Episode 38: Digital Transformations Built for Humanity

Episode 39: The World of the Technical Marketer

Cara Fischer from Ibotta shares the world of the Technical Marketer. Rather than her focus being on strategic messaging and campaign building, she gets her hands dirty with webhooks, paginated HTML in-app messages, and Liquid personalization. Listen in to learn more about the technology behind great customer experiences. *Hosted by Taylor Gibb and PJ Bruno LIVE at LTR 2019* TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:17] PJ Bruno: Hi again. Welcome back to Braze for Impact, your MarTech industry discussed digest. We're back again with another episode of our humanity series. So thrilled to have with us today, Cara Fischer, who is on the Marketing Automation team at Ibotta. [0:00:33] Cara Fischer: Hi everyone. How's it going? [0:00:34] PJ Bruno: So good. Thanks for being here. And also with me to my right, good friend and coworker from the success orb, Taylor Gibb. [0:00:42] Taylor Gibb: The success orb, coming to you live. [0:00:44] PJ Bruno: I'm trying to make that stick. It's an orb, we think spherical, we think- [0:00:46] Taylor Gibb: Yeah. We're in there, we're ideating. This is what the podcast booth is all about. And thank God, Cara is here with us to witness this innovation. [0:00:55] PJ Bruno: Exactly. Cara, thanks again for carving out some time with us. So you're from Ibotta, so for folks out there who don't know, why don't you give them a little snippet of, what is Ibotta's mission? What do you guys do? What's your focus? [0:01:07] Cara Fischer: Sure. So Ibotta is at its root, a rewarded shopping ecosystem, if you will. We provide real cash back rewards for shoppers and users who use our app. And I think that's really important to them that it's not some confusing points system where you have to do the translation, like a hundred points is a dollar or something like that. If we tell you you're going to get $2 back, that's exactly what you're going to get. We have writer... Sorry, we have users who write into us every day on our social channels and whatnot, telling us how they're Ibotta earnings help them with their day to day lives. Maybe they had an unexpected car repair that they needed to pay for, or they wanted to take their family on a vacation or wanted to buy gifts for their children for the holidays or something. And that's how Ibotta helps them. [0:01:53] PJ Bruno: Nice. [0:01:54] Cara Fischer: And then on the other side, where marketing comes in is we have so many offers in the app and how do these users, if they don't have the time to go through the app all day, marketing, with the help of Braze, can surface the content that's relevant to them. And use our learnings to personalize the content so we can get those offers in front of them. [0:02:15] Taylor Gibb: Wow. [0:02:15] PJ Bruno: Love it. That's great. Talk about humanity too. You guys are bringing this to these busy users who may not be able to get the impact of your app by going in every day. I think that that's a very thoughtful way to approach your messaging. And it sounds like you're really making a difference in people's lives. [0:02:29] PJ Bruno: I love it. But you mentioned before we started that you were very much on the technical side of things. So you're not going to tell us about crafting a message today. You're going to tell us about something different. [0:02:39] Cara Fischer: Absolutely. So we use Braze webhooks in a few different ways to bring new content to our users. One of the ways we do that is we connect the webhooks with our internal database, and we're actually able to trigger new rewards for users based on their actions or inactions. So an example, maybe we have a new product piece and we're trying to push forward adoption of it. If a user tries it out for the first time, and then maybe they don't try it out for a second time for another three days, we can automatically trigger a new incentive, a bonus for them to try it out again. We can also do it if they've never tried it and maybe they're 20 days after registering and we want them to try a piece of the app that they haven't tried, we can make an incentive for them. [0:03:31] Taylor Gibb: Wow. That's so advanced. I got to say, I'm geeking out as a member of the success team. Using webhooks for something like that. [0:03:37] PJ Bruno: Webhook is serious. [0:03:39] Taylor Gibb: Inspired. [0:03:39] PJ Bruno: That's sophisticated business. [0:03:40] Taylor Gibb: Inspired. I think that's great. And so it sounds like you've got, users have purchased X item or maybe have not done X engagement in a while. Do you build journeys and personas based on these as well? Or is this just kind of action-based learnings? [0:03:57] Cara Fischer: It's definitely very action-based. I believe in the future, we are looking into more journeys. We do use a few nurture tracks based on different purchases you make, whether maybe you purchase from an apparel retailer or a travel retailer. If you bought a flight through us, we have an idea that you're going to be traveling soon so we can send you messages based on that. [0:04:19] Taylor Gibb: That's so great. And I also have to say, geeking out again, that your Canvas flow for onboarding is one that I like to kind of tout to all of my customers and tell them to go download the app and see how warmly they're welcomed in. [0:04:33] Cara Fischer: Oh, that's fantastic. [0:04:33] Taylor Gibb: So you guys are doing great. [0:04:35] PJ Bruno: She brags about it. She knows intimately your Canvas flows. [0:04:38] Taylor Gibb: Absolutely. I dream about them at night. It's really, I'm just defending your Colorado stance as well. As a fellow Coloradan, we got to stick together. [0:04:46] PJ Bruno: That's good. Buds for life. Well, since you mentioned webhooks, I mean, we're already in the vein. Let's talk multichannel approach. [0:04:53] Taylor Gibb: Nice. [0:04:54] PJ Bruno: You guys go across many different channels. So how do you leverage the channels that you do have to reach users and regenerate interest when they've gone silent? [0:05:04] Cara Fischer: Well, I'm glad you brought up Canvas. We made that transition to using disparate Campaigns, to using Canvas for our early life cycle about a year ago. And I'm so glad we made that change because it's so much easier to iterate when you're using a Canvas. We definitely use the full suite of emails, pushes, in app messages. We have been recently using custom HTML paginated or swipeable in app messages. [0:05:30] Taylor Gibb: Yeah. [0:05:31] Cara Fischer: And I think those are performing really well, especially when we have new pieces of the app that we want to educate our savers about. [0:05:37] PJ Bruno: Wow. [0:05:38] Cara Fischer: Yes. And we have a joke on our team, can we do it with webhooks? It's just a thing we talk about all the time. As the more technical side of the team, as opposed to the marketing strategy. [0:05:53] PJ Bruno: Right. [0:05:54] Cara Fischer: Different members of our team will come up to me and be like, "Can we perk it in this way?" And I'm like, "I think I can do it with a webhook." [0:05:59] PJ Bruno: Right, right. It's cool, because a webhook, it's almost like a gorilla approach. It's kind of strapping things together, but in the same token, it is automation and it can scale if you do it the right way. [0:06:12] Taylor Gibb: And so I'm curious to hear about the ways in which you interact with your marketing team. As being on this tech team, it sounds like you guys have a good thing going, right? They're saying, "We're going to provide some messaging. We're going to be building all these different automations, but we want you to help us iterate on the best way to optimize this." Is that the way that things kind of go? [0:06:30] Cara Fischer: Yes, I would say so. I really value the way Ibotta's marketing team is set up. We're very specialized, where I work very technically and can provide that kind of consulting with other members of our team. [0:06:45] PJ Bruno: Love it. [0:06:45] Cara Fischer: And we do try to cross train a little bit so that they understand some of our capabilities, but I think the specialized roles really help everyone to get really good at what they're doing rather than a jack of all trades type of marketing team. [0:06:58] Taylor Gibb: Totally. You guys are like the Avengers of marketing over there. [0:07:02] PJ Bruno: So what do you guys see as far as expansion into channels? Is there anything that's on the docket for next to explore? I mean, the fact that you're talking about HTML, I mean to me, when someone says they're doing HTML anything, I'm like, "That's a sophisticated team. They're probably doing it the right way." So I'd love to hear what you guys are looking to the future and what's exciting. [0:07:21] Cara Fischer: We actually are building out our HTML dev team on our... So we don't even have to worry about that so much. [0:07:29] Taylor Gibb: That's ideal. [0:07:29] PJ Bruno: Let's go. [0:07:29] Cara Fischer: Yeah, it's really tremendous. We're very fortunate for that. Next, we're definitely excited to use content cards. We're learning more about SMS, as you all are developing that tool. [0:07:41] Taylor Gibb: SMS, that's the hot topic today. [0:07:43] Cara Fischer: Yeah. And we partner with Radar, a third party geolocation provider. [0:07:51] PJ Bruno: Love it. [0:07:52] Cara Fischer: And they just released a new piece to their product where we can look at segments of users who are frequenting different locations and target our content with that. [0:08:04] PJ Bruno: Nick Patrick at Radar, they're doing