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- [00:00]
Erica Yoon
Foreign.
- [00:08]
Ty Degrange
Welcome to another episode of the Always Be Testing podcast. I'm your host, Ty degrange and I'm really excited to talk to Erica Yoon today. Erica, how you doing?
- [00:16]
Erica Yoon
Good. I am feeling so much better. The Bay Area finally has sunshine.
- [00:21]
Ty Degrange
It is so nice when it has its sunshine. And I believe you had a abnormally cool summer, is that right?
- [00:28]
Erica Yoon
Oh, yeah. Coldest summer in like 20, no, 80 years.
- [00:31]
Ty Degrange
Wow.
- [00:32]
Erica Yoon
Something like that. I made that up.
- [00:35]
Ty Degrange
I mean, I think you might be right. I got to visit in around July 4th and it was definitely cool. Definitely cooler in Texas this summer. Surprisingly. Shocker. It's catching up now. It's now we're getting into the hundreds, but we're making do. So glad you guys are glad you guys are getting some warmth out there.
- [00:54]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, you can, you can keep your triple digits tied.
- [00:57]
Ty Degrange
If you need your sunshine, just you just let me know. I got you.
- [01:01]
Erica Yoon
Sounds good.
- [01:02]
Ty Degrange
Erica is an amazing marketer. A veteran of the industry. She's currently leading marketing at Build Ops. It is the operating system built specifically for commercial contractors to get things done. A super interesting company and Erica's got some, some really good knowledge to share and just always a pleasure talking to her. So I think you guys are going to get a lot out of today. What are you working on right now? What's the latest and greatest? Erica?
- [01:28]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think interesting enough like trying to move marketing out of just acquisition demand gen and trickle it across more aspects of the customer journey. It's like most startups, the marketing hire that you start with or like the marketing core is really like how we know each other, right? Our bread and butter of like performance based marketing, digital marketing, so many different names and acronyms that have come before it, but now it's really like more about the time of like how do you drive broader scale, whether that means like getting to a bigger top of funnel awareness play all the way through to how do you start partnering with product to really bring a strong story to life about how, how your platform drives value and then even fun things like customer advocacy that we've just hired for. It's a really exciting time.
- [02:15]
Ty Degrange
That's awesome. It sounds like a really powerful like maturation of how you're thinking about marketing and how the business is thinking about marketing. Is that accurate?
- [02:24]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, I think that's right. I'd say the business as a whole is not just marketing, but like any high growth startup you get like really good focused functions and it's, it's really fun to kind of see everyone collectively Pop up like kind of look across the aisle and figure out, well, how do we start collaborating together and working cross functionally rather than just running really, really hard at like that specific part of the goal that you're going after?
- [02:51]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, that's really fascinating. And is that, are you kind of seeing that develop with product? I know you referenced that earlier, Is that a big part of that lift and kind of cross coordinating more?
- [03:03]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, yeah. It's kind of fun. We're getting from a place where the product team obviously laser focused on shipping things out, getting things out the door, but now like partnering with that team to understand like how do we start telling a story around not just, not just the laundry list of features that we've shipped and it is pretty significant laundry list and more around, well, how do we make sure that we're telling people like the value behind it, the why and even start painting like broader pictures of like what is the product vision for the next two years? Like our CTO is like a really cool near term goal to get us to this place where we're really driving overall value. And it's interesting to see how that comes to life for an industry that has been historically like a little bit of a laggard when it comes to just adopting technology.
- [03:48]
Ty Degrange
I love it. I've always had, I just love like the old school blue collar businesses that figure out tech and adopt tech in a, in an innovative, positive way. And so I think that's makes for a really exciting opportunity to kind of like either leverage things that you haven't been able to in the past in a big, big business and a B industry like home improvement. I mean this is a massive industry that serves so many people and affects so many of us homeowners. Everyone who's dealing with any of these things, as most, most of us are, to kind of paint the picture for people. What are kind of those ideal customers for BuildOps, for those that are maybe curious to learn more about the business and just wrapping the head around the marketing product challenges that you're dealing with.
