April 8, 2021 • 40 mins
Customers are the lifeblood of every successful business – and no more so than in the subscription economy, where the pressure is on to deliver value at every step. In our ninth episode, we catch up with Taylor McGuire, Customer Success Leader at Productboard, to discuss his sabbatical in South Africa, the critical role that customer success plays, how to build an effective CS team at scale, and the exciting opportunities our own CS team has as Productboard continues to grow. Spoiler alert - stick around for his fabulous definition of CS that even your grandma would understand.
Interested in joining our team? We're hiring across multiple departments. Check out our careers page for the latest vacancies. We’d love to hear from you!
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Episode Transcript
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Danny (00:06):
Welcome to the People of Productboard podcast, a place
where you can get a sneak peekinto life at Productboard. From
the amazing people who make thiscompany what it is making the
right gear choices can often beoverwhelming. Sometimes, no
matter how many people you talkto, you still don't know what
you're getting into. That's whywe launched this podcast to give
(00:27):
you an edge and allow you tolearn more about the ins and
outs of our company. Before youdecide to join our team. I'm
your host, Danny Tamraz. AndI'll be introducing you to some
of the amazing people that makeProductboard what it is. On this
podcast. We share honest viewsand experiences about life at
Productboard, the work we dowhat excites us and inspires us,
(00:48):
we talk about what makes ustick, the challenges we're
thrilled to solve theopportunities we're pursuing,
and so much more. If you'reeager to pursue your next career
move Productboard might just bethe right fit. So buckle up,
you're in for a wild ride.
(01:12):
What is the glue of everycompany? If you ask different
people, you may get differentanswers. But ultimately, they
all lead to one commondenominator. customers.
Customers are the lifeblood ofevery successful business. And
the subscription economy wherecompetition is high. The
pressure is on to deliver valueat every step at every customer
(01:34):
interaction on it to engage theright stakeholders aligned with
their goals. And you may havejust set yourself up for a tough
ride. That is why today we'retalking about the role of
customer success. And it'simportant on the business with
Taylor McGuire, customer successleader at Productboard. Taylor
has dedicated his career tobuilding and scaling startups,
(01:56):
while building great customersuccess teams. Use a data driven
guy. But if you ask him what hereally enjoys about startups,
you'll find out that more thananything, he loves the trial by
fire bonds, you get to buildwith a team when doing something
hard together. And Isn't thiswhat startups are all about?
building something hardtogether. Outside of work,
(02:17):
you'll likely find him outdoorshiking, surfing, or spending
time with his family. And thisepisode, we talk about his
sabbatical in South Africa, andwhat he's learned through his
travels, the role and importanceof customer success. Spoiler
alert, Taylor shares a fabulousdefinition of customer success
that even your grandma wouldunderstand. So stick around for
(02:39):
it. we dive into the keyquestions you need to answer to
effectively scales hisorganization and deliver value
to your customers. Finally, wetalk about the exciting
opportunities for the CSD andProductboard as we continue to
grow our team. So buckle up.
This is going to be a fun ride.
(03:04):
Hello, welcome to the People ofProductboard podcast. I'm so
excited to have you.
Taylor McGuire (03:08):
Thanks so much, Danielle. I appreciate it.
Danny (03:11):
Absolutely, absolutely.
We're excited to have you hereand also to have you on the team
with Productboard. I know you'vebeen on Productboard just for a
few weeks now. So excited tohear about your first
impressions.
Taylor McGuire (03:25):
Yeah, I mean, for about four weeks in and this
is the second time I've joined ateam at Series B, first
impressions are extremelypositive, the first of all, very
well set up to scale. Second ofall, all the reasons I joined
are being validated. So forexample, I really value
(03:46):
collaborating with a team thatis transparent and authentic and
willing to ask tough questionsand you know, focus on using
data to make decisions. And allof those things are are real
here, now that are behind thecurtain, which is really great.
So yeah, overall firstimpressions and getting to know
and work with the team has beenhas been a great start.
Danny (04:07):
Excellent. Excellent.
Well, I think it will be it willbe good to give our listeners a
little bit background aboutyourself. I noted just before
joining you were on a fantasticadventure. So why don't you tell
us a little bit more about whoyou are and what you've been up
to the past year.
Taylor McGuire (04:23):
Yeah, so I'm, I'm in the Great White north.
I'm Canadian. And I guessindividually call me family
focused. I've got a big familyspent a lot of time with them.
And, you know, working in techfor the better part of a decade,
building businesses and alwaysin a revenue role customer
facing so as you can imaginehigh pressure, especially growth
(04:45):
companies. And so after my lastchallenge, I decided it was
probably wise for me to take astep back and recharge. So the
last year I basically spenttraveling and it was of course
poorly time With a pandemic, soI ended up in, you know, I
toured a few differentcontinents. And then I ended up
(05:07):
in South Africa where my partnerwas doing her Master's of Public
Health, visiting her and helpingher get set up there. And she
will then the pandemic hit. Sowe were, we were in South
Africa, I just kind of had tomake it work so that we were
there for 10 months through thepandemic, and basically spent
that time outside enjoyingenjoying the ocean. And, you
(05:30):
know, spending time with eachother. She was still in school,
I was spending my time surfingand reading and hiking, which
was a really good recharge, butof course, unique circumstance
with the world kind of shuttingdown being on a foreign
continent. But luckily enough, Iwas with her and, you know, as
fortunate enough to be in asituation that I wasn't wasn't
under stress.
Danny (05:51):
That's great. That's great. 10 months sounds like an
incredible and adventure. Whathave you learned about yourself
during that time?
Taylor McGuire (06:00):
I think the probably the number one is truly
and you know, by my age, youshould really know this, but
truly how much I rechargespending time outside. There was
there for most of that 10months, I was spending the
majority of my days outside. Andyeah, I mean, my energy levels
(06:21):
soared. Obviously, lots ofsunshine is great for your body,
lots of activities, great foryour body, I was eating well.
But I really like I taughtmyself how much energy I could
really have if I invested in, inspending lots of time outside.
So now it's operation integratethat lesson into my, my tech
life. So making sure thatmornings and evenings and
(06:42):
weekends are spent outside thefresh air kind of recharge.
Danny (06:51):
Oh, that's great. That's great. So I can imagine South
Africa must be such an excitingcountry, like, what were some of
the highlights of your trip? Or,you know, when you talk about
South Africa, I immediatelythink of Nelson Mandela and
through fight for freedom. And,you know, how is life in South
Africa right now?
Taylor McGuire (07:09):
Yeah, I mean, it is a it is a very complicated
country, by far the mosteducational travel experience of
my life, you've got a countrythat has been colonized a number
of times over the last few 100years has been oppression, since
the 1600s. And so you've got areally like melting pot of
(07:33):
cultures, both from within theAfrican continent, and coming
from the European continents,the Dutch and the English. And
so all of that kind of mixedtogether makes for a very
complicated story. So insummary, as someone that is an
outsider was, to be honest, alot of it was painful to see
level of inequality, to see, youknow, the remnants of like a
(07:58):
oppressive society, and howthose kind of racial divisions
still exist today. And a lot ofthat was was really like new to
me in in your face relative tosome of my life experiences. And
so a lot of lessons to belearned. So I had the time to
read Nelson Mandela's book, LongWalk to Freedom, and I'm a fan
of Trevor Noah read his book,born a crime to just get, like a
(08:21):
first hand experience of what itwould have been like growing up
in these societies and kind ofpaint the picture for me. But I
mean, every group of cultures inSouth Africa has its own beauty.
But they also have their ownscars. And so that was kind of
part of the learning. But I meanthat that landscape is diverse,
(08:42):
you've got deserts and oceansand multiple different biomes
throughout the country. And Ithink that's also reflected in
the culture, the the culturethan the people are as diverse
as the landscape. So for thatreason, it's one of the most
fascinating an eye opening visitto another country my entire
life. But that doesn't comewithout a struggles, of course.
Danny (09:04):
Totally, totally. 10 months is almost like moving
right or getting used to a newcountry environment, people. So
it's a complete readjustment.
Taylor McGuire (09:14):
Absolutely.
