eric richard, the birth of tally

Eric Richard (@ericrrichard), VP Engineering, @HubSpot

The Birth of TallyOr, how I stopped worrying and

learned to love autonomous

teams


It All Started With a Button


What if…

We gave customers the ability to provide support-like interactions for their users via their websites?


We already had existing use cases


We already had existing use cases I


“Just like we have built tools

that allow small/medium

sized businesses to

compete with the

enterprises of the world in

Marketing, let’s give them

the tools to do the same in

Customer Service”

And insightful advice from execs


What’s the MVP?


An embeddable button


That triggers a widget/form


That collects information on a request


And how should we go to market?

Use the same playbook that has been wildly successful with


If we provide value to individual support reps we can get support management to adopt software and eventually pay.

Hypothesis


Experiment

Loads of Customer interviews across different company sizes


• Most companies don’t provide support reps with budget for software

• Most companies don't empower customer support reps to make decisions or even influence decisions about software

Results


It will be very difficult to create a sustainable growth business in the Customer Support space.

Conclusion


Act II: Pivot Time


“Nope”

“Do you know how many of your customers are your evangelists?”


“Do you know how many of your customers are at risk of canceling/returning your product?”

“Nope”


“YES!!! SIGN ME UP NOW!!!!”

“Would you like to get a list of these two groups so that you could email and nurture them?”


Act III: Introducing Tally


David HuntKnowledge Base AdminHubSpot

Using Tally over the past few months does not feel like using software to respond to customer feedback…

It feels like having a balanced and non-disruptive conversation, where the software gets out of your way and let's you focus on the person in front of you.


Angela DeFrancoContent Product ManagerHubSpot

Tally gives me instant access to the pulse of what people are feeing about our products in general, but also the details of why they're feeling that way.

I not only love Tally, but I feel like Tally loves me right back.


With Tally I’ve heard from beta group testers in the first few days that I normally don’t hear from in weeks.

Molly WolfbergUX ResearcherHubSpot


Conclusion

This is why we believe in highly autonomous teams who are free to iterate on their own to discover market fit.


Conclusion

“What happens when the leader is wrong in a top-down culture? Everyone

goes off a cliff.”

“Great leaders give control, they don’t take control.”

-Capt. David Marquet


To talk more about HubSpot’s culture:[email protected]

@ericrrichard

Oh, and BTW, we are hiring:www.hubspot.com/jobs

mailto:[email protected]

eric richard, the birth of tally

Technology