this'd the hustle podcast about product design. I am Rick Messer, and I'm here with Anthony Armendariz. It's, uh, So, uh, we had been tapping into the pulse of what's going on around here asking questions about what are we talking about in our studio, and, uh, on boarding the word on boarding came up with sort of a two pronged meaning. We've been on boarding a lot of clients lately, so there's a client on boarding. But there's also some questions around the typical conventions of the way people designed products and on board their users, which I think is kind of kind of interesting to a lot, a lot of different ways. You could go with that.

So maybe we could start with the client on boarding stuff. We got a lot, a lot of projects starting. So we're really thinking about this right now. You had

sex, Um, from all my one on ones with everyone in the company and most of feet. Lot of the feedback that I get is like, man, this, like kicking off and on boarding a project is so is really stressful, which we could like, make that better. And now we have a director of business development. You know, I think he's putting a lot, a lot of Melanie, more emphasis on that, you know, to deliver a good climb experience because just like an app for a product, we're trying to make someone upgrade to a pro or whatever.

Those first few interactions that you have the client, they're gonna crystallize an opinion about how well organized you are even before you start working, doing work. And they will start to feel like confident and their purchasing decision or not. Or, you know, and it's the opportunity you have to really show them while you're different. Then the other company that they didn't hire and and it might seem a little like, you know, tea tedious. But it's actually more more. I do it more. I'm learning that it's like like maybe the most important part, that process

of the client experience. It is a huge, huge part, and I would say, like even on the end of the engagement, like, you know, a CZ well, you know, like keeping those things like really smooth takeoff and landing is a big, big portion of the client experience. How would you describe are on boarding as it as it is today.

Well, because we work so differently than everyone else. You know, we've had to, you know, we had hiccups, um, project in the past and, you know, you and Danielle and really everyone in the company has contributed ideas to help us fix that. It seems like in a nutshell, what we do is kick off, learn and meet each other, uncover the goals and opportunities, define what fun size could bring to the table, started start unpacking the problem, and then on boarding for us is like Okay,

well, let us show you why we're different. Let me show you how we're gonna work, How we how we use the tools and how we think about, you know, estimating and executing the work and our philosophy and all these things that really do make. If we didn't do it, I think when we would have these false starts where people would be like, What are you doing? They wouldn't know what to expect.

A really confusing. Yeah, it's tough because we have a pretty specific way of working. We run agile brands sprint based in orations that usually go in like, two weeks and, like, we estimate all of our work with points of the stories in Pivotal Tracker and we don't track time. We track velocity of that. So it takes a while for, um, you know, clients because they they don't know what we're doing. You know, hopefully some some of that process is is a good differentiating factor for us, you know, And I definitely promote, you know, anybody that wants to sell designed that way. I think

it's a good idea. I think it was talking to Natalie and we were talking about the future of our business. And we're like, Okay, well, what is it that what is it that really makes us different? Okay, we got great design. We got a great design team. We do great design work. That's that's That's unique, however, is, you know it's not as unique because there's a lot of companies of great designers, great design team and produce great output. What makes it different is a process, and ultimately the client experience.

So And at the end of the day, I think five years from now, you know two years are now more and more people will be using agile so that won't be as unique. So what will be are I think our continuing differentiator is the the client experience, which then starts all the way back

in it that you think that's a good man. That's a good point. So not only are we selling sort of a unique client experience and the talent of our designers and the solutions to the problems we're looking for, it's like more of, ah, on experience that is a little bit different. So you have to start that early on, like in the sales process, which I know that's not my world at all. I don't even know what goes on like, uh, I'm perfectly happy with keeping it that way for the most part. But, uh, when something comes in and we're like, okay, like now it's time to get the client or oriented to our process and we're gonna have a kickoff meeting.

