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Transcript53 lines
- [00:00]
Ellis Hamburger
If you don't have a why or a story, you don't have products.
- [00:04]
Rid
I felt like I just would show up with no agenda, and then you would ask all of the hardest questions, and it would force you to just think deeply and get really at the core of like, why are we even working on this?
- [00:15]
Ellis Hamburger
I have the reporter's background, so I don't have a big appetite for bullshit. I'm like, why does that matter? And they're like, well, you don't have to switch apps all the time. Why does that matter? They're like, you're not getting distracted. It's like, why does that matter?
- [00:26]
Rid
You almost have to, like, unlearn everything that you've been taught in school, because none of it actually transl.
- [00:32]
Ellis Hamburger
A feature, big or small, is an opportunity to bond people to you as a company and as a product.
- [00:39]
Rid
What are some of the things that you notice that would make you say, like, yeah, that. That is good writing?
- [00:45]
Ellis Hamburger
If you look at TikTok shop, that's how all those videos go. They show you the problem and then they solve it. It really should be that simple. And that's why all my work is not trying to make the feature sound good. But first, communicate that I understand you and your problem.
- [00:58]
Rid
Welcome to Dive Club. My name is Rid, and this is where designers never stop learning. This week's episode is with Ellis Hamburger, who's the writer and storyteller behind so many of today's top startups, like Raycast, Visual, Electric, Mainframe. So this episode's going to be a little bit different. We're going to depart from the pixels for just a little bit and go deep into how you can tell a compelling marketing and product story. We're going to tap into Ellis's experience as a writer at the Verge, leading the language team at Snapchat, storytelling at the browser company, and working with a ton of different startups where he's just going to share his experiences and get into the weeds of specific copy details and things that he's asking and trying to figure out to get at the heart of why a product matters. There's so much in this episode that you can pull from, so let's go ahead and dive right in.
- [01:53]
Ellis Hamburger
You know, I think of myself as a designer at heart. This is my favorite stuff to talk about, and to me, words and ideas are design, right? They bring you through an ideal flow or an ideal process. If it's just features and there's no handholding of any kind, I think it's kind of like if you Think about a movie without the trailer, right? It's all about priming somebody to think about what they can do, what they can achieve. And I think a lot of times those ideas are just as valuable and provocative as the products themselves. And I think going hand in hand is really the way of the future.
- [02:26]
Rid
It's funny because there's almost like an investigative element to me discovering you, because I'm interviewing some of these founders, and I think it was Colin at Visual Electric that was talking about. He's like, yeah, this guy Ellis, but he didn't give your last name. And so I'm kind of like, figuring out. I'm like, okay. I think there's this guy that's doing a lot of writing for the startups that I look up to. And then I. I saw Hamburger on Twitter, and I'm like, there's no way this is him. And sure enough, and the next thing you know, we're, like, working together. And so I'm excited to kind of shine a light on what you've been doing behind the scenes with all these companies. And I want to talk a bit about your time at the Verge, actually. What was that like, and what were some of the ways that that laid the foundation that you're now building on top of and making a career working directly with these startups?
- [03:12]
Ellis Hamburger
Yeah, another very lucky moment of being in the right place at the right time. I was pretty much at the Verge from about a month or two after it launched, and I'd been following Josh Topolsky and the Engadget team for a very long time. And it was really my dream to work at Engadget or eventually what became the Verge. That was kind of when I got my exposure to the world of software design. And this was the App store boom of 2010, 2011. There was just so much to write about. Every website was being turned into an app, and Apple was saying, there's an app for that. The word app was probably not in the average person's lexcon until then. And so every idea was being tried. The industry was flush with VC money. And, you know, a lot of our favorites from history were really from back then, whether it's Paper for iPad by 53 or Foursquare path, Instagram. There were so many great examples at that time of companies that were really designed forward and setting the path on top of iOS, I think, which was back, iPhone, OS maybe at that point for what software could really feel like and how it could affect our lives. And in some ways, I really missed that period. Of skeuomorphism because it just had so much more personality. And I think that's a story story as much as words is right. I think in today's day and age of these hyper minimal products though, I think we're starting to see a swing back in the pendulum. There's a lot less story in the product itself. It's more just about bringing people in and providing some value. I think when you look back on path, that was the story, the product was as much as anything else. So it was just so fun to write about. And I think what I learned, and as I think back on that time, is that every headline is a positioning. And in a lot of ways, when you write a headline, you're writing a tweet as it is today. How often can you get the chance to practice A thousand times trying to turn every company into one sentence. And I think that sometimes can be a little frustrating for founders to take their pride and joy, their baby turned it into one sentence. But you as a creator know you have a hook or you don't. And so when I look back on my time at the Verge, I really appreciate that constraint, having to write a headline and a hero image every day, if not multiple times a day. And that's really, to a lot of extent what I still do. Though obviously I can't build just on writing headlines. I would have to have a million clients a year. But really, that's still what it is at its core. What is most interesting about a company, it may be the product, it may be the founder, it may be their methodology and trying to bridge that gap between consumers in the world and that company. And I think if anything, it's just become ever more important as things have gotten so algorithmic and cluttered. You really don't stand a chance unless you are doing everything you can to stand out.
- [05:57]
Rid
I think that was like the tipping point in my writing career was just taking Twitter seriously. You almost have to unlearn everything that you've been taught in school because none of it actually translates totally.
