Two weeks with Inbox, back to Gmail

My friend was over for dinner and we were talking about how much we love Zero Inbox and can’t understand the people with thousands of emails left unread.

She mentioned to me how much she loved Inbox by Google, showed me a few things she really loved (Trips, bundles, etc.) and convinced me to give it a try.

At first, I was impressed with features like the preview of top news stories in digest emails like NYT or Medium. The snooze was pretty sweet.

So, after 2 weeks of experimenting with Inbox, I’m back to Gmail and here is why…

1. I can’t drag a file from the bottom rail of my browser into an email. I use full screen mode on a Mac as my primary desktop. I didn’t realize how often I download then drag into an email.
   e.g. right now I downloaded then dragged in that image above. I can’t do that on Inbox and with the amount of invoices and other documents I download as PDF to attach, this is a problem.

2. I can’t use Boomerang or other common plug-ins. I know that Inbox has the snooze feature, but “Send Later” is a way of life for people like me who write emails at midnight and prefer not to come off as too crazy. Also, something feels weird if I can’t use Just Not Sorry, which though in my control… Outlook is next up. This isn’t Inbox’s fault, but still makes it less useful to me.

3. The signature block doesn’t have an option to be above the text I’m replying to. This maybe my weird sense of properness, and I get that you don’t need to see my signature to know who sent the message. Call me old school, but I want every email I send to have a signature below what I write.

4. The UX of sending somehow messed with me a few times and that’s a problem. Occasionally, I clicked the check in the upper right to send instead of the button. But that seems more like me needing more time. The BIG issue I encountered was that for some reason, once you forward an email, when you then click “Reply”, it replies to the person you forwarded to instead of the original source. That’s weird and caused me to look unprofessional a few times this week. Luckily nothing too bad was shared with the wrong party, but who knows?

If the Inbox team is listening… please work these kinks out. I’d be happy to come back :)

6 Tips for Making Job Candidates Feel at Ease

Job interviews are nerve wracking for most of us. Personally, I talk faster, get sweaty, and often forget the right anecdote to tell. (And I’ve had A LOT of job interviews).

As much as it’s on me to get mentally prepared for the interview process, I wanted to share my thoughts on how recruiters and hiring managers could make it better for the candidate and put them at ease.

If a candidate is less stressed, you’ll have the opportunity to get to know the real person, not the tightly wound interview version of themselves. Additionally, by creating a welcoming environment you’ll probably have a better shot and getting them to accept an offer down the line.

1. Email the candidate the names of everyone they will be meeting and a tentative* schedule of the order of those meeting.

*Things change, we all know this, manage expectations about that but provide your best guess and that will allow the interviewee to anticipate the flow of the day.

2. Provide everyone who is interviewing with goals for what they are supposed to evaluate and the candidate’s resume if they want to review it.

Greenhouse makes sure the resume is in their system so that people focus on the scorecard when asking questions and can hide biasing information. A simple checklist for each interview is also good.

3. Give the front desk a list of people coming in to interview that day with their job and who will be their first contact.

Have a standard greeting for when they arrive such as “Welcome to ACME Company, I see you’re here to interview for Director of Happiness. Jenny will be out in just a few minutes. Can I get you a glass of water?”

4. Plan to allow for water and bathroom breaks between interview sessions.

Modern interviews often mean that someone will have 3–4 hour visit at a company. Build in time every hour or so to offer them a bio break or a refill on their water or coffee.

5. Have a schedule for the internal team that lists who is talking to the person, where each meeting will be, and who will be walking them from room to room.

This schedule includes who will be walking them out. Some companies have a recruiter or other person assigned to do this the whole time; this is nice but not required.

6. Make sure the interviewers have business cards for the candidate, or have the recruiter send out a list of emails for the people the candidate has met.

It’s still up to the job seeker to send thank you notes, but give them a leg up.

Pitching to Investors: The Best Approach

Contrary to what you might think, an idea or even the people building it aren’t the most important part of a startup. After all, you can’t expect to build the next great thing if you don’t have the resources to do it.

