Seraphin Hochart, Head of Product at Zight: Enhancing Product Development Through Customer Feedback

hey everyone thanks for joining inside

the workflow I am Joe Martin the head of

marketing over here at zeit and really

excited today to have Finn with me Finn

is head of product at zeit uh and today

we’re going to be talking a little bit

about product how you can use um

customers to improve your product

development how you can improve your

road map road mapping for product and

really just how everything works inside

the workflow of products so I’m going to

go ahead and let Finn introduce himself

and then we will go ahead and do a

couple of questions yes for sure thanks

Joe so my name is Finn or sarfan I’m

based in Canada hence the accent um I I

have been a head of product at zit for

the past few years um so I was a

customer of zit before that when it was

still called Cloud app um so you know

I’ve been in startups in and out of

Montreal uh before that I was a

developer then moved to product then

moved to uh being more of a product

leader so you know I’ve built a lot of

different product I started building a

lot of apps when the iPhone came out I

think that’s where a lot of when a lot

of people started their product Journey

you know you start getting interested

into it so I started building some

shipping some um and that’s how I moved

also from developer to being a product

manager because I love you know building

nice little workflows and

gos I love it that’s such a great

backstory uh I always love to hear how

people kind of got into what they’re

what they’re doing so thanks for sharing

that um you know we’re living in the

world of like artificial intelligence AI

it’s everyone is changing their

company’s names and changing their

product names and everything and really

with chat GPT and other Technologies it

puts a lot of us on a very similar plane

so I think customer experience is so

value and so important to to create that

loyalty if we’re all kind of using the

same technology and have access to the

same things so what are some ways you

incorporate customer feedback into your

product development at Zite and can you

share some examples of of how that’s led

to some improvements yeah for sure so we

have a simple process I think at Zite um

the simpler the better that means it

gets people to follow the process over

time first making sure you have constant

communication with customers it’s easier

said than done so the way we do it is we

have some kind of like shared Channel

with the sales team and customer success

um usually after a call that was really

insightful and get gets us some feedback

we usually uh post into that channel so

it’s a shared channel that anybody can

just lurk into and the way it works I

think is really like passive learning

you see that feedback come in often and

frequently so um when that happens what

what we usually do is one of the product

managers or people on the product team

would just usually acknowledge like okay

great feedback um always connect that

feedback with the road map item and over

time we’re building a database of you

know uh X number of people actually

request this feature um and you talked

about AI actually we started using more

tools um like chat DPT storytale to just

parse through the the feedback and try

to get some summary so for us AI

actually um comes at a later stage where

it’s more on the analysis of that

customer feedback um the way we also try

to get as as much customer feedback as

possible is like automated Outreach so

whenever we ship something or whenever

we want to build something we usually

try to find like lookalike audiences

where like some customer might be

interested in this new feature so a

concrete example Le is um for example in

December we released a feature on the

Mac where you have a little preview so

Mac OS introduced this a while ago we

looked at it we’re like I think this is

a great Improvement we need this in in

in the Zite screenshot workflow so we

actually noticed that a lot of our

customers were using a similar feature

that we’ve had for years which is on the

annotations screen you could already

like drag and drop an image into a

document so we build an audience with

that specific customer feedback we send

them an Outreach email and um we either

got with some of these user on a call so

it’s easy like there’s a lot of data

already if you have a product out there

where you can easily reach out to those

customers a lot of people are always

happy to give feedback at first I was

like no one will reply to me I’ll be

alone but I think you know if you have a

a good customers loyal customers and

usually after you reach some kind of

product Market fit you can reach out to

those customers and what we did was send

them like a figma file get them to give

us feedback so either on a call or send

us a video back and that was a great way

to build a even bigger database of

customer feedback because usually they

would give us feedback and on top of it

we would ask you know anything else we

can do for you and then they all all had

like a big list of you know other things

that would make their workflow better so

I think that’s how you can like build a

database of knowledge and over time it

builds the whole team product sense um

and usually you already have some tools

or some customers that have you know a

burning need you just need to go and

find them I love that and one thing I

you know to build on that one thing I’ve

always loved that uh Z Cloud app has

done is is having that public Trello

board where people can um really engage

and give thumbs up thumbs down comment

and kind of like look at the product

Road mapap it’s very

public um that’s kind of another hot

Trend you know for the last few years as

a startup is just building in public and

making sure you’re accessible to

everyone yeah I I completely forgot that

