June 25, 2025 • 18 mins
What happens when passionate customer feedback clashes with cold, hard data? Jake McKee tackles this age-old product dilemma with wisdom earned from years at Lego and building communities for Fortune 500 brands. This episode of the customer success playbook reveals why treating community building as relationship development—not just feedback collection—transforms how companies balance emotional customer input with analytical metrics. McKee's "everybody goes home happy" philosophy demonstrates how sustainable product decisions emerge when companies design mutually beneficial relationships rather than extracting value from user communities. From scale modeling to high-end fusion restaurants, this conversation weaves personal insights with professional strategies for community-driven product development.
Detailed Analysis
McKee's approach to resolving the tension between passionate customer feedback and data-driven metrics represents a sophisticated understanding of modern product development challenges. His framework moves beyond the traditional either/or mentality to reveal how qualitative community insights can actually strengthen quantitative analysis when properly interpreted through relationship context.
The discussion illuminates critical flaws in conventional product development cycles, particularly the tendency to collect requirements upfront, disappear into development "black boxes" for months, then emerge with solutions disconnected from evolving customer needs. McKee's community-driven product development methodology keeps customer voices actively engaged throughout the development process, creating real-time feedback loops that prevent costly misalignments.
Perhaps most valuable is McKee's perspective on starting small with community building. Rather than investing in expensive platforms and complex infrastructure, he advocates for beginning immediately with simple relationship-building activities—introducing customers to each other, facilitating peer connections, and treating community development as an ongoing relationship rather than a marketing project. This customer success playbook approach recognizes that authentic communities emerge from genuine value exchange, not sophisticated technology platforms.
The conversation also explores the nuanced art of community participation, whether in branded platforms or external spaces like Reddit. McKee's guidance on "showing up" rather than "taking over" provides practical wisdom for companies looking to engage authentically with existing customer communities rather than disrupting established dynamics.
Now you can interact with us directly by leaving a voice message at https://www.speakpipe.com/CustomerSuccessPlaybook
Kevin's offering
Please Like, Comment, Share and Subscribe.
You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:
YouTube - @CustomerSuccessPlaybookPodcast
Twitter - @CS_Playbook
You can find Kevin at:
Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web site
Kevin Metzger on Linked In.
You can find Roman at:
Roman Trebon on Linked In.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kevin Metzger (00:05):
Customer success.
Welcome back to the CustomerSuccess Playbook podcast.
I'm Kevin Metzger here againwith my co-host Roman Reon.
We're joined by Jake McKee, thecommunity guy, Roman.
We've already had a reallyengaging first show on human
driven AI design.
Are you ready for today?
Roman Trebon (00:26):
I, I can't wait.
This is gonna be great.
But Kev, before we tackle ourone big question, you know,
let's do a quick round ofpersonal questions so our
audience can get to know Jake alittle better.
Jake, you on board for that?
Absolutely.
You spent years at Lego, so Iknow our audience is jealous,
probably like I am, which isawesome.
Alright, so what's the coolestlesson those master builders
(00:48):
over at Lego taught you aboutthe concept of community?
Jake McKee (00:52):
Well, I gotta give you two.
There's so much that came out ofthat that I, I don't know if I
can narrow it down to just onething, but.
Yeah, the, the first one was my,my mantra that for direct
customer engagement andcommunity work has, has lasted
me a career at this point, whichis everybody goes home happy.
It's a mantra of communitybuilding that is really focused
on this idea that I heard somany times from my colleagues at
(01:14):
Lego that, oh, you know we justgotta do stuff for them and
there's no return for us.
That's a bad deal, right?
We don't want that.
They don't want that because ifwe're not getting anything as a,
from the company side out ofthis connection, this
relationship with the, thecommunity base, we're not gonna
do it very long.
Right.
We might do a project or two andthen lose interest or, or not
find value for it and cut thefunding or the, the, the time
(01:37):
investment.
So.
By the same token you know,really understanding what the
fans want and what they'reinterested in, not just what
they're complaining about, orit's getting to know somebody
through the anger or through theupset or through the questions
instead of in spite of it,right?
So if they're upset aboutsomething, what's really driving
that in the background?
What's gonna make them happy?
What are they looking for?
And then how do we have aconversation between company and
(02:00):
customer on an ongoing, regularbasis where that.
Direct connection happens, and Ican say to them, look, I really
want to deliver that kind of setto you or that ability to buy
these kind of parts.
What I need in return though,because this year we're working
on retention or we're working onlaunching this new project or
we're doing, working on whateverit might be.
That's what I'm working on.
(02:20):
I need you guys to help me withthat.
Here's three ideas.
And they go, oh, no problem.
We can do that.
And then it becomes thismutually beneficial relationship
and it really is a relationshipat that point.
Right.
You heard on Monday, I'm, Ialways talk about relationships.
That's really fundamentally thework that I do is building these
relationships between company,customer, and now ais.
But yeah, it's really buildingthat relationship is, is number
(02:41):
one.
