13.839
for aft touches like one or eight
people every day. You know, built
590
00:33:13.839 --> 00:33:17.039
into gaming systems like the son and
NTENDO and CNN, like media systems like
591
00:33:17.079 --> 00:33:22.000
CNN NBC. It's a search and
discovery API platform. So there's billions of
592
00:33:22.039 --> 00:33:24.240
pieces of content in the world.
There's billions of people. We make it
593
00:33:24.279 --> 00:33:29.000
easier for developers to put those things
touch. Our job as marketers and is
594
00:33:29.039 --> 00:33:30.759
it get those stories out there.
So we're working on that great well,
595
00:33:30.799 --> 00:33:35.000
thank you so much for being on
on B Tob Gross Jason. Yeah,
596
00:33:35.039 --> 00:33:37.880
of course. Thanks again for inviting
me, Benji. We're always having insightful
597
00:33:37.880 --> 00:33:44.359
conversations like this on B tob growth
and we're hoping that this helps fuel your
598
00:33:44.519 --> 00:33:46.960
growth, your innovation as listeners.
So never miss an episode. You can
599
00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:52.039
subscribe to the show wherever you're listening
to this on your favorite subscription service and
600
00:33:52.079 --> 00:33:54.720
then connect with me on Linkedin.
Just Search Benjie Block and I'm always talking
601
00:33:54.720 --> 00:33:58.400
about marketing, business or life over
there and would love to hear from you.
602
00:33:58.440 --> 00:34:00.960
So keep doing work that matters.
Will be back real soon with another
603
00:34:00.960 -->
episode.