It seems like it's really hard to have a very consistent amount of things that the client knows and is expecting, like consistent expectations set before we start, because it's always a different team. Some of them are very used agile. Some of, you know, some of them are doing up, probably for the very first time. And some of them even, you know, have have, like, a really strict process that they like to abide by. So it's really, you know, hard to fit things in,

you know, and we've been kind of talking about, like selling our design service is in, like, a certain process. But we realize to that it's possible to miss out on opportunities like interesting opportunities. If we are too strict around, you have to abide by our process, right? You know. So now we're sort of thinking about on boarding different clients, two different types of quiet experiences

which it makes. It's making my brain exploded. I mean, you have to, you know, this is off topic, but you have to have, you know, good design team that could produce great design. Then you have to design the design team and then you have to design the off dawn boarding the work in progress. The end, Like you said, the end of the project is also really critical. And then you have to design the service is and then you have to design the unique Yeah, it looks that designers have to like him on this project has playbook one. So I need

to know how to run playbook. Atomic canvases opened on a designer's desk like there is so much that that has led up to that point. It's just not that simple.

Well, let me ask you a question, because these kinds of things on boarding clients is something that I, you know, I spent most of my career as a freelancer and business owner doing, and even when I was doing cells, I was starting that all the way back in the sales process. So it's not very like it doesn't impact me very much, other than the desire to want to make it better. But you know, you you just got you just took a new position, that fun size of your design director. So even let you have the support of me and certain things. Certain meanings, like kickoff meeting. What does it feel like to be responsible at a much greater level of creating that client experience in the beginning and on boarding

them? Well, it's exciting because I feel like number one. I have absolute killer team like sort of back back me up, you know? So I get to go in with all the confidence in the world to every kickoff that we have like these, you know, you guys are gonna be taken care of because the people doing the work our actual bad ass is And that's really all you need to. That's all the confidence that I need. I'm also, like, really excited about our process. So getting them through that I'm getting them into that. I think like it takes like a minute for clients that that is not aware of the way we do things for it to click like, Oh, this is actually hugely beneficial to me because there's an immense amount of transparency that well out. Like we give him access to our dropbox file that you can see any time when we're working on getting access to our pivotal tracker,

which we update several times per day. Um, we're posting. We're constantly to our clients, you know, and we don't have time to track Tom because of that. So we're just like, Hey, it's an open book. Pretty much. We have a lot of regular meetings, standups and design reviews and all that. So that's what I go in feeling like. I'm excited because I love our process. It's so honest and transparent. And I've got badass people back in the up.

So I walk in excited. For the client, the responsibility of it is just, like, kind of comes with the territory. I don't know, Um, I get, uh The one thing I worry about is sort of like making sure that they understand that all this stuff is is to benefit them and doesn't seem like Why do we have to go through all this? You know, like I just want to see the work and it's just I don't know. It's It's like I'm hoping that they'll, like, kind of like embrace that.

I think you know the other point that we're gonna talk about today, which is on boarding users and a nap. I think this is Ah, there may be an opportunity for us to product ties are processed and publish something like a website or something that is a in between interstitial stage. We're actually on boarding a new client mentally or what you know, in their own learning time before we start working that way they have. You know,

I still think it's a good idea because, you know, you've got a couple conferences now and come back and just told me like a like this person, this person was, like, really interested in the way we work. Like they want to know more and stuff. And you're seeing Maura and Maur agencies surface that are like word digital product design agency. You know, unless of the hearing about, you know, really, really big agencies that are more of the traditional. So it seems to be taken a turn. In a certain sense,

if we do that, we're going to run into the same challenges that digital product as like if you have, like, 10 seconds of someone's time, like what? What features? Quote unquote. Are you gonna call out that? Help them understand the value why they want to sign up and use up.

That's tough, because one thing that you have when you're on boarding clients that you don't have when you're on boarding like a big user base is their face in front of you or a little bit of context about who that person is. You might be able to sell something to somebody. Uh, that that, you know, is a particular pain point for them. Whereas when you're on boarding a larger group of users in a nap, you have to be speaking to a broader audience. You don't know. You know, you may be speaking to like, 10 million people, you know? So the man, I'm just saying that the message is a lot more broad when you're like trying to design on on boarding experience for user's, you don't know what problems they're gonna have.

