September 13, 2022

Emily Wang, CEO of Bento

Emily Wang is the founder & CEO of Bento, a software platform for customer onboarding. Bento's guides are embedded natively into SaaS applications to create Getting Started pages and activation flows. Prior to founding Bento, Emily was the Head of Product at atSpoke (acquired by Okta) and a Growth Product Manager at Intercom. Emily has her MBA and Bachelor's degrees from Harvard and lives in San Francisco.

Julian: All right, everyone. Thank you so much for joining the behind company lines podcast. We have Emily Wang here, CEO of Bento Bento empowers B2B SAS companies to create in product customer onboarding flows. Emily, thank you so much for joining the show. I'm really excited to learn more about you and, and what you're working on.

Julian: And just to jump right into it. First question for you is what were you doing before you started Bento?? 

Emily: many, many things, but maybe most relevantly I was in product. Mm-hmm so I, I went to business school thinking I was going to do something in the luxury retail space. Oh really? And then hard pivoted into tech.

Emily: I was a PM first at an e-commerce company called Teespring. And then I actually joined a company called Intercom. Yeah. When wow. Whole company was maybe less than 200 people globally. Really? And I was a product manager on the. Yeah. In San Francisco wild experience, really, really wonderful.

Emily: Learned a lot. Mm-hmm and then after Intercom, I joined a company called spoke as their head of product mm-hmm and then after building out, not only our product, but our product teams decided to go and start my own venture. And that is what is now 

Julian: Bento. I love that. I love that when, when you were first going into to your career and you said you were going into luxury products, is that, is that.

Julian: Is that? What, what were you setting your eyes to? What, what were you like? Oh, if I could work for this company, it would be a. 

Emily: well my summer during business school, you know, you, you do internships. And I actually came out to San Francisco and I was with the Sephora digital marketing team in San Francisco.

Emily: Oh really? Super fun. It's like, you know, you show up and there's free makeup on your desk every day. Yeah. and yeah, I thought, you know, working for brands like Sephora or S fifth avenue and doing global retail. Really interesting. I think part of what always drew me to retail is I think it taps into consumer psychology.

Emily: Like why do we buy the things we buy? Yeah. Because most of it is not because we actually need it. It's like, you feel compelled, you feel FOMO, you feel excitement. Yeah. And I think a lot of times we think about the projects we do at work or the products we build mm-hmm in very methodical, logical ways.

Emily: Right. This is the problem we're solving. This is the solution. Yeah. Yeah. But like, unless you're an API company, The people you're building for are humans, right? Yeah. The humans who are doing their work, but they're also checking Instagram on the 

Julian: side, you know? Yeah. Humans with. Yeah, that that's. So I, I'm a frequent show of Sephora.

Julian: I love the beauty products, especially, you know, improving the, the daily skin routine. What, so what, what, what shifted you into into technology into, into software? What, what was like, was there an inspirational moment or just, was it prescriptive? Was, did it make sense? What shifted your career. 

Emily: I wanted to create.

Emily: Yeah. and I think that's true of probably a lot of people listening to this podcast. It's, you know, you can you can create strategies and, and decks and ideas. But when I was at Sephora at the end of the day, I wasn't creating right. Mm-hmm the store experience. I wasn't creating the, the beauty products.

Emily: And I wanted to, and I don't think, you know, my skills led themselves well to creating beauty products. Yeah. But. Software experiences was something that I had also done, you know, working with contractors to create my own projects and apps throughout the years. And so going into product management was this perfect bridge where you got to understand your users and buying psychology, but you also got to work with all of these teams to build something at the end.

Emily: Yeah. Yeah. And that for me has always been the hook. Yeah. Creating something that hadn't 

Julian: been there before. Yeah. How how's your being, being that you have a product background? A lot of the founders, I think well founders, first of all, have such a diverse amount of experience. Some come from sales, from engineering, from product.

Julian: But I love to, to speak with product people who come from a product background because of how they view consumer psychology and their users in a different perspective. Has your view and perspective of a user general. Or a user experience within product. Has that changed over time? 

Emily: Yes. I mean, I feel like the answer has to be yes, because one of the things that I'm sure you hear a lot about is people who talk about experiments, right?

