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Lecture 7 - How to Build Products Users Love (Kevin Hale)

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    All right.
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    So when I talk about making
    products users love what I
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    mean specifically is like
    how do we make things that
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    has a passionate user base
    that our users
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    are unconditionally wanting
    it to
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    be successful both on the
    products that we build, but
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    also the companies behind
    them.
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    We're gonna go over tons of
    information.
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    Try not to take too many
    notes,
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    mostly just try to listen.
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    I'll post the link to the
    slides on my Twitter account
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    and on that link, there will
    be a way for you to
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    annotate the slide and you
    can ask me questions.
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    And so if we don't get to
    them,
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    I'll answer them after the
    talk.
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    So, you guys have been.
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    Listening to and
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    hearing a lot about growth
    over the last several weeks,
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    and to me I feel like growth
    is usually fairly simple.
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    It's the interaction between
    two sort of concepts or
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    variables.
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    Conversion rate and churn.
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    Right?
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    And the gap between those
    two things pretty
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    much indicate how fast
    you're gonna grow.
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    And most people, especially
    business type people,
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    tend to look at this
    interaction in terms of
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    a very calculated in a
    mathematical sort of way.
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    And today, I sort of want to
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    talk about these things at a
    more human scale.
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    All right, cuz at start up
    when you're interacting with
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    your users, you have a
    fairly intimate
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    interaction that you have in
    the early stages.
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    And so, I think there's a
    different way of looking at
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    this stuff in terms of how
    we build our products.
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    And we'll look at a lot of
    different examples of that.
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    And how it's executed well.
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    My philosophy behind a lot
    of things that I teach
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    startups is the best way to
    sort of get to a billion
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    dollars is to focus on the
    values that help you
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    get that first dollar, to
    acquire that first user.
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    If you sort of get that
    right everything else will
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    sort of take care of itself.
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    It's a sort of faith thing.
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    So I came to be a partner at
    YC by way of being alumni.
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    I went to the program in
    winter of 2006, so
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    it's the second ever program
    and
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    I built a product called
    Wufoo.
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    Wufoo's an online forum
    builder.
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    It helps you create contact
    forums and
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    online surveys and simple
    payment forms.
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    It's basically a database
    that looks like it's
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    designed by Fisher Price.
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    Interesting, though, is that
    because it was fairly easy
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    What's.
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    to use, we're had customers
    from every industry, market,
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    and vertical you can think
    of, including a,
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    a majority of the Fortune
    500 companies out there.
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    Ran the company for five
    years, and
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    then we were acquired by
    SurveyMonkey in 2013.
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    And at the time,
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    we were a very interesting
    acquisition.
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    We were only a team of ten
    people at the time.
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    And, while we acquired
    funding out here in
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    Silicon Valley through Y
    Combinator we actually ran
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    the company from Florida.
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    We had no office.
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    Everyone worked from home.
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    And we're an interesting
    outlier.
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    So, each dot here represents
    a start up that was,
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    that exited through IPO or
    acquisition.
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    And we're this outlier to
    the left.
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    The bottom is the funding
    amount they took.
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    And the vertical axis is,
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    the valuation of the company
    at the time.
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    To sum it up,
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    the average startup rates as
    about $25 million.
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    And they return to their
    investors about 676%.
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    Wufoo raised about $118
    thousand total.
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    And our return to our
    investors is about 29,000%.
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    >> So a lot of people were
    very interested.
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    And are sort of like.
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    What makes.
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    Wufoo a little bit different
    or
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    how do we run the company
    very differently, and
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    a lot of it was focused on
    product.
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    We weren't interested in
    building software that,
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    I guess that just people
    wanted to use.
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    Right.
    That reminding you that you
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    worked in a cubicle,
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    cuz it was database app at
    its sort of core.
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    We wanted a product that
    people wanted to love.
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    That people wanted to have a
    relationship with, and we
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    were actually very fanatical
    about how we approached.
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    This idea.
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    At the point where it's
    almost sort of
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    sort of sciency sort of way.
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    So what we said was like
    Okay.
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    What's interesting about
    start-ups in terms of
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    us wanting to create things
    that people love is that,
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    love and unconditional sort
    of feelings are things that
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    are difficult for us to do
    in sort of real life.
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    And at start-ups we have to
    do it sort of at scale.
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    So we've decided to do is
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    just start of by just
    looking at, Okay,
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    how does real relationships
    work in the real world, and
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    how can we apply them to
    sort of how we
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    run our business and sort of
    build our product that way.
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    So we'll go over basically
    these two metaphors,
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    find new users as if we're
    trying to date them and
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    existing users as if it were
    a successful marriage.
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    So when it comes to dating,
    lot of the stuff that
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    we uncovered had to do with
    first impressions.
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    all, all of you often talk
    about your relationships in
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    terms of the origin story.
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    If I asked you to tell me
    about the first kiss,
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    how you sort of met, how you
    proposed,
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    these are the things that we
    say over and
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    over and over again.
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    They're basically the
    word-of-mouth stories of our
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    relationships, and they're
    the same kinds of
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    things that we do with
    companies.
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    Human beings
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    are relationship
    manufacturing creatures.
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    We cannot help, but create
    and anthropomorphize
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    the things we interact with
    over and over again.
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    So, whether it's the cars we
    drive,
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    the clothes we wear, the
    tools and software's we use,
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    we eventually prescribe
    characteristics to it.
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    A personality.
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    And we expect it to behave a
    certain way.
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    And that's how we sort of
    interact with it.
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    Now first impressions are
    important for
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    the starting of any
    relationship,
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    because it's the one we tell
    over and over again.
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    Right?
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    And there's something
    special about how we
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    regard that origin story.
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    I'll give an example.
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    If you're on a first date
    with somebody,
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    and you're having a nice
    dinner, and
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    you catch them picking their
    nose.
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    You are probably not gonna
    have another date with them.
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    Right, but if you're married
    to someone for
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    about 20 to 30 years,
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    and you catch on the Barca
    Lounger digging for
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    gold right?
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    You don't immediately like
    call your lawyer,
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    right, and then say like we
    have a problem here.
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    I need to start drawing up
    papers for divorce.
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    You shrug your shoulders and
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    say at least he has a heart
    of gold.
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    So solving about.
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    First time interactions
    means that the threshold is
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    so much lower in terms of
    pass fail.
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    So, in software, and for
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    most products in internet
    software that we use, like,
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    first impressions are pretty
    obvious.
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    And they're the things that
    you see a lot of
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    companies sort of pay
    attention to in terms of
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    what they send their
    marketing people to work on.
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    My argument for people who
    are very good at product is
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    they discover so many other
    first moments, and
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    they make those something
    memorable.
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    Right, the first email you
    ever get from a piece of
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    software.
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    What happens when you first
    log in?
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    The links, the advertising,
    the very first time you
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    interact with customer
    support.
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    All of those are
    opportunities to seduce.
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    So how did we think about.
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    Sort of like making first
    moments on there,
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    and we actually took this
    concept from the Japanese.
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    They actually have two words
    for
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    how to describe things when
    you're finished with them
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    in terms of saying like is
    this a quality item.
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    And the two words of quality
    are atarimae hinshitsu and
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    miryokuteki hinshitsu.
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    And the first one means,
    taken for
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    granted quality, basically
    functionality.
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    And the last one sort of
    means,
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    enchanting quality, right?
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    Take for example a pen,
    right?
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    Something has miryokuteki,
    right, if the weight of
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    the pen, the way the ink
    flows out of it, the way
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    it's viewed by the people
    reading the handwriting from
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    the pen is pleasurable both
    to the user of the pen and
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    the people who experience
    the byproducts of it,
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    right, taking it to the sort
    of next level.
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    Start with some examples.
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    So this is Wufoo's Login
    link, and
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    it has a dinosaur on it,
    which I think is awesome.
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    But if you hover over it,
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    the spec has the added
    benefit of having a tool tip
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    that doesn't explain like
    how to login or
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    what it does, but basically,
    rawr.
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    And.
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    What we noticed about this,
    like in early usability
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    studies as like this put a
    smile on people's faces.
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    Like, hands down.
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    Right?
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    Universally.
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    And I think a lot of times
    when we
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    are assessing products, we
    never think about,
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    like, hey what is the
    emotion on
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    the person's face when they
    interact with this?
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    This is Vimeo's log in page
    this is
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    actually a couple integr,
    iterations ago.
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    It's one I find to be the
    most beautiful, but.
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    It lets you know that when
    you're starting out on
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    this journey with Vimeo,
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    that this is gonna be
    something different.
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    They do this all over the
    app.
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    If you search for the word
    fart, as you scroll up and
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    down it makes fart noises as
    you do this.
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    Right?
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    There's something different,
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    like this site interacts
    with you.
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    >> Mm-hm.
    >> It's a little bit
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    magical, it's a little bit
    different.
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    And it's something that you
    wanna talk about.
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    You don't have to always do
    it with design.
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    This is a sign up form for
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    Cork which used to be a
    social network for
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    people who loved to drink
    wine.
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    On it, it says email
    address,
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    it's also your sign-in and
    has to be legit.
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    First name, what your mom
    calls you, last name,
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    what your Army buddies call
    you.
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    Password, something you'll
    remember, but hard to guess,
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    password confirmation, think
    it a, type it again.
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    Think of it as a test.
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    It's literally a poem as you
    fill out the form.
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    Right?
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    And this is a kind of like
    thing where you like,
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    oh, I like the people behind
    this.
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    I, I, I'm gonna enjoy this
    experience.
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    Now what does it say when
    you fill out form like this?
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    Right.
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    On Yahoo, about what the
    personality.
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    Of the site it's gonna be.
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    And what's disappointing to
    me is like,
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    Yahoo forces every product
    and
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    service under them to use
    this exact same login form.
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    Flickr, I had thought,
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    had one of the best sort of
    call to actions.
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    It was, get in there.
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    Right?
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    This is Heroku's.
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    I think this is an older
    version.
  • 9:20 - 9:20
    Sign up page.
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    But, what's remarkable about
    it is that, what you
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    start getting a feel for is
    like, oh, scaling up.