The other, the second I'll giveyou is the idea that I
established fairly early on inmy work, which was Legos, a
creative medium.
And today, you know, we see Legoon everybody's desks at all
kinds of office buildings allacross the world.
And you know, I'm alwayssurprised by the people that are
outside the realm of who youthink would have Lego on their
(03:02):
desk at work.
But I recently ran into a clientthat said, Hey, come over here.
You know, I wanna show you thiswoman's desk and.
There's this middle aged womanthat had a desk hovered in Lego
flowers, right?
Something that wouldn't havehappened 10 years ago, it just
wouldn't have been a normalthing.
Right now it is.
And I think part of that comesdown to the message that I
always try to get across, thatwe're not here to sell boxes.
We're here, really both me as acommunity person representing
(03:25):
the company.
Me as a community person workingwith the community members
themselves, and both of thosetwo entities on either side as
well.
We're all here to promote thisidea that Lego is a creative
medium because if I can get youto believe it's a creative
medium, I can get you to feelproud about going and talking
about the fact that you have aLego room in your house with
tens of thousands of bricks,right?
I can get you excited aboutbuying a, a Christmas present
(03:47):
that's Lego and maybe a littlebit more expensive than
something else you wereconsidering for your grandkid
that Christmas season.
You're thinking, well, I'm, youare your grandfather, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Well, the, the grand, thegrandchild, you're thinking,
well, this is a great toy.
Right?
I'm giving them a creativemedium, not just a disposable
toy.
Right.
But the grandfather as wellmight be as, as excited to
(04:08):
participate in, in building thatkit with the grandkid is as the
grandkid is.
Right.
So there's, and it's a creativemedium, bringing them together.
So it's really thinking aboutwhen it comes to community
building, how do you stepbeyond?
Business is there for, or whatthe customer demands are and
what's that shared purpose inbetween?
That's so critical.
Roman Trebon (04:25):
We actually had, I won't mention names.
We had a former guest, we weretalking about what they do to
kind of unwind outside of work,which is sort of a foreshadowing
to a question that may be comingup for you.
But.
What, what he said was, and hepulled up pictures, giant Lego
sets, like giant, the Titanic.
Yeah.
Empire State Building Titanictable.
Right.
It was awesome.
Kevin Metzger (04:43):
So what's maybe an off the beaten path in Austin
that we should visit if we come,if we come to your town and
visit Austin?
Man.
Jake McKee (04:50):
So it's almost certainly gonna be trunks that
I'll recommend to you becausethese days, you know, I'm, I'm
not cool and hanging out onsixth Street with, with, you
know, college kids.
Neither are, are we, so
Roman Trebon (05:01):
restaurants are perfect.
Jake McKee (05:02):
Yeah, that's right.
But yeah, my wife and I are,are, are huge foodies.
That's tends to be majority ofour date nights is going out to
interesting restaurants.
And the one, first and foremostrecommendation, although it's
not quite as you know, hole inthe wall as it used to be
thankfully is a place calledConge.
C-A-N-J-E.
That's a, a real high-end fusionJamaican Caribbean food type of
(05:24):
place.
It is.
That sounds good.
Absolutely fantastic.
And I think they were in therunning for Michelin Star this
last time.
Missed it.
And I'm not sure how they'rejust off the charts good, but
also they're not one of thoseplaces like French Laundry where
you go into and you think, okay,I'm never having that kind of
food again.
But it was great for the oneexperience I crave their jerk
chicken on a weekly basis.
Roman Trebon (05:41):
I haven't had Jamaican here in Atlanta, Kevin,
in a while, but now that Jake'smentioned that, I think I'm
gonna make a run.
Kevin Metzger (05:47):
You know what?
Well there's another one,there's one over there's one not
too far away.
I can't remember what it'scalled, but we might,
Roman Trebon (05:53):
I'll get the Google Maps pin after, after the
show, so.
Alright, well let's Jake, lastone, we'll do a quick one.
When you're out, when you're notworking outside of leg wing,
what do you do to relax?
Jake McKee (06:03):
Mostly relax.
My main hobby is scale modeling.
So I build very complex, verysmall things.
Oh, awesome.
And yeah, these days I've addedthe the 3D two, three different
3D printers and laser cutters,and.
All kinds of other stuff inaddition to all the hand created
items.
So, you know, I'm making a WorldWar making a fully detailed,
(06:25):
very accurate world War II Clubmobile from the American Red
Cross from Oh wow.
Where they'd roll up on thebattlefield and serve donuts and
coffee to to the, the soldiers.
And, you know, it's afascinating subject.
Yeah, it's very cool.
But it's one 35th scale andeverything I've been pouring
over plans and.
Oh, tearing up the internet,trying to find the minimal
pictures that that exist to beable to 3D model this
(06:46):
appropriately and then print itout and bring a big diam out of
it.
So I say, you know, relax.
It's mostly relaxing.
I really enjoy it, loves it.
There are times when I want totear my hair out, as you might
imagine, but you know, that'sall.