- [04:34]
Erica Yoon
Yeah. So just a quick clarification, this is important. One, build ops actually is specifically for commercial contractors and it's actually interesting because when you think about when you're serving a customer that's B2C versus B2B, there's like a pretty distinct difference, but that's still core shared value of like the trades needing to see very tangible and real things. So to your point, Ty, like that scrappiness is there, like if Something doesn't work, MacGyver it, right? Duct tape, paperclip, figure out how to make it, make it work. And I feel like our customer and ICP is that they're all grit. They're looking for tangible, something real. Like, they literally do things with their hands every day. And so if your software can't deliver real results, like, they will be the first to tell you and very directly tell you. And I appreciate that because I'm not great at reading between the lines. But I think that's, again, like, kind of why it's an interesting space. Because there hasn't been anything built for, specifically for trades for a long time, let alone commercial trades, where the work is a little bit different. And I realize, like, I'm playing a little bit or speaking a little bit insider baseball. So to kind of break it down, when you think about a contractor that you might call, like, let's say your AC goes out and you need somebody to, like, come fix it.
- [05:50]
Ty Degrange
It happened.
- [05:51]
Erica Yoon
Yeah.
- [05:52]
Ty Degrange
Thank God. Not recently. Yeah, it's true.
- [05:55]
Erica Yoon
Well, glad to see you're not sweating now.
- [05:57]
Ty Degrange
Right now. I'm good.
- [05:59]
Erica Yoon
You had a good contractor.
- [06:01]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did have to call him back, but that's another story I'll read.
- [06:06]
Erica Yoon
That's actually, like, an interesting story, I think. And it's like, maybe. Maybe that becomes your guy, right? But, like, that guy is talking to you. You are the homeowner. You. You're the guy that also, like, needs to make sure the AC is running. But if you think about a commercial building, that's not necessarily true. The guy that owns the building might not be the one that needs the AC to keep running. And if you think about the different types of commercial buildings there are, it gets really complicated, right? Like, let's say hospital. Probably one of the most complicated things that you need very precise AC for. Not only is the building bigger, not only are there more units, there's more people in the picture. It becomes so, so much more complicated. And so think about it from, like, a CRM, like, relationship management perspective. Like, that B2C versus B2B difference is huge. And so it's almost like how I react when somebody's like, oh, you like to rollerblade? I'm like, no, I like to roller skate. And so someone's like, oh, you guys are working with contractors? I'm like, yes, but the commercial ones. And so our ICP is pretty varied, right? Like, we have mom and pop shops that are maybe smaller, like 50ish folks, including everyone that they send out to the field all the way up to like PE backed firms that have like multiple operational shops across different state lines. So it's a pretty wide range but in general at the core you actually hit on it. They're scrappy, they need to see tangible value and it actually keeps our product very focused on making sure we're building something that people actually use.
- [07:34]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, no, it's fascinating. We've, we've had such some really interesting learnings in B2B and in SaaS and I think those are really exciting business models. I think from my perspective we've even this year in particular, we've seen a massive amount of guests and learnings on the pod around the topic. So it's just great to hear your perspective. We both had such a good consumer and B2B journey and I think B2B is a really exciting time. I just got out of a B2B conference on the partner marketing opportunity and it's just so much happening there. So it's fun to hear paint the picture of who those buyers are to understand and put ourselves in their shoes a little bit. And I know that's a big piece of your focus. I'm sure with marketing and product and certainly with leading out marketing and doing so much cross functional work at the organization.
- [08:24]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, I think definitely everything is kind of rooted in the sense of, I don't know, people were calling it B to B to C for a while, just throwing all the letters in there. But I do think there's something real about like you just said, like rooting it in the customer. Actually our, like our head of content marketing says something that I think about all day, every day because it's so funny. He said we are the donkey and our customer is Shrek. Like we, we are not at the center of the journey. We need to make sure that it's, it's their movie, they're the main character. And we need to make sure that like what we do is like talking about the value we give to them, not just the feature. Right. To go back to kind of like the product conversation. It's about them, it's not about us. Because if there's no them, there is no us.
- [09:07]
Ty Degrange
Same for me. Same for so many of the brands we work with. I love that thinking. That's a really great reminder and definitely have some recent Shrek experiences with my kids being obsessed with it and wanting to listen to the soundtrack at odd hours. So I get it.
- [09:21]
Erica Yoon
I once made my husband st day talking about triple digit weather at the California State Fair for like five extra hours after all our friends left because I had to see Smash Mouth.
- [09:34]
Ty Degrange
I'm gonna have to remind you of that one. That's amazing. That's. Yeah.
- [09:37]
Erica Yoon
Worth it.