- [06:07]
Ellis Hamburger
And I think on the one hand it might feel a little bleak or cynical, but really, I mean, as a creative constraint, it's still a lot of fun. I think the unfortunate thing is when you feel that you have to be sensational. But to me, there's still so much headroom above all the companies in tech just to lead with their opinions and ideas. It doesn't have to be something crazy, sensational and hyperbolic. It just needs to be idea centric. Ideas are more Viral than products to me. And the cool thing about ideas, too, is that every founder ideally has three to five ideas that they really can own and feel unique to them, whereas they only have one product. You know, you can only tweet about your features so many times a day. And I think ideas really give you the opportunity to participate in culture and stand out and bring people to your product, even when you're not tweeting about your feature set.
- [06:55]
Rid
Real quick message. And then we can jump back into it. One of my favorite parts of the recent episode with Smith and Diction was hearing about Mike's experience generating brand imagery using Visual Electric.
- [07:06]
Ellis Hamburger
I was already in Visual Electric because it looks like Figma, it feels like Figma, it operates like Figma, and that's to me, I was just like, I was comfortable. I felt like I was like, I can move around in here with confidence.
- [07:16]
Rid
I think that's exactly why I love the product so much too. And sure, it's the most photorealistic image generator out there, but it's also so clearly built specifically for designers. And every single part of the UX is elite. So this is a reminder that you can get your first month for free using the code Dive Club. Just head to Dive Club Slash Electric to get started. Look, you know how big of a Jitter fan I am, but their latest release is hands down the best one yet. Now, Jitter has an infinite canvas for animation design. And I mean, within 30 seconds of using it, I knew that this was always the way that it should be for motion design. It makes iteration 10 times easier. Collaborating with team members makes way more sense. And you can scale content across formats using multiple art boards in a single file. Jitter is crazy. Like, this product is so incredibly good. Now you got to try it out. Just head to Dive Club Slash Jitter to get started. That's J I T T E R. Okay, now on to the episode. I definitely want to go deep into how teams and products can position themselves, focus on ideas. But first, I kind of want to zoom into your time at Snapchat because you. You joined as a part of this new language team. I would imagine there probably even wasn't that much precedent for what the heck UX writing even was at that time. So what was that like?
- [08:40]
Ellis Hamburger
It's funny, I was certainly wrestling with what to call it, because I certainly felt like I was saying kinship with the design team at Snap, which was heavily guarded, and all I wanted was access to that team. And UX writing was really the way in. As a reporter who joined SNAP without much guidance. I think Evan was one of those founders, like so many others, who just kind of collect people that they like. Evan may have also been trying to get me to not go to Facebook at the time, which was the company I was covering the most heavily and was really my number one candidate after I left reporting. So anyway, I joined Snap, and really I just started writing thing by thing. I worked with Evan on blog posts. I did the release notes, I did the app store description. I worked on product packaging for things like Spectacles. And I think as the company grew, you know, I think, as you probably agree, a lot of the best designers can express themselves well across mediums and can write. I think a lot of the best designers I know can write, and at the very least write in an interesting way, which I really think is one of the goals of a lot of these art forms is just to be interesting and expressive. And that led me to everything from writing every string, as we called them. I don't know if designers still call them strings in the product. And so my way of trying to elevate what I did, I created what I called the language design team, which I think was more a butt of jokes than anything else. But fortunately, I have the Jewish self deprecating sense of humor, so that was fine with me as long as people were talking about us. Right. And so language design really grew from being kind of on the PR side to writing pretty much everything across B2B and B2C, from our S1 before the IPO to our first TV commercial, to our sales narratives, to the receipt that popped out of the Spectacles vending machine.
- [10:32]
Rid
When I reflect on my own journey over the last couple years and getting into podcasting, it's almost created this lens where it's easier for me to tease apart the types of questions that people ask even in everyday life. And I would imagine that your time in the weeds of app copy at Snapchat has probably helped you establish a lens that most people listening to this don't necessarily have, and they might not even feel reliant on a copy team. So what are some of the things that you notice or pay attention to in the products that you use every day that would make you say, like, yeah, that, that is good writing.
- [11:12]
Ellis Hamburger
I think it has to be evocative. I always think I have all these little mantras in my mind, like evocation over information. And whether it's a movie script or an app script, I think the idea really is to make somebody feel something. And I think this is something that I really was aligned with Josh Miller from the browser company on and made that partnership fruitful is that every moment in the product was the opportunity to make somebody feel something. And so even before I got there, Meet the Internet again was part of the browser company onboarding for arc. And how different is that than welcome to a new kind of browser? And obviously they had a whole a 24 cinematic inspired app opening moment that I think other stumping other companies are just starting to copy now. But I think what defines great copy for me is that it does make you feel something and it is incredibly complementary to the visuals. A lot of times when I'm writing for companies these days, I will actually just mock up a website in framer because I think it's so hard to evaluate copy just in a Google Doc. And I think that goes with company names as well. It's very hard to understand if it's working without some type of logo treatment, feeling it in juxtaposition to the product. And I think if you look at one everyday example, I'm super inspired by CPG products. If you look at like where Chobani was and where it is now, I think that's probably one of the more successful rebrands of all time. A name that was bad, literally made good. Because as it turns out, the word Chobani before almost looked like a Star Trek font. It was all caps. It was not very pretty. You're like, what is this? Is this someone's last name? And then I don't know who they worked with on the rebrand. But now the word Chobani is as puffy and juicy as you wish yogurt could be. And they kind of have these watercolor art on the, on the labels that complement it in such a perfect way. And I'm sure their sales have just gone gangbusters since that redesign because, you know, really that was, that was what brand was invented to do, was to differentiate commodity products. And I think that's really where it can be so powerful. And I think one of the reasons that tech companies have been skeptical of brand for a long time, it's because there haven't been commodities in tech. We've been able to lean on our innovations. But in this day and age where this environment of reaching consumers is so saturated and crowded, you do need brand in every leg you can stand on to try and bring people in. And so, you know, if you look at something like the daylight computer brand or the mainframe brand, imagine those companies without the brand, without the Visuals without the name, without the typography. How different would that make you feel?