yeah we also have that public road map

where a lot of users you know up Vote or

even comment on existing features and we

can get some knowledge there we don’t

our full internal road map of course we

have a lot of cool things you know

coming but uh yeah of course a public

run map is a great way to start showing

that you’re out there and you know your

users all use it differently so you need

to to see how they’re using your product

and It’s really

informative so Zite has over five

million customers who’ve who’ve engaged

with the product in some way since it

started

and across every industry you know from

the random gamer to someone doing heavy

stuff at a large tech company to

healthcare what are some ways that you

really trying distill and take in all

that

information um and really kind

of what I guess what are some most

valuable lessons you’ve learned about

understanding what each customer need is

and like how to prioritize doing those

things yeah so and 100% of the common

problem that uh uh some products have

which is some people use your product

the way it was designed to and some

people use your product the way it

wasn’t designed to and usually that’s

when you can see if you can like pivot

or if you can like maybe open up your

product to a wide range of

customers um so you mentioned you know

like sometimes people use that on their

own they just want to have some

screenshots sometimes they use it at a

large corporation or like you’re a big

company like figma and you just want to

you know share your designs and share

like how a new feature will work with

co-workers so we are really horizontal

product where we can help the the little

guy

lack of a better term like we can help

the little person in a company work

better or or a team so the one thing

that I did learn at Ze especially

because we have so many use cases is um

everybody has their own way of working

and their own biased towards how they

work so they want your product to work

exactly how they want to work but if you

were uh serving different use cases not

always possible to do so we try to give

a lot of flexibility in our product

um which goes with its pros and cons

like if you go really deep and narrow as

a company you might lock yourself in but

if you go broad you might be too broad

of a tool so we try to really always

have a balance and then see you know is

um I think a good rule of thumb in

product is like will this help at least

80% of the customers that we want to

serve um and yeah if it if it helps most

of your personal most of your customers

usually something on a road map and

we’re going to build it but it’s a great

like rule of thumb where it goes on the

road map or we don’t even consider it on

the road map and usually it’s like great

feedback but you know we we usually have

a good discussion with the the customer

after

that and obviously like data is a big

thing we’ve got lots of access to data

how do you kind of incorporate so like

you just talked about the qualitative

like really understanding what customers

are saying with the interviews how do

you pair that with data to make it a

really good solid

decision yeah um so we um we don’t have

a specific data team at Zite all PMs and

most people are data driven by nature

which is awesome everybody has access to

amplitude and uh um L directly like all

the different tools we use to ship some

version of of test or some version of a

feature so I think the way we use the

data is really informative on the

direction but it’s not dictating exactly

what we do like a lot of times as a

company we have a mission we have a

vision we’re trying to push forward we

just want to make sure that the data is

just a little validation or like showing

us that we’re on the right track but

it’s not dictating every single decision

sometimes it’s more you know um you need

to tie it back to the vision and see

okay does the data help uh us move

towards that Vision or if it’s not then

we need to stop and see are we targeting

the building the wrong feature are we

targeting the wrong type of customer

with that feature um so we really use

that data to see the friction optimizing

the business uh but you know it’s really

a tool and not the only thing that we

use like like you said like the

qualitative feedback is also important

so we always use a mix of data and

talking to users usually those

two within a few days of launching

something you can see if you’re in the

right direction on the wrong direction

so much so much of product management is

really like project management right

like you’re taking in so many inputs of

different information how do you like

sales marketing is another piece of that

like how you have let’s say you have a

sales team who’s like ah we’ve got this

big Enterprise client they’re really

pushing us for this custom integration I

I need I need your team to work on this

and you’re you’re focused on you know

product Rel that’s supposed to go out a

month later how do you really kind of

take in that input work with sales and

marketing to make sure that they’re

working with you well and and kind of

fit that with your other

inputs good good question that’s like

you know a big part of product

management it’s you know your self

skills how you integrate everybody to

work with you so everybody rows in the

same direction I would say it’s always a

working progress you know like six

months ago now the process always

evolves um I I would say the main main

uh thing that you work on as a PM is

like gaining trust from all of these

people so it can be being a bit more

trans transparent that I think that’s

how I work you know like I try to show

what’s the the the process or like the

thinking behind doing a feature or not

doing it now um if that person needs

some help telling the customer that it’s

not something we we might do right now

or it’s something we actually have on

