User Obsessed

Rob Goodman:

It sounds like a straightforward idea. You help your customers become more successful, and you become more successful in the process. But in order to do that, you've really got to get to know them, to know their pain points and to help them reach their biggest goals. So how do you do that?

Rob Goodman:

Hi, everyone. And welcome to Ready for Takeoff, the new micro podcast series from Wix, all about hyper growth. I'm your host, Rob Goodman, Executive Producer for Content at Wix. In each episode, we go deep on one single topic in under 15 minutes, sharing insights and lessons learned from the leaders that built Wix, as we talk about everything it takes to build a world class global organization. Today on the podcast, we're joined by Vice President of Product at Wix, David Schwartz, a self-described “user obsessed” guy. David shares what he's learned from over 20 years of working in product on how and why your users are the key to unlocking everything for your business. I started off by asking David what user obsession means to him, why it's so important and how to do it really well.

David Schwartz:

We work for our users, and we have a very clear something we work for. We work for our user success. We build products to make the boss, our users, more successful. To make them grow. The paradigm is that if our users will succeed, and that's what we do, and we don't look at anything but working every day to make our users succeed, Wix will succeed with its users. Now, in order to do it, I believe that you need to know your user intimately. And it's a big challenge to get to know someone intimately, especially when those users are spread across 192 countries, and not all of them speak the same language, not all of them have the same business needs. And I get to know intimately those users by using basically... No, I do many things, but there are two main things that I do all the time.

David Schwartz:

I obsessively talk to them. I talk every day to three Wix users either via the phone or via chat, or I correspond with them in some way or another, but I made myself a habit to talk to three users every day. Literally, I'm obsessed about it. Sometimes I do more, but I never drop under three. And I have my guys in the customer care and the account managers, the ones who talk to my users all the time, so I get to talk to them very often as well. And I listen to the business need, to the intent, but I also listen to the emotions. The other thing I do by the way, I obsessively look at the data. And there are tons of ways, and signals, and A/B tests give me tons of data. And I think they work very well together.

David Schwartz:

I'll give you two examples for that. There is something called the funnel. The user comes, they either log in or not. Let's say I'm talking in the context of Wix Stores. They add Wix Stores or not, they add their first product or not, create a shipping method or not. And then comes the stage where they add a payment method, which is a complex thing to do, relatively. People tend to underestimate the logistical complexities that are in the way of someone who starts a young, small business. And I build machines basically that make this process more professional and easier. So I see a drop in the funnel. I see that many people find it hard to connect the payment gateway. And while we have Wix Payments, before we launched it, it was many years ago, and they're going to other places, to Stripe, to PayPal, to whatever.

David Schwartz:

And I see a drop. And I spent months, really months. I sent an email, that's all I had to all these people and tell them, "No, I'm David Schwartz, I'm the VP of Product of Wix. I really want to talk to you, are you willing to talk to me?" A few hundred responded. It's a little biased, because they're the ones who are more engaged. They knew that. And I basically spoke to a few of them every evening, US time, Israeli time is like seven hours difference from the East Coast, 10 hours different from the West Coast. So every evening I spent some time talking to them, and I found a pattern. I found that many of them were intimidated by filling up this huge form required to onboard a payment gateway. So I had the signals from the data, I confirmed the emotion, fear, intimidation, I'm not ready yet, why do I need to do that.

David Schwartz:

And I went to my partners and I told them, "Can we get rid of this huge form?" So they told me, "We cannot, because maybe money laundering, or financing terror, or trafficking people or whatever. So no.” But maybe, what we can do, let's wait until they get the money, and then we'll release the money for them only after they fill out the form. But then they are much more invested in the process already. And we give them the chance. And we did that, and that improved the results dramatically. Now, I wouldn't know that if I wouldn't talk to my users through the data and also through a talk. There are some methods I don't believe in. I'm a great disbeliever in surveys. Surveys have always misled me throughout my career. I don't trust them. I prefer to talk, the open questions and looking at the straightforward objective data. That kind of does not echo my own thoughts, but puts the truth in front of my eyes.

David Schwartz:

So I think this ongoing urge to know your user intimately, and this acknowledgement of your goal: I work for the user's success. For me these are the two pieces that create the user obsessed product manager. And then, if you take this knowledge you got from these two things, and there is this art, it's not science, it's more an artistic thing. You got this intimate knowledge of the user, you work for their success, you translate this ambition and this knowledge into a great product.

