In this episode, Chris Long, VP of Product at Axonify joins Odun Odubanjo, CEO at Insight7 to discuss strategies for building successful B2B products from his experience leading B2B product development processes at high-growth tech companies like Shopify and Booking.com.
Odun Odubanjo
Hi everyone. Uh, welcome to this episode of The Seventh Sense. Uh, this week I have Chris Long, who is the VP of product at Axonify, and, uh, Chris has also led product teams at companies like Shopify, booking.com and Super slide. Uh, Chris, I’m super excited to have you here. Thank you for joining us.
Chris Long
Yeah, my pleasure. It’s, uh, awesome to be here. Really excited for today’s conversation.
Odun Odubanjo
Yeah, absolutely. Uh, on today’s episode, we’ll be discussing strategies for building successful B2B products. And, and Chris, you have a ton of experience there. Um, but before we dive in, you know, I’d love to, to learn a little bit about how you go into B2B product development. So you, you know, you started your career writing software and now you are leading product team. So why, why did you make that transition ?
Chris Long
Yeah, it’s, uh, so I started off in software development. I went to school for computer science, but my first job outta university, I was actually the third employee. Um, and when you’re the third employee, you’re doing a lot of, a bit of everything. Um, like I was answering phone calls, I was doing all sorts of things. Yeah. Uh, and through that process I kind of figured out, I actually like the what are we doing and why are we doing, rather than necessarily the how don’t get me. I still love the how, like I’m coding on the side. I’m like having a lot of fun with, uh, chat GPD and stuff. But the one, the why is what really got me interested. So I lucked out. I ended up in a product management role at a company that was rebooting how they approach product management. And they actually, in my first month or second month, they sent the entire product team to a Marty Kagan workshop.
Odun Odubanjo
Okay.
Chris Long
Um, and, uh, that kind of set my tone for being a product manager and being a product leader. Um, I like Marty Kagan is great. I love him. Um, I love a lot of his writings around. It’s a little bit too perfect world, um, some cases, but, uh, that the fundamental ideas of how he views product management has kind of been the baseline for me and has really helped driven my growth and my career as, uh, yeah. Coming off that foundation of, uh, I always wonder if like when I joined an organization that was all about, uh, more scrum product owner or other things along those lines, would my career have been very different? And I think it would’ve been in a lot of ways.
Odun Odubanjo
Yeah. Interesting. So the shout out Marty, uh, for inspiring a lot of us in product today. Uh, so, so let’s get into the, the topic for the day a B2B product development and really making that successful. Mm-Hmm. be that you could easily tell, you know, a B2B product from a B2C product. Um, but today, you know, users, consumers, they, they want consumer grade products and even in a B2B settings. Um, what remains unique about building B2B products, um, today?
Chris Long
Yeah, I think like one of the key things with B2B products that always comes up is who’s buying your product isn’t who’s using your product. Like I think we’ve all been in that where it’s, uh, it’s B two B2C or variations of that, and you have layers there too. So it’s not just one user who’s using it. Um, you actually have like the executive buyer, you have the champion, you have an administrator. In our case, like with Exonify, we work with frontline teams, retail teams. So you then have a manager at a location and they finally have the end user of our product in a lot of those cases. So those layers just adds a lot of complication to things as well. And it sort of adds those complications from both the sales side of things all the way to how your product’s being used.
Chris Long
And you consider all those different elements as well there. Um, so for the executive buyer, it needs to be how are you presenting the value that they’re getting from your product? Yeah. Uh, for your champion or administrator, how do you make it easy for them as well? Um, and then the other thing too with uh, B2B products is those users, all the people in that stack are not using the product because they want to. So all those different users are generally the expectation from their company is like, Hey, you need to use it. Um, so like Google meets, it’s the expectation within your company that you use Google meets, you might much prefer Zoom or something else along those lines, but that’s what matters there as well. Um, and the last like B2B side of things too is like, there’s very, you can’t take as many shortcuts on that side of things too.
