Product Goes Public With Justin Bauer, Amplitude Analytics

Episode Transcription

Justin Bauer:
This shift from art of product management, was all about intuition to the science. That was something we fundamentally believed in, and we believed that was going to change, ultimately the world, in terms of how it built software.

Meghan:
Hey everyone, it's Meghan. And you are listening to a Better Product original series. Picture this, you've just flown to New York and are texting your friends on the way to Wall Street. Your company just made a huge step forward by going public, and you'll soon mark the moment by ringing the opening bell. Don't take it from me, hear it from Justin Bauer, senior vice president of product for Amplitude Analytics. Amplitude Analytics, IPOed this fall, bringing the powerful data analytics tool for product leaders to the public sphere. This marks a huge moment for the product industry as well. Amplitude is normalizing intentional research and data as a core part of building great digital products.

Justin Bauer:
We believed from the very beginning, that there was this new way to build products. Go back to the 2012, 2013 time period, it was all about Lean Startup, Build-Measure-Learn. You saw companies like Zynga and Facebook using data to make a better product themselves.

Meghan:
Of course, Amplitude's growth, won't be without challenge. As Justin explores, working with big data in today's environment requires increasing attention to ethics and most of all, transparency and accountability to users.

Justin Bauer:
There's this big sea shift changing in how people use data. And very much a lot of it is around third party data and the shift to first party data. Really important even to clarify, we're in the first party data world. We're not in the world of collecting anonymous behavior around users, that is then get sold to other people. I'm actually really happy that that world will eventually be going away, because that's the world that leads to these intrusive ads that follow you around. And instead, we're in the world of first party, the businesses that you trust, the products you trust to use, we help them use that data to help build a better product for you.

Meghan:
We're so excited to welcome Justin to the show again, as one of our first repeat guests. If you're looking to understand big data and how it affects your life and product, this is the conversation for you. Let's get started.

Christian:
I'm very excited to talk to you, Justin, because I think you might be the first repeat guest. And really, if you aren't, you're the longest we've gone. I think we last talked at the end of 2019, if anyone remembers what that world was like. And now we sit here two years later, and you've delivered on some of your promises with Amplitude since then, having gone public. Really happy to have you back on the show, Justin, to talk about that journey.

Justin Bauer:
Yeah. Excited. Honored to potentially be the first repeat guest. The world was very different in 2019. We could probably spend multiple podcasts talking about everything that's changed there, but certainly, for Amplitude as well we've seen a lot changes. So happy to share more about that.

Christian:
Want to start on the almost like the personal experience of what it's like to go public, and you're in San Francisco, to go public, go to ring the bell and all that stuff. What was that like leading up to that experience and just being a part of that?

Justin Bauer:
It was definitely a once in a lifetime, maybe certainly once in the company's lifetime kind of moment. And was definitely exciting way to celebrate a lot of the hard work that many of us have put into the company, to the space. And as part of going public, things like even writing the S-1 was something that I really appreciated the opportunity to get to do. Was a great way for us to crystallize even what our vision is, where we think the old broader market is going. That was really great. And I think then leading up to the actual event and the event itself, in many ways, was honestly a reunion. I think that was something a little bit unique with COVID and work from home. Going out to New York, I got to see many people that I hadn't seen in person for a couple years, at least. And so to bring those many people together to really celebrate everything that we've been able to accomplish.

Christian:
So are you sending texts like, "Hey, I'm going to be in town. Just taking my company public. Are you around?"

Justin Bauer:
Yeah. I think we're allowed to share maybe two weeks ahead of time that we are actually going public. So there's definitely that period of time when you can't even tell people like, "Oh, yeah. Doing a trip out to New York, but I can't share why. You can kind of read between the lines."