- [14:00]
Rid
You mentioned the ARC onboarding. Maybe we can just use that as a launching point to the next chapter in your story, which is eventually you joined the storytelling team at the browser company. Again, kind of is this, this theme of blazing your own trail in terms of the type of role, I don't know if, if there was much precedent for storyteller at a tech company up until that point, but maybe we could even talk a little bit about what that role was like and what were some of the things that you were helping Josh and team think through in the early days at the browser company.
- [14:32]
Ellis Hamburger
Yeah, it really was such a breath of fresh air after seven and a half years at snap. Snap really I think was kind of my coming of age, my quick and dirty, long and dirty experience of everything you can do right and wrong as a company when it comes to product marketing, comms business. And so I'm so happy to have had that experience. But one thing that really stands out from that time is that Evan, as smart as he is, didn't want to communicate to the world. And I think part of that was his feeling that talking as a brand or as, you know, the CEO of a brand was lame. And I think there was a point back when Snapchat was created that that was true. But today I think the shift that happened, which is completely fine, is that brand voices matter a lot less and creator and founder voices matter a lot more. And Evan just refused to do that. And it really is a bummer because there were so many rich narratives at SNAP that could have brought people in and created so much love, not just from consumers, but from the salespeople. Our philosophies around ephemerality and living in the moment over permanence and Facebook, having every message you've ever sent. Our philosophy around augmenting the real world as beautiful as it can be, then escaping to some virtual world, our focus on real friends versus fake friends and acquaintances. And so we didn't say any of that. And so no one knew any of that obviously. And so I was the guy who introduced every new hire every week to our philosophy. And people always told me like how meaningful it was to them and inspired them to get to work. And that was really when it hit me just how pivotal storytelling can be to inspire people to be happier, create better, think about their lives in a different way, bring their friends. Besides just the age old idea that, well, it's just production led growth. I think you need to put words in people's mouth for how they're going to recommend it, give them ideas of how to talk about it. So then getting to browser, where Josh, bless his heart, going from Evan under communicating to Josh probably over communicating, which I think he would agree with, you know, was so liberating and fun. And Josh is so charismatic and has so many wonderful big ideas, and he has this genuine childlike enthusiasm that is just so contagious. And so really it was the perfect opportunity for me to say, hey, Josh, let's package all these ideas into the Internet computer, into a way to frame up everything that we're doing. Since people don't want to talk about a browser all that much. And you know what, that's fine if we want to talk about startup transparency, if we want to talk about the Internet and everything it can be. If we want to talk about personalization as it goes with something like Boosts, if we can be a leader for all these philosophies, the type of leader that I always wanted ever to be at Snap with these ideas, then it makes them more meaningful, powerful, shareable, and fun to try. People are more motivated to try these features when they're elevated. If you look at something like Peak, I just love that Josh said, hey, guys, we have this thing called Peak. It's amazing. It's essentially like quick look, but for the browser. You know, it's. It's not something that is brand new to the world, but what it can be is a way to not have a shit ton of tabs that you already looked at and didn't close. And really it's about liberation and beauty in that way. And so I partnered with Nash and Josh Lee on the storytelling team to create a video that I think is one of the things I'm most proud of. Maybe if you remember, it said beauty is in the eye of the browser was the tweet. And the log line, which actually came from Josh Lee was the what if the best tab is the one you never open? And it was kind of like a crazy montage about the most beautiful parts of nature opening and closing like a flower, an eye. And then the last two seconds of the video were showing a peak opening and closing. And so to go from a place like Snap, where all we did was a brand campaign every year and a half, to creating something more powerful than a brand campaign out of the smallest feature was just so fun and fulfilling and rejuvenating. And so, yeah, that transition was. Was really a big pivot for me. And in some ways allowed me to do everything that. That in some ways I always wanted to do.
- [19:04]
Rid
I think that's why I like that example so much, because the vast majority of teams would have taken something like Peak and they would have dumped it into a changelog, maybe a dedicated email, maybe, but that's probably the ceiling of what it could have become. And instead, you led with this beautiful video that, you know, again, it didn't even have the feature in it until the very, very end of it.
- [19:27]
Ellis Hamburger
It all has to be content. And why not take a swing? A feature, big or small, is an opportunity to bond people to you as a company and as a product. The browser is one of the only products that has hours and hours and hours of usage every single day. And so something small that, or like super copy inside ARC command shift C in order to copy the link, the URL that's, you know, in your. In your address bar. Things like that can really change people's lives and make them feel delighted and happy in the way that a handmade, beautiful utensil or coffee mug or chair. I've always been such a believer that software is art and is artisanship and handiwork, and I think it's still underappreciated in that way. I mean, this is the stuff that we're touching and using all day, every day. The stuff that is very literally how we spend our time on this earth. And so why not take a swing at, you know, making some of that stuff big? Obviously there's a risk there, but why not?