You can't answer their questions. But when you're, you know, tryingto onboard a client, there's a lot of considerations you could make about their problems. But I think that the reason the reason that I thought, you know is kind of interesting idea to you not just a pose, but just compare and and look at the concept of on boarding a client versus on boarding user is that you, like you said, you have to be selling a differentiator like some feature that is unique about what what's on the other side if they are willing to go through that all important process. But the idea of prioritizing uh the way we do our you know, our process is really exciting to me, too, just because it's awesome and I want other people to do it like it really kind of cuts through a lot of the, you know, I don't know,

Uncertainty of things. Yeah, So I'd be excited if anybody thought it was interesting. Enoughto do. But I certainly

also thinking about like on boarding new designers, right? Like, you know, thinking about you know, Edgar who just joined the team. I often wonder, OK, did I really onboard him like did I really spend enough time with him, too? Help him understand why we do things a certain way and what that means and thinking about that as well.

Yeah. I mean, building teams. I was listening Thio podcast. I think it's the time details or something the other day and some was on it. I think it's Ryan. The guy from Dropbox. Ryan Putnam. Is that his name from Dropbox? He used to be illustrator at Dropbox. I'm not sure. Yeah, I think it's Ryan things right Anyway, he you know they're talking about, you know, there's There's a lot of designers at a drop box and, like a lot of people don't see their work because a lot of it's just like for internal stuff,

you know? And he said something that was really interesting, which was that crafting a culture itself is a product like That's a product, you know? So what you're saying about, like on boarding new designers and stuff like you're creating a product that designers and employees are sort of, you know, buying? I guess, uh, innocent means it is definitely a trade, you know, like I'm getting this for this, my work and everything. And I'm getting this this job or whatever. So but But that's the experience that you,

ah and Natalie are creating. And I thought that was really interesting that culture is a product. You have to mail that. Yeah, tend to it. Um, um, yeah, I was sort of thinking a little bit more specifically like on user user on boarding type stuff, you know, because you're a lot of different. There's a lot of different choices about how you can handle that on Guy. Think that one of the court arguments about what is a good on boarding experience or not is just how complicated it is, because if you go through and spend, like 30 seconds to a minute trying to explain your product to the user, that's that's holding in their hand for the first time.

Like what does that mean? Does that mean that it's too complicated? Or does that mean that you built your You're fixing a really complicated problem? And it takes a lot of, you know, I think it's hard to really say one. You know, I don't think it's good to say, you know, Coach Mark's ever or you know no on boarding experience ever on def, anybody does. That's about all importing experience, you know, it's so much more related to the problem solving.

Yeah, there's so many times. I mean, this is, you know, the one thing that's always been the hardest for me when I was doing more design work, because there it's kind of the most one of the most more subjective things getting into the head of, especially if you're doing it for a client like getting into their head about how they see marketing or how they see what's you know, different differentiator, how they want to talk about it There's so many different tactics from, you know, the call it like Option A, where you have, like, feature cards and swipe through our option B where you're kind of going through coach marks to see, like to get started quickly or something that fee and I've been talking about about just. Or maybe even you not talk about it to, like just getting right into the product and seeing more empty states. Michael, this is where your receipts will

pop up. Yeah, like a hybrid like you see empty states and those air almost like coach marks. In a sense, like sometimes, like you go in, there's no e mails like your e mails will go here, Click over here or something. You only see that one. It's empty it first. First time He's your experience or whatever.