a great thing over there. [0:08:07] Cara Fischer: Mm-hmm (affirmative). [0:08:07] Taylor Gibb: That's one of our Braze alloys too. And the ability to segment based on people's habitual going to different locations, do you have any plans for that? Are you going to target someone like me, who is ironically addicted to Target the store, differently than you would someone at Walmart or something like that? [0:08:23] Cara Fischer: Most likely. I probably can't speak too much to that just because of my role of being less the marketing strategy. [0:08:31] PJ Bruno: She's winking right now. You can't see that but she knows. She's just not going to tell us. [0:08:35] Cara Fischer: But I am excited when the rest of our team says, "Cara, we want to do this with the new Radar feature. Can we do it?" And then I'll get to test it out, write the Liquid. Excited for that. [0:08:47] PJ Bruno: I love it. [0:08:48] Taylor Gibb: You're writing the Liquid too? [0:08:49] PJ Bruno: Oh, you're writing the Liquid? [0:08:49] Cara Fischer: Oh, yes. [0:08:49] PJ Bruno: Wow. [0:08:50] Cara Fischer: I guess we haven't talked about that yet. [0:08:53] PJ Bruno: We haven't talked about that. [0:08:53] Cara Fischer: Yes, all about the Liquid. [0:08:53] PJ Bruno: We both, we love Liquid. [0:08:55] Taylor Gibb: We live in Liquid. [0:08:56] PJ Bruno: I did a speaking session at LTR last year on Liquid. She wrote the book on Liquid. You did. I mean, she wrote the updated deck to train ourselves internally on Liquid. [0:09:07] Taylor Gibb: That's more like it. Yeah. [0:09:08] PJ Bruno: For those of you who don't know, Liquid is a templating language created by Shopify back in 2006. But it's so cool. [0:09:16] Cara Fischer: Is it that old? [0:09:17] PJ Bruno: It is that old, yeah. [0:09:17] Cara Fischer: I had no idea. [0:09:17] Taylor Gibb: It is, yeah. [0:09:18] Cara Fischer: Okay, wow. [0:09:18] PJ Bruno: Fact check me if you want. [0:09:20] Taylor Gibb: Constantly iterating though. [0:09:21] PJ Bruno: That was literally copy paste from my deck. So it just stuck. [0:09:23] Taylor Gibb: The more you know. [0:09:25] PJ Bruno: That's just so cool though because it makes sense to me now, because you're a tech person, you deal with Liquid. But in my head, I guess I just want to facilitate marketers and crafters of messages to be able to use it too. But that's rad. You're a consultancy within your company, basically. [0:09:43] Cara Fischer: I love that. [0:09:44] PJ Bruno: You love that, don't you? [0:09:46] Taylor Gibb: Somebody get this girl a raise. [0:09:48] PJ Bruno: That's brilliant. Cool. Well Cara, thank you so much for joining us for this brief moment in time to share with us what you're doing at Ibotta. [0:09:55] Cara Fischer: Thanks y'all. [0:09:56] PJ Bruno: And Taylor, always, thank you for the company. Thank you for the color commentary. Thank you, my compatriot. [0:10:01] Taylor Gibb: Oh my gosh. Anytime. [0:10:02] PJ Bruno: And thank you all for joining us. Take care. [0:10:05]

Episode 38: Digital Transformations Built for Humanity

Andrew Cordes, UK CEO at Alite International, joins us to shed light on digital transformation, giving insight into the consultant's role in not just creating additional capability and capacity, but also turning companies into responsive organizations built for change. *Hosted by Dave Goldstein and PJ Bruno LIVE at LTR 2019*

Episode 37: Big Ideas Are For Everyone

Mai Tran, CRM Manager at Blinkist, gives us a glimpse into the Blinkist company mission behind snackable insights. We also delve into the shift we're seeing in KPI focuses, and the power of personalization and recommendation engines. *Hosted by Taylor Gibb and PJ Bruno LIVE at LTR 2019* TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:16] Taylor Gibb: Are we recording? [0:00:18] PJ Bruno: We're live. We are fire right now. So whenever you want to give us the kick off. [0:00:23] Taylor Gibb: Oh, fire flames. All right, here I go. I'm going to probably say it wrong. Welcome back to Braze for Impact. Remember guys, this is the MarTech Industry Discuss Digest, and we're right in the middle of our humanities series. This means we're talking to some really interesting people who use Braze. We actually are at LTR right now recording. My name is Taylor Gibb. I'm a CSM on the Braze team. Across from me here is Mai Tran who was at Blinkist as a CRM manager. Mai, it's so good to meet you. [0:00:53] Mai Tran: Nice to meet you too. [0:00:55] Taylor Gibb: And to my left, as ever, we've got PJ Bruno who runs Client Education of Braze. PJ, how's it going? [0:01:02] PJ Bruno: Very, very well. Glad to be back here with you, Taylor. [0:01:05] Taylor Gibb: Well, excellent. You didn't see everybody, but I just got a salute from PJ. That's a new one. [0:01:09] PJ Bruno: I was thinking about it as I did. I was like, "No one's going to hear the salute." [0:01:12] Taylor Gibb: Oh no. When you're with me, everybody will hear the salute. I'm going to make sure to keep you honest on that one. [0:01:17] PJ Bruno: What a pal. Friend and coworker forever. [0:01:20] Mai Tran: Sounds great. [0:01:20] Taylor Gibb: Oh, that's right. Mai, thank you again for joining us here today. As we've been going through this humanity series, we've been talking a lot, not only about the ways that you use Braze, your marketing tech stack, but about you, how you got to where you are right now and about the company you work for. [0:01:36] Mai Tran: That's nice. [0:01:36] Taylor Gibb: I know. Well, that's what we're hoping for. [0:01:38] Mai Tran: Cool. I'll start with a little bit about myself because I think it's connected very well to how I ended up at Blinkist. I started out my career quite traditionally. I study creative writing and I wanted to work for publishing because I realized very quickly that I wouldn't be able to write so much or make a living writing, which is very, very tough. [0:02:02] Taylor Gibb: That's a tough [crosstalk] The starving artist. [0:02:04] Mai Tran: Exactly. [0:02:04] PJ Bruno: Diverse the skills. I get it. [0:02:06] Mai Tran: Exactly. Yeah. You really have to have a very specific personality to be able to pursuit art in any kind. So yeah, I decided to ... Very early on, I wanted to devote my life to supporting artists and being able to work with authors that I believe and I loved. I started on my career in publishing and it was not an easy industry to get into. It's a very old industry. A lot of things doesn't move as fast as the startup world that we have nowadays. Yeah, kind of at the one year after I graduated, I discovered Blinkist. It was a very nice discovery because I was a little bit fed up with the corporate world and how things are being done there. I started to look more into the startup world and see how people work differently, how products are being put together in a different way. Blinkist is like a happy in between, because everything that they do in terms of culture there at Blinkist, I truly love. Then on top of that, they have a product that I do believe in and it's very much connected to my heart, which is books. [crosstalk] [0:03:31] PJ Bruno: I love that so much. So the publisher you came from, was that in Berlin as well? [0:03:36] Mai Tran: No. I actually used to work for Random House here. [0:03:39] Taylor Gibb: Really? [0:03:40] Mai Tran: Yeah, in New York. [0:03:41] PJ Bruno: Cool. Welcome back. [0:03:42] Taylor Gibb: You're an ex New Yorker. Well, I mean once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker. [0:03:45] PJ Bruno: For life. [0:03:45] Mai Tran: I guess so. [0:03:46] Taylor Gibb: But we're glad to have you back. It sounds like you move from publishing because it was, as we know, a slightly more traditional industry. You said it's more slow moving, to something that's a little techier, it is an app, a software. Blinkist does that as well, right? If I understand correctly, Blinkist is taking something that's intimidating to some people, these big, oftentimes nonfiction, tomes, quote unquote, and making them more digestible. [0:04:12] Mai Tran: Exactly. [0:04:12] Taylor Gibb: Can you talk a little bit more about that? [0:04:14] Mai Tran: Yeah. So Blinkist, we like to believe that we're on a mission to be the leading destinations for the modern lifelong learner. It's a very, very nice mission statement that I always hold dear to my heart because I truly believe that our product is going to that direction. Everything we do is to help people learn more, not necessarily finding shortcuts when it comes to learning or finding shortcuts when it comes to reading, but ultimately you have to face the reality that nowadays people don't have that 10 hours in their day so that they can just sit down with a good book and read for 10 hours straight. It's not going to happen. The reading and the learning is going to happen on the subway, on your way to work. It's going to happen in the 10 minutes that you are trying to dress your kid to go to the nursery school. Yeah, and Blinkist does help those people with a very, very busy lifestyle to be able to squeeze in a little bit of learning and a little bit of reading into their day. [0:05:21] Taylor Gibb: I love that. It's not offering shortcuts, but it's making this learning and this wisdom accessible, no matter how much time you have. [0:05:28] Mai Tran: Exactly. [0:05:29] Taylor Gibb: PJ, you earlier said that you were intrigued by Blinkist. [0:05:32] PJ Bruno: I am. I mean, I unfortunately likened it to CliffsNotes, which is incorrect in terms of the mission, because CliffsNotes is like shortcut, here, now. [0:05:42] Taylor Gibb: Right. I don't want to read Romeo