Erin: [00:00:31] Hello everyone. And welcome back to awkward silences. We are here today with Chad Aldous. He is the head of design and co-founder at Abodo Abodo is an apartment rental marketplace. If you aren't familiar, they are focused on renters, specifically in the rental market specifically, and Chad is focused on everything, design, everything users and specifically.

Talking to your own users as much as possible. So that's what we're going to talk to chat about today. Thanks for joining us.

Chad: [00:01:05] Thank you for having me happy to be here.

Erin: [00:01:08] We've got Jay chair too.

JH: [00:01:10] Yeah, that should be fun. Um, this is about talking to your own users and Chad is one of our users and we're talking to him.

So there's a real circular situation going on here should be good.

Erin: [00:01:19] So, so tablets jump into it. You are a huge proponent of talking to your own users.

Chad: [00:01:26] Why? Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Um, so the main value that we get out of talking to our own users is making sure that our products aligned with the people that use them.

I mean, that's full stop. That's that's the number one reason why we talk to them.

Erin: [00:01:44] Love it succinct to the point. And what happens if you don't do that? Or was there a time where you were doing that less or where it wasn't so clear and obvious why you needed to be doing

Chad: [00:01:57] that? Yeah, so for our industry, it's unique because, um, we are our customer, essentially.

We are renters ourselves and we started off, uh, having a problem with, with finding rentals and. So we can rely on our intuition for, for so long, but ultimately, you know, you need to branch out into the broader, uh, variety of people that are using products like yours. So, um, we had to start talking to people and, um, yeah, that's where the original pain point came from.

JH: [00:02:31] Cool. Cool. And when you say your users, are you like literally people who have been on the website and app and like experienced it firsthand or. Uh, is it a little bit more loose in the sense of anybody who's looking for an apartment you would consider a user? Like, how do you actually define your users in this?

Chad: [00:02:45] So we define our users as people that have gone to the platform and sent a lead. So, um, they've emailed the property manager inquiring about, uh, that place that they are listing and, um, That is what we consider a user, but we also, um, have used your guys's platform for, um, targeting people who are renters, um, across the nation and people who aren't actually like familiar with our product.

Sometimes we get lucky and, um, they are, but that's not necessarily what we were going for. We just wanted to get like a wider. So, you know, a wider data set of people.

JH: [00:03:21] Yeah. Yeah, totally. And do you find that the people who have, you know, sent a lead through the platform before, like you're able to go deeper with them or like, um, is there a certain richness of insights you get from, from the people who have that like extra context that, you know, the prospective renters maybe don't

Chad: [00:03:39] yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it makes sense too. Cause we actually, we, um, we take the timeline into effect as well. So we, you know, We contact people that have recently sent leads. So renting is fresh on their mind. You know, we know now, like the renter timeline is typically like four to six weeks is when people are searching for a place like that's when they conduct their search.

And so like that helps us with, um, you know, the freshness of the conversation. And we can really have pointed things for specific things we're working on or specific, specific things that they went through a test, uh, on the platform. And, uh, it just really, really usable too. Have that frequency, um, tied into the conversation.

JH: [00:04:18] Cool. Do you, do you almost try to avoid getting them, like when it's too fresh, like when they're still in the process, is that stressful or is it, are they down to chat with you when they're still maybe housing insecure, so to speak?

Chad: [00:04:31] Um, you get, you get both ends of the spectrum. Um, you definitely get the, you know, the money conscious procrastinator, uh, where there's not a lot of inventory that matches their search and maybe they waited too long and the given market that they're searching in.

And so there's not a lot of inventory for them to look through, but then you also get people who have massive budgets and are. No, not in any rush to move, but are just looking at, you know, trying to find the next big kind of high rise, et cetera. So it's, it's across the board. It

JH: [00:05:07] feels like, I guess a continuation of that, it feels like, um, the profile is so broad.

That you probably must end up with like a ton of different, interesting segments and cases right. Of a couple that's maybe moving in together for the first time. And they're trying to find an apartment versus somebody who's coming out of college and looking for their first place on their own, or, you know, somebody who's downsizing and leaving a house and coming to a part, like, it feels like the breadth of scenarios of apartment hunters is so, so wide.

Like how do you guys navigate that and make sense of all the different use cases?

Chad: [00:05:39] Uh, that's a good question. Yeah. You hear some horror stories when you're talking to people. I kind of feel like we're, sometimes we're in therapy in our, uh, renter interview sessions, but, um, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, the whole 80 20 rule that you want to make a product that is really, really good for your primary user.