Chris Long
Like there’s security, scalability requirements, those layers I was talking about apply to releases as well. Um, when you release something, you have to go first to the administrator. They have to think about how does it impact their organization. You can’t just flip a flag and turn it on for everyone. But there is really, like, to your point, the consumerization like that is happening. The expectation within the market now is like, you look and interact and act like a Facebook, like a Gmail, like all these products that people are used to using, that’s becoming an expectation now where it’s previously could get away with a really not great UI or user experience, but there’s that expectation now that we need to be as good as what’s out there in the market. ’cause our users are expecting that quality from the products that they’re leveraging and they’re using.
Odun Odubanjo
Hmm. Yeah. Those are, those are, those are great insights. Um, now you, you know, you said something about how the users, even from the, the buyer and then they admin Mm-Hmm. , you know, that that takes a degree of customer discovery to really understand the, the peculiar needs. I speak with a lot of product leaders and they tell me like, it’s, it’s very challenging, you know, doing customer discovery in the B2B. How are you navigating this, uh, challenge today?
Chris Long
Yeah, it’s, it’s definitely difficult. Like on one hand, like we have, uh, we were talking about this before, um, but the speed of like conversations with customers is difficult. Like you have to scheduling nightmare in a lot of cases. So you’re like, I want to talk to five customers and you have to work out the scheduling around that and it’s easily two months later you finally talk to those five folks in a lot of cases. Um, so there’s that friction point. And then point, the other interesting friction point too is those users or the managers and it’s talking to those folks. ’cause not all of your customers might want you to be talking to the people that are using the product. They want to be a filter for it there too. Hmm. Um, so it’s, it’s difficult and it’s, uh, so with all that friction, kind of as a product leader, you really need to be constantly repeating yourself.
Chris Long
Uh, you need to be constantly be thinking about, um, your expectations for the conversations, setting up the key questions, showing the benefit to your customer success team and your sales team on why you want to talk to those customers. Um, and those customers might wanna talk to the users as well. But at the end of the day, like for us too, like one of the things we’re really going through is rolling out a jobs to be done process as well. Um, and part of that process is really leveraging more formalized, uh, conversations with our customers. So we’re going through the process now of having an advisory group, um, both at a much broader strategic level. So every so often let’s have conversations with a group of people and rotate through that group of people and just have that as a regular cadence. Uh, but also at the initiative level. So if we’re doing an initiative, how do we have a group of people that kind of meet on a regular basis? And that hopefully helps from that scheduling difficulty. I was referring to showing the value. It’s ’cause you’re showing the iteration of it. It just ties them closer to your product as well. It’s ’cause they feel like they’re having a part in creating it, that co-creation process, which I think is super valuable as well. Mm-Hmm. .
Odun Odubanjo
Yeah. That’s great. That’s great. So you’re getting a, you know, steady customer feedback, a stream of insights from time to time, no matter how challenging it is. Um, how do you marry that with innovation, you know, in innovating on behalf of the customer versus building the things they say they want today? Um, how do you juggle that?
Chris Long
Yeah, I think like with that, it’s, uh, that’s where jobs to be done comes in and it’s really useful. Um, and that’s part of the reason why I like those types of conversations that jobs to be on drives is it focuses you much more on what’s the outcome, what’s the struggle, what’s the pain, the need. Um, our feature, uh, our feedback backlog rather is full of just like, add this button. Can you only do this small thing and like all these other almonds? And it’s, that’s not helpful. And that’s the root of it is really like, what are you trying to achieve? Like why are you saying that you need this certain filter added to this certain report or something else along those lines. Um, and that jobs to be done are other tools that are available to you. Opportunity solution, trees, other things like that really get at what is that root element.
Chris Long
Um, always the classic five Y’s helps there. But the key thing and the key element that we talk about at EXONIFY a lot is like, where’s the customer value? What is that unlocking? Um, so we talk about like what is the pain the customer’s feeling on one side of the spectrum Mm-Hmm. Um, to like, is this actually extremely painful and they’re unable to do a key part of their business as a result of us not having this to the point, the value side of things of like, is this actually going to result in them making maybe more money as a result of us doing this? And then using that to also guide the conversation on what is that struggle or the pain point that they have there too.