Danny (09:15):
Great. Yeah. So let's shift gears a little bit. So you
mentioned this a little bit inyour intro, as a revenue leader,
you spend a lot of time workingwith high performance teams,
there's been probably a lot ofpressure has been put on you.
But more recently, I spend quitea good amount of time building
Customer Success teams. So canyou tell me more about your path
(09:35):
to customer success? And whatmakes you excited about it?
Taylor McGuire (09:40):
Yeah, so I mean, when I say revenue, I do mean
customer success, everythingkind of post. The customer
deciding to join your company iskind of part of that revenue
equation, whether you're theteam winning their business or
the team delivering value forthem and helping keep their
business. And so when I thinkabout kind of customers, Access
in that equation, it's it's afocus on delivering that
(10:04):
promise, you know, marketingsaid, Hey, we can help you with
this problem and sales walkedyou through how your problems
can be solved by this company.
But once you join, the teamneeds to deliver on helping you
solve that problem. And if inthe world of subscriptions, if
you if we don't, you can justleave. And so I'm, I'm a big fan
of helping defined not justcustomer this year, but a
(10:28):
customer for life. Andobviously, that's ambitious. But
if you can do the right things,as a team, between your product,
your people and your processesto help a company solve a
problem, then they're not goinganywhere, because you can be
directly embedded in how theywork. And so you move from being
like a vendor relationship tomore of a partner relationship
(10:50):
where you can help them makedecisions about their business
and guides some of their growthof incense grow together. And to
me, that's a lot moreinteresting of a problem. In
terms of in terms of the revenueequation, I've played in
different parts of it, but beingin the world of helping
customers succeed with oursoftware and solve a problem
that they have, is, is veryrewarding. And it's also quite a
(11:13):
riddle. So there's a lot of alot of pieces moving pieces to
that. And I find that the kindof cross functional skill set
that you need to succeed.
There's been really exciting forme both in as an individual on a
customer success team andleading a customer success team,
I think, solving that problem asa group to help customers and
(11:33):
then pulling in all theresources we have as a team,
with our from our executives orproduct team or partnering with
sales and in making sure weclearly understand and solve for
their problems. It's all it'sall kind of an interesting game
to play.
Danny (11:48):
Totally, totally. So I really like what you said about
building a customer for life.
And that's definitely the goalwe should be striving for. Now,
it is becoming increasinglydifficult, right with the
competition, new companies thatare coming into the market. So
even if you do solve a problem,you always need to get so many
people's buy ins especially themore upmarket you go. So can you
(12:09):
talk a little bit more aboutsome of the challenges dad
customer success team need toovercome to really embed
themselves so strongly withinthe customer's organization to
become that strategic partner?
What needs to happen for you tohave such a strong position?
Taylor McGuire (12:29):
Yeah, I mean, there Yeah, that's a it's a big
question. There's a lot ofpieces pieces to that puzzle.
But to I mean, first of all, isproduct market fit as a
business, right, you have aproduct that solves a problem
for the market. And let's assumeyou've gotten over that hurdle,
which is like a, you know, avery difficult problem to solve.
(12:50):
And every, every tech companyneeds to kind of cross that
chasm. And, you know, it'sevident here at Productboard
that there is a good productmarket fit, you've got a group
of individual individuals thathave a problem at a company that
we can help solve. And so, sohelping, like solve that takes
different shapes for differentbusinesses, and that that's one
(13:12):
of the most nuanced part ofcustomer success, especially as
you go up market, you've got alarger business you're working
with like, likely to havebillions of dollars in revenue,
1000s, or 10s, of 1000s ofemployees. So multiple divisions
involved in how they operate,and a whole slew of tools and
(13:33):
tack that they use to run theirbusiness. And so to be
successful working with thosebusinesses, you have to invest
in understanding how they work.
So beyond just oh, you boughtyou bought a tool to solve to
help you do something faster,you need to better understand,
who are the people behind theirbusiness? Like who are the
leaders of each division? Andwhat do they care about day to
(13:54):
day? And what do their directorscare about day to day? And what
are their managers cared aboutday to day and be able to solve
for each of those kind ofpersonas, so crystallizing which
personas, you're solving thoseproblems for, usually through a
stakeholder, stakeholder mappingexercise is really critical. So
it's on the people side, theprocess side is, as a relates to
(14:15):
your specific product. How dothey work? Like how, how do
things get done? What is theworkflow for moving in the case
of product management, from youknow, customers, notes and
feedback through to helping tounderstand exactly what that you
know, perhaps first order needis not necessarily just what
(14:37):
they said, but what they mayneed. And then distill that into
a list of priorities. And thenhow do you as a team between,
you know, dozens or hundreds ofpeople decide where to invest
your resources on what to buildnext and then once you do that,
how do you share with thebroader organization? I mean,
that's a that's a big processand a lot of moving parts and
(14:58):
the only real A way that you canhelp a company do their job
better is to understand howthey're doing their jobs today.
And then mapping kind of wherethey are today to where they
want to go. And finding theright ways to measure that and
kind of make those key designdecisions for how they're going
to get from A to B. And so thatthat whole journey on the
(15:19):
process side is obviously notsimple. You have to have a team
that knows the problem spacereally well, has exceptional
communication skills and thecuriosity to dig in and
understand how another businessworks. And then the product
needs to deliver on it rightonce, once you've mapped that,
that the people in the process,you need to make sure you have a
(15:40):
product that supports from themgetting from A to B, and that
it's easy to use, and that it's,it's the team's well trained and
enabled to use it and thenyou're not creating work for
them. In fact, you're reducingtheir workload by introducing
another tool. And so there'skind of all these riddles, but
it really boils down to peopleprocess and product to help map
(16:01):
that customer organizationschallenges to how you can solve
them as a team.
Danny (16:10):
Totally, totally, I really like the overview that
you gave us very holistic. Sobasically, what you're showing
is that customer success verymuch relies on partnership with
many other teams with productwith leadership, engineering,
you name it, depending on whatthe situation requires it. Which
kind of brings me really evenjust to a very basic definition
of what Customer Success islike, well, this has definitely
(16:32):
taken off a lot in the SASspace, and definitely in many
major tech hubs around theworld. Customer Success is still
a relatively new team. Sobuilding on top of what you
already said, How would youdescribe customer success to
someone who's never heard of it?
Taylor McGuire (16:49):
Yeah, this is this is always a fun one. When
my when my grandmother askedwhat I do, I kind of it's kind
of it's the starting point islike, does she understand the
SAS business or software as aservice business? And let's
assume that she does. And Imean, often is the case, the
person that asked what isCustomer Success hasn't had any
exposure to it. And I usuallytried to just keep it simple and
(17:14):
explain that. In software, it'sa subscription model. So people
will buy something, and thenrenew every three months or six
months or 12 months. And sousually there's one team that's
focused on winning customers,that would be marketing and
sales. And there's another teamthat's focused on keeping
customers and that's customersuccess. So we're the team that
(17:35):
delivers on the promise. Andmake sure that when you do buy
that you stay, and we want tomake sure that you're
successful, or you enjoy usingour services, year over year,
month over month.
Danny (17:47):
I love this. I think it's just one of the best definitions
I've heard very simple one, Ithink the grandma would
understand or I hope it made alot of sense to me. It's great.
It's great. Yeah, so here are afew things I want to dive into.
So being on the customer successteam myself, which is something
(18:07):
I really enjoy. I do believethat customer success is one of
the key components, you know,that really contribute to the
success of a company. Now,again, like building on top of
what he already said, with yourdefinition of customer success,
what would you say? Is the roleof customer success? At the
whole company? Or at the companylevel?
Taylor McGuire (18:29):
Yeah, great question. I mean, the, the core
of it is, you are the agent, ina sense for the customer, you're
the you're the champion for thatcustomer that you're their voice
internally. So, you know, I'dargue that that the, the
customers the glue, and and wejust happened to represent them
(18:52):
as customer success. So youknow, we the customer is tying
together, they're the ones thathad a problem that we were lucky
enough to build a solution for.