- [09:38]
Ty Degrange
It's a throwback.
- [09:39]
Erica Yoon
Worth every drop of sweat and every annoyed sigh I encountered from my husband's relationship.
- [09:45]
Ty Degrange
You gotta just, you know, embrace it. Did. Did you stay for. Hey, now you're an All Star or favorite hit?
- [09:51]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, that one. It's like, it's it. How could you not. How could you not want to hear that you're an All Star? He made a point to say it was for all the ladies, so that's good.
- [10:01]
Ty Degrange
That's good. Oh, man. Smash Mouth. Okay. I don't know how I can bring it back from that, but I'm gonna try. That's amazing. Speaking of excitement about Smash Mouth, what are you excited about right now?
- [10:13]
Erica Yoon
Oh, my God. Kudos to you. That was very smooth. Very smooth. I like everyone super jazzed about AI. I feel like I've unlocked, like, some pretty interesting ways to use it. I recently took a class from this woman, Martina Luchengo. She's like a pretty big, established PMM who's been around and really, really knows her stuff. And she. The way that she explained how to use AI, I thought was helpful. So happy to share, but I'm translating, I'm paraphrasing. I almost see the way that I've adopted her method is like, one. I feel like it's a little bit like SQL, right? Like, you have to tell, like, give it a data source, tell what parts of the data to pull, organize it the way you want, but then the other half of it is a little bit of, like, stage direction or, like, play acting. So you, like, maybe you pretend like you're a D and D dungeon master, and you, like, really paint the picture of, like, where are you trying to be? Who are you trying to talk to? Who should you try to embody when you're trying to put the message out? And then obviously, like, the first. The first pass is never enough, right? Like, make sure that you're always using it to refine it, and it should be supplemental, not a replacement. And just really trying to think about, like, how I critically use it. Because again, as our product advances, we're trying to think of how we bring AI to life in a way that feels, again, going back to the icp, delivering actual tangible value. And it's an interesting jump because not a lot of shops anymore, but some shops are still coming off of pen and paper. One of the customers that first signed with us after I started retired. Adopt matrix printer.
- [11:45]
Ty Degrange
Wow.
- [11:46]
Erica Yoon
You're trying to bring AI to an audience that's like, wait, this is like, let's make sure. Just like the fundamentals are working, you need to make sure that AI is substance and not flash. And I think I maybe have lost the plot a bit, but I think in general, the intention is to say, use it thoughtfully and think about the output you want to have in order to make sure that what you're guiding and working with the AI to produce actually makes sense.
- [12:13]
Ty Degrange
Love it. Great advice. Question is, is the dot matrix printer older than the 90s hip hop we were referencing earlier, or is it.
- [12:22]
Erica Yoon
That's a good question. I feel like this laser. What did Laserjet produce?
- [12:26]
Ty Degrange
Overlap. Yeah, I think some, some 90s hip hop outlasted the dot matrix. Others maybe not so much.
- [12:37]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, there's definitely a variety.
- [12:39]
Ty Degrange
You're spot on on the AI thing. I mean, it's, it's, it's like, I feel like it's consuming. I always loved the software eating the world topic conversation. It's part of what BuildOps is and representing and part of what we're all part of, whether we like it or not, to some extent. And I think that AI is that next step of that. I was talking to someone recently where I shared that feels like we're somewhat. Obviously this individual you're referencing has a little bit deeper knowledge. Some of us are in there and doing it and have had longer reps and timelines on it. But yeah, for the most part, especially when you talk about, hey, have you tried ChatGPT5? And it's like, yeah, that just dropped like two, three days ago or whatever. So, no, I haven't tried it, but at least to my knowledge, we're kind of all jumping into the water at the same time with a very similar amount of experience and different experiences, different training, different perspectives going in. But I like the way you're thinking about. Thank you for painting the picture from your perspective, what you learned on it. And I think it's super. I think it's. It can be scary, but I think for the most part I. Finding people like us who are a little more able to access it. It's really exciting as well.
- [13:51]
Erica Yoon
Yeah. I mean, can I like turntables, you and ask like, how are you using it?
