In this episode of "Tame the Mobile Beast," host Tom Butta interviews Michael Yamartino, CEO of Route, about the global challenge of lost packages and Route's innovative solution.
In this episode of "Tame the Mobile Beast," host Tom Butta interviews Michael Yamartino, CEO of Route, about the global challenge of lost packages and Route's innovative solution.
Route, founded in 2019, has quickly become the leading package tracker for online orders, offering a seamless post-purchase experience through its app and web platform. The company has made significant strides, protecting over $15B in merchandise, saving brands more than $100M in refunds and reorders, and tracking hundreds of millions of packages.
Michael discusses the pain points faced by both shoppers and brands, highlighting Route's app that combines package tracking and protection. The conversation explores Route's unique approach and customer-centric principles, with Michael emphasizing the team's commitment to frictionless interactions, from rapid response times to maintaining high customer satisfaction rates.
For those interested in e-commerce innovation and customer experience, this episode offers valuable insights into how Route is addressing critical industry challenges while prioritizing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
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Guest Quote
“ We really want to deliver the best post purchase experiences possible for the best brands in the world. And so that will come with solving some of the challenges around things like returns, customer loyalty, and identity. There's a whole host of issues that are near and dear to our brand's hearts. And we want to be the best partner for them to solve all those issues.” – Michael Yamartino
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Time Stamps
00:37 Introduction of Michael Yamartino
01:24 The Lost Package Beast
02:48 Route's Solution and App Features
07:46 Scaling Operations and Company Principles
13:54 Future Plans and Sustainability Efforts
18:53 Fundraising and Business Growth
23:46 Rapid Fire Questions
29:12 Closing Remarks
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Links
[00:00:00] Michael Yamartino: It's a global problem. It's an enormous problem. We're talking about trillions of dollars that are spent online. And it's a pretty universal problem. Everybody shops online and everyone has, at one point or another, an issue. And every brand struggles with delivering these experiences that meet customers expectations.
[00:00:18] We expect a lot now as shoppers.
[00:00:21] Voiceover: Welcome to Tame the Mobile Beast. Just everything you need to capture customer value. Here's your host, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Airship, Tom Butta..
[00:00:37] Tom Butta: Welcome to another episode of Tame the Mobile Beast. I'm your host, Tom Butta, and today we are joined by Michael Yamartino, CEO of Route. Michael, thanks for joining us today. Nice to be here, Tom. Thanks for having me. Before we talk about you and, and Route, I want to kick off a conversation that is something new for this podcast.
[00:00:57] And what we want to do is to dive into the problems that, like the big problems that, that need to get solved, you know, in life. That's how many businesses get started. And I think yours is actually one of them. We often refer to these big problems as, you know, that's a beast. So, it seems to me that the problem that you all started out your business to solve is one we all experience and it becomes quite emotional.
[00:01:24] It's the idea of a lost package. Is that true?
[00:01:28] Michael Yamartino: Exactly. Yes. That's one of the problems that is near and dear to our hearts, our merchants hearts, and our customers as well.
[00:01:35] Tom Butta: Yeah, I mean, look, we've all had the experience of both, you know, sending a package and waiting to receive a package and, and somehow it gets lost and it's always lost at the worst time and for the worst possible reason.
[00:01:48] We don't have a lot of information, we get very frustrated, it becomes very, very emotional. And it affects everybody in the entire ecosystem, right? And it becomes, becomes a big deal, which is why we call it, you know, it's a beast of a problem. So how, how have you all gone about solving that?
[00:02:05] Michael Yamartino: Yeah, well, it's actually certainly something that I've experienced.
[00:02:08] I've been at Route about four years and my first week when I started at Route, I also moved into a new house. And, you know, like a lot of people, uh, when you move into a new place, you've got a lot of stuff to buy. And I ordered lots and lots and lots of things. And so my first few days, I traveled down to our LA office and I live up in Portland and four or five different things arrived.
[00:02:28] And by the time I got home from that trip, they weren't there anymore. And so I had to deal with having all of these things as I'm setting up a, you know, a new house and starting a new job. You know, then I had to, I had to figure out how to get them back. And so, you know, I talked to, to Amazon and a lot of the merchants calling EPS and trying to do everything that I could to, to figure out what, what had happened.
