[00:00:00] Darrell: when you joined SoundCloud, the MarTech setup was so bad you couldn't really get a handle on how many messages were going out. [00:00:05] Hope: the platform could tell me how many messages it on sent, but we had all this stuff happening afterwards. We had. Frequency caps [00:00:12] I see the document from 2019 we're having these issues, we should consider, something else. I had over 200 questions, each question had a response. [00:00:23] we had a super aggressive timeline. [00:00:25] one finalist essentially were saying we were crazy. But yeah, I think you could do that. And MoEngage had a project plan. This is how we would do that. [00:00:33] I was looking to see how many people we had in MoEngage, it was like 135 people in MoEngage. And again, SoundCloud is like 425 people. this customer engagement platform it's a part of the product [00:00:46] In This Episode --- [00:00:46] [00:00:46] Phil: What's up everyone? Today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Hope Barrett Senior Director of Product Management for MarTech at SoundCloud before SoundCloud. Host spent over six years at CNN scaling their newsletter program. [00:00:58] In this episode, we explore SoundCloud's [00:01:00] Big Migration and what it taught them about future proofing MarTech. Why structuring MarTech like a product team actually works. How to vet MarTech vendors for real scale when you're under pressure. How their migration reshaped the whole marketing team and how they led 135 people use their new warehouse native stack with that, breaking it, all that and a bunch more stuff after. [00:01:23] Super quick word from one of our awesome partners. [00:01:26] [00:02:31] Phil: Hope. Thank you so much for your time today. Truly an honor to have you on this show. Thanks for your time. [00:02:37] Hope: Thank you for having me, Daryl and Phil. to be here. I've had a crazy, crazy schedule. I've been in Seattle back to, I'm going to Berlin, so I'm super happy to look at this in. [00:02:48] Phil: Awesome. Yeah, we had a bit of, uh, bouncing back and forth on like what we would talk about today, and you've actually talked about this big MarTech transformation that took place. SoundCloud [00:03:00] last year, last year and a half, Scott Brinker actually hosted a webinar interviewing you about it, and you spoke about it, uh, at MEU in Vegas. I want to give you the chance to kinda reflect on the transformation now that it's kind of a year plus out and check in on how things are going today. So yeah, excited to dive into that. [00:03:18] Hope: Yes, for sure. [00:03:19] Darrell: Yeah, why don't we start at the beginning. Um, I'm reading in the notes that [00:03:23] 1. Diagnosing Broken Martech Starts With Asking Better Questions --- [00:03:37] Darrell: when you joined SoundCloud, the MarTech setup was so bad you couldn't really get a handle on how many messages were going out. Um, you know, performance was hard to track. Performance. I. Like at what, what did you do and like, what did you do to assess, Hey, the current tech stacks not working. [00:03:39] We're actually just gonna have to re-engineer this and rebuild this from scratch. Like, like what, what, what, what was the state when you came in, and what was the breaking point that that led, led you to believe that, hey, we really need to make a big change. [00:03:52] Hope: Start. So I will start at the very beginning. So I was previously at CNN [00:04:00] my, her sort of matrix manager at CNN. I bless CNN and ended up at SoundCloud. So he was working with SoundCloud and due to challenges at CNNI was laid off and I was, I was open, I, I was free. So he asked me, Hey, I have this opportunity at SoundCloud, would you be interested? And I was looking for full-time gig. I mean, it sounds interesting and I never done that before. I, I'll, I'll tell, I'll see what's go, what's going on. So I was actually brought in to answer a specific problem. So the problem or the question was, Hey, Nielsen attribution is going away. It's being deprecated. [00:04:36] What can replace MTA? I came in and I started to look at that question and, and that was February my, my current manager, I mean, I, I first met him when he was my client in JC in 2013. So I've known him for a very long time. The positive of that is he knows what I like to do and he, he knows how I work and we have a really good relationship. [00:04:59] So [00:05:00] yes, he asked me about this NTA question, but coming in and, and he actually had the same realization when he came to SoundCloud. There, there was things that we had to do. So again, the first question was MTA and, uh, there, there really isn't a, a great alternative, right? Even now. But that, you know, that led me down various paths. [00:05:21] So I started to look at our mobile marketing partner. So we looked at our MMP, we actually did change out our MMP, definitely the customer engagement platform. And then at C-N-N-I-I was working, I, I started doing something similar. I was doing vendor management. We were using a different platform. We, we were actually using Dell Global at CNN, but I. I sort of went from RFP. We, we had 10 p 10 vendors in our FP at CNN all the way to selection, to nurture. I, I did all that at CNN. So he, I, that was my experience. I enjoyed it. So, you know, when CEP or customer engagement platform at SOUND came up, that was again, something I [00:06:00] had experienced with from the process perspective. [00:06:02] So. that was, that was, um, I liked to do and it was easy for me to step into a MarTech perspective. We also had to change our Google analytics because we were still using Universal. We had to go to four, so we did that that year. It was very exciting year. Uh, so we did that and I'm really just understanding how our marketing ops were working. [00:06:25] So that was sort of all of what I did. So now I don't know if I got off topic, but [00:06:29] Darrell: Yeah. No, no. It's, I, I think it's definitely fascinating at [00:06:33] 1. Why Legacy Messaging Platforms Quietly Break Your Customer Experience --- [00:06:43] Darrell: at what stage did you like, um, and, and maybe there's like multiple points of, uh, points of this, but like from a messaging perspective, especially when it comes to trying to message customers, um, did you get a sense that what you were using today couldn't cut it? [00:06:48] Or, and, and, and did, and that, did that kick off sort of like a, a like, let's explore what else is out there, or like how did that go when you, when you kind of. Got the sense that like, hey, our, our, the way [00:07:00] that we message customers isn't working today. [00:07:02] Hope: Or now that's a great question. So. go into my background to sort of set the table, but something to know about me. I'm huge on customer service and customer support. I love working with partners. I, I often, I mean, sometimes I've gotten, you know, flapped by legal, not necessarily here at SoundCloud, Hey, that's a vendor's not a partner. [00:07:21] Partner has certain connotations, but I still use partner. I, I wanna use, [00:07:25] Darrell: Mm. [00:07:25] Hope: wanna work with a partner. I, I [00:07:26] Darrell: Yeah. [00:07:27] Hope: who is invested in a relationship. And outside of just pure commercial. Right. So that, that's sort of what I, I come, that's what I go to or that's my go-to. So anyways, coming to SoundCloud, yes. [00:07:41] We, we had a very old implementation. So a lot like our MMP was put into place like 2016. Our CEP was sent into place 2016. being at CNN at that time, I, I sort of know the landscape and, based on the, you know, [00:08:00] our previous CEP that we were using, was a lot of support infrastructure we had to use to actually use. So, you know, and that, that was again, my, I had similar experience at CNN, so I, I sort of had that background already. And you know, if you have. We, we all know tech moves very fast. So if you