That's all hobby fun.
If you're not mad at it,sometimes you're not doing it
right.
That's
Roman Trebon (07:01):
right, exactly.
I love it.
That's right.
I love it.
You ready for one big question,Kev?
Kevin Metzger (07:05):
Yeah, why don't we get into it?
So, Jake, when passionatecommunity feedback conflicts
with data-driven productmetrics, how do you decide which
voice guides the roadmap?
Yeah, I think
Jake McKee (07:17):
that's a really good question and I think it, it's
hard to answer simply, so yougotta, you gotta bear with me on
this one a little bit.
So there's a, there, there maynot be real distinction between
what the passionate customersare saying and what the data's
telling you.
And I think that that often.
This is where if I, my wife andI'm really angry'cause I had a
bad day.
(07:37):
She reacts to my anger.
With anger.
I kind of, you know, I don'tknow, I just get more angry.
Right?
But there's something wonderfulabout saying, when, when she
says to me, Hey, you, you seemreally, how's your day?
You doing all right?
Can I give you a hug?
Right.
Like, it's just, it's, it's, Ithink there's, there's a lot of
that that goes on when we starttalking about passionate
customer.
Passionate customer, to reallyfirst and foremost understand
(07:58):
what's below the surface on whythey're.
Giving that particular feedbackpositive and negative, right?
People tend to, you know, acceptthe positive much quicker than
they do the negative in, in someways.
But also, you know, when you saypositive, it's sort of like our
own human connections, right?
When somebody says somethinggood about you, it tends to
bounce off a little bit morethan when they say something
(08:19):
negative and that really stickswith you, right?
First and foremost is reallyunderstanding what's the dynamic
of those passionate customers.
And this is where, you know,your community team or your
community professionals willcome in very handy because they
can often translate andinterpret some of that feedback.
And I think that that not enoughof that happens before we start
to compare it with the datapieces.
(08:41):
By the same token you know, datais its own tricky beast because.
Just because it's data doesn'tmean it's, it's valid for
consideration or even fullyvalid for consideration just
because you have something thatsays, you know, African American
medical patients seek less care.
Well, how do you interpret that?
(09:01):
Does that mean they're morehealthy or does it mean that
they have a harder accessgenerally speaking to, to care?
That there's some biases in thehealthcare system that influence
them, and you're really tryingto make sure that you are being
more data driven with yourqualitative and more.
Qualitative with your data Ithink really is a, is a good
place to start understandingboth of those things.
(09:23):
The second part of the answerthough is, okay, so you've,
you've kind of this apart, youunderstand the data a little
better.
You understand where some of theholes in the data might be, and
you're starting to plug thosewith knowledge from direct
customer conversation and viceversa, and you've got a pretty
clear picture.
The traditional product approachhas been fairly sequestered,
(09:43):
right?
Where we have bookends ofcollection upfront, where we
collect all of our, our, ourresearch, it's our requirement
documents, you know, whatever itmight be that we need to, to get
in place before we go start thedevelopment process.
We get our hands around that.
We hug it real tight.
We walk into the, to the productdevelopment.
We kick the door shut, maybelock it a couple of times, and
then start working in dark.
(10:04):
And every once in a while wemight stick our head out and
say, Hey, I need a little bit offeedback.
But by and large, the productcycle happens inside that, that
black box.
Right.
And then when we're done, we popup and verification starts is
what we built Functional?
Is it good?
Right.
And there's a whole huge range.
This is me as the community guytalking.
I have my own biases on this,but I really believe that.
(10:25):
That what happens there is weget that customer voice removed
so far from that cycle,especially if those cycles are
six months or a year or 18months long, right?
Which some of them can be youknow, how are we keeping that
voice and therefore thatenthusiasm for solutioning in
place throughout thatdevelopment process.
And I think that that's aprocess I call community driven
product development and how wego about putting those kind of
(10:47):
programs in place.
And really back to your originalquestion, how do we balance
these two?
You start to see it and feel it,right?
You start to understand the dataand the reasons why people might
have responded with something ona survey.
You might, you also using and enengaging with you and asking
questions in certain ways overtime.
Not just a one-off, you know,feedback session, but you know,
could be weeks or months thatyou have these folks involved.
(11:09):
And I think, you know, I'm, Iknow I'm biased, but I think
that's one of the best ways to,to find a.
Reality to potential datainputs.
Right?
And, you know, how do you goabout that?
That's, you know, you can dosmall little programs, you can
do longer time you know, sixmonths, year long programs.
Or you can do one-off sessionsthat last more than just a, you
(11:30):
know, few questions worth,right?
But, you know, whatever it isreally thinking about your
community mindset of, okay, ifwe're gonna listen to passionate
customers, we gotta treat them.
In the, in, in a relationshipformat, and we have to really
connect over time to understandthem a little bit more deeply.
And then, and then it's tobalance itself out and, and
answers become clear as anyother input of you know, any,
any other thought right, thatgoes into these roadmap
(11:52):
plannings.