And then there's a marketingteam that's kind of drawn
attention to that problem. Andsales has helped to win their
business and walk them throughand help them buy. And then you
know, our role is to is to helpthem grow with us and stay with
(19:15):
us year over year. So they arecustomers for life instead of
just customers for a year. Andthat whole kind of processes
around the customer. So I'd sayyeah, that customer is the
center of every business. Imean, that is why Productboard
exists. customer driven productmanagement means you build the
right products, the productsthat the customer wants. So
(19:37):
yeah, I call the customersuccess is just is just
representing that needs of thatcustomer and that customer
touches every single part of thebusiness. So by nature, it's
very cross functional, and it'sone of the reasons being in
customer success. You get pulledin so many different directions
because, in essence the customertouches every part of the
(19:57):
business. So if They want, youknow, a change to a product or a
change in their in their pricingmodel or anything like that you
have to be the person to kind ofmake those things happen
internally, and kind of re betheir voice. And that's probably
probably why I love it so muchit honestly, it's an honor to
represent the most importantperson in the company, which is
(20:17):
the customer.
Danny (20:21):
That's great. That's great. Yeah, I couldn't have
said it any better. So ifsomebody is interested in
starting a customer success teamand their company, what are some
of the things they should thinkabout first?
Taylor McGuire (20:35):
So I mean, it depends on the stage of the
company, the type of thecompany, let's assume it's a
software business that'ssubscription based. You know, my
previous CEO at the company Iwas at before Paul Toshima, he,
he was one of the early playersin customer success at a company
called they built called Eloqua,which was pioneer of marketing
(20:55):
innovation, competitor toMarketo. And, and they, they had
to build customer success,because they found that although
customers may be buying thesoftware, they weren't using it
properly. And there's a lot offailure in their implementation.
So it became very evident, wehave to make our customers
successful with this with thistool. And so I think that like,
(21:16):
I'm just telling that story,because, you know, without
customer success, your productis unlikely to be successful,
long term, in business tobusiness especially. So I mean,
there's an argument for andPaul, believe this for Customer
Success being hired beforesales. Because your product can
be purchased without sales in alot of scenarios, especially
(21:39):
like in its early days. But oncepurchase, you need to learn from
that you need to learn howthey're using, where they're
running into problems andtroubleshooting, like how it
fits in with their team'sworkflow. And all of that lends
to perhaps Customer Successearlier in the lifecycle. So if
you're, if you're building acompany, first of all, customer
(22:00):
success is a is really like afull lot like a philosophy. It's
not one team's problem. It's thewhole company's problem. And so
I think that's perhaps where Iwould start is just thinking
about how do you solve yourcustomers problems? And how does
the whole team think about that,and then finding it a team
member, whether you hire anexact first or go and find a
(22:22):
customer success manager to kindof partner with the CEO, you
need to make sure that they arethey're learning from that
customer in the early days, it'sabout finding bright spots,
you're going to be putting out alot of fires, don't get me
wrong, but it's about findingbright spots, what is happening
with how the customer uses theproduct that's working really
(22:43):
well. And how do you double downon those things as you move
towards finding that productmarket fit? So yeah, the the
early days, the whole companyneeds to be focused around
customer success, not just anindividual, but that individual
can very much help highlight andshine on those bright spots and
help rally the team around.
Danny (23:04):
That's such a great point. Absolutely, yes, the
whole company needs to berallied behind this vision, to
be customer centric, and tolisten to customer feedback. And
not only existing customers, butalso the prospects right, which
is something we've beendiscussing the company righted.
It's great to be customer focus,but it's even better to be
really market focused, whichreally takes into consideration
(23:27):
the needs of our potentialcustomers. Because otherwise,
right, we won't be able to growas fast or ready to capture the
the true market that we that wecan and some of the ones who
need our help.
Taylor McGuire (23:40):
Yeah, great point. Great point market
focused. I mean, yeah, if you'rethinking about the customers of
tomorrow, they're too
Danny (23:47):
exactly exactly what,
Taylor McGuire (23:48):
what problems.
And there's also an element oflike, What problems do they not
know they have. And like, that'spart of the category creation,
which in our case, we're doingsometimes, you know, the way we
work can be broken orinefficient, and we just deal
with it. And then one day ofproducts shows up that solves
for that, that we didn't eventhink we needed. And of course,
(24:09):
those are like game changingindustry changing products, but
you know, striving to be they'restriving to be the innovative
leader of the pack that'ssolving a market need. Kind of
ahead of the curve.
Danny (24:26):
Exactly, exactly. I guess that's exactly what we're trying
to do with product excellence,right building a new category in
the market and, and helpingproduct managers build products
faster, more easily. All themalign teams. Better. So many
opportunities. Yeah, absolutely.
Awesome. Awesome. So I'mcurious. So we're kind of
(24:47):
shifting the gears a little bitmore towards Productboard. You
joined the company as a seniormanager for the enterprise
customer success team. So morein detail what inspired you to
join this team
Taylor McGuire (25:01):
Yeah, so I mean, I shared a little bit about, you
know, spending the better partof a decade in building
startups. And, you know, aftermy last challenge, which was
early stage kind of seed stagebusiness, innovative using using
AI to solve some problems forsales teams. But two years
there, I decided to take a stepback and recharge and during
(25:24):
that time, very much focused onmy health and kind of my
holistic view of like, how doeswork fit into my life. And, and
I think that there were a coupleof key takeaways personally, but
on the professional side, it wasclear that first of all, I need
to care about the problem. So itneeds to be customer struggling
(25:46):
with something that I careabout, and I want to help them
with just naturally and that'sgoing to be foundational for
helping get through the toughmoments, is having having kind
of a being able to feel theirpain, like naturally empathizing
is is really helpful. Second is,is I need to be excited, the
team I'm collaborating with andthe customers I'm collaborating
(26:07):
with. So in this case,Productboard, I had a chance to
meet with with our leaders, Zackand john, Layla, and Jill. And,
you know, just speaking withthose four, through the
interview process made it veryclear that this is a team that
I'd be excited to work with. Imean, they wanted me over. And
that was validated by everyoneelse I met on the team and
(26:27):
yourself included Danny. And soyeah, being excited about who
I'm collaborating with bothinternally and the customers,
they are the customer personasthat I'll be working with doing
interesting things. Andobviously being working with
product teams, you're helpingwith innovation, which is
obviously going to be excitingfor many, I'd say I also was
(26:48):
looking for a team that runsruns a business that makes
decisions with data first, notonly data, of course, there's a
qualitative element toeverything, but data is the
foundation is really importantto me. So those are a lot of
questions I was asking earlieris is about the metrics and how
they're being tracked, and abouthow you're looking for bright
(27:09):
spots as you notarization wherethere are opportunities, and the
team won me over there. And thenfinally was the global team with
global customer. SoProductboard? Well, it's a young
company, it's already global,it's already customer base in
both Europe, North America andthen a few and other areas of
the world. And that speaks toboth the aspirations of the
(27:31):
team, but also the needs of themarket, which is exciting. And
then just personally, I loveworking with people from other
cultures. So having globalcustomer base and team members
from around the world is ispersonally exciting for me,
because I get to work with andlearn from people from around
the world.
Danny (27:48):
That's exciting. That's exciting. And thank you for
giving us this framework of yourdecision making, because that's
also something that people canuse when they are considering a
new career switch. And this isalso why we publish this podcast
right to give our listeners aspecial edge when they're
considering a potential move, orthey want to really get to know
(28:10):
the company in and out, which issomething so challenging, and
you don't always get theinsights during the interview
process, you may need to do alot of vacuuming and really find
out the truth about a specificcompany. So we hope that through
this podcast, we can make thingseasier for for the potential
candidates that are consideringProductboard as their new home
(28:34):
or new family to join your newprofessional family. Let's say
your team. Excellent. So now,following up on that, what do
you see as the biggestopportunities for growth? For
the customer success team? adProductboard, given the fact
that we're a growing company, wehave lots of ambitions, lots of
(28:54):
great goals. What are some ofthe things that you're excited
about?
Taylor McGuire (28:59):
Yeah, I mean, the the fact that. Customers,
there's times I've heard storiesof this, that customers have
shown up to kick offs with uswith their own slide decks. And
that's a testament to like how,how valuable solving this
problem is to them. And I thinklike I mentioned earlier, that's
(29:20):
just an honor to be in thatposition to to bring a solution
to a set of customers. In thiscase, it's product managers
working out of out ofspreadsheets, and PowerPoint,
and kind of you think of youthink of like the core of, of a
software company and like it'sthe customers and the product
(29:40):
that solves problems for them.