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    My sort of server, and
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    back end services is as easy
    as sort of dragging up and
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    down, different sort of nobs
    and levers.
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    It's gonna be beautifully
    used, and
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    it looks fairly easy to
    scale.
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    Since we're in a room full
    of computer science people,
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    I think you'll appreciate
    this.
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    This is Chocolat.
  • 9:48 - 9:50
    This is a code editor, and
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    they only have one call to
    action.
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    When the time limit is up,
    they say, everything in
  • 9:55 - 9:58
    terms of all the pieces are
    exactly the same except we
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    change the font.
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    To comic sans.
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    And what they're basically
    saying is like hey
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    we know who our users are,
    who our real customers are.
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    They're gonna be the people
    who care about this.
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    This is Hurl, this is a
    website for
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    checking htp requests, and
    sometimes the places where
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    you get errors are
    opportunities for
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    first moments,
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    you had a four of four this
    is what you get it,
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    when we need help oftentimes
    what we do is where we
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    create like really beautiful
    mark, marketing materials.
  • 10:40 - 10:43
    But when you actually need,
    like, documentation we sort
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    of like skimp out on sort of
    design features.
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    And this is a point that,
    like,
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    you see happen over and over
    again.
  • 10:50 - 10:52
    A company that gets this
    right is MailChimp.
  • 10:52 - 10:53
    And what they did was they
    redesigned all of their
  • 10:53 - 10:56
    help guides so that they
    looked like magazine covers.
  • 10:56 - 10:58
    And overnight, basically,
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    readership goes up on all
    these features.
  • 11:00 - 11:03
    And customer support for
    these things that sort of
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    help people optimize emails
    goes down.
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    Speaking of documentation,
    stripe.
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    What's interesting about an
    API company is that there is
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    no UX.
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    The UX is actually just
    documentation, right?
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    And there's opportunities
    even in documentation.
  • 11:19 - 11:21
    Sort of the enchant and
    amaze.
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    So one of the things that I
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    love about them is their
    examples are wonderful.
  • 11:24 - 11:25
    But if you're actually,
    like,
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    sort of logging into the
    app,
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    one of the things that is a
    super pain for most people,
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    when you're dealing with
    most people's APIs, is,
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    like, grabbing your API
    credentials and keys.
  • 11:34 - 11:36
    And what Stripe does is it
    says oh,
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    if you're logged into the
    app.
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    We automatically put
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    your API credentials into
    the examples, so you only
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    have to copy paste once when
    trying to learn their API.
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    When Wufoo wanted to launch
    the third version of our API
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    we realized like, Okay, that
    finally this is good enough
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    that we want people to sort
    of build on top of it.
  • 11:55 - 11:55
    We were trying to figure
    out,
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    like, how do we launch this
    out to the world,
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    that sort of has our
    personality behind it.
  • 11:59 - 11:59
    Because a lot of people,
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    they usually do things like
    a programming API contest,
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    and they give out iPads and
    iPhones.
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    And it makes you look like
    everyone else.
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    And so, in our company one
    weird value to
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    have it's a quirk of us,
  • 12:11 - 12:14
    is that the co-founders are
    big medieval nuts.
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    And we take everyone out to
    Medieval Times every single
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    year, on the anniversary of
    the founding of the company.
  • 12:19 - 12:22
    And so, we said we have to
    do something in that flavor.
  • 12:22 - 12:24
    And so we contacted the guys
    at armor.com,
  • 12:24 - 12:27
    we said can you forward us a
    custom battle-ax.
  • 12:27 - 12:28
    And what we said was if
  • 12:28 - 12:32
    you win our programming
    contest you would win one.
  • 12:33 - 12:36
    The result is like people
    wanted to talk about this.
  • 12:36 - 12:37
    It's something that people
    wanted to work on cuz
  • 12:37 - 12:40
    they wanted to be able to
    say it like I'm programming.
  • 12:40 - 12:40
    For a weapon.
  • 12:43 - 12:47
    And what's cool is we had
    over 25 different
  • 12:47 - 12:51
    applications created for us
    of quality and quantity that
  • 12:51 - 12:53
    we could not have paid for
    on the budget and
  • 12:53 - 12:55
    the sort of time that we had
    for this.
  • 12:55 - 12:56
    We got things like an iPhone
    app and
  • 12:56 - 12:59
    Android and WordPress
    plugins, right?
  • 12:59 - 13:01
    And all because what we did
    was we changed how
  • 13:01 - 13:03
    people wanna talk about the
    origin story of
  • 13:03 - 13:05
    how they're interacting with
    one of our services.
  • 13:06 - 13:09
    And go like all day long of
    going over these examples.
  • 13:09 - 13:11
    But I'm gonna short cut this
    by saying,
  • 13:11 - 13:13
    you should just subscribe a
    little bit of details.
  • 13:13 - 13:16
    It's just basically tons of
    screen shots of software
  • 13:16 - 13:17
    that's just doing it right.
  • 13:17 - 13:18
    That shows that they're
    being
  • 13:18 - 13:22
    conscientious of the user
    and the customers.
  • 13:28 - 13:31
    When it comes to long term
    relationships or
  • 13:31 - 13:34
    marriages, the only research
    that we ended up having to
  • 13:34 - 13:37
    read was the stuff that was
    done by John Gottman.
  • 13:37 - 13:40
    He's been featured in This
    American Life,
  • 13:40 - 13:41
    in Malcolm Gladwell's books.
  • 13:41 - 13:43
    He's a marriage researcher
    up in Seattle.
  • 13:43 - 13:45
    And he has an interesting
    parlor trick that he can do.
  • 13:45 - 13:49
    He can watch a video tape of
    a couple fighting about some
  • 13:49 - 13:50
    issue for 15 minutes.
  • 13:50 - 13:53
    And predict with an 85%
    accuracy rate whether that
  • 13:53 - 13:54
    couple will be together or
  • 13:54 - 13:56
    not, or divorced in four
    years.
  • 13:57 - 13:59
    If he increases that video
    up to an hour.
  • 13:59 - 14:01
    And asks them to also talk
    about their hopes and
  • 14:01 - 14:02
    dreams.
  • 14:02 - 14:03
    That prediction rating goes
    up to 94%.
  • 14:03 - 14:06
    They showed these same video
    tapes to marriage
  • 14:06 - 14:08
    counselors, successfully
    married couples,
  • 14:08 - 14:12
    sociologists, psychiatrists,
    priests, et cetera and
  • 14:12 - 14:15
    they can't predict with
    random chance whether people
  • 14:15 - 14:16
    are gonna be together or
    not.
  • 14:16 - 14:19
    So John Gauntman understands
    something fundamental about.
  • 14:20 - 14:22
    How relationships work in
    the long term.
  • 14:22 - 14:26
    And that basically how we
    fight, even in a short term
  • 14:26 - 14:29
    period can indicate sort of
    the whole system and
  • 14:29 - 14:30
    what it's gonna look like.
  • 14:30 - 14:32
    And one of the surprising
    things he discovered,
  • 14:32 - 14:32
    it's not that
  • 14:32 - 14:34
    successfully married people
    don't fight at all.
  • 14:34 - 14:36
    It turns out everybody
    fights.
  • 14:36 - 14:40
    And we all fight about the
    exact same things money,
  • 14:40 - 14:41
    kids, sex, time and others.
  • 14:41 - 14:45
    And others are things like
    jealousy and in-laws.
  • 14:45 - 14:48
    To bring this around, right,
    you can actually attribute
  • 14:48 - 14:50
    every single one of these to
    problems that you see in
  • 14:50 - 14:52
    customer support when you're
    building out your products.
  • 14:53 - 14:57
    Right, so.
  • 14:57 - 14:58
    This costs too much.
  • 14:58 - 15:00
    I'm having problems with a
    credit card.
  • 15:00 - 15:02
    If you're building a service
    that helps people deal with
  • 15:02 - 15:03
    their clients they're very
  • 15:03 - 15:05
    sensitive about anything
    happening with that.
  • 15:05 - 15:07
    Performance.
  • 15:07 - 15:09
    How long you're up and how
    fast.
  • 15:11 - 15:14
    Others are I said jealousy
    and in-laws.
  • 15:14 - 15:16
    Right, so that's competition
    and partnerships.
  • 15:16 - 15:17
    So anything weird happening
    there,
  • 15:17 - 15:20
    people are gonna write to
    you about.
  • 15:20 - 15:21
    And the reason I like to
    think about this in
  • 15:21 - 15:23
    terms of customer support is
    that in every ones that
  • 15:23 - 15:26
    are processing of like a
    conversion funnel,
  • 15:26 - 15:28
    customer support is the
    thing that happens in
  • 15:28 - 15:30
    between every one of these
    steps.
  • 15:29 - 15:31
    It's the reason why people
    don't make it
  • 15:31 - 15:32
    further down there.
  • 15:32 - 15:34
    It's the thing that prevents
    conversion from happening.
  • 15:35 - 15:38
    Now, as we were thinking
    through all these ideas and
  • 15:38 - 15:40
    as we were building up the
    company,
  • 15:40 - 15:42
    we realized that there's a
    big problem about how
  • 15:42 - 15:44
    everyone sort of starts
    their company or
  • 15:44 - 15:46
    build up their sort of
    engineering teams.
  • 15:46 - 15:49
    And that is that there's a
    broken feedback loop there.
  • 15:49 - 15:51
    People are divorced from the
    consequences of
  • 15:51 - 15:52
    their actions.
  • 15:52 - 15:54
    And this is the result of
    actually the natural
  • 15:54 - 15:56
    evolution of how most
    companies get founded,
  • 15:56 - 15:58
    especially by technical
    co-founders, right.
  • 15:58 - 16:02
    Before launch it is a time
    of bliss, nirvana, and
  • 16:02 - 16:04
    opportunity, right?
  • 16:04 - 16:05
    Nothing that you do is
    wrong, right?
  • 16:07 - 16:10
    By your hand, which you feel
    is like god, everything that
  • 16:10 - 16:13
    you write, every line of
    code feels perfect, right,
  • 16:13 - 16:15
    and is ingenious to you.
