Podcasts about tallwave

Profits take a big hit as a result of under delegation. Many leaders of boutiques would rather do something themselves than delegate it. This destroys morale and leads to high turnover. On this episode, Jeff Pruitt, CEO & Ed Borromeo, President of Tallwave share how they built a powerful leadership team by focusing on replication.

Jesus Ramirez is a mission-driven leader, an innovator, and a humble, life-long learner. In his career, he has helped build and lead several technology-driven products, teams, and companies in the education, healthcare, and labor industries. He is VP of Strategy & Innovation at Tallwave, where he helps companies create exceptional customer experiences. Recently, Tallwave surveyed 1000+ individuals aged 24-65+ about their perceptions, behaviors, and customer experiences before and during the pandemic. The data revealed that consumers want a choice for how they can interact with a brand, making retail hybrid experiences more critical than ever. The report highlights the most influential components of customer experience, satisfaction, and loyalty and how organizations can transform experiences for a digital-first, hybrid, and hyper-personalized world. In addition, we discuss how the digital shifts we have experienced over the past year have affected consumer behaviors and tech adoption and how brands can enhance their hybrid customer experiences.

Robert Wallace is VP of Growth at Tallwave which works with companies like PayPal, Banner Health, and Lumin Digital on their products and customer experiences. Robert has 20+ years of experience in branding, marketing and communications programs to help drive the company's growth.   Questions   Could you share with us a little bit about your journey, even though we did read a very short description of where you are now and what you're doing? We always like to ask our guests if they could share with us a little bit about their journey in their own words, and how they got to where they are today. Your current organization is a customer experience design company and we are going through a global pandemic, how have you been able to navigate in this space as an organization? And have you found it difficult to get the strategy or the design across to your clients, or even to your own employees to relate to your clients, especially during this environment that we're operating? Customer experience design from a product based perspective versus service based perspective, what are maybe one or two things that you think organizations really need to consider to really be above the rest as it relates to customer experience design. Could you share with us what's the one app, tool or website that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? Could you share with us what is the one thing that's going on in your life right now - something that you're really excited about, it could be something that you're working on to develop yourself or your people. Could you also share with us maybe one or two books that you have read, that have had the biggest impact on you, it could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or maybe even one that you read recently, but it really has just stayed with you. Where can listeners find you online? Do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to get you back on track and get you refocused. Do you have one of those?   Highlights   Robert’s Journey   Robert shared that at the moment, he’s based in Scottsdale, Arizona, where his company Tallwave is located. But he’s from Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh and that is where he spent a lot of his formative years before he went to college and graduate school.   And after that, he started his professional career, jumped right into a fast growth company called Airwalk. Airwalk was a head to toe action sports manufacturer, they did everything from skateboarding shoes to head to toe snowboarding equipment, to BMX shoes, etc. And that's where he really got his first taste of what magic it is when a customer base and a brand really merge together and make that emotional bond because Airwalk had that bond at that time and they had seen some pretty meteoric growth as a consequence of that. And when he was there, he ran retail marketing.   So anything that happened at the point of sale, at the retail point of sale, and then he also put his toe in the water, he’s dating himself now but he opened up the Airwalk’s online store, which at the time was not an easy feat and was a very controversial endeavour as well, because this is back in later 90s when eCommerce wasn't as ubiquitous and there was a lot of worry about cannibalization and those type of things. But he ran all of the operations of the online business for Airwalk. And that's really how he sort of backed into to the technology world.   From there, he moved out to Boston and work for a couple startups. One was a very large eCommerce site called FarmandCountry.com where he really started his product and product meant side of his background.   And so, he ran the product there at FarmandCountry.com. And then he took that experience to a startup coming out of MIT called Afanova. They were, how would I call it, they used evolutionary algorithms that came out of MIT and they use that evolutionary algorithms to do high throughput consumer testing for brand packaging, logos, product designs, those type of things.   So think of it as an incredibly efficient, a marketing research and feedback tool. He was there early on and helped commercialize the product and the technology itself, taking it and pointing it at different markets, but the one that was particularly worthwhile at that point was the consumer packaging goods industry. So they sold into Procter and Gamble, Coca Cola, Johnson and Johnson, Conagra, you name it, Nestle, the big CPG companies.   And from there he moved to Arizona and that's when he was early on in Tallwave - they’re a customer experience design company. And he was brought on early on to stand up the services side of the business, which has now grown, that was about 10 years ago. So it has grown to a much larger company where now and like as you mentioned, they work with companies as big as Amex and JP Morgan Chase all the way to well-funded startups and great up and coming companies like Lumin Digital, let's see, Emailage, Algolia, those type of startups that you may have heard of.   What he would say is the common thread in his career, he has done footwear, he has done farm equipment, he has done tech, and he has done crazy technology out of MIT and now he’s in a business that works with all sorts of companies.   But he would say the one common thread is a great brand doesn't really care about what industry you're in, it's about making that kind of emotional connection between the customer and the company itself.   And you do that by having an amazing experience from the beginning, you have a need as a customer all the way through, you bought product, use the product, maybe had to get some customer service from that company, all the way through being a repeat customer.   So thinking about all the touch points in there is a huge part of what excites him about brand experience and customer experience, which he’ll tip his hand in his bias, he thinks those two things are very close to the same thing, if not the same thing. But understanding the customer experience and what its impact can be is what he would say the common thread is through his marketing, branding and product management career so far.   Navigating Through the Customer Experience Design Space   Me: A very fullsome journey that has taken you to different industries and different touch points so you have a very diverse approach as it relates to these different industries. So, you span quite a few industries as you indicated in explaining your journey. I know you said your current organization is a customer experience design company and we are going through a global pandemic, how have you been able to navigate in this space as an organization? And have you found it difficult to get the strategy or the design across to your clients, or even to your own employees to relate to your clients, especially during this environment that we're operating?   Robert shared that they've been very fortunate, and the nature of their work, which is creative designers, marketers, consultants, those type of people, it wasn't a huge stretch for them to work remotely, so they were very fortunate in that regard.   And they were also very fortunate because they had a broad variety of clients and some were impacted more fundamentally than others during the pandemic, so that helped them as well. But they definitely have faced the customer experience situation both from their own standpoint, but also their clients. And if you think about, if you think customer experience broadly, they've almost become more acutely aware of the customer’s experience and the individuals customers experience more acutely than they ever have before because of the pandemic. So, companies have had no choice but to take a long, hard look at how they service and provide value to their customer base. And depending on the industry, of course, you've had to adjust accordingly. But he believes it hits all industries.   So they've seen what has happened in retail, for example, that everything that probably was on the customer experience roadmap so to speak, curb side pickup, buy online, pick up in store, touch less flooring, all of those things were probably on the roadmap already but the pandemic pushed it all forward by 5 years or so.   