- [20:31]
Rid
I'm still a daily user of Ark, and I do appreciate the craftsmanship. You said something interesting that I'm going to underline, though. You said bond to the company and to the product. And I think that's been my experience with the browser company. And a lot of it does have to do with that difference between Josh and Evan that I had never considered before, where so much of the affinity that I have with the broader team comes from the fact that, yeah, I follow Josh on Twitter. There's like this level of transparency that you don't often get in tech. I feel like I get the behind the scenes. I feel like I understand some part of who he is as a human, where I can't even picture most of the founders of the products that I love and use. And so when I even think about how I want to establish the tone and voice for inflight, Josh is probably at the top of that inspiration list. For that reason, I think it's important.
- [21:26]
Ellis Hamburger
To do these exercises in your head. Of like, what if we did or didn't have this? And how would it be different? I think one of the reasons it was always hard to pitch communication at SNAP was because it was just growing like gangbusters. We couldn't move the needle no matter what we did on marketing and comms, frankly. And I think we could influence important audiences like reporters, media investors, candidates, creators. But it was very hard to move the needle. When I got there, there were 40 people and 100 million DAU. And these were all 21 year olds that worked there who we were doing our best. But this thing was very much a rocket ship that was going no matter what we did. But how would things have been different had Evan communicated more? And it's interesting he's just recently started doing this and he's doing a good job because he's one of the most well read, intellectual people I've ever met. But, you know, I don't know, maybe it's humility, maybe it's fear in some ways, but what if he embraced who he is? You know, what if Evan did release notes from a helicopter with his supermodel wife? How does that make an impression? And obviously you got to be really funny and self deprecating and admit exactly what this is, but that is who you are. And especially in America, people just love characters like that. And obviously that's pretty ostentatious to go out to the world like that. But the more you do it, the more people see the real you and they're like, hey, this is actually a good guy who's really thinking deeply and just fricking loves helicopters.
- [23:06]
Rid
All right, let's talk about the meaning chapter now that you're currently in, because you have this tagline that I love you say that you're helping founders find their truth. So can you give us a little bit of context for what that looks like and the types of things that you're working on right now?
- [23:21]
Ellis Hamburger
What I've always felt is that founders feel like no one is like them. You know, their internal team is intimidated or scared to push back on the big ideas. And I think that's in part because a lot of founders are resistant to that. Also, an underappreciation of writing, whether it's UX writing or super bowl script writing. And a lot of this stuff only gets done in the context of a giant brand refresh that happens every year or two. And I'm just a big believer that, like the average person, founders grow every day and change every day. And if you're not Making time to think about these big ideas. It's really hard to feel confident in your vision and in knowing how you want to inspire the team. And most people have trouble expressing exactly how they feel. And so it's funny, I always wanted to be a therapist growing up, and in some ways I've been able to do that, you know, sitting down with founders, putting my reporter hat back on. Including you. Yeah, you're laughing because you're like, I am laughing.
- [24:18]
Rid
It was very much so therapy. I felt like I just would show up with no agenda, and then you would ask all of the hardest questions, and it would force you to just think deeply and get really at the core of like, why are we even working on this? And it's a skill, and you do feel seen as a founder in that moment because it's the stuff that drives everything. But you really only discuss the surface level fruit that comes from these core beliefs.
- [24:44]
Ellis Hamburger
And so it always starts with Rid. What was your childhood trauma and how does it reflect itself in this design system?
- [24:51]
Rid
I want to go into the weeds of how you work with these teams. And one of the companies you listed at the beginning was Raycast. For anyone listening to the show, they know how much I love Raycast, So maybe we could just go deep there for a second. Because I think Raycast is interesting in that, you know, it's almost like this unending list of features in many ways. So how do you work with Thomas and that team to identify the right story to put at the heart of it all?
- [25:19]
Ellis Hamburger
Yeah, it's funny. That really is the perfect example. Is it? That's. I think one of the foundational challenges for a lot of founders is trying to find meaning in a long list of features that you've made. Certainly we had that problem at snap, especially when those features were so disparate, whether it was a map, a cloud storage tool, a messaging tool, a new content format, a AR camera. Like, what's the thread between all that? Right. And so I think that was the challenge when I got to Raycast, and I am still a writer. So at the end of the day, it all does have to be expressible in real world. Like, that's. I think, what's different between me and a lot of brand strategists. I don't use the word brand anyway, is that, like, my stuff gets written. It doesn't just live in a deck. I will do your video script or your manifesto or your homepage tagline, or even your onboarding copy or app store copy. And to me, the Fun part, though, is negotiating the high level ideas. So really the ideas always come from the founders. I mean, when I talk to Pedro or Thomas or anybody else at the Raycast team, it's like, well, everybody loves these features like the emoji picker or now the new focus mode is just seemingly doing really well. And I absolutely love it. But what does it all have in common? I think no one really wants to be a company that advertises 100 individual features. People's appetite for downloading apps isn't as high as it used to be. And so if it feels like a bunch of little things, it's kind of like, I don't know if I like this or that or it's hard to use. And so the exercise I do with founders is trying to, and this is design. It's finding the problem, the most important problem in pinpoint that you solve in people's lives. And so what I heard from them was that if you can bring up your Raycast, you know, Omnibar, you were avoiding going to those other apps. And I'm like, interesting. What does that mean? I'm like, why does that matter? And they're like, well, you don't have to switch apps all the time. And I'm like, why does that matter? And they're like, well, then you can kind of stay doing what you're doing and you're not getting distracted. It's like, why does that matter? And what we came back to is the idea that, like, it's not just about avoiding distraction, which everybody knows and talks about. And so even if it's true, you want to find something new and fresh for your brand. But the idea of on the other end of that is we believe in this idea of flow and finding the right setup for yourself to be most productive, that incorporates shortcuts like the calculator or the conversions or being able to create a calendar event that includes things like window layouts. It's like, how do you create commonality between those otherwise besides just being these amazing little utilities? And so I think where we ended up was, you know, someplace really cool that I was proud of is just kind of the homepage talks about being the shortcut to everything. You know, everybody loves shortcuts. People are always looking for shortcuts in their