And if that product isn't, arethe people that in charge that
product, the product managersdon't have the right tools, like
they're just using hack togetherspreadsheets and like high
effort, PowerPoint presentationsto share roadmaps and obviously
there's a problem. So I mean,just in terms of the market
opportunity, that's reallyexciting. But I see, like you
(30:03):
see, as we get closer with ourcustomers, you can see that
there's, there's a lot of needfor kind of guidance and thought
leadership and direction. Andkind of a software that they can
use that drives their process asthey kind of mature and move
toward Product ManagementMaturity. And that is that is a
(30:24):
big opportunity to help to helpteams kind of set their
foundation properly as theyscale. Or if they are scaled, if
they're an enterprise business,help them start to correct the
processes they have and improvethem and have a product that
supports that. So I see us as onthe customer success side as a
partner in innovation. And, youknow, I heard I read this the
(30:48):
other day, I thought it wasfunny. Our customers are the
protagonists, and we are theguides, rather than the other
way around. And the example wasthink of the customer as Harry
Potter. While we strive to beDumbledore.
Danny (31:04):
Like that, that's a that's a good metaphor. Yeah.
And we can always have some moreHarry Potter metaphors as well
and a big fan. So that's a goodone. Now I'd really like you to
do you continue to bring in thecustomer to the forefront and so
important, you know, sometimesthese things can get blurry. And
yeah, it's important to be veryclear about that, right? It's
(31:26):
the customer, we're the onesrepresenting the voice of the
customer. And, and we canadvocate very strongly, right,
but it's driven based on thecustomer's needs the potential
growth opportunities or businessopportunities that we see. But
yes, it's the customer that's atthe center.
Taylor McGuire (31:45):
Yep, easier said than done.
Danny (31:50):
Totally, totally as I'm, so here's what I'm going to
think about. So as burger boardgrows, and we also grow in the
number of customers right? Therealso increasing demands and
needs for our customer successteam. So what is the future for
customer success team looks likeat Productboard.
Taylor McGuire (32:10):
So from from my vantage point thing, the team is
very well set up to scale.
Series B at this stage is quitesophisticated. On the customer
success side, I've got good goodleadership experience
leadership, good systems, youhave not only not only like well
trained and like strongindependent team, but a team
(32:34):
that knows how to collaboratewell both within their parts of
the organization and externally,which is key kind of being that
voice of the customer outside ofour customer success bubble. So
with that said, I mean from thewhole customer journey is is
mapped today. By tier, it's verybuyer focused. So it's about
like, what's going on in theirworld with them, as you know
(32:57):
them as the protagonist in thisexample. And, and I think that's
very well set up to succeed inthe near term. There's the right
set of assets, those assets arealigned with kind of the value
framework that sales andmarketing are using to make to
go to market. So the customershearing the same thing with
(33:18):
every team there. They'reengaging with, which is
critical. There's a foundationof data, we're doing a good job
of both segmenting and trackingsuccess within different
segments of our market customerbase. We bring customers to the
forefront like my first allhands meeting, our SVP, Zack was
interviewing two customers anduses a product word in front of
(33:41):
the whole company. And so Ithink like that, the fact that
customer success is embedded inas not only a strong team, but
as a culture of all ofProductboard. Given that it is a
customer driven productmanagement system, I think we're
in a really good place and veryexciting as we go up market.
We're now scaling up to bring onmore of the biggest businesses
(34:05):
today we have, for example,Disney plus and Zendesk as
customers. But there's onlygoing to be more of these big,
innovative businesses joiningus. And so the opportunity for
customer success, especially inthe enterprise, is to start to
have a thought leadershipapproach and consultative
approach to how we work withthem and help them innovate. And
(34:26):
that's not an easy problem tosolve when you've got, you know,
dozens and dozens of productmanagers and hundreds, if not
1000s of engineers behind theproduct. And so being being in a
position to have the expertiseand consult with them. To make
those decisions is really ouropportunity and it's something
(34:47):
that involves everything fromthe first interaction they have
with with Productboard, from ourmarketing team or sales team
through to when our suitsArchitects work with them on
setting up their implementationaccording to kind of what their
product management process lookslike. And then success
establishing what it is they'relooking to accomplish and what
(35:09):
success look like for them inthe next 612 months with us, and
setting that Northstar with thecustomer to help change how they
work, and that change managementis not easy, and it doesn't
happen overnight. But I thinkProductboard set up to be that
partner to help these companiesinnovate and make the change
towards customer driven productmanagement.
Danny (35:32):
Fantastic, yes, that's definitely exciting. It's
exciting to be on the team thatmakes this happen. So if
somebody listens to this andfeels Wow, this is so amazing.
I'd love to be part of thisteam. So what are what are some
of the opportunities forsomebody outside of
Productboard? Who is potentiallyconsidering a career change and
(35:53):
would like to consider customersuccess?
Taylor McGuire (35:56):
Yeah, we've got we are growing. And we have
about three openings in on ourteam Danny and his team,
specifically, on the enterpriseside of customer success. But I
mean, we also have 46 otherroles, open that Productboard,
we're scaling quickly. So I'msure you can find find what
interests you. But if customersuccess was where you wanted to
(36:19):
where you want to chat with us,I mean, my advice would be a
look at the look at the websiteand get a feel for it. Like who
is this company? What do theycare about? Do I like the way
their website is designed? Arethey talking about things that
resonate with me? And if theanswer is yes to all that, then
get in touch we you can reach usboth Danny or I on LinkedIn, and
(36:40):
we'd be happy to connect for aquick conversation to see kind
of what you're looking for next.
And whether this would makesense. We're looking for
builders. So team members thathave have kind of been through a
customer success, motion and areexperts and bring some product
management knowledge and knowhow to drive change and
enterprise. And if you havethat, that mix of skills and
(37:01):
experience and when we'd like tolearn if product or makes sense.
Danny and I would love to chatwith you.
Danny (37:09):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
If you're listening to this, andare interested, go to our
website, carriers dotProductboard.com to check out
our open roles. We'd love tohear from you. Great, excellent.
I feel like we covered so muchtoday and dove into so many
interesting topics on customersuccess. Taylor, is there
anything you'd like to sharewith us that you haven't shared
(37:30):
yet? And would be important tomention?
Taylor McGuire (37:34):
I've shared a lot, thanks. It's a good start.
This is this week for aProductboard. And I'm opening up
No, this is great. And I thinkthis is probably the fact that I
feel comfortable doing this is abig testament to, to the culture
here to the team looking to tobring on people that are willing
(37:56):
to be open and transparent andauthentic. And that's where we
do our best work. In myexperience, the teams that can
be who they are with each otherare the teams that can work
really well together and findthe groove. So I've seen that
both between team members, butalso with us and our customers.
And I can say from from everyconversation I've been part of
(38:17):
Danny's customers love her. Andit's because she she is bringing
both an approach to solve aproblem but also bringing
herself to that part of theequation. I think if that's
something that that resonateswith you, we definitely love to
chat. And I can be honest, and Isay this is going to be my
fourth. This is my fourthstartup team. And I am blown
(38:38):
away and excited. And this isabsolutely the kind of
opportunity I'm pitching to myfamily and friends to join,
which speaks volumes because Iwouldn't I wouldn't be looking
to bring on someone that closeto me unless I really thought it
was a special place to work. Soyeah, I'd say I'd say I'm
excited to be here. And thanksfor taking the time, Danny to to
(38:59):
pick my brain. This has beenfun.
Danny (39:02):
Thank you for your time.
This was outstanding. I enjoyedit so much. And yes, the doors
are open, please do reach out tous. You heard it if you have
more questions, we'd be happy toanswer them and you know where
to find us. Thank you so muchfor listening. We really
appreciate you for spending sometime with us and learning more
about what we do. If you enjoyedthis episode, and like what you
(39:23):
heard, here's some good news.
We're hiring. Go check out ourcareers page and reach out to
our team. We're hiring globallyacross multiple regions in
Europe, US and Canada. And thebest part, we are remote
friendly. One more thing beforeyou go. If you learned something
new today, please share thisepisode with a friend who could
(39:45):
benefit from it and give us arating on Apple podcast, or
wherever you listen to yourshows. This will greatly help us
spread the word and help othersfind the show more easily.