David Schwartz:

And it's something that's very hard to teach, and it's talent. And then you can create really the best products in the world. And that's what we aspire to do. I know it sounds like a cliche, but that's the aspiration. So I think that's what it means to be user obsessed. And keep on visiting those products, and see that if indeed they create good emotion, and answer intent, and answer the business needs. And do the users actually in reality succeed by using them. And if not, be obsessed about fixing them, because your boss is not successful at something, you should fix that.

Rob Goodman:

And I love that idea that it doesn't have to be a game-changing product in terms of, wow, this is revolutionary, the world has never seen this before, if you're focused intently on the user's success, the game change might be that unlock that you're describing, where it's just a change in the process, it's a change in the flow that makes them more comfortable, it makes them commit in a way that they didn't before and that unlocks their business, their potential, all those things. So just that idea that small things can make such an impact I think is critical, because sometimes I think maybe folks think that you have to be ambitious, and big, and everything has to be kind of this fresh coat of paint, and brand-new vehicle, but that's not always the case. Sometimes the small tweaks are the biggest unlocks.

David Schwartz:

Totally. There are game changers and we all have them.

Rob Goodman:

Of course.

David Schwartz:

Ford Model T was a game changer, the iPhone in 2007. Modestly, I dare say Wix ADI was a game changer in website creation. But innovation is not just inventing new things for the new purpose. And many people sometimes tend to do things that are exciting technologically, or exciting product-wise. I say innovation is only when you do a change. And for me a change is only a change in the success of my user. Really, give me a game changer that doesn't contribute to user success, and the good improvement of a product that contributes dramatically to the user's success, I'll get more excited about the second one. I get really excited about things like shipping. You don't know what a hellish process is for my boss, the user, to define shipping properly, and do it efficiently. So I get really excited about that. That's what product means at the end of the road, right? Being a really product person.

Rob Goodman:

I love David's take on data. It's a science and an art. And it's not just about what your users tell you, but the feeling behind it. I also wanted to ask David about how the rapid changes we're seeing over the last few years have impacted how he approaches users and building products. Here's David on what happened at the start of the pandemic.

David Schwartz:

So I gathered my team and I said, "Well, what's going to happen to our boss? What's going to happen?" And I had my Stores. Stores is a great product for me, like the eCommerce product where you build a store with Wix. So we didn't anticipate it, but eventually for us it was a huge boom. We knew it was going to speed things up, we were shocked from how much it sped things up. I'm talking about our users, right? So our users that are selling food grew up in 600% in a year, something like sci-fi, crazy shit. But that was not surprising. The size was surprising, but that was not surprising. And then we had our Bookings users. Bookings users are people who sell services. They basically sell their time. And until COVID selling your time meant meeting someone, you're a consultant, you're a fitness trainer, you are in the beauty and wellness industry.

David Schwartz:

So I sat with my Bookings guy. And Bookings is a very personal thing for me, it's a product I started in Wix and I'm a great believer in it. And I told them, "We're in deep shit. What are we doing?" And we believed actually our Bookings business is going to shrink. Meaning basically Wix business, but more importantly, our users Bookings business is going to shrink. But we said, "What are we going to do?" And we really quickly understood that we need to connect Zoom, because that's what people are using. So let's connect Zoom and that allowed our users to move their online world to a virtual world. Knowing that you work, and there is a catastrophe that comes to the world, and you help people reclaim their life. That is something very, very, very powerful. Leave the money aside, and the huge growth Wix had at the time, and what it did to our product.

David Schwartz:

And I talk to these guys, right? I still talk to them. I talk to all these fitness trainers, "I didn't think about it, and I moved to Zoom, and I called my customers, and they moved to Zoom, and I'm doing personal fitness training via Zoom. And my business is coming up again, and actually it's bigger." Boom, so much fun. People are reclaiming their life under a real crisis. And for small businesses, this can trash your life, or build your life, and we're in the business of allowing people to start their own business, which is something...I'm an entrepreneur in my soul. I still remain one. So for me it was a very emotional surprise, even I would say.