  • 16:15 - 16:18
    The thing that happens is
    after launch reality sort of
  • 16:18 - 16:20
    sets in and then all these
    other tasks sort of
  • 16:20 - 16:22
    come into place that we have
    to deal with.
  • 16:23 - 16:26
    Now what technical
    co-founders wanna do is get
  • 16:26 - 16:29
    back to that initial state
    and so what we often do,
  • 16:29 - 16:31
    and what we often see is
    that companies start
  • 16:31 - 16:34
    siloing off all these other
    things that actually is
  • 16:34 - 16:37
    what makes a start up or a
    company sort of real, right?
  • 16:37 - 16:40
    And have other people do
    them.
  • 16:40 - 16:43
    To, in our minds, these
    other tasks are inferior.
  • 16:43 - 16:44
    Right?
    And we have other people in
  • 16:44 - 16:44
    the company do them.
  • 16:46 - 16:48
    And so for us, what we're
    trying to figure out
  • 16:48 - 16:50
    is how do we change software
    development so that we
  • 16:50 - 16:54
    inject some values that we
    don't talk about enough?
  • 16:54 - 16:56
    Responsibility,
    accountability,
  • 16:56 - 16:58
    humility, modesty.
  • 16:58 - 17:01
    Right, and we called this,
    like a lot of other people,
  • 17:01 - 17:06
    we had an acronym, Support
    Driven Development, and
  • 17:06 - 17:10
    it's very similar to TDD or
    other agile practice.
  • 17:10 - 17:13
    It's a way of creating high
    quality software, but
  • 17:13 - 17:14
    it's super simple.
  • 17:14 - 17:15
    You don't need like, a
    SCRUM,
  • 17:15 - 17:18
    you don't need a bunch of
    post-it notes, all you
  • 17:18 - 17:20
    have to do is make everyone
    do customer support.
  • 17:22 - 17:23
    And what you end up having
    is
  • 17:23 - 17:24
    you fix the feedback loop,
    right?
  • 17:24 - 17:25
    The people who build the
    software are the ones
  • 17:25 - 17:26
    supporting it and
  • 17:26 - 17:29
    you get all these sort of
    nice benefits as a result.
  • 17:30 - 17:33
    So one of them is, support
    responsible developers and
  • 17:33 - 17:35
    designers and people who
    build the stuff,
  • 17:35 - 17:37
    they give the very best
    support.
  • 17:37 - 17:39
    Now we're not the first
    person to think of this.
  • 17:39 - 17:41
    Paul English was a big
    proporter of this at Kayak,
  • 17:41 - 17:45
    and what he did was install
    a red customer support phone
  • 17:45 - 17:47
    line in the middle of the
    engineering floor.
  • 17:47 - 17:50
    And they were just regular
    customer support calls.
  • 17:50 - 17:54
    And people would ask him
    often times,
  • 17:54 - 17:56
    why would you pay engineers
    $120,000 or
  • 17:56 - 17:59
    more to do something that
    you can pay other people
  • 17:59 - 18:03
    a fraction of to handle in
    like a call center?
  • 18:03 - 18:05
    And he says, well, after the
    second or
  • 18:05 - 18:07
    third time that phone rings
    and the engineer gets
  • 18:07 - 18:10
    the same problem they stop
    what they're doing, they fix
  • 18:10 - 18:14
    the bug, and we stop getting
    phone calls about it.
  • 18:14 - 18:17
    It, it's a way of having Q-A
    in a sort of
  • 18:17 - 18:18
    nice elegant solution.
  • 18:20 - 18:24
    Now, John Gotman talks about
    the reason that we often
  • 18:24 - 18:27
    break up with one another as
    due to four major causes and
  • 18:27 - 18:27
    their warning signs.
  • 18:27 - 18:29
    He calls them the four
    horsemen, right?
  • 18:29 - 18:33
    Criticism, contempt,
    defensiveness,
  • 18:33 - 18:34
    and stonewalling.
  • 18:34 - 18:39
    Now, criticism is basically
    people starting to focus,
  • 18:39 - 18:40
    not just on the specific
    issue at hand, but
  • 18:40 - 18:41
    on the overarching issues.
  • 18:41 - 18:46
    Like, you never, right,
    listen to your users or
  • 18:46 - 18:48
    you never think about us all
    the time.
  • 18:48 - 18:49
    Right?
  • 18:50 - 18:54
    Contempt is when someone is
    purposely trying to
  • 18:54 - 18:55
    insult somebody.
  • 18:55 - 19:00
    Defensiveness is not trying
    to take accountability
  • 19:00 - 19:02
    trying to make excuses for
    the actions.
  • 19:02 - 19:04
    And stonewalling is
    basically shutting down.
  • 19:04 - 19:07
    Stonewalling, to John
    Gotman, is, is one of
  • 19:07 - 19:09
    the worst things that we can
    do in a relationship.
  • 19:09 - 19:11
    Hold up.
  • 19:15 - 19:18
    And oftentimes, you know, we
    don't worry much about this
  • 19:18 - 19:20
    in customer se, criticism
    and contempt.
  • 19:20 - 19:21
    Right?
    Defensiveness,
  • 19:21 - 19:23
    you see this all the time,
    all the times in companies,
  • 19:23 - 19:24
    especially as they get
    older.
  • 19:24 - 19:25
    But stonewalling, this is
    something I
  • 19:25 - 19:27
    see happen with start-ups
    all the time.
  • 19:29 - 19:30
    You get a bunch of customer
    support sort of
  • 19:30 - 19:32
    coming in and you just think
    I don't need to answer it.
  • 19:32 - 19:33
    I don't need to respond.
  • 19:33 - 19:34
    Right?
    And
  • 19:34 - 19:36
    that act of just not even
    getting back to
  • 19:36 - 19:38
    them is one of the worst
    things you can do.
  • 19:38 - 19:40
    And it's probably some of
    the biggest causes of
  • 19:40 - 19:42
    churn in the early stages of
    start-ups.
  • 19:44 - 19:45
    This is how support worked
    out with Wufoo.
  • 19:45 - 19:48
    When we were acquired we had
    about 500,000 users on
  • 19:48 - 19:51
    the system, 5 million people
    used Wufoo forms and
  • 19:51 - 19:53
    reports, whether they knew
    it or not, and
  • 19:53 - 19:56
    all those people got support
    from the same ten people,
  • 19:56 - 19:57
    and usually it was
  • 19:57 - 20:00
    only one person dedicated
    support a day, or any shift.
  • 20:00 - 20:02
    Results in about 400 issues
    a week.
  • 20:02 - 20:04
    That's about 800 emails.
  • 20:04 - 20:06
    But a response time from 9
    a.m.
  • 20:06 - 20:06
    to 9 p.m.
    was
  • 20:06 - 20:08
    between seven to 12 minutes.
  • 20:08 - 20:09
    Right?
    And from 9 p.m.
  • 20:09 - 20:11
    to midnight it was an hour.
  • 20:11 - 20:13
    And on the weekend it would
    be no longer than 24 hours.
  • 20:13 - 20:16
    And we carried this up all
    the way up to the scale.
  • 20:18 - 20:20
    What a lot of people forget
    about, and
  • 20:20 - 20:23
    often talk about with
    Airbnb, is how, like oh,
  • 20:23 - 20:25
    they did this interesting
    thing where they had,
  • 20:25 - 20:27
    went up to New York and
    offered, like,
  • 20:27 - 20:28
    professional photographers,
    and the founders would go
  • 20:28 - 20:30
    out there and actually take
    pictures of
  • 20:30 - 20:32
    the people's apartments to
    help them sell more.
  • 20:32 - 20:34
    Focusing on the stories
    around conversion.
  • 20:34 - 20:36
    What most people don't
    realize is a lot of
  • 20:36 - 20:39
    times when I saw Joe in the
    early days of Airbnb,
  • 20:39 - 20:41
    he had a phone, sort of head
    set stuck to his head all
  • 20:41 - 20:45
    the time, because he was
    doing phone support nonstop.
  • 20:46 - 20:48
    Churn is a story we don't
    like to talk about often,
  • 20:48 - 20:49
    all the time.
  • 20:49 - 20:53
    Airbnb's sort of growth
    really started picking up
  • 20:53 - 20:53
    once they figured out
  • 20:53 - 20:56
    how to match capacity to the
    demand, or the phone
  • 20:56 - 20:59
    calls that they were getting
    into their support system.
  • 21:01 - 21:03
    At Wufoo we actually
    constantly did experiments
  • 21:03 - 21:06
    around support, because
    we're so obsessed with it.
  • 21:06 - 21:09
    One experiment we did was,
    we heard Kathy Sierra
  • 21:09 - 21:11
    do a talk about there's a
    disconnect between the
  • 21:11 - 21:15
    motions that we have when we
    need help, and sort of.
  • 21:15 - 21:17
    The content and the
    reactions we get from
  • 21:17 - 21:18
    people when we get help from
    them, especially online.
  • 21:18 - 21:23
    Because they just don't see
    all those nonverbal cues.
  • 21:23 - 21:25
    So she said unless there's
    face recognition on the web,
  • 21:25 - 21:26
    we're just always going to
    be
  • 21:26 - 21:28
    disconnected from our users.
  • 21:28 - 21:29
    Our feeling was,
  • 21:29 - 21:31
    like, well we're not face
    recognition experts but
  • 21:31 - 21:33
    I think there's another way
    of getting empathy.
  • 21:33 - 21:36
    So, as form builders, we
    added a drop-down and
  • 21:36 - 21:38
    what we said was like, hey,
    what's your emotional state?
  • 21:40 - 21:41
    And our hypothesis was
  • 21:41 - 21:42
    that no one was gonna fill
    this out.
  • 21:42 - 21:46
    We basically thought, oh
    okay, you know what the,
  • 21:46 - 21:49
    this is gonna be pretty a
    lame experiment, but
  • 21:49 - 21:50
    we'll see how it sort of
    goes.