- [13:56]
Ty Degrange
Yeah. Wow. I mean, we, we've done contests on our team to just like enable and support people's ability to come up with creative, novel ways to integrate it into our workflows. We are where you we rolled out a tool that we, we think is a legitimate AI use case. We've got public tools, we've got our partner database, but a, basically a better way to matchmake partners and AI. So that's super exciting. I think a lot more is going to come, especially clients are just coming out of the woodwork. And I think the entirety of our world is sort of saying how is it apply and what are we going to do about it? I think partner marketing to an extent has, is there's going to be a number of partners hit, but I think as you know all too well, they tend to innovate quite well. And I think we're already seeing multiple experts and the data support that it can actually be part of the answer to help as part of your SEO, as part of your technology, as part of your content marketing playbook. So I think there is an exciting opportunity around it for our world specifically. But we absolutely have a long, long way to go.
- [15:05]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, no, I hear you. I always think it's so interesting how partner marketing, affiliate marketing, back in my day is like often the first to adopt something new. I remember like data feeds were like the hottest thing and maybe that dates me and then next, like maybe five, seven years later, Google comes out with shopping. So it's like, it'll be interesting to see how partner marketing reacts to AI as a whole and how it's incorporated in the overall ecosystem.
- [15:30]
Ty Degrange
I love that. I definitely think they're the innovators. They're often some of the leading edge innovators. And I've talked to some amazing marketers and marketing leaders who've, who've not even been affiliate or partner marketing specific, say that they're some of the better marketers out there because they're having to be on that cutting edge and kind of always be testing something new and launching something. So I think you're onto it.
- [15:55]
Erica Yoon
Hey, just worked the title of the podcast in had to Do It.
- [15:59]
Ty Degrange
Had to Do It. Guilty as charged. Guilty as charged. Give us a little spicy take here. What's something that good old marketers get wrong?
- [16:09]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, I think this is so easy to do, but activity is not impact. I'm guilty of it. I think everyone else is guilty of it, but it's really like how do you step back and think about how to center the customer? How do you smash mouth Shrek, make sure that you're keeping that top front and center to help drive priorities? But it's, it's easy to get lost in that. Yeah, I just, I think that like a good reset for me is like when I feel like there's a never ending to do list. And honestly, like getting an accountability buddy internally to be like, hey, like let's. Whether that's your manager or your peer whoever, but like making sure that you're really holding yourself true to like what is going to be an actual like, lever mover, right. And like what's, what's the best for the customer? Because you could ship all those things, but how many of them actually matter?
- [17:03]
Ty Degrange
I love it. I, I did a fun talk in New York last week and it was a good one. And I, and I kind of gave a shout out to my, my dad's like cowboy ethos. And, and one of the things literally he would say all the time was like, don't mistake, don't mistake motion for progress. And that's a, it's an Erica call out too now. What do you know? Amazing. You're in good company.
- [17:27]
Erica Yoon
That's awesome. That's a good one. I would have to like put that on my desk. That's a really good one. Not me. Don't mistake.
- [17:33]
Ty Degrange
I like that reminder. It's amazing how we get caught up in that. That's awesome. And I think it's a good, good experience. You've had a lot of good experiences. Reddit, one of them. They're definitely heating up with all the fun stuff happening now. What was there? Some learnings. Definitely part of the pods. Those like learnings that you had from that Reddit experience that you want to share?
- [17:52]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, I have a couple I'll think I'll maybe share. Like from like my personal perspective. Yeah, like a personal career perspective. And then maybe from like a, like a general observation. Talk about the 90s. I think I like that the dream of the. Bringing it back to the 90s in the 90s is the golden age, really. But I think that was the golden age of the Internet, right? Like towards the tail end of the 90s, early 2000s. Like it was such a weird like the Space Jam website site. Like that quirkiness and the ability to just connect with people and nerd out because you're connecting with people. Like, that still is alive on Reddit, right? Like the, the last vestige of silly Internet is alive on Reddit. And I think there's something very cool about that. And I really, really obviously got submerged in that while I was there. Casual user lurker, maybe upvote here and there, but became more of like a commenter and even a poster, which is sometimes a Little bit intimidating from like.
- [18:49]
Ty Degrange
A impressive journey right there.
- [18:51]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, I know. That's actually the funnels of like how they try to move people. Like a user journey.
- [18:56]
Ty Degrange
You're converted.
- [18:57]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, I hit all the milestones going.
- [19:00]
Ty Degrange
Back to Dungeons and Dragons. You became like the lord of Reddit.
- [19:05]
Erica Yoon
That's right. High sage. I actually don't play D and D, but I don't know, pretend to.