and Juliet. Who dies? [0:05:45] PJ Bruno: Exactly. They both died. Got it. Got the whole story understand it. [0:05:48] Taylor Gibb: And we're done. [0:05:49] PJ Bruno: But Blinkist, it's actually more distilling those valuable insights when it comes to those books. So for someone like me, I do love to read Malcolm Gladwell and Simon Sinek. But when it's not a narrative, sometimes I end up just reading the same paragraph over and over again. For some reason I will find mental blocks where I get stuck. Because in a narrative, a story can exist somewhere. Even though it's in my mind, I can feel the physical space. When you're talking conceptually about things, and Simon Sinek is just explaining page after page his thoughts, letting them unfurl. That's something that sometimes I get lost or I just get distracted. So something like this from Blinkist, it can keep me on that path. It can keep me focused. Sometimes you feel like you're waiting around for the big payoff with some of these writers, because Simon Sinek, just like all these guys, they have a general idea of their arc, of what the book should be, A, B and C. Then it's like, "It's time to stuff 80 pages in each of these." So sometimes some chapters are a little long winded. I'm just, I don't always have the patience for it. So something like Blinkist for the ... What did you call it? The forever learner or ... [0:07:01] Taylor Gibb: Lifelong learner. [0:07:02] Mai Tran: The lifelong learner. Yeah. [0:07:03] PJ Bruno: So good. [0:07:04] Taylor Gibb: Get that alliteration in there. [0:07:06] Mai Tran: That's great. [0:07:07] Taylor Gibb: Remind me, when did you start at Blinkist? How many years ago? [0:07:10] Mai Tran: It's been a little bit over two years now. [0:07:12] Taylor Gibb: That's great. Have things changed. So going from the world of publishing, where everything took a million years to move forward, I bet here things move a mile a minute. How have things changed in terms of your tech stack, in terms of even your marketing strategies since you started? [0:07:26] Mai Tran: Well, quite a lot. When I first started, it was literally just me and another person in our team. Now we've grown to be a small team of four, but in terms of the capability of what we do within CRM has changed so much. Originally, when we first started, we focused, because we only have limited human resource. We focus a lot of things on conversion because that's what everybody cares about. That's what marketing cares about. We're under marketing at that point. I spend most of my time talking to very new users who are soon to be customers and trying to help them understand the value of Blinkist and try to find a price point that makes sense for them and convert them. It's very interesting. It's my first time working with more conversion-based communications. It's very different from the kind of work that I do at publishing. But it was very fun. I think what I appreciate the most is that it's very easy to understand that funnel, because the KPIs are very clear. You either purchase or you don't purchase. [0:08:43] Taylor Gibb: That's true. [0:08:44] Mai Tran: It's very simplistic in some ways. Now, about a year ago, I started to move to the engagement space because as a company, we realize that we grow in such a high pace that we started to see a drop in retention naturally, because you started to acquire more customer or more users that have less intent, doesn't understand Blinkist as well. Because of that, people are less likely to stay on for the product. [0:09:19] PJ Bruno: Just from the general volume you guys are doing, it's balancing. [0:09:22] Mai Tran: Exactly. Yeah. [0:09:23] Taylor Gibb: Makes sense. [0:09:23] Mai Tran: We decided to put a lot of focus on customer engagement and customer retention. I decided to move into that space. I thought that it's a very nice comeback to the publishing world because then, again, it's about getting people to engage with content and getting people to know what is new, what is relevant to them, et cetera, et cetera. It was very exciting for me. Then it's also a big challenge because with engagement, it's not as clear cut as conversion. There's a lot of KPIs out there. You don't know which one makes sense. You always optimize for the immediate one. So open rate, click rate, which copy makes more people engage with that content. But it's not necessarily that, because what you want to impact in the end is renewal. So how many people stay on over time? That's such a long time span that you start to test with different KPIs. Okay, what exactly is it? Is it reading five books that gets people more likely to stay? Is it spending more time in the app? Is it spending more time listening over reading? All of that is very exciting and challenging for me. [0:10:39] PJ Bruno: Just that shift from the understanding of conversion event to being a goal to renewal, that in of itself, that's an infinite minded [crosstalk 00:00:10:50]. That's looking to the future as opposed to like, "Oh, it's ..." sometimes, I don't want to put salespeople in a bucket, but you have a quarterly goal so you obsess over that quarterly goal. Sometimes you do things that actually do not help you long term just to hit it. [0:11:03] Mai Tran: In the long run, exactly. Yeah. [0:11:04] PJ Bruno: So I love that you guys are looking so far down the line. It's great. [0:11:07] Taylor Gibb: One thing I wanted to talk to you about as well, so as you are moving forward with these new KPIs and a more fleshed out, perhaps forward-looking attack towards getting users to ... Getting that retention further, how are you looking at the data? Have you guys engaged with anyone in a tech stack or are you just kind of looking at the numbers as they come through? On top of that, you spoke a little bit about actions like listening or reading books, what kind of actions are you looking for people to complete in your app that you think lead to that retention? [0:11:42] Mai Tran: Yeah. I thought that you would ask that question. [0:11:45] Taylor Gibb: I know. [0:11:47] PJ Bruno: Were you scared that she would ask that question? [0:11:49] Mai Tran: Yeah. [0:11:49] Taylor Gibb: Oh gosh. [0:11:49] Mai Tran: I was kind of. [0:11:50] Taylor Gibb: Not meant to be a scary one. [0:11:52] Mai Tran: No. It's because it's still a learning experience for us. It's very difficult to find that tipping point or to find that one key action that actually will ensure that 99% of people who does that action is going to stay on. But it's very important to find that important action. We're in the process of discovering that. We're very much at the beginning, which is to define the baseline. What we're doing now is instead of trying to artificially scale up a certain action, like read five books, not knowing if that is going to impact at all the renewal rate in the end, what we're doing now is actually spread our efforts across all different KPIs that we consider to be baseline KPIs. We're looking at everything in terms of time spent in the app, time spent actually reading or listening. We call them content consumption. Then we look at the finished rate. If you start reading something, do you finish it? If you finish it, are you more likely to stay on? Are you more likely to engage further? We also look at discovery rates. If you discover more content, are you more likely to find value in the app? Yeah, all kinds of things. One very interesting findings that we recently discover was that was variety, which is very interesting because- [0:13:25] Taylor Gibb: That is. [0:13:26] Mai Tran: Yeah. Personalization is all about offering up what you like, what is relevant to you based on what you've read in the past. But we've come to realize that people who read more outside of their comfort zone are more likely to renew. [0:13:43] PJ Bruno: That's rad. That's very cool. [0:13:44] Mai Tran: Yeah. So it's really a fine balance between, "Okay, we know what you like, and we offer you more of that." And then introducing to you more new things that we think you might like. So things like taste breakers, essentially, is also very, very interesting to us. But going back to your question, yeah, right now it's finding that baseline and seeing where that blip happened. [0:14:11] PJ Bruno: I love that mission, the high-value-action mission, which all of us should be concerned with and doing. You said you guys are just starting your mission. The truth is it takes a long time to figure that out. Even when you figure it out, it changes. [0:14:26] Mai Tran: You're not sure. [0:14:26] Taylor Gibb: That's right. It's always evolving. [0:14:27] PJ Bruno: You're not sure, it changes. Like you mentioned, you just have so much data coming in. There's so many ways to look at it and splice it. All I can say is hats off to you on doing it and best of luck in doing that, because it's huge. When you're able to discern those two to three high value actions, that three X, five X, that LTV of a customer, I mean, it's massive. It's game changing. [0:14:50] Taylor Gibb: And surprising, it sounds like, the fact that variety has a part in all of this. It sounds like you did some testing and it's kind of fun when you're surprised by the results. That's really exciting. Final thing that I want to talk to you about a little bit here is what's on the horizon, both for you and your team and for Blinkist right now? Obviously don't talk about anything you're not allowed to. Unless we're all going to keep secrets here. But let me know what's coming up on the horizon. [0:15:21] Mai Tran: Something that's coming up for CRM at Blinkist is, I guess, ramping