Emily: Yeah. And in product, we, we run a lot of experiments and that's not just AB testing. It's every time you have a hypothesis and you ship a B one mm-hmm to see what happens, that's an experiment. Yeah. And why do experiments. I mean experiments fail because what you, you think will be true of your users mm-hmm does not match what is true yeah.

Emily: Of your users. Yeah. We don't come up with experiments because we think they're terrible ideas. You ship them because you think they're good ideas, right? Yeah. And so every time something fails, whether it fails a hundred percent or 2%, right. You're learning something about how psychology or workflows or these things actually.

Emily: Happen versus what you thought was going to happen? 

Julian: Yeah, no, I, I, I love the experimental. Well, the, the note on experiment, because I do think about it as a lot of AB testing, but you know, as, as we iterate and move on, we take a lot of like user feedback to figure out new ways. We can either move our product in a different direction or cater to our user's experience a little bit more.

Julian: How do, how do you view. In terms of the ideas that you get for experimenting or moving your product in a certain direction, is it a lot of customer feedback, user feedback, or do you kind of roadmap out for fairly long term and then kind of adjust along the way? What's what is it? Is it more immediate or is it something that's a little bit more long term and, and planned out?

Emily: I think in product I've heard people say things like, oh, somebody is a design driven product person or a data driven product person. Yeah. And I mean, they're all just big simplifications, but I have always loved user research as a way to inform what we do. And that I think is particularly relevant in B2B.

Emily: Yeah, because in consumer you can run experiments. Yeah. You have millions of end users. You can put up an AB test and in, you know, two hours, right. You have a statistically significant outcome in B2B SA by and large, you can't really run AB tests. Really, you know, again, I think we were just starting to run AB tests at Intercom within the product mm-hmm when I was on the growth team and that was like year six of Intercom.

Emily: Right. And it was already a very well. Brand and product. But it's hard to run AB tests and B2B SAS, because two coworkers using your product company generally don't wanna have radically different experiences. Right? Yeah. And so if you're isolating experiments at the company level, mm-hmm, most SAS companies don't have hundreds and thousands of, of customers.

Emily: Yeah. And so I think that's where research comes into play. Mm-hmm , mm-hmm, being able to ask questions, not just of. Do you like this feature, but hopefully something more akin to what are, what are the problems you're trying to solve? How are you solving that today? Yeah, what's painful about it. Yeah. You know, tell me about a product experience that you really loved.

Emily: Why did you love that? Sure. Becoming full circle. It gives you an opportunity, not just to understand the logical problems, but the psychology right behind how people interpret what's happening. Yeah. And I'm sure we'll talk more about this, but I think that's. Now, right. Mm-hmm we're working on around onboarding and activation is so interesting.

Emily: Yeah. Because it's more than just getting people to configure their 

Julian: systems. Yeah. Your log on. You're trying upload it. Yeah. Yeah. Upload your software. Yeah. All that. 

Emily: You're you're trying to get people to feel something mm-hmm to feel that sense of optimism. confidence. And hopefully even delight that using your tool is going to help them achieve what 

Julian: it is that they're trying to do.

Julian: Yeah. I, I feel like a lot of people have at least early on in my career, I was always skeptical of a new software product that was just, you know, thrown on my desk because I was like, I don't know how this is going to interrupt my current workflow or add to it. And so, and, and talking a little bit more about Bento and.

Julian: one. How, what was your inspiration for starting Bento and two, how has it changed that user experience for companies and their, their consumers or their clients or their users who they're catering to their audience? How, how is that? How has Bento tackled that problem? 

Emily: Yeah. Well I think you said there's a good percentage of folks who listen to this podcast who are startup founders.

Emily: So I'll actually share a little bit behind the company line. I love it. Yeah. How we came to be. Bento actually went through Y Combinator two years ago as a completely different product. Really Bento in its original incarnation was a collaboration and productivity tool for product managers. Got it.

Emily: And without getting too sidetracked the long and the short is, you know, we, we didn't get to the kind of traction that we wanted to during YC mm-hmm . And so like, many founders went back to the drawing board yeah. Throughout the pivot. Mm-hmm . And so when you're exploring the landscape of pivots, one of the more common questions that mm-hmm you reflect on.