Um, I think that that's. Yeah, it's that tried and true cliche has been tried and true for a reason. Uh, so, and that's the whole point of us talking to our customers is we want to know what that breadth is so we can focus in on that 80 and make sure it's still functional, you know, hopefully usable, um, to, to the 20% that isn't necessarily the primary, uh, the person that we're, you know, we're targeting for this platform and this product, but.

Um, yeah, the, the whole idea is to, to really make it useful for a wider set, because it is, it's a very subjective process looking for an apartment. And, uh, there's a lot of people that are in different scenarios. Hmm.

Erin: [00:06:36] And what sort of process have you put together to talk to people across these different, you know, across all the breadth of your target users on a regular basis?

Chad: [00:06:48] Uh, so like how do we go about talking to, yeah, so, yeah, so luckily, uh, even though we're a small team, um, I do have help in the data science department here.

Erin: [00:07:03] Tell me, tell me about small who's on the team. Who are we talking about?

Chad: [00:07:06] Small. Okay. So I am the only designer right now. Um, and so have to be a generalist and do everything.

Um, but luckily we're a product focused team, like a design focused team. Uh, we have five developers, um, one, uh, VP of products. One like CEO is a very product focused. Um, and, and that's pretty much it. And the data scientists, you know, she helps out where we can with, uh, we are a data-driven team. So she helps us with questions that we have in particular.

I asked her like, Hey, can I get the. Uh, latest 1000 leads like, you know, non duplicated leads from our top 15 markets, uh, or kind of get him from Pittsburgh. And she can spit that out for me from, from our, uh, you know, from Domo and from a database tool. And, um, yeah, we just, we plugged it into user interviews and it makes it really easy for us to, uh, to contact these people and they feel like it's trusted resource.

And it's actually so much different from when we were really Spartan and we used Craigslist and, uh, you know, since we are in a university's town, like we would go to, uh, we would go to the universities and, you know, sit down in the unions and the coffee shops and, you know, try to get people to talk to us for a Starbucks gift card.

And now it's a little bit more sophisticated and, and certainly a lot more doable.

Erin: [00:08:34] Yeah. So you're, you're the head of design sole designer. Had user researcher. So he's a researcher serving a team of five developers. So, uh, how do you fit this research, uh, into your, into your life? Do you have a certain number of interviews you're trying to do, um, you know, per week or per month, or is it as you're building new products, making sure to work that in or what kind of cadence have you found yourself in to talk to your own users?

Chad: [00:09:02] Yeah. So in the most recent case, it's probably the most useful since it's fresh. Um, We, we had this question on, uh, you know, user engagement and, you know, uh, the strategy was, you know, can we get comedian renters to stay on the platform longer, et cetera. And so, uh, after having like our stakeholder interview and figuring out what the goal of the business was, we sat down and we just didn't do some user interviews.

And we talked to people about, you know, what is it about it? Um, you know, when you're looking at apartment websites, like, what is it about it that makes it stand out to you or what makes it feel like it's for you and asking those questions really helped us narrow it down. You know, just some different directions that we wanted to, to test off, uh, with our own users like writing AB tests.

Uh, so that was like a really good way to like dip our toe into the renter interview process. Um, so that was really helpful, but what's also useful for us is. The ongoing, like questions that we have. Like, for example, we just had a meeting like an hour ago and we couldn't come to a conclusion and it was a point of diminishing returns.

And so we were finally like, okay, well we have some data, like let's pair that up with the conversations that we can have, you know, uh, you know, in the coming weeks with these renters and, and to see how those align or where they diverge. And those really help steer our conversations. So they're not just based on, you know, unfounded opinions.

Yeah. Yeah.

JH: [00:10:37] I feel like, uh, we're a pretty debated bunch at user interviews and despite what we see, uh, and, um, despite what we do, right. And it's basically work and there's certainly times where we'll be like making the academic argument for like, why we should do something or some other strategy. Every once in a while, does that semester hold her head and be like, you know, there's a way we can answer this.

Like we could, we could actually go out and talk to people and get like, get some real conviction here. And, uh, so it's cool that you guys have, uh, been able to do that and it's happening pretty regularly

Chad: [00:11:05] for sure. You

Erin: [00:11:07] said you had some, some data you was talking about quantitative data analytics or, or something like that that you could combine with qual.

Is that what you're referring to? Yep.

Chad: [00:11:17] Yep.