up our recommendation system and really leverage connected content and personalization at Braze to bring that personalized content directly to the user, instead of waiting for them to come to the app. This is something that we literally started testing last week. I'm still waiting for results. [0:15:48] Taylor Gibb: Oh, brand new. [0:15:48] PJ Bruno: Exciting. [0:15:48] Mai Tran: Yeah. I really hope it worked well Because I've heard many funny stories from our customers about personalization, because you never know how they're going to interpret that recommendation. [0:16:03] PJ Bruno: Interesting. [0:16:04] Mai Tran: We had one user writing in saying that, "Why are you such a racist company? No, not racist, sexist company. "Why do you offer me only female books?" We were really surprised because we don't know our user's gender. We never ask, we don't track that. Our data- [0:16:27] PJ Bruno: So you had to respond, "This was just based on your history." [0:16:29] Mai Tran: Exactly. [0:16:29] Taylor Gibb: This is what you've been reading. [0:16:31] Mai Tran: It was based on the last book that they read. [0:16:34] PJ Bruno: Do what know what was their response after that? Do you know? [0:16:37] Mai Tran: No. I didn't know. [0:16:38] PJ Bruno: They were like no response. [0:16:40] Taylor Gibb: Oh wait, no. Nevermind. [0:16:41] Mai Tran: But yeah, so recommendation, it's really cool for us and especially being able to bring that into CRM and to be able to offer up content when it's relevant to them is what I'm looking forward to. [0:16:55] PJ Bruno: Yeah. I mean, all I would say for connected content, I mean, it just works in terms of personalization if you set it up and if your systems are set up to handle the speed with which it's hitting it. That's when problems can occur. So make sure you're set up for speed. God, that's awesome. I'm excited for you guys. [0:17:13] Taylor Gibb: You're you're taking a crack at CSM-ship here, PJ. [0:17:16] PJ Bruno: I don't know. [0:17:17] Taylor Gibb: I love to hear it. [0:17:18] PJ Bruno: I hang out with you too much, I guess. [0:17:19] Taylor Gibb: I think that might be the problem here. Well, best of luck to you. I'll be so excited. I'm going to start trying, I think. I will not complain if I get too many female book recommendations because now I know. [0:17:31] PJ Bruno: It's just an algorithm. [0:17:32] Taylor Gibb: It's just the algorithm. [0:17:32] Mai Tran: It's just the algorithm. [0:17:33] Taylor Gibb: It's just ... And taste breakers, who knows. Next time we talk, I'm going to be full of wisdom. I feel it. [0:17:38] PJ Bruno: I'm going to hold you to that. [0:17:39] Taylor Gibb: I know. We'll see. Full of something. Thank you so much for joining us. [0:17:44] Mai Tran: Thank you for having me. [0:17:45] Taylor Gibb: It was so great to meet you. PJ, as always, thanks for joining me here on the mic. [0:17:49] PJ Bruno: Thanks again. [0:17:49] Taylor Gibb: On the ones and twos. And all of you guys out there, thanks as always for dialing in. I'll talk to you later. [0:17:54]

Episode 36: Growth -- A Company Within a Company

Zoltan Szalas, Senior Product Manager of Growth at IBM, saddles up with us to talk machine learning, his early days at startup Croissant, and how to get buy-in across teams to hit goals. We also get a little spacey and talk quantum computing! *Hosted by Taylor Gibb and PJ Bruno LIVE at LTR 2019* TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:18] PJ Bruno: Taylor, take us there, we're hot. [0:00:19] Taylor Gibb: Here I go. [0:00:20] Zoltan Szalas: Let's rock and roll. [0:00:20] Taylor Gibb: All right. Welcome back to Braze for Impact. This is your MarTech industry discuss digest. And we're here in the middle of our humanity series, and I'm lucky enough to be seated across from Zoltan Szalas who is the senior product manager for growth at none other than IBM. This is a big deal guys. And Zoltan, we're so happy to have you in the studio with us. [0:00:42] Zoltan Szalas: Well thanks for having me [0:00:44] Taylor Gibb: Anytime. And to my left, as always, is PJ Bruno who runs client education here at Braze. PJ, how's it going? [0:00:52] PJ Bruno: Feeling so good, feeling right. I'm excited for this one. [0:00:54] Taylor Gibb: Oh, this is going to be a really good one. Zoltan, I know that you've done a little prep with PJ before the session. [0:01:00] Zoltan Szalas: I did, I did. [0:01:00] Taylor Gibb: It's exciting to think that you were thinking about this before coming in. I just want to hear from you a little bit about, I mean IBM. IBM is think, but what does that mean? [0:01:10] Zoltan Szalas: Think. [0:01:11] Taylor Gibb: Exactly. So obviously brand recognition isn't a problem these days, but are there ways that you're working to do things like leverage machine learning or push the limit in increasing your user base overall? [0:01:24] Zoltan Szalas: Yeah, that's a great question. And you're right, IBM, there's no brand recognition problem there. [0:01:30] Taylor Gibb: Right? [0:01:30] Zoltan Szalas: Like I got a job at IBM and my mom's like, "Oh my God, that's amazing." She has no idea what we do, or what I do. But she was so excited. But competition is fierce. I mean IBM alone has over something like several hundred products. And there are startups entering from all over the place, like entering our space and kind of biting away at the business. So growth for IBM, there's a granular level growth where we utilize things like machine learning. So one of the things that we're implementing right now is a retention AI tool. So what that does is when an account is going into defection, so when it comes up for churn. [0:02:09] Taylor Gibb: Lapsing user. [0:02:10] Zoltan Szalas: Exactly. It sends a notification to the according CSM or whoever owns that account. Now on the flip side it also does it for expansion. So for example, let's say somebody is expanding on their usage of natural learning processing or Watson Assistant, it's going to notify the CSM so they can reach out to them, have the conversation of upsell, cross selling. And we're going to be implementing that into, I know you guys didn't want to talk about Braze, but we're going to be implementing that into Braze for customers who don't have a CSM assigned, right? [0:02:41] Taylor Gibb: Really? [0:02:41] PJ Bruno: What's Braze? [0:02:42] Taylor Gibb: Yeah, never heard of her. Who is she? [0:02:46] PJ Bruno: Keep going. [0:02:48] Zoltan Szalas: So that's at the product level. And it's really kind of eating your own dog food, and really implementing things to grow the user base but on a macro level. Things like the Red Hat acquisition, right? Like understanding that and the significance that it's going to have. You have to ask the question of why did we spend $36 billion on an acquisition? That's a 15 to 20 year return. That's where the market is- [0:03:11] PJ Bruno: That is a long game. [0:03:12] Zoltan Szalas: It is a long game. [0:03:13] Taylor Gibb: And smart. [0:03:14] Zoltan Szalas: But that that strategic partnership is going to allow us to exponentially grow our user base. [0:03:20] PJ Bruno: That's future-proofing right there man. [0:03:21] Zoltan Szalas: Exactly. [0:03:22] PJ Bruno: Very cool. And I just love, like I know we talked about it a little bit, you and I got time to strategize and chat. And I just loved the idea that you're able to run a relatively lean operation with your guys in this big company. And it seems like you guys have already had a bunch of traction. And when I talked to you, you kind of were in the pivot situation where you were able to like, "All right, the stuff we're doing is working. I've gotten this buy-in, and now we're onto bigger and better things." [0:03:51] Zoltan Szalas: It's interesting because initially, as you said, I was in this position, pivotal moment. And it was really interesting because growth and innovation, sure, you have your growth stack, you have amplitude segment and things like that. But for a company like IBM that's over 100 years old, that's three digits. [0:04:13] PJ Bruno: Jesus. [0:04:14] Zoltan Szalas: There aren't a lot of companies in the world that have three digits. [0:04:17] Taylor Gibb: And definitely not a lot of tech companies in the world. Right? [0:04:19] Zoltan Szalas: Exactly. Exactly. So you have to ask yourself where does innovation come from? And it really happens within the culture, within the people. And kind of going back to that is when my managers started the growth program, one of the hardest things we had was to get that buy-in. So when people started to see that, "Oh wow, this actually works. This is producing results", then that buy-in comes a lot quicker. And now we're in this luxury place where people are like, "Oh yeah, yeah, do whatever it is that you do. I'm not really sure. But just go do it. And get some amazing results." [0:04:55] Taylor Gibb: That's great. And you guys have made room then for innovation, right? Other people within your company can feel more empowered to step forward with their ideas to start making these changes. And so it sounds like you're doing the right work. [0:05:08] PJ Bruno: The way you mentioned it, your first position with IBM, right, you had to get buy-in. You were a team, a guy, that had a solution, that had to go around, kind of shop it around. When you started there, how much was being prescribed to you by your boss and how much was like, "Figure it out"? It's like how much was a mandate and how much was that creative layer for you to like, "All right, let's get weird with it." [0:05:34] Zoltan Szalas: I was lucky to have great managers who