- [19:10]
Ty Degrange
I pretended to when I was a kid a couple times and didn't take, but I wanted to be into it.
- [19:16]
Erica Yoon
Same. I just feel like it takes a lot of time. But I. Yeah, I can, I can talk some of the talk. The, the career thing I learned at Reddit is I don't like systems ops. Like, yeah, like from like the like technical. Like, hey, what's our cookie compliance look like? Oh man, I don't know. Can they just be there?
- [19:37]
Ty Degrange
You and me. You and me might share that one. I'm a, I'm a. I'm a Homer Simpson on that.
- [19:43]
Erica Yoon
Like 100%. Oh, like, oh man. Someone else, man, the cooking is just let me track people. I just want to stock at scale. I don't want to have to build that part. So that's what I learned about myself. I could do it if I have to, but oh man, I'm going to need a lot of really good music. Maybe some 90s hip hop.
- [20:02]
Ty Degrange
Yeah.
- [20:02]
Erica Yoon
To get me through it. For sure.
- [20:04]
Ty Degrange
Maybe some caffeine or other things to get me through.
- [20:08]
Erica Yoon
Exactly.
- [20:09]
Ty Degrange
I feel it. That's a real. I like that. Another good learning.
- [20:12]
Erica Yoon
The last one I'll say before I wrap up my Reddit time is I think I can be a cult leader if I wanted to. I've always wanted to be a cult leader. What I mean by that is we were doing something really hard. When I joined Reddit, it was just a selling sales based growth motion. Well, sales LED growth. And so I was brought on board to try to build out the product LED growth arm. And it was really hard. It's really hard to show up and say, hey guys, I know that your top level KPI is revenue. Can we look at maybe active advertisers? Like this other. Right. Set metric that's like kind of opposite of what you care about. And the team we built around it really believed in that mission to the point where like I would be like, hey, here's a side quest someone needs us to support them on. Can we do it? And they would opt in. And I think that there's something very powerful about giving people something to believe in. And watching them rally around them, like rally themselves around it. And so, yeah, I think, I think maybe when I retire from marketing, I'll become a cult leader.
- [21:15]
Ty Degrange
I mean, that's awesome. I. That's. That's so cool. I think that there's not. It's. It's a cool learning to kind of go through that progression from different perspectives and cool thing to learn about yourself and you go through those trials and challenges and I'm not surprised. But I think it's a cool, cool trait to have and not an easy one, especially when you have incentives that are maybe not aligned or structural things that need to change. And so you kind of have to get through a period for people that's not easy. That's really cool.
- [21:47]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, yeah. I would say that it's probably a common thread of what I see what I did there versus what I'm doing now is again this kind of idea around how do you create a secondary KPI, like top level KPI to rally people outside of what their core thing is? And then how do you get them to be excited about trying to do something that's outside of their day to day and something that they might either be doing really well or like, are already like maybe almost at full capacity just trying to like execute against?
- [22:16]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, there are some ways where you might. Maybe you've, you've been able to do it or you've maybe would coach someone how to do it where there is that ambiguity or there is that conflict of KPIs, if you will. I'm kind of coming up with some thoughts in my head around how you might think about that for people and maybe how you might have done it. But I'm curious to know how you've maybe approached that challenge or how you might coach someone to approach that challenge.
- [22:41]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, well, I would love to compare notes, Tyke, because I feel like you almost have to flex into different ways to do that with different people. Right. Everyone's motivated a little bit differently. The tack that I found that is good is one center the customer. Right. Like reinforce that if you're doing it for the best interest of the customer, it's ultimately going to be the best for the business. Like I had a company I worked at where it's just like acquisition. We just need acquisition. Like just get people to download the mobile app and it's like, cool. What do they do in a week?
- [23:13]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, yeah. Then what happens?
- [23:14]
Erica Yoon
Then what? Yeah, so it's like centered around like.
- [23:19]
Ty Degrange
Never seen that before.
- [23:21]
Erica Yoon
Who does that? Just one goal. Just the one. And so like how do you, how do you make sure that you're like grounding it in like what the, what the person that's using it is going to feel and then go back to like what is going to motivate the person that you're talking to? Is it around this like altruistic goal, like my cult leader vibes, or is it around like the opportunity they have to press into something that they might want to develop in terms of a skill set. So I think it's about like understanding like what. What is the way that you can track and measure value? What is the way that you can make sure you're speaking to what that individual person wants to see and wants to be able to embrace and then setting the expectations. Sometimes you got to chop a little bit of wood. But like if you chop that wood right, you might get this ability to like go dream and like, what's a good way to extend this analogy? Build a, build a forest around a swamp for Shrek. I don't know. That's a callback.
