Mindful B2B Marketing | Business Growth and Social Impact (Former: Forward Launch Your SaaS) - How to leverage customer feedback to build the right product - Adam Tank, CCO at Transcend

How to leverage customer feedback to build the right product - Adam Tank, CCO at Transcend

02/15/23 • 43 min

Mindful B2B Marketing | Business Growth and Social Impact (Former: Forward Launch Your SaaS)

GUEST BIO

Adam Tank is a seasoned professional with over 10 years of experience in the water industry, specializing in innovation, software, and business development. In his current role as Chief Customer Officer at Transcend, Adam is responsible for the success of the clients and marketing initiatives related to the Transcend Design Generator and automation of preliminary engineering activities. Before joining Transcend, Adam served as the North America Smart Cities Director at Suez and led a robotics spin-out of the General Electric corporation, which focused on cutting-edge potable water pipe rehabilitation techniques. Adam received his undergraduate degree in microbiology from Kansas State University and his M.B.A. from the University of Arizona. In addition to his professional career, Adam is an avid water blogger and podcaster, foster dad, long-form author, and an advocate for volunteer organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.

MAIN INSIGHT

Involve customers and continuously gather feedback throughout the product development process to ensure that you are building the right thing.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Start by having an internal discussion with your company to understand what your ideal future for the company looks like.
Create a minimum viable content piece or product mock-up to show customers what the future will look like.
Get feedback from existing and potential customers in real-time to see how they feel about the concept.
Continuously get feedback as you build the product or service.
Set up touchpoints or checkpoints with initial interested customers.
Try to have sales conversations with customers to understand what they are willing to pay.
Keep getting feedback to ensure that you are building the right thing.

MORE FROM TRANSCEND

Transcend Design Generator (TDG) is an intuitive, online generative design platform that enables capital planners, project developers, and engineering professionals to rapidly generate preliminary engineering designs for critical infrastructure, including the Water & Wastewater treatment and Power Sectors. Learn more at https://transcendinfra.com/

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GUEST BIO

MAIN INSIGHT

Involve customers and continuously gather feedback throughout the product development process to ensure that you are building the right thing.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Start by having an internal discussion with your company to understand what your ideal future for the company looks like.
Create a minimum viable content piece or product mock-up to show customers what the future will look like.
Get feedback from existing and potential customers in real-time to see how they feel about the concept.
Continuously get feedback as you build the product or service.
Set up touchpoints or checkpoints with initial interested customers.
Try to have sales conversations with customers to understand what they are willing to pay.
Keep getting feedback to ensure that you are building the right thing.

MORE FROM TRANSCEND

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Previous Episode

How to Engineer Viral B2B Product Growth -- Serenity CEO Katherine Wells

GUEST BIO
Katherine Wells is the CEO and founder of Serenity, a network that allows aging service providers, older adults and their loved ones to care together. She created the company out of her direct experience of silos in senior care. Katherine's own experience of caring for her aging parents, who were not expecting to need care, inspired her to launch Serenity, which gives providers an easier way to communicate and collaborate with family members in a secure, digital way.
WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT
Katherine advises marketing executives and founders to grow or promote their businesses by implementing the product with a small test group of users, getting them set up, having them share it with everyone in their organization, and giving them a quick and easy way to connect with other companies or service providers they are working with. Then, a sales conversation is initiated with those other companies.
Katherine emphasizes the importance of building a viral product when it comes to growing or promoting a business. She suggests focusing on solving one problem in a particular industry or company, measuring the results, and de-risking the experiments. She also encourages entrepreneurs to have big visions, lead in a way that allows others to follow, and to communicate the results of their experiments in order to grow their product.
MORE FROM SERENITY
Serenity helps streamline communication in the senior care industry and provides a digital channel for people to communicate with one another. Reach out to Katherine at serenityengage.com, and to attend their event, Collaboration in Aging, to discuss the issues faced by seniors in the industry.

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Next Episode

How to craft the perfect pitch that differentiates your brand -- SplitSpot Co-founder Ernesto Gaxha

GUEST BIO

Ernesto Gaxha is a co-founder of SplitSpot, an innovative rental platform that has served thousands of residents in several cities in the US. He is a Harvard/MIT grad who started his career as an institutional investor before entering the world of startups.

MAIN INSIGHT

Craft an initial pitch that differentiates your brand within the first 60 seconds of speaking to a prospective customer.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Look at your competitors' messaging. Determine the features of what you're offering and how it's different from existing products in the market.
Brainstorm ways that your company is different. Put yourself in the shoes of people receiving the message -- what was it that caused them to give you the time of day?
Create a 60-second pitch or less that explains who you are, what you do, and how your product is different from what's typically out there.

MORE FROM SPLITSPOT

SplitSpot is a platform that helps make the process of renting easier for residents, landlords, and property managers. They aim to provide a solution to some of the challenges presented by the current housing crisis. If anyone has properties that they think could be a good fit or has an interest in discussing the issue, they can reach out to Ernesto by email at his name at splitspot.com.

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SIGN UP FOR THE EMAIL NEWSLETTER at forwardlaunchdigital.com/podcast

Mindful B2B Marketing | Business Growth and Social Impact (Former: Forward Launch Your SaaS) - How to leverage customer feedback to build the right product - Adam Tank, CCO at Transcend

Transcript

00:00:37.214 --> 00:00:48.534
All right, today I am sitting down with Adam Tank. Adam has over 10 years of experience in the water industry with a focus on innovation, software and business development.
00:00:48.534 --> 00:01:00.477
He is the Chief Customer Officer at Transcend. And so he has responsibility for client success and marketing initiatives related to the transcend design generator,
00:01:01.014 --> 00:01:05.986
and automation of preliminary engineering activ