put something into place and you don't really rotate it, you don't, you know, do whatever it, it ages and it decays. [00:08:26] Then eventually you have a lot of tech debt. So that, that was essentially the situation we were in. So we, we had a, we, we had a CEP, our customer engage platform. We. on with the vendor very early in their product lifecycle. We had to build a lot of support infrastructure to make sure everything worked. [00:08:44] And when I say support infrastructure, we had things like frequency caps outside of the platform itself. So when you say, well, how did you not know how many messages you sent? Well, the platform could tell me how many messages it on sent, but we had all this stuff happening afterwards. We [00:09:00] had. Frequency caps happening afterwards. [00:09:02] We, we had all these things going on, so end of the day, I, I really didn't know, because yes, the platform could gimme a number, but it wasn't the real number. And [00:09:12] Darrell: And, and, and what does that, [00:09:13] Hope: aade. [00:09:14] Darrell: that mean? Sorry, that the frequency cap. [00:09:16] Hope: So for example, we would have, we, we don't want, like, you know, a lot of our campaigns are data driven. So if you do something on SoundCloud, it could trigger a campaign. Well, if you. Say you, you are busy liking, uh, a track or something, right? We don't want to sit and do every single time you do that. We don't wanna send you a message saying, Hey, thank you for liking a track. Say you liked, you know, [00:09:43] Darrell: Um. [00:09:44] Hope: We don't wanna send you 20 messages and liking track. So we would have a frequency cap to say, Hey, darl only needs one message a day, saying he thank you for liking a track. [00:09:53] Or maybe we only want Darryl to get one message a week saying thank you for liking a good track. [00:09:57] Darrell: Gotcha. [00:09:58] Hope: was things we couldn't build into the [00:10:00] platform itself. So we had to have support infrastructure to help do that. So that's just an example, but that, that's sort of what I mean. [00:10:07] Darrell: Gotcha. That makes sense. [00:10:09] Phil: Yeah. I, [00:10:10] 1. Why Custom Martech Builds Quietly Punish You Later --- [00:10:22] Phil: I feel like most orgs, uh, hope underestimate how much the cost of not switching accumulates silently in the background, like SoundCloud. You were saying delayed this move since like 2019. You mentioned that the infrastructure was layered with like, legacy systems because you were such an early adopter of that tool. [00:10:28] There was functionality that didn't exist in the product, so. There's internal APIs, homegrown apps, and basically like, just like Frank and stack around the CEP to work around and, and date it all the way back to like 20 16, 20 17. Right. Like what, did the worst parts of that setup teach you about future proofing your MarTech stack and, and how you think about that philosophy today? [00:10:53] Hope: Yeah, so. My, my biggest takeaway is you, you wanna be able to go as out of the box as [00:11:00] possible every time you have a custom implementation that is on both you and your partner to help maintain that. And typically those that doesn't go very well. So the partner, you know, they aren't, they, if they build something special for you, you know, they, they have many other clients as well, right? So if they are going to release a new feature, you know who gets that new feature first? It's the main the people using the out of the box product. Maybe they'll get around for to getting you that new feature too with your custom implementation, but most likely not. I mean that, that's been my experience, right? [00:11:35] If you have a custom implementation, it kind of on you to maintain. And that's, we were hearing, right? So, you know, when we would have an issue, you know, and we would go to our, our former customer engagement platform, it was like, well, yeah, you guys have that custom implementation. Go ask your engineers. [00:11:54] And that's what we would hear. [00:11:55] Darrell: Mm. [00:11:56] Hope: and that ironically, I, I have a different vendor and, uh, different [00:12:00] space. I'm hearing the same thing from right now, right? ' cause we have another customer implementation that I am thinking about ripping and replacing. No. Yeah, but I mean, it just makes sense, right? If you're, if you're a vendor, you, you don't have time to maintain, you know, a hundred different customer implementations, you know, so. It's, it's hard. And as a, as a client, you know, I understand, but I do want the new stuff too. So the way you avoid this problem is, you know, if you can do something outta the box, or if you have to build support infrastructure, try to make it as transferable as you can, right? You don't wanna really tie into something specifically that a partner has. [00:12:40] You, you wanna be forward looking like this is what we need. How, how do I build it in a way that. A vendor change tomorrow. You know, I can easily change with that. I mean those, those are my lessons learned from, you know, this and other experiences. [00:12:57] 2. How Product Teams Can Actually Own Martech Without Breaking It --- [00:12:57] Phil: One thing that makes this whole [00:13:00] transformation from your perspective interesting is the role. And the kind of unique structure you had when you came to SoundCloud. There's a lot of different philosophies when it comes to structuring MarTech and who works in MarTech. In my career, I've run lifecycle teams that owned a lot of the MarTech and the customer engagement platform stuff, but I've also been in like marketing teams that way. [00:13:21] Smaller teams that the marketing ops team sits under there. We own a lot of that stuff. You're at a, a bigger company in like larger enterprises. There's sometimes like a central MarTech team that is made up of a ton of engineers, especially when there is like custom tooling and, and custom solutions there. You lead MarTech as a product function at SoundCloud, not under marketing or engineering. Can you describe how your team fits into the org and how you kinda manage the balance between. Enabling marketers who are sending messages, but also protecting engineering resources. What are your thoughts there? [00:13:58] Hope: Yeah, no, it's a great [00:14:00] question. So I, I think in part, our size kind of helps us because we're not, I mean, we're, we're about 425 people say. So we know each other. And the other thing that I think helps it is, you know. I've been like, when I was at CNNI was doing newsletters. I mean, newsletters are important and I'm a newsletter junkie. [00:14:19] Super, super important. But it's not intrinsic to like gathering news, right? That newsletter. It is a record. Here at SoundCloud, I would say messaging integral in to the product, right? So when we, when you are using the tool, we, we wanna, we wanna let an artist know that you liked their track. We, if you are DMing somebody, we wanna make sure that they know that they have a new dm. So it's, it's actually how people use the product. So if you think about it from that perspective, for us to be part of product growth marketing, it's, it's really we're, we're part of product. So for us, like, [00:15:00] you know, I am in the meetings with engineering and, and really it's a, it's a very long acronym. [00:15:05] It's like but it's. Engineering product design and marketing. We're, we're all together. And, but again, if you think about Song Top as a product, I mean, it, it kind of makes sense because, you know, we're not just sending messages. I mean, we are sending, like our, the messages that we're sending, they're, they're not like, I mean, we, we do do user acquisition and things like that, but it, it's really always tied to the product itself. [00:15:30] So I, to me that's a distinction between like, maybe my time at CNN versus my time here