the road map but he other things that

might help you um that we actually

prioritize instead so I I think the

trust goes both ways where I I don’t

hesitate to go on these calls with the

self person and I don’t just hide myself

behind like a j Board of like here is

the J list just follow that list it’s I

think being on in the trenches with the

customer success person with the

salesperson with the marketing person um

setting some limits of course like don’t

be on every Sal call I also learned that

the hard way you know being on every

single call um but having some limits

where you can gain trust with each other

go on a call so see a bit what’s the

life of a salesperson and you also at

the same time show them how you

prioritize things which I think

increases the trust as a whole um and

the last thing that I would say is like

simple processes beat every like 12ep

process because because if not losing

trust into each other as well start to

become too complex so you skip levels

you skip persons you skip processes so

the simpler the better just talk

everybody’s a human just talk to each

other and you know try to understand

each other’s perspective and biases I

love that you brought a process because

that really is a big piece of it it’s

like a lot of those things if you add a

teeny bit of friction uh or process then

may maybe people figure it out on their

own or you you figure out if they

actually really need that feature or if

they’re just kind of in the moment and

feeling like they actually need it um so

that’s that’s so

important how do you kind of pull those

things together and create a product map

that not only keeps feature parody with

like competitors or things but is is

thinking about Market TR friends and

staying ahead of on

Innovation um so that’s that’s a theme

that uh we’re all constantly thinking

about because your road map needs to

serve your existing customers and also

you should not fall behind so it’s

always like a a hard balance to to to do

especially in like smaller teams for us

what helps me guide the road map is that

we are um focusing on enterprise

Enterprise and big bigger teams are a

large chunk of our users so adapting

Trends super quick usually does

diservice to to our customer where you

know AI it was great we now have like a

zeit add-on with AI but we took longer

to build it because we spend more time

on security how is the data transferred

we’re s typ to compliant how do you

ensure that we’re actually not

regressing in some ways and losing trust

with customers as well so I would say

for us what helps me is if um one of our

main um one of the main people that

we’re trying to serve our teams and

Enterprises of many sizes we need to

make sure that we adopt a trend when it

matures a little bit so not be the super

early adopter but have some kind of like

um exploration work so always you know

whenever Chad dut was launched we

started looking at some proof of concept

building them on the side but until the

time it’s a proof of concept and it goes

into product we basically sometimes need

to take a step back look at like the

trend as a whole how where is it going

like is it a trend going uh you know

like crypto that might die and then come

back or is it something more like gen

where it’s actually exploding it’s still

on an uptrend and there are more ideas

coming every day so I think it’s it’s

just uh being slow and careful if you’re

targeting big Enterprises where security

and you know privacy is one of the top

concerns so that’s where we are that’s

why you know I prefer to have a solid

product stable with nice workflows that

you can rely on versus being the latest

and greatest tool that changes every

month or so uh so that’s where we’re

positioned but on some features of

course we always have a little better

always have a little playground where we

can try stuff if you know you’re

listening to this and you’re interested

we always you know are looking for Alpha

better users for for these features um

but by the time it’s broadly adopted

usually we try to be slow and wait for

security compliance you know if we’re

hipop compliant soof compliant we just

want to make sure we’re not um we’re

still putting a priority on that I love

how you said just finding a balance of

like yeah having that R&D focus on

certain things but also not being so

tied to the trends in some way I mean if

if we were tied to the trends of 10

years ago like we would have thought

virtual reality was the biggest thing

that we need to or augmented reality was

the biggest thing we need to focus on

and that was going to be changing the

world and how people shopped and all

those things well I mean I don’t have a

VR device I don’t know any I actually do

I actually bought one and it’s great but

it’s it’s a lot of on and off you know

like limited yeah new let’s all try it

but if you go on the street and ask most

people I don’t think they know that the

meta Quest 3 is really cool when you try

to go golf like it’s fun you go golf I

do it every night but that’s it then you

know um the work use cases I think are

not there yet so I would not I would

prefer to prioritize some stability work

versus having the Apple Vision Pro for

Zite out we looked into it again you

know we keep an eye on it we’re not like

saying no but we need to look into it be

careful um and one day maybe we’ll have

AR you know take a video of what you’re

looking at in AR that could happen I

love it yeah that’s totally the right

the right Focus it’s it’s just making

sure your customers are getting the work

done they need to but also like having a

foot in Innovation and always kind of

looking for the right path 100% been

epic conversation my friend um thanks so

much for your time and hopefully

everyone gets some good information

about uh leading a product team and

really making sure that collaboration is

strong all right thank you all thanks

Joe