Roman Trebon (11:53):
If you have a community that is such an
amazing resource and it's sohard to get these that wanna
build out these robust customercommunities and it's, they don't
have'em, right?
Like, yeah, the community notthere.
And so if you have one and you,like you said, Jake, you can tap
into it not just to get ideas,but the validate'em and bounce
things along the way, andthere's different approaches to
(12:13):
that.
It is such an amazing resourcethat how lucky and fortunate are
those product teams where youcan actually get real feedback
Oh, absolutely.
From people that are engaged,that care, that are invested and
yeah, it's, it's, it's amazing.
Right.
And I'll tell you there,
Jake McKee (12:27):
there's something.
So yes to all of that.
One thing that I will say is avery important distinction is
we're not just talking aboutpulling folks from from making
an active community base, right?
Active customer communityplatform, and going to those
folks.
Kevin, you mentioned, you know,passionate customers and that
could mean a whole bunch ofthings depending on what your
company does, how you cater tothem, right?
(12:48):
If you're making drill bits foroil wells in the gulf.
There's still gonna be somebodywho's very passionate about
that.
You may not have tens ofthousands of people in a active
customer community, but thereare gonna be some people who
want to talk about it, who youneed to hear from.
You also need to balance outwith other kinds of voices,
right?
Like finding the passionatecustomers.
They may come from communityplatforms, they may come from
(13:09):
other community programs andefforts you're doing, but they
may also come from yourcustomer.
Success team goes, man, this guyis one of the smartest customers
we've ever had, and he, weneeded for his knowledge to come
into, we're doing right.
Our,
Roman Trebon (13:22):
our
Jake McKee (13:22):
first
Roman Trebon (13:22):
oil rig
Jake McKee (13:23):
drill
Roman Trebon (13:23):
bit shout out, which I love.
Talk about a unique community.
That's, I love it though.
Like he said, Jake, there'sprobably one guy that probably
all knows everything in theworld about drill bits and, and
you know, as he, he hasn't it.
So ke do you have another followup before we wrap up our
Wednesday episode?
Kevin Metzger (13:38):
For the smaller communities or for those
building that kind of communityrecommend like customer advisory
boards and things like that.
And how, how do you pulling tomake sure you get the feedback
and content.
I have to give my,
Jake McKee (13:51):
my consultant disclaimer, that depends.
There's a lot of, you know, quethere's a lot of questions to
ask before I can answer thatparticular question, but
generally speaking, the answer Ialways give when somebody says,
where should we start is, I saytoday in small right?
I think there's far too much.
Effort that gets put into tryingto build a risk-free,
(14:13):
professionalized, perfectplatform.
And I'll, I'll use my fingerswhen I say perfect, right?
But some sort of perfectplatform that will, immediately
engage every potential personthat might want to come join
this community, immediately takeoff, and it'll immediately be
important and impactful toeverybody involved, including
the company.
That's not usually what happens.
(14:34):
Right?
The same way that I can't, I, I,if I'm smart, I'm not gonna meet
somebody at a bar and asking tomarry me that night and say, I
love you by the time that drinksare are empty.
Right.
We've never been to this.
You're not drinking the roughstuff.
Yeah, clearly not.
Or enough of it.
But when we, you know, we'rebuilding relationships and so
being able to find, you know, ahandful of people to get smart
(14:57):
first, right?
This is all part of a communitybuilding strategy.
How do you look at at superusers?
How do you start having customerconversations in a, and maybe a
more community centric kind ofway that isn't just give us
feedback about the product, butgive us feedback about the
experience.
Give us feedback about how youfeel about us as a company.
Give us feedback about.
How much you want to connectwith your peers.
Oh, what do you want from themwhen you connect?
(15:18):
Oh, that's cool.
Well, let me start introducingsome people around, right?
Let me to go outta my way to sayyou like X and you like X.
Why don't you guys meet?
You know, let me, let meintroduction.
I.
It can be as simple as that tostart a, and again, I'll use my
Coty Fingers, a communityprogram, right?
Or community process.
That said, there's other timeswhere a, a brand may have they
(15:38):
may not have their own officialbrand community specifically for
their products that they run asa company and that sort of
thing, but there may be youknow, places on Reddit that are
very well trafficked, right?
There may be, unofficialcommunities that are built up,
how do you start participatingthere and, and listening and you
know, showing up just like youwould anywhere else?
Right?
Instead of blasting in andsaying, I'm here, pay attention,
(15:58):
I'm in charge.
I'm the company.
Right?
How do you come in and say, Hey.
I'm here.
Do you mind if I sit down?
Right.
It is a very different dynamic,but I like the idea of starting
now.
There's always something you cando to learn more, to start
building relationships, buildingconnections and, and bridges to
your, your customer base.
And, and that can 50 differentways, including, you know, from
a customer success standpoint,those folks talk to customers
(16:21):
all day long.
They want more connection.
Typically, from what I've seenin my experience, those customer
success teams want to do more.
They want to do more with theircustomers.