For that reason, runway — the amount of money you have in the bank that allows you to keep your doors open even when you’re operating in the red — is actually the most important thing to a startup. You can’t expect your startup to takeoff if the runway isn’t long enough.

Quite simply, companies need money to buy the time to survive. But there’s a tricky dichotomy that pervades the world of venture capital: Investors will give you money when you don’t need it, but they won’t give you money when you do need it.

If you want your startup to be successful, you need to get investors to part with their money — and you need to do it quickly.

Know What Investors Care About

You may think that investors care about helping build products that change the world. To a certain extent, this may be true. But only if said world-changing products are profitable. Because when it really boils down to it, investors care about one thing: return on their investment (how their money will become more money late).

So when you’re presenting to investors, you need to head into the room with a clear understanding of what your goals are — essentially convincing investors to open up their wallets.

To be successful, you need to know exactly who’s in your audience and cater to them specifically.

Generally, they’re looking to hear three things when startups present to them:

1. The Problem is Big

Investors are drawn to startups trying to solve big problems. They like companies that have huge upside potential with respect to market opportunities. Whenever possible, highlight the failings or lack of current solutions. If the problem plagues millions, but no one’s cracked the perfect solution code yet, then there’s a BIG opportunity that will attract interest.

Whether the problem is HUGE or not, make sure that you explain why the investors should care about it or the people it plagues. This is what Andy Raskin calls the “Master Move”, something he says Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and many others display in every pitch.

2. The Solution is Right

There may be other companies out there trying to solve the same problem as you. So you need to understand exactly how your product is different from your competitors’ solutions. Sometimes, it’s good to know that others are out there trying to solve the problem as it validates that there is a market. But you need to show why your product is better suited to fill the need.

You also need to know your product inside and out; talk about the benefits, not the features. Whenever possible, show, don’t tell — let someone else press the buttons. Let them ask questions and guide the demo. If you don’t show them the one feature they want to see, you’ve lost.

And you need to show a strong product/market fit for your solution. This can displayed with paying customers, traction, validation, growth, and more. Any positive indicator that you’re on the right track helps your case for why an investor should give you money instead of to another startup.

3. Your Team is the Best

It’s impossible to build the best idea with the wrong team. Investors are well aware of this, and you should be too. Show potential investors that yours is the best team available to solve the problem and build the solution. Highlight previous wins, market expertise, and the fact that you all work well together.

Final Thoughts

You can’t just expect to show up, have a conversation, and walk home with a bunch of checks. Don’t forget that how you talk actually matters. For example, if you talk like Ferris Bueller’s teacher, you probably aren’t going to inspire many people to reach into their wallets.

So be lively. Talk in different tones, and enunciate clearly. Whenever possible, reinforce your presentation with visual aids. Make it conversational when possible, but investors don’t want to be asked a million questions about everything. If you’re teaching them new things or reinforcing ideas they had, you’re in a good place.

And, of course, to increase your chances of success, you need to practice your pitch — over and over and over — until it’s perfected.

How to get paid to speak at an international conference…

How to get paid to speak at an international conference…

While I was in Japan recently, I told a friend that if they wanted to travel the world and have someone else pay for it, then she should start speaking at international conferences.

They followed up and asked me more about how I did that.

Here are my steps to becoming the person that gets paid to travel and impart knowledge while you do it…

#1 — Find your TOPIC

Come up with a few ideas your passionate about that could be a 20–30 min speech and could even become an interactive workshop.

Start writing up the goals and an outline, then 1 paragraph summary for each. Then write a blog post on each one and see what the response is.

Write more posts about that topic until you see what really resonates. Maybe event write a book…

#2-Find your AUDIENCE

Think of what audience would benefit from learning what you have to teach for each one.

Think about key words and look for conferences about those topics where people would congregate to learn ideas like what you are talking about.

Start applying to speak at those conferences.

#3-Improve your BRAND

At the same time…

Start contacting local Meetups who are looking for speakers about similar topics and make a name for yourself in the local speaker circuit. Network with other panelist and the organizers, often they run or participate in larger events where they screen the speaker applications.

Use other established brands to lift yours. Agree to guest blog or be on a podcast for a person/publication that already has a following of your audience.