busy lives. I think it's a bit more broadly appealing than, you know, supercharging your Mac or something like that, if you want to move outside of that audience of early adopters. And then, you know, if you look at the manifesto it's about this feeling that we all feel every day of switching between apps and forgetting where you even started. And that's really just another way to talk about distraction. And so you really have to find that ownable narrative. And I mean, I don't know this for a fact, but I would bet that all those conversations several months ago either informed or validated the Raycast Focus idea as something that was worth investing in. I mean, if this is a launcher, why would you make a Focus mode like something that, you know, you're. I assume they're always trying to decide what belongs in Raycast, what belongs in the os, what belongs in other apps. Apple already has their own Focus mode. They already have do not disturb and all this. But if you are about this big problem of trying to solve the context switching and help people flow using these shortcuts and tools, then that's a perfect fit for you. And so to that extent, I think I'm just as interested in stories as a way to align on product strategy as anything else. And I really do believe that this gives you so much more to talk about and react to. Before, maybe Thomas was tweeting about, you know, changes to iOS, Mac, APIs, things that are very much about speed and efficiency. Now, if this is your narrative, he and Pedro can make tweets and videos about anything in the world of productivity, flow, focus, distraction. And it feels not just like a fit, but allows them to say a lot more things and bring in hopefully a lot more people as a result. Because if you're an atopic habits freak, you may not want a launcher, but you do want the best way to use your computer to focus. It's really as simple as that. And I think that's what storytelling really comes down to for a lot of products these days.
- [30:06]
Rid
Ideas over features.
- [30:08]
Ellis Hamburger
There you go.
- [30:09]
Rid
I had a note, like a question that I really wanted to ask you, which is basically like, what are the questions that you are asking founders to get at these underlying truths? But it was interesting just listening to you talk right there, because it seems like the main one is, well, why does that matter? Well, why does that matter? And just repeatedly going deeper and deeper and deeper.
- [30:28]
Ellis Hamburger
It is energizing, but also, you know, anxiety inducing, that I think my questions, besides the TED Talk question, and I also asked people, if you were Marie Kondo, what was your. What's your Marie Kondo? You know, you're. You're sparking joy. Like literally making cleaning your closet the most meaningful activity in the world. That is my favorite example of Storytelling in action for product or methodology. And so my. My questions really aren't all that different. I think I probably just have one. I have the reporter's background, so I don't have a big appetite for bullshit, which I think is pretty unusual for people in marketing and comms. And also having written every goddamn touch point from a Twitter bio to a error copy in an app to a TV commercial, I feel like I probably have a different criteria for what those nuggets are.
- [31:21]
Rid
What causes the bullshit radar to go off for you?
- [31:24]
Ellis Hamburger
Ego is definitely a big one, inflating the value of a product. Like, I try and put myself in the shoes of someone who is on the outside. And so a lot of it is word choice, too. Like, do you use the word leverage? Who talks about pitching their friend, like, oh, yeah, like, this tool is such good way to leverage your blah, blah, blah. Like, maybe if you're a finance bro, but otherwise it's just like, what the heck does this thing do? And so that's design as well. Putting yourself in the shoes of your audience, where they're going to see you and hear you. And does it sound stupid? Does it sound like Silicon Valley bs? Does it sound useful? You know? And so I think part of that is just, I guess, having some skills at critical thinking and having a criteria and knowing how to poke holes. I guess I just always try and have that reporter hat on. Maybe it's just a muscle that you develop, because if you're a reporter and you're just rewriting press releases, you are going to get tarred and feathered. And so maybe it's that muscle memory of not wanting to get made fun of on Twitter by my fellow reporters.
- [32:32]
Rid
You used the word muscle as you were talking in my head. It was like, oh, you know, in many ways, founders are hiring you for your taste in writing, too. Like, just someone. Just like, I've looked at a bunch of headlines, I've looked at a bunch of pieces of copy. I kind of have an idea of what good looks like. I'm curious if you even think, like, do you have a personal style or even a way of describing the type of writing that you enjoy the most?
- [32:56]
Ellis Hamburger
It's always different. And so I think at a surface level, it can be appealing when I do my version of whatever. The question is, is it a fit for every founder? My voice, I think my voice tends to be very philosophical and thoughtful about, like, the meaning and why behind things. I think if you look at my work with daylight, it's probably a good example like the headline I wrote for Daylight, which, you know, there's a lot of interesting things about that product that could have been in the headline, like the world's first 60 frames per second E Ink. Like that appeals to a lot of people, you know, the world's best E Ink tablet for doing anything, not just reading. That's very functional. I think what I asked myself were in working with Anjan as well, fortunately he's a very philosophical guy as well, is that people just kind of want to strip away all this distraction and clutter from their digital lives, that they can actually have a more healthy relationship with tech. And so a lot of what I do is kind of like common phrases and language that is co opted or spun in some way. So in tech all we talk about is reinvention or like the phone reinvented, the computer reinvented. And so what I did there was the computer de invented on an aesthetic level. It's just something you probably haven't read before and makes you think. I'm always trying to make people think more so than you know, be perfectly clear about what it is. To me, that's what the subhead is about and appeal to that core human need. People want to de invent and strip down and detox their digital lifestyles. And so that headline is really just a way to build that bridge, make people smile more than say everything the product does. I think that's what headlines are to me. And so if it's thoughtful and it provokes ideas, that's I think, my style. Another one I'm proud of. I worked with Nicholas Ernst, a designer, on the positioning and manifesto for his studio that kind of works with founders on building, as he calls them, design sensible companies. Not just how do you do a nice design system, but how do you become design LED and build a design culture? And what we got to was riffing on an existing phrase, kind of like what I was saying before. You know, people talk about design is how it looks. And then, you know, if you're good, you know, design is how it works. But if you're even gooder than that, what is it? And what we came up with was it's not how it looks or how it works, but design is how it's made. And so if the whole zeitgeist around what is design wasn't there, that isn't meaningful to you. So I guess a lot of what I do is just really trying to like respond and react to what people are thinking about and feeling, especially problems. If you don't have a why or a story. You don't have product, which was in his book Build. I think they go hand in hand. It's all the same thing. Same with Meet the Internet again, it's got to make you smile and it's got to make you think. And at the end of the day, a headline is a hook, and so it has to be a good hook.