Do you? Do you, uh, what's your perspective on? Well, I know it's gonna be different for every product, but listen, you're designing a new product, a new product that is, but does something a little bit differently. Do you think about it as like designing figuring out the prat what the product is first and then designing on boarding experience Or do you think that designing the on boarding experience could help you figure out what makes

it different? Great question, man. This is This is perfect because this is something that I've really been thinking about, too. Traditionally, the way I had done it is like let's just focus on making this this incredible value proposition to the user by crafting a great experience than we can build on boarding around that right, Let's just focus on the main experience. Forget about onboard until the end. Then you do the end unloading at the end because you know, it's a tour of sorts and you need to know where you're going with it. Interesting sort of fresh, new look on that. That's been my stance, and pretty much is up until recently, I was having a chat with a friend, my friend David,

about on boarding, and he had mentioned what if, on boarding, what if you designed the on boarding before you even conceived of, like flushing out features or anything and design the on boarding to be so like compelling that you had thio like basically back up? How good you build the on boarding like is pretty pretty interesting A year or two ago at Creative South Thing is, last year I saw L Luna speak. She's was a product designer at Drop. I'm sorry, not Dropbox Mailbox before is acquired. And she was giving a talk. And one of the one of the things that she had mentioned was that mailbox when they got together to solve the problem of, you know, email, essentially, they wrote their own press release before they even designed the project.

And they just said, This is what we want people to be saying about this product and let that guide them. So I sort of applied that to you. The idea of what if you did on boarding first, and then you had to sort of live upto how good that onboard?

Yeah. I mean, you might have to make up some design, but it could help you come up with you. I that makes it compelling and different for someone to me, like, Okay,

let's get started. It's a different angle, and I just think that's so valuable for two. Just have, like, a fresh perspective. So

I want to talk a little bit about what you just mentioned like the press release narrative. I don't know if you do this on your projects, but I read an article, Man, I wish I knew her name. She's just awesome content, content writer and strategist. And she has this book. Jim has it in the office. I should grab it 100 name anyway. She had it wrote a very simple block post. It was like, Okay, like here some tactics for, like, defining your product designer. Here's some tactics for doing a better job is all about writing.

So she was basically explaining how she walks her clients and other design teams to the process of Just do what you're just saying. Like if it's especially this new product riding three different things, how do you want the How do you want what you want? The 1st 5 sentences to say in the APP store, because that's where someone is like seeing it for the first time in understanding. Oh, this is a mailbox thing that saves you time or whatever, or this is a professional enterprise mailbox thing, and then the PR release, which is how you want others to describe it in a professional setting and the other one is like the I forgot what she calls a bit How you would describe it to a friend. So we know elevator? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like because with the way the way a nen vivid jewel describe it isn't gonna be the marketing or the PR story. It's gonna be like how it solved a problem for them s So she she encourages people to start with that before they go down certain conceptual directions to arrive at one of those conclusions.

And that is so exciting and like, inspirational. I want to try that. It just sounds like it would work, But I've never I never actually put that to the test and seen an outcome, but I like that. It's sort of starting with Why Why are we building this? We're building this because of look at this APP review. Look at this summary in the APP store. Look at this. What this person said to this person and you start solving a problem from the inside out that that that kind of way I'm Yeah, I'm really inspired by doing something like that. I think that'd be pretty cool. We just have to get a client to sort of, like agree that that's the right. I think

Danielle and Jim did that at the end of the ends of project because they were trying to design the on boarding experience. And they're like, OK, well, there's a lot of really cool features. What are the ones that really matter? And so they were trying to get Dr Mike to go through that process of, like, you know, those narratives which I memory serves me clip correctly, help them figure out, like away to simplify their own boardings on two in the assets that they would show in the APP store to illustrate the key different years.

Yeah, and the project still billing? Or is it wrapped? Stun Stun?

Yeah, Okay, it's out there. Dr. Mike was touring they, you know, the conference circuit.

And could you just explain alliances? Just to some

of the Owens is a, uh, medical record and a new, interesting product that helps people sink medical records. So it's a really complicated, complicated problem because medical records are accessible to everyone. But it's like this particular product makes it easy for people to do, you know, did to digitize our ad digital medical records to a digital experience and then serve up recommendations

and stuff. Yeah, they have, like this algorithm that gives he's really good recommendations.