More info…

Generally, at any conference there are four types of speakers:
1) Professional/well known speakers who are paid fees and recruited to be there
2) Speakers representing sponsors of the conference who pay to be there
3) Less known speakers who are personally recommended to the event organizers
4) Unconnected speakers who apply blindly and may get in based on interest of content

Group 4 is the hardest to get into because there are often very limited spots at that point and tons of applications. If you represent some sort of diversity initiative, you may have a leg up in this group, but that’s conference dependent. You don’t want to be in Group 4.

When you are starting out, you want to be in Group 3 with hopes of getting to Group 1 eventually. Often after you’ve spoken once at a conference, they will invite you back the following year, but that’s not the same as being paid to deliver the keynote address.

Many people stay in Group 3 forever. They get travel reimbursed and potentially a small fee. They get to travel the world speaking about topics they are passionate about.

That’s awesome. I’m still in Group 3 and hope to make it to Group 1 eventually.

Sometimes, if your active enough as a member of Group 3, then you can apply as a Group 4 speaker to conferences, provide clips of your speeches and rise to the top of the candidate list.

Good luck!

What do Product Managers do?

I’ve got a short definition for you.

Living in NYC, the first question most of of us are asked is “What do you do?” When I reply “I’m a Product Manager” I’m often met with confused looks.

Most people follow up with, “I’ve got a friend who does that” or “Yeah, we have some Project Managers at my company”.

Neither are sure what a Product Manager is.

Which is why I’ve created my short definition:

A Product Manager decides what to do next.

That’s all you have to know to understand the basics of what we do.

But, now you want to know how we do it.

The two most important skills of a Product Manager are: Prioritization and Communication. This is something I drill into students at General Assembly. To be a good product manager you must excel at both.

The two most important skills of a Product Manager are: Prioritization and Communication.

They are inherently tied at the hip. How can you know what to prioritize without talking to people and how can what’s next get done without explaining it to your team?

How do good Product Managers prioritize?

They understand business goals, user needs, customer desires, financial implications, and technical risks associated with each opportunity. To gain this understanding you must listen to a lot of team members and clients.

My friend Janice Frasier refers to this as being the Scales of Justice. On one side are the designers and customer advocates fighting for the user. On the other are the builders and lawyers protecting the company from risk. Above is the business vision and goals.

It’s the Product Manager’s job to weigh all of these and decide what to do next.

How do good Product Managers communicate?

For PMs communication is bi-directional and must be tied to understanding. They employ active listening techniques when learning and confirm their message is understood when explaining.

They ask open-ended questions and listen to the detailed responses. They set up regular meetings with sales and support team to understand the market.

They draw pictures and write clear requirements so that teammates know what to build. They answer challenging questions about their plan and adjust accordingly. They ITERATE based on feedback from users and market trends.

(Yes, this is starting to sound a lot like Ben Horowitz’s post, but I think of this as the simplified version.)

So, all you need to understand what a Product Manager does is that they decide what’s next AND they prioritize and communicate whatever that is.

Lean + Agile

Agile and Lean have been around for decades. Their marriage for software development has a long history as well. Yet, there is still a lot of confusion around what the difference is between them and how they work together.

It comes up in conversation constantly, so I figured it was time for a post about my views on what each term means.

AGILE: A development process that emphasizes short iterations and focuses on delivery of functional software.

Flavors of Agile may include continuous deployment/integration, test driven development, pairing, scrums, sprints, or many other facets that are too long to list here.

LEAN: A process framework where there is an attempt to minimize risk and waste while maximizing customer value.

It is often achieved through a tight feedback cycle with minimal investment between loops. Lean protocols have been employed to optimize manufacturing, construction, and pretty much any business process you can think of.

LEAN AGILE: The marriage of Agile development iterations with Lean validation practices.

Here’s how this works:

– Establish a hypothesis + assumptions
– Figure out the smallest thing needed to test it (which may not be building anything at all)
– Get feedback from target users on that thing
– Continue building that thing in an iterative way / configure a third party tool to show your idea
– Always be working towards functional software
– Repeat for each feature, epic, and product

What do you think?