So, he thinks that's an easy one and a pretty straightforward one. But anytime you've had to think about how your customers are interacting with you, he thinks every company, and almost every person in that company has had to rethink how we do that effectively and how we provide value and where the value actually lies, versus necessarily just in person interactions.   Robert stated that Yanique had mentioned how do they actually deliver some of their work, like he said, it lends itself pretty well to a virtual world. They're able to shift a lot of their workshops online and there are some pretty cool tools that they've been using in order to do that. But he will say that that everybody's itching to have a little bit more human interaction.    Customer Experience Design From a Product Based Perspective Versus Service Based Perspective     Me: So tell us a little bit about customer experience design from a product based perspective versus service based perspective, could you share with us maybe one or two things that as a company, whether you're a big organization like let's say, a PayPal an Amazon versus a small company, because we do have quite a range of listeners that listen to this podcast, some of them hold very big positions in these large organizations and some of them who run their own business so they wear the hat on product development, marketing, social media, all of the different things. So if we were to look on it from that perspective, what are maybe one or two things that you think they really need to consider to really be above the rest as it relates to customer experience design.   Robert stated that the one thing that he would recommend regardless of whether you're a product company or a service company, and regardless of how big or small your company is, he thinks he would highly recommend that all companies look at and be very diligent and honest about what the actual customer journey is.   That is from the point that the customer realizes they have a need, and every step all the way through purchase, use, service, and repurchase, hopefully. So, every single touch point and then making sure that you understand who those user personas are that would be going through that journey.   And that's actually not demographic, per se at all, it's more behavioural when he says persona. So who are the types of people that are using your products or services, once you have really a good deal of empathy for who those personas are, and what they go through in terms of every step of the process around their customer journey, which may or may not have to do with your company specifically, but what is actually their journey as a customer.   He thinks from there, you're in a great position to see where the opportunities are, the opportunities might be, “Wow, there's a gap in the market in terms of how they are accessing our product and using it.” And in that case, you can do a lot of user experience exploration and redesign and see if you can remap how that looks in order to make the product part of that experience more seamless, easier to use, and generally more delightful for the customer.   Or if you're a services-based business, you may have a look at it and say, “Okay, how are we going to actually support all these interactions with our customers.” And knowing how they interact and the pains they're feeling, you can start to tailor what services you might provide to them, how you might provide to them, etc. So, speaking for Tallwave even so, he would say that the customer journey is the core component, the starting point he would say for any kind of company product or service.   App, Website or Tool that Robert Absolutely Can’t Live Without in Him Business    When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Robert shared that there are a few that their company uses. But he’ll mention two and he would say that they're less do or die for him personally, but certainly for customer experience type work and the kind of work that their team does so well.   The first one is InVision, which is a design tool to make high fidelity mock ups and present them and interact with them with their clients. So they do a tonne of work in software and mobile app development and then they also do some web work as well and laying those out in InVision and then being able to show something that's high fidelity and in some cases even clickable to their clients and to even perhaps some validation work really helps them understand if they're on the right track and making sure that they're building a product that meets the market need.   The other one that he would say has really become pretty invaluable this year is a company called Miro. And that company, their tool allows them to do a whole plethora of interactive activities, from whiteboarding sessions to mind mapping to post it note work, where they put up business model canvases and interact. But it allows everybody to interact in the tool simultaneously as if they were in the room together doing that with physical post it notes and whiteboards like they used to pre pandemic.   So, every time he uses Miro, he’s very impressed with how well they've taken into consideration the users of that tool and the people that use whiteboards and workshopping and those types of things so often, like a lot of agency folks, design folks, consulting folks, that's a great example of a company that has really listened to who the personas are, what behaviour do they take place in, and then what is the journey that we go through to implement that, and they've built that into the product. So, he thinks they're actually a good example of what he was describing before.    What Robert is Really Excited About Now!    Robert shared that on a personal level, the more and more of the world keeps getting vaccinated, and he’s halfway home, meaning he got one of the two shots, so he'll soon be fully vaccinated and that is a relief, he’s sure to everybody that gets it for themselves and their loved one. So the things that come with that are more time and more quality time with family and friends. And so, that's probably his number one personal item.   On a professional level, he thinks it is when we all go through times like this, and the pandemic was unlike any other. He thinks when we come out of the other side, we've all transformed a little bit and he’s excited by what that transformation, as painful as it might have been, that transformation has opened up a lot of opportunities for all of us, especially in the business world.   Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Robert   When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Robert shared that one he has read about 4 years ago, 5 years ago maybe, it's called Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. And he found it to be very useful and worthwhile for both his personal and professional life and it's really about identifying what really is adding value to the time that you're spending on something and when to say no, and why and being very deliberate about that. And in very simple terms, because he thinks most of us, at least at some point struggle with saying no, and being a little overburdened, but what really is important now is something that Essentialism definitely has taught him. So that's sort of a both a professional book.   And then he’s also reading a book that he’s finding fascinating, it's called Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke as in gambling bets, and it's written by a former professional poker player. And it's not at all about poker, it is about decision making, processes and using the mind-set that a professional poker player or gambler that they use and the processes they use in order to evaluate what they're doing. There's a lot of them that are very cool ways to think about the decision making we have to do in our professional lives day to day.    Where Can We Find Robert Online   Website – www.tallwave.com LinkedIn – wallacera Twitter - @Tallwave Instagram - @tallwave LinkedIn - Tallwave   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Robert Uses   When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Robert shared that it's a little long can I read it. It’s called The Man in the Arena by Teddy Roosevelt, one of their former Presidents. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners    Links   Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke   The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience   Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Great teams don't just happen. As a leader, it’s up to you to get people to work well together and produce great results. And, of course, there is a direct correlation between team health and team performance. In simple terms, healthy teams are high performing teams. A healthy team is one in which team members feel comfortable being themselves, asking questions, sharing ideas, and trusting that their co-workers are there for them when needed. A healthy team is one in which team members feel valued, respected and safe.   The global pandemic, while only a point in time, represents a critical moment for all leaders to pivot. What has served leaders in the past, will not necessarily serve them in the future of work – now that we are now managing remote teams, blended personal/professional lives and a changing economy. So, how do you know how to best support the team, assess the team’s strengths, and the behaviors and practices that require improvement? To help us is Jen Bonfilio, Vice President of People for Tallwave, a leading customer experience design company, bringing innovative ideas to life.