They wanna get their customerstogether with other customers,
right?
So.
Can we do some of that manuallybefore we get to a bunch of
tools?
Is there smaller tools that canfacilitate some of those things?
You know, these, these communitydriven development programs I
use, i I built for, forcompanies often, we'll, we'll do
(16:43):
it in their existing Slack,we'll do it on a private
Facebook group just because.
That's where all their customersare.
And it's easier that way, right?
It doesn't have to be big, huge,complex, you know, hundreds of
thousands of dollars ofimplementation no matter what
Salesforce tells you.
Roman Trebon (16:58):
Jake, awesome stuff.
Thanks for sharing your insightson community driven development
and, and how to into thatcommunity.
So we're Hump Day is over.
We're on the back half of theweek.
Jake's gonna join us Friday,Friday to explore experience
designed again.
We'll talk about how you don'tlose in touch to our audience
subscribes.
You don't miss it.
You'll get a notification onyour phone.
(17:18):
You'll know when we, when wedrop the new episode.
If you're enjoying joining thisseries, don't forget to share it
with your colleagues.
Give us a review and we will seeyou Friday.
Until next time, Kevin, keep on.
Customer success.
Welcome back to the CustomerSuccess Playbook podcast.
I'm Kevin Metzger here againwith my co-host Roman Reon.
We're joined by Jake McKee, thecommunity guy, Roman.
We've already had a reallyengaging first show on human
driven AI design.
Are you ready for today?
Roman Trebon (00:26):
I, I can't wait.
This is gonna be great.
But Kev, before we tackle ourone big question, you know,
let's do a quick round ofpersonal questions so our
audience can get to know Jake alittle better.
Jake, you on board for that?
Absolutely.
You spent years at Lego, so Iknow our audience is jealous,
probably like I am, which isawesome.
Alright, so what's the coolestlesson those master builders
(00:48):
over at Lego taught you aboutthe concept of community?
Jake McKee (00:52):
Well, I gotta give you two.
There's so much that came out ofthat that I, I don't know if I
can narrow it down to just onething, but.
Yeah, the, the first one was my,my mantra that for direct
customer engagement andcommunity work has, has lasted
me a career at this point, whichis everybody goes home happy.
It's a mantra of communitybuilding that is really focused
on this idea that I heard somany times from my colleagues at
(01:14):
Lego that, oh, you know we justgotta do stuff for them and
there's no return for us.
That's a bad deal, right?
We don't want that.
They don't want that because ifwe're not getting anything as a,
from the company side out ofthis connection, this
relationship with the, thecommunity base, we're not gonna
do it very long.
Right.
We might do a project or two andthen lose interest or, or not
find value for it and cut thefunding or the, the, the time
(01:37):
investment.
So.
By the same token you know,really understanding what the
fans want and what they'reinterested in, not just what
they're complaining about, orit's getting to know somebody
through the anger or through theupset or through the questions
instead of in spite of it,right?
So if they're upset aboutsomething, what's really driving
that in the background?
What's gonna make them happy?
What are they looking for?
And then how do we have aconversation between company and
(02:00):
customer on an ongoing, regularbasis where that.
Direct connection happens, and Ican say to them, look, I really
want to deliver that kind of setto you or that ability to buy
these kind of parts.
What I need in return though,because this year we're working
on retention or we're working onlaunching this new project or
we're doing, working on whateverit might be.
That's what I'm working on.
(02:20):
I need you guys to help me withthat.
Here's three ideas.
And they go, oh, no problem.
We can do that.
And then it becomes thismutually beneficial relationship
and it really is a relationshipat that point.
Right.
You heard on Monday, I'm, Ialways talk about relationships.
That's really fundamentally thework that I do is building these
relationships between company,customer, and now ais.
But yeah, it's really buildingthat relationship is, is number
(02:41):
one.
The other, the second I'll giveyou is the idea that I
established fairly early on inmy work, which was Legos, a
creative medium.
And today, you know, we see Legoon everybody's desks at all
kinds of office buildings allacross the world.
And you know, I'm alwayssurprised by the people that are
outside the realm of who youthink would have Lego on their
(03:02):
desk at work.
But I recently ran into a clientthat said, Hey, come over here.
You know, I wanna show you thiswoman's desk and.
There's this middle aged womanthat had a desk hovered in Lego
flowers, right?
Something that wouldn't havehappened 10 years ago, it just
wouldn't have been a normalthing.
Right now it is.
And I think part of that comesdown to the message that I
always try to get across, thatwe're not here to sell boxes.
We're here, really both me as acommunity person representing
(03:25):
the company.
Me as a community person workingwith the community members
themselves, and both of thosetwo entities on either side as
well.
We're all here to promote thisidea that Lego is a creative
medium because if I can get youto believe it's a creative
medium, I can get you to feelproud about going and talking
about the fact that you have aLego room in your house with
tens of thousands of bricks,right?
I can get you excited aboutbuying a, a Christmas present
(03:47):
that's Lego and maybe a littlebit more expensive than
something else you wereconsidering for your grandkid
that Christmas season.