Finally, give us a follow onLinkedIn and Twitter to stay
plugged into Latest news aboutProductboard. Alright, that's
it. Thank you so much for yourtime. We'll be back in a few
(40:05):
weeks.
Welcome to the People of Productboard podcast, a place
where you can get a sneak peekinto life at Productboard. From
the amazing people who make thiscompany what it is making the
right gear choices can often beoverwhelming. Sometimes, no
matter how many people you talkto, you still don't know what
you're getting into. That's whywe launched this podcast to give
(00:27):
you an edge and allow you tolearn more about the ins and
outs of our company. Before youdecide to join our team. I'm
your host, Danny Tamraz. AndI'll be introducing you to some
of the amazing people that makeProductboard what it is. On this
podcast. We share honest viewsand experiences about life at
Productboard, the work we dowhat excites us and inspires us,
(00:48):
we talk about what makes ustick, the challenges we're
thrilled to solve theopportunities we're pursuing,
and so much more. If you'reeager to pursue your next career
move Productboard might just bethe right fit. So buckle up,
you're in for a wild ride.
(01:12):
What is the glue of everycompany? If you ask different
people, you may get differentanswers. But ultimately, they
all lead to one commondenominator. customers.
Customers are the lifeblood ofevery successful business. And
the subscription economy wherecompetition is high. The
pressure is on to deliver valueat every step at every customer
(01:34):
interaction on it to engage theright stakeholders aligned with
their goals. And you may havejust set yourself up for a tough
ride. That is why today we'retalking about the role of
customer success. And it'simportant on the business with
Taylor McGuire, customer successleader at Productboard. Taylor
has dedicated his career tobuilding and scaling startups,
(01:56):
while building great customersuccess teams. Use a data driven
guy. But if you ask him what hereally enjoys about startups,
you'll find out that more thananything, he loves the trial by
fire bonds, you get to buildwith a team when doing something
hard together. And Isn't thiswhat startups are all about?
building something hardtogether. Outside of work,
(02:17):
you'll likely find him outdoorshiking, surfing, or spending
time with his family. And thisepisode, we talk about his
sabbatical in South Africa, andwhat he's learned through his
travels, the role and importanceof customer success. Spoiler
alert, Taylor shares a fabulousdefinition of customer success
that even your grandma wouldunderstand. So stick around for
(02:39):
it. we dive into the keyquestions you need to answer to
effectively scales hisorganization and deliver value
to your customers. Finally, wetalk about the exciting
opportunities for the CSD andProductboard as we continue to
grow our team. So buckle up.
This is going to be a fun ride.
(03:04):
Hello, welcome to the People ofProductboard podcast. I'm so
excited to have you.
Taylor McGuire (03:08):
Thanks so much, Danielle. I appreciate it.
Danny (03:11):
Absolutely, absolutely.
We're excited to have you hereand also to have you on the team
with Productboard. I know you'vebeen on Productboard just for a
few weeks now. So excited tohear about your first
impressions.
Taylor McGuire (03:25):
Yeah, I mean, for about four weeks in and this
is the second time I've joined ateam at Series B, first
impressions are extremelypositive, the first of all, very
well set up to scale. Second ofall, all the reasons I joined
are being validated. So forexample, I really value
(03:46):
collaborating with a team thatis transparent and authentic and
willing to ask tough questionsand you know, focus on using
data to make decisions. And allof those things are are real
here, now that are behind thecurtain, which is really great.
So yeah, overall firstimpressions and getting to know
and work with the team has beenhas been a great start.
Danny (04:07):
Excellent. Excellent.
Well, I think it will be it willbe good to give our listeners a
little bit background aboutyourself. I noted just before
joining you were on a fantasticadventure. So why don't you tell
us a little bit more about whoyou are and what you've been up
to the past year.
Taylor McGuire (04:23):
Yeah, so I'm, I'm in the Great White north.
I'm Canadian. And I guessindividually call me family
focused. I've got a big familyspent a lot of time with them.
And, you know, working in techfor the better part of a decade,
building businesses and alwaysin a revenue role customer
facing so as you can imaginehigh pressure, especially growth
(04:45):
companies. And so after my lastchallenge, I decided it was
probably wise for me to take astep back and recharge. So the
last year I basically spenttraveling and it was of course
poorly time With a pandemic, soI ended up in, you know, I
toured a few differentcontinents. And then I ended up
(05:07):
in South Africa where my partnerwas doing her Master's of Public
Health, visiting her and helpingher get set up there. And she
will then the pandemic hit. Sowe were, we were in South
Africa, I just kind of had tomake it work so that we were
there for 10 months through thepandemic, and basically spent
that time outside enjoyingenjoying the ocean. And, you
(05:30):
know, spending time with eachother. She was still in school,
I was spending my time surfingand reading and hiking, which
was a really good recharge, butof course, unique circumstance
with the world kind of shuttingdown being on a foreign
continent. But luckily enough, Iwas with her and, you know, as
fortunate enough to be in asituation that I wasn't wasn't
under stress.
Danny (05:51):
That's great. That's great. 10 months sounds like an
incredible and adventure. Whathave you learned about yourself
during that time?
Taylor McGuire (06:00):
I think the probably the number one is truly
and you know, by my age, youshould really know this, but
truly how much I rechargespending time outside. There was
there for most of that 10months, I was spending the
majority of my days outside. Andyeah, I mean, my energy levels
(06:21):
soared. Obviously, lots ofsunshine is great for your body,
lots of activities, great foryour body, I was eating well.
But I really like I taughtmyself how much energy I could
really have if I invested in, inspending lots of time outside.
So now it's operation integratethat lesson into my, my tech
life. So making sure thatmornings and evenings and
(06:42):
weekends are spent outside thefresh air kind of recharge.
Danny (06:51):
Oh, that's great. That's great. So I can imagine South
Africa must be such an excitingcountry, like, what were some of
the highlights of your trip? Or,you know, when you talk about
South Africa, I immediatelythink of Nelson Mandela and
through fight for freedom. And,you know, how is life in South
Africa right now?
Taylor McGuire (07:09):
Yeah, I mean, it is a it is a very complicated
country, by far the mosteducational travel experience of
my life, you've got a countrythat has been colonized a number
of times over the last few 100years has been oppression, since
the 1600s. And so you've got areally like melting pot of
(07:33):
cultures, both from within theAfrican continent, and coming
from the European continents,the Dutch and the English. And
so all of that kind of mixedtogether makes for a very
complicated story. So insummary, as someone that is an
outsider was, to be honest, alot of it was painful to see
level of inequality, to see, youknow, the remnants of like a
(07:58):
oppressive society, and howthose kind of racial divisions
still exist today. And a lot ofthat was was really like new to
me in in your face relative tosome of my life experiences. And
so a lot of lessons to belearned. So I had the time to
read Nelson Mandela's book, LongWalk to Freedom, and I'm a fan
of Trevor Noah read his book,born a crime to just get, like a
(08:21):
first hand experience of what itwould have been like growing up
in these societies and kind ofpaint the picture for me. But I
mean, every group of cultures inSouth Africa has its own beauty.
But they also have their ownscars. And so that was kind of
part of the learning. But I meanthat that landscape is diverse,
(08:42):
you've got deserts and oceansand multiple different biomes
throughout the country. And Ithink that's also reflected in
the culture, the the culturethan the people are as diverse
as the landscape. So for thatreason, it's one of the most
fascinating an eye opening visitto another country my entire
life. But that doesn't comewithout a struggles, of course.
Danny (09:04):
Totally, totally. 10 months is almost like moving
right or getting used to a newcountry environment, people. So
it's a complete readjustment.
Taylor McGuire (09:14):
Absolutely.
Danny (09:15):
Great. Yeah. So let's shift gears a little bit. So you
mentioned this a little bit inyour intro, as a revenue leader,
you spend a lot of time workingwith high performance teams,
there's been probably a lot ofpressure has been put on you.
But more recently, I spend quitea good amount of time building
Customer Success teams. So canyou tell me more about your path
(09:35):
to customer success? And whatmakes you excited about it?