Christian:
That's pretty funny. That's really cool. And congrats to that. I mean, that's fantastic. I work with a lot of founders really on the early stage in going through the series A and we talk, say, what's your goal? There's exit, there's an IPO. It's interesting when you look at it from the beginning, because you're have to defend sort of the investment to investors in the beginning, but then the actual act of product, you're building product for the sake of it. You're not doing it for those reasons. So it's tempting to look at, well, Amplitude went public and then you've made it. Well, not really. You still have work to do that is just yet another milestone, even though it's sort of that kind of end of the marathon when you're in the early stages, but I'm curious how you sort of position it at this point. Is it anti-climactic after it's passed, because now you're just going back to doing that, or is there something different about the way you are working and leading product in Amplitude now?

Justin Bauer:
I think something that I didn't appreciate when I joined, I joined Amplitude at the series A. And you think of these moments when you're that early as an end state. And then I compare that to where I'm at now, and it feels like it's the beginning. And I think it's because your understanding of where the market is going, and the role that you can play, I think expands. And that's actually been the biggest shift I think for me as a product leader. When we were early, it was around mobile analytics. And like, is this a thing and can we actually prove that out?

Justin Bauer:
And now we talk about digital optimization as this much broader category. My role has shifted from thinking about a single product to multi-product. And so when you start to change that lens, and I'm now thinking about two, three, four years out in the horizon, it's like there is so much for us to do. This moment is a special one to celebrate, for sure. And I think it speaks to the success we've had in the past, but it doesn't guarantee future success. And honestly, when you are doing a great job of solving problems with customers, they bring more problems to you. Customers are never happy. And now we have the opportunity to do even more, because we have a lot more customers to work with. And so I think that energizes and excites the team on what the future could be.

Christian:
I'm going to pull that quote completely out of context, the customers are never happy. No, I'm just kidding. I get it. That's interesting. It's funny that you went there too, because I had actually, I pulled up amplitude.com, the website, in the way back machine, to go back to when we last talked. Because I was like, I'm looking at your site again this morning and I'm looking at it. And I was like, "Well, I don't know that I've seen this term." Actually, no, I wouldn't really show how much homework I did. I was looking at your S-1 filing. And then I scrolled through a bunch of stuff because I was like, "Wow, I didn't go to business school." So I went over to your website and I see, really at the top, you had the digital optimization system, all caps, which is clearly the category you're defining.

Christian:
And so I'm like, "That's seems new." At the time we talked, in 2019, the headline was, number one product intelligence, what you just mentioned. That does seem to line up with what you just described. It's like, you've made it, now you've redefined. And now you almost have assumed more accountability or more responsibility for this whole area of optimization. Was that planned or are you just constantly sort of updating the product with the situation you find yourself in as things evolve around you?

Justin Bauer:
It's a little bit of both. I think, go back to the mission statement, help companies build better products through data. That was something we really believed in. We believed from the very beginning, that there was this new way to build products. Go back to the 2012, 2013 time period. It was all about Lean Startup, Build-Measure-Learn. You saw companies like Zynga and Facebook using data to make a better product themselves. This shift from art of product management, was all about intuition to the science. That was something we fundamentally believed in. And we believed that was going to change, ultimately the world, in terms of how it built software. So that we always were locked in on, really clear to us. We knew the persona of product management was critical for that. That was going to be the new leader. So we really locked in on that. How we were going to serve them, what were the products going to be along that path? We knew data was going to be critical.

Justin Bauer:
And so we knew that was going to be the foundation. But it'll be foolish of me to say that we had every single product and feature exactly mapped out, what it was like. No, we worked with our customers to figure that that out. And so I look at recommend personalization product that we launched. That started with us building out basic levels of cohort syncing. It was a simple feature that we started building many years ago. We started to understand how people were using data, not just make a decision, but to actually take action on that. We then launched our feature called Engage. Then eventually, we bought a company to help us build out predictive capabilities and eventually became this product that we launched. I think that's an evolution that's really critical for products leaders to have that strong vision of where you're going, but also listen to your customers and work with them to ultimately fill out that vision.

