Interview with John Jarosz & Coleman Collins on building ecosystems at GOTO Chicago 2014

Hi, it’s Mike with UGtastic. I’m here at GOTO Conf 2014. I ‘m sitting here with John and Coleman who gave a talk on building an ecosystem. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me. Can you tell me a little bit about what your talk was and what does it mean to build an ecosystem? Sure. Well, we focused on building a program of different products that made this grocery and restaurant store really get off the ground in a short amount of time. And so that meant a collection of bespoke built software and products for that need, but also purchasing things off the shelf, tweaking them and customizing them for the client. And then we also built the services that stitch all of those together. So was that like a live coding thing or were you mostly walking through? So yeah, it was a series of stories. The different products that we built and different challenges we faced with kind of the general theme that we didn’t need to have all the problems figured out up front. What we had was a good process and that helped us figure out the problems as they arose. So that spanned all the way from technical to experience side problems. Yeah. So part of our talk was how we switched between agile and lean principles as we needed to, to accomplish those different goals. Okay. And, you know, the word ecosystem, and this is kind of a theme we’ve, have very loaded terminology in this conference. I’ve noticed that is that ecosystem can mean a lot of different things. What do you mean by ecosystem? Oh, that’s a tough question. I think I see it. And I think we both will have answers to this. I see it very much almost as a living, breathing program. Like I think why it, why it means ecosystem to me is because if we have an established program and we add something to it, it doesn’t mean that we’re going to have a solution. It doesn’t become as simple as making another product or tool. What you have to do then is tweak something in every other element to best integrate that and make it all flow together. And because all of these things become intertwined and dependent on each other, and, and because they change as a whole rather than an individual, that’s why it means ecosystem to me. Yeah, it, it really, the distinction is that iter ative doesn’t mean piecemeal, right? So we need to change something in one product. Often that would have ripples and we had a lot of different products to ultimately serve this large restaurant space, as well as a lot of operational needs on the, on the client backend. So when we changed one product, for example, the quick payment app that we met made, what that meant is we also needed to change things about the physical space. We needed to change things about the way our web services consume that information. And that’s why it’s an ecosystem, not just a collection of products. Right. So, so this isn’t simply just a matter of, oh, I need a blog, bring in WordPress. It’s more of what, what is it that this, this company is trying to do with this specific product? What’s our end need and which services can we just pull in or do we have to create? Like, how do you decide whether to go with the create versus build versus buy? Well, I think, you know, uh, one of the key components to that was we had a really strong strategy and product management team. Um, and everyone participated in that. So it was certainly led by people with experience in that field. Um, but we were all integrated into those choices. And so we made really intentional calls when we would. So for example, we bought the POS system, um, we licensed revel and customized it for our client as an iPad point of sale system. Yeah. Um, and then, but we did build those services from scratch and we built, uh, the market pass app from scratch, um, which works with rebel. And so we really also put those together and made them play off of each other. So there’s a lot more of, it’s more glue than that’s, that’s the bespoke code or I think you have to build the glue as well. So it’s like, it’s not like doing just WordPress. Yeah. It’s like, you also have to build the browser, right? Okay. So it can be, it really depends on, um, what the need of that specific customer. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And the, the value of building the glue to extend that metaphor is that when we realize that there is something that we can ‘t buy that we need to really kind of complete an experience or complete a specific flow, we can then build that and know that we’ll integrate well. So, and I think, uh, something that might make this context a bit clearer is that we were building these series of products for a physical space. So you can even technically think of them just like real objects, right? Because it was for a restaurant grocery hybrid, all of these things actually went somewhere and were picked up in touch by people weren’t necessarily invisible. Well, so this even, it, it led to decisions about who might be doing your, your supply for groceries and things like that. Not just, not just which software do you use for the point of sale or for the menu online system, but actually how do you get the materials to cook the food to send to, you know, to serve your customers. We realized, um, towards the end of the program that, uh, we had the customers as a user base, but we also have the associates, the people who are actually working there as a user base. And we ended up spinning up an entire another stream of work around training and self-service tools to let the. Associates do the best that they could to best serve the customers, right? Because the whole goal was to use technology to empower a great customer experience. And sometimes that meant just empowering other humans to help with that. Right. And, uh, so this sounds like it’s a lot more like a few years ago then like Yahoo pipes. And there ‘s, if then this, if this, then that’s kind of in interactions between different services and APIs, this is a lot