Taylor McGuire (09:40):
Yeah, so I mean, when I say revenue, I do mean
customer success, everythingkind of post. The customer
deciding to join your company iskind of part of that revenue
equation, whether you're theteam winning their business or
the team delivering value forthem and helping keep their
business. And so when I thinkabout kind of customers, Access
in that equation, it's it's afocus on delivering that
(10:04):
promise, you know, marketingsaid, Hey, we can help you with
this problem and sales walkedyou through how your problems
can be solved by this company.
But once you join, the teamneeds to deliver on helping you
solve that problem. And if inthe world of subscriptions, if
you if we don't, you can justleave. And so I'm, I'm a big fan
of helping defined not justcustomer this year, but a
(10:28):
customer for life. Andobviously, that's ambitious. But
if you can do the right things,as a team, between your product,
your people and your processesto help a company solve a
problem, then they're not goinganywhere, because you can be
directly embedded in how theywork. And so you move from being
like a vendor relationship tomore of a partner relationship
(10:50):
where you can help them makedecisions about their business
and guides some of their growthof incense grow together. And to
me, that's a lot moreinteresting of a problem. In
terms of in terms of the revenueequation, I've played in
different parts of it, but beingin the world of helping
customers succeed with oursoftware and solve a problem
that they have, is, is veryrewarding. And it's also quite a
(11:13):
riddle. So there's a lot of alot of pieces moving pieces to
that. And I find that the kindof cross functional skill set
that you need to succeed.
There's been really exciting forme both in as an individual on a
customer success team andleading a customer success team,
I think, solving that problem asa group to help customers and
(11:33):
then pulling in all theresources we have as a team,
with our from our executives orproduct team or partnering with
sales and in making sure weclearly understand and solve for
their problems. It's all it'sall kind of an interesting game
to play.
Danny (11:48):
Totally, totally. So I really like what you said about
building a customer for life.
And that's definitely the goalwe should be striving for. Now,
it is becoming increasinglydifficult, right with the
competition, new companies thatare coming into the market. So
even if you do solve a problem,you always need to get so many
people's buy ins especially themore upmarket you go. So can you
(12:09):
talk a little bit more aboutsome of the challenges dad
customer success team need toovercome to really embed
themselves so strongly withinthe customer's organization to
become that strategic partner?
What needs to happen for you tohave such a strong position?
Taylor McGuire (12:29):
Yeah, I mean, there Yeah, that's a it's a big
question. There's a lot ofpieces pieces to that puzzle.
But to I mean, first of all, isproduct market fit as a
business, right, you have aproduct that solves a problem
for the market. And let's assumeyou've gotten over that hurdle,
which is like a, you know, avery difficult problem to solve.
(12:50):
And every, every tech companyneeds to kind of cross that
chasm. And, you know, it'sevident here at Productboard
that there is a good productmarket fit, you've got a group
of individual individuals thathave a problem at a company that
we can help solve. And so, sohelping, like solve that takes
different shapes for differentbusinesses, and that that's one
(13:12):
of the most nuanced part ofcustomer success, especially as
you go up market, you've got alarger business you're working
with like, likely to havebillions of dollars in revenue,
1000s, or 10s, of 1000s ofemployees. So multiple divisions
involved in how they operate,and a whole slew of tools and
(13:33):
tack that they use to run theirbusiness. And so to be
successful working with thosebusinesses, you have to invest
in understanding how they work.
So beyond just oh, you boughtyou bought a tool to solve to
help you do something faster,you need to better understand,
who are the people behind theirbusiness? Like who are the
leaders of each division? Andwhat do they care about day to
(13:54):
day? And what do their directorscare about day to day? And what
are their managers cared aboutday to day and be able to solve
for each of those kind ofpersonas, so crystallizing which
personas, you're solving thoseproblems for, usually through a
stakeholder, stakeholder mappingexercise is really critical. So
it's on the people side, theprocess side is, as a relates to
(14:15):
your specific product. How dothey work? Like how, how do
things get done? What is theworkflow for moving in the case
of product management, from youknow, customers, notes and
feedback through to helping tounderstand exactly what that you
know, perhaps first order needis not necessarily just what
(14:37):
they said, but what they mayneed. And then distill that into
a list of priorities. And thenhow do you as a team between,
you know, dozens or hundreds ofpeople decide where to invest
your resources on what to buildnext and then once you do that,
how do you share with thebroader organization? I mean,
that's a that's a big processand a lot of moving parts and
(14:58):
the only real A way that you canhelp a company do their job
better is to understand howthey're doing their jobs today.
And then mapping kind of wherethey are today to where they
want to go. And finding theright ways to measure that and
kind of make those key designdecisions for how they're going
to get from A to B. And so thatthat whole journey on the
(15:19):
process side is obviously notsimple. You have to have a team
that knows the problem spacereally well, has exceptional
communication skills and thecuriosity to dig in and
understand how another businessworks. And then the product
needs to deliver on it rightonce, once you've mapped that,
that the people in the process,you need to make sure you have a
(15:40):
product that supports from themgetting from A to B, and that
it's easy to use, and that it's,it's the team's well trained and
enabled to use it and thenyou're not creating work for
them. In fact, you're reducingtheir workload by introducing
another tool. And so there'skind of all these riddles, but
it really boils down to peopleprocess and product to help map
(16:01):
that customer organizationschallenges to how you can solve
them as a team.
Danny (16:10):
Totally, totally, I really like the overview that
you gave us very holistic. Sobasically, what you're showing
is that customer success verymuch relies on partnership with
many other teams with productwith leadership, engineering,
you name it, depending on whatthe situation requires it. Which
kind of brings me really evenjust to a very basic definition
of what Customer Success islike, well, this has definitely
(16:32):
taken off a lot in the SASspace, and definitely in many
major tech hubs around theworld. Customer Success is still
a relatively new team. Sobuilding on top of what you
already said, How would youdescribe customer success to
someone who's never heard of it?
Taylor McGuire (16:49):
Yeah, this is this is always a fun one. When
my when my grandmother askedwhat I do, I kind of it's kind
of it's the starting point islike, does she understand the
SAS business or software as aservice business? And let's
assume that she does. And Imean, often is the case, the
person that asked what isCustomer Success hasn't had any
exposure to it. And I usuallytried to just keep it simple and
(17:14):
explain that. In software, it'sa subscription model. So people
will buy something, and thenrenew every three months or six
months or 12 months. And sousually there's one team that's
focused on winning customers,that would be marketing and
sales. And there's another teamthat's focused on keeping
customers and that's customersuccess. So we're the team that
(17:35):
delivers on the promise. Andmake sure that when you do buy
that you stay, and we want tomake sure that you're
successful, or you enjoy usingour services, year over year,
month over month.
Danny (17:47):
I love this. I think it's just one of the best definitions
I've heard very simple one, Ithink the grandma would
understand or I hope it made alot of sense to me. It's great.
It's great. Yeah, so here are afew things I want to dive into.
So being on the customer successteam myself, which is something
(18:07):
I really enjoy. I do believethat customer success is one of
the key components, you know,that really contribute to the
success of a company. Now,again, like building on top of
what he already said, with yourdefinition of customer success,
what would you say? Is the roleof customer success? At the
whole company? Or at the companylevel?
Taylor McGuire (18:29):
Yeah, great question. I mean, the, the core
of it is, you are the agent, ina sense for the customer, you're
the you're the champion for thatcustomer that you're their voice
internally. So, you know, I'dargue that that the, the
customers the glue, and and wejust happened to represent them
(18:52):
as customer success. So youknow, we the customer is tying
together, they're the ones thathad a problem that we were lucky
enough to build a solution for.
And then there's a marketingteam that's kind of drawn
attention to that problem. Andsales has helped to win their
business and walk them throughand help them buy. And then you
know, our role is to is to helpthem grow with us and stay with
(19:15):
us year over year. So they arecustomers for life instead of
just customers for a year. Andthat whole kind of processes
around the customer. So I'd sayyeah, that customer is the
center of every business. Imean, that is why Productboard
exists. customer driven productmanagement means you build the
right products, the productsthat the customer wants. So
(19:37):
yeah, I call the customersuccess is just is just
representing that needs of thatcustomer and that customer
touches every single part of thebusiness. So by nature, it's
very cross functional, and it'sone of the reasons being in
customer success. You get pulledin so many different directions
because, in essence the customertouches every part of the
(19:57):
business. So if They want, youknow, a change to a product or a
change in their in their pricingmodel or anything like that you
have to be the person to kind ofmake those things happen
internally, and kind of re betheir voice. And that's probably
probably why I love it so muchit honestly, it's an honor to
represent the most importantperson in the company, which is
(20:17):
the customer.