Emily: What were the problems that I ran into, right? Yeah. In this first iteration. Yeah. And it turns out onboarding was one of them. What we did like most early stage startups was this very concierge. One to one onboarding. Yeah. We got on zoom call. I hear about why you wanted to use again full Beto. Right?

Emily: Get you set up and. I would feel so excited coming off of these calls being like, oh, they totally got it. This is probably send a follow up email. Yeah. And then I would log in and watch, you know, full story or any of these session recorders. I would watch these full story sessions a couple of days after when people, you know, actually get ready to start using your product.

Emily: And I would think, oh my gosh, why are they just clicking these random links or random, you know, Buttons. They've completely forgotten what we talked about. Yeah. But that's just it Julian, like going back to psychology. Yeah. How much do we remember from every conversation we dial? 5%. Yeah. 

Julian: Not that much.

Julian: Yeah. 

Emily: Like, yeah. Our days are filled with context switching and let's be honest, nobody's pulling up my email side by side with using the product and going step by step. Yeah. That's not how we 

Julian: right. Right. It's like, what can I remember? How can I get back? Yeah. What did she say about this? I can't remember exactly.

Julian: Right. And they kind of fumbled through the products experie. 

Emily: yeah, exactly. And look Documenta. This is not to knock on documentation to follow emails, but it's not there for me when I'm in the product. Mm-hmm . And so I thought, gosh, like I really, really wish I had a way. To just have in each person's product experience, almost like a recap of what we talked about.

Emily: Mm-hmm and so I did what most startup founders do I put in product tours. Yeah. And I put in popup models and messages. And of course I used Intercom because it was the product that I knew really well. Yeah. And it didn't work. It didn't work really for initial onboarding because Julian, what happened the last time you got a bunch of popups when you locked into a new 

Julian: exited.

Julian: put 'em down. Yeah. I said, I, I can go through the tour myself. I'm okay. 

Emily: yeah. And then five minutes later, you're like, Hmm, that thing would've been helpful now I can't get back yeah. So that was the first issue, right? The first issue. And by the way, like, again, this is not a knock on the products that, you know, we built at Intercom or the products that mm-hmm the features that, you know, the Pendo and app use of the world have.

Emily: They're great. Yeah. They're just being misused, I think at the wrong moment in the customer's journey. When you are brand new, you're trying to remember, like, why am I here? Mm-hmm why am I here? What is my path to value? Not show me all your features. Yeah, because generally speaking, I don't have 30 minutes to, just to go through everything breeze and learn all your 

Julian: features.

Julian: Yeah, 

Emily: yeah, yeah. And you know, even when I was at Intercom mm-hmm we natively built what is called the quick start. It's what you land into when you sign up for Intercom for the first time? Yeah. Is. Permanent page in your app. And we spent months designing and building and then iterating on it because we knew that onboarding into Intercom, just like onboarding into most B2B SAS tools.

Emily: Yeah. Doesn't happen in 20 seconds, which is like the length of time it takes for you to click next or X, 

Julian: right? Yeah. Through your popups. Yeah. It takes 

Emily: days. Mm-hmm you do a little bit, you coordinate with someone else on your team. Maybe a second person comes in to do part of it. Right. Right. And if it's a multi-day long actual experience, Why would we design a form factor?

Emily: That is a Al yeah. Yeah. Those things don't match. Right. And we, as a very small team, didn't have the resources to natively, build these onboarding checklists that we then had to iterate and maintain on. And, and so, yeah, that kind of was this moment where we were like, oh, this is a problem that actually every SaaS company.

Emily: We know of that we've experienced has to solve for yeah, because onboarding is the bridge between your, what people buy, right. The vision that gets them excited. Yeah. And then them actually getting the value is that bridge. And if you don't have that bridge, then everything collapses. Yeah. So that part was clear.

Emily: And then I think there was this moment of saying everyone has been solving this problem through this modality that doesn't match with how people actually on board. Yeah. That. the first insight and I'll keep the second part short. But the second insight was at Bento we have like three product principles and one of them is we say, humans are not a bug.

