We talk about this a lot amongst the team. How does being people-first impact our customers? Our customers are wonderful, and they really love us. How did that happen?
Business gurus tell us that taking care of your team means they will take care of your customers better. And this is true. But what that means in practice is our team cares very deeply about our customers, advocates for them, and empathizes with them. Because at Wildbit they have the space and the permission to care. A practical example of this is how we’ve always had rules around how we deploy new features. It was never, ever, acceptable to have our own customers test our products. Everything goes through QA. We will take longer to fix edge cases before releasing, always.
We also have a Customer Support team that fights like hell for each customer. They have the power to hold back a release if they feel strongly it will impact a customer poorly. They know our customers so well that they often act as their advocate when it comes to product development and feature prioritization.
Yes, absolutely. We attribute being people-first to our ability to launch many products—we call this “product agnostic”. We often refer to the team’s entrepreneurial spirit, but I think it’s less about being a starter, and more about having the space and permission to be creative, take risks, and speak up. The small DMARC Digests team of Matt West and Ilya Sabanin, with help from Jeremy Polley, made most decisions on their own. From how much to charge, to what goes on the marketing pages, to what features to build. We, as founders, just provide support and feedback from a 30,000 foot view. But we trust them to make the best decisions they know to make. And since they’re closer to the work, we know in most cases they’ll make a better decision than we would. What we bring to the table is a place to feel safe in making mistakes, a stable salary, and decades of experience. But otherwise, it’s on them to make it work!
Hi James! Thank you for the wonderful words, and for being a Postmark customer!
We always seem to land in the same markets as these 800lb gorillas. What settles us, and keeps us focused, is a clear understanding of what is enough for us. We don’t want to be a funded, fast growth company that IPOs one day. So we focus instead on building a business that can financially sustain ourselves, our team, and all of our experiments.
With Postmark in particular, what really worked for us is playing the slow game. We always held true to our values and principles, from how to build product all the way to how to treat people. We love doing things that don’t scale. For instance, our support team is absolutely second to none. They dive deep into all kinds of obscure issues. We’ve maintained our reputation amongst our early adopters as the “place you go when you really care about your email”. As a small team with smaller expenses, our targets have never been as aggressive as our competitors, so we could play it slower. And in the end, even if our competitors out-market us, we’re second in line once they (inevitably) disappoint folks. We’ve been fortunate that 2020 was a great year for us, and a clear signal that the slow, intentional game really worked. You’ve heard other founders, like Brendan and Nick, state similar points of view in their AMAs. It’s all about brand.
What makes this type of growth special is, as founders, we still control and own the whole business. We could have sped things up by taking on VC, which would have added a ton of risk to our personal success, and lost control to try to chase those bigger gorillas. But waiting a few years to reach our bigger goals was totally worth it, both financially and personally in how we enjoy our work and whom we get to work with.
Thank you so much for doing this AMA with us and for answering every question in such depth. Super grateful!
I’m in absolute awe of the clarity of thought behind the several stances you have taken over the years, whether that’s introspective hindsight or ever-present strategy. And completely loved this: “I sound a bit like a socialist, but I assure you I’m a capitalist (I was born in Russia, so I pinky promise). I just believe in a more ethical way to build these businesses. And in a real way I want to be sure that our business has more impact than just making Chris and I successful.”
There is, undoubtedly, a treasure trove of insights and actionable tools in here, but what I, personally, find incredibly inspiring about this AMA is this very personal definition that you’ve rendered to what a business is and can possibly be. Reminds me of this one time Derek Sivers talked about how the world is unnecessarily ceremonious and all of us can and should define things for ourselves.
Thank you, again, for joining us today and being so generous with your time and insights. Hope to host you soon again!
Thanks for sharing this and other insightful nuggets, Natalie!
It makes absolute sense. Distance from making meaningful impact for customers can be acutely demoralizing for teams. Being people-first, then, also means being well aware of what drives people to come to work. And, noticing failures sooner, is, indeed, a superpower by any measure!
Here’s to the next 20!