gave me a lot of autonomy. I came on at the early stage of the growth program. So a lot of it was like, "Hey, figure it out, and find people that are willing to work with us to prove out this model." [0:05:51] PJ Bruno: So long leash then. I mean it just was like, "You're here to make things better." [0:05:56] Zoltan Szalas: Right. [0:05:57] PJ Bruno: Go. [0:05:57] Zoltan Szalas: Exactly. And I just transitioned from a startup of five people. And I'm like, "All right, you want me to execute?" I execute. I did a couple of things and I got yelled at for breaking a couple of pages. [0:06:11] Taylor Gibb: You got to break a few pages to make an omelet. Isn't that what they say? [0:06:14] Zoltan Szalas: Exactly. But what I did break the page, it resulted in, I don't know, like the annualized, I broke the page on something and somebody reached out to whoever owns a page. Because IBM's a matrix organization. So there is a person for everything, right? So it's hard to just kind of go in. And my mindset coming from a startup is like, "Okay, this should have been done yesterday. Let's get this done." But IBM doesn't work like that. And you have to figure out. I think the best analogy I got is it's like a duck. The duck floats on top of the water, right? It's very elegant and kind of flows through. But underneath its little legs are churning away. [0:06:54] PJ Bruno: Mile a minute. [0:06:54] Zoltan Szalas: Churning away. Exactly. So working on multiple projects and growth initiatives, that's how I figured out. Like how can you execute ... You just have to be able to focus on several things at a time and wait for things to come in. [0:07:06] PJ Bruno: And you got to break pages. I mean it's a special projects team. If you're not breaking pages you're not doing it right. [0:07:11] Taylor Gibb: You're doing something wrong. [0:07:11] Zoltan Szalas: Exactly. [0:07:12] Taylor Gibb: That's right. And you were working on all the different projects. One of them that PJ actually brought to my attention before we got in the room here was Croissant, which sounds like it started as a hackathon project, and then you were able to make it into this brand and this huge initiative- [0:07:27] PJ Bruno: A global brand. [0:07:27] Taylor Gibb: Global brand and initiative. So clearly you weren't just breaking pages, you were really making things happen. Do you mind talking a bit about that? [0:07:33] Zoltan Szalas: No, I'd love to. And do you guys mind if, my co founder Adam asked me to give him a shout out. [0:07:39] Taylor Gibb: Oh please. [0:07:40] Zoltan Szalas: And he wanted me to call him by his code name Savage. Is that okay? [0:07:45] Taylor Gibb: I think, do you know what? [0:07:45] PJ Bruno: Do you have a message for him or is it just? [0:07:47] Zoltan Szalas: Nope, he just wanted me to give him a shout out. Savage. [0:07:49] Taylor Gibb: That's the first- [0:07:50] PJ Bruno: Keep breaking pages Savage [0:07:52] Taylor Gibb: ... The first shout out in Braze for Impact history and I can't think of a way that it could have gone better. Well done. Savage, this one's for you. [0:07:59] PJ Bruno: We're making history here. Ba-da-bing. [0:08:01] Zoltan Szalas: Yeah, it came out of a hackathon project. We were working on this business that obviously didn't go anywhere, and one weekend we went to a hackathon and we kind of coded up this product that would essentially allow you to book a seat at a coffee shop. Because that company arose from like a very natural need. We were running around the city, working out of coffee shops. And it was a pain in the ass. Can I say ass? [0:08:26] Taylor Gibb: You saw that meme yourselves. Yeah. [0:08:27] PJ Bruno: Yeah, you can, we can't. [0:08:29] Zoltan Szalas: So it came out of a hackathon project. And in that one weekend we saw so much positive feedback from the people through media, through PR, that we just said, "We have something here." So we did a little bit of market testing. We shopped it around to coffee shops. Coffee shops didn't want it. They're like, "Oh no, no, no. This is a coffee shop. This is a democratic place. Nobody's going to get a seat here." But somebody had given us, like months prior, a map of all the coworking spaces in the city. And there were something like 200. And this was back at the time where the WeWorks was unknown. You would be like, "WeWork." People would be like, "What's WeWork? What's coworking? What's shared office space?" [0:09:07] Taylor Gibb: Interesting. [0:09:08] Zoltan Szalas: So we walked in randomly on one day, we're just like, we walked into a coworking space and he said, "Hey, we're building this platform. Would you guys be interested in coming on as a space partner?" And they said yes. And then we said okay. So the supply side is resonating positively. And then we sent out a bunch of emails. [0:09:28] Taylor Gibb: I think you emailed us. [0:09:30] PJ Bruno: I know where this is going, sorry. [0:09:32] Zoltan Szalas: We sent out a bunch of emails advertising our $300 product for MVP that just barely existed, and people bought. So we said, "Okay, we have something here. So what's next?" So we built out the product and we took it from inception to ... we've had over 10,000 customers on the platform. But it's really interesting because the story, as funny as it is, when you're building a business, you have very limited data to work with. [0:10:03] Taylor Gibb: Sure. You're starting from the ground up. [0:10:04] Zoltan Szalas: So every feedback you're using as a compass, right? Like, "Okay, this direction makes sense. This direction makes sense." At the very early stages, right, before you're collecting like hundreds of thousands or millions of data points, you're almost using qualitative data to get feedback on which direction to take your company. [0:10:26] PJ Bruno: Yeah, that's tough though sometimes. Sometimes you, I don't know about you, but I've taken lots of feedback and sometimes I'll give it the wrong weight. I'll take one person's feedback and make some sort of pivot that's going to affect the next quarter or something. So when you have all the data to work with, you have the quantity to work with. [0:10:45] Zoltan Szalas: Yeah, and you know what it is? You know that saying ignorance is bliss? [0:10:50] PJ Bruno: Yeah. [0:10:51] Zoltan Szalas: When I look back on the Croissant journey, it was the most reckless insensible thing I did. Just straight up quit my job and just follow this instinct. Right? But that ignorance is bliss to a degree because you're just following whatever is working. Right? So it's kind of almost a blessing to not have all the data that early on, because you're just, don't take this advice as sound, this is not guarantee, there is no money back guarantee. But if you follow ... Life gives you feedback, people give you feedback, the market gives you feedback. Right? So I think it's important to be proactive and just trying to get that feedback early on. But it was a lot of fun and we scaled it into, we're in over like 120 cities now. And it was a lot of fun. [0:11:36] Taylor Gibb: Wow. That is incredible. And you got there from following your gut, right? [0:11:39] Zoltan Szalas: Yeah. [0:11:40] Taylor Gibb: And trusting those instincts. Are you still able to bring a little bit of that to your day to day when you're at IBM? [0:11:46] Zoltan Szalas: Yes, but I have to get buy-in. [0:11:48] PJ Bruno: Got to get that buy-in. [0:11:50] Taylor Gibb: Some things have to change a little bit. But it sounds like you've been able to build that up. [0:11:53] Zoltan Szalas: Yeah, and I think IBM is a great learning ground for me. Because at IBM, more of your soft skills have to come into play. They have to come to the foreground. Because you're dealing with cross functional teams that each have their own objectives and a lot of times they're not aligned. So the question becomes is, "Okay, I want to change something on this page. How do I get the development team, the design team, the product team to come together and align to make that change happen?" And that's the biggest difference. When you're running a startup you have an insight and you're like, "Okay, well let's execute on it." You execute on it, you ship it out the door, done. Wait for the feedback loop, iterate or implement or do something else. Right? But with IBM it's been a real amazing time to learn how to use those soft skills. And I'm still able to use, you still go by your gut, like there's patterns that you recognize so you already know like, "Okay, we should do this, we should do this nurture or that nurture." So definitely. [0:12:57] PJ Bruno: That's so interesting to me, and it just identified a huge gap, and that's obviously understanding technology and your tech stack, that's something that we're all obsessed with. You mentioned soft skills. This isn't the same as leadership or conflict resolution. This is governance across teams. And like how you orchestrate, facilitate those conversations when you're not necessarily getting the right support from up above. So it sounds like you're cutting your teeth doing this stuff, man. This is fantastic. [0:13:24] Zoltan Szalas: Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. And luckily my managers are all great and the people that I work with are all amazing. [0:13:31] PJ Bruno: Your team has been stoked just watching you the [crosstalk 00:13:33]. [0:13:33] Zoltan Szalas: They're so supportive. [0:13:35] PJ Bruno: You can't see it. [0:13:36] Taylor Gibb: Is Savage out there? [0:13:37] Zoltan Szalas: Savage is not out there. Savage is at TransferWise. [0:13:41] PJ Bruno: Well Sav, we're thinking of you