You're thinking, well, I'm, youare your grandfather, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Well, the, the grand, thegrandchild, you're thinking,
well, this is a great toy.
Right?
I'm giving them a creativemedium, not just a disposable
toy.
Right.
But the grandfather as wellmight be as, as excited to
(04:08):
participate in, in building thatkit with the grandkid is as the
grandkid is.
Right.
So there's, and it's a creativemedium, bringing them together.
So it's really thinking aboutwhen it comes to community
building, how do you stepbeyond?
Business is there for, or whatthe customer demands are and
what's that shared purpose inbetween?
That's so critical.
Roman Trebon (04:25):
We actually had, I won't mention names.
We had a former guest, we weretalking about what they do to
kind of unwind outside of work,which is sort of a foreshadowing
to a question that may be comingup for you.
But.
What, what he said was, and hepulled up pictures, giant Lego
sets, like giant, the Titanic.
Yeah.
Empire State Building Titanictable.
Right.
It was awesome.
Kevin Metzger (04:43):
So what's maybe an off the beaten path in Austin
that we should visit if we come,if we come to your town and
visit Austin?
Man.
Jake McKee (04:50):
So it's almost certainly gonna be trunks that
I'll recommend to you becausethese days, you know, I'm, I'm
not cool and hanging out onsixth Street with, with, you
know, college kids.
Neither are, are we, so
Roman Trebon (05:01):
restaurants are perfect.
Jake McKee (05:02):
Yeah, that's right.
But yeah, my wife and I are,are, are huge foodies.
That's tends to be majority ofour date nights is going out to
interesting restaurants.
And the one, first and foremostrecommendation, although it's
not quite as you know, hole inthe wall as it used to be
thankfully is a place calledConge.
C-A-N-J-E.
That's a, a real high-end fusionJamaican Caribbean food type of
(05:24):
place.
It is.
That sounds good.
Absolutely fantastic.
And I think they were in therunning for Michelin Star this
last time.
Missed it.
And I'm not sure how they'rejust off the charts good, but
also they're not one of thoseplaces like French Laundry where
you go into and you think, okay,I'm never having that kind of
food again.
But it was great for the oneexperience I crave their jerk
chicken on a weekly basis.
Roman Trebon (05:41):
I haven't had Jamaican here in Atlanta, Kevin,
in a while, but now that Jake'smentioned that, I think I'm
gonna make a run.
Kevin Metzger (05:47):
You know what?
Well there's another one,there's one over there's one not
too far away.
I can't remember what it'scalled, but we might,
Roman Trebon (05:53):
I'll get the Google Maps pin after, after the
show, so.
Alright, well let's Jake, lastone, we'll do a quick one.
When you're out, when you're notworking outside of leg wing,
what do you do to relax?
Jake McKee (06:03):
Mostly relax.
My main hobby is scale modeling.
So I build very complex, verysmall things.
Oh, awesome.
And yeah, these days I've addedthe the 3D two, three different
3D printers and laser cutters,and.
All kinds of other stuff inaddition to all the hand created
items.
So, you know, I'm making a WorldWar making a fully detailed,
(06:25):
very accurate world War II Clubmobile from the American Red
Cross from Oh wow.
Where they'd roll up on thebattlefield and serve donuts and
coffee to to the, the soldiers.
And, you know, it's afascinating subject.
Yeah, it's very cool.
But it's one 35th scale andeverything I've been pouring
over plans and.
Oh, tearing up the internet,trying to find the minimal
pictures that that exist to beable to 3D model this
(06:46):
appropriately and then print itout and bring a big diam out of
it.
So I say, you know, relax.
It's mostly relaxing.
I really enjoy it, loves it.
There are times when I want totear my hair out, as you might
imagine, but you know, that'sall.
That's all hobby fun.
If you're not mad at it,sometimes you're not doing it
right.
That's
Roman Trebon (07:01):
right, exactly.
I love it.
That's right.
I love it.
You ready for one big question,Kev?
Kevin Metzger (07:05):
Yeah, why don't we get into it?
So, Jake, when passionatecommunity feedback conflicts
with data-driven productmetrics, how do you decide which
voice guides the roadmap?
Yeah, I think
Jake McKee (07:17):
that's a really good question and I think it, it's
hard to answer simply, so yougotta, you gotta bear with me on
this one a little bit.
So there's a, there, there maynot be real distinction between
what the passionate customersare saying and what the data's
telling you.
And I think that that often.
This is where if I, my wife andI'm really angry'cause I had a
bad day.
(07:37):
She reacts to my anger.
With anger.
I kind of, you know, I don'tknow, I just get more angry.
Right?
But there's something wonderfulabout saying, when, when she
says to me, Hey, you, you seemreally, how's your day?
You doing all right?
Can I give you a hug?
Right.
Like, it's just, it's, it's, Ithink there's, there's a lot of
that that goes on when we starttalking about passionate
customer.