- [24:13]
Ty Degrange
Let's do it. Let's Shrek it out. Yeah, I'm just, I'm picturing you chopping wood on the Mokelumne river or something. Feels really. I get it. I'm with you. Ready to jump. I'm ready to help.
- [24:25]
Erica Yoon
Yeah.
- [24:25]
Ty Degrange
Let's go.
- [24:26]
Erica Yoon
Ty, what have you found that works well?
- [24:28]
Ty Degrange
Good question. I mean you nailed it with the customer piece. I think that it sounds obvious, it sounds maybe a little cliche, but if you're that that's what the business is centered around, that's the reason for being like you referenced earlier. So if people can see that this alternative KPI is going to add value long term. And we're not thinking only month over month, only quarter over quarter, which unfortunately a lot of businesses are set up for. We've tried in a big way. I think I've maybe over indexed on this in some ways. And our team has. Team has done a really good job of this, of thinking longer term. Easier said than done. And I'm even trying to get better at that as it is. But I think center it back to that customer need and those ICPs and those pain points that they have and measuring that over time and bringing that back to people and kind of showing the value of like, hey, if we're looking at the second KPI, I think that's really powerful. So I think you absolutely hit it out of the park with that. I don't know what else I can drive home There on the thought. I think you're right though. It is. There's sometimes different stories for different individuals and you have to frame it in terms of those things, in terms of their needs. But also having a genuine real plan and excitement around something is, is sometimes can be contagious. A little bit of that cult leader following or Pied Piper, if you will. It's like that motivation and passion and excitement can be contagious.
- [25:52]
Erica Yoon
And so, I mean, your fist bumps are getting me pumped up. So. Right back at you.
- [25:58]
Ty Degrange
More, more fist bumps. Link in the comments. Thank you. We're going to do more of them, so.
- [26:10]
Erica Yoon
Love it.
- [26:11]
Ty Degrange
We kind of touched on the build ops customer. It's like obviously a very. You don't associate with digital. We've talked about a bit of it already. Are there other kind of pieces that you're learning from that, from those segments or how are you kind of thinking about that customer and maybe different segments and how is it kind of informing your, your heading up of marketing and improving marketing and product?
- [26:34]
Erica Yoon
I can, I can call it a very specific place where it feels particularly interesting on the intersection of marketing a product. Like we talked about how there's like, there are very practical people, like salt of the earth, right? Like high stakes, like no frills, like just trying to get the job done. And so a lot of times when they provide feedback, it's very much like, here's a prescriptive thing of like a feature or a specific thing I want to see in the product come to life. And I know that's not, I know that's not just us. Like no one's ever faced that problem, right? But I think it's particularly poignant for our audience because they're, I think they're used to being able to be very directive about, like, here's a problem, I'm going to solve it or you're going to solve it, here's how it's going to be solved. I think that's like typically how they're used to being able to understand that. So I think like, we've got a pretty interesting task of trying to make sure that we are solving for the spirit of the ask rather than the letter of the law. And I really admire our product team because it's a very hard balance to strike, especially when you have such passionate customers that you want to do right by and that you want to be able to build that trust. It's like you really need to spend the time to build the relationship, establish that trust. And so that way when you deliver something that might be slightly different, they. They know that you did it with the intention of, like, it'll get this job done for you and it'll deliver value for you.
- [27:53]
Ty Degrange
Yeah. Wow. It. It sounds like the balance of that is not an easy one where you kind of. There's times when you want to, like, deliver it to them on a platter to be like, you're getting so much of this feedback that you want to. You want to nail it to a T. Yeah. That's interesting. That's super fascinating.
- [28:10]
Erica Yoon
It's something we're actively working on doing. Right. And I think that's why the need to shift from just like, here's a list of features that we've developed and done over the past quarter towards here's a broader story of how and why. I think starting to make that change will make it a little bit easier to kind of shepherd that transition through. But it's definitely, like, it's a fun place to be, and it's like, a really fun problem to solve.