Emily: They are a feature if use correctly. I love that. And that goes back to this whole idea that, you know, we talk about product like growth. We talk about self-serve and there's attributes of that. That are great. But if you're getting people to do change, right, like change management and workflow change mm-hmm

Emily: there's a lot to be said for humans being able to empathize with the other person. Mm-hmm, , there's a lot to be said for humans being able to creatively problem solve or motivate. And so we wanted to build this kind of experience that humans, oftentimes, customer success managers mm-hmm could really, really have agency around.

Emily: And so every experience you build in Beto actually is paired with a customer success view. Mm-hmm so a CSM can go in there and they can complete steps on behalf. Their customer, they can change everything. They can add next steps and homework in there. Yeah. They can really blend this human concierge call and what is in product and what we call at the end of the day hybrid, right.

Emily: Hybrid, go 

Julian: to market. I love, I love that the, you know, I was just talking to another founder about creating like this educational component around the product that their that, that their users are using. And I think so many companies are moving towards that direction. Amazing to hear how Bento integrates within whatever product that you are serving your customers with to create that collaborative experience.

Julian: Because there's some things that you need done immediately that maybe you need your CSM to, to complete for you, and then show you how to do it. And I feel as though a lot, like you said, people have that experience where I don't wanna go to the quick start guide, I'm gonna click next and then I'll figure it out myself.

Julian: And then when there's problems, then they go to the FAQ, that's hosted by Intercom. And then they try to, you know, troubleshoot and, and identify where that problem lies. How, how in, in, if you can explain more, I'm super fascinated about how has Bento been able to work in tandem with human and technology to create a really efficient onboarding experience within the products that your, your customers have?

Julian: How's that worked out? 

Emily: Yeah. So one of the things that makes Bento really unique, going back to the whole people don't like popups is that you can embed Bentos components directly into your application. And so for example, you can just land people there. Right? One of our more recent customers correlated is in this PLG data space, amazing team.

Emily: And so they have a page called getting. And when you land on the page, as you can on every single session, it's your onboarding guide, it's your like path to value. And Mira on our growth team actually re recently did an analysis where she found that the embedded guides outperformed popups by over four X.

Emily: Wow. And it makes sense when you think about it. Right. Which is like, if I just dismiss it and then it's gone versus this is a page that reminds me every time I come in, what I've already done and what's left and that path to value. And it allows me to actually go off and do those things. The former is disruptive and the latter is something that gives me context.

Emily: Yeah. And then in terms of humans another one of our customers Fondo, they are a bookkeeping and accounting product and service. Mm-hmm for a lot of startups. They used to have to wait several days between a contract being signed and a kickoff call. Wow. And now they've been able to shorten their onboarding to just a couple of days, even before the kickoff call, because people can land in the product immediately.

Emily: They still do these calls just to check in and make sure right. That expectations are set correctly. What's been uploaded is correct. And their customer success teams will go in there and uncheck steps that actually shouldn't have been completed, change the instructions as needed and really kind of create this blended experience where for the end user, all I deal with is the application.

Emily: It looks native, it looks like you built it yourself. Yeah. But behind the scenes, the product and the human work. Work side by 

Julian: side. Yeah. What so is, is Bento reliant on products who are, I guess dynamic in the sense that they change with their customer base, or does it work with all products in different capacities to cater to multiple types of products that are say a little bit more structured?

Julian: You know, I, I feel like most, most companies. Some kind of not uniqueness but customizability that they can use with their product and their consumer. But some companies are a little bit more rigid. Are you able to work with both in, in different ways? 

Emily: the only requirement is that you have a web interface that people log into mm-hmm

Emily: So for like pure, pure, you know, API products where your interactions are through a terminal versus through a web app, that's where I would say we would draw a line. But where Bento is maybe most useful is if you have different personas or if your product is actually very modular. and that's because with Bento, you can build what we call, choose your own adventure pads.

Emily: Mm-hmm just because I know that your role equals admin mm-hmm doesn't mean, I know if you're coming in to set up something or create a workflow. And so you can build these really beautiful landing experiences where the user actually says, all right, I'm here to do X and that their entire flow changes.