Christian:
Yeah. I'm scrolling through your customer list and it's diverse. And if I look at even the sort of the B2B side of what you're doing, or even the consumer side, there's some companies here that didn't even exist when you started the company. And then there's some that, eight years ago to say, Under Armour is going to be a customer. You'd be like, how? It seems too, and it's probably the nature of the space of supporting the digital world that it seems like you have to embrace that it always changes. That we're not dealing with something. This is the way it's going to be for a while. It's actually, you have to almost build the product around the idea that, "Hey, what's going to be happening in six months might be something we can't see today."

Justin Bauer:
And that's honestly what we sell to our customers. Is that ability to then understand their customers better, be able to react, adapt to that. And so we have to do that ourselves as well. I think that's what makes it fun. There's no like, fill in the blanks for this. It's like we're creating the future. And you do that by really understanding deeply customer problems and then partnering with them to figure out the right solutions.

Christian:
Has anything changed, sort of in fundamentally in the way that you're leading product at Amplitude over the last couple years? I think, if I remember when we talked, you talked a little bit about how you had these startups and they were almost like this lab that you're experimenting with to sort of help influence these large companies. Is that model still part of what you're doing today?

Justin Bauer:
Yeah, for sure. And I think that speaks to that. You talk about the dual nature. We've got both companies that didn't even exist five years ago, and then companies who've been around for hundreds of years. The linkage there is still the same, which is, those companies that didn't exist, Ford is another example of a customer of ours. They want to operate like those startups, the modern companies. They understand that that's what they need to do to reinvent themselves. And the best way for us to figure out how to help them do that, is to also be working with those companies that are inventing the future.

Justin Bauer:
We definitely continue to work very closely with leading edge startups that are really pushing the boundaries with us. And then thinking about how do we bring that to the enterprise. And what has changed is, as I mentioned before, that used to be just in product analytics, now we've gone beyond just that. So we're helping that in all the different parts of our product. But every one of our products, it's the same fundamentals. We go talk to our customers who are pushing the boundaries within that area, think about how we can then build a product that supports them. And then we'll also help bring that to the broader customer base.

Christian:
This concept of collecting data, I want to dive in to that a little bit. Because obviously, and we make sure too, did you used to go by Amplitude Analytics? Was that the sort of common way, or am I making that up or was that a product line back in the early days?

Justin Bauer:
So the analytics product was the core product for. I mean, it still is the core product.

Christian:
Okay. But it's not just Amplitude, but analytics is one of multiple in the product suite, right?

Justin Bauer:
Exactly. Now it's one of many products that we have.

Christian:
So as you built out that product suite, is it a product of, and I want to overuse that word. That strategy of building different products, is it tied to different types of clients? Like you've got to say, a Burger King over here and a Dropbox over here, or is it really because you've expanded through the larger set, maybe broadening the scope of the workflow that you support inside of these organizations?

Justin Bauer:
Yeah. It's definitely been the latter. Influenced obviously by the former. So we talk to those types of companies to understand it, but it's really about expanding the workflow. So go back to like, we would talk about ACT 1 for us was, helping customers better understand user behaviors, so they can make better decisions. And that was the core job of analytics.

Justin Bauer:
At the end of the day, they use that to take an action. Whether that is, change the product experience directly to run an experiment, maybe it's run a digital campaign based off of that product data. And so we saw an opportunity for us to then lean into that and actually help our customers accomplish that as well. And so that kind of insight to action loop is something that we've now seen a lot of success with. And we've expanded into that to help our customers do that. And then by the way, automatically measure the impact of those changes that you're doing. And that of closes that loop, and actually makes the analytics easier and smarter. And so there's a nice synergy by being able to cover the whole workflow.

Christian:
Are you a sports fan by any chance? Do you watch NBA or football?

Justin Bauer:
Yes.