- [28:35]
Ty Degrange
That's amazing. No, it's super cool. Yeah. I feel like we could go pretty deep on product roadmap customers kind of balancing, like, squeaky wheel versus the data versus what. What the vision of the team is. I think those are always fascinating. How much. I mean, how much do you, at this point, are you getting influence on that roadmap or how do you kind of collaborate and kind of land with the product team on how that's looking and going to market? Or are you able to have some say, like, how does that.
- [29:08]
Erica Yoon
Oh, man, what a good question.
- [29:09]
Ty Degrange
Figured. Yeah.
- [29:12]
Erica Yoon
My product counterparts, listening to this right now, I think we're working on it. We're working on it. We're starting to actually note we're doing great job. We're starting to narrow in on how we establish, like, launch and announcement moments around industry events. Our. Our industry, specifically commercial contractors, they love to meet up in person. So we have like, a key. A couple key tent polls event. Like, in ad tech, it's like, can is the big one. CS is the big one. Like, we probably have one of those, maybe like two or three, like, bookended Q1 and Q4 and a couple sprinkled throughout. So it's like, how do we make sure that we're anchoring, like, very big and substantial launches, like, around those times? And then obviously, like, how do we. How do we partner to make sure that our annual customer event, like, has. Has a space where we are very clearly touting, like, the. The direct deliverable not direct deliverable. The spirit of the deliverable from our customers in a way that drives overall impact. Yeah and I think that, I think that we like we're starting to turn a corner and really being able. Sorry for all the notifications. We're starting to turn corner being able to.
- [30:22]
Ty Degrange
It's authentic.
- [30:24]
Erica Yoon
Quote quote quote we're starting to really get there in terms of making sure that we are one starting to own the space of. We are going to deliver a solution that's not only going to solve the problem that the customers ask for, but bigger than that we're starting like I mentioned, our chief technology officer has this amazing vision that he's put together that we're starting to get longer term horizon against to understand how we get there from here to there. And I think that's really powerful. And then again just the market timing and getting that muscle in place is starting to come together where we're really getting bigger splashes as we have more substantial launches in market.
- [31:03]
Ty Degrange
Very cool. Nailed that. I love it. Really well said. We talked AI earlier. You gave some amazing advice just to how to think about prompting effectively and thinking about it. I love the SQL analogy and then painting the story and kind of directing the play. How else is it integrated into what you all are doing? Maybe on the marketing team side or maybe on the product side what is kind of the day to day look like for you guys? Right for you?
- [31:31]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, I think it's definitely helping us work faster. I think it, it like obviously like there's like kind of like a very easy adoptions around like just meeting summaries or like like we've started to use it in a way where we are just freeform brainstorming, quarterly planning and using that as like a transcript dump to like pull out and start, start moving faster with like broader level setting and that's actually a place where it's super helpful where it's like the ideas live in your head and you just need a way to organize and structure and we're seeing that come to life and obviously there's so many ways where we've incorporated it in terms of just like light level lead scoring or just like what is, what is the tool? There's a tool we have on our website, part of our overall tech stack and there's just so many, so many ways where it's sprinkled throughout and I think that we are definitely embracing in a way where we want to try and vet and validate before we commit and I think that's like a good way to think about even how we build things for our product within our product, for our customers. Being able to understand and identify like, hey, here's something that we know we need to ship, but what is the again, going back, what is the most intentional way we can deliver value? And then I think that for me, the biggest question that I have, I'm curious, I love to connect with other people that are thinking about it in this perspective is especially for vertical SaaS, how and when do you identify the best way to monetize against it versus fold it in as part of your core offering? And then what does that look like for an ICP that is also maybe learning to embrace tech broadly? That might not be as accustomed to, I don't know, maybe there's some level of price sensitivity. And I think the other thing to think about is traditionally SaaS is cost per user seat. And if you're using AI, right you probably might not need as many user seats. So how do you think about the right way to structure that without cannibalizing yourself?
- [33:34]
Ty Degrange
Those are some really fascinating ones and I think there's, there could be an entire episode just on those topics alone. I jumping to an interesting case that we observed, I thought, I don't know who your project tool du jour is, but I thought from my perspective as a user and our teams implemented a lot of the notion capabilities and their AI adoption I thought was pretty rapid and impressive and interesting. And I think it's obviously very different for each SaaS. As you said, vertical SaaS. We've actually talked to some folks that are in your space around that are very heavy AI. We can talk about that more too. But it's, it's really, it's really quite wild what's happening. I think there's a lot of like fear Clickbaity, like oh, AI is going to take out SaaS and it's kind of like. And then there's kind of that flip side argument and you're like, well I don't know about that. I think, I think the pricing piece is very interesting too. My team and I and what we've been talking about a lot for quite a while has been like the Slack kind of model, which I think is very interesting. Like more of usage based.