In this episode, we chat with Thunderbird graduate Jesse Randall of Sweater Ventures. https://www.sweaterventures.com/ https://summit.foundersaga.com/ https://guidely.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/deviantstrat/ Euro Digital Partners: Find our articles on the web at eurodigitalpartners.com/insights And to comment or suggest guests and topics for future episode, email us at info_@_eurodigitalpartners.com Be sure to like Euro Digital Partners on Facebook and follow EDP on Twitter. We are at EUDigitalP. Finally please leave a 5-star review for us on iTunes and wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. Lastly, be sure to head over to beatyourcompetitiononline.com – to get enrolled in the best and most practical digital marketing course on the internet.

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Christiané Heiligers This week on My JavaScript Story, Charles speaks with Dr. Christiané Heiligers who is new to the industry. Her background is in physics where she has her Ph.D. in the field. Listen to today’s episode to hear her background, experience with the different programs/languages, and much more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Beginning – Advertisement: Code Badges! 1:07 – Christiané: Hello! 1:17 – Chuck: I like hearing people’s stories from our community. Tell us where you come from and who you are? 1:33 – Christiané: I am from South Africa, and have been in the US for 2 years now. My formal training is in physics. I have been a researcher with lab coats and test tubes. Through immigration, which took 2 years. I couldn’t be still, and started learning code on my own. I enjoyed the art. I had to use Python, and then I was hooked. I enjoyed the functional programming and other things. I had some experience with Ruby on Rails. I enjoy development because its problem solving, methodically approach, and uses your creative side, too. My preference is a Mac, need the Internet and decided to go to camps and take courses. I snagged a job a week before I graduated! 4:36 – Chuck: your journey, thus far. You said that you couldn’t be idle – so why code? 4:53 – Guest: The UK is cold you don’t want to do anything outside! From South American I couldn’t stand the cold. I kept busy indoors – hint the code. You can’t get bored – frontend or backend. 5:28 – Chuck: Can you give us background on the Grace Hopper Academy. 5:40 – Guest: Sure! It’s based in NY City. 6:26 – Chuck: Did you move somewhere or was it remote? 6:30 – Guest: I had to live somewhere e 6:51 – Chuck: Where did you 6:55 – Guest: NY City. There were 16 of us in the course. 7:14 – Chuck: Why did you feel like you had to go to coding school? 7:25 – Guest: I am impatient with myself. The home-life you ask yourself: “Am I doing the right thing? Am I going in the right direction?” I wanted to go and pick up some skills. 7:56 – Chuck: You go through Grace Hopper – is this how you got into JavaScript? 8:11 – Guest: I didn’t know a line of JavaScript. I did my application code line in Ruby. My husband has been in software development my whole life. 9:16 – Chuck: What have you done with JavaScript since learning it? 9:24 – Guest: Some card playing games for my nieces in South Africa. 10:50 – Guest: Stack Overflow is wonderful. 11:05 – Chuck. 11:11 – Guest: I wasn’t actively contributing, but I did... 11:30 – Chuck: What is it like being a prof 11:37 – Guest: It’s addictive. When I am writing code in the frontend / backend side. It’s always learning. 12:11 – Chuck: What’s next for you? 12:18 – Guest: I would love to continue this journey. Maybe into the DevOps, but my passion happens with React. The Hapi Framework. 13:10 – Guest: The community is wonderful to work with – everyone is very helpful. 13:22 – Chuck: People are usually talking about Express and not Hapi.js. 13:35 – Guest: I have some contact names you can call. 13:43 – Guest: I am working on a few small projects right now. Some Angular sites that need assistance. Helping out where I can. It’s a small team that I am working with. There is only a few of us. 14:31 – Chuck: Usually people stick with one. What’s your experience using the different frameworks? 14:40 – Guest: It’s an eye-opener! React vs. Angular. 15:07 – Chuck: How can people find you? 15:14 – Guest: LinkedIn, Twitter, Tallwave, etc. 15:37 – Chuck: Picks! 15:40 – Advertisement! Links: React Angular Grace Hopper Academy Christiané’s Instagram Christiané’s Facebook Sponsors: Code Badge Cache Fly Get A Coder Job Picks: Charles Podcasts that Chuck listens to: Code Newbie Our podcasts through DevChat Food – Kedo Diet – 2 Keto Dudes Christiané Heiligers Hapi Framework Hapi Slack Channel – Hapi.js