Rob Goodman:

Yeah. I mean the idea that it fueled this product inspiration, but at the same time, I'm sure personally, as we're all individually going through this hardship, it must have fueled your soul as well to know that you can focus on helping people kind of pivot and maintain or grow what their livelihood is.

David Schwartz:

Now, connecting video products to Wix Bookings is not a game changer, but it's something that in a real moment of need really helped our users succeed. But see, it doesn't have to be Ford Model T or iPhone. It's really fun when it happens. I love the ADI. It's really fun when you do a game changer, but sometimes adding Zoom to Wix Bookings can make such a difference in people's life and their business success. It's as rewarding.

Rob Goodman:

What a great conversation with David, and getting to know your users. What stuck with me most from our conversation was this idea of intimately getting to know your users, your customers, and showing up each day at work for their success. And how you can translate that ambition and customer knowledge into a great product. And to paraphrase David, if your boss, the user, isn't able to be successful, it's really your job to be obsessed with how to fix that. We're trying a new segment on the show called “Quick Questions” where we get to know our guests in some fun, unexpected ways. So let's get to it. What do you listen to when you work?

David Schwartz:

Jethro Tull. I'm a huge fan.

Rob Goodman:

Oh my gosh. That's awesome. All right. Favorite piece of software?

David Schwartz:

Whoa, that's a tough one. So many of them around. Amazon.

Rob Goodman:

All right, Amazon it is. Okay. Back in the day, did you have an AOL screen name? And if so, do you remember what it was?

David Schwartz:

davids100@aol.com.

Rob Goodman:

Okay. That's pretty good. Not as wild and wacky as we've heard, but that's solid. Who's your favorite leader in technology and why?

David Schwartz:

Reverting back to the Amazon answer that would be Bezos, probably. He's a great leader, but I think the amazing thing about what he did in Amazon is that he kind of duplicated the great leadership system he had, and created a bunch of amazing leaders. So I think that would be the thing.

Rob Goodman:

Awesome. What's the very first website you visit each morning?

David Schwartz:

It'd be an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz.

Rob Goodman:

Okay. No paper, newspaper for you. It's all on the web.

David Schwartz:

I didn't touch a paper, newspaper, I think in 10 years.

Rob Goodman:

What do you want to build that you haven't built yet?

David Schwartz:

Whoa. I have a great idea for a dating application that I really want to do. Like Dating 3.0, but I never got to do that. It's disappointing.

Rob Goodman:

What's the favorite app on your phone that isn't a Wix app?

David Schwartz:

I'm addicted to this game called Hero Wars.

Rob Goodman:

What is Hero Wars?

David Schwartz:

That's my favorite app by far. It's a very stupid game where you have this characters and they fight with other people's characters. I'm a part of a guild of crazy French guys. We've been doing this for years. There is a character called Chabba, it's kind of this monstrous thing that eats the enemies. So mine I think is the strongest worldwide. I'm totally addicted. It's a sad, sad story.

Rob Goodman:

Well, congratulations on your success there.

David Schwartz:

Yeah.

Rob Goodman:

Okay. Last question. What inspires you on a daily basis?

David Schwartz:

The users. I know I'm kind of reverting back to what I said all the time, but the users, their issues, their problems, their challenges, their success, the way they do things, the way they build businesses online. Totally the users.

Rob Goodman:

Amazing. David, thank you so much for joining us. This has been such a wonderful conversation and we appreciate it.

David Schwartz:

Cheers.

Rob Goodman:

Cheers.

Rob Goodman:

Ready for Takeoff is brought to you by Wix. Now, if you don't know about Wix, we're the all-in-one platform for running your business online, trusted by over 210 million people around the world. With Wix, you get incredible security, reliability, performance and SEO, no matter the kind of business you run or the size. With Wix, anything is possible. So visit wix.com to start building and growing your business today.

Rob Goodman:

Thanks so much for listening. You can find more episodes and information on our website at wix.com/readyfortakeoff. Ready for Takeoff is hosted and produced by me, Rob Goodman, at Wix. With production by Lindsay Jean Thomson at Wix. Audio engineering and editing is by Brian Pake at Pacific Audio. Music is composed and performed by Kimo Muraki. Our Executive Producers from Wix are Susan Kaplow and me, Rob Goodman. We'll see you next time.