Odun Odubanjo
Yeah. That, that sounds great. And, uh, hey Jerry , how, how are you? You, you need to get some form of alignment with the team, with the go to market team, with the customer success team on, on this, you know, framework or concept. So how do you get internal stakeholder alignment around the framework for understanding customer needs and then shipping value to them?
Chris Long
Yeah. Umactually, sorry, do you mind repeating that? Uh,
Odun Odubanjo
Yeah. So, so the question was like you, you mentioned you have the jobs to be done framework that you’re putting into play. Mm-Hmm. , you know, ideally in an ideal world it will be clear to everyone. Everybody will be super aligned. Um, but like how are you aligning the stakeholders, you know, product? How is product aligning with sales market Cs to make sure that everybody understands customer needs and we can ship value to the customer’s, you know, um, together.
Chris Long
Yeah. This, I’d say is one of those ongoing things. Um, like you’re dealing with people, people are messy. Um, we all have the same objective what we’re trying to do, but different routes to deliver on it too. Um, so the key kind of thing, like one part to it is I take on that responsibility and I sort of push my team to take on that responsibility of we need to translate our message to the person that we’re talking to. We can’t just go out with the same messaging, same formatting, all those other elements to those folks. We have to translate that into something that those folks can understand and represent and understand how it impacts them as well. Um, so in the case of jobs to be done as an example, is we’re rolling that out. We’re really relying on that idea of like, here’s how it helps you change the conversation with your customers.
Chris Long
Here’s how it helps you focus in on what are their needs and how you can actually go through that discovery element there as well. Um, but the other element too is just like regular cadence of conversations. Uh, having expectations that are aligned that people know, um, how we interact, how we work together. Uh, so kind of having those like key thinking of an API or integration, it’s really about like how do you connect two systems together with an agreed upon interface? Hmm. This is how do you connect two teams together on an agreed upon and regular interface? So when someone submits feedback, our customer success team, what kind of response could they expect from it? What is that SLA? What’s that timeline for it? Um, if a product person wants to talk to a customer, how do they go about it? And you’re not aiming for just a shotgun approach or just a wild to wild west.
Chris Long
You try and create a very step formula and structure around that as well. Um, so that’s kind of another key element. And then last thing, like for me personally and like for the team is like, we need to be transparent with everyone internally. We can’t hide things. Yeah. We transparent. That means us being vulnerable and maybe saying like, yeah, in some cases, I don’t know. Or, uh, this is an open question here. Like there’s an element of like, you need to be, um, confident in some of the stuff you’re doing, but you also need to come across in that confidence of like, it’s not fake it until you make it internally. You need to be very like, transparent with folks. Yeah. Um, so that they don’t feel you’re hiding something from them or, um, pretending otherwise it’s ’cause they need to know if something’s going to be delayed or if we’re not planning on doing certain functionality, they need to know that as soon as possible so that they can handle whatever comes outta that as well.
Odun Odubanjo
Yeah, absolutely. Um, let, let, let’s shift gears into like the growth side of things, uh, a little bit. Um, there’s this new or relatively, you know, recent trend where, you know, product teams, product leaders talk about unifying products and marketing into like one role. Um, I don’t know if that’s something you have put into place at Axonify or any other place. What are your thoughts around that, that trend? It seems like it’s, it’s becoming more of a thing where those will build the products should also think about or own how the product is marketed. So what are your thoughts around that?
Chris Long
Yeah, kind of the key key strengths of a product manager is partially the depth of knowledge that they have. So they have to have that deep knowledge of like, who are our customers? So all our customers, who are they? What’s the value that they’re getting from product? Mm-Hmm. You need to have a really good depth of understanding on what are the business, like how do we as a business operate? How do we make money? And what does that look like for us? And then you need to have a deep understanding of what’s the industry, what is the space around all the competitors, but not just the competitors. Like what are the challenges that people are facing within this industry, in those elements And through those three things, like for a PM in a classic PM role Yeah. That allows you to make good decisions. It allows you to help guide the team in making good decisions and helps you make sure you’re building something else, be successful.