Christian:
Okay, cool. Because I have no backup analogy. In basketball, pro basketball is my thing. And they've talked about the analytics, the data revolution there. They've got the sort of like Oakland days, your local team there and the analytics that they drove with the Moneyball. It's in all sports. But it's always interesting to me because, you find these commentators and people talking about analytics so negatively. Charles Barkley continues to just like, hates data. And it's like, I understand what they don't like about it. But then the other side of me is, because it feels like you can't quantify everything about winning a game and things like that.

Christian:
You can't just look at a chart. But the other side of me looks at it and says, "I think it's a misunderstanding, or maybe a misrepresentation of how data's used." Coaches that are analytics based are not actually sitting there constantly plugging in algorithms and saying, "We're going to do this," and letting it dictate. It's data informed. And the best ones I think are still preparing the same way. But anyway, I just wanted to mention Charles Barkley, I think. And the NBA just started. But do you see any similar pushback or similar misrepresentations for how data should be used in the realm of product?

Justin Bauer:
Yeah. I think it's actually a relevant analogy, in that, it's not that data alone should dictate every decision that you make. And I think I've talked about how, in gaming, so I used to work in gaming before I joined Amplitude and how I thought a lot of gaming companies had gotten that wrong, and that they over-optimized for the metric and lost sight of what's the end outcome the customer cares about. And so, yes, driving retention and engagement is a great reflection of customer happiness, but it's not the only one. And if you continue just to hack at things to actually drive that, you'll get to a point where your game's so over-optimized, that people will just quit, you'll lose sight. Look at companies like Zynga. I think that was part of the problem. They lost sight of what's the broader vision. And so I talk about, you need both.

Justin Bauer:
But what I think is also interesting about the analogy to sports, I think people like Charles Barkley, a lot of times, I think they get almost threatened by it. Because it's bringing in a new type of person and they got successful to where they're at, without data, because they could rely on intuition. I think that's true for product leaders as well. I think the product leader who was just good at selling a vision, is no longer going to be successful on that alone in the new world. You have to understand how to use data. And really the best leaders are those who can do both. It's the marrying of the two.

Christian:
Yeah. I mean, it feels like a bit like the black turtleneck, Steve Jobs' approach. I think a lot of people are like, "Oh, I just have this grand vision," and people just go execute it. It's not just that. Then on the other hand, it's not just, it's all about analytics. I think you said it well of sort of hacking away. And I'm a designer. I've always felt like I always tell designers, "You can't test your way into a good design." If it wasn't good to begin with, no real testing is going to fit. Like you said, you can over-optimize it. And then you've over-optimized something that wasn't good to begin with. I think you said it well there. Now I'm thinking about, I don't know if you watch Mythic Quest on Apple TV and Danny Pudi's character, the chief revenue officer is just always monetizing. Anyway, my head went there. Well, all he does is goes around the gaming company and tries to figure out ways to make more money. And so his ideas are just always, almost like pathological.

Christian:
No real product sense at all. So anyway, I'm going to get off sports in TV though. I think I don't want to try to tie Amplitude to the broader, broader, ethical conversation and data, but I kind of want to scope it though to what we just talked about and think, what is the responsibility of a company like Amplitude who's maybe main mission is to help create data. You're going to have to engage the buyers of your software, their users, and some of these things. Then you've got data that can get misused. You have responsibilities to make sure that you're reporting data in the right way. So there's a lot of sort of responsibility, I feel. And you can correct me if I'm wrong. It might go along with what you're doing. That's not just like, "Hey, we expose all this analytics. Good luck, go figure it out." How do you sort of handle making sure that you're guiding the conversation and the usage in the right way? I guess maybe not the right way, but the ethical way maybe.

Justin Bauer:
Yeah. It is critical. And I'm really glad that we're having these conversations as an industry. I'll take a step back and even talk about, I think there's this big sea shift changing in how people use data. And very much a lot of it is around third party data and the shift to first party data. Really important even to clarify, we're in the first party data world. We're not in the world of collecting anonymous behavior around users that is then sold to other people. I'm actually really happy that that world will eventually be going away, because that's the world that leads to these intrusive ads that follow you around. And instead, we're in the world of first party, the businesses that you trust, the products you trust to use, we help them use that data to help build a better product for you.