Passionate customer, to reallyfirst and foremost understand
(07:58):
what's below the surface on whythey're.
Giving that particular feedbackpositive and negative, right?
People tend to, you know, acceptthe positive much quicker than
they do the negative in, in someways.
But also, you know, when you saypositive, it's sort of like our
own human connections, right?
When somebody says somethinggood about you, it tends to
bounce off a little bit morethan when they say something
(08:19):
negative and that really stickswith you, right?
First and foremost is reallyunderstanding what's the dynamic
of those passionate customers.
And this is where, you know,your community team or your
community professionals willcome in very handy because they
can often translate andinterpret some of that feedback.
And I think that that not enoughof that happens before we start
to compare it with the datapieces.
(08:41):
By the same token you know, datais its own tricky beast because.
Just because it's data doesn'tmean it's, it's valid for
consideration or even fullyvalid for consideration just
because you have something thatsays, you know, African American
medical patients seek less care.
Well, how do you interpret that?
(09:01):
Does that mean they're morehealthy or does it mean that
they have a harder accessgenerally speaking to, to care?
That there's some biases in thehealthcare system that influence
them, and you're really tryingto make sure that you are being
more data driven with yourqualitative and more.
Qualitative with your data Ithink really is a, is a good
place to start understandingboth of those things.
(09:23):
The second part of the answerthough is, okay, so you've,
you've kind of this apart, youunderstand the data a little
better.
You understand where some of theholes in the data might be, and
you're starting to plug thosewith knowledge from direct
customer conversation and viceversa, and you've got a pretty
clear picture.
The traditional product approachhas been fairly sequestered,
(09:43):
right?
Where we have bookends ofcollection upfront, where we
collect all of our, our, ourresearch, it's our requirement
documents, you know, whatever itmight be that we need to, to get
in place before we go start thedevelopment process.
We get our hands around that.
We hug it real tight.
We walk into the, to the productdevelopment.
We kick the door shut, maybelock it a couple of times, and
then start working in dark.
(10:04):
And every once in a while wemight stick our head out and
say, Hey, I need a little bit offeedback.
But by and large, the productcycle happens inside that, that
black box.
Right.
And then when we're done, we popup and verification starts is
what we built Functional?
Is it good?
Right.
And there's a whole huge range.
This is me as the community guytalking.
I have my own biases on this,but I really believe that.
(10:25):
That what happens there is weget that customer voice removed
so far from that cycle,especially if those cycles are
six months or a year or 18months long, right?
Which some of them can be youknow, how are we keeping that
voice and therefore thatenthusiasm for solutioning in
place throughout thatdevelopment process.
And I think that that's aprocess I call community driven
product development and how wego about putting those kind of
(10:47):
programs in place.
And really back to your originalquestion, how do we balance
these two?
You start to see it and feel it,right?
You start to understand the dataand the reasons why people might
have responded with something ona survey.
You might, you also using and enengaging with you and asking
questions in certain ways overtime.
Not just a one-off, you know,feedback session, but you know,
could be weeks or months thatyou have these folks involved.
(11:09):
And I think, you know, I'm, Iknow I'm biased, but I think
that's one of the best ways to,to find a.
Reality to potential datainputs.
Right?
And, you know, how do you goabout that?
That's, you know, you can dosmall little programs, you can
do longer time you know, sixmonths, year long programs.
Or you can do one-off sessionsthat last more than just a, you
(11:30):
know, few questions worth,right?
But, you know, whatever it isreally thinking about your
community mindset of, okay, ifwe're gonna listen to passionate
customers, we gotta treat them.
In the, in, in a relationshipformat, and we have to really
connect over time to understandthem a little bit more deeply.
And then, and then it's tobalance itself out and, and
answers become clear as anyother input of you know, any,
any other thought right, thatgoes into these roadmap
(11:52):
plannings.
Roman Trebon (11:53):
If you have a community that is such an
amazing resource and it's sohard to get these that wanna
build out these robust customercommunities and it's, they don't
have'em, right?
Like, yeah, the community notthere.
And so if you have one and you,like you said, Jake, you can tap
into it not just to get ideas,but the validate'em and bounce
things along the way, andthere's different approaches to
(12:13):
that.
It is such an amazing resourcethat how lucky and fortunate are
those product teams where youcan actually get real feedback
Oh, absolutely.
From people that are engaged,that care, that are invested and
yeah, it's, it's, it's amazing.
Right.
And I'll tell you there,
Jake McKee (12:27):
there's something.
So yes to all of that.
One thing that I will say is avery important distinction is
we're not just talking aboutpulling folks from from making
an active community base, right?
Active customer communityplatform, and going to those
folks.
Kevin, you mentioned, you know,passionate customers and that
could mean a whole bunch ofthings depending on what your
company does, how you cater tothem, right?
(12:48):
If you're making drill bits foroil wells in the gulf.
There's still gonna be somebodywho's very passionate about
that.
You may not have tens ofthousands of people in a active
customer community, but thereare gonna be some people who
want to talk about it, who youneed to hear from.