Chris Long
But if you look at like what makes a product marketing person or marketing person successful, it’s kind of those three elements too that I went through of like, they need to have good understanding of the customers. They have good understanding of like how the business makes money and that industry knowledge as well. So it’s one of those things where I think like you’re starting to see, yeah, that bit of that overlap. Um, and that’s kind of okay because a product manager is there because of those, their skills and their knowledge in those areas. They’re not there to be a, um, a decision maker. They’re not there to be a project manager. They’re not there to be a product owner. They’re there to help make sure that we’re making really good decisions on things. Hmm. And with that knowledge, I think that applies on the marketing side as well and helping guide the messaging and the story and those other elements.
Chris Long
That doesn’t mean you’re the, uh, person doing direct marketing, writing the emails, copywriting, that sort of stuff. Yeah. But you need to know enough there that you can go and you can edit and say, Hey, no, actually, like this is the key point that we need to cover off in this messaging. These are the key points that we need to include in the sales decks. All those sort of elements from there as well. Um, so it’s, maybe it’s not, I don’t know. I guess I view it end of the day as like it’s not a big change. Like in every PM role I’ve had, I’ve always been involved on the marketing of what we’re doing. Um, in every product leadership role I’ve had, I’ve always been involved in that element to it as well. And it’s because as a PM or as a product leader, you’re viewed as that customer expert and the industry expert. That just lends itself well to the marketing side of things there too.
Odun Odubanjo
Fantastic. Well, I guess there’s, there’s a lot to learn from your, from your experience, you know, building, um, successful products. Let, let’s talk about your, your experience at Shopify. So you were part of the early growth team Mm-Hmm. , uh, helping drive that initial traction and and scale at Shopify. Um, so many lessons from that experience. What would you say are some of the most effective go-to market strategies that we can apply in like a B2B software context? Um,
Chris Long
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like when I was brief story, like when I joined Shopify, the growth team and the product team weren’t talking to each other that well, . Um, and that was really kind of the key rule I was brought into. It was my first time being on a growth team, uh, was when I joined Shopify in that. And I learned a lot throughout that process. Like a lot of Shopify success came from a very small growth team and building that up, um, delivered on it. But the, the kind of elements that I go back to and I apply in a lot of cases is like one kind of, why not, why can’t we do something? Um, Shopify was great at that and the growth team was especially great at that. It was asking the question, why can’t we do that? Let’s give it a try.
Chris Long
Let’s see what happens. Um, and kind of always pushing the envelope on what seems possible to really figure out where’s that limit. The other element that kind of came out of it too was simple as clever. Like focus in on being simple. Um, don’t get too complex and just like aim to solve the problem that’s in front of you. But more specifically, like on the enterprise side of things, I think was that Shopify we were, we’re like, we’re in basically be to small business at Shopify. Um, but we still walk that fine line of when do you talk about something versus when do you launch it. Hmm. And that is especially important in the enterprise world because you have sales cycles of six plus months. Um, your products won’t be wildly different in six plus months. Hmm. So knowing when can you talk about something and when can you actually start to go to market versus when are you launching it are very two different things for it.
Chris Long
And at Shopify, I think in general, like we’ve thought very diligently about that and that served me well, um, throughout this process. And then the other element that, uh, ties in with lessons learned, the Shopify, and this is like show the vision, show the value, really keep on repeating those elements and a lot of good comes from it too. Um, and then don’t focus just on adoption. Don’t just focus on the number of people that you’re getting through the funnel. Mm-Hmm. But focus on the next steps. Focus on that depth that’s happening there. So you might get a lot of signups. Um, you might get a lot of people creating their online stores with Shopify, but that doesn’t matter if they never log in again. Um, and that’s kind of a key element for us on our side of things. ’cause when you think about going back to the earlier statement I made of like, you have the users Yeah. And the buyers are too different. You have to think about it from that user side of things. How do you drive not just the adoption, that initial login, but how do you drive that value for them beyond that point? How do you show that value as well? Hmm.