Christian:
Let me make sure I understand. Because I don't think I've heard of first party. Help me articulate what that means, to be a first party source.

Justin Bauer:
So what it means is, the customers that use us, they're the only ones that have access to that data on the behalf of their users. So does their first party usage of that data. We don't or anyone's data with anyone else. And you do see that for a lot of other providers, even in analytics where they're doing that. For us it's all about, "No, you own data." So if you're Ford, you're just having access to your own customer data. That's the first and foremost. And so that's just a broader shift that I think is happening within the market. And so when you think of about like cookie list trackers, that's all about that third party data and really trying to take that market going away. So like I said, we're really in helping our customers use behavioral data so they can build a better product for their customers.

Justin Bauer:
And when you talk to people, at the end of the day, they want a better product experience. And so they're okay with the fact that, if you're using this to help provide a better service to me, then that's great. I'm a fan of that. That said, it's still important that we help our customers with, who has access to that data. You may not want everyone within your company to have access to every single piece of data. We provide a number of tools to help them manage that. And then obviously, we also have all the tooling necessary for things like GDPR, CCPA. And so you think around like right, to be forgotten. If you, as a user of a product say, "I don't want you using my data, even to help me build a better product," you have the right to ask for that. And we give tools to make sure that happens and that data can then be deleted automatically on behalf of that customer.

Christian:
That's great. I mean, I think you actually just really articulate, I think what I've been thinking about a lot lately too, which is that somehow data got hijacked years ago and it's created a stain on it. But you're right, if you are interacting with brands, even if it's a hotel you like or stores, and they're asking for your input to get better, I think ultimately, if that's a brand you care about, you're more inclined to help them. It's good that you're helping maybe break down this nuance of the third party data. That was sort of news to me. Well, the accepting cookies phenomenals, I do just wish had a button where I was like, "Seriously, I'm good. I will accept the ball because it is just constant."

Christian:
Anyway, just want to put a shout out that we could fix that. But you're right, it does make sense to think that, if you're interacting with the brand and you want to help them, then sure. It's like, "Yeah. I'm willing to submit my data." The trade off, or the agreement, then that, you on the backend for those brands are also making sure that you're helping them abide by the privacy of them that not going to get used. You're not going to get tricked or we're not going to be listening to you. It is a two way sort of street. But there's there's value at the end of that.

Justin Bauer:
That's exactly right. The value at the end of it is the critical piece.

Christian:
As you think towards, you've had, I don't know, maybe one normal year over the past year. And everybody can throw away analytics from 2020, but I did look at some charts in your S-1. A lot of things were going up into the rights. I was like, "This is good." So clearly, you had a good year that year. How much do you think that that period of time changed what you and ended up becoming, versus accelerating a future you really believed in? That time being the 2020 remote work, that sort of proliferation.

Justin Bauer:
I think it really accelerated. And we saw that within a number of different customer and prospect situations. Where companies that we didn't even expect to maybe be ready to really invest within product analytics, digital optimization, we're saying, "Well, no, we have to." And this classic shift to every company becoming a technology company, I think last year made that happen. That was the moment. And if not for that, it probably would've been strung out, over the period of maybe another half decade. And now it's like, "No, this is the moment it has to happen." And I think that helped accelerate a number of conversations. And I think it speaks to, now this new normal that we all will be living in. Where we're relying on digital products for a number of things that maybe in the past, we might have done analog or manual. I think digital is obviously here to stay and every company now sees that.