- [35:56]
Rid
You're having all of this back and forth with founders. You're helping them think, you're positioning yourself as a service for them. And 99.9% of founders don't have an Alice, but they might have a designer, and they still have all of those existing gaps in the way that they think. And so how can a designer at a startup get at some of the value that you're providing?
- [36:21]
Ellis Hamburger
I think it's pushing for an actionable mission and vision. The main reason founders and designers come to me is because they want that North Star singular vision. And so to give you an example, you know, at Snap, we certainly had a unique mission, but it was so general. You know, we first talked about being a camera company, and it's like, if you're internal, if you're a designer, you're like, all right, should I. Should I try more camera stuff? You know, when I pitch ideas or if you're in sales, you're like, all right, should I, you know, pivot my narrative around being a camera? Even though camera ads are something that is only a fit for brand advertisers, and that's not 99% of our business, you know, and so that much was really, I think, kind of a idea to differentiate to Wall street initially and show that we don't be a social media company, which. Fine. Then the next lines of the Snap mission, we contribute to human progress, which is probably as generic as an ambition gets, which isn't really useful or relatable at all. By empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. I think as some idea of, like, what the screens of the app are about and maybe their goals. Sure, but what is the connective tissue of those things? What can only we do? What is the most inspiring? What should people be thinking about every day? I think without a very tangible mission and or vision statement that is actionable every day, I think they're kind of not very helpful or useful at all. And so when I work on missions and visions, I try and make them as inspiring and as specific as possible. And so to give you a sense of like a manifesto I was proud of. I worked with Amo, the team at Amo, who I met at Snap, on their new suite of apps, which why a suite of apps? You know, why that. Why are we excited about it? Why would consumers be excited about it? And if you don't document that, it's hard to both be inspired by it, bring people in, and even align the team. And so, along with the manifesto called Where Did Our Friends Go? Which was once again getting at a very core human need that has nothing to do with apps at all. We had a bunch of principles down there, and one of the ones that I really liked was simple apps over super apps. And we had this idea that the pendulum was swinging back to simple apps because we were just getting so overwhelmed with having to dig through products to get where we wanted to go. And I'm such a believer in codifying whatever those principles are to the extent that you can, because how else do you have signposts internally for how to make decisions and what to do? I think most company values are just absolutely the worst when they're like something like, be kind. You know, it's like, well, we all. God, man, I sure hope we all are trying to be kind. Every day you think somebody's going to be like, you know what? I've been shitty. I should be kind more just because that's. Because that's written in stone on the company website. It's more like, how about friends over followers? How about hesitate before gamifying? How about the things that we actually encounter every day that we most need codified to be navigated? And I think this applies to our religions, our governments. I mean, when you look at something like the Ten Commandments, I mean, every startup should have one of those. I'm inspired by Bible verses and other mantras and adages and mnemonics, because how else are people going to remember this stuff, you know? And so they have to be opinionated, memorable, inspiring in order to actually work. Or else what's it all for anyway? And it's funny, I worked with Amy, with the founder in Europe. The very first line of the video was, your calendar is your personal philosophy, a picture of you and everything you care about. And then it jumped into a Bible verse about a calendar where there's a time for everything that this founder just absolutely loved. And I'm like, fuck, yeah, let's be inspired by that. You know, like, a lot of these ideas are age old. Like, your life should have everything in moderation. You should try and focus on the stuff that really Brings you joy. Every day is a microcosm of the rest of your life. These philosophical ideas. I think no matter what app you're making or the fundamental human need that we're all facing in today's very scary world. And so, yeah, I think every company owes it to their people and themselves to try and come up with some, some mantras and ideas and commandments that feel heartfelt and meaningful and actionable.
- [40:52]
Rid
Amy's the perfect example because it's like the definition of the most commoditized market. And yet all of Twitter was talking about a calendar app for a whole day. And that's crazy. That's like really, really impressive. And I do think there is something to be said about the word memorable, which you just listed. And like, even right now, I can still repeat back simple apps, not super apps. There's a beauty in that brevity that I would imagine doesn't come for free or immediately. There's a process to arrive at something that distills the essence of what this is all about down to like four words, you know, so maybe we could talk for a second about again going back to that designer who's working with a founder and trying to equip that person with some of the tactics that they can use to get at this simplicity and make something that is memorable. And you've talked a little bit. You talked about the TED talk and you talked about Marie Kondo and how you can emulate some of that. Is there anything else that we haven't touched on that can make this story discovery process a little bit more practical? Hey, it's Rid. I'm constantly asked about my favorite product, so I'm going to take just one one minute and give you a quick rundown of my stack. Descent is how I ship design changes without having to code. Framer is how I build my websites. Genway is how I do research. Jitter is how I animate my designs and Play is how I design and prototype mobile apps. Visual Electric is how I generate all of my imagery. And Raycast is my shortcut every step of the way. Now, I've hand selected these companies to partner with me so that I can do these episodes full time. So the best way by far to support the show is to check them out. You can find the full list at Dive Club Partners. Okay, now on to the rest of.
