July 2017 Summaries

To bolster customer onboarding with video, creating screencasts can be an effective way to show off a product and set new users up for success. The benefits include reduced customer queries, improved understanding of the product, and increased impact of product launches. Despite common misconceptions that creating screencasts is too hard or time-consuming, it's actually achievable with basic editing skills and a well-written script. Key tips for creating great-looking customer onboarding screencasts include having product knowledge first, writing a concise script, keeping the video short and focused, learning from experts, recording high-quality audio, and applying polish to the final touches. By following these steps and practicing, developers can create effective screencasts that enhance their product's onboarding process.

Having worked in various customer-facing roles, the author emphasizes the importance of making the customer support experience more human. They argue that Intercom's conversational support platform allows for a more personal approach, where customers can feel understood and empathized with. The author suggests five tips to achieve this: finding "signs of life" such as asking how someone is doing, owning up to mistakes, embracing emojis and GIFs, not forcing it, and looking beyond conversations to gather insights that the product team may miss. By adopting these human-centered approaches, customer support teams can deliver next-level support, build trust with customers, and ultimately drive business growth.

Tension in product teams is essential for success, as it encourages competing forces that make the team stronger. A well-functioning team can reduce tension into simple, competing factors, and complex problems are often expressed as triangles with multiple conflicting elements. The strength of a team lies in its ability to balance competing tensions, much like a geodesic dome, which achieves incredible tensional integrity through its specific arrangement of struts. Exceptional teams are made up of individuals who reach out beyond their traditional roles, holding each other accountable and pushing against one another to create something great, with trust and ego checks paramount. The right amount of healthy tension can create a team capable of resolving complex problems while remaining strong.

At Intercom, researchers are embedded in product teams to maximize their impact. This allows them to work closely with the team and influence decisions, rather than being relegated to a "step" in the process. The company uses a flexible approach that adapts to the maturity of its products, choosing between a lean research approach for new products and an iterative research approach for established ones. Lean research is about creating value with limited resources, focusing on reducing risk and evaluating features, while iterative research aims to evaluate and refine the usability of a product, optimizing design for conversions. Both approaches can be valuable depending on the stage of product development and the needs of the team. By letting product maturity guide the decision-making process and choosing an approach that fits the team's needs, researchers can achieve greater impact and make a more significant difference in the products they work on.

The traditional engineering career path, characterized by a T-shaped distribution of skills, where breadth and depth are equally important, is being transformed by the rapid pace of technological change. Engineers will need to adapt quickly to new technologies and be open to learning newer skills, rather than focusing on a single area of expertise for an extended period. The rise of "endless newbies" means that engineers will need to have a wider base of skills and knowledge, with less emphasis on vertical depth in any one technology. This shift requires engineers to be more agile and adaptable, embracing cross-pollination of skillsets and being willing to unlearn existing skills as new technologies emerge. The goal is not to become a worse engineer, but rather to become better equipped to deal with the changing landscape, by learning new things quickly and adapting to new changes.

You're not in the business of building bridges for individual drivers to access their river-side homes; instead, focus on creating a permanent solution to problems. As a startup, obsess over growth and keeping churn low, as losing any paying customer hurts more than gaining one. When dealing with customer requests, some are easy calls like discounts or refunds, while others involve complex issues like missing features or technical workarounds. Saying "no" to these requests is crucial, even if it's tempting to accommodate every customer, as it sets realistic expectations and avoids setting bad precedents. Instead of temporary fixes, focus on building scalable solutions that will bring in revenue over time, forcing you to focus your engineering time on a better product that will win and retain more customers in the long run.

Every company needs to hire people, but startups often need to hire faster and in more bulk than any other types of companies. Rapid growth or an influx of investor money might mean that you will need to recruit an entire team of engineers or account executives in one quarter. To avoid errors and damaging results, startups should structure their interview process for each role they're hiring for. This helps build the hiring brand, develops good interview habits, and thoroughly vets candidates. Defining competencies is a crucial step before the actual interview process, where you establish what skills, attributes, and experience the person will need to have in order to reach the objectives set for them. Preparing candidates before they come in for an interview also helps, by explaining areas of competency that each interview session will cover and sending relevant resources. Collecting valuable interview feedback from a group debrief meeting with multiple interviewers can provide invaluable information on the candidate's profile. By applying structure to the hiring process from the start, startups can understand exactly who they need to hire and how to evaluate for the right types of skills, enabling them to set the right expectations in their role.

Growing your team by focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses can be a challenging but effective approach. To achieve this, it's essential to first categorize the most important traits that you consider crucial for your team, such as leadership, expert execution, strategy and planning, and cultural alignment. By understanding these traits, you can identify areas where your team members excel and amplify their strengths. This approach not only helps to increase the overall strength of your team but also encourages individuals to grow in areas where they are naturally strong, leading to a more positive and empowering experience for them. However, there is a cost associated with amplifying strengths, including tolerating lack-of-strength in some areas, which requires careful consideration and judgment. By following these steps and having a clear understanding of your team's needs, you can build a healthy and happy team that is performing to its full potential.

Scrutiny is a type of conversation with customers that challenges your vision and understanding of your product's functionality and use cases, helping you focus on both growth and product/market fit. It involves talking to people who are not in your "sweet spot" and pushing your boundaries, revealing opportunities for growth and shedding light on areas of your product with questions that typical customers may not be asking. Scrutiny can also help you identify your limits confidently, understand why you're saying no to certain features or functionality, and uncover new features that align well with your vision. By seeking out scrutiny, you can balance working on product market fit with discovering ways to grow into new markets, such as those in industries moving to the web.

AvoToast.io, a startup in San Francisco that delivers on-demand avocado toast, used online advertising to fuel its growth but struggled with effective ad campaigns. To overcome this, the company had to get personal with its audience by serving ads that matched their intent and interests. The key to success was understanding what customers were searching for and creating targeted ads and landing pages that resonated with them. By using data from platforms like Intercom, AvoToast.io was able to create intentional audiences and deliver personalized ads that converted users into customers. This approach not only improved ad profitability but also enabled the company to scale its advertising significantly.