Christian:
Yeah. That makes sense. I feel exact same way that maybe doesn't change, but did accelerate. I wonder too, as you've you've been there for so long now. At some point you're trying to help thought lead and get people to understand the value. Well, a lot of that work got done for you. So you almost got to skip the line a little bit and say, "Okay, we're ready for you." Now that you've had almost a full year of a little bit return to normal in terms of markets settling in and budgets and things like that. And now, as we're in Q4, people are preparing for next year and all these large companies are preparing. What are you starting to look forward to now that you're sort of embodying this new optimization sort of category? What's on the horizon that you're excited about moving into, I guess, looking at 2022?

Justin Bauer:
Like I mentioned, it's still the beginning stages for us of digital optimization. We launched the category, early part of this year, we launched two new products. So our second and third product as a company within Q2. We have a number of opportunities to bring those products to the rest of our customer base. Obviously, continuing to invest a ton within product analytics. We're still scratching the surface of, not every single company in the world that builds product is using Amplitude for product analytics. There's lots of opportunities for that. But also how do we continue to actually expand those workflows with these new product offerings and then build additional products. Can't speak to what those products will be, but we're definitely committed to continuing to build out our suite of products. And so that, to me, is super exciting. I mean, that's honestly the biggest shift from my perspective as a product leader. Going public is obviously a huge milestone. It's really exciting. But the shift from single product to multi-product, that has had a huge impact on my role, in my day to day. Much bigger honestly than the fact that we've gone public.

Christian:
What's the big shift as you've made that journey from overseeing, one, growing product to multiple products and planning for that? What's maybe a couple things that are huge shifts that you've had to make?

Justin Bauer:
I'd say, one is time horizon. So I have to think much longer term now. I have to really be thinking about how do markets evolve over the next couple years. Because for every product category that we're in, we want to be number one.

Christian:
You opened yourself up to new competitors and all that too.

Justin Bauer:
Exactly. So that's a big one. You talk about competitors. I think that's a change for the company. It used to be very clear. You're either a competitor, or not. Because we had one product category. Now we have people that we have partnered with, who are also competitors on some part of the product suite. And something that's really important to me and so something that we're always going to hold true to is best to breed. So even if we compete with a company on one part of the suite, we will still integrate into that company. Because I believe that there will be examples where maybe a customer doesn't want to use that, or maybe isn't ready to. And so we want to support them. Because we have to make all of our customers happy. And then it's not about locking them in so they buy our products.

Justin Bauer:
It's more about, do they see how the integrated nature of our products actually solves a problem that you don't get from independent solutions? And then we take that lens into every market we go into. It's, how do we make sure that by being in this market, we're providing a better solution than just an integration with whoever is in it. So I think that's definitely a change. And then the third, I would say is on my team. And so it's important for me now to have product leaders who are owning products. And I don't own any individual product anymore. That was obviously a big change with the core, with product analytics, brought on a great VP who is able to really own that. But that's a very different type of role for myself within the company.

Christian:
It's got to be weird. So you're basically shifting from like, the CEO asked you, how's product coming along and you have answers to now it's like, "Hold on, I got to go ask my team."

Justin Bauer:
And how to manage that. And I think being able to still be close enough that I can help influence strategy, but I'm a big believer in empowerment. That's no longer my job. I do not run the analytics product anymore. I want to empower the team to do that. But I also want to make sure that I'm helping guide that. And so I have to make sure that I'm staying close. And honestly, the answer to that, and the one thing that has not changed, talking to customers. As long as I feel like myself and all my leaders are talking to customers, that's what keeps you on the ground floor about what truly is happening. And so I have to continue to spend a lot of time. Even though you could say, I've been in product analytics now for six years, I should understand it. No, I'm still spending a lot of time talking to customers because the market's always changing. And that is just an important part of how we're going to figure out what the future will be.

Christian:
Thanks for joining us. And if you haven't yet, be sure to join the Better Product Community. We've got all sorts of content and resources for you. And if you want more audio, don't forget, the Business of Product is our latest show to join the Better Product Network. And you can find that and more at betterproduct.community.