Odun Odubanjo
Yeah. Great. Great insights. Um, great insights. Now we can talk about like B2B products without talking about two of the hottest trends, uh, product-led growth and ai. And so, you know, starting out with product-led growth, um, what are, it’s typically synonymous with like B2C products. Mm-Hmm. . Um, but I’m sure there’s some, some ideas, some insights we can apply in the B2B world. So what are, how are you leveraging product-led growth concepts in in the B2B space? Uh, are there any successes you can can speak to?
Chris Long
Yeah, so for us, like at Exonify we’re dealing with large enterprises in a lot of cases. Um, so there’s a lot of B2B examples that I think are absolutely amazing. Like, I love referencing Figma. Um, and you and I have had a few conversations about Figma. Yeah. But for Exonify, I think the, uh, for us it’s really around how do we drive that user adoption. Like there’s that direct value for us of when we sell to one of our customers, how many of their employees are using exonify, and if none of them are using exonify, then the customer’s not getting value from our product. So how do we use various tactics to drive that growth and that adoption within our user base there? And for us, a lot of it is elements of the classic, like how do you enable the, the team, how do you send out like posters, bulletin boards, all those different aspects.
Chris Long
But really at the root of the exonify system and what I is actually really cool is the level of gamification that’s built into it. Mm-Hmm. , um, a level of even virality that’s built into it as well. Um, so it’s kind of actually neat for us too of like, if you get one person, um, in a location who really loves it, you start to see that person becomes an influencer within their location, sort of spreads out there and you give them points for each time they recommend a friend or something else along those lines. Um, so that’s where we start to leverage a lot of those like more classic morality techniques to drive that adoption element. Um, and it works for us. It’s actually like kind of neat to see how that does work for us in those cases. Um, but that’s primarily for us in our case, like how we think about product growth is more like those classic techniques.
Chris Long
It’s more about how do we drive that user adoption side. Um, we don’t necessarily have that case of us using product growth in a lot of ways to drive that sort of like, number of customers that we have. Mm-Hmm. , um, or at least nothing from us on the product side of things. There’s other things happening in other teams to drive that. Yeah. Um, but for us, we’re really focused in on how do we make sure we’re delivering that value to our customers and then through that process, um, yeah, just keep driving value for Exonify too.
Odun Odubanjo
Yeah. Yeah. Just, just to double click on that, is that a case of you not seeing a lot of opportunity to generate, like, you know, leads or, you know, access into new, you know, accounts from the outside in? Um, or is it like you’ve done some experiments that didn’t, you know, really work out? Like what, what is the insight there?
Chris Long
Yeah, it’s more, there’s not as much opportunity right now. Like in a lot of, um, a lot of B2B products are leveraging product-led growth approaches. Uh, they’re really taking that like find a wedge into the organization. Yeah. And from there you expand. Mm-Hmm. Um, so in the case of like, I’ll reference the Figma story, it’s ’cause I do love it. Um, but like the case of Figma is really the idea of like, it started off with design, but through its collaboration features, you then started to get PMs into it, developers into it, others into it. And then that also creates opportunity for them to expand from price point because they’re getting developers in and now they’re starting a charge for developer tools on top of it. Hmm. Um, so that’s very much for their case. For us at exonify, like our product is a complex product, it requires a certain period of onboarding implementation time. So we haven’t, there’s not that sort of bottom up approach. There is opportunity for us to potentially create sort of products secondary to what we deliver on and use that as growth tactics. Um, and that is something that we’re having conversations about, but we have yet to, like any examples that I can share at this point in time. Uh, yeah.
Odun Odubanjo
Yeah. Totally. Totally. Now, now let’s talk about AI . Yeah. Uh, a lot of b2b product development leaders, you know, companies I talk to these days, um, you know, trying to use ai, but a lot of, you know, teams are still struggling to really unlock the true value that AI can provide in the product. Mm-Hmm. So how is, how is AI impacting your roadmap today? How are you leveraging it? Um, and where do you see it going?