[00:02:48] And of course they'd been stolen from my porch, but you know, one of the things that Route really does is help people who are, are in that position. And so we have an app that anyone can download that you can connect your email and your Amazon account to. And then we track everything in, in one place. So.
[00:03:04] We've tracked orders from millions of merchants and millions of customers. And so what we do is we give you the real time information about where your, where your package is, when to expect it, where it's at, if it's been delayed, and so on. And also, if something has gone wrong, we also have a product that will allow you to, um, resolve that issue.
[00:03:20] So, call that package protection. And so we offer that with about 13, 000 merchants that we, that we partner with. That allows you to get instant resolution. So if something goes wrong, it is lost, damaged, or stolen, We're out, we'll make it right. We'll, we'll give you your money back or we'll reorder it and set it out right away to you in a way that's, it's really convenient so that when you have those moments and you're in the, you're, you're, you're being attacked by the, the beast, as you say, we've got a solution.
[00:03:44] It's really easy. Um, you don't have to go to a bunch of different places to get, get this issue resolved. Route's just got it handled for you.
[00:03:51] Tom Butta: Well, I love that line, Route will make it right. Wow, what a great promise. That's something I think that every consumer, frankly, every merchant, everybody involved, um, if you can help manage an experience by actually helping to make it right, if, if, anticipating there may be a problem, we hope there's no problem, but if there is a problem, we'll make it right.
[00:04:11] That's an amazing experience to create.
[00:04:13] Michael Yamartino: Yeah, and customers have grown to expect that from brands. You've got great companies like Amazon that have invested billions of dollars over the last 25 30 years in making these great experiences for shoppers. Not every brand has that investment, has made that over time.
[00:04:29] And so, um, so we step in and try to help those brands offer those kinds of experiences so their customers, their expectations can be met. And do that without having to wait a decade or two, or find a few billion dollars to invest, so we step in to help there.
[00:04:43] Tom Butta: So just to help people understand, so it's an app, it's called Route, it's available in all the app stores.
[00:04:50] But are you, like, are you prevalent in terms of, like, this, uh, I don't know, package protection feature is, is enabled by Route, or is it, are you private labeled? How does that, how is it working?
[00:05:02] Michael Yamartino: Yeah, so you can, you can download the app. We've got iOS and Android app. Uh, we're typically in the, you know, the top 20, 30 apps in the store.
[00:05:09] Um, and so Well, that,
[00:05:11] Tom Butta: you
[00:05:11] Michael Yamartino: can't
[00:05:11] Tom Butta: just toss that out there. We're typically top 20 or 30. I mean, that's really hard to do because these algorithms change every day. Yeah, I mean, we We do app store optimization as part of what we do in helping companies, and it's a really hard thing to do. So congratulations if that's the case, well.
[00:05:25] Michael Yamartino: Yeah, it is. I mean, and it speaks to how broad the problem is. Just about everybody shops online, and just about everybody has the same questions about those orders. Where is it? When is it getting here? Is there a problem? And, you know, if there is a problem, how do I get help? And so, um, so we try to bring all of that across every merchant into, into one place.
[00:05:42] And then we also work directly with merchants. So if you're a brand and you have. challenges with delivering a post purchase experience. So most brands are really great at developing a product, designing the product and, and marketing it to their customers. But the back half of that experience is a little bit more of a mystery.
[00:05:59] And it's, it's not typically why they've gone into business. So figuring out how to communicate with your customer about order issues, um, resolve those issues, um, integrate with all of the, the logistics partners to, to provide a consistent experience for your customers. That's not their specialty and that is our specialty.
[00:06:16] So, so we step in and help, um, help them deliver that. And so we've got thousands of brands where they offer it. And typically they'd call it route, uh, shipping protection, uh, rather than white labeling it. So you go to brands like, uh, like Solo Stove or Cotopaxi, you'll see our, um, our product on their, on their site.
[00:06:35] Tom Butta: That's great. Were you the first one to take on this, because you talk about it, this very broad problem, were you the first one to take it on?
[00:06:43] Michael Yamartino: Yeah, so the RUT was founded five years ago by Evan Walker and Mike Moreno, and they were really the first to say there should be a consumer experience around resolving these order issues and package protection.