- [42:48]
Ellis Hamburger
The episode, all the conversations that we have about taste. I want my work to be objective and I think objectivity and introspection will only make you better and more confident in the Work, whether you are a writer, designer, this or that. And so, you know, whenever you're having a debate or a conversation or an argument about why this or why that, it is really important to get beyond aesthetics, which are so easy to look at as something that kind of has their own intrinsic value, and ask, why does it matter? Why is it important? Why is it supporting the product? Why is it reducing friction? Why is it going to help our audience? Why would they like it? How is it different? And where is the meaning in it? You know, always going back to the consumer need. I think a lot of times in design and in tech, people say, build for yourself, which I think is the same as. As a writer. People say, write what you know. And I think if anything, it's just a shortcut to making sure you're making the most of your knowledge and able to retain passion. But the end of the day, like, I do think you do have a customer, right? So I think talking to as many customers as possible, which I think a lot of designers are afraid to do, you know, it's. It's scary. A lot of designers tend to be like, more on the introverted side. And whether you are kind of hiring somebody to do it or doing it yourself, like, and Snap did this a lot early on, which was great. Creates objectivity when people are feeling a certain way. It gives you a reality check on your ego. And for everything from a UX flow to copy, you know, I think getting people's reactions is important. Here's the thing, though. They have to be representative of your audience. They can't just be randos. Because all these thoughtful ideas and mantras we're talking about, aside from Make America Great Again, are probably not going to appeal to the average person who is living a very busy, chaotic life. Like, I think we have to know who we're talking to. And so that's one of the things that I, you know, kind of own, is that when I write, I'm writing for people like us, investors, candidates, internal team, media partners. And I know all those people, I've written for all those people. But if you ask me how to write product copy for someone in middle America, what I would tell you is, I don't know, we need more insights. And it's always the puzzle the same way. But I think everybody talks about instinct. Sure. Like, start there. But I think you really do have to validate your ideas through data research, talking to real people. Because this was an old advertising adage from David Ogilvy. It's like, make sure you're saying what you think you're saying. Like it can be remarkably easy to not say what you think you're saying and just get in your own way. I think the computer de invented probably needs to change once they go a bit broader and are, you know, a bit more accessible to the average person. That's the objectivity right there where it all comes back to.
- [46:06]
Rid
And there's a big difference between doing these research calls where, you know, most designers are hunting for problems and we immediately go into like solutionizing and translating this into interfaces and flows. But a practical takeaway that I'm having from this conversation is just when I'm talking to users, customers, trying to identify specific language that I can then pull from when I'm writing product copy, marketing copy, figuring out that next, you know, little trailer video to put on Twitter and trying to have as much of that language come from the actual things that people are saying as possible.
- [46:45]
Ellis Hamburger
Oh yeah, I mean, I'm the biggest New Yorker fan in the world, but it's like that type of language is targeted at a very specific group of elites who still read freaking magazines, you know, so that's part of knowing who you're designing for and who you're talking to. You know, tech, especially with tech jargon, just doesn't mean anything to anybody. I think even things like faster or better are not things that most people really care about. Just like, show me, you know, be inspired by as seen on tv, those old commercials, more so than tech marketing. Show me the problem and then solve it. If you look at TikTok shop, that's how all those videos go. They show you the problem and then they solve it. It really should be that simple. And that's why all my work is not trying to make the feature sound good. But first communicate that I understand you and your problem in order to get your attention and remind you of the problem and then present you with the solution. And that's how I think about headlines and subheads. The headline, I think asks the question. The subhead is then just as clear as possible about what it does.
- [47:51]
Rid
Even listening to you say faster and better, you've already instilled this knee jerk reaction in me where it's like, well, why does that matter? And I can see the value of continually asking that question.