where. A message that we're sending out. Like if, if someone released, like I got a bunch of them this morning, like I, I follow a bunch of artists, right? And they started to release new tracks. Well, I got a, a series of messages saying, you know, so and so released a new track. I mean, that's part of the product. I mean, that's gonna make me wanna go listen to this new track that was released. And it's not sort of a add on where, you know, hey, the marketers could be [00:16:00] somewhere else doing marketing things and we have this product over here. [00:16:04] Phil: Yeah, it's a super [00:16:05] Darrell: Hmm. [00:16:05] Phil: to think about it. Darrell, [00:16:06] 2. Why Lifecycle Messaging Should Be Built Like Product --- [00:16:15] Phil: this makes me think back our, our conversation with, uh, Jeff Lee at Calm, who does, uh, the technical stuff for lifecycle and messaging at Calm, the big meditation app. And he thinks very similar to you. Hope, like he said, at first in his career, he was like allergic to marketing and sales. [00:16:21] He hated emails, like could never convince himself to do that. He's like an engineer, like, uh, born and bred. And what convinced him in in messaging was this idea that messaging and lifecycle is kind of a product in and of itself. An email is basically just a bunch of code and it's static, but it's sent to the inbox and people don't come back into the product. [00:16:43] People love the Sunday newsletter that they send with like the new meditations that come out. So I feel like y your answer kind of relates a lot to that. Do, do you agree? [00:16:52] Hope: for sure. I mean, we. We work collaboratively as a team. I mean, if, if I go into my, if I, [00:17:00] if I, so a couple Slack channels, like can no into, if I go into my MoEngage Slack channel, right? So we, we have a bunch of people from MoEngage in there. We have data engineers in there. We have our lifecycle team in there. [00:17:10] We have people like me in there. We, we have lots of folks, lots of different parties, lots of different interests. But the bottom line is we're all talking about SoundCloud as a product like SoundCloud. The admin, like what are we doing to help? SoundCloud, the app, you know, a lot of our campaigns are data driven, so you know. definitely presented challenges that we're migrating, but, you know, we are using data, we're using triggers that the user is doing to send messages and to send, you know, in apps and to send pushes or whatever. So, and even email. I mean, we, we do have a few newsletters, but even our newsletters are data driven. [00:17:49] So for example, if you're a SoundCloud user, we will send you a email, a weekly newsletter that shows you. For our four tracks that you might be interested in [00:18:00] based on your listening history, using our recommendation engine. I mean, that's, that's going out in an email, but that's, again, it's part of the product. [00:18:07] So I mean, you know, we, we do have the traditional, like if you just sign up with SoundCloud, you'll, you're gonna go welcome stream and it, it might be 16 different emails over time that's helping you understand the product. That's probably more traditional, but a lot of what we're doing, it's really. In response to how you're using the product. [00:18:27] Darrell: Yeah. I love that. And then, you know, [00:18:29] 2. Why Martech Teams Should Prioritize Users Over Internal Stakeholders --- [00:18:39] Darrell: in terms of your team, do you, do you, uh, consider the marketers like your primary customers? Or do you, do you consider like the customer, the primary, your primary customer? It's like, is it a balance of both? And, and I think the, the reason I ask is because, you know, um, oftentimes working with marketers, they may want to maybe send out too many messages or maybe, you know, do this and do you have to maybe play. [00:18:52] Governance, a governance role. How do you think about that? [00:18:57] Hope: It's, it's a great question. I think [00:19:00] sometimes when people think about marketing, they, they kind of think about brand marketing, right? And it's like, you know, I think in, in, when you're thinking about brand marketing, perhaps like, you know, sending too many emails or things like that, I, I can, I can a hundred percent understand that, you know, here at SoundCloud we, we have, again, people who are also tied into the product. [00:19:21] So, you know. message we're sending out has a distinctive purpose. It's either, you know, it's gonna be that welcome flow and, and when we think, when I think about the process of doing the welcome flows, and that was really the lifecycle team, I, I worked with them and I support them, but the lifecycle team had the product team and themselves coming together to. The flows, right? Like what is gonna happen? What's gonna happen at each point in time? So it's not just the life cycles team, you know, mandate, Hey, create a welcome stream. You know, they're working with product to figure out, okay, well the people who are creating the tools that artists are [00:20:00] using to upload traps, like. Working together to figure out what makes the most sense to best educate an an artist about how do use SoundCloud not just lifecycle. So we, I mean, we really, we really work very closely together, all aspects. So I, I know I talked about the Slack channel with all the people in there, but that's why, that's why it matters. [00:20:21] Darrell: No, that's, I think that that's, that's right on, and that's the best I think. Working model is where you're just part of a big team [00:20:27] Hope: Mm-hmm. [00:20:27] Darrell: uh, it sounds like it's very much like that. Well done. [00:20:31] 3. How to Get Internal Buy-In for a Martech Platform Migration --- [00:20:31] Phil: Do you think, hope that your role in a product function helped you build internal consensus when it came to this big migration that you did, um, when you needed to make a, a change in, in customer engagement platforms? Like how did you. You socialize the plan internally at first. I'm sure there's a lot of folks that were around initially when those decisions were made. [00:20:52] Probably a lot of turnover from, from folks that weren't there anymore, but like what tactics actually work to shift people from [00:21:00] being hesitant to supporting you in, in this like big project, especially those like skeptical, you know, folks of, of like making such a big move. What are your thoughts there? [00:21:10] Hope: no. Um. So I, it's really like a multifaceted issue or, or situation going on there. So, few things that come to mind. One is, we, we had new product leadership, right? So we, we had people who came from CNN, so that's how it's all sort of connected. A good ambassador of CNN. At SoundCloud. But anyways, we, we had a new CPO who, you know, came in with different ideas. [00:21:37] I mean, our, our, our CEO at the time, his mantra was step by step. It was always about constant, you know, iteration, let. Not wait for perfect and perfection. Let's keep moving. Right. So I think it was a sort of a shift in mindset. Another thing is, you know, SoundCloud has some of the best documentation I've ever seen. I could go back into, you [00:22:00] know, confluence and I see the document from 2019 talking about, hey, we're having these issues, we should consider, know, something else. So I, I have, I can, I can easily point to, well, wait a minute, this isn't a new problem. You know, I think sometimes people, you know, trick themselves to thinking, yeah, we're having this issue now, but it could get better. [00:22:23] Right? And, you know, if you're, if you think about all the work that goes into twitching, I, I understand, right? It's a lot of work. So, you know, maybe, maybe we will heal itself. Well, that doesn't happen. So, you know, I have this documentation from 2019 and saying, well, this is what we had