  • 21:50 - 21:51
    And it turned out the
    Emotional State
  • 21:51 - 21:54
    drop-down field was filled
    out 75.8% of the time.
  • 21:55 - 21:57
    The browser type drop-down
    filled just in
  • 21:57 - 22:00
    comparison was filled out
    78.1% of the time.
  • 22:00 - 22:01
    All right?
  • 22:01 - 22:03
    So people were basically
    telling us, for
  • 22:03 - 22:07
    my technical support issue
    how I feel about this
  • 22:07 - 22:10
    problem is just as important
    as, like, all the technical
  • 22:10 - 22:13
    details you need to sorta
    figure out how to debug it.
  • 22:14 - 22:17
    Now we didn't prioritize
    things or
  • 22:17 - 22:18
    triage things by emotion,
    right, and for
  • 22:18 - 22:20
    the most part, people didn't
    game the system.
  • 22:20 - 22:23
    One of the interesting
    byproducts of it was that we
  • 22:23 - 22:24
    noticed that people started
    being nicer to
  • 22:24 - 22:26
    us in the customer support.
  • 22:26 - 22:27
    It was something sort of
    subconscious.
  • 22:27 - 22:29
    We just were thinking like,
    wow,
  • 22:29 - 22:30
    users are so much better
    now.
  • 22:30 - 22:31
    What's going on?
  • 22:31 - 22:34
    And we went back and looked
    at the data and
  • 22:34 - 22:37
    we did some text analysis
    and we realized is that, oh,
  • 22:37 - 22:40
    when it comes to only
    communicating with
  • 22:40 - 22:44
    people over written words,
    like email, there's
  • 22:44 - 22:46
    only three ways that you
    show strong emotions, right?
  • 22:46 - 22:50
    Exclamation marks curse
    words, and all caps.
  • 22:50 - 22:52
    And sure enough on all three
    of those metrics,
  • 22:52 - 22:53
    they've gone down.
  • 22:53 - 22:56
    In sort of the way people
    were talking to us in
  • 22:56 - 22:56
    the customer support.
  • 22:56 - 22:59
    Once people had a simple
    outlet for their emotions,
  • 22:59 - 23:00
    right, people would be a lot
    more rational,
  • 23:00 - 23:03
    and it made our jobs a lot
    more pleasant as a result.
  • 23:03 - 23:09
    The other byproduct that is
    awesome is that
  • 23:09 - 23:11
    you actually build better
    software when you do this.
  • 23:11 - 23:12
    Far better software.
  • 23:12 - 23:15
    This is actually backed up
    by tons of research.
  • 23:15 - 23:16
    Jared Spool, a user
    interface engineer, which is
  • 23:16 - 23:19
    sort of the big players in
    this space says like,
  • 23:19 - 23:21
    there's a direct correlation
    to how much time we
  • 23:21 - 23:25
    spend directly exposed to
    users and
  • 23:25 - 23:28
    how good our designs sort of
    get.
  • 23:28 - 23:29
    He says it has to come in
    this specific way.
  • 23:29 - 23:31
    It has to be direct
    exposure, right?
  • 23:31 - 23:32
    It can't be something where
  • 23:32 - 23:34
    someone generates a report
    or through a graph, you
  • 23:34 - 23:38
    have to be interacting with
    them somewhat real time.
  • 23:38 - 23:39
    It has to be a minimum of
    every six weeks.
  • 23:39 - 23:41
    And it has to be for at
    least two hours.
  • 23:41 - 23:44
    Otherwise your software will
    get worse over time.
  • 23:46 - 23:49
    Our developers, our people
    who are on,
  • 23:49 - 23:51
    on Wufoo were getting
    exposed to our users four to
  • 23:51 - 23:53
    eight hours every single
    week.
  • 23:54 - 23:57
    And what it does is it
    changes the way you sort of
  • 23:57 - 23:57
    build software.
  • 23:57 - 24:00
    Jared Spool has another way
    of talking about how
  • 24:00 - 24:01
    we build products.
  • 24:01 - 24:03
    Right?
  • 24:03 - 24:07
    Let's imagine that this
    represents all the knowledge
  • 24:07 - 24:10
    needed to sort of use your
    app on a spectrum.
  • 24:10 - 24:12
    Right?
    This is like no knowledge.
  • 24:12 - 24:12
    Right?
    And this is
  • 24:12 - 24:14
    all the knowledge needed.
  • 24:14 - 24:14
    Right?
    And
  • 24:14 - 24:16
    these two lines are pretty
    much your interactions with
  • 24:16 - 24:18
    users what you're trying to
    get them to.
  • 24:18 - 24:20
    This is currently where
    their knowledge point is and
  • 24:20 - 24:22
    this is the target knowledge
    point that you're trying to
  • 24:22 - 24:25
    get them to, to understand
    that to use your app.
  • 24:25 - 24:27
    The gap between those is
    called the knowledge gap,
  • 24:27 - 24:28
    Jared Spool called it, Spool
    calls.
  • 24:28 - 24:32
    And what's interesting about
    this is there's only two
  • 24:32 - 24:34
    ways, right, to sort of fix
    this.
  • 24:34 - 24:36
    That gap represents how
    intuitive your
  • 24:36 - 24:38
    app is, right?
  • 24:38 - 24:41
    You either get the user to
    increase their
  • 24:41 - 24:45
    knowledge or you decrease
    the amount of knowledge
  • 24:45 - 24:46
    that's needed to use your
    application.
  • 24:46 - 24:48
    And oftentimes, as engineers
    and people who build and
  • 24:48 - 24:51
    work on products, we think
    let's add new features.
  • 24:52 - 24:53
    And new features only
  • 24:53 - 24:55
    means let's increase the
    knowledge gap.
  • 24:58 - 25:01
    So for us we actually
    focused a lot on
  • 25:01 - 25:02
    the other sort of direction.
  • 25:02 - 25:04
    And so what that meant we
    spent a lot of time,
  • 25:04 - 25:07
    30% of our engineering time
    was spent on internal tools
  • 25:07 - 25:09
    to help with our customer
    support stuff.
  • 25:09 - 25:10
    But oftentimes it
  • 25:10 - 25:13
    was spent helping people
    help themselves.
  • 25:13 - 25:16
    Things like frequently asked
    questions, tool tips.
  • 25:16 - 25:18
    Things like, if you just
    click the help link,
  • 25:18 - 25:21
    right, instead of taking you
    to the generic help sort of
  • 25:21 - 25:21
    documentation page,
  • 25:21 - 25:24
    you go to the specific page
    where you're looking at
  • 25:24 - 25:26
    is going to be most, sort
    of,
  • 25:26 - 25:28
    appropriate for what you're
    working on.
  • 25:28 - 25:30
    We redesigned our
    documentation over and
  • 25:30 - 25:32
    over again, AB tested it
    constantly.
  • 25:32 - 25:34
    One iteration of our
    documentation reduced
  • 25:34 - 25:36
    customer support by 30% over
    night.
  • 25:37 - 25:39
    It's one of those things
    where,
  • 25:39 - 25:41
    like, overnight, all the
    people that work on
  • 25:41 - 25:44
    the product immediately had
    30% less work to do.
  • 25:47 - 25:48
    Now what happens if you have
    everyone work on
  • 25:48 - 25:50
    customer support constantly,
    and
  • 25:50 - 25:52
    thinking about it in terms
    of a remarkable way?
  • 25:52 - 25:53
    Well, I talked a lot about,
  • 25:53 - 25:56
    in the very beginning growth
    is a function of
  • 25:56 - 25:58
    conversion and churn.
  • 25:58 - 26:01
    This is Wufoo's growth curve
    for the first five years.
  • 26:01 - 26:02
    Right?
  • 26:02 - 26:03
    What's interesting is that
    we
  • 26:03 - 26:08
    paid no money on
    advertising, on marketing.
  • 26:08 - 26:11
    All of it was done by word
    of mouth growth.
  • 26:11 - 26:12
    Right?
  • 26:12 - 26:13
    And the interaction between,
    like,
  • 26:13 - 26:16
    new users and downgrades are
    this.
  • 26:19 - 26:21
    It's so slight what it
    takes, that gap,
  • 26:21 - 26:22
    making that sort of work.
  • 26:22 - 26:25
    And what a lot of people
    keep forgetting is that
  • 26:25 - 26:27
    there's almost no difference
    between an increase in
  • 26:27 - 26:30
    conversion rate, 1% increase
    and a 1% decrease churn.
  • 26:30 - 26:33
    They do exactly the same
    thing to your growth.
  • 26:33 - 26:36
    However, the ladder is
    actually much easier to do.
  • 26:36 - 26:38
    It's much cheaper to do, in
    your apps, and
  • 26:38 - 26:40
    a lot of the times we
    neglect this,
  • 26:40 - 26:42
    neglect this to way far
    along.
  • 26:42 - 26:43
    Right?
    And we usually have our
  • 26:43 - 26:47
    B team works on these sort
    of projects and services.
  • 26:47 - 26:48
    This is actually not the
    graph that we track most of
  • 26:48 - 26:49
    the time at Wufoo, it's not
    even the one I'm proud of.
  • 26:49 - 26:52
    This is the one I'm proud
    of.
  • 26:52 - 26:55
    Cuz even though we have this
    sort of nice, awesome curve
  • 26:55 - 26:58
    of growth, this is what, how
    loud is this scale?
  • 26:58 - 27:00
    Keep the company small, have
    an awesome culture.
  • 27:02 - 27:03
    And that required doing a
    lot of
  • 27:03 - 27:09
    these things to help people
    sort of do what they need.
  • 27:09 - 27:14
    So John Gotman noticed there
    was a different type of
  • 27:14 - 27:19
    behavior for relationships
    and why people divorced.
  • 27:19 - 27:22
    Basically there would be
    some subset of people who
  • 27:22 - 27:24
    would stay together 10, 15
    years and
  • 27:24 - 27:27
    then all of a sudden they
    divorce and
  • 27:27 - 27:30
    there was none of the other
    indicators which sort of
  • 27:30 - 27:32
    show that this is what was
    gonna happen.