Chris Long
Yeah, it’s, so it’s a key part of our roadmap. We have a bunch of products that we’re working on, um, really focused in on, uh, the idea of how do we, how do we make it easier for people to get the answers that they need to do their job is kind of a key element of area focus, uh, for us. Um, we work with a lot of retail customers and for them it’s, if you have a question, you have to go to the giant binder, you have to make it up on the spot or you have to go find someone in the store. So can we make that process much simpler for ’em as an area of focus for us at this point in time? Um, and beyond that, it’s kind of become a key question for us of how can we use AI for every single initiative that we’re working on.
Chris Long
It’s one of the conversations that we do have is can we make this faster? Can we make this better by using ai? Sometimes the answer is like, yes, and that’s amazing. We’ll figure out how do we make it happen. Sometimes the answer is yes, but it might be more effort, uh, than right now. So let’s maybe figure that out of like, is it adding more value? And sometimes the answer is no as well. Um, but the key element with that is we’re asking the question about ai, but we’re still focused on the outcome that we’re delivering. Sure. So we’re focusing on that idea of like, let’s just not implement AI everywhere. Think about does AI actually help us do what we need to do within that as well? Um, so I think that’s really a key element for ai. And we’re kind of seeing it a bit where like, I don’t know if others are feeling, but there’s like, we’re entering the like valley of despair in some cases with ai.
Chris Long
Like there’s all these amazing things and insight STEM falls in that category, still amazing things. But, um, there’s a lot of other things where AI was being leveraged and it’s like not being the greatest. Uh, Google Slides adding images was like, I dunno if you ever played around with that version of their product , it was awful. The images that were being created from it. Right. Yeah. It’s not worth the effort associated with it. Um, but the elements that also cover off, like when we think about the future state of AI and how I’m thinking about it as well, um, one of the things is, is that AI is not perfect. I think that’s something that we all need to wrap our heads around. We’re used to computers being like closer to perfect. Yeah. Um, but AI and then humans on this side, so it’s like humans and then like computers before AI and like when you would ask a question of something to some degree AI is somewhere between those two things where it does hallucinate, it does get things wrong.
Chris Long
Yeah. But it’s definitely better than human in a lot of cases. Not better than an expert, but better than the average human. I think that’s a kind of user expectation side of things that if users wrap their head, their mind around that idea of like, I’m going to a slightly wrong answer then, but it’s still an answer that helps me and I need to edit it or maybe think about it a bit more. That adds value. And the other element for AI that I’m really excited about too is how we start to think more about that kind of hybrid approach. Um, Jacob Nielsen had a great article on ai, um, and it kind of reference the three phases of computing and this being the final phase that we’re in right now is ai, but we don’t know how AI works, how it got to its answer.
Chris Long
So if you open up Adobe Illustrator, you can create an illustration of a space cowboy on the moon and it’ll take you a few days to do it. Or in my case, probably months ’cause I don’t know how to use Adobe Illustrator. Um, and you know how you got there and you can make edits to it. You go to an AI and you ask, gimme a space cowboy in the moon and you’re going get it in 30 seconds, but you can’t change it easily throughout that. You can’t go in and see how it got to that place. Um, so there’s gonna be more of that little bit hybrid approach where it just, you get the answer and you work through it throughout it as well.
Odun Odubanjo
Yeah. Fantastic. And, and just like by extension, you know, future of this space B2B SaaS, um, there’s, there’s, you know, I think I was listening to one of your talks where you, you highlighted like this thousands more apps today than there were couple years back. AI is probably gonna impact how we build apps and how people use apps. What do you see as some of those key emerging trends, um, in that will impact the the B2B software landscape, uh, in the company?