buddy. [0:13:43] Zoltan Szalas: We're thinking of you. [0:13:45] Taylor Gibb: Oh man. So all right. You've got all these different projects that you've done. You've been able to work within IBM using this startup mindset, but also some of the soft skills that you've learned, and it sounds like you're iterating on there. What I'd be most excited to hear about now is anything that you can share that's coming down the pipeline, for either you and your team at IBM or larger initiatives that you're working on. We want to hear what you're excited about. [0:14:08] Zoltan Szalas: Personally, I'm really excited about quantum computing. [0:14:12] PJ Bruno: Oh yeah. [0:14:13] Zoltan Szalas: Especially since the headlines this week that Google is claiming quantum computing supremacy. [0:14:19] Taylor Gibb: I hadn't seen this, wait. [0:14:20] Zoltan Szalas: Yeah. [0:14:21] PJ Bruno: Yeah. Fill her in. [0:14:22] Taylor Gibb: Yeah, fill me in on quantum computing. This sounds like Star Trek. [0:14:25] Zoltan Szalas: It is kind of like Star Trek. So think of the most powerful computer in the world, and X that by 1000 or a million. [0:14:36] Taylor Gibb: I can't even conceive of it. [0:14:38] Zoltan Szalas: It's a very strange thing because, unlike traditional computers which work off of a chip, for a quantum computer you're basically emulating an environment where almost atoms and ions are just making the calculations. I mean we haven't been able to run an app on a quantum computer to date, but just kind of Google did something along those lines this past week. But why is that important? The reason that it's important because right now there are so many complex problems out there, whether it's logistics, cyber security, pharmaceuticals, or modeling that even the most powerful computers can't handle those problems. And if quantum computing gets there, we could potentially solve these problems. [0:15:30] PJ Bruno: Right. You were saying something like a calculation that would normally take weeks or months could be done in seconds, or something like that. [0:15:38] Zoltan Szalas: Exactly. So there's a really interesting article in Tech Crunch that came out. So Google is claiming they're ahead of the game. And what they did is they did a simulation with the most powerful computer that's available in the world. And I'm forgetting, but I think it's at the University of Waterloo in Canada. The supercomputer took something like a week to produce an outcome, where the quantum computer took I think 200 seconds. [0:16:03] PJ Bruno: Sounds about right. [0:16:04] Taylor Gibb: Oh my God. [0:16:05] Zoltan Szalas: So imagine that power. [0:16:07] Taylor Gibb: This is not a minuscule change. This is going to absolutely turn everything on its head. [0:16:11] Zoltan Szalas: Absolutely. Especially if you're looking at anything from ... If you're in security, that's troubling. [0:16:18] PJ Bruno: That's a red flag. [0:16:20] Zoltan Szalas: You should start preparing now because those quantum computers will just break your encryption like nothing. [0:16:27] PJ Bruno: Watch yourself. [0:16:28] Taylor Gibb: Yeah, geez. [0:16:29] Zoltan Szalas: Yeah. [0:16:29] PJ Bruno: Talk about future proofing. [0:16:30] Taylor Gibb: Yeah seriously. [0:16:31] Zoltan Szalas: I don't think, I mean you and I, PJ, when we talked that kind of went off crazy philosophical. Like, "Imagine if everybody had this, [inaudible 00:16:38]." [0:16:37] PJ Bruno: Yeah, we were nerding out. It was not late at night either, it was the middle of the day. Like, "Quantum supremacy, it sounds like the empire. Oh yeah." [0:16:47] Zoltan Szalas: Yeah. I don't think it'll ever go [inaudible] because I just don't think consumers need that type of computing power. But it's going to be interesting to see what happens when governments get ahold of it, and major corporations get a hold of it. [0:16:58] PJ Bruno: God save us all. [0:16:59] Taylor Gibb: And the hands of you at IBM, breaking pages. Be careful over there. Quantum page breaking. [0:17:06] PJ Bruno: Quantum page break. [0:17:08] Taylor Gibb: [inaudible 00:17:08]. Oh my God. Well, thank you. [0:17:09] PJ Bruno: No better way to end it I guess than- [0:17:11] Taylor Gibb: I was going to say, you've made me excited about what you're excited about here. I'm going to look into quantum computing right after this podcast. But in the meantime, thank you so much for joining us. It's been great speaking with you and hearing all about this great stuff. [0:17:23] Zoltan Szalas: Awesome. This was a lot of fun. Thank you guys for having me. [0:17:25] Taylor Gibb: Oh definitely. [0:17:25] PJ Bruno: Absolutely man. [0:17:26] Taylor Gibb: PJ, as always, thank you so much. [0:17:28] PJ Bruno: So very welcome. Great to be here. [0:17:30] Taylor Gibb: And all of you on the line, thanks again for dialing in. This is Taylor Gibb, CSM, Braze for Impact. We'll catch you next time. [0:17:37]

Episode 35: Data for Purpose

Ashok Rajan, director of the board at Lister Digital and cycling enthusiast, gives commentary on how personalization strategies are more about human connection than technology. He shares a profound customer experience that shaped him, and stresses the importance of "data for purpose." *Hosted by Dave Goldstein and PJ Bruno LIVE at LTR 2019* TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:17] PJ: Hello again. Welcome back to another episode of Braze for Impact, your MarTech industry discuss digest. We're back again with another episode of our humanity series. Our guest today, Ashok Rajan, president of Lister Digital. Ashok, thanks so much for being here. [0:00:33] Ashok Rajan: Hey, thanks for having me here PJ and Dave. Very excited to be in this conference. Again, longterm relationships man, it's awesome. [0:00:41] PJ: Let's build them. Let's expand them. [0:00:43] Ashok Rajan: Let's build them. Let's expand them. And it's about the human experience. I don't see, again I am just free flowing here, that even as I see them live in the conference, it's very exciting. Because you guys are ... I was here last year, felt the same vibe. And it's been more, and because this is what we do as well. Like hey, we deeply care about the customer experience. We're not just sitting in thinking, "Hey, what's the channel?" And so on. You want to treat them like humans. Hey, it's another human that I'm trying to influence to do something. And then I feel like, "Hey, that's the vibe that I sense in the conference. It's very exciting to be here. So thank you. [0:01:17] PJ: Exactly. And speaking of humans, Ashok and I are with a pretty rad human in my eyes here. And this- [0:01:23] Dave Goldstein: Here I am again. [0:01:24] PJ: Our good buddy Dave Goldstein, head of Global Solutions Alliance at Braze. Dave, love you. [0:01:29] Dave Goldstein: Love to be a part of this. [0:01:32] Ashok Rajan: [crosstalk] Dave is my cycling brother. We're from the brotherhood of cyclers. [0:01:36] Dave Goldstein: That's right, that's right. [0:01:38] Ashok Rajan: I love it man. [0:01:38] Dave Goldstein: Strong legs in this podcast booth, watch out. [0:01:40] PJ: If you guys saw the quads I was looking at right now. [0:01:44] Dave Goldstein: Thousands of miles among us. [0:01:46] Ashok Rajan: That's right. It's in my to do list to write a LinkedIn article on Zen and the art of cycling, because I think that tells you a lot of a life. Hey, you need to put a lot of effort to climb up the hill, but then no one can take me the love that you feel, the endorphins that you feel when you come downhill man. But you got to work hard. You got to work hard to go up that hill. [0:02:06] PJ: Why don't you take us back now, Ashok, about 30, 35 years where it all started? [0:02:13] Ashok Rajan: Absolutely. So now the age part comes in. So I feel young Dave, so thank you for your friendship, and you make me feel young. But now that he mentioned 35 years. I think it's interesting because the background, my background, is that I actually started before the internet. So now, or what was called is the worldwide web, and in client server technology. So client server technology which was used to, again, do a lot of interactions and how to make them easy. I feel life changed when I attended the Windows 95 release in Long Beach. I think I was about three or four years into my work life at that point. But as I was trying to share the story with you, it was a lot of ... I have this principle FSOGSD. Figure stuff out, get stuff done. So the lot of the ... I consider myself a child of the internet, and I had to figure a lot of things out. So one of the first things I would like to share is first piece of code I wrote that actually went live on the web. It was a program called [bannerad.exe 00:03:22]. That's what I called it, but hey, all it had to do was change the banner based on cookie values. So personalize the banner that was being showed. This is 1995. At that point it was Netscape, I think it's called Netscape Commerce Server or something. And then we went live on the web. So we kept building. The goal, I feel, was always how to personalize the experience. How to personalize the experience based on someone's interests. And so we were collecting information, right? So we're collecting all this information on people's interests, but then we're trying to say, "Hey, how can I change the web experience as they land on the web and they move on?" And then over time, I'll keep my background brief, but I was lucky enough to be part of two companies that were acquired. Great teams, a great group of people. First was 2000, I joined this company called Digital Impact, which was 2000 to 2005, Forrester