[00:06:54] And so, came to market at a really opportune time. Uh, really 2019, just before COVID. Uh, and so we're really able to take advantage of lots and lots of businesses. Having to really lean into and deliver a great e commerce experience when everybody was stuck at home, all of those businesses saw explosive growth.
[00:07:13] And so, so we helped a lot of those brands deliver on those promises to their customers. Um, there's also a time when there were lots and lots of logistics problems, right? All of the carrier networks were overloaded, more, more packages than ever. And. There were all of the other challenges of dealing with COVID, and so order issues were also at a all time high.
[00:07:31] So Route stepped in, and we were able to really innovate in this space, and so I think they did a great job of establishing this, uh, and really being first to deliver this, this premium experience in the, in the post purchase space.
[00:07:43] Tom Butta: That's fantastic, and obviously your timing was impeccable. But, you know, the thing that's running through my head is, so it's great that you have, you have this Last mile solution, right?
[00:07:54] That solves these really, you know, taxing, you know, beast like problems. But given like what happened with COVID and all of this demand suddenly in front of you, I mean, how did, how did you figure out how to scale your operations? What's the secret here?
[00:08:11] Michael Yamartino: Well, the early team was, was really great. I, and I give credit to the, the, the founders here.
[00:08:15] They were able to find people who were really excited about the mission, but You know, operated at scale before. And so, you know, the company was started in, um, in Utah. And so there were a lot of early execs from a company called Qualtrics that had also, um, scaled really, really quickly. And, and so we were able to sort of bring in some of those best practices.
[00:08:34] But at the end of the day, scale always comes from having people work really hard, um, be really focused and be, being really resilient. So the, you know, the team did just an awesome job of, of staying on top of it. And it's really exciting when you see every day new brands that you shop at joining the, joining the product and.
[00:08:51] Um, you see the feedback that, that we're getting from, from people. It's really energizing to, to see that. So that helps you get over all of the chaos that comes with scaling really quickly.
[00:09:00] Tom Butta: There's got to be some fundamentals, you know, some principles that your founders and now you, you know, have used to, to build and grow the business and to provide a service that, you know, there's a lot on the line, right?
[00:09:13] And so can you talk about some of those, those principles that enabled you to, you know, take advantage of this opportunity? First of all, see it. Take advantage of it, and then, you know, as you were saying, scale in ways that now it continues to grow. Yeah,
[00:09:28] Michael Yamartino: I mean, we do have a number of principles, you know, sort of our company core values.
[00:09:32] The first of those is start with customers. Um, this is, you know, common in a lot of tech companies. It's so important in a business like ours. We're not only are we working with brands, we're also working with their customers. And so we always have to do what's right for that end customer, because hopefully that's what the brand wants too.
[00:09:49] It's still true that the customer is always right. So we, we really want to start with that customer and work backwards from there to deliver a good experience. And for us, that's not just software. We do have a great software platform, but it's also service because we, we directly talk to the customers, it's policies because we're an insurance producer as well.
[00:10:07] So there's a lot of places where that really influences what we do. Um, and it helps you solve the problems that matter most to the people that you're, that you're serving. So that's really, really key. The other one that I would say that we've really embraced over the last year or so is over delivering.
[00:10:22] Our products are all about that delivery experience and making sure that, that customers have, have confidence that, that they're going to get what they want. And if not, they'll, they've got a convenient way to resolve it. And we really want to. Overdeliver on their expectations on what they need and, and, and really, you know, delight them in creating a great experience.
[00:10:41] And so we try to do that in, in, in everything that we do too, not just in, in what we do for our products, but also how we treat each other as a, as a team, as a company.
[00:10:50] Tom Butta: How do you know, like, how do you know what overdelivering means? Because the bar keeps going up, the more you experience something really good, some facility, some company that makes it right.
[00:11:01] Now the bar, bar just went up, like for every, every other experience that you have. And I'm sure that that's related to your business as well. So how do you, how do you continue to make it right when the bar keeps moving up?
[00:11:11] Michael Yamartino: Yeah, it's, it's hard. And you know, you have to find the, you get, both get creative about new directions that you could take that, that, that kind of experience, but also be meticulous about how you measure the quality of an experience.