then. We're having this same conversation right now. there's that, you know, as far as socializing, you know, yes. Help have historical documentation, but also just talking to people. Right. So when we, when I started to work on the RFP, you know, I was interviewing and it wasn't just me. We, we, you know, our, our, the head of our lifecycle team at the time was [00:23:00] helping. We were interviewing all of our internal stakeholders to figure out like, what concerns are you having now? What would you like to be able to do? And, and that was, that was input that we used to create our list of questions for our RFPs. So by involving people early, you know, you, you start, you started to get a, a, you socialize of course, but you know, they, they know what's happening, you know, and I think the other thing that was helpful is probably the structure. [00:23:26] So at the point, at that point in time. I, I was actually consulted. I, I wasn't a, I wasn't a SoundCloud employee. Uh, I was sort of outside. I think my day-to-day task was this, right? So I, I didn't have a team I was managing. I was managing these processes, so that allowed me to move pretty quickly. So. But, and that's okay. [00:23:50] Depart come, because again, I was a consultant. I mean, sometimes if you see consultants come in, you're like, okay, they'll be, God, I'll just wait it out. Right? So, um, fortunately I didn't have that [00:24:00] situation. Uh, but you know, it, it's on, it's on me as a consultant to build those relationships and, and to say, Hey, this is what we're doing. [00:24:06] Be transparent. Like, this is the research I had. Yes, I was looking at Crunch Base. I looked at financial, you know, viability. I don't wanna have a, you know. I don't wanna say, this is the perfect bed for us, and then it goes out, it goes under in a year. Right. So I was looking at all those things, but being transparent about all the things I was looking at, it helped build confidence that, you know, I, I actually had a process, you know, this process worked before I could, I could say that, but by showing my work, you can see what in my work before. So I think that was all helpful. But then again, having a product leadership team that, you know, I, I think afterwards I, I, I heard more Oh yeah. We, we, we supported you, but we, we didn't quite think this was gonna happen, but they didn't tell me that. Right. So I was, I was just moving forward and, you know. Again, this is the type of thing that it's never fun, but it's not gonna be fun a year later. Right? If you wait a year, it doesn't get better. It's not gonna be better and more fun, then, you know, [00:25:00] you just have to do it. If you're having problems now, they're not gonna heal themselves. It's not, based on the issues that we have, they're not gonna get better, you know? [00:25:08] You, you, you're gonna have to do work. So the question is, what type of work do we do? Do we do work to like rebuild our infrastructure? Do we find another partner? Do we work, work on our existing partner together and come with a new solution? I mean, those are all options. And, and we ended up choosing the path of looking for a new partner. [00:25:28] But I mean, those are all different things. We, we've had conversations about. [00:25:32] Darrell: Yeah. Yeah. I, I love it. And I, I really love your point about documentation too, just, just around, you know, it's, it's almost like organizational journaling, you know, so we can look back to see what con conversations we've already had, but, um. Um, yeah. [00:25:46] 4. How to Run an RFP That Doesn’t Waste Everyone’s Time --- [00:25:46] Darrell: Let's talk a little bit about how you think about RFPs. [00:25:49] You know, um, um, when you were putting it together, like what were the main things that you wanted to see in the RFP? What did you learn from the process? Like, were there certain things that were really [00:26:00] key? And then did you look back and say, oh, some of these, some of this parts of the RFP or some of these, these criteria, they actually weren't that big of a deal. [00:26:08] Like maybe you could share a little bit of your learnings there too. [00:26:11] Hope: Yeah. So I actually won't do RFPs. I didn't say, this is the information Doug gave me. Right? I, I love to know, and I'm the nosy person, the nosy part of me. I love to know what's going on. So that leads a loving to RFPs. And I, and I've done RFPs before, so I, I worked at a small digital agency, um, if then, and that, that's when I was first exposed to either responding to an RFP or doing RFPs. Um, I did RFPs at CNN, so I, I had. Process. I, I mean, over time I built things that I thought, oh, this is a really cool deal. Let me do this too, and wait a minute, this isn't so great. So I didn't necessarily have a takeaway from this RFP process to say, oh, I did this. I probably shouldn't have. I, I already had a sort of a, a methodology. [00:26:51] So the things that are important to me in the RFP, right. So one is like making sure that you gather information from all your stakeholders, right? You [00:27:00] don't wanna surprise someone, Hey, look at all this stuff I did, and they had no idea, right? You, you don't wanna be in that situation. So, you know, involving people as soon as possible, truly understanding what the problems are, right? [00:27:11] So it's even to say, Hey, yeah, let's just find a new vendor that's gonna solve all alarm. You know, that's one way to think about things. So that's probably not gonna be successful either. So really understand what your problems are and what questions you're answering. So those are all things that I think even before you start writing your essay, you go into, uh, I think it's the preparation. [00:27:32] Like I, I think I had probably, I don't know, a 13 page document that I share with all my vendors. Our proposed perspective, the Dun at the time, to explain who SoundCloud was, the issues we were having. What we're looking for. Again, it was like 13 pages and it, you know, it had, you know, some legalese in there perhaps like this is not RFP and responding and that, you know, indicative or doesn't say that we're gonna have to accept you all that, you know, but it had [00:28:00] lots of information Part of me doing that was setting the table. I wanted to make sure all the vendors had or were coming back to me with the same information. So that was something like just initial homework, like making sure all the vendors had the same information. I had very clear dates and, and timeline. So like I, I, like I clearly pointed out, we're gonna send out this RFP on the state. [00:28:24] You have three days to respond to tell me if you wanna participate. So I started doing things very, you know. Very clearly, very transparently, and it was across all vendors, right? You know, when, when vendors had questions for me every evening, I would compile all the questions I got for the day and send them to all the vendors, right? [00:28:44] So if you know, I don't know if. Company a had a question. Now all six vendors knew about it, and I, I did that routinely. I had a anonymous conference call and some vendors took [00:29:00] realized, oh, anonymous. Well, maybe let me not sided with my, you know, zoom background because that is no longer an anonymous. It didn't matter for me though. [00:29:10] The, the premise was, you know, I want all the vendors on the call so that they can hear the questions being answered and the answers. If you wanna reveal who you are, that that's on you doesn't really matter to me. I. But we had that type of engagement. So, you know, I was very active. It's not like I put an RFP out there and said, let me wait, you know, a month and see what comes back. It was a very involved process from the very, from day zero all the way to the end. And, and I think that that helped, like when I went through our responses in the Excel sheets, you