  • 27:32 - 27:35
    And I was looking through
    the data and
  • 27:35 - 27:36
    I realized oh, there's no
    passion,
  • 27:36 - 27:38
    there's no fire between
    these people, right?
  • 27:38 - 27:40
    When it comes to
    relationships they
  • 27:40 - 27:43
    kinda follow the second law
    of thermodynamics, right?
  • 27:43 - 27:45
    In a closed energy system
    things tend to run down so
  • 27:45 - 27:47
    you have to constantly be
    putting energy and
  • 27:47 - 27:48
    effort back into it.
  • 27:48 - 27:50
    Now the way a lot of people
    sort of think about showing
  • 27:50 - 27:54
    people that I care about you
    in products and in companies
  • 27:54 - 27:57
    is to do things like let's
    have a blog, right?
  • 27:57 - 27:58
    Lets' have a newsletter?
  • 27:59 - 28:02
    The thing is, we look at
    these rates and basically it
  • 28:02 - 28:04
    was such a small percentage
    of our active users that it
  • 28:04 - 28:06
    was like, most of our users
    have no idea all
  • 28:06 - 28:09
    the awesome stuff that we're
    doing for them.
  • 28:09 - 28:10
    So we built a new tool.
  • 28:10 - 28:12
    We called it the Wufoo
    system, and
  • 28:12 - 28:14
    what it allowed us to do was
    just time stamp every new
  • 28:14 - 28:16
    feature that we're building
    for users and
  • 28:16 - 28:18
    then every time they would
    log in, we would look at
  • 28:18 - 28:21
    the difference between their
    log in time or last log in
  • 28:21 - 28:23
    time and the new features
    that were implemented.
  • 28:23 - 28:24
    And when you had this
    message show up,
  • 28:24 - 28:25
    hey since you've been gone
  • 28:25 - 28:28
    here's all the awesome stuff
    that Wufoo did for you.
  • 28:28 - 28:30
    Hands down this was the most
    talked about feature I've
  • 28:30 - 28:33
    ever had every time I went
    out to talk to users.
  • 28:33 - 28:35
    Right they'd say like dude I
    love that since you've be,
  • 28:35 - 28:37
    since you've gone thing even
    though I pay the same amount
  • 28:37 - 28:40
    every single month you guys
    are doing something for
  • 28:40 - 28:42
    me almost every week and
    it's totally awesome and
  • 28:42 - 28:44
    makes me feel, I'm getting
    maximum value.
  • 28:47 - 28:48
    The other thing that we did
    in
  • 28:48 - 28:50
    addition to having everyone
    support the people that
  • 28:50 - 28:52
    paid their pay check is have
    them say thank you.
  • 28:52 - 28:57
    And this was a large part
    due to us injecting sort of
  • 28:57 - 28:59
    humility and modesty in to
    sort of the equation.
  • 29:01 - 29:03
    Every single Friday we would
    get together and
  • 29:03 - 29:05
    we'd just write simple hand
    written thank you cards to
  • 29:05 - 29:06
    our users.
  • 29:07 - 29:11
    And I know there's tons of
    people who would not be sort
  • 29:11 - 29:14
    of excited about doing this,
    but it was a ritual that
  • 29:14 - 29:16
    made sort of all the
    difference in terms of,
  • 29:16 - 29:20
    like, having a team that was
    very tightly neat,
  • 29:20 - 29:21
    tightly knit, also.
  • 29:21 - 29:23
    And working on stuff that
    they really cared about.
  • 29:23 - 29:26
    They always constantly knew
    what the mission was for,
  • 29:26 - 29:28
    and why we sort of did what
    we did.
  • 29:28 - 29:30
    These aren't fancy thank you
    cards, right?
  • 29:30 - 29:31
    They're just simple,
  • 29:31 - 29:33
    like handwritten stuff on an
    index card.
  • 29:33 - 29:34
    We threw in a sticker, and
  • 29:34 - 29:37
    slapped on a dinosaur on the
    front of it.
  • 29:37 - 29:42
    And, what's interesting is
    we started this practice as
  • 29:42 - 29:46
    a result of the early days
    of starting Wufoo.
  • 29:46 - 29:48
    Chris, Ron, and I were
    talking, and we're trying to
  • 29:48 - 29:50
    figure out, what are we
    gonna do to sort of show
  • 29:50 - 29:52
    users that we appreciate
    them around Christmas.
  • 29:52 - 29:55
    And he, Chris came up with
    this idea where he said
  • 29:55 - 29:59
    hey guys, so a couple years
    ago my mom, like, made me
  • 29:59 - 30:02
    write thank you notes to all
    of my relatives.
  • 30:02 - 30:04
    For my Christmas gifts.
  • 30:04 - 30:05
    And I didn't really like to
    do it but
  • 30:05 - 30:08
    the following year all my
    presents were super good.
  • 30:08 - 30:12
    So, I think we should try
    this for our business and
  • 30:12 - 30:14
    see how it goes.
  • 30:14 - 30:17
    So, that first year we wrote
    handwritten Christmas cards
  • 30:17 - 30:20
    to all of our users that
    first year.
  • 30:20 - 30:21
    Second year rolls around,
    and
  • 30:21 - 30:23
    we have too many customers,
    like, and
  • 30:23 - 30:25
    it's still just the three
    founders.
  • 30:25 - 30:27
    And we were going like we're
    kinda screwed,
  • 30:27 - 30:29
    I don't know what we're
    gonna do.
  • 30:29 - 30:31
    And we read a book called
    the ultimate question, and
  • 30:31 - 30:33
    in it he talks about hey,
  • 30:33 - 30:35
    just focus on your most
    profitable users.
  • 30:35 - 30:37
    And just tend them and
  • 30:37 - 30:38
    take care of them, then
    it'll work out.
  • 30:38 - 30:39
    So we're like, all right,
  • 30:39 - 30:41
    that, that makes sense,
    that's scalable.
  • 30:41 - 30:42
    So that year we
  • 30:42 - 30:43
    only write to our highest
    paying customers.
  • 30:44 - 30:48
    And the January rolls around
    that second year and
  • 30:48 - 30:51
    one of our long time loyal
    users writes us and
  • 30:51 - 30:56
    he's basically like, hey
    guys I, I really loved
  • 30:56 - 30:58
    that Christmas card you sent
    me the first year and I just
  • 30:58 - 31:01
    wanted you to know I haven't
    received my second card yet
  • 31:01 - 31:03
    and I'm just looking forward
    to it.
  • 31:03 - 31:04
    I know you didn't forget
    about me.
  • 31:06 - 31:07
    Thanks a lot.
  • 31:07 - 31:12
    So we're like, fuck, because
    the best way to sort of
  • 31:12 - 31:14
    exceed expectations is not
    to send any to begin with,
  • 31:14 - 31:16
    so we were like sort of in
    this conundrum.
  • 31:16 - 31:18
    And what we decided, after
    thinking about it for
  • 31:18 - 31:20
    a while, is that we need to
    stop doing it,
  • 31:20 - 31:22
    you know, just one time a
    year.
  • 31:22 - 31:24
    It needs to be something
    that's part of the culture.
  • 31:24 - 31:26
    Happens every, every, every
    sort of week, even.
  • 31:26 - 31:28
    And even though we'll never
    catch up to all of
  • 31:28 - 31:30
    our customers.
  • 31:30 - 31:30
    Just the practice of
  • 31:30 - 31:31
    doing it will make all the
    difference.
  • 31:33 - 31:34
    I talked a lot
  • 31:34 - 31:37
    about a bunch of like
    lovey-dovey stuff and
  • 31:37 - 31:39
    sort of like touchy-feely
    things that I think a lot of
  • 31:39 - 31:41
    engineers don't like to
    think about too often.
  • 31:41 - 31:46
    And so I'll end on some sort
    of hard business
  • 31:46 - 31:47
    data or research.
  • 31:47 - 31:49
    There's an article that was
    put out by
  • 31:49 - 31:51
    the Harvard Business Review
    several years ago by
  • 31:51 - 31:54
    Michael Treacy and Fred
    Wiersema and in it they
  • 31:54 - 31:56
    talk about the discipline of
    market leaders.
  • 31:56 - 31:57
    They say there's only three
    ways that you
  • 31:57 - 32:02
    achieve market dominance and
    depending on how you want to
  • 32:02 - 32:03
    achieve that market
    dominance you have
  • 32:03 - 32:06
    to organize your company in
    a very specific way.
  • 32:06 - 32:09
    Best price, best product and
    best overall solution.
  • 32:09 - 32:10
    If you want to be
  • 32:10 - 32:12
    the best price out there you
    focus on logistics.
  • 32:12 - 32:14
    A Wal-Mart, an Amazon.
  • 32:14 - 32:15
    If you want to be the best
    product out there you
  • 32:15 - 32:17
    focus on R&D.
  • 32:17 - 32:17
    Apple's usually
  • 32:17 - 32:19
    a quintessential example of
    that.
  • 32:19 - 32:21
    Best overall solution is
    about
  • 32:21 - 32:22
    being customer intimate.
  • 32:22 - 32:23
    And this is the path that
    you see followed by
  • 32:23 - 32:26
    luxury brands and
    hospitality industry.
  • 32:27 - 32:30
    What I love about this path
    towards market dominance is
  • 32:30 - 32:35
    that the third one is the
    only one that
  • 32:35 - 32:38
    everyone can do at any stage
    of their company.
  • 32:38 - 32:40
    Requires almost no money to
    get started with.
  • 32:40 - 32:42
    Usually just co.
  • 32:42 - 32:45
    Requires a little bit of
    humility and some manners.
  • 32:45 - 32:49
    And as a result you can
    achieve the success as any
  • 32:49 - 32:50
    other people in sort of your
    market.
  • 32:52 - 32:54
    That's all I got.
  • 32:54 - 32:54
    Thank you very much.
  • 33:00 - 33:03
    Yeah, let's take some
    questions if you guys
  • 33:03 - 33:04
    have any.
  • 33:04 - 33:05
    Right in the back there.
  • 33:05 - 33:07
    >> Building products that
    users love?