further beyond that. And it goes into more of the depth of actually building. I’m going to have to edit that one out because I can’t even think. Building a store. Building a store. I mean, it’s building a store. Building a physical place that is integrated with technology. This is going beyond just, oh, I have a website, and I’m going to maybe do some dropshipping. And it’s how that website affects what’s going on in the store, how those apps affect what’s going on in the store. Is there anything that, you know, when you came out of this product and you’re now looking back and you’re going to write this presentation, what were some of the highlight things that were kind of really surprised you or you learned and that you wanted to share in this presentation? Like, was there one thing in particular that… Oh, that’s a hard question. I’ll give you two things. Well, you do one, I’ll do one. Okay. I think one of my favorite things is that we released the Rich Tree app, which is currently in the iOS and Android store. We also released an actual plastic card version of this app . What I’m quite proud of is that we created both a very accessible version, which is free, and anyone can pick up. And this wooden card will act as your loyalty card. Requires no technology. Right. So we don’t always need to use tech to solve problems, but we were able to create a super accessible and free item, which contained our core value proposition without eroding the value that the mobile app created. The mobile app allows you to do things in more real time. It also allows you to pay. Okay. And also… It also uses the core feature of loyalty. So we didn’t have to compromise on the value of either of those, and we’re able to basically create something for the super connected user and leverage that tech to have a stronger store experience. But we didn’t compromise on the core value prop by having a very accessible and free wooden card that you can come in and take. So it sounds like you recognize that maybe the be-all, end- all isn’t to force technology onto people. Absolutely. It’s just a dress that sometimes people just like. You have a thing. You could be as exact as, you know, we realized not everyone had an unlimited data plan. Right. Like, we just realized things would go wrong, and you shouldn’t be forced to have to do all these things to access some of our great tech. Great. And you were going to say… Oh, yeah. So mine actually was the… We built an app, an iPad app, that was all of our menus for the restaurant that was for the bar. So the restaurant is generally basically a food court where all of the stations, or in fact, owned by the same restaurant, except for the bar, which is a full-service bar, table service, everything else. And they can also order from any of the other stations. And we became so well-known, essentially, for being pivot- friendly in the way that we were doing things, that they came to us 10 hours before store launch, like store first opening, and said, we need a menu for the bar. And we were able to, because of the way we had built everything, because of the way that we were considering the entire experience, and knew that we were… going to be wrong and going to be learning up until opening day, that it was kind of a ridiculous request, but it was actually doable. We managed to, because we could just consume the same web services, because we could use the same exact styling that was used in the menu boards and elsewhere with a few tweaks, we were able to actually get this thing out the door, which was not only kind of put the cherry on top of this holistic user experience, that used technology not as kind of your flashbang. We were in an Apple store. We weren’t selling technology. We were selling food. We were selling good customer service. And that was kind of one of the last things that really felt good in kind of, we are actually empowering our customers to really have a great time here, to enjoy the food, not to look at the app, but to know what food they can buy, quite literally. And I have to even wonder if that ability to deliver such a time-sensitive solution helped build more trust from your direct clients, and know that… Absolutely. It’s part of how we got the request in the initial spot. I mean, we had to really earn the right to be their tech partner. We didn’t walk in. It wasn’t based strictly on our brand. They didn’t come in and ask us to just take charge of all of these things. We earned it over time. And the Lean and Agile process helped us to really do that, because we were able to make changes based on their changing business needs, because they had a six-month deadline. This store was going to open whether our tech was ready or not. Yeah. We had to hit that construction deadline, and they didn’t have everything figured out. And so, they needed a group like us that could change over time, where they didn’t have to present us with all of the answers to get started. Great. And just to close, you said that there is an app on the iOS store that people can go and check out to kind of see what… Yeah. Yeah. If you search Rich Tree, R-I-C-H-T-R-E-E, it’ll come up. Unfortunately, if you don’t live in Toronto, it’ll be pretty much useless. But like I said, the technology is in service of the customer experience, which means if you’re not in the store, the app, which I can actually show you, the app, which looks like that… Sure. I’ll hold it up. Yeah. It’s a… So, it’s a quick pay barcode. A QR code there. Exactly. Yeah. Which means that if I’m not in the store, this app is basically useless. Right. Which is the point. We didn’t make an app that you could play with, because we ‘re not… This company doesn’t sell apps. They sell food. Okay. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me. It was really interesting. Great. Thanks so much. Thanks. User groups with lots to say. Interviews and more. No way. Sharing great ideas in the tech community. Fascinating conversations. A plethora of information. Find out for yourself today at ucdastic.com. ♪ ♪