know, I, I would have questions that I would be reacting to, you know, vendors as they would, as they would, you know, share their answers. [00:29:47] We, we had a couple of rounds of that. Also, so it was, I, I was very involved, you know, the team here at Sacha, you know, various people were involved. I, I would say, this is what someone [00:30:00] asked, you know, what are your thoughts? You know, so that all helped. So I think that those were the, those are the types of elements that helped us have a successful RFP where we found a vendor that. We thought we could work with. I mean, that said, if you know all, going through all that, if you didn't have a right vendor, I, I would be, I mean Okay. I wouldn't wanna have to do it a year later, but you know that that's okay too. Right. So, um, it's, it is a learning process, but hopefully Darryl, that helps sort of answer [00:30:28] Darrell: Yeah, no, I've heard, I've heard it put this way, which, which might resonate with you, but like the dec, the way that you make the decision or the decision making process is what's really important. [00:30:37] Hope: Mm-hmm. [00:30:38] Darrell: the outcome might not be what you wanted, but like if you took the time to, you know, rigorously make the decision. [00:30:46] You've done your best. You know, and I, I think that that, that, that's kind of how I interpret what you're saying. [00:30:52] [00:31:47] [00:32:52] Hope: I had over 200 questions, probably in 16 categories. I weighted like each question had a [00:33:00] response. I, I, I waited and, and it's not only myself. I had a, I think I, I probably, it's a lot, right? I, I waited every single response, but I had a team of say, like probably 500 people and they would maybe wait our, our grade sections. At end of the day, I had a one to five on each spots for six vendors. I had rollup, for the categories, and then I could tell you the scores of my six vendors and, and where they were from, where they were not. And I also had conversations with the vendors that they were interested afterwards that this is what, this is what, why were selected, why you were not selected. [00:33:34] So, you know, it was really a full process. But I, I think, you know, that also helped me make sure I wasn't really missing anything. Right. So I. Hopefully transparent for the, the potential vendors, but also for me to make sure that I was buttoned up as I should be. [00:33:51] Phil: It sounds like it's such an in-depth process that you went through. I'm sure a lot of folks listening went through some shapers. Size of RFP at some [00:34:00] point in their career or were involved in it. Um, I know I've been a part of, of a few. It's never been that in depth though, to the point of having conference calls where vendors can join anonymously and ask questions. I think that's a brilliant idea and, and a really cool way of getting more information and making it as kinda like, um. I dunno it non deferential. 'cause like a lot of the times, like you would [00:34:24] Hope: Okay. [00:34:24] Phil: individual email threads with like all of the different vendors and then like you start, you, you start forgetting like what you said to one and who said what. And so like, keeping it all open in the open, like there's no box around it. Like there's a really cool way to, to go about it. [00:34:42] 5. How to Pick a Martech Vendor You Can Actually Work With --- [00:34:56] Phil: Hope. Let, let's, let's plug Moen Engage a little bit. They're a big, uh, partner on, on the podcast. And I know you ended up picking Moen Engage. You kind of mentioned that already. Um, you had this like longstanding incumbent that you were using for customer engagement. We don't have to name them. Um, what did MoEngage demonstrate [00:35:00] technically or maybe relationally that gave you the confidence throughout the whole RFP process that they could execute better? [00:35:07] Hope: So, I mean, we just talked about my 200 plus questions, like some of like, so Johnson Johnson is, I think he's heads of North American sales at Monage right now. first met John, I did this RFP process and we developed a relationship because he had humor, but he was respo, he was one that I've been the responses from, we'd emailed back and forth almost daily, right? [00:35:31] So I developed a relationship, but not only about Moen engage, it gave me a sense of the potential vendors at the time would be to work with, right? So I, I think through that process, I, I. Even. Yes, we're still working with MoEngage now, but Jo and, and the relationship by development died. That's memorable, right? [00:35:51] It stands out. I, I didn't have that type of relationship with any of the other candidates. There's one vendor that I looked at where [00:36:00] went to an emotion's, like their answers were so. and short. I wasn't even sure what they were telling me. And you know, I would've had to almost follow up on every single one. [00:36:09] What do you mean by this? What do you mean by this? You know, so it was whole spectrum. But you know, I think with Mo kids, at least for me, that relationship started during the RFP process. ' cause we had engaging back and forth answering technical questions and, and if you can have fun doing that, that, that, that says a lot, right? [00:36:27] I think. But as far as like the selection process goes, we, we can't, we had, we essentially had three finalists. One was a company that I had worked with previously that had a really good relationship and I loved working with them. But our ask was a little bit of a stretch for them. Um, they, they were more of a traditional ESP and we had the whole mobile component. The, the other two, the two finalists, I mean. From a product perspective, it was sort of relatively same. I, I think, you know, we would've been able to get messages out when [00:37:00] needed the product. So what, what, what made the distinction? I mean, I think one was level of confidence. So we had a super aggressive timeline. [00:37:08] So I had a contract that ended January 19th, 2024. Still remember the date and you know, I was. with Ngage about contract, but even like, even the, like the sales process, right? I think I announced my finalist, I announced the finalists on Labor Day, so beginning of September and when we had to do demos, right? [00:37:29] So we had a very, very short timeline. So I would say during the demos, you know. one one finalist was like, you know, yeah, I think you could do that. Right? They, they essentially were saying we were crazy. But yeah, I think you could do that. And MoEngage had a product, like a project plan. This is how we would do that. [00:37:49] So just there, the distinction one, like having a project plan, even if. Even if you're taking some, you know, liberties because you don't know the [00:38:00] everything Exactly. That at least shouldn't be how you approached it and you're approaching it like, this is doable. This is how we're gonna get there. The other one was like, we'll do our best. [00:38:09] Right. So that, that, that was like the beginning of that. Um, I, I think even during, you know. Demo process is about transparency. Like, you know, yeah. We, we, we, we don't have this right now, but you know, we could get that for you if you select this. We'll, if you select us, we can get it for you. I. the state. [00:38:28] I think having that type of certainty about your product, that knowledge about your product comes through. So, and again, for me, that's very appealing because I like to work with vendors who know their product. I don't wanna work with a vendor who has like a third, third party integrator model that is completely unappealing to me. [00:38:45] So, you know, through this process, I, I get to know the vendors who truly know their product and what type of support they would have. So, you know, it gets V and mortgage. These are all signals that we saw. At least I saw