Danny (20:21):
That's great. That's great. Yeah, I couldn't have
said it any better. So ifsomebody is interested in
starting a customer success teamand their company, what are some
of the things they should thinkabout first?
Taylor McGuire (20:35):
So I mean, it depends on the stage of the
company, the type of thecompany, let's assume it's a
software business that'ssubscription based. You know, my
previous CEO at the company Iwas at before Paul Toshima, he,
he was one of the early playersin customer success at a company
called they built called Eloqua,which was pioneer of marketing
(20:55):
innovation, competitor toMarketo. And, and they, they had
to build customer success,because they found that although
customers may be buying thesoftware, they weren't using it
properly. And there's a lot offailure in their implementation.
So it became very evident, wehave to make our customers
successful with this with thistool. And so I think that like,
(21:16):
I'm just telling that story,because, you know, without
customer success, your productis unlikely to be successful,
long term, in business tobusiness especially. So I mean,
there's an argument for andPaul, believe this for Customer
Success being hired beforesales. Because your product can
be purchased without sales in alot of scenarios, especially
(21:39):
like in its early days. But oncepurchase, you need to learn from
that you need to learn howthey're using, where they're
running into problems andtroubleshooting, like how it
fits in with their team'sworkflow. And all of that lends
to perhaps Customer Successearlier in the lifecycle. So if
you're, if you're building acompany, first of all, customer
(22:00):
success is a is really like afull lot like a philosophy. It's
not one team's problem. It's thewhole company's problem. And so
I think that's perhaps where Iwould start is just thinking
about how do you solve yourcustomers problems? And how does
the whole team think about that,and then finding it a team
member, whether you hire anexact first or go and find a
(22:22):
customer success manager to kindof partner with the CEO, you
need to make sure that they arethey're learning from that
customer in the early days, it'sabout finding bright spots,
you're going to be putting out alot of fires, don't get me
wrong, but it's about findingbright spots, what is happening
with how the customer uses theproduct that's working really
(22:43):
well. And how do you double downon those things as you move
towards finding that productmarket fit? So yeah, the the
early days, the whole companyneeds to be focused around
customer success, not just anindividual, but that individual
can very much help highlight andshine on those bright spots and
help rally the team around.
Danny (23:04):
That's such a great point. Absolutely, yes, the
whole company needs to berallied behind this vision, to
be customer centric, and tolisten to customer feedback. And
not only existing customers, butalso the prospects right, which
is something we've beendiscussing the company righted.
It's great to be customer focus,but it's even better to be
really market focused, whichreally takes into consideration
(23:27):
the needs of our potentialcustomers. Because otherwise,
right, we won't be able to growas fast or ready to capture the
the true market that we that wecan and some of the ones who
need our help.
Taylor McGuire (23:40):
Yeah, great point. Great point market
focused. I mean, yeah, if you'rethinking about the customers of
tomorrow, they're too
Danny (23:47):
exactly exactly what,
Taylor McGuire (23:48):
what problems.
And there's also an element oflike, What problems do they not
know they have. And like, that'spart of the category creation,
which in our case, we're doingsometimes, you know, the way we
work can be broken orinefficient, and we just deal
with it. And then one day ofproducts shows up that solves
for that, that we didn't eventhink we needed. And of course,
(24:09):
those are like game changingindustry changing products, but
you know, striving to be they'restriving to be the innovative
leader of the pack that'ssolving a market need. Kind of
ahead of the curve.
Danny (24:26):
Exactly, exactly. I guess that's exactly what we're trying
to do with product excellence,right building a new category in
the market and, and helpingproduct managers build products
faster, more easily. All themalign teams. Better. So many
opportunities. Yeah, absolutely.
Awesome. Awesome. So I'mcurious. So we're kind of
(24:47):
shifting the gears a little bitmore towards Productboard. You
joined the company as a seniormanager for the enterprise
customer success team. So morein detail what inspired you to
join this team
Taylor McGuire (25:01):
Yeah, so I mean, I shared a little bit about, you
know, spending the better partof a decade in building
startups. And, you know, aftermy last challenge, which was
early stage kind of seed stagebusiness, innovative using using
AI to solve some problems forsales teams. But two years
there, I decided to take a stepback and recharge and during
(25:24):
that time, very much focused onmy health and kind of my
holistic view of like, how doeswork fit into my life. And, and
I think that there were a coupleof key takeaways personally, but
on the professional side, it wasclear that first of all, I need
to care about the problem. So itneeds to be customer struggling
(25:46):
with something that I careabout, and I want to help them
with just naturally and that'sgoing to be foundational for
helping get through the toughmoments, is having having kind
of a being able to feel theirpain, like naturally empathizing
is is really helpful. Second is,is I need to be excited, the
team I'm collaborating with andthe customers I'm collaborating
(26:07):
with. So in this case,Productboard, I had a chance to
meet with with our leaders, Zackand john, Layla, and Jill. And,
you know, just speaking withthose four, through the
interview process made it veryclear that this is a team that
I'd be excited to work with. Imean, they wanted me over. And
that was validated by everyoneelse I met on the team and
(26:27):
yourself included Danny. And soyeah, being excited about who
I'm collaborating with bothinternally and the customers,
they are the customer personasthat I'll be working with doing
interesting things. Andobviously being working with
product teams, you're helpingwith innovation, which is
obviously going to be excitingfor many, I'd say I also was
(26:48):
looking for a team that runsruns a business that makes
decisions with data first, notonly data, of course, there's a
qualitative element toeverything, but data is the
foundation is really importantto me. So those are a lot of
questions I was asking earlieris is about the metrics and how
they're being tracked, and abouthow you're looking for bright
(27:09):
spots as you notarization wherethere are opportunities, and the
team won me over there. And thenfinally was the global team with
global customer. SoProductboard? Well, it's a young
company, it's already global,it's already customer base in
both Europe, North America andthen a few and other areas of
the world. And that speaks toboth the aspirations of the
(27:31):
team, but also the needs of themarket, which is exciting. And
then just personally, I loveworking with people from other
cultures. So having globalcustomer base and team members
from around the world is ispersonally exciting for me,
because I get to work with andlearn from people from around
the world.
Danny (27:48):
That's exciting. That's exciting. And thank you for
giving us this framework of yourdecision making, because that's
also something that people canuse when they are considering a
new career switch. And this isalso why we publish this podcast
right to give our listeners aspecial edge when they're
considering a potential move, orthey want to really get to know
(28:10):
the company in and out, which issomething so challenging, and
you don't always get theinsights during the interview
process, you may need to do alot of vacuuming and really find
out the truth about a specificcompany. So we hope that through
this podcast, we can make thingseasier for for the potential
candidates that are consideringProductboard as their new home
(28:34):
or new family to join your newprofessional family. Let's say
your team. Excellent. So now,following up on that, what do
you see as the biggestopportunities for growth? For
the customer success team? adProductboard, given the fact
that we're a growing company, wehave lots of ambitions, lots of
(28:54):
great goals. What are some ofthe things that you're excited
about?
Taylor McGuire (28:59):
Yeah, I mean, the the fact that. Customers,
there's times I've heard storiesof this, that customers have
shown up to kick offs with uswith their own slide decks. And
that's a testament to like how,how valuable solving this
problem is to them. And I thinklike I mentioned earlier, that's
(29:20):
just an honor to be in thatposition to to bring a solution
to a set of customers. In thiscase, it's product managers
working out of out ofspreadsheets, and PowerPoint,
and kind of you think of youthink of like the core of, of a
software company and like it'sthe customers and the product
(29:40):
that solves problems for them.