And they have, like, two DUIs for, like, your medication. A lot of that zit. Guess that's what I'm saying. Like a lot of products have that that's not a court differentiator. The fact that it provides these very personalized recommendations in the end that you can't do that without the Medical Records, Inc. I mean, that's instead of talking about five different things, they found a way to talk about just the two things that really matters,

right? Yeah, yeah, I think I think that's that's That's interesting. I think that almost sparks another conversation about just choosing the features that you should launch with because there's there's always, ah, let's make sure there's feature parody with this this and this, you know. But then you sort of lose steam on really tweaking your core differentiators, and yeah, I we could definitely talk about I'm like trying to restrain myself down the avenue of talking about that right now, But, um, I know the path that we've gone down now. How could we apply that back, You know, we're talking about products,

right? How could we apply that back? Thio the client experience, right? We bright some sort of testimonial experience That hasn't happened yet. And then we need Thio elevate our client experience to that level.

I think that's right, you know? I mean, you think I mean this supplies too? Freelancers or agencies are people of product companies making products. I mean, I think on the client side, I think your ideas spot on like we know. What would you want your customer to say? How do you want them to feel when they're being built? And when they're paying? How do you you know, how can you build confidence in the investment And day one day 23 How can you maintain that? Um, and and then on the other side, look with the employees, I think it's the same thing,

You know, You you and I know this really well because you and I largely created this process, and we're also the two people that are running engagements. But, you know, for the other people on our team, at any new people we hire, we have onboard them really well, too, So they can deliver on the same values and deliver that same on boarding experience.

Yeah, I think, Yeah, I think we you know, I think we need to go a little deeper into the why? Because, you know, a lot of times I get, you know, from from both sides, other designers and also clients just sort of like this is how we're selling in this hour. Doing in pivotal is transparent is great. And they're like, OK, yeah, it sounds great. But,

I mean, I don't know if everyone's bought inclined clients and designers a CZ. Well, I don't know if everyone's bought into the idea like owning it like, yeah, let's do this. You know, I think some have, actually. But I think we could do a better job of getting people excited about the benefits of it, because there's a lot of benefits, both for designers and clients. Yeah, designer don't have to track time. You have to worry about that. You just do the word on the way. Ryan's get to see all the transparency.

Yeah, you know, a lot of the reasons why we did this was partly and initially for our employees experience. We saw the value in these things. We're creating a couple. If we do it this way, then will be more balance. We can work four days a week, and we won't have to work more than 32 hours a week or whatever were, you know. You know, I Sometimes I wonder if we remember that, you know, and there is a benefit to us. There's a benefit to the client, you know that Just that one point, right,

you're gonna have a team that's, like fully committed but not burn out, right? You know, And you're gonna get you know, you know, when I out, when I ask clients what they think about fun size, almost all of them say you guys are transparent. Um, you know something I don't know. I think that's that's something that, in terms of our value problem, we need to find a probably way to amplify that, and not only to our clients, but our design teams really embraced

that. I think we I think we need to not get distracted by feature parody of other agencies and because I think maybe that's that's more my problem than yours. But, you know, making sure that we're doing things the right way that other agencies are while, Yeah, I think it could be distracting from what we're trying to do here, which is really exciting. I think I could imagine someone listening right now is a little curious about our process and what it means. I think we went over this pretty pretty well in, like, the early last year or the year before. Even in season one, we talked about a thing like Episode three, The pricing episode. You haven't

That was before we like, picked a Yeah, project management tool.

I think we need a Maybe we should do an episode next week about this is how we do our process. Things that'll be cool, too, because then it's a client. Could be like, What's your process? They listen. It's upset, right? Yeah, that's

a great idea, because you're right. We did talk about when we were talking about pricing, and we had another episode called Death. The Time

tracking. Oh, yeah,

we were in that moment we were trying to figure out, like, how do we get her? We can do this. And I think we have that figured out, of course, is gonna be just like any other product, like a continuous And, uh, you know, it orations of that. And it has changed quite a bit.