[00:11:24] How do you measure the quality of the experience? We look at things like our response time. You know, we want to make sure that 24 seven, we can get back to our customers. And so we make sure that we can, as often as possible, get, get back to customers in minutes rather than hours or days. And, you know, um, A lot of folks look at customer satisfaction as a measure as well.
[00:11:45] We do too for insurance companies, typically pretty low. And, and there's a portion of our business that is, is about insurance. Um, for us, that's 97, 98%, um, customer satisfaction. Wow. So, we make sure that when, when they come to us, it's a premium experience. We're not in the business of trying to give people the runaround or, or deny claims.
[00:12:04] If you have a, um, a legitimate issue, we're going to resolve it as, as quickly as we can and, and with a friendly face.
[00:12:10] Tom Butta: Did you have experience in businesses like this that, you know, that are providing a, a highly scalable, delightful experience, uh, in this pretty complex, you know, ecosystem? Yeah. Have you had experience?
[00:12:21] I mean, what brought you to this company to run it as CEO and take over, like, what sounds like some really great founders that, like, were really onto something?
[00:12:31] Michael Yamartino: Yeah, most of my experience is in product management and tech companies. So I've worked in product strategy at Microsoft and I worked at Pinterest really early as a product leader there doing a variety of things.
[00:12:43] And so one of the things that I worked on there was an e commerce platform and integrations as well as the The AI recommendations around that to make sure that, that's so product ads could work really well on that platform. And so when I met the founders at REP, a lot of what we want to do long term relates to using all of the information that we, that we have and the customer engagement that we have to build really great products.
[00:13:07] Discovery experiences. And so that's more of my DNA, but it's been really fun to get more involved with, um, how these businesses are operating, the actual customer experience, uh, sometimes technology can be very abstract and very theoretical. And we're talking about moving, moving real things around that matter to people.
[00:13:26] You know, these are gifts. These are things people need for specific events. There are neat things that, that people, um, need in their lives. Um, we want to make sure that they get them and, um, they, they have a great experience.
[00:13:36] Tom Butta: Yeah, so given your experience and understanding the value of all of this information, all this data as you point.
[00:13:46] I've got to believe that there's, there's more to this in terms of like you, the development of the company, you know, oh, there, is there another big problem? There's another beast to tame that you're, that you got your eyes on that you can talk about?
[00:13:59] Michael Yamartino: Yeah, I mean, I think we, we really see ourselves with brands, helping them with that entire post purchase experience.
[00:14:04] And there's a lot that goes into that. From returns, to customer loyalty, to identity management, to dealing with fraud, to the issues that we do today around, around tracking the packages and dealing with order issues for customers. And so just to pause on that, there's, there's, there's a lot of additional areas where we can help brands deliver on those experiences economically better than they could on their own and better because of the other brands that are on our, uh, on our network.
[00:14:32] For customers, we really want the route app to be the one place that you ever have to go to manage any of your online purchases. So, everything that you order can live there. Right now, we track packages better than anybody, so you can, you can see in real time where the order is. And you can, especially if you've had, uh, you've got protection from one of our partners, you can resolve issues there.
[00:14:52] Over time, we want to make that much more useful and allow people to, to, to manage those, those deliveries. You could schedule it, you could You could add delivery instructions, you could start a return, manage a return, uh, reorder items, things like that to really make this, um, uh, sort of a universal shopping utility for, for folks.
[00:15:11] I know for, for people who shop a lot online, you spend a lot of time digging through your inbox, looking at emails from a lot of different merchants and there's a better way to, to manage all of that. So that's what we're working on. So it becomes kind of a marketplace. Well, I think first and foremost, it's a, it's a utility.
[00:15:28] It's, it's supposed to be useful for, for the, um, for, for the shopper. So that's the fundamental value as a utility, right? Yeah, exactly. And yes, over time, I think as we, as, uh, as we have more and more merchants on the platform, we've got customers on the, on the platform as well. There will be opportunities to.
[00:15:45] Uh, to sell things, of course, but you earn the right to do that by offering something that is really, really useful that people want to use with every single purchase and driving more, more value back to the merchants as well. They get happier customers, they get simpler operations. They get fewer concerns and questions from the customers because they already know the answer.
[00:16:03] Yeah.