Emily: And even within that, right, you can ask things. which of these workflows or features do you wanna start with and based on what the user says, like the onboarding actually changes. Yeah. Yeah. Cause what we're also trying to do is not overwhelm the user with chooses 28 steps. Like nobody wants that. 

Julian: Yeah.

Julian: Yeah. Well, I love the the, the, I can't, I can't remember how you coined the term, but it was like having it almost like the checklist within your your workflow and not that it's something that's either one click all or super prescribed, but it works with you as a consumer working with the product.

Julian: I think. You know, for me the ideal scenario when I'm using a new product, because you know, I'm not ready in to, to take all the overwhelming information and then learn. I'd rather learn it step by step and take it in small chunks and, and learn how to access it as I'm, you know, doing a certain activity or action.

Julian: Tell me a little bit about the traction that you're seeing at Bento. . 

Emily: Yeah, well I mean, I talked a little bit about some of the customers mm-hmm who are using Bento. I think another one that we were really excited about is this company called assembled they do workplace staffing software.

Emily: So again, a category that I think hasn't been touched mm-hmm in a long time and it's exciting to. These amazing startup teams just reinvent. Right? What, what hadn't been touched. But one of the things I thought was really cool about them is they actually had measured their time to activation for their, I think SMB segment before Bento and after Bento and before Bento, they had pop-up guides.

Emily: Right. So it's not like they had absolutely nothing, but the big issue is, again, pop-up. Sometimes pop up randomly and two their ephemeral, right. And after they launched Bento their time to activation decreased by 25% and their implementation call time went down by 75%. Oh, wow. It's not just getting people there faster.

Emily: It's also with fewer calls. Yeah. Because if I'm a motivated user, which is the one thing that I think software is not great at solving for motivation, but if I'm a motivated user, right. And you're giving me. my you're setting my expectations on what's supposed to happen. And then you're giving me right.

Emily: These like these very quick ways to go and get started. Yeah. With maybe a little bit of help. Right. That's what a lot of us need. We also have anecdotes we have another customer ironclad. They To legal contracting software mm-hmm . And I think one of my favorite anecdotes is that they had a customer who had, I think been in process for a couple of months and never really gotten much traction.

Emily: And then on December 25th, Christmas, yeah. Their main user just went in there and in one day completed all of their activation. And I think that goes back to the whole, like, if we gate everything on a customer success, manager's calendar, you're always going to be playing calendar tag. Yeah. Sometimes somebody wants to work on Christmas and we're not, you know, saying everyone should work on Christmas, but that's partly why, you know, we as product people, we try to build in these experiences to.

Emily: To meet our users where they are and when they're ready. 

Julian: Yeah, no, that that's, I mean, it it's like people come into work and they prioritize the, the, you know, top priority activity. And sometimes that doesn't involve what was yesterday's top priority activity because every day it changes. So the offering of flexibility allows them to come at that problem when they need to solve it.

Julian: And so that's just, you know, Improving that capability is, is definitely something that that I see is, is something that a lot of software companies need to focus on because that's, you know, that's, that's leading into customer retention and, and not having their customers actually utilize every feature.

Julian: So it's hard to even know. If what you've built is, is correct because somebody's not using every, every part of it. So I love how that, that offers that flexibility in the, the user experience. What, what are some of the biggest risks that Bento faces today? 

Emily: Yeah. I think two things are always very top of mind.

Emily: One is, you know, fighting the, the good fight around getting people to do fewer product tours at the beginning, at least by the way, for, for all I knock on product tours, I think when you have a very advanced feature or somebody who's already a more active customer, it can be a great experience, right.

Emily: To let people understand what might happen. I just think they tend to get overused for like the initial welcome, but I would say a lot of people we talk to, they show up and they're like, I want product tours. And the whole conversation we have is like, tell me about the last time you experienced this.

Emily: Mm-hmm and, you know, we started off this whole conversation, Julian around like psychology, right, right. You know, product and engineering. Yes. It's a lot of hard skills, but I think a lot of building great product is just. Being a human mm-hmm first and foremost. Yeah. And just saying like, but how does this, how does this actually feel to someone on the other side?