- [34:43]
Erica Yoon
Yeah.
- [34:43]
Ty Degrange
I'm curious to know if that's interesting to you or not. Maybe not immediately, but kind of thinking, reading between the lines of what you were sharing earlier and just thinking, dovetailing off what you shared.
- [34:55]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, I think we want to make sure we're Good stewards to our customers. Right again. Can I beat the same drum any more times? But we want to make sure we're doing right to our customers first and foremost. But we also need to evaluate, are there operational costs to spinning up multiple different types of AI tools? If so, what does that look like? So, I don't know. I think the jury's still out. And I think ultimately we're again going back to that space of. Is it truly driving value? How can we understand the level of value it's driving? Because that. That's like. To charge just to charge. Like, that's. That's not right. But, yeah, clearly we've got to figure out an answer.
- [35:36]
Ty Degrange
Totally. And I. Obvious. You know, as you said, if they're. If they're getting something tangible from that, then, then, hey, that's something that they can justify, which. Which we all understand. Erica, this has been amazing. You're coming in with some awesome thoughts and learnings and perspectives, which is exactly what this. This is all about. For folks that don't know you as well, what's something that people, you know might not know about you?
- [35:59]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, well, maybe I dropped a few hints of this, but I'm actually. I didn't go to school for marketing. I went to school for religious studies. And so that's why I'm always like, oh, how do I get back to that? I paid so much money for this degree. Like, how do I. And I think it's a cult.
- [36:16]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, we're going back to the cult leader. It's. Maybe you can incorporate Shrek, Shrek and 90s hip hop into your.
- [36:24]
Erica Yoon
Oh, the Shrek. The cult of 90s Shrek.
- [36:27]
Ty Degrange
Yeah. I mean, it's the answer. ZZ what's left to ponder? What are we doing on this pod?
- [36:36]
Erica Yoon
Yeah. I don't know. Don't even need to test it.
- [36:39]
Ty Degrange
No, it's already been solved. That's amazing. You got any good book recommendations?
- [36:45]
Erica Yoon
I just finished this book called. I reread this book called the Employees by Olga Ravin, Norwegian author. It's a really interesting fictional book. Have you heard of it?
- [36:59]
Ty Degrange
I think just from you.
- [37:01]
Erica Yoon
It's about. It's told in the story of. Journal entries are almost like memos, and it's out of order and you don't know who's written it. And it's journal entries from people that work on a ship, and it's both like, people and AI and you don't know who is who. And towards the end of the book, it becomes a little bit more obvious. But it's just really interesting. And it was written, I think I want to say it was like 2020. So it was before AI really, really blew up. Which is why I wanted to reread it.
- [37:32]
Ty Degrange
Holds up to check that out.
- [37:34]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, it's definitely. It's an interesting one for sure. It's a fast read. It's like again, each page is like a new journal entry.
- [37:42]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, it's one of the more interesting ones. I mean, we get a lot of like the nonfiction suggestions, but I love that. That's super cool.
- [37:50]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, I try to find like fiction that like weirdly intersects with like what's happening at work. Because I love nonfiction. I wish I. No, that's not true. I wish I loved nonfiction, but I'm like, this could be a podcast I listen to or maybe a blog post I read really fast.
- [38:06]
Ty Degrange
There you go. Yeah, it's like, summarize it for me, make it easy. Especially now, I feel like that I wonder if the fiction will get a little bit more interesting as people can consume the non fiction stuff in easier ways or more readily ways. But Erica, it's been a pleasure. I am beyond appreciative for you coming on and having an amazing chat as always. For folks that want to find you and track you down, learn more, what's the best way to get a hold of you?
- [38:32]
Erica Yoon
Yeah, I think find me on LinkedIn. My DMs are open and I gotta plug. Build Ops is hiring, so come find us and find a spot.
- [38:42]
Ty Degrange
Amazing. Thank you so much and we'll talk soon. Thanks everybody.
- [38:46]
Erica Yoon
Thanks.