[00:16:04] Tom Butta: You know, sending packages around, around the world involves, uh, there's a lot to it. And there's, you know, when you think about this idea of carbon neutral and all of that, I mean, how does that factor in? And, and, and, you know, and then, and then people have, they have, you know, they have these sort of personal beliefs and things that matter to them, um, in terms of the brands they want to associate with, right?
[00:16:28] Is that something that you all are? Investigating. Yeah,
[00:16:31] Michael Yamartino: absolutely. So now for the past couple of years, what we've done is we've made it possible for anyone who's protecting an order using RAP or in some cases the brands will choose to protect it to, to, Um, offset the carbon of every single order that they place.
[00:16:45] But we're able to calculate the carbon emissions of a, of a shipment. We know the item, how much it weighs, how much, how it's being shipped. We know where it's being shipped from and to. And so from that, we're able to calculate exactly how much. Carbon is being put into the atmosphere by moving that item, uh, across the world.
[00:17:04] So we give the customers the ability to offset that carbon. So we buy carbon credits from really, really high quality projects around the world, and we also do that for brands who choose to do that. And so, like you said, it, it solves problems for, for both parties here. If a, if a brand has a sustainability mission, But they don't yet know exactly how to achieve it, or this, there's this part that's a little bit more difficult for them to solve.
[00:17:27] We can solve that really easily. It's, it's, it's native into the, the route integration. There's, there's no additional work needed to, to make that work. And we can offset the carbon of that. And same for customers. If they want to choose to, to offset the carbon of, of their purchases, they can do that using our products as well.
[00:17:43] And so it's a really nice way to make sure that the act of shopping online doesn't have any more Environmental impact than the shopping in a store.
[00:17:51] Tom Butta: Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, you know, congratulations. I'm really, really impressed with what you all have developed and, and the way you've gone about it and, and what your focal points are and, you know, what matters most and, and it's with these kinds of ingredients that I think you actually can feel the confidence coming from an organization like Route that they will actually make it right.
[00:18:15] You know, cause we know things will happen. We're, we're here to help, help, help make it right for you.
[00:18:21] Michael Yamartino: Whoever it is, right?
[00:18:22] Tom Butta: Yeah.
[00:18:23] Michael Yamartino: It's, it's one of the differences between doing something that is pure software and something that integrates with the real world, you can't control everything. So there are, there are things that are going to happen.
[00:18:33] And so that's, that's why it's our job to help make those things right for customers.
[00:18:37] Tom Butta: That's great. That's great. Are there other, are there anything else you might be able to tell us in terms of like how you think about where this could go as a business, things that you're thinking about or experimenting?
[00:18:50] With whatever they may be.
[00:18:52] Michael Yamartino: Yeah. We recently announced, uh, we closed a round of fundraising or Series C. And so with that, you know, we're really planning to invest in being able to achieve this mission. We really want to deliver the best post purchase experiences possible for the best brands in the world.
[00:19:06] And so that will come with, with solving some of the challenges that I, that I discussed around, um, things like returns, um, things like customer loyalty and identity, there's a whole host of issues that are near and dear to our brand's hearts. And we want to be the best partner for them to
[00:19:21] Tom Butta: solve all those issues.
[00:19:23] So it's just going to help you put more resources against solving those, those, those problems, because it is, as you point, it's a very broad problem.
[00:19:30] Michael Yamartino: Yes. Yeah. It's a global problem. It's an enormous problem. We were talking about trillions of dollars that are spent online, and it's a pretty universal problem.
[00:19:38] Everybody shops online and everyone has a problem. At one point or another, an issue. And every brand struggles with delivering these experiences that meet customers expectations. We expect a lot now as shoppers.
[00:19:50] Tom Butta: Well, you know what's interesting? I've been talking about customer experience for quite a while now.
[00:19:55] And, you know, I think it was over 10 years ago when we first really started talking about customers. Experience actually is the new brand. What is it Maya Angelou said? You know, people don't remember what you said or they don't remember what you did, but they always remember how you made them feel. And we are now experiencing so many different things from brand interactions that have created an emotion.
[00:20:19] And there's nothing more emotional than this, this unfortunate, but often common incident of a lost package. And that post purchase experience that enables you to. I dunno, have a little bit more comfort. You talk about delight. I mean, if you, you get to delight in, in, in solving this, it it's what you do in those difficult times that actually defines who the brands, you know are, and you're helping so many of them, you know, deal with this very emotional issue.