  • 33:07 - 33:10
    You might have multiple
    different types of users.
  • 33:10 - 33:14
    How do you build one product
    that all users love?
  • 33:14 - 33:16
    Maybe there is a feature
    that one really likes but
  • 33:16 - 33:18
    detracts value from one
    that.
  • 33:18 - 33:19
    >> All right.
    So what do you do
  • 33:19 - 33:21
    when you have a product with
    lots of
  • 33:21 - 33:22
    different type of users,
    right?
  • 33:22 - 33:23
    Some users will love one
    thing and
  • 33:23 - 33:25
    another will, will another.
  • 33:25 - 33:26
    And I agree, there's
  • 33:26 - 33:27
    a interesting fine line for
    that.
  • 33:27 - 33:29
    What I always, usually tell
    people,
  • 33:29 - 33:32
    is focus on the people who
    are the most passionate,
  • 33:32 - 33:32
    especially in the early
    stages.
  • 33:32 - 33:34
    Right?
    Whoever's, whatever niche
  • 33:34 - 33:37
    it's gonna be, that's who I
    focus on completely.
  • 33:37 - 33:39
    Things that a lot of
    different projects did.
  • 33:39 - 33:40
    I think Ben Silverman of
  • 33:40 - 33:43
    Pinterest started off with a
    designer bloggers, right?
  • 33:43 - 33:45
    Curtail your thing for
  • 33:45 - 33:47
    them and eventually you'll
    figure out sort of universal
  • 33:47 - 33:49
    values that will appeal to a
    lot of other people.
  • 33:49 - 33:51
    So, just start one at a
    time.
  • 33:51 - 33:52
    And.
  • 33:52 - 33:54
    The, a lot of the examples
    that you see up there,
  • 33:54 - 33:55
    a lot of people make the
    mistake is like, oh,
  • 33:55 - 33:57
    I'll just make my app funny.
  • 33:57 - 34:00
    But, humor is like really
    difficult to do.
  • 34:00 - 34:01
    Right?
    What you wanna shoot for
  • 34:01 - 34:02
    is something sort of witty.
  • 34:02 - 34:04
    And, quite honestly,
  • 34:04 - 34:06
    you have to get
    functionality right.
  • 34:06 - 34:07
    So like the Japanese
    quality.
  • 34:07 - 34:10
    If you don't have a on
    there, right, don't try to
  • 34:10 - 34:13
    do anything witty, right,
    cuz it will backfire on you.
  • 34:13 - 34:16
    So hands down, our number
    one focus is make it as
  • 34:16 - 34:18
    easy to use as possible for
    and
  • 34:18 - 34:20
    anything else on top was
    polish.
  • 34:20 - 34:21
    Right here.
  • 34:21 - 34:28
    >> So so everybody says that
    to focus on your product.
  • 34:28 - 34:29
    I'm also good at that.
  • 34:29 - 34:32
    I love to do a project and I
    love to make it the best.
  • 34:32 - 34:35
    But we are to that certain
    point that we are focused on
  • 34:35 - 34:38
    our product but we don't get
    like constantly right?
  • 34:38 - 34:38
    Sorry.
  • 34:38 - 34:42
    So second thing so how much
    we should focus on product?
  • 34:42 - 34:44
    But because we should do now
    marketing.
  • 34:44 - 34:45
    We should get somebody
    customers and
  • 34:45 - 34:48
    like and like start talking
    to customers but
  • 34:48 - 34:50
    when you are too focused on
    your product.
  • 34:50 - 34:53
    Like users online have them.
  • 34:53 - 34:55
    Right, so what exactly do
    you guys mean when you
  • 34:55 - 34:58
    are saying like focus only
    on your product and
  • 34:58 - 34:59
    give the best product?
  • 34:59 - 35:02
    >> Okay.
  • 35:02 - 35:05
    So the question sort of is
    how do we balance this
  • 35:05 - 35:08
    sort of thing where we wanna
    be obsessed with
  • 35:08 - 35:10
    working on product.
  • 35:10 - 35:12
    Yet.
    But all the other skills,
  • 35:12 - 35:15
    and sort of tasks that are
    needed by a company,
  • 35:15 - 35:16
    like marketing and branding
    and
  • 35:16 - 35:18
    all that stuff, and how, how
    we sort of balance that.
  • 35:18 - 35:20
    And the thing is, like, it
    starts off as you juggling,
  • 35:20 - 35:23
    like, tons of things
    constantly in the air.
  • 35:23 - 35:24
    The thing is, if you're
    working on products, like,
  • 35:24 - 35:26
    you should also always have
    this flip side as
  • 35:26 - 35:28
    when you're talking to
    users.
  • 35:28 - 35:29
    Right?
    And for
  • 35:29 - 35:32
    us inside of Wufoo, the way
    we got people to talk to
  • 35:31 - 35:32
    users is they just did
    customer support.
  • 35:32 - 35:35
    And they got to see
    firsthand, right away.
  • 35:35 - 35:36
    Whether that feature sucked
    or not,
  • 35:36 - 35:38
    and also impacted everyone
    else in the company,
  • 35:38 - 35:39
    because everyone had a
    customer support shift.
  • 35:39 - 35:42
    So you have this sort of
    social incentive to sort of
  • 35:42 - 35:43
    make everything work.
  • 35:43 - 35:46
    And so, like I said, there
    should be no point where
  • 35:46 - 35:47
    you're only focused on
    product.
  • 35:47 - 35:49
    You should always have time
    where you work on product,
  • 35:49 - 35:51
    and then you see sort of
    what users say, say to you.
  • 35:51 - 35:53
    And you should always have
    this virtual, like,
  • 35:53 - 35:54
    feedback loop on there.
  • 35:54 - 35:57
    So be careful when you don't
    have that.
  • 35:57 - 35:58
    Usually what ends up
    happening, if you're lucky.
  • 35:59 - 36:01
    In terms of marketing and
  • 36:01 - 36:04
    sales, like, usually my
    feeling is like, you have to
  • 36:04 - 36:06
    spend money on marketing and
    advertising, all this stuff.
  • 36:06 - 36:07
    It's usually a tax you pay
    because you
  • 36:07 - 36:08
    haven't made your product
    remarkable.
  • 36:08 - 36:10
    Right?
  • 36:10 - 36:12
    Word of mouth growth is the
    easiest kind of growth, and
  • 36:12 - 36:14
    it's how a lot of the great
    companies sort of grow.
  • 36:14 - 36:16
    So figure out how to wait,
    how to like,
  • 36:16 - 36:18
    have a story that people
    want to tell.
  • 36:18 - 36:19
    About your product.
  • 36:19 - 36:20
    Where they're the most
    interesting person at
  • 36:20 - 36:22
    the dinner table, right?
  • 36:22 - 36:24
    And then that person is your
    sales person, right?
  • 36:24 - 36:25
    That person is your sales
    force for you.
  • 36:25 - 36:28
    Right here.
  • 36:28 - 36:32
    >> like, where do you find
    crystal clear customer or
  • 36:32 - 36:36
    user need and the demand is
    there is the right solution.
  • 36:36 - 36:38
    How do you communicate with
    engineering and
  • 36:38 - 36:42
    designing team to make sure
    that because sometimes
  • 36:42 - 36:44
    people in the team come up
    with ideas, and but
  • 36:44 - 36:46
    still at the end of the day,
  • 36:46 - 36:48
    how can you make a decision
    with where to go?
  • 36:48 - 36:50
    >> Oh, so how do you make a
    decision on product?
  • 36:52 - 36:53
    And communicate that with
    your sort of
  • 36:53 - 36:54
    engineering team when
    there's like lots of
  • 36:54 - 36:55
    different directions to go?
  • 36:57 - 36:59
    My feeling is that.
  • 37:01 - 37:03
    So for us we just looked at
    support.
  • 37:03 - 37:04
    It was really easy cuz
  • 37:04 - 37:06
    you often just saw what are
    things that
  • 37:06 - 37:08
    people are having the most
    amount of problems with?
  • 37:08 - 37:10
    Or people asking all the
    time.
  • 37:10 - 37:12
    You cannot help but get
    feature requests from
  • 37:12 - 37:14
    people no matter like
    whatever opening or
  • 37:14 - 37:16
    orifice you have in your
    product or app.
  • 37:16 - 37:18
    Like, people will like jam
    feature requests in there.
  • 37:18 - 37:19
    So you're easily going to
  • 37:19 - 37:20
    know sort of what they sort
    of what.
  • 37:20 - 37:22
    Your job as a product person
    and
  • 37:22 - 37:26
    engineer is to not just do
    what they say, because that
  • 37:26 - 37:28
    way, you'll just be a slave,
    is to figure out,
  • 37:28 - 37:31
    sort of deeply, what are the
    reasons why underlying those
  • 37:31 - 37:33
    things and sort of solve
    that deep underlying reason.
  • 37:33 - 37:35
    The thing is that everyone
    wants to
  • 37:35 - 37:36
    have a different way of.
  • 37:36 - 37:38
    To sort of go, then
    ultimately it comes down to,
  • 37:38 - 37:40
    like, someone's gonna figure
    something out.
  • 37:40 - 37:43
    But I also make the smallest
    version of each little idea.
  • 37:43 - 37:47
    No longer than a week or two
    weeks to build it out there.
  • 37:47 - 37:47
    And you can try them out and
  • 37:47 - 37:49
    see sort of what works and
    don't work.
  • 37:49 - 37:51
    I think it's dangerous to
  • 37:51 - 37:52
    have multiple different
    product directions that
  • 37:52 - 37:54
    requires lots of time to
    sort of figure out.
  • 37:55 - 37:56
    Sam.
  • 37:56 - 37:58
    >> Related to that can you
    tell the story of
  • 37:58 - 38:01
    how the king for a day thing
    >> Yeah.
  • 38:01 - 38:02
    Okay.
    So
  • 38:04 - 38:07
    so I don't like hackathons.
  • 38:07 - 38:10
    I think they sort of suck in
    terms of ones done inside
  • 38:10 - 38:10
    of companies.