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Christiané Heiligers This week on My JavaScript Story, Charles speaks with Dr. Christiané Heiligers who is new to the industry. Her background is in physics where she has her Ph.D. in the field. Listen to today’s episode to hear her background, experience with the different programs/languages, and much more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Beginning – Advertisement: Code Badges! 1:07 – Christiané: Hello! 1:17 – Chuck: I like hearing people’s stories from our community. Tell us where you come from and who you are? 1:33 – Christiané: I am from South Africa, and have been in the US for 2 years now. My formal training is in physics. I have been a researcher with lab coats and test tubes. Through immigration, which took 2 years. I couldn’t be still, and started learning code on my own. I enjoyed the art. I had to use Python, and then I was hooked. I enjoyed the functional programming and other things. I had some experience with Ruby on Rails. I enjoy development because its problem solving, methodically approach, and uses your creative side, too. My preference is a Mac, need the Internet and decided to go to camps and take courses. I snagged a job a week before I graduated! 4:36 – Chuck: your journey, thus far. You said that you couldn’t be idle – so why code? 4:53 – Guest: The UK is cold you don’t want to do anything outside! From South American I couldn’t stand the cold. I kept busy indoors – hint the code. You can’t get bored – frontend or backend. 5:28 – Chuck: Can you give us background on the Grace Hopper Academy. 5:40 – Guest: Sure! It’s based in NY City. 6:26 – Chuck: Did you move somewhere or was it remote? 6:30 – Guest: I had to live somewhere e 6:51 – Chuck: Where did you 6:55 – Guest: NY City. There were 16 of us in the course. 7:14 – Chuck: Why did you feel like you had to go to coding school? 7:25 – Guest: I am impatient with myself. The home-life you ask yourself: “Am I doing the right thing? Am I going in the right direction?” I wanted to go and pick up some skills. 7:56 – Chuck: You go through Grace Hopper – is this how you got into JavaScript? 8:11 – Guest: I didn’t know a line of JavaScript. I did my application code line in Ruby. My husband has been in software development my whole life. 9:16 – Chuck: What have you done with JavaScript since learning it? 9:24 – Guest: Some card playing games for my nieces in South Africa. 10:50 – Guest: Stack Overflow is wonderful. 11:05 – Chuck. 11:11 – Guest: I wasn’t actively contributing, but I did... 11:30 – Chuck: What is it like being a prof 11:37 – Guest: It’s addictive. When I am writing code in the frontend / backend side. It’s always learning. 12:11 – Chuck: What’s next for you? 12:18 – Guest: I would love to continue this journey. Maybe into the DevOps, but my passion happens with React. The Hapi Framework. 13:10 – Guest: The community is wonderful to work with – everyone is very helpful. 13:22 – Chuck: People are usually talking about Express and not Hapi.js. 13:35 – Guest: I have some contact names you can call. 13:43 – Guest: I am working on a few small projects right now. Some Angular sites that need assistance. Helping out where I can. It’s a small team that I am working with. There is only a few of us. 14:31 – Chuck: Usually people stick with one. What’s your experience using the different frameworks? 14:40 – Guest: It’s an eye-opener! React vs. Angular. 15:07 – Chuck: How can people find you? 15:14 – Guest: LinkedIn, Twitter, Tallwave, etc. 15:37 – Chuck: Picks! 15:40 – Advertisement! Links: React Angular Grace Hopper Academy Christiané’s Instagram Christiané’s Facebook Sponsors: Code Badge Cache Fly Get A Coder Job Picks: Charles Podcasts that Chuck listens to: Code Newbie Our podcasts through DevChat Food – Kedo Diet – 2 Keto Dudes Christiané Heiligers Hapi Framework Hapi Slack Channel – Hapi.js

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Christiané Heiligers This week on My JavaScript Story, Charles speaks with Dr. Christiané Heiligers who is new to the industry. Her background is in physics where she has her Ph.D. in the field. Listen to today’s episode to hear her background, experience with the different programs/languages, and much more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Beginning – Advertisement: Code Badges! 1:07 – Christiané: Hello! 1:17 – Chuck: I like hearing people’s stories from our community. Tell us where you come from and who you are? 1:33 – Christiané: I am from South Africa, and have been in the US for 2 years now. My formal training is in physics. I have been a researcher with lab coats and test tubes. Through immigration, which took 2 years. I couldn’t be still, and started learning code on my own. I enjoyed the art. I had to use Python, and then I was hooked. I enjoyed the functional programming and other things. I had some experience with Ruby on Rails. I enjoy development because its problem solving, methodically approach, and uses your creative side, too. My preference is a Mac, need the Internet and decided to go to camps and take courses. I snagged a job a week before I graduated! 4:36 – Chuck: your journey, thus far. You said that you couldn’t be idle – so why code? 4:53 – Guest: The UK is cold you don’t want to do anything outside! From South American I couldn’t stand the cold. I kept busy indoors – hint the code. You can’t get bored – frontend or backend. 5:28 – Chuck: Can you give us background on the Grace Hopper Academy. 5:40 – Guest: Sure! It’s based in NY City. 6:26 – Chuck: Did you move somewhere or was it remote? 6:30 – Guest: I had to live somewhere e 6:51 – Chuck: Where did you 6:55 – Guest: NY City. There were 16 of us in the course. 7:14 – Chuck: Why did you feel like you had to go to coding school? 7:25 – Guest: I am impatient with myself. The home-life you ask yourself: “Am I doing the right thing? Am I going in the right direction?” I wanted to go and pick up some skills. 7:56 – Chuck: You go through Grace Hopper – is this how you got into JavaScript? 8:11 – Guest: I didn’t know a line of JavaScript. I did my application code line in Ruby. My husband has been in software development my whole life. 9:16 – Chuck: What have you done with JavaScript since learning it? 9:24 – Guest: Some card playing games for my nieces in South Africa. 10:50 – Guest: Stack Overflow is wonderful. 11:05 – Chuck. 11:11 – Guest: I wasn’t actively contributing, but I did... 11:30 – Chuck: What is it like being a prof 11:37 – Guest: It’s addictive. When I am writing code in the frontend / backend side. It’s always learning. 12:11 – Chuck: What’s next for you? 12:18 – Guest: I would love to continue this journey. Maybe into the DevOps, but my passion happens with React. The Hapi Framework. 13:10 – Guest: The community is wonderful to work with – everyone is very helpful. 13:22 – Chuck: People are usually talking about Express and not Hapi.js. 13:35 – Guest: I have some contact names you can call. 13:43 – Guest: I am working on a few small projects right now. Some Angular sites that need assistance. Helping out where I can. It’s a small team that I am working with. There is only a few of us. 14:31 – Chuck: Usually people stick with one. What’s your experience using the different frameworks? 14:40 – Guest: It’s an eye-opener! React vs. Angular. 15:07 – Chuck: How can people find you? 15:14 – Guest: LinkedIn, Twitter, Tallwave, etc. 15:37 – Chuck: Picks! 15:40 – Advertisement! Links: React Angular Grace Hopper Academy Christiané’s Instagram Christiané’s Facebook Sponsors: Code Badge Cache Fly Get A Coder Job Picks: Charles Podcasts that Chuck listens to: Code Newbie Our podcasts through DevChat Food – Kedo Diet – 2 Keto Dudes Christiané Heiligers Hapi Framework Hapi Slack Channel – Hapi.js

This week Jeffrey Pruitt, founder and CEO of Tallwave, joins us for a fascinating conversation about his journey from accountancy to entrepreneurship and from "running through walls" to leading smarter. An Arizona native, Jeffrey explores taking ideas to market, finding capitol for those ideas, and building a strong organization based on values and strategy.  You will want to have your notebook ready for this conversation, especially as he talks practically about how Tallwave strives to be a friction-less workplace. SELECT LINKS FROM THE PODCAST Jeffrey Pruitt on LinkedIn Tallwave Tallwave Capital YPO Camelback Mountain 12 Week Year by Brian Moran The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry Contact us at the podcast: contact@azoriginals.net  

What do you need to consider to create a great customer experience? Terri O’Shaughnessy, director of client success at Tallwave, discusses how Tallwave helps clients identify their place in the market and home in on their target audience. She also explains the processes Tallwave uses to educate clients on how to create a great customer experience for themselves and their customers. You can contact Terri at terri.oshaughnessy@tallwave.com or check out Tallwave at tallwave.com.