[00:20:51] Michael Yamartino: Yeah, that's exactly right. And it, it doesn't need to happen often. So for example, you know, with the, with something happening with a, with a package that might only happen a few percent of the time. But those are such negative experiences that if you don't handle them well, they can be really damaging to your brand.
[00:21:07] And if you do handle them well, you look like a hero and it becomes a brand building moment. And so you're exactly right. That's what we're trying to enable brands to do.
[00:21:15] Tom Butta: That's great. So as a, as a, as the, as the CEO of the business, what are the areas that you're, you're focused on, uh, in terms of, you know, taking your prior experiences and applying it?
[00:21:26] Now to a company that's, you know, just raised a bunch of money and just taking on this massive problem.
[00:21:31] Michael Yamartino: I spent a lot of time with customers, spent a lot of time with the team that's building, building the product. And until recently spent a fair bit of time fundraising. Um, it's nice to have that item off the list for the time being.
[00:21:43] And I think I learned the most from spending time with customers that they're either prospects that folks that we're hoping to work with or existing customers. So I try to spend, do a lot of that every week. And then spend time with the team, thinking about the future, thinking about what are the experiences that we want to deliver next and how do we make sure that those are all really high quality?
[00:22:01] So my background is in, is in product and, uh, it's, it's hard for me to stay up.
[00:22:08] Tom Butta: Here he comes again, right? No, no, no, no, but I mean that, I mean, it's all about the product, right? You're transcending the product to create an experience. And that's when the stuff kind of goes away somehow, because you've solved, you've, you've just figured out how to solve for it.
[00:22:23] And that's magic. Like, so that's, that's, it's really, it's really wonderful. Sounds like you're the right person in the right time, you know, for the business. Is there anything you want to. Say here about the fundraise.
[00:22:35] Michael Yamartino: Um, you know, we announced that we were a series C, a 1. 4 billion valuation from existing investors.
[00:22:42] They really wanted to support the business. So we got another 40 million of capital to go do that. What's really great about that from, from my perspective is a couple of years ago, you saw lots and lots of fundraising announcements. Right now, if you, if you take the AI fundraising announcements out, there's really not that much going on.
[00:22:58] So, I'm really happy to be able to have, to have done that and gotten the support that we need and given how the fundraising environment has changed and the fact that we're focused on this fundamental real world problem that brands have without AI in our name.
[00:23:10] Tom Butta: That's great. Well, congratulations on that.
[00:23:12] I've been involved in a lot of fun, you know, companies have raised, you know, a lot, a lot of money and even in the good times, it was hard. And, and as you point out, it's a challenging time and obviously the businesses. You know, it's, it's built to solve this big problem and people see the value in it. And that's why they're putting their money up and that's great.
[00:23:30] So congratulations. Thank you. So this has been a great conversation. I'm really happy both as a professional, but also, you know, as a consumer, knowing that, you know, that route exists and, and frankly, that you're leading it. It sounds like there's, there's many more good things to come. So we're going to close in here on the last part of the podcast where we, we ask guests to answer a round of kind of rapid, rapid fire questions.
[00:23:55] Are you ready? Ready. I don't think you'll be phased by any of this. So more broadly, you know, is there another kind of big problem or, you know, another one of these sort of beasts, if you will, that you think needs, needs to be tamed? Something that's pretty large at this point that isn't settlement, it doesn't have to necessarily relate to your business.
[00:24:15] It could, it's up to you. I
[00:24:17] Michael Yamartino: spent a lot of time thinking about this, this space. So it'll probably be in the e commerce space. I think the two that I hear the most are one is from brands, which is. It's gotten so expensive to acquire a customer, to get that first sale, that there's not that much money left to deliver the experience.
[00:24:35] And so it's so important to, to find a way to do that economically and to keep those customers around a whole lot longer. And so for them, the, you know, the beast is, How do we make the most of the customers that we've, we've so painstakingly gotten to, to, you know, to, to buy that, that product for the first time.