You also need to balance outwith other kinds of voices,
right?
Like finding the passionatecustomers.
They may come from communityplatforms, they may come from
(13:09):
other community programs andefforts you're doing, but they
may also come from yourcustomer.
Success team goes, man, this guyis one of the smartest customers
we've ever had, and he, weneeded for his knowledge to come
into, we're doing right.
Our,
Roman Trebon (13:22):
our
Jake McKee (13:22):
first
Roman Trebon (13:22):
oil rig
Jake McKee (13:23):
drill
Roman Trebon (13:23):
bit shout out, which I love.
Talk about a unique community.
That's, I love it though.
Like he said, Jake, there'sprobably one guy that probably
all knows everything in theworld about drill bits and, and
you know, as he, he hasn't it.
So ke do you have another followup before we wrap up our
Wednesday episode?
Kevin Metzger (13:38):
For the smaller communities or for those
building that kind of communityrecommend like customer advisory
boards and things like that.
And how, how do you pulling tomake sure you get the feedback
and content.
I have to give my,
Jake McKee (13:51):
my consultant disclaimer, that depends.
There's a lot of, you know, quethere's a lot of questions to
ask before I can answer thatparticular question, but
generally speaking, the answer Ialways give when somebody says,
where should we start is, I saytoday in small right?
I think there's far too much.
Effort that gets put into tryingto build a risk-free,
(14:13):
professionalized, perfectplatform.
And I'll, I'll use my fingerswhen I say perfect, right?
But some sort of perfectplatform that will, immediately
engage every potential personthat might want to come join
this community, immediately takeoff, and it'll immediately be
important and impactful toeverybody involved, including
the company.
That's not usually what happens.
(14:34):
Right?
The same way that I can't, I, I,if I'm smart, I'm not gonna meet
somebody at a bar and asking tomarry me that night and say, I
love you by the time that drinksare are empty.
Right.
We've never been to this.
You're not drinking the roughstuff.
Yeah, clearly not.
Or enough of it.
But when we, you know, we'rebuilding relationships and so
being able to find, you know, ahandful of people to get smart
(14:57):
first, right?
This is all part of a communitybuilding strategy.
How do you look at at superusers?
How do you start having customerconversations in a, and maybe a
more community centric kind ofway that isn't just give us
feedback about the product, butgive us feedback about the
experience.
Give us feedback about how youfeel about us as a company.
Give us feedback about.
How much you want to connectwith your peers.
Oh, what do you want from themwhen you connect?
(15:18):
Oh, that's cool.
Well, let me start introducingsome people around, right?
Let me to go outta my way to sayyou like X and you like X.
Why don't you guys meet?
You know, let me, let meintroduction.
I.
It can be as simple as that tostart a, and again, I'll use my
Coty Fingers, a communityprogram, right?
Or community process.
That said, there's other timeswhere a, a brand may have they
(15:38):
may not have their own officialbrand community specifically for
their products that they run asa company and that sort of
thing, but there may be youknow, places on Reddit that are
very well trafficked, right?
There may be, unofficialcommunities that are built up,
how do you start participatingthere and, and listening and you
know, showing up just like youwould anywhere else?
Right?
Instead of blasting in andsaying, I'm here, pay attention,
(15:58):
I'm in charge.
I'm the company.
Right?
How do you come in and say, Hey.
I'm here.
Do you mind if I sit down?
Right.
It is a very different dynamic,but I like the idea of starting
now.
There's always something you cando to learn more, to start
building relationships, buildingconnections and, and bridges to
your, your customer base.
And, and that can 50 differentways, including, you know, from
a customer success standpoint,those folks talk to customers
(16:21):
all day long.
They want more connection.
Typically, from what I've seenin my experience, those customer
success teams want to do more.
They want to do more with theircustomers.
They wanna get their customerstogether with other customers,
right?
So.
Can we do some of that manuallybefore we get to a bunch of
tools?
Is there smaller tools that canfacilitate some of those things?
You know, these, these communitydriven development programs I
use, i I built for, forcompanies often, we'll, we'll do
(16:43):
it in their existing Slack,we'll do it on a private
Facebook group just because.
That's where all their customersare.
And it's easier that way, right?
It doesn't have to be big, huge,complex, you know, hundreds of
thousands of dollars ofimplementation no matter what
Salesforce tells you.
Roman Trebon (16:58):
Jake, awesome stuff.
Thanks for sharing your insightson community driven development
and, and how to into thatcommunity.
So we're Hump Day is over.
We're on the back half of theweek.
Jake's gonna join us Friday,Friday to explore experience
designed again.
We'll talk about how you don'tlose in touch to our audience
subscribes.
You don't miss it.
You'll get a notification onyour phone.
(17:18):
You'll know when we, when wedrop the new episode.
If you're enjoying joining thisseries, don't forget to share it
with your colleagues.
Give us a review and we will seeyou Friday.
Until next time, Kevin, keep on.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com