during, during the the [00:39:00] RFP process, you know, demo process and then afterwards, I mean, yeah. [00:39:07] So it that, that sort of, and how we ended up with, we engaged as a [00:39:10] Darrell: Yeah. Yeah. It's so crazy that, you know, and it just resonates with me so much that the, [00:39:15] 5. How to Vet Vendors Who Say They Can Handle Your Scale --- [00:39:24] Darrell: the people part of it is so important. You know, who are they? The people that you're working with. And even with my own team, you know, when we are doing some vendor evaluations, it, the, the thing that really stands out to me, um, after they watch like demos and talk, talk to partners is that they say they really liked the account team that they were working with. [00:39:34] You know, and conversely. It. The opposite is true. Like if they don't get a good vibe from them, if they're may be like, even like kind of disrespectful when answering questions. Like we don't wanna work with them. And it's crazy that people forget about that. Um, why don't we talk a little bit about scale because you know, I think SoundCloud does over a hundred million messages or something like that, and you have hundreds of campaigns. [00:39:59] What sort of made [00:40:00] you confident that this new platform you're gonna choose could actually support it? What did you do like. Sandbox testing or did you do like pilot or was it just really their track record? Like how did you think about, you know, were you kind of worried that they wouldn't be able to handle it? [00:40:18] Tell us about that. [00:40:19] Hope: It's a great question and um, in my time at CNN, like I, I've seen where scale. Makes the thing go down many, many, many times. So, coming into SoundCloud, that, that's like a fare in the back of my mind. Is it, is it gonna scale? Because again, I'd had an experience where it doesn't. So for, you know, when we were doing, going through this process, it, it was understanding, you know, who your current. are the vendor, right? So, but even like when I was looking at the population set that I was going to use, right? I, I actually had a number of vendors from Southeast Asia on my list because [00:41:00] my thought process there is like, well if you're, if you're based out of India and you have clients who are dealing with all the people in India, you probably can handle my scale. So that was a part of some of my rationale there. Uh, you know, not all of my con. My consideration set was from India. But I mean, I would say probably like, you know, I had at least that 1.3 and I, I was looking initially at seven. Right. So that, that was, that was a piece of it. I think the other thing, at least specifically with Moen Gage, so Moen Gage has other music streaming clients in India. [00:41:35] Right. So they have, you know, they have, and I'm just asking about that. Right. So, you know, well how big is, I think Bana is one in India. Well, uh. Kind of the comparable sign to what we are doing. Although it's all in India, they, they have like, at least three that I saw. They, they have some others outside of India. [00:41:54] But you know, from a scale perspective, I mean, you know, that that was, that was a good sign. I did reference [00:42:00] calls, so, you know, Logan allowed me to speak with, you know, the music streamer in India who has a similar type of scale. So that. All helped me develop confidence because again, we had a very short timeline. [00:42:12] I mean, I was doing demos in September. I mean, we're taking, you know, contracts in October 'cause we had to get off in mid January I had lots of time and, and previous RFPs I had done sun boxes. I. Like, when I did rrp, CNNI had three different, uh, I had four vendors. One said, we're not gonna do a sandbox. [00:42:29] So they got, they knocked themselves out. The other three did do sandboxes. And, and I've done that before. And it, it's super helpful because it gets people hands on and yeah, I do like this and no, I don't like this. So completely see the value in doing a sandbox. I just didn't have a lot of time. [00:42:45] Phil: Yeah, the, the timeline is pretty wild. Uh, I can imagine like being part of that project, let alone running it and, and knowing the timelines that, that you had to deal with there. But I. Um, [00:42:56] 6. How to Rebuild 200 Campaigns in 12 Weeks Without Losing Your Mind --- [00:43:09] Phil: one thing I wanted to ask you about that you chatted, uh, with Scott in, in the webinar that, that you did with him. Um, I, I think you mentioned that it was like over 200 plus campaigns, like automated workflows, that you had to move from the old platform into MoEngage in like 12 weeks. [00:43:13] Once you picked Mage, um, a lot of teams in your shoes would've just been like, all right, let's just shift the existing logic into the new spot. Let's not worry about like fixing or sunset stuff. Let's just like move it all over. Let's save time there. Honestly, I think that maybe that's what I would've done. [00:43:33] It's, it's what I've done in the past. You didn't do this at all. Like in those 12 weeks, you improved and redid a lot of the strategy for the messaging and the campaigns. What was your framework for deciding what are we keeping, what are we rewriting and what are we kinda sun setting? And how did this all kind of come together? [00:43:52] Was there like a, holy crap, this might actually fail moment during the sprint? Like walk us through that. [00:43:58] Hope: no, I mean it really, [00:44:00] lifecycle, so it was actually this part of it, the Lifecycle team really took ownership of, so they had spreadsheets with all the different campaigns. We, we had over 200 campaigns. We had been our previous platform for seven years. We had like over 200 campaigns that we, we had, uh. Things were dated, right? So I completely understand where you're coming from, but we, we decided to take this as an opportunity and to have a new template. So we got a new template created. We wanted to get all this information into the new template as far as like file. We did this, we ranked all of our campaigns like priorities. [00:44:34] We applied a zero to maybe three. And we, we, we have them, you know, rate that way. We start when we. We actually used, we actually paid MoEngage Extra to help us migrate. So MoEngage used their resources and. Teams that they had to essentially shift campaigns, put them into our new templates, and then we were the final approvers. [00:44:58] So, you know, [00:45:00] without that, we, because I mean, our lifecycle team at the time was three people. We wouldn't have been able to do that. But, um, super helpful. You know, again, we, we paid extra, extra for it, but it was money well spent. Uh, so that, that was sort of how we approached that. But I, I guess why, why didn't we just do a lift and shift? [00:45:16] I mean, you know, it's one of those. I think one week we thought we could do it. Uh, the what we had was so old and dated. It's like, well, if we're gonna start new, you know, get the sort of like a MVP get the minimal viable product, minimal viable email messaging out there. Use a new template, use a new, you know, setup, and then kind of keep going over time. some extent that's what we did. So I mean, we were, I mean, our previous contract cut off January 19th. I mean, it was done, but um. Or it took us a while to get every, I mean, we were live again on the new Plan mortgage January 19th. It took us some time to get everything up [00:46:00] to parody. I'm not saying we got complete parody at January 19th. [00:46:03] We didn't, it took us some time. But we got to the point where the MDP messages, like those, you know, those tier zero messages that we absolutely had to have, they were live in the platform. So, and that's not only emails, but it's also in apps, it's pushes. I mean, we were testing all of that. [00:46:23] Darrell: Yeah. Yeah. Love that. Love