Emily: Yeah. So I think education on that side is something that I wouldn't say is a risk, but is something that we spend a lot of energy on mm-hmm . And then the second one is I think a lot of companies push back on their onboarding or delay their onboarding and activation efforts. Look, it's never gonna feel.

Emily: Like as much of a burning fire as like your database going down. Right. Right. Like there's certain things that happen where you're like, oh, I'm gonna drop everything I'm doing. And go do that. And onboarding doesn't tend to be that one of our lead investors had this phrase that I loved, he said it's the, just below the fold problem.

Emily: Interesting. Describe that. Like, it's very important. The fold right. Being, you know, traditionally. Design marketing sites, you would look at how big of the browser, what shows up above versus what shows below when you scroll. And the more important stuff shows up higher, right? And just below the fold, it's like, this is really important because again, if people.

Emily: Are buying, but not using and activating. They're gonna turn, they're not going to expand. Yeah. And again, in the world of SAS, like your business model doesn't work. Yeah. But it's never, again, you know, the thing that's like taking down your site or, or your company in that day. So I think one of the other things we try to solve for is helping people understand that.

Emily: whether you see it or not, every company is actually solving for and already investing time in their onboarding. You're doing it because your CSMs are doing it. Mm-hmm or your humans are doing it, whoever they are you, this that's the first order implication. The second order, implication, all of that stuff that you had, your engineers build people aren't using it.

Emily: Yeah. . And so what was the point of spending cycles and cycles building it? If no one is using. Right. And then the third order, implication is like, if your humans are doing it, it's inefficient and no one's using your product, then come renewal. You're gonna have issues. And so you're paying for it already.

Emily: Yeah. Whether it's explicitly recognized or not. And then what do we do? I mean, I think we try to make it easy when you come into Bento there's we obviously use Bento for our own onboarding mm-hmm and so that helps people see you. A way to model it out. Sure. There's lots of templates and best practices.

Emily: We actually just published all of our Figma components in a community template to say, I love that, but even if you're not using onboarding, let's at least give you some great components to work with. Yeah. So that you can design great experiences. And just again, show up with empathy and, and think about how to make our customers and, and our users.

Emily: A little bit 

Julian: easier. Yeah. I, I love the, you know, approaching it in the way that it's, it's a more I don't want a maybe humanistic approach. I dunno if that's the right, that's the right word. But empathetic approach where you're trying to understand how the product makes someone's feel be not, not how it affects their productivity.

Julian: Cause I think those are two different things we can Al we can always. Be productive, but not feel great about, you know, how we're using or how, how we're moving through it. But if we're feeling good and being productive, the, you know, the ability to complete tasks and move things forward just multiplies by you know, crazy amounts once you see it unfold you know, and that being the focus of Bento and how you're approaching it, what's the long term vision for Bento.

Julian: Where do you see yourself growing in the market and within your. 

Emily: I think it's actually so much of what you just said. Yeah. We talk about, we talk about the vision almost. I don't know if, if you've heard of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we talk about how you have to solve for like food and shelter and these things before you can solve for.

Emily: You know, self-actualization, but you know, for us, the food and shelter equivalent is like, all right, how do we make sure that our customers are able to decrease their time to activation mm-hmm increase their net retention you know, decrease maybe the amount of time that you're spending on repeated training.

Emily: So all of those business and product metrics are, are critical for us. And we track them right. For our customers. Long term, like, let's say we solve that for every SAS company in the world. Mm-hmm we improved everybody's NRR by like, you know, 20% hooray. Yeah. But I want more than that. Yeah. You know, what I want is, is that story that you told at the beginning, Julia, where there's a sense of hesitation and skepticism when someone gives you a new software tool.

Emily: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that comes from, we don't wanna feel stupid. Yeah. the reason. I think a lot of us don't like the change that comes with adopting new software is you feel kind of stupid. Yeah. You go in, you click around. You're like, I'm not really sure what I'm trying to do. Yeah. And I'm now upset at the product, but really I'm kind of upset cause I don't feel good 

Julian: about myself.

Julian: Yeah. 