And if that product isn't, arethe people that in charge that
product, the product managersdon't have the right tools, like
they're just using hack togetherspreadsheets and like high
effort, PowerPoint presentationsto share roadmaps and obviously
there's a problem. So I mean,just in terms of the market
opportunity, that's reallyexciting. But I see, like you
(30:03):
see, as we get closer with ourcustomers, you can see that
there's, there's a lot of needfor kind of guidance and thought
leadership and direction. Andkind of a software that they can
use that drives their process asthey kind of mature and move
toward Product ManagementMaturity. And that is that is a
(30:24):
big opportunity to help to helpteams kind of set their
foundation properly as theyscale. Or if they are scaled, if
they're an enterprise business,help them start to correct the
processes they have and improvethem and have a product that
supports that. So I see us as onthe customer success side as a
partner in innovation. And, youknow, I heard I read this the
(30:48):
other day, I thought it wasfunny. Our customers are the
protagonists, and we are theguides, rather than the other
way around. And the example wasthink of the customer as Harry
Potter. While we strive to beDumbledore.
Danny (31:04):
Like that, that's a that's a good metaphor. Yeah.
And we can always have some moreHarry Potter metaphors as well
and a big fan. So that's a goodone. Now I'd really like you to
do you continue to bring in thecustomer to the forefront and so
important, you know, sometimesthese things can get blurry. And
yeah, it's important to be veryclear about that, right? It's
(31:26):
the customer, we're the onesrepresenting the voice of the
customer. And, and we canadvocate very strongly, right,
but it's driven based on thecustomer's needs the potential
growth opportunities or businessopportunities that we see. But
yes, it's the customer that's atthe center.
Taylor McGuire (31:45):
Yep, easier said than done.
Danny (31:50):
Totally, totally as I'm, so here's what I'm going to
think about. So as burger boardgrows, and we also grow in the
number of customers right? Therealso increasing demands and
needs for our customer successteam. So what is the future for
customer success team looks likeat Productboard.
Taylor McGuire (32:10):
So from from my vantage point thing, the team is
very well set up to scale.
Series B at this stage is quitesophisticated. On the customer
success side, I've got good goodleadership experience
leadership, good systems, youhave not only not only like well
trained and like strongindependent team, but a team
(32:34):
that knows how to collaboratewell both within their parts of
the organization and externally,which is key kind of being that
voice of the customer outside ofour customer success bubble. So
with that said, I mean from thewhole customer journey is is
mapped today. By tier, it's verybuyer focused. So it's about
like, what's going on in theirworld with them, as you know
(32:57):
them as the protagonist in thisexample. And, and I think that's
very well set up to succeed inthe near term. There's the right
set of assets, those assets arealigned with kind of the value
framework that sales andmarketing are using to make to
go to market. So the customershearing the same thing with
(33:18):
every team there. They'reengaging with, which is
critical. There's a foundationof data, we're doing a good job
of both segmenting and trackingsuccess within different
segments of our market customerbase. We bring customers to the
forefront like my first allhands meeting, our SVP, Zack was
interviewing two customers anduses a product word in front of
(33:41):
the whole company. And so Ithink like that, the fact that
customer success is embedded inas not only a strong team, but
as a culture of all ofProductboard. Given that it is a
customer driven productmanagement system, I think we're
in a really good place and veryexciting as we go up market.
We're now scaling up to bring onmore of the biggest businesses
(34:05):
today we have, for example,Disney plus and Zendesk as
customers. But there's onlygoing to be more of these big,
innovative businesses joiningus. And so the opportunity for
customer success, especially inthe enterprise, is to start to
have a thought leadershipapproach and consultative
approach to how we work withthem and help them innovate. And
(34:26):
that's not an easy problem tosolve when you've got, you know,
dozens and dozens of productmanagers and hundreds, if not
1000s of engineers behind theproduct. And so being being in a
position to have the expertiseand consult with them. To make
those decisions is really ouropportunity and it's something
(34:47):
that involves everything fromthe first interaction they have
with with Productboard, from ourmarketing team or sales team
through to when our suitsArchitects work with them on
setting up their implementationaccording to kind of what their
product management process lookslike. And then success
establishing what it is they'relooking to accomplish and what
(35:09):
success look like for them inthe next 612 months with us, and
setting that Northstar with thecustomer to help change how they
work, and that change managementis not easy, and it doesn't
happen overnight. But I thinkProductboard set up to be that
partner to help these companiesinnovate and make the change
towards customer driven productmanagement.
Danny (35:32):
Fantastic, yes, that's definitely exciting. It's
exciting to be on the team thatmakes this happen. So if
somebody listens to this andfeels Wow, this is so amazing.
I'd love to be part of thisteam. So what are what are some
of the opportunities forsomebody outside of
Productboard? Who is potentiallyconsidering a career change and
(35:53):
would like to consider customersuccess?
Taylor McGuire (35:56):
Yeah, we've got we are growing. And we have
about three openings in on ourteam Danny and his team,
specifically, on the enterpriseside of customer success. But I
mean, we also have 46 otherroles, open that Productboard,
we're scaling quickly. So I'msure you can find find what
interests you. But if customersuccess was where you wanted to
(36:19):
where you want to chat with us,I mean, my advice would be a
look at the look at the websiteand get a feel for it. Like who
is this company? What do theycare about? Do I like the way
their website is designed? Arethey talking about things that
resonate with me? And if theanswer is yes to all that, then
get in touch we you can reach usboth Danny or I on LinkedIn, and
(36:40):
we'd be happy to connect for aquick conversation to see kind
of what you're looking for next.
And whether this would makesense. We're looking for
builders. So team members thathave have kind of been through a
customer success, motion and areexperts and bring some product
management knowledge and knowhow to drive change and
enterprise. And if you havethat, that mix of skills and
(37:01):
experience and when we'd like tolearn if product or makes sense.
Danny and I would love to chatwith you.
Danny (37:09):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
If you're listening to this, andare interested, go to our
website, carriers dotProductboard.com to check out
our open roles. We'd love tohear from you. Great, excellent.
I feel like we covered so muchtoday and dove into so many
interesting topics on customersuccess. Taylor, is there
anything you'd like to sharewith us that you haven't shared
(37:30):
yet? And would be important tomention?
Taylor McGuire (37:34):
I've shared a lot, thanks. It's a good start.
This is this week for aProductboard. And I'm opening up
No, this is great. And I thinkthis is probably the fact that I
feel comfortable doing this is abig testament to, to the culture
here to the team looking to tobring on people that are willing
(37:56):
to be open and transparent andauthentic. And that's where we
do our best work. In myexperience, the teams that can
be who they are with each otherare the teams that can work
really well together and findthe groove. So I've seen that
both between team members, butalso with us and our customers.
And I can say from from everyconversation I've been part of
(38:17):
Danny's customers love her. Andit's because she she is bringing
both an approach to solve aproblem but also bringing
herself to that part of theequation. I think if that's
something that that resonateswith you, we definitely love to
chat. And I can be honest, and Isay this is going to be my
fourth. This is my fourthstartup team. And I am blown
(38:38):
away and excited. And this isabsolutely the kind of
opportunity I'm pitching to myfamily and friends to join,
which speaks volumes because Iwouldn't I wouldn't be looking
to bring on someone that closeto me unless I really thought it
was a special place to work. Soyeah, I'd say I'd say I'm
excited to be here. And thanksfor taking the time, Danny to to
(38:59):
pick my brain. This has beenfun.
Danny (39:02):
Thank you for your time.
This was outstanding. I enjoyedit so much. And yes, the doors
are open, please do reach out tous. You heard it if you have
more questions, we'd be happy toanswer them and you know where
to find us. Thank you so muchfor listening. We really
appreciate you for spending sometime with us and learning more
about what we do. If you enjoyedthis episode, and like what you
(39:23):
heard, here's some good news.
We're hiring. Go check out ourcareers page and reach out to
our team. We're hiring globallyacross multiple regions in
Europe, US and Canada. And thebest part, we are remote
friendly. One more thing beforeyou go. If you learned something
new today, please share thisepisode with a friend who could
(39:45):
benefit from it and give us arating on Apple podcast, or
wherever you listen to yourshows. This will greatly help us
spread the word and help othersfind the show more easily.
Finally, give us a follow onLinkedIn and Twitter to stay
plugged into Latest news aboutProductboard. Alright, that's
it. Thank you so much for yourtime. We'll be back in a few
(40:05):
weeks.
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