  • 38:10 - 38:11
    Because.
  • 38:11 - 38:14
    You spend like 48 hours
    working on something really
  • 38:14 - 38:16
    hard that you're sort of
    passionate about and
  • 38:16 - 38:20
    99% of them never make it to
    production right, and
  • 38:20 - 38:22
    it's sort, sort of real like
    super sad.
  • 38:22 - 38:24
    So for us we like flipped it
    on it's head and
  • 38:24 - 38:26
    we came up with an idea that
    we called king for
  • 38:26 - 38:29
    a day and it actually worked
    over the weekend.
  • 38:29 - 38:32
    But how it worked is someone
    randomly in the company got
  • 38:32 - 38:35
    drawn and they got to be the
    king, and the king got to
  • 38:35 - 38:36
    tell everyone else what to
    do on the product.
  • 38:36 - 38:40
    So everything that was
    bothering them about Wufoo.
  • 38:40 - 38:41
    About the customer support
    stuff, or
  • 38:41 - 38:43
    some feature they really
    want to have built.
  • 38:43 - 38:44
    They've got the engineering
    resources, the market
  • 38:44 - 38:47
    resources, the advertising
    resources of everyone inside
  • 38:47 - 38:49
    of the company, to make it
    sort of happen.
  • 38:49 - 38:50
    And of course, we'd work
    with them to
  • 38:50 - 38:53
    figure out like what can be
    actually done in 48 hours.
  • 38:53 - 38:57
    But we would do this one to
    two times a year.
  • 38:57 - 38:58
    And it was like a huge hit
    and
  • 38:58 - 39:00
    it was a boost to morale,
    cuz what people most love.
  • 39:00 - 39:03
    It is like working on things
    where it's like, oh,
  • 39:03 - 39:04
    I made a difference to the
    app.
  • 39:05 - 39:06
    Right?
  • 39:06 - 39:09
    And so, for us, that's one
    way that we would like
  • 39:09 - 39:11
    sort of divide time for like
    product direction.
  • 39:11 - 39:14
    It's like some times the
    people that work for
  • 39:13 - 39:15
    you, they have a strong
    opinion about where it,
  • 39:15 - 39:15
    where it should go.
  • 39:15 - 39:18
    And it's a good way to sort
    of democratize it
  • 39:18 - 39:19
    a little bit, by rotating it
    around.
  • 39:21 - 39:22
    Yes.
  • 39:22 - 39:24
    >> You said you guys all
    work from home.
  • 39:24 - 39:25
    Usually seems like a
    nightmare.
  • 39:25 - 39:28
    In that office, how do you
    make that work?
  • 39:28 - 39:29
    >> Okay, so we all work from
    home.
  • 39:29 - 39:30
    So, I will tell you this.
  • 39:30 - 39:32
    We all still work within the
    Tampa Bay area.
  • 39:32 - 39:33
    We would allow anybody to
  • 39:33 - 39:35
    work from any where but
    usually.
  • 39:35 - 39:36
    As we tried to recruit
    them,they sort of
  • 39:36 - 39:38
    meet our team, and they just
    decide,
  • 39:38 - 39:40
    okay we just want to come
    and move here anyway.
  • 39:42 - 39:47
    Remote working, is
    especially tricky,
  • 39:47 - 39:48
    a lot of people like to
    romanticize it,
  • 39:48 - 39:50
    especially people, who are
    like employees.
  • 39:50 - 39:54
    But the thing is, An office
    gives you a lot of, sort of,
  • 39:54 - 39:57
    benefits, right, and
    efficiencies that you now
  • 39:57 - 39:59
    have to compensate for when
    you remote working.
  • 39:59 - 40:01
    But remote working also has
    these other sort of
  • 40:01 - 40:03
    efficiencies in place, for
    example,
  • 40:03 - 40:05
    I don't have to worry about
    my employees losing two
  • 40:05 - 40:08
    hours of their day to
    commuting, for instance.
  • 40:08 - 40:09
    So the biggest thing that we
    had to do for
  • 40:09 - 40:12
    remote working is to respect
    people's time.
  • 40:12 - 40:14
    And so the way we had it set
    up is we actually had
  • 40:14 - 40:16
    a four and a half day work
    week at Wufoo.
  • 40:16 - 40:19
    Half day on Friday was for
    all the meetings and stuff.
  • 40:19 - 40:21
    We said like no business
    deal,
  • 40:21 - 40:23
    meetings, no talking with
    other outside parties.
  • 40:23 - 40:26
    They all have to be done on
    Friday, on that half day.
  • 40:26 - 40:27
    It couldn't be done in the
    middle of the week.
  • 40:27 - 40:29
    And then also one day of
    everyone was
  • 40:29 - 40:31
    already dedicated customer
    support.
  • 40:31 - 40:33
    So everyone in our company
    effectively only had
  • 40:33 - 40:35
    three days each week to
    actually build or
  • 40:35 - 40:37
    work on whatever they were
    doing.
  • 40:37 - 40:38
    But I actually firmly
    believe that if you
  • 40:38 - 40:41
    have three solid days,
    right, eight to ten hours,
  • 40:41 - 40:43
    where you are only working
    on what you need to build,
  • 40:43 - 40:45
    you can get a ton of shit
    done.
  • 40:45 - 40:48
    And so what we said was,
  • 40:48 - 40:49
    you have to respect
    everyone's time during that
  • 40:49 - 40:51
    three day period, if they're
    in that three day period.
  • 40:51 - 40:53
    And what we came up with is
    a 15 minute rule and the way
  • 40:53 - 40:57
    it worked is you can have a
    discussion like a chat or
  • 40:57 - 40:59
    a phone call or whatever
    with someone but it could go
  • 40:59 - 41:02
    no longer than 15 minutes so
    if you have some complicated
  • 41:02 - 41:04
    issue that you couldn't
    figure out we'd say,
  • 41:04 - 41:07
    at 15 minutes you are to
    immediately table that item.
  • 41:07 - 41:10
    Right and have us discuss it
    on Friday and
  • 41:10 - 41:13
    you'd move on to the next
    item on your list right,
  • 41:13 - 41:14
    the enhanced productivity.
  • 41:16 - 41:18
    More often than not I, I
    would say 90% of the time
  • 41:18 - 41:20
    the item never got brought
    up on Friday because usually
  • 41:20 - 41:23
    what would happen is people
    would sleep on it and then
  • 41:23 - 41:26
    they'd just magically say
    like, hey I found a solution
  • 41:26 - 41:28
    or like hey that's not a big
    problem whatsoever.
  • 41:29 - 41:31
    Because most problems inside
    of companies,
  • 41:31 - 41:34
    they don't need to be solved
    in real time, or right away.
  • 41:34 - 41:37
    The only things are like
    when the site is down, or
  • 41:37 - 41:38
    payments aren't working.
  • 41:38 - 41:39
    Right?
    Everything outside of
  • 41:39 - 41:43
    that is basically kind of
    luxury, so
  • 41:43 - 41:46
    focus on your primaries as
    much as possible.
  • 41:46 - 41:46
    And, as a result,
  • 41:46 - 41:48
    our ten person team did far
    more than many,
  • 41:48 - 41:51
    many other companies, as a
    result.
  • 41:51 - 41:55
    But, it takes extra work to
    make remote working happen.
  • 41:55 - 41:58
    We are an extremely
    disciplined sort of team.
  • 41:58 - 41:58
    And I would have to say
  • 42:00 - 42:03
    there's almost not many YC
    companies that actually have
  • 42:03 - 42:04
    been able to replicate sort
    of what we do.
  • 42:04 - 42:06
    I think there's only two
    other companies in YC that
  • 42:06 - 42:10
    sort of have the same sort
    of discipline working style.
  • 42:10 - 42:12
    It takes more work in a very
    different fashion.
  • 42:12 - 42:12
    Right?
  • 42:12 - 42:15
    An office allows you to be a
    little bit lazier, right,
  • 42:15 - 42:17
    in terms of all these things
    around productivity.
  • 42:21 - 42:22
    Okay.
    Over here.
  • 42:22 - 42:23
    >> Right.
  • 42:23 - 42:26
    Just to go off that question
    as the leader of the team
  • 42:26 - 42:30
    how did you manage to
    instill a company culture
  • 42:30 - 42:31
    but and also the count,
  • 42:31 - 42:34
    accountability the employees
    especially cuz.
  • 42:34 - 42:36
    Working space.
  • 42:36 - 42:39
    >> Okay, how do we, how do
    we set up accountability for
  • 42:39 - 42:39
    employees?
  • 42:39 - 42:40
    As, as a manager.
  • 42:40 - 42:44
    Alright, so, at Wufoo we
    were profitable nine months
  • 42:44 - 42:47
    after launch, so, we had
    profit sharing, right?
  • 42:47 - 42:50
    And so, it makes pretty
    simple and clear.
  • 42:50 - 42:53
    It, it would be a multiple
    of whatever bonus pull that
  • 42:53 - 42:54
    we sort of had, and
  • 42:54 - 42:57
    the performance measures
    would be based on sort of,
  • 42:57 - 42:58
    how they did in customer
    support.
  • 42:58 - 43:00
    All right, on their duties
    there, and sort of
  • 43:00 - 43:03
    what they said they were
    wanting to accomplish or do.
  • 43:03 - 43:05
    I don't like process, and I
    don't like lots of
  • 43:05 - 43:07
    tools to help get people to
    be productive.
  • 43:07 - 43:09
    So the only thing that we
    had for
  • 43:09 - 43:10
    helping people manage, like,
  • 43:10 - 43:12
    sort of their projects, is
    to-do lists.
  • 43:12 - 43:14
    And that is, like, simple
    text files that we
  • 43:14 - 43:15
    shared in our Dropbox
    account.
  • 43:15 - 43:17
    Each person had their name
    on it, and you got to
  • 43:17 - 43:20
    see every time somebody
    updated their to-do list.
  • 43:20 - 43:22
    What we said is every single
    night just
  • 43:22 - 43:23
    set everything that you did
    that day.
  • 43:23 - 43:24
    Right?