As the lines between product and brand become increasingly blurred, our guests discuss why—at least in terms of the user experience—it makes sense to build your company brand into the product from the outset. Join Robert Wallace, executive vice president of marketing at Tallwave and Jesus Ramirez, vice president of product at Tallwave, as they talk through the challenges product management and marketing pros face in building an appropriate product tone that resonates with customers.  Got a question or feedback? We’d love to hear from you! Email us at experts@pragmaticmarketing.com.

Jerrod Bailey is a Partner and VP of Business Development at Tallwave, an Arizona-based business design and innovation agency focused on helping companies build great products and take them to market successfully. Links, Resources & People Mentioned Tallwave LinkedIn Prospectify Yesware SalesLoft Reply Outreach Aweber Infusionsoft Salesforce Socedo Jerrod Bailey - @jerrodbailey | LinkedIn Omer Khan - @omerkhan Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to the podcast Leave a rating and review Follow Omer on Twitter Need help with your SaaS? Join SaaS Club Plus: our membership and community for new and early-stage SaaS founders. Join and get training & support. Join SaaS Club Launch: a 12-week group coaching program to help you get your SaaS from zero to your first $10K revenue. Apply for SaaS Club Accelerate: If you'd like to work directly with Omer 1:1, then request a free strategy session.

Jerrod Bailey is a Partner and VP of Business Development at Tallwave, an Arizona-based business design and innovation agency focused on helping companies build great products and take them to market successfully.Links, Resources & People MentionedTallwaveLinkedInProspectifyYeswareSalesLoftReplyOutreachAweberInfusionsoftSalesforceSocedoJerrod Bailey - @jerrodbailey | LinkedInOmer Khan - @omerkhanEnjoyed this episode?Subscribe to the podcastLeave a rating and reviewFollow Omer on TwitterNeed help with your SaaS?Join SaaS Club Plus: our membership and community for new and early-stage SaaS founders. Join and get training & support.Join SaaS Club Launch: a 12-week group coaching program to help you get your SaaS from zero to your first $10K revenue.Apply for SaaS Club Accelerate: If you'd like to work directly with Omer 1:1, then request a free strategy session.

Most entrepreneurs don't have the luxury of pursuing their passion, great idea or new venture full time. Instead they have to create a side hustle – working nights, weekends and early morning to make their idea a reality. That's exactly what Ryan Hermansky, CEO and co-founder of talk2Legends had to do. The genesis for the app, which allows fans to talk to their favorite pro athletes via video chat, sparked two years ago when Ryan was talking to his now co-founders Mark McVey and Tom Stitt about how cool it would be to be able to have phone conversations with athletes. “The idea was sparked by a press release about about a website that allowed you to have phone conversations with B-list celebrities like Lindsay Lohan's parents,” he said. “It started as just an amusing conversation between the three of us at first, and then it turned to, ‘Imagine if you could do this with athletes?'” From there they started evolving the idea. Since then it has morphed from just a website, to an app to video calls. That initial conversation was two years ago, and Ryan admits knowing they've been working on it for so long is a bit of tough pill to swallow. This was in part due to not having a background in technology and not knowing what to look for when on boarding someone to help build the app. “We spent the first year trying to figure out what we were going to do and finding the right tech people to bring on board,” Ryan said. “But we basically struck out.” They even tried making this person a fourth co-founder so they'd have more skin in the game, but it didn't work. “We eventually decided to go out, raise money and hire a company to do it the right way,” he said. Once they secured enough funds to hire a company to build it right, he said the difference was night and day. Evolving the Product As they began building it talk2Legends too many different shapes before it would ultimately become an app that enabled video chat with pro athletes. “We knew it would change over time. I think all companies and apps do. I don't think I expected it to change as drastically as it has,” Ryan said. But he said they realized they were trying to make it too complicated so they simplified everything down. “We eventually simplified everything down to an app,” Ryan said. “Now we have the mindset that we want to get the product on the market and start letting our fans tells us what changes and features they want to see.” They worked with Tallwave to go through the validation process with early users and athletes, and to eventually arrive at product market fit. Overcoming Early Challenges Since none of the co-founders had technology backgrounds, Ryan said that proved to be one of their biggest hurdles in developing a tech-based product. Building an app was a foreign language they had to learn. Which made it tough to interview those initial developers they brought on. They didn't know what to look for wand what questions to ask. “That was the biggest issue and hurdle,” Ryan said. “And that may be something we always battle until we have a CTO on board – someone who eats and breathes technology.” Getting people to invest has been another big challenge. Despite continually getting positive feedback from potential investors, any time you trail blaze with a new concept, it can be an uphill battle in getting people to actually back your concept. Ryan said one of the best things they've done for Talk2Legends, however, was keep an open mind. This is something they continue and are now looking at delving into the music industry – offering the ability for fans to talk to their favorite musicians. “Keeping an open mind has been one of the best things we've done,” Ryan said. “It was necessary, but it has opened the door to other possibilities.” The Side Hustle Like many startup founders, Ryan also juggles a full-time job – talk2Legends is his side hustle. Working to bring the concept to market has forced him to master efficiency. “It's definitely been a challenge, but it wasn't an option,” he said. “Efficiency has been must for us.” But their long nights and weekends dedicated to getting the app to market is paying off. They've garnered buy-in from pro athletes from all backgrounds from football to basketball, to golf, motor cross, MMA fighting, surfing, snowboarding, and the list goes on. They've also amassed more than 17,000 Twitter followers in less than two years - all through organic engagement. And now, their app, talk2Legends is officially in the app store. Ryan offers up some advice to startup founders and entrepreneurs. “Keep an open mind about everything you're doing. There's a lot of people out there who are going to give you advice. Keep in mind, but be careful on who you listen to. Try to understand what advice your getting, who it's coming from and what their motive is.” “In the entrepreneurial world you're generally trying to do something that hasn't been done before or do something better than what's out there. Most people you talk to, especially if you're trying to raise money, may be trying to shoot you down as quickly as possible so they can get on to the next idea. They're naturally pessimistic. No matter how cool your idea is people are going to hate it just because they don't get it. Stay openminded and focused.” “You also have to be patient.” Biz Hack: Primer is an app created by Google with short, snackable courses all related to marketing. It was built for anyone - from startups to marketing managers - who wants to learn more about marketing. The lessons cover branding, storytelling, remarketing, SEO and programmatic ad buying. Next week I'm in the Lab with Derek Harju who works with Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Company. We talk about intrapreneurship - the idea of innovating from within a company. Derek has led the launch of a couple new podcasts at Rich Dad and initiated the complete overhaul of one of their long-time products. We talk about how to be an entrepreneur even if you're working within a larger company. Be sure to tune! Until then, have prosperous week!