- [48:01]
Ellis Hamburger
Yeah, exactly. And it's probably true. I mean, most consumer products on this earth are probably faster, better, but what does that mean? You know, and not only that, but like, maybe most importantly, it's just not unique. It's not a Good hook. And for some reason every company is tempted, I think, by think different to like just make their company like email better, browse better. And it's like, sure, that sounds simple, but it doesn't actually have any meaning. And I think that's really where that, why does that matter come in? What does this really mean? It might look nice in the type that you've chosen, but it isn't really playing to your strong suit as a company. And so really, you know, be honest with you. Like most founders I talk to are in the world of faster, better, more efficient when I first start talking to them and they know who they're going after. But for some reason we're stuck in this like highly functional mindset. You got to use every tool you have to try and differentiate and evoke. And most companies don't even do it. They don't even take the chance. And so I'm always applauding companies that do take a chance, even if I don't know if it's perfectly on the mark. It's like if you look at something like the recent Perplexity campaign, if you look at something like the visual aesthetic, incredible, you know, super distinct, ownable, especially versus the competition that is seriously trying to do, you know, the whole Uber Bits thing where our company is just dots like, sure, I mean, fine, that looks nice and I'm sure it's ergonomically Fibonacci ly perfect, but does it make people feel something? I'm not so sure. And then they have this line about know it all and I think it's fine, I like it. But you know, do people want to be a know it all? It reminds me of this age old debate we've had about outsourcing ourselves to Google to now AIs. And I think there's a lot of evidence that that's true. And so I'm not necessarily sure that that is the perfect line. However, the fact that they shipped it is a massive win and it's different and it's short and sweet and memorable. Clearly I remembered it. It's good. And so I think it's always better to put something out there than just to wait forever and ever and ever. And I'll give you one more example, speaking of faster and better from the snap years, which is that we always said that Snapchat was the fastest way to communicate, which is highly functional. But if you were to tell that, if you were to actually tell that to somebody in person, they're like, texting seems pretty fast. To me, you know, talking on the phone, you dial them and then they pick up, and then you talk. And so I don't know why we were stuck in that mindset for so long, but it took us years to get to a point of asking, why does that matter? And I, like, vividly remember making a Google Slide with, like, a positioning statement that I found online, because I did not come from a conventional marketing background that said, we are the best way to blank so that you can blank. And I'm like, holy shit, why was nobody here asking that question? So that you can, and I remember writing, deepen your relationships with the people that matter most. There's no other product, certainly in social, that's focused on that. And that the most obvious shit in the world led to the Real Friends campaign, which really helped us codify that idea that it's not just about sending, you know, either drunk or sexy selfies, but the reason this product has 500 million daily users is because people do it to send their daily lives that isn't fit for Instagram. And you can show an individual snap and you could say, look how quickly I sent it. But no one can relate to that inside joke. Or you show the entire friendship, which was that TV commercial campaign. We had 20 friendships from around the world. That was just like the most beautiful, loving, best friendships. That is what people want. They want to be closer to a friend and feel like they're there with them every day. That's what that product is for. But if you only talk about it as the fastest way to communicate, it's not inspiring. Who are you even competing with? You know, and so moving beyond faster, better, and asking what does it actually help you do in your life that people really want is always the first key.
- [52:19]
Rid
I love so that you can. I love asking, why does that matter? We've covered a ton of ground. It's been super practical. I love all of the examples that you shared. How do you think we should end this? Is there some kind of a through line across these different stories or a parting piece of advice that you want to give to a designer who's listening, who's inspired to make this practical, take some next steps, grow this storytelling muscle, start to contribute on the product marketing front. Anything that you want to leave people with before I let you go?
- [52:52]
Ellis Hamburger
Yeah, make your onboarding not suck today. I think people are starved a lot more for meaning than they are utility. And going back to, you know, some of the examples we've talked about. Imagine the 2:2:2 app. If you've played with that. That's kind of like one of the more lauded onboarding. So maybe more people have seen laps or even dispo. Like there's a reason I remember and we remember those, they block you from getting to the product faster, as some PM would say. But we're talking about them because they made an impact. Once again, it's the trailer for the movie. It gets you excited. Why do we not do that for our software? With your website, with your onboarding, obviously, having a video onboarding, if it isn't meaningful, then it's not good. Having a video or a vibey deal with haptics is not good for its own sake. But if you can prime people and get them into the right mindset to show what you're going after and what you're about, I mean, you know, you could read endless insights about how Gen Z chooses brands and products based on authenticity and vibes and emotions. And as we discussed earlier, it does apply more to commodity products, I would say, than to products with unique utility. But that's where the love and the enthusiasm and certainly where the sharing comes from. I think there was this old Scott Belsky ism about how like people come for the tool, but they share the delight or something like that. If you can create these ongoing story moments, those are just as shareable as your product. And certainly that's what we found at the browser company, that people shared our transparency videos about a design review just as much as a product video. Especially as you move further down that adoption curve. There are a lot of people, especially in the Valley, who probably aren't interested in the idea and the perceived switching cost of moving all their shit from Chrome. So that content about browsers is probably not going to get their attention because they aren't even considering in marketing language a browser. But if something crosses their LinkedIn feed about a company that is insanely transparent and likable, they're huh, maybe I'll try their browser. That's objective, I think. And so, you know, that's what I've learned from my crash course in marketing is that it's the story flow is the user flow as much as anything else. Just picture someone in that process. I feel like people in the Valley are always surprised that it takes an advertisement three to seven or more times for you to actually convert. It's like, why would that be? If it's a valuable tool, I just buy it or download it. Like we always say people are emotional, but like let's not rational, but like let's Quantify that, you know, it's going to take somebody a handful of times. Can we make those times diverse, meaningful, not repeating the same message over and over again? That's why I think pretty much every company could benefit from having a story. It allows you to be in the world more times, in more ways. It's really as simple as that.
- [55:47]
Rid
Well, Alice, I think that is the perfect way to wrap this up. I super appreciate you coming on. And honestly, just everything that you're doing in the world today, it's really cool. You've kind of created this own little path and slice of the Internet for yourself. And I really enjoy just seeing every new launch where it's like, yeah, Alice was behind that. You can just tell. So it's. It's. It's great stuff. Thanks for pulling back the curtain a little bit for us today.
- [56:12]
Ellis Hamburger
Oh, yeah, it was my pleasure. Thank you for the soapbox. Hopefully I wasn't too long winded. As you could tell. I get pretty animated with our products and our storytelling. You do. You do have to come to people pushing to the edge knowing that, yeah, you're going to be in the same feed as the Kardashians, so you got to be just as interesting. I know you can rid with your coaching, Ellis.
- [56:34]
Rid
I appreciate it.
- [56:34]
Ellis Hamburger
Yeah.