[00:24:54] And that's the, I mean, that's, that's an internal problem. That's going to be really hard, but it seems to have gotten quite a bit harder in the last few years. The advertising markets are a lot more competitive. Cost requires has gone up and, and the expectations have certainly not gone down. So that's tough for, for, for brands.
[00:25:10] For customers, the, the, the biggest challenge is still product discovery. Finding the thing that you want is really, really hard. You know, I spent a lot of time working on this at, um, at, at Pinterest. Lots of folks have it at Amazon, Google, and other companies. Really smart minds have been put at this task of figuring out how to take the billions of products that are out in the world and make them make sense to you.
[00:25:32] These are the things that you need right now for your tastes, uh, for your preferences, for your needs right now. And so I think there's still a solution out there that someone hasn't invented yet, that's going to make that awesome. But today doesn't exist.
[00:25:45] Tom Butta: I love how you think about the experience. And, and I mean, we do, we do a lot of work with a lot of brands and there's a lot of money that goes into getting people to download their app as an example.
[00:25:56] And, and unfortunately there's perhaps not as much work that's going into kind of life after download and how you drive engagement, how you actually, how you You know, personalized experiences in a relevant way, how you, how you receive information and then, and then provide information that is of value in a, in this very mutually rewarding kind of way.
[00:26:20] I mean, on and on and on. It's, um, super important because coming out the other end, as you point out, you know, there's like huge value in a really happy customer, right? And everybody's ultimately trying to get there, but all these steps along the way are really important. But so much attention is being paid into like, get more, get more, get more.
[00:26:38] But you know, what happens next is like, really, really important. Um, beyond Route, um, is there A non utility mobile app that you can't live without. I actually still
[00:26:49] Michael Yamartino: have a lot of love for Reddit. It's the only place that I can count on for great product reviews, great how to tips, um, you know, community reactions.
[00:27:01] I sure don't post much, but the quality of the content there, um, in certain areas is really, really good. It's just so, um, In the day of sort of AI optimized content and content farms on the web, it's one of the few places you can count on for actual human generated information.
[00:27:21] Tom Butta: Yeah, of value. That's great.
[00:27:24] Sounds like it's a great resource to you, especially as a product person. Um, do you have a favorite app feature that, you know, you've experienced, um, maybe you remember or even talk about? It could be, I don't know, something, you know, inside of Shopify or, or Spotify or something, you know, a feature that they've done that you're like, Ooh, that's really
[00:27:44] Michael Yamartino: cool.
[00:27:44] Tom Butta: I
[00:27:44] Michael Yamartino: spent a lot of time working at Pinterest on the product there, and I think one of the things that I remember Working on the most was, this is now 10 years ago. So this was in the time when people were still working on basic interactions on, on mobile, um, you know, pull to refresh was still pretty new and, and figuring out all these things.
[00:28:02] And one of the designers, a guy named Jason Wilson had come up with the idea that any piece of content, anything in the app, you should be able to press and hold and a whole variety of options and power features should, should unlock. Um, and so he came up with this really cool interaction where you, you know, You press on any image on Pinterest and you see all of these other options for what you could do and also get more, more recommendations.
[00:28:24] And it was really beautiful and kind of fun. And you know, the options sort of just, just, just pop right out of your finger. Like it's a, your palette of things to do. And it does the exact same thing that like hitting one of those little three dot menus would do, but it's delightful. It feels really powerful and we put it in and, and it's still in there today.
[00:28:43] Um, so it's become one of those that like the core, um, little moments of delight that they've kept in the app after all these years. Um, and so I, uh, I think things like that. Tend to stick with me. The, these little interactions and moments where you feel, um, you feel surprised and excited and curious. And, and, and I think that, uh, you did a great job of putting that in there.
[00:29:05] Tom Butta: That's great. Um, I'm a big fan of Pinterest and what you all have done. So, um, that's, that's great. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure, uh, speaking with you today. I want to thank you for your time and, uh, I wish you a lot of success and we'll be paying lots of attention to, um, You know what you're doing now that you have all this new funding, um, in terms of, you know, building out the business.
[00:29:27] So thank you. Thank you. It's been great.
[00:29:34] Voiceover: Thank you for listening to Tame the Mobile Beast brought to you by the team at Airship. Find out more about how you can help your brand deliver better, more personalized mobile experience at airship. com. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to subscribe and rate the show.