that. And, um, I, I will say too, like when it, [00:46:27] 6. How Martech Tooling Forces You to Rethink Team Design --- [00:46:27] Darrell: when it comes to migrations, there's almost an opportunity to see if, like, you know, can campaigns be made better? [00:46:33] Hope: Mm-hmm. [00:46:33] Darrell: know, it's kinda like when you're moving to a new house, kinda like, Hey, do we need all this stuff? You know? And then, and then when you, when you, when you get to the new house, it's like, maybe we can put stuff in a different way that's, that's actually better. [00:46:44] So that really resonates with me. Um, how about we talk about the, like the roles and your team, like after the migration. Um, did you know after you implemented, did it change the way that you worked? Did it change people's roles? Did it. [00:47:00] Did you, you know, have to hire people, or some people maybe could change jobs because, you know, the, the, the tooling was different. [00:47:07] Tell us a little bit about that. [00:47:09] Hope: Yeah, no, I, I would say that the team, not only the members of the team, but what they did changed dramatic. So in our old platform, even though our old partner vendor had a Johnny Drop editor, we didn't use it. So we had a, we had a CRM team of essentially three people. Essentially three people. Um, one of those members left, sorry, midway through. [00:47:36] So they had essentially two members officially on the left cycle team. And, you know, they were hard conning ht ML so spent, I mean, they were very reactive. I mean, they, they did a great job considering, but I mean, their, their day was very much about, you know, I've had lots of different requests coming at me. [00:47:57] I. On these HTM l [00:48:00] emails and how do I get them out? Right. So it, it was a, that was their day Today, I would say our CRN team is probably about, I. in people. So, um, one of the, one of the people, one of the members, one of those two members is now leading the team. So she was promoted, she's now director, she's leading the team. We have a senior analyst on the team helping with campaign data, which we didn't have previously. We have someone who's working on various flows, testing ai, thinking about new ways that we can engage our users. We have other people who are, we have another person who. Is, you know, with that campaign management, working with other folks We talked about how it's really a product, you know, getting all those things in. So we, we have, the team is really, I don't wanna say balloons, because sometimes. of a negative connotation, but we, we definitely were able to [00:49:00] identify roles that are, are super helpful to what our end goal is, which is, you know, encouraging engagement, getting subscriptions. [00:49:07] We were able to identify roles that would help us do that, that we definitely didn't have before. We, before we had two people, and then when we started doing the migration, we, we did have, we did add a contractor. They were, they were coding email ht, ML and, and very again. Their day was very, very different. So. Yeah, the, the team is dramatically different. The lifecycle team itself. Yeah, for sure. [00:49:30] Phil: Super cool to hear. I, I think, like you also said it in our pre-interview chat, that like, uh, [00:49:35] 7. Warehouse Native Campaign Execution Without Losing Control --- [00:49:35] Phil: data democratization, like getting data into the hands of as much people as possible is something you're really passionate about. Post migration. This was like one of the main reasons for, for doing this, right? [00:49:46] Like [00:49:47] Hope: Mm-hmm. [00:49:47] Phil: better data and, and, and activating that and giving other folks like the tools to do that. Let's chat about like the customer data picture after the migration and now like one year into it. Um, [00:50:00] I know SoundCloud uses BigQuery as the data warehouse. What processes or guardrails do you think were helpful that you put in place that let marketers. Go a bit crazy. Run our own segmentation list and campaigns on top of BigQuery pushed into mage. Did that kind of introduce risks at first or like reduce tech debt? Curious your thoughts on that. I. [00:50:22] Hope: so something I didn't say explicitly, but when we moved on to Ngage, we, we left HTML behind and we, we now use a drag and drop editor. So when you think about that, it opens up the, the, the playing field tremendously, because now. You don't need to know HTML to be able to craft a message. So guardrails. [00:50:40] So we actually have people who are not part of Lifecycle who will go in and write messages. However, the Lifecycle team is the one who activates them. So that allows us. To have someone who knows deeply the system to be able to say, okay, yeah, this, this looks good. I'm gonna send it live. Oh, wait a minute, this audience isn't quite right. [00:50:58] Or We need to add [00:51:00] this, and they can do all of that. So that, that's essentially the guardrails that we have in place is, you know, the Dragon Doc editor truly opened it up. So now, know, knowing HTML is not a blocker, you know, anyone can use our drive dot vendor to craft an email. Um, but we still have people who. [00:51:16] Know how things are gonna work also, like what else is out there and are we gonna have, you know, are we, are we gonna have various too many things going on? Well, we, we have tho that level of expertise that is the one actually launching. So that, that's sort of what we. Done to help that piece of it? Um, I think from a, from a data perspective, I mean, I, I was looking in preparation for this, I was looking to see how many people we had in MoEngage, and we have probably, I think it was like 135 people in MoEngage. And again, SoundCloud is like 425 people. So obviously we don't have 135 people on our CRM team. These are folks coming from all over the place. So these are data engineers in there. These are people going in there to look at analytics [00:52:00] to see what's. All sorts of things, right. So, um, but again, that, that's sort of, you know, like our beginning of our conversation. We'll engage, but this whole, uh, customer engagement platform is part of the, it's a part of the product and lots of different people have interests and are stakeholders and are using it. And it, it could be all sorts of stuff. So if I think about data de democratization, yes. We feed everything into BigQuery. [00:52:25] So, and this is actually kind of interesting too. And when you think about data, yes, we have our customer engagement platform, but I also manage our performance marketing team, our marketing analytics team ideal. So. Lots of data everywhere. So something that we shifted to and, and actually Apps Flyer was the first one. [00:52:44] We went live with this approach, but we, we do the same thing with Amage. We, we use, we essentially get all of our events using server to server. So we have, uh. A forked version of like our segment code that we're using to get events. So we, we have that, it [00:53:00] feeds all our events into BigQuery and then we use, essentially we now use, we use high touch on top of BigQuery to send those events. So that that's sort of the process we're moving towards. Apps Flyer was sort of the first, because App Store, we did build some custom integrations to send our events from BigQuery out to Applier, but we're probably gonna be migrating that to High Touch that in upcoming months. But that said, I mean, everything is going to BigQuery. [00:53:26] That's our source of truth. And then we're sending it out to all the different platforms. So we're not using what the native. Integrations for SDKs, right? So we, we have the minimums, like I need to have an SDK in my app to get them all engaged user id. But all my events are coming from BigQuery and I, I know I talked about in beginning, you know, trying to use out of the box as much as