    And then on Friday,
  • 43:24 - 43:25
    we would just go over.
  • 43:25 - 43:26
    Okay, this is what you
  • 43:26 - 43:27
    said last week that you're
    gonna do.
  • 43:27 - 43:28
    This is what you actually
    got done, or
  • 43:28 - 43:29
    the sort of the problems at
    hand.
  • 43:29 - 43:31
    And it's super simple,
    right?
  • 43:31 - 43:34
    It creates this like nice
    written trail for
  • 43:34 - 43:36
    how to sort of handle stuff,
    right?
  • 43:36 - 43:38
    And I don't have to worry
    about managing them, right?
  • 43:38 - 43:39
    They sorta set the tone for
  • 43:39 - 43:42
    how they want to be sort of
    assessed.
  • 43:42 - 43:43
    And it makes it really
    simple.
  • 43:43 - 43:45
    And for people who are
    excellent at what they do.
  • 43:45 - 43:47
    Right?
    It works very, very well.
  • 43:48 - 43:49
    And then when you actually
    have problems,
  • 43:49 - 43:51
    it's very easy to fire
    people.
  • 43:51 - 43:52
    I was fortunate that I
  • 43:52 - 43:54
    never had to fire anyone at
    Wufoo, right?
  • 43:54 - 43:55
    But we were able to correct
    a lot of
  • 43:55 - 43:58
    people's behavior very, very
    quickly.
  • 43:58 - 43:59
    Cuz we just kinda look at
    this, and
  • 43:59 - 44:00
    it's like look, this is your
    pattern of behavior.
  • 44:00 - 44:03
    You finish a fraction of the
    items on your list.
  • 44:03 - 44:04
    You do most of
  • 44:04 - 44:06
    the items at the last second
    right before Friday.
  • 44:06 - 44:07
    That's a problem, you've
    gotta manage your time
  • 44:07 - 44:10
    better and this is evidence
    that you've provided to us.
  • 44:10 - 44:12
    All we have to do is sort of
    describe it back to you and
  • 44:12 - 44:15
    because everyone in the
    company sort of sees it,
  • 44:15 - 44:16
    right, there's social
    pressure that's put
  • 44:16 - 44:18
    into place that helps make
    it all sort of happen.
  • 44:20 - 44:21
    Right here.
  • 44:21 - 44:23
    >> How did you hire people
    that, you know,
  • 44:23 - 44:26
    you felt would be able to
    work with in this kind of
  • 44:26 - 44:28
    environment that's, that's
    >> So,
  • 44:28 - 44:32
    how do you hire people that
    can work, remotely?
  • 44:32 - 44:34
    And then sort of work in
    this sort of fashion.
  • 44:34 - 44:36
    So, pretty easily,
  • 44:36 - 44:38
    you have them work on a side
    project for you.
  • 44:38 - 44:39
    So you contract them out,
    and
  • 44:39 - 44:41
    they have to work remotely.
  • 44:41 - 44:43
    As such, usually, the
    projects I like to
  • 44:43 - 44:45
    have them work on is about a
    month long, right?
  • 44:45 - 44:47
    I could do things much
    faster for a week.
  • 44:47 - 44:48
    But usually get a good sense
    of,
  • 44:48 - 44:50
    like, how well people sort
    of manage themselves, and
  • 44:50 - 44:52
    work on things from a
    project like that.
  • 44:52 - 44:54
    So that was always the first
    assessment.
  • 44:54 - 44:56
    Like we never did anything
    just by interviews.
  • 44:57 - 45:00
    The other thing we had to,
    sort of, screen them for
  • 45:00 - 45:01
    is their ability to do
    customer support.
  • 45:01 - 45:02
    Because not any,
  • 45:02 - 45:06
    every engineer sort of has
    the empathy skills to
  • 45:06 - 45:08
    handle that stress.
  • 45:08 - 45:12
    So sometimes I would have
    people write breakup letters
  • 45:12 - 45:14
    to me, right, in an
    interview, just like hey,
  • 45:14 - 45:17
    pretend you have to break up
    with me you have 15 minutes
  • 45:17 - 45:19
    to write in on there and you
    can only write it by hand,
  • 45:19 - 45:22
    what are you gonna say?
  • 45:22 - 45:24
    And so you get a good sense
    of sort of their writing
  • 45:24 - 45:26
    skills, because like 90% of
    what you do in customer
  • 45:26 - 45:28
    support is tell them bad
    news, like, oh, we don't
  • 45:28 - 45:31
    support that feature, sorry
    that's not gonna work, or.
  • 45:31 - 45:33
    It's not gonna be available.
  • 45:33 - 45:34
    And so people have to have
    sort of tacked at that.
  • 45:34 - 45:36
    >> How 'bout one more
    question?
  • 45:36 - 45:39
    >> One question, right here
    the glasses.
  • 45:39 - 45:40
    >> So, since Wiki has all
    these like tricks and
  • 45:40 - 45:43
    experiments that have really
    helped the company.
  • 45:43 - 45:45
    Do you INAUDIBLE] of ones
    that didn't work out?
  • 45:45 - 45:46
    >> Have all these tricks and
  • 45:46 - 45:47
    experiments to help the
    company,
  • 45:47 - 45:49
    are there any ones that
    didn't work out?
  • 45:50 - 45:52
    All right, I'll talk about
    one.
  • 45:52 - 45:55
    So one of the things that we
    did early on to try to
  • 45:55 - 45:57
    motivate ourselves was try
    to get,
  • 45:59 - 46:01
    like we understood this idea
    of like crunch mode and
  • 46:01 - 46:03
    that it's really bad for
    people.
  • 46:03 - 46:04
    Like if you're doing the
    subscription business you
  • 46:04 - 46:06
    need people to last for the
    long term, and
  • 46:06 - 46:08
    video games a lot of times
    they like crunch people.
  • 46:08 - 46:10
    All, all the time.
  • 46:10 - 46:11
    For like a specific deadline
    or
  • 46:11 - 46:13
    have multiple sprints every
    two weeks and
  • 46:13 - 46:14
    you have to shoot up to this
    deadline and
  • 46:14 - 46:15
    it's like exhausting.
  • 46:15 - 46:18
    And so, because, when it's
    happening it's like you
  • 46:18 - 46:19
    might get an increase in
    productivity but
  • 46:19 - 46:20
    the recovery period that you
    need for people is
  • 46:20 - 46:24
    always greater, right, than
    the productivity you gain.
  • 46:24 - 46:25
    And at a company where you
  • 46:25 - 46:26
    need everyone doing customer
    support and
  • 46:26 - 46:27
    being on their game and
    constantly put, pushed out
  • 46:27 - 46:30
    features you don't have time
    for recovery.
  • 46:30 - 46:33
    So, we were thinking about,
    okay, we want to build like,
  • 46:33 - 46:37
    a company vacation into how
    Wufoo sort of works to
  • 46:37 - 46:38
    reward our users every
    single year.
  • 46:38 - 46:39
    And we said okay,
  • 46:39 - 46:40
    if the vacation is sort of
    built in there for
  • 46:40 - 46:43
    the recovery, we could have
    one crunch period, right,
  • 46:43 - 46:44
    before that vacation set up.
  • 46:44 - 46:46
    And we'll just only do
    customer support that will
  • 46:46 - 46:48
    just sort of scale with
    people.
  • 46:48 - 46:49
    So.
  • 46:49 - 46:56
    The way we did the very
    first crunch mode
  • 46:56 - 46:57
    is that it was just between
    the three founders.
  • 46:57 - 47:01
    And we had each of us draw a
    ten-item to-do list.
  • 47:01 - 47:02
    That would be fairly
    aggressive.
  • 47:02 - 47:03
    And the first person to
  • 47:03 - 47:06
    get through seven of their
    items would win.
  • 47:06 - 47:07
    And the the last person to
  • 47:07 - 47:09
    get through seven of their
    items.
  • 47:09 - 47:11
    Would become what we called
    trippage.
  • 47:11 - 47:13
    And trippage meant that you
    carried other
  • 47:13 - 47:16
    person's luggage and got
    people drinks when you're on
  • 47:16 - 47:16
    the company vacation.
  • 47:18 - 47:22
    So we did that and during
    that period,
  • 47:22 - 47:23
    everyone was like pretty
    excited about it and
  • 47:23 - 47:25
    motivated, and only the
    winner got to
  • 47:25 - 47:28
    choose the next company
    vacation the following year.
  • 47:28 - 47:31
    And then all the sudden Ryan
    had basically poorly
  • 47:31 - 47:33
    estimated the items on his
    list.
  • 47:34 - 47:36
    And he realized very quickly
    I'm going to fucking lose.
  • 47:36 - 47:39
    And so he was just like I
    give up.
  • 47:39 - 47:40
    And he just sort of stopped.
  • 47:40 - 47:42
    So crunch mode turned out to
    be blah mode for
  • 47:42 - 47:44
    him because he knew he was
    gonna lose and
  • 47:44 - 47:46
    became pretty demoralized.
  • 47:46 - 47:47
    So as a result of doing
    that, we
  • 47:47 - 47:50
    decided not to do it in that
    similar fashion anymore.
  • 47:50 - 47:53
    So, good idea that we like
    to talk about.
  • 47:53 - 47:54
    But is one that we, we never
    did again.
  • 47:55 - 47:56
    All right, guys.
  • 47:56 - 47:57
    Thanks a lot.
  • 47:57 - 47:59
    You can email me at kevin@
Title:
Lecture 7 - How to Build Products Users Love (Kevin Hale)
Description:

Lecture Transcript: http://tech.genius.com/Kevin-hale-lecture-7-how-to-build-products-users-love-part-i-annotated

Kevin Hale, Founder of Wufoo and Partner at Y Combinator, explains how to build products that create a passionate user base invested in your startup's success.

See the slides and readings at startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec07/

Discuss this lecture: https://startupclass.co/courses/how-to-start-a-startup/lectures/64036

This video is under Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/

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Video Language:
English
Team:
PACE
Duration:
48:02

English subtitles

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