Most entrepreneurs are accustomed to wearing many hats and juggling a near-endless supply of priorities, requests and fire drills. At times this pressure can become almost unbearable. So at what point do you stop trying to do it all and either eliminate the unnecessary or outsource it? And how do you know what is unnecessary? Ed Borromeo, partner and COO at Tallwave, routinely works with startup founders and innovators on helping them bring their products to market. Prior to that he served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force, so he's no stranger to the stress and responsibility that can come with being in a leadership position. Over the years he has developed a system for identifying and focusing on the most effective priorities and drowning out the rest of the noise. For entrepreneurs it's essential to define those top priorities that will actually move the needle then determine who the best person is to tackle that priority. “When you're trying to get your product to market, there's inevitably, this tremendous pressure to produce and get ahead,” Ed said. “Sometimes we can buckle under the weight of the many top priorities. It's a challenge, but what I practice is taking it a month to a quarter at a time, and determine the outcomes that matter the most for that timeframe.” Of course the long-term vision and goal is important, but you have to break it down to get to the most important thing you need to be doing right now to get your business to that end goal. Start big, then get narrow. “I highly recommend keeping this list to three to five things that will really move the needle towards accomplishing those outcomes,” he said. “From there, it's a daily gut check. Everything we're doing should be benefitting those three main things. If they're not, you have to question whether their necessary activities.” One way Ed forces himself to distill his weekly priorities or goals down to one or two things is by writing them on a three-by three sticky note, which he keeps in his pocket all week to serve as a daily reminder. Every time he goes for his keys or wallet, he feels the sticky note - keeping the goal literally at his fingertips. If he hasn't yet accomplished the goal, it motivates him to devote more attention to it. But once he has, that sticky note becomes a little validation for what he accomplished that week. Finding Priority Numero Uno How do you distill your priorities down? Ed says, it starts with complete clarity to what success looks like. “If you have that understanding, you're better able to sort through the noise,” he said. “I can't stress enough how important it is to have clarity on the outcome and understanding of the business.” He recommends spending 10 minutes each day planning and organizing your priorities to get to the one thing that will get you closer to your outcome. Once you've identified it, it may be time to think about whether to outsource or keep it in house. For that, Ed has a few methods for gauging which is the best route to take. 1. Pipeline - sometimes instead of assuming overhead you might outsource or find a good, capable partner. “I always recommend you crawl before you walk. Find ways to outsource, and then you're also networking and developing good business deals. It also allows you to understand how critical that function is to your business before you commit to that overhead right away.” 2. Understand your core competencies - “If it's core to your business you probably want to insource and keep it in house.” Outsource functions that are not core to your biz. 3. Timing - how long does this function exist? Is it short or long term. That will also help you determine. Finding a Quality Support Now that you've determined you have a function you need to outsource, the next (and often most challenging step) is to find quality talent to outsource to. Ed has a couple of suggestions, starting with asking to see their work. It may see rudimentary, but many people overlook this step. Simply asking for samples and/or references can help you quickly weed out any candidates who may not be the best fit. Another key component is understanding how they communicate. “How well do they communicate? Communication is a huge factor,” Ed said. “I've learned that the endeavors that have gone very well were a function of a capable, organized and great communicator.” Ed also said he has found success hiring contractors any time they take a vested interest in the business and ask questions about the outcomes you're trying to achieve. Try to find critical thinkers who will ask questions and presents strategies for helping achieve the outcome. Make sure they are prepared to be flexible enough to adjust along with you. Bottomline, find your one thing right now that will either make every other task easier, or better yet, unnecessary. Book referenced in this podcast: The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. Biz Hack: Clear is an app that organizes tasks, reminders and to-do lists. It allows you to input multiple types of lists whether for personal or business and can sync across all iOS and OS X devices. The goal of the app is help you become more productive. Clear is $4.99 for the iOs app and $9.99 for the Mac app. Next week I'm in the Lab with Ryan Hermansky, co-founder of Talk 2 Legends, a cool new app that just launched in the app store that essentially allows fans to schedule times to talk to their favorite pro athletes. We talk about how he took this idea from concept to reality, and how he did it all while juggling a full time job. Be sure to tune in. Until then, have a prosperous week. Music in this episode: "They Just Don't Know" by Gyft. If you dig this podcast, why not leave a quick review or rating in iTunes?  