possible. [00:53:48] Well, these tools allow us to do this. I mean, it's just a different way of doing an implementation. It's not super custom where like mortgage is like, yeah, you could do that, but you're crazy. It was, I mean, it was [00:54:00] something that we, we could do, but it, it also. Not that I'm trying to switch vendors, but it makes it easier because all of our data, it's kind of handled the same way and being pushed out to all of our So like apps Flyer, Moen Gage GA four sort of in the same way. So it makes life easier. [00:54:17] Darrell: Can I, can I ask a quick question? [00:54:19] 7. Building Audiences Once and Letting Them Travel to Your Stack --- [00:54:29] Darrell: Like audience, uh, selection and audience building. Um, so, so it's like the audience is in BigQuery. And then do you, like, what do marketers and, and the other 135 people that use the tool, like how do they select, like what, what tool do they use to actually select the audience for these messages? [00:54:40] Hope: So that's a great question, and when I think audiences so yes. I, I am, I'm managing our MarTech stack, but the other hat I wear on a daily basis, our performance marketing team. So audiences in both places, right? So if we're talking about MoEngage, we, we have a couple things going on. So one, we are definitely using MoEngage as some [00:55:00] segmentation capabilities [00:55:01] Darrell: Okay. [00:55:01] Hope: audiences there. [00:55:02] So we definitely do that. actually MoEngage built something called Warehouse Sentiment. We were like the. Like data development candidate for that. Um, I, I remember during our, our sales pitches, our CPO at the time was like, we don't wanna move data anywhere. And the way we first got of. To make that true was using High-Touch. [00:55:24] So Ngage actually introduced us to High-Touch. High-Touch is a reverse ETL tool. It sits on top BigQuery and the, and they Ngage already had connectors with high touch. So that, so that allowed us easily to be able to get data to Ngage that we can act on, right? So that, that was sort of the first thing. [00:55:39] But the second part of that was, and initially was called cloudy. Um, Ngage built warehouse segments, which allows us to go into the Ngage ui, you know, write SQL queries to build segments. In our big query and interact that way. So we, [00:55:54] Darrell: Mm. [00:55:54] Hope: if I thinking about segmentation for, you know, messages, we actually do it both ways. [00:55:59] [00:56:00] We either, you know, use the Moen, engage drag and drop edit, or drag a drop tool to build a segment that way. Or we will use, you know. SQL and the Bug Edge UI to build, you know, segments. That way, if I put my Performance marketer hat on, we're actually moving towards a way where we are building audiences, BigQuery itself, and then using High Touch to send it to my various endpoints. So like, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're already sending high. Audiences from BigQuery via high touch to like DV 360, uh, where I think men are there, TikTok. So my goal is I wanna, I don't wanna be building the same audience five times, right? That [00:56:37] Darrell: Hmm. [00:56:38] Hope: that just adds all sorts of room for error. messaging and MoEngaged being what it is, I, I don't wanna, I don't wanna add like artificial burden to say, well, you have to use the big query, high touch, you know. Methodology to create an audience. It just makes sense to create the audience natively and mage. So, so I think that's always gonna be the [00:57:00] case. But outside of that, I want my audiences in BigQuery. I wanna create them once, and then I wanna be able to something like High Touch to send them wherever I need them. [00:57:08] So [00:57:09] Darrell: Yep. [00:57:09] Hope: of the two different ways I'm, I'm thinking about audiences. [00:57:12] Phil: It's so cool to hear hope like. Yeah. We are working with Mo, engage on like figuring out what's gonna be the ad on the podcast. And right around the time where we were doing that, they had just announced the warehouse native stuff and. We talk a lot about Daryl and I warehouse, native Tech. Like we're really deep into that space and I was like, I think our audience is gonna be really curious to hear that the new features you're rolling out, you're kinda calling the customer engagement platform warehouse native. [00:57:37] You're sitting on top of the warehouse and so I feel like we could have done a whole podcast on, on just customer data and the whole landscape shifting with reverse ETL tools there. But [00:57:46] Hope: Yeah. [00:57:46] Phil: has been such a fun conversation. It's, it's flown by. Really appreciate you sitting down with us. [00:57:50] 8. Doing Work You Actually Enjoy Without Burning Out --- [00:57:50] Phil: We got. One last question for you. You're a team leader, director of product management, but you're also a frequent speaker. You're an avid reader and a news junkie, like you said a few times. Um, one question we ask everyone on the show is, how do you remain happy and successful in your career, and how do you find balance between all the things you're working on while staying happy? [00:58:11] Hope: So I, I really enjoy what I do. I mean, and I've been at companies where I couldn't have said the same. Right. So I, I've been places where maybe the compensation was great that, you know, yeah. I don't like to be micromanaged. Yeah. Being micromanaged every day. I. Like, Hey, I got my MD outta that. So there could be other reasons, but was I happy? [00:58:31] No, not really. Uh, here, I, I truly enjoy what I do. I enjoy the different. You know, experiences I get, I mean it at heart. I, I, I mentioned that in the information junk. also call myself a generalist. Sometimes my manager corrects me and says, I'm a fixer, and I ca I'll take either one. But, you know, I, I like seeing how, I, like knowing a lot of different things about different areas. [00:58:54] I like seeing that it come together and I'm able to do that here at SoundCloud. So that makes [00:59:00] me happy. It's not, it's not necessarily a workaholic or anything like that. But I just enjoy like the tech, like what is happening today? You know? Oh, what is Google doing today? Like my performance marketing hat on that. [00:59:12] That's a big one, right? You know, how do I get, how do I get the most I possibly can out of whatever DSP and this will be doing inside platform DSP, then I'm inter and music, right? So those are all things that. I enjoy and that makes me happy. So, um, I do have really good, I think, work back life balance, although sometimes, as I mentioned earlier, I stay way too late reading. But, you know, other than that, you know, I, I, I just, I, I, I find, I guess I, I find enjoyment slash happiness in like my day to day. And that again, hasn't always been the case for me. I, I've been there be, I've been in those situations and now my situation now obviously much preferable. [00:59:51] Phil: Very cool. What are you reading right now, or what's something you read recently that you loved? [00:59:55] Hope: So I, I read a lot of, I, I'd probably say junk fiction. I mean, like [01:00:00] people watch random movies. I read random books. So that's what I, what I, what I do. But, um, like. Authors. So I, I'm reading some, I'm starting a book right now. Arian Keys, and this is probably like a contemporary, well contemporary, but it's actually, it was written in 1996, contemporary Romance, um, all sorts of stuff. [01:00:22] I, I do not read non fiction. I, I'm not gonna be, I'm read the classics. That's not me. I'm usually reading trashy fiction, but again, it's, it's what I enjoy. So yeah. [01:00:32] Phil: Love it. Awesome. Pop. Thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate you sitting down with us. [01:00:37] Hope: thank you for having me. This is great. [01:00:38] ​ [01:00:38] ​ [01:00:43] ​ [01:01:30] ​