Emily: And the opposite of that is really, really great game design. Right. Where like, The levels are designed in a way that help you feel success and fun. Yeah. Along the way. And you're feeling sufficiently challenged, like creating good challenge is really, really important. Mm-hmm but not so much so that the person on the other side feels distraught.

Emily: Yeah. And so, I mean, call it hokey, but I think for us, you know, one huge win is what does it look like to just level up the entire baseline of what software adoption feels like such that it. Fun. Yeah. Yeah. That more people touch software and say like, okay, like that was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Like that was, that was kinda fun.

Emily: and like, oh, and to help me out, get my job done. Like , 

Julian: that would be the win. No, I love the Maslow's hierarchy bit because it really is like, how can I perform what I need to perform now? And then think long term on my overall OKRs and metrics that I'm, you know, tied to for my job. And it really does trickle down to the day to day.

Julian: And I love how, you know, you focus on the initial, the initial task at hand, which is feeling comfortable and then giving me a. To, you know, learning a new product well, and then I'm also building my skill set and then performing better at my job because it starts at the ground level and then it, you know, it compounds on itself.

Julian: And just overall love that approach. Bonus question. I always love to ask my guests, cuz it gives me some homework as well as the audience, some homework, but what books are people have influenced you? 

Emily: Well, before I dive into that one, you know, I think what you said mm-hmm is the reason we call all of this, not just onboarding, but ever boarding ever, we call ever boarding because it's not just about your initial setup.

Emily: Right? Mm-hmm but it's like, once we get you a little bit activated, how do we help you discover all of the other ways that you can level up? Yeah. The way you adopt a product and because most B2B SAS tools, aren't just used by a single user at a. So even if you onboarded that first person perfectly through handheld training, what are you gonna do for persons?

Emily: 2, 3, 4 N right. Those people have terrible experiences. So we talk about ever boarding and credit where credit is due. The first person I heard that term from is my friend Jonathan Corbin, who actually leads customer success at HubSpot. Oh. So I guess he's somebody who has influenced both myself and Bento.

Emily: Love that. And in terms of books really wonderful book called leadership and self deception. Sounds, sounds severe. 

Julian: That's a great title. that's a clickable title for sure. 

Emily: yeah, I probably reread it at least once a year because again, memory of a goldfish. But it it's a really, really empower.

Emily: book, cuz I think it frames the things that we feel maybe disempowered from at work or in any of our relationships where maybe we feel victimized by how somebody else did something or, or said something and really frames it around, you know, our own, our own psychology and approach. Because at the end of the day, that's the only thing we can change.

Emily: Yeah. Is how we view what's happening around us to us. Mm-hmm the work that we do. And I think in, in startups, again, going back to a bunch of your listeners being founders you know, I think founder psychology is really, really hard to manage. Yeah. The, the days are very, very long and the months feel a little too short.

Emily: Yeah. And luck has a lot to do with it. Yeah. . And so I think being able to just reorient around the agency we have around how we show up for each other yeah. Is really empowering. So highly recommend that one. 

Julian: I love that. I love that. Well, I'm definitely gonna look into that, especially, you know, I think books that help you kind of rediscover something new and lessons that you can, you can, you know, bring back or, or take in a different light.

Julian: I always love books that you can do that. Yeah, memory of a goldfish here too, but I think, I think, you know, lessons change as experience changes as well. But last little last question for you, where can we find you? Where can we support Bento, get your plugs in now where your Twitter is, your LinkedIns, your, your websites.

Julian: Yeah. Tell us where we can support. 

Emily: Well, we'll start with the easy one. The Bento website is Try Bento dot C - O. That's a great place. And we're on LinkedIn as well as Try Bento. I hear we are also on Twitter, although I'm full disclosure, I'm most active. I think it's the handle is Try Bento, underscore C - O.

Emily: And then as for myself, my handle is the same on everything. It's Emily, Yidan, Y I D A N. And that's me.

Julian: I love it with Emily. Thank you so much for joining the show. I love learning about, you know, how you approach product and where Bento is and what brought you to being here. And I really hope that we see Bento grow and, and.

Julian: Teams onboard successfully and, and change this ever boarding experience all in all. So thank you again for joining the show. 

Emily: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

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