Erin: [00:11:17] I'm curious how much you can talk about or willing to, but what kind of stuff are you looking to look into?

Yeah, you said you're in the coming weeks. You wanted to do some interviews coming up to kind of see if you can confirm what you're seeing in the quantitative data to try to move, move in the right direction.

Chad: [00:11:40] Oh, sure. Yeah, absolutely. So the, on the quantitative side, like we're, like I said, we're data-driven team, we make a lot of data data-driven decisions.

Uh, and so, you know, I'm using things like GA and Domo and things like that are really helpful for, you know, getting that stat. But, um, While we have that, uh, it's really important for us to like have particular right now we're focusing on, uh, personalizing your search process. Um, it's, it's one thing to filter down by bedrooms, price, et cetera.

But, um, we want to know, or we also know that. That's not the only decision make or decision that goes into the process when you're making trade-offs. Right. Like, so do you care about price? Do you care about location? Do you care about, you know, amenities, uh, things like that do care about public transportation, um, having that quantitative data set and then using that when we interview our renters or even the sample that you guys give us across the United States really helps us, you know, take that.

That user story, that persona and tie it into these, you know, these users.

Erin: [00:12:53] Got it. Yeah. That's really interesting. When you think about sites with filters. So many of just narrowing all the things down to fewer things, it sort of assumes people are completely rational minds who know exactly what they want and can, you know, kind of zero in with these, this perfect selection of filters.

And you're talking about if I understand you, right. Sort of. Taking the intelligence behind that and bringing it to the forefront through some personalization technology. Yeah. That's

Chad: [00:13:22] really cool. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's such a subjective process,

JH: [00:13:26] right? Right. Yeah. It does seem it that's um, I'm just not going to, like, I guess, think about your problem space, but it seems so fascinating in the sense of at least thinking of my own experience or anything.

Right. It's um, the trade-offs are so fuzzy, right? Like my budget $1,600, but. If it had a deck or it was like gorgeous, maybe I'd go to 700, 1700 or something. You know what I mean? It's like, so if I put the filter in there and then I miss it, it's like, that's a bummer, but I need to narrow it down somehow.

So yeah, that's a really interesting problem.

Chad: [00:13:53] Yeah. And that insight came up too with the price. And in particular, it's like, after talking, you know, the whole rule of five, kind of, when you're interviewing people, you can get like a pattern after five it's like we had that pattern come up so many times the price it's like, everyone's like, yeah, I'd probably spend a hundred to $200 more.

So like we put that like user. A UX like copywriting into the product itself. It's like $200, so yeah.

JH: [00:14:17] Yeah. Yeah. Does this have laundry in unit or not

Chad: [00:14:20] flex?

Erin: [00:14:22] Do you have a typical cadence or does it vary quite a bit from month to month, week to week in terms of how many folks you're, you're

Chad: [00:14:28] talking to? Yeah.

So when we're, we're shaping the product or shape of the problem, I should say, um, we do a lot of talking to the renters and we were doing it at a cadence of three to five times a week. Um, so, you know, half hour interviews, three times three to five times a week was, was enough to give us enough color on situation.

But now that we've shaved it, it typically doesn't really come back up until, you know, like today we have questions on, um, and we were stuck, so let's just go talk to customers and see if we can stop overthinking this. And, uh, you know, that's like a one-off basis, but when we're shaping the problem, that's when we are.

Yeah, there was a two month period. There were every, every week, three to five customers a week.

JH: [00:15:17] All right. A quick awkward interruption here. It's fun to talk about user research, but you know, what's really fun is doing user research and we want to help you with that.

Erin: [00:15:26] We want to help you so much that we have created a special place.

It's called user interviews.com/awkward for you to get your first three participants

JH: [00:15:36] free. We all know we should be talking to users more. So we went ahead and removed as many barriers as possible. It's going to be easy. It's going to be quick. You're going to love it. So get over there and check it out.

Erin: [00:15:46] And then when you're done with that, go on over to your favorite podcasting app and leave us a review, please.

But you did mention that it was a lot harder to get these interviews done with your own users before. And so now you're doing them sounds like, you know, kind of depends on where you are with developing products, but sometimes three to five times a week, have you done any. Testing with your process or subject lines or anything with your kind of logistical flow to make that process easier to maintain,

Chad: [00:16:22] uh, nothing juicy on that front.