It goes without saying that customers are absolutely essential to the success of any business, but to get to the customers you first have to understand where your product fits into the marketplace. So many new ventures, however, don't think about this in depth until after launch. Jerrod Bailey, who has worked in venture-backed technology start-ups for 15 years and today is a partner and VP of business development at Tallwave, said there are three main “levers” startups need to activate prior to launch. Finding Product Market Fit Jerrod said a common path many ventures follow is they'll think about the product then go develop it. Somewhere along that path they'll think about the user experience then have a product they can launch. Branding doesn't come into play until launch time. “They'll launch with a name and logo, then ask, ‘Who is our buyer, really?,'” Jerrod said. “Then they'll start thinking in depth and detail about who their buyer is and what kind of position they want in the market to go after that buyer.” It's not until that point that most startups begin to think about how to reach their true buyers and create the systems to go after them. All of this should really be done during the build - in parallel. Jerrold said there are really three key things startups should be thinking about while they are building their product: 1. Product. What can the product itself do to drive business? What features can be included to drive virality? “Does it have any viral components? Can my software let users share things on social and get the word out? There's any number of things a product can do to inherently share itself,” Jerrod said. “But there are three major categories of features that I'm worried about during a product's development.” Activation: What will drive users to download, sign-up, create a login, complete a first task, etc. Focus on features and UX principles that either drive activation or eliminate barriers to activation. For instance, an activation feature of Instagram is the ability to share across multiple social networks. When your Facebook or Twitter friends see your post originated from Instagram, they are more likely to activate with the platform. Engagement: You have to be able to show and prove users are willing to engage with your product over time. You will need to track Daily Active Usage (DAU) and Monthly Active Usage (MAU). Regular engagement is key. This includes use of push notifications, email and other ways of bringing them back to the app. An example of this is Instagram's “core loop” – take a photo, apply a filter, add a comment, share. It's simple and effective. Retention: You have to prove users want to return over the long term. If 100 users engage, but 99 disappear after a month, you may not be around long. Instagram does effectively by showing you your follower count. Once you build it up, you are reluctant to quit after investing so much to grow that. 2. Tools. The next important thing a startup needs to be thinking about is creating a tool stack for sales and marketing. “When you're a startup, your tool stack is probably going to include things like a CRM, but it's probably not going to be Salesforce,” Jerrod said. “As I'm collecting email addresses and users as I grow, I want to have a CRM in place so I don't lose all of those people, so I might have a light weight CRM in place.” Jerrod mentioned other tools for the tech stack should include an email system like Mailchimp and retargeting, which will allow you to cookie people as they visit the landing page you've created, then you can push ads to them as they browse online. From there you might begin to experiment with acquisition methods. “Sometimes I'll take my landing page and deploy to places like BetaList and other places that attract early adopters to join betas,” he said. “I might also run small, paid ad experiments to see if I can attract certain users.” Jerrod said this allows him to learn what messaging works well, what questions people have, and start to build relationships. “We've noticed that the original assumptions coming into building a company, as soon as you start engaging users and trying to get something from them like an email, you learn what's true about your assumptions and what's not,” he said. “And we pivoted whole businesses just looking at the interaction with the users.” 3. Branding. Finally it's essential startups think about branding as they're building. For more on this, see last week's post, “How to Use Storytelling to Create a Game-Changer Company.” Jerrod's tool picks: Salestools.io Hubspot's free CRM for startups Mailchimp Outreach.io Blockspring Biz Hack: Mattermark crawls the web and compiles massive lists of companies in specific industries based on your search. You can create highly targeted and narrowed list based on revenue, geography, industry specific, etc. Mattermark will compile the list of companies with contact information. Next week I'm in the Lab with Ed Borromeo, COO at Tallwave. That will be the fourth and final episode with the Tallwave team. Since the first three focused on what entrepreneurs need to do to have a successful launch, in this episode I talk with Ed about when entrepreneurs should start thinking about outsourcing and how to do it. He also gives a few productivity hacks. So that will be a nice way to round things up. So be sure to tune in. Until then, have a prosperous week.

Storytelling has been around since humans have been in existence. Ancient hunters used storytelling, depicted through drawings on cave walls, to share information about food opportunities to their neighbors. Fast forward approximately 10,000 years, and storytelling takes on a new form – poets reciting stories through spoken word. At the turn of the 5th Century, stories began appearing in the form of small-batch books. In the 1500s, William Shakespeare figured out how to use storytelling to appeal to the head and the heart by tapping into intellect and emotion. It's no surprise this ancient form of communication is also extremely valuable in marketing and branding. Robert Wallace, partner and executive VP of marketing at Tallwave, says it's one of the only way brands, particularly those operating in commoditized markets, can capture the hearts and minds of customers. Robert, who also serves as the president of the Phoenix chapter of TiE, has more than 15 years' experience working with fast-growth companies and startups on building their marketing and branding strategies. In the late 1990s he worked with Airwalk International, which he labeled as a very large startup, developing new media marketing strategies. So the art of storytelling has reigned king throughout his career. Though storytelling has been a big component of marketing and branding for decades, Robert says it's one of the things many startup founders and even established businesses overlook. Not Just a Pretty Face Branding is more than great logo and polished look. While those elements are important, they're a small sliver of the overall brand. “If that's your view of what branding is, then you probably think it's a little superfluous to worry about it early on in your startup,” Robert said. “Instead you're focused on your product, and there's value to that. You should focus on your product. But we're going to see more, as various product categories become more commoditized, you no longer have to be novel to be successful.” As a result, companies need to shift their focus to developing a solid brand, but that brand needs go deeper than nice visuals, it needs to win over the minds and hearts of customers. “The biggest mistake a lot of startups make is they think branding is just a logo, or pretty pictures, or a tagline,” Robert said. “It's really about communicating your position in the marketplace, and that is incredibly important for any business.” This is particularly true for different categories of business in which competition is high – there will always be leadership company in peoples' minds. To be in that position or at least be in the running for holding that position in the minds of your customers, the branding and marketing needs to be thought of from the beginning. “Take a company like Slack. At the end of the day, it's a messaging app…not necessarily a terribly novel concept,” he said. “They have, however, injected personality, a great look and feel, great messaging and micro-copy throughout the site. Not to mention the Slackbot. Those were all conscious decisions that the Slack team made before or while they developed the product.” “Only certain companies are going to win, and win the hearts and minds of people and hold that position whether they have the best product or not. Those things aren't often considered early on with a lot of startups.” Robert also cautioned not to decouple branding and product, and marketing and product. They need to be developed in tandem and should be a company-wide function, not just a function of the marketing team. Developing Your Brand As Simon Sinek says, “It starts with why.” Why does your company exist? Knowing your purpose and communicating that to not just potential customers, but also your employees and other company stakeholders is incredibly important. They need to know why you exist. “With the internet, and this nearly infinite amount of information about companies now…it's no longer just about a valuable product,” Robert said. “A lot of people want to know what a company stands for and why they're doing what they're doing. That is starting to factor more and more into the buying decision.” Don't get stuck on figuring out how to tell the perfect story. Instead Robert suggests focusing on the process of understanding who you serve, what pain points they have that you are trying to solve, who else is trying to solve the problem, and why you're better and different. This, in essence, is why your company exists, and these things need to be thought about from the beginning. Of course voice and tone also needs to be consistent throughout the product experience too. To nail this, Robert suggests voiceandtone.com and playing “Apples to Apples” – something he leads startups through in his storytelling workshops. “Sort through the word cards and get down to eight, at the most, voice and tone words," he said. “This should be based on the value of your company and what you think your value proposition is and what your purpose is. Once you've got those eight, the really difficult part is to create ‘but not' statements.” For example, if one of your voice and tone words is “intelligent”, you might say something like “we want to sound intelligent, but not arrogant. From there you can sketch out the words you should and shouldn't use in your marketing copy. “The brand isn't just a marketing function, it's the entire promise you are making to your customers,” Robert said. The Art of Storytelling To further integrate storytelling into your brand, think back to the basic story structure taught in grade school. It has a protagonist or hero, an antagonist (the person trying to get in the way of the hero), and a challenge or series of challenges that protagonist has to overcome. There's a turning point and finally the resolution or outcome. “You have a customer with a certain pain point, and there are reasons why they have that, and that's why your is going company exists – to help that hero achieve their end outcome. It's basic storytelling 101,” Robert said. For startups, particularly tech startups, trying to differentiate themselves, the art of storytelling will prove more and more imperative. And this needs to be thought about from the beginning. This is in essence why your company exists. “This should be at the core of your business strategy not just your product or marketing strategy,” he said. Biz Hack: Several years ago MailChimp made public its Voice and Tone guide. The guide helps MailChimp employees write in a consistent voice, and provides a roadmap for adapting their tone based on various situations. It covers how certain emails, landing pages, Twitter and Facebook posts, and even press releases should convey messages. It's a great tool for determining your brand's voice, tone and overall personality. Next week I'm in The Lab with Jerrod Bailey, partner and vice president of business development at Tallwave. We talk all things acquisition and how entrepreneurs can start building their sales and marketing stack even before they launch. Be sure to tune in! Until then, have a prosperous week.