Yeah, that's the other thing is it definitely badly needs an update if if our process is out there for anyone, Toe. Look, we need we need to update because we are always changing, man. I mean, like, the world keeps turning around, so we keep rolling with it. So

Well, maybe maybe what we can do what you and I could do is find a way to product ties our process with a cool, interesting name. And then d'oh, podcast about it really on it because we don't really have a really good

name for you. Can you just think of a name right now? Just go with whatever you say. Oh, man, no, no. Uh, I saw that going a very funny way about him up. No, not that.

I mean, that's if I had the answer off the cuff. I would maybe say, you know, transparent design.

Yeah, I was thinking to like something along the lines of agile design, you know, like that. How do you really adapt to that process with design? I think it's It's a stepping stone from like what you might consider lean u X You know, I think

a lot of a lot of agencies don't need to do this. You know, if they're using more traditional approach is because it's pretty straightforward. You estimate the work. You know, you kind of go through that. You know, you have certain design reviews and stuff, but maybe what we're saying is, the more and more unique and different you are, there is an opportunity to should you choose to take it to really help someone under understand what it is? Your office?

Yeah, I don't know. I think it's just a better way to sell design in general because it just breaks you free from the burden of like I was listening to another podcast actually think it was also design details. Damn, Penny was on. It was like two or three episodes ago, and, um, you said something very similar about this to me about time tracking, but he's just like there's no way it's impossible to be honest with Tom Track. You're gonna lie on some level to your client and Gina. Sometimes it's in their favor, sometimes in your favor, but everybody get you get the thing at the end of the day anyway. Like time tracking is just a little bit more like mush doggy like make sure you're putting in your time because I'm paying you. And that's really not what design is. Design is like. We're designing a product and continuing to evolve that together with our clients. And that's what you get out of out of working with a good design shop. I think product

company. I don't know if you know this or not. I wish I hadn't done my homework, but, um, deserved team Uh huh, did a pretty good job of branding and naming their flavor of. We'll use it very loosely agile. Maybe I don't think I don't know what they call it. I think it's something like continuous designers like that something. They have a whole whole section of the website. We talk about it. You guys might wanna check that out.

Deserved start as a new agency or something or deaf. They always been just like a product company.

From what I know, they've started out as a design have always been designing to see, but they do a really good job of product izing their own

stuff, huh? Yeah, because foundation It's like a twitter, bootstrap or whatever. Okay, cool. Yeah. They

have a lot of, you know, all the training and stuff they do to, you know? I mean, you know, I think the more experience you haven't building your own products is something that helps you your dog food a little bit. Yep. Andi, I think that's, you know, on boarding in general, at least in my mind, is you know is gonna be We're probably I spend most of 2016 thinking about

on boarding and off boarding to write off. Warning sounds so bad, it does sound bad. Get the fuck out. You're not in the shit. Yeah, We'll talk about that, too. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe we'll figure out a new term, Something cool. I think that pretty much wraps it up for today, man. Um, yeah. I'm excited to keep this conversation going.

Maybe maybe next week or some other time. Very soon we can having them. So that just goes over our process. And like all the things that we think are working pretty well. Um, in terms of selling like the's agile, like velocity based retainers.

Let's go on board a new client right now.

Oh, yeah, we do, actually. A hour and 1/2. New Klein. Nobody gonna apply all the things we learned. Cool. Well, thanks a lot, everybody. Thanks for listening in, and we'll be back soon. Things. Episode is brought to You by the Iron Yard The Iron Yard in Austin is now offering a 12 week intensive program in user interface design. Theon yard will teach you the tools and skills you need to become a professional interface designer and then help you find a job. If you're interested in launching a new career in tech and design,

visit their website. The iron yard dot com scholarships are available for the summer semester, wherein user interface design at the Iron Yard. Life's too short for the wrong career. Hustle is brought to you by Fun Sized, a digital product design agency in Austin, Texas, at Krys Delightful innovative products for mobile web and beyond.