rated top company for email and digital marketing. Then it was acquired by Axiom. And then I joined Responsys in 2010 which was acquired by Oracle. And these were great experiences for me because, again, even I heard this in the conference today, it's sort of exciting to me. "Hey, some of these things we worked on like in 2001, 2002, I was already building recommendation engines." [0:04:42] Dave Goldstein: What's old is new again. [0:04:43] Ashok Rajan: What's old is new again. Like hey, some of these concepts, sometimes I laugh. And like, "You guys are talking about stuff." Then I feel like your old guy. Then I feel like the old guy. [0:04:53] Dave Goldstein: Go back to my bannerad.exe days, right? [0:04:57] Ashok Rajan: That's right man, that's right. Or even these, some of the challenges that I heard some of the speakers talk about. And these are real companies. So hey, love your speakers in the conference because these are real experiences. They are talking about real world problems. And the challenge hasn't changed, that how do I get data, how do I move these things around? How do I make the optimal decision? And sometimes I feel that, over time as I've observed this, things have changed. Before, there was a time point in time, and I think it will come back in vogue again like bell-bottoms or something. And thankfully I didn't wear them, but I have older siblings that did. [0:05:39] PJ: It always comes back. [0:05:39] Ashok Rajan: Older siblings, I've seen them do that. I'm like, "What is that?" [0:05:41] Dave Goldstein: It's just a matter of time. [0:05:44] Ashok Rajan: But my point is that there was a phase where I felt that things moved to hyper analytics. Like hey, everything was analytics driven and I want this, but I come from a slightly different school of thought these days. But I feel like there's a sort of, I call this the Heisenberg principle of personalization. If you look at Amazon for instance, they do a lot of real time personalization. Of course the personalization is driven by a deep analytics, but it's not like the analytics are real time. And sometimes I joke with people, I say, "Hey, you're fooling people if you say you're real time analytics," because good analytics means that you have lots of data that you've chunked. Lots of data means it's been collected over a long period of time. And any good statistician will tell you the last day or the last minute's worth of data should not influence your model of things that you've collected over 30 days, one year, whatever the case is. Right? So that means analytics can be run offline, but how I'm treating the customer becomes a ... How do I influence the journey is something that happens more real time. [0:06:47] PJ: That's an interesting point too, just because we hear all the time, or I personally do, as soon as that data's captured, the value of it will start to decay over time. But that makes so much sense. You should be able to look back at behavior over the past month or even year to kind of like help dictate, or at least inform some things. [0:07:05] Dave Goldstein: I mean what I found so fascinating actually was just moments ago, Dipanjan Chaterjee from Forrester was presenting his updated research to the brand humanity index. And he was saying that, what is it, 0.5%, a half a percent of all data is actually actioned on. You're actually doing something with that data and doing something meaningful with it. So there's that fine line that you really do have to walk, right? Like you can collect just this wealth of data. But I suppose the key to that is to action on as much of it as you can, because what is data without appropriate action? [0:07:43] Ashok Rajan: No, absolutely. I think Dave, I think this is a great segue because if you start thinking about the platforms and what's the newer generation platforms versus some of the older generation platforms that you have, the thinking, and some of these ideas were regurgitated before. I sort of joke about this and I say, "Hey, you don't bring the mountain to Moses, Moses goes to the mountain." And I use this these days with big data, right? With the proliferation of big data. I feel it's actually a simple engineering problem. The more data that I collect, the more difficult it is going to be for me to move it across systems. To move everything and start duplicating it is just a mindless exercise of, it's expensive, it's too late, it takes time to action. And how quickly you respond becomes more crucial. And so what I find exciting about platforms like Braze is that foundationally it's been built to handle that issue. That it's not now anymore like the old school, "Hey, why don't you give me everything?" I just remember with [inaudible 00:08:54], one of my previous companies since I've already mentioned who they are. I was sitting Nordstrom, and this is a true story. And then the guy was like, "Hey." I'm like, "Hey, give me all your data. Give me all of it." He says, "It's fine. I'll give you all my data. How many years of data do you want?" I said, "I'll take how much you can give me." He says, "Okay, I'm going to give you 10 years worth of data." But here he says, "I'm going to warn you. What's the database that you use behind the scenes?" I said, "So we have an Oracle database." I said, "Hey, I just spent like $15 million replacing my Oracle database with [inaudible] data, so you better have some big system. And I don't think we're paying you guys that much to basically send email marketing campaigns." And they're like, "Hold on. Don't give me any data. I don't want all your data. I only want what's required for my marketing." I think that- [0:09:42] Dave Goldstein: Data for purpose. [0:09:43] Ashok Rajan: Data for purpose. And I think that's a big theme of what I like about Braze. When I look at it, okay, it actually goes back to, "Hey, I'm only bringing Moses to the mountain for salvation, or whatever." He comes to the burning bush for that particular aspect. It's not like, hey now I'm trying to move the entire mountain and say, "Hey, let me get it to your camp, and then you can figure out what you want." It's like, "Okay, it's not going to work." [0:10:07] PJ: Right right. [0:10:08] Ashok Rajan: I think that's a big point. [0:10:10] PJ: Yeah. People just assume sometimes the data equals value, so just give me all the stuff you have, but that can really put this opaque kind of lens over what your goals are. It gives you a little bit more confusion I think. [0:10:22] Dave Goldstein: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm fascinated by the paradigm shift that's happened in my own mind since starting to work in this industry almost a decade ago. I walked into a retail store recently whose mobile app I had on my phone. I had given them push notification permissions, they had my email, they had preferences about me, they had my location permissions as well. I live on Long Island so I actually go to a shopping mall. Yeah, I'm a mall walking dad, I'll admit it. And so I [inaudible] the store and of course my expectation, living in the age that we do and being in the space that I'm in, is that, "Hey, what a great opportunity for a geo targeted appropriate message based on the data that this brand understands about me." Right? Of course, nothing happened. But I entered the store nonetheless, because I'm a fan of the brand, as it were. And as I'm entering the store, there's a sales associate at the front standing with a stack of printed cards, the kind where you take your thumb nail or a coin and you scratch them off. And it's like, "Hey, it's a take a scratch off, chance to win X percent off anything in the store today only." So I grabbed the card and I scratch it off and I got 15% off. And of course I'm looking around the store and I was like, "Don't really see anything I want today. I'm not compelled to even use this." And so I kind of walk out, and as I'm walking out I throw it in the trash, right. It just occurs to me like, "Wow, what a missed opportunity. If that experience had been digital, imagine how they could have continued that. They would have known just so much, that I had redeemed and I had this 15% off coupon, and maybe it could have extended to online and other channels. [0:12:03] PJ: Yeah. [0:12:04] Dave Goldstein: How much did they spend to print those cards? And so there's this whole paradigm shift that I've had as I've kind of thought about how brands can leverage the data that they have about people. And I'm sure the brands that you work with and how you think about coaching them to best leverage the data they have and truly digitally transform, you must see this stuff all the time and have to think- [0:12:25] Ashok Rajan: No I'm like, "Hey, my brain's racing actually." I want to share something with you as well. It's interesting, Dave, that you bring this up because you're so spot on. I think there's two aspects to it. And this is where I feel again, you guys are in not ... Braze is not just using buzzwords. I think, again, hey, this is not a shameless plug for Braze, I hope it means something to the people who listen that I truly see this. When you talk about the human aspect of things, you talked about the brand humanity index. And I saw this last year, and I'm like, "Hey, I'm on board this train." I want to share something with you that Nordstrom to me has been the brand, at least personally, we would read books on the Nordstrom [inaudible 00:13:12], that you talk about true customer service. And I'm saying like hey, when you really forget all the tech part first. But you say, "Hey, what's fascinating about Nordstrom's customer