Chris Long
Few key ones like one is consolidation, um, seeing more and more of companies realizing like previously it was kinda shopping spree that was happening, whereas like, let’s just go to buy whatever we need. And for a lot of organizations that meant they now have 10 products that are doing exactly the same thing. Um, so they’re starting to recognize that they need to consolidate, they need to bring like one product in, um, that does all those things for all the different groups that may be needed as well there. So when we talk about consolidations consolidation partially within the market, there’s going to be some acquisitions definitely happening more and more, but I think customers are looking for that consolidation. They’re looking more and more for something that does a bit of everything. Mm. That helps ’em unify their base and doesn’t require an employee to install 10 different apps to do so.
Chris Long
Um, and as part of that too, like we’re going to see ecosystems integrations, APIs becoming more and more important. It already is in a lot of cases, but I’d say like from when I started in B2B and especially the enterprise space to today, customers are way wiser on integrations, APIs, the ecosystem, how they want things to connect together. They now have IT teams that are experts at those things. So the expectation of previously where you could be an enterprise SaaS, um, business and not have an API that’s gone, you need to be thinking about an API, you need to have an integration POV. Um, leveraging that really becomes key. And that’s sort of at least the last point, which is there’s just a higher tech awareness. There’s a higher awareness of technology, the impact of technology and the expectations around technology. Um, and that comes through on the API side of things comes through on user experience. Um, companies now have UX policies Yeah. Um, that they’re looking for. So they’ll only select a company that meets certain policies that they have in place. It’s not just branding requirements, it’s flow. So there’s this higher awareness of what is a good product, what is good technology, and that becomes really important there as well.
Odun Odubanjo
Fantastic. Um, well thank you so much Chris, for, for your insights. Um, I was gonna mention that, you know, anyone who has questions, maybe we could take one or two before we wrap this up. Um, but if there are no questions, we can, we can just call it here. Um, if you have any questions, you can drop it in the chat, um, for Chris
Chris Long
And more than happy if anyone has any questions, uh, can connect via LinkedIn and, uh, reach out there as well. Um, yeah. Via talk to
Odun Odubanjo
Let’s do that. Um, let’s, yeah, sure. Kevin, do you have a question?
Speaker 3
Yes, I do. Thank you so much for the info you shared, Chris. Um, so I like that you touched on AI generally, and I think within teams there’s this boss and Chris about adding AI to every single thing. What would be your checklist to, should we add a functionality or should we use AI to power x, y, Z functionality? What would be that checklist for you?
Chris Long
It’s pretty simple of, uh, it’s really around speed and accuracy. Um, so is it making it faster? Um, is it making it more accurate or better? And if the answer is no, AI is not making it faster or it’s not making it better, um, that’s probably not something you should be implementing in those cases. Like if the outcome can still be achieved without ai, then might as well go ahead and just achieve the outcome without ai. Um, but if it does add more value, if it does make it better, it does make it faster, then in those cases, that’s a great, great opportunity to add in ai and that’s where it should be leveraged. Um, so it’s AI is really about making a lot of things that previously seemed impossible possible. Like, I think it’s kind of crazy, we’ve all done the like, write a haiku about this or write a joke or summarize this like 10 page, uh, or let’s use a transcript, summarize this two hour transcript, um, and tell me what’s in it and what are the questions. Like, that’s impossible. Like, I don’t know. I’ve done the user research where you try summarizing calls, that’s really hard to do and it takes a lot of time. AI does it in like five minutes. That’s where it adds value in those cases where, and not that specific example, but that’s an example where you’re getting the speed and the accuracy from ai. It’s worthwhile to do.
Speaker 4
Thank you very much. Very helpful, Chris.
Chris Long
Yeah, no problem.
Odun Odubanjo
All right. Uh, any other questions? You can also leave a chat. No. Um, but if there are no more questions, I, I think we could call it here. Chris, uh, thank you so much for, for joining. Thank you for your time and, and, and especially your, your insights. This was super valuable and I enjoyed it. Took a lot of lessons from, from this one. So thank you so much.
Chris Long
Oh, thank you. It was a great conversation.
Odun Odubanjo
Yeah. All right. Thanks everyone for joining and yeah, see you soon. On the next one. Bye.
Chris Long