Business startup is certainly not without its challenges. Just look at the percentages of failed startups versus those that have succeeded and see you the struggle is real. Approximately just 10 percent of startups actually succeed. That begs the question, “Why do so many startups fail?” Jesus Ramirez, vice president of product at Tallwave, and Scott Williams, lead engineer at Tallwave, routinely work with startups on helping them become part of that ten percent. Along the way, they've identified a few pitfalls many startup founders fall into. “A common challenge I see is them not having the right kind of focus,” Scott said. “It's really easy for them to just take a sheet of paper and start jotting down ideas, then start building features upon features. Never really knowing if what you've got on paper there is something viable, something that will fit any kind of market, or even how long it will take to produce.” Jesus said he commonly sees entrepreneurs focus on the product rather than building a holistic business. “Product or a mobile app may be a part of the overall business, it's not the business in its entirety,” he said. “It's not just about getting an app into the app store and pushing it to users. It's about how are you going acquire and retain, what is the cost of acquisition going to be, what is the lifetime value of customers going to be, what marketing channels are you going to use to acquire customers, and so on.” There are a lot of components beyond just the product entrepreneurs need to address from the beginning. Once these have been established, testing and validating ideas and assumptions is key. Proving and Disproving Startup Theories Entrepreneurs are constantly reminded to just start. The version one of a product or service doesn't have to be perfect and the longer either of these sits in development, the more it costs. Today, building an early prototype and getting it in front of users for feedback and testing is easier than ever. “There are so many tools out there now that allow you to put together what your concept is in rough form, to the point where you can put it in front of users and get some strong signals as to whether it's viable or not,” Jesus said. Going through this process also helps you uncover what features and benefits your target market really wants, rather than what you think they want, understand how you differ from the competition, and test pricing and messaging. Ultimately, when done right, testing and validating all components of the business – the features, branding, marketing, and acquisition strategy – early on helps you build a more sustainable product. This is critical, particularly as the entrepreneurial landscape has grown even more competitive in the last decade. “The barriers to entry have gone down and so there's been an influx of entrepreneurs. So the competition has gone up,” Jesus said. “The second thing is that the bar has been raised.” He said this is because there are so many great, high-quality consumer applications and products out there like Slack and Mailchimp that have primed users to command it. The cost of launching a business and building an app, specifically, have come down tremendously, which has also increased the amount of competition and reduced the time to market. “The costs of building an application for back in 2000 were huge,” Scott said. “Those prices have come down, and in some cases their free.” Building a Sustainable Business Building a sustainable business overall requires a mind shift from thinking about the product or service as the sole component of the business. Your product is part of your brand and how you interact with the customer. “You may not have a growth specialist, or content writer, or branding specialist on your team, but you need to have somebody who's focused on those things from the onset, because your product is going to impact your brand and your sales,” Jesus said. To do that you have to figure out what your values are and what you stand for, then determine your voice and tone. “When you're thinking about how you're going to incorporate those elements of the brand into your product, it's important to think about where those messages will come through in your product,” Jesus said. This can include push notifications, the welcome screen, modals that pop up when a user completes a task, and so on. The voice, tone and messaging need to be deliberate and integrated throughout the user experience. Scott and Jesus recommended looking at how Mailchimp has integrated voice and tone into their brand. They publish their brand guidelines on their site, as well as every interaction the user has at voiceandtone.com. “That level of nuance and empathy, and understanding of the user goes such a long way in building retention, and loyalty and engagement with the user,” Jesus said. And branding is absolutely essential to build into the product or business from the beginning. It's the purpose and why behind what you do. It's everything. “You want to establish that as one of the first things you do,” Jesus said. “As an entrepreneur, think about why you're building what you're building. That will become the epicenter of your brand.” “Any time you're making something you have to ask yourself who is it for,” Scott said. “Do I need a mass appeal or a very focused set.” Finally, Scott and Jesus said a narrowed focus is essential. More many entrepreneurs, casting a wide net feels like the safer route, but zeroing in on a niche audience enables you to better understand their needs, wants and desires. This, in turn, enables you to build a solution that better meets their needs and target your marketing more effectively. Biz Hack: Socedo helps you leverage Twitter as a lead-generation tool. It essentially discovers social prospects that match your ideal customer then qualifies them through automated engagement on Twitter. It's essentially applying an if this, then that algorithm to Twitter interactions. Quote of the Week: “Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.” ~ John Wooden Next week I'm in The Lab with Robert Wallace, executive vp of marketing at Tallwave. We deep dive into the art of storytelling in business and how to use it to acquire customers and turn them into raving fans. Be sure to tune! Until then, have prosperous week!