service?" And so hey, [inaudible] you would read about all these business cases of, "Hey, they changed the tires for some old lady who drove 50 miles to change some clothes." And they say- [0:13:31] Dave Goldstein: Accept all returns from other stores. I remember that. Yeah. [0:13:33] Ashok Rajan: And sometimes it feels like some urban legend or something right? But I want to share my personal experience with you, which I have now used in the digital aspect. So my personal experience with Nordstrom, again, I love, hey there's something a little bit about me, is when I work with brands, I love to see what it is that they do in their store. So as soon as I started working with Nordstrom, I started shopping at Nordstrom. And man it was interesting, first time I walked around the ... This is, again, 2011. Things are different now. So I'm walking around the store and this guy is just quietly following me around, didn't speak much, but he was just paying attention to what I was doing. And then what he did is, he didn't say anything. And then he said, "Hey, can I have your number?" I didn't buy anything. This was in the men's section where they have all the good stuff. And so then I said, "Okay fine, you can have my number." He says, "I'll just give you a call if I find something that you like." And I said, "How the heck would he know?" So I was, look again, curiosity killed the cat. I'm like, "I'm curious to know how the heck you know what I like, because I didn't speak to you." So then I gave him my number. And then believe it or not, Dave, he calls me after like a couple of weeks. He says, "Hey, I think I picked like two shirts for you. I think you're really going to like this." I go, "Okay, you have me. I'm going to come to the store." And guess what? He's like, "Michael Kors, here's the two shirts I think that will fit you perfectly. Go wear them." And then suddenly what happens is, this is the relationship I had with this guy, that at one point you would laugh, my wardrobe probably had like a dozen Michael Kors shirts. [0:15:02] Dave Goldstein: Get out of here. [0:15:03] Ashok Rajan: I kept all ... He would keep calling me every two months, and he would say, "Hey, I think I have something that you would like." I would go back, the fit would be great. And then it didn't stop until Michael Kors decided to move and start selling those shirts in their own store. But then this guy didn't let me go, right? So for me, I latch onto the concept of, "Hey, personalization is the human experience. Somebody was paying attention." And then of course, again, I was working with the Nordstrom marketing team. I was like, "Hey, you guys should do this." Fast forward to then I'm consulting with Adidas. And then Adidas basically says, "Hey, we have this ..." this is the guy that was running marketing for Adidas in India. And then he goes, "Hey, I want to change the customer experience. What do you think I can do?" I said, "Hey, have you considered this? Like put iPads in all your stores." And I shared with him the Nordstrom experience, but except now this was happening four years after the Nordstrom experience. And I'm saying, Hey, maybe you should have your salespeople just follow around and see what kind of shoes they're looking at. And then see what happens, then put everything, capture this information. Don't let them know. But then, like hey, just ask them, "Hey, would you like to know that if you really liked those Adidas shoes that you were looking at, running shoes, may I call you back if I find something that you like?" And then he calls me. The next year I meet him at the Oracle conference and he's super excited. He's like, "Hey, every store has an iPad, and this thing is working like crazy. Right?" Again, we're talking about stuff that's 2015, 2016. And here what I love about what Brace and what you're doing is hey, now we're talking about location based listing. Now we're talking about hyper personalization. Still the human experience doesn't go away. [0:16:38] PJ: How did he know your size? He just was looking at you and he was like, "I got your number dude." [0:16:43] Ashok Rajan: That's right. He's got my number. And I tell you like, hey, shame that the part that they didn't do well, like Hey I get that what he wants from me is not [inaudible] on Nordstrom is when that person left, he didn't capture that information and leave it somewhere. Unfortunately, I live in the Bay Area, I shop in the Hillsdale Mall, and this guy moved to the South Bay. And I'm like, "I'm not chasing you to South Bay to buy my clothes. I'm like, "Ah, okay." But you're right. Like he was actually sizing me up. And so this is somebody who knew his craft obviously. But that's when I feel that, I'm an old school techie, the more things move digital, I still love the relationship aspect. Relationship doesn't mean it's ... I feel it's about paying attention, it's about listening to people, quietly observing them. So the first thing that you need to do is, hey, you need to listen. There's three aspects that I feel to how things should work. First thing is you need to listen. And you need to listen, but then the next thing is you need to be able to analyze. And the third thing is you need to be able to act quickly. So you guys didn't put me up to this, but hey, when I look at a platform like Brace compared to something else, now you have web services. I can quickly listen to things. The data modeling is super simple. So now I can basically capture the information I need. I can analyze this quickly, and then I can act quickly to send you a push notification. Or send you an email message, or whatever it is that is the right communication style. I think people are ... In general, I hope people realize this, I think people underestimate. That's where I think is the real power of the Braze platform, that it brings things together. [0:18:16] Dave Goldstein: Fantastic context. It's interesting, I was thinking about there's a lot of legacy technology out there. Sunk costs, if you will, whereby folks know it's just not getting the job done. It's no longer fit for purpose. They're afraid of change for a number of reasons, whether it be the money that they've sunk into it, whether it be the fear of moving to new technology and potential hiccups in business. Do you have a philosophy or a methodology that you use to help quell people's fears about, "I'm on this legacy technology that's just not ... It's clearly not working. And the whole team hates using it. We all know there's ... We all hope there's something better out there." How do you talk to those people? How do you actually help them transform and move into the new mobile first era, if you will? [0:19:12] Ashok Rajan: What we like to tell people is that, "Hey look, you have someone like Lister that basically has worked with multiple platforms. We have helped build those platforms. We have the talent and the technology to basically drive these things. And the newer platforms are actually built for absorbing things quickly." So we're here to help them, and then we have really good success stories to show clients that, "Hey, it's not as daunting as you think". As long as, "Hey, you focus on the marketing." Someone say, hey, this is one of my mentors. And I really respect him. He said this a long time back in the conference. [inaudible] I say, "Hey, who was your biggest competition?" And he says, "My IT team." [0:20:00] Dave Goldstein: Wow. [0:20:00] Ashok Rajan: I thought that was the most profound thing that I heard so far. And it's like, "Yeah, amen to that. That's right." Because then, that's why when you bring people that already know how to work with these multiple platforms, then the migration is not such a daunting task. When we have done this day in and day out and we understand the nuances. We have done this successfully in the past and we feel that ... There's two things, right? It's not just about my talent or my team. I'm also saying that platforms like Brace, you make it easy to migrate, but the daunting part is unfortunately it's marchitecture. There is a technology aspect to it, but if you're used to classic database tables and operations, now suddenly you need to learn to work with unstructured data. My advice, or Dave, or my answer is quite simple, right? First, enlist in the right platform. I think these platforms are built for purpose. And they really leapfrog you from where you are to where you need to be. And then finding a great partner I think is important that has done this before and that can easily say, "Okay, I know you liked apples before, but now you have a vitamin C deficiency." And, "Hey, I'm here from Florida to make your orange juice." [0:21:15] PJ: Amazing. [0:21:15] Dave Goldstein: I know you liked meat before, but here's some kale. [0:21:18] PJ: Exactly. [0:21:19] Ashok Rajan: Exactly. [0:21:19] PJ: That's beauty. Honestly, no better way to wrap it up than that. [0:21:22] Dave Goldstein: That was great. [0:21:22] PJ: Ashok, thanks so much for being here. And Dave, as always, thanks for joining me. [0:21:27] Dave Goldstein: It's my pleasure. And Ashok, really, I can't say it enough. It's brilliant to have you as part of our community, and we're just so happy to have you as part of this solutions partner ecosystem. You add so much value to the overall landscape. And yeah, we love working with you. So thank you. [0:21:43] Ashok Rajan: Thanks, thanks Dave. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. Really appreciate the opportunity and I look forward to working with you guys. [0:21:49] PJ: And thank you guys all for listening. Take care. [0:21:51]