Actually, we've been pretty successful with, um, you know, our subjects subject line, the amount of incentive

Erin: [00:16:31] you have any recommendations for that? Cause we get questions about that all the time in terms of. Subject lines and incentives and things to, to offer, to get the best response rate.

Chad: [00:16:41] Yeah, I guess for us in particular, we pardon me?

We, we just add, since they recently used the Botto, we, you know, we talk about that in the headline and we say like, based on your recent search, um, we'd love your feedback kind of thing. Uh, and that seems to work pretty well. So. It connected that, um, the recent activity to there, or sorry, connecting the recent activity to the actual email subject is,

JH: [00:17:08] yeah, I think you mentioned this before a little bit too, but I do have to imagine that, uh, renters are pretty happy to have someone's ear when they're going through the process of trying to find an apartment.

I'd imagine they have a lot to vent and get off their chest in some of these sessions.

Chad: [00:17:20] Absolutely. I mean, I've had, I've had, uh, the old switcheroo on me when I've thought this renter I was talking to was this, you know, 21 year old, a junior from a certain university line. It's the dad of this junior. And, uh, yeah, I don't know whether he was shy or, or what the case may be, but, you know, he was concerned for his son.

And so,

JH: [00:17:46] um, there's a millennial time. Um,

Chad: [00:17:52] yeah, he didn't say one word. There was a lot, there's a lot of like, you know, what do you think of this? And he didn't say anything. So,

Erin: [00:17:58] yeah. Even you mentioned when you're doing some of these interviews, uh, we, you know, we do them, are you doing these as small groups or how are you looping other folks on the team into some of this activity?

Chad: [00:18:09] Yeah. Uh, so started off with, um, Um, just me and one other, uh, developer, someone to help me take notes. And, uh, basically my whole point of doing that was to bring people into the value of, of talking to people. It's, it's one thing for me to have all the knowledge, but, uh, it's really important to have that knowledge exchange in order to everyone get on board and for everyone to, to see the value and talking to customers.

So when you bring it up in a meeting like today, it's not like, Oh, you're just trying to kick the can. And. No, it does. This doesn't mean anything. This is just another designer trying to tell us to talk to renters or talk to our users. But, um, it was really important, especially bringing in other shareholders.

So like I brought my, my co-founder and CEO, um, in, on the process and instantly he just, you know, he started like creating he's an analytical person. So he started creating like air tables and. Uh, you know, cohorting these users and to all sorts of demographics and psychographics and, uh, he ran away with it.

And so it's, it's really important to bring other people into the process, to, to, uh, to see the light on

JH: [00:19:19] that one thing. Uh, I, I know we've heard that. The benefit of talking to your own users is, is you can kind of go back to them multiple times and like, you know, they have some continuity and you could show them an early version and maybe come back and show them a later version of something.

Is that been something you guys have deployed at all? Or are you kind of going to the well pretty fresh?

Chad: [00:19:37] Uh, we're going to the weld pretty fresh every time, however, Um, we have had people indicate, uh, that they'd be more than happy to be on an ongoing basis with us. So, uh, I haven't used the feature at all and user interviews yet, but I do know it's available.

Um, and it's, it's something that we are looking forward to do because, uh, whether the conversation was fruitful, um, or they just really give us candid feedback. Uh, we want to talk to those people on an ongoing basis.

JH: [00:20:09] Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things. It's tough to get the balance. Cause it gets, it is tough to get the F it's sorry.

It's valuable to get the fresh perspectives, but it is nice to have a couple of power users that you can lean on in our case, a Brandy, give her a shout out and yeah. Yes. For a lot of stuff.

Chad: [00:20:23] Good listening. I know Brandy from the, uh, the Slack

JH: [00:20:26] channel. Yes. Yes. That's great. Yeah. So like, you know, it's, it's one of those things that, um, it's I was just curious, cause I think it's, it's.

It comes into the, it comes into play when you're talking about your own users. Right. Because there is a relationship and there is an ongoing newness to it. And so, um, you can operate a little differently than, you know, when you're just trying to find new people well, every single time. So

Chad: [00:20:45] exactly. Yeah.

JH: [00:20:47] When you are pulling the list, um, you know, from your database and grabbing people, are you pulling like additional contextual data? That's helpful, like what market they're in and the data contact or, you know, whatever it may be, um, or are you screening them to solicit some of that information? Like. Is it important for you to have some of those like other contextual data points or just, you know, I know this person did this action recently and that's good enough.

And I'm just going to go see if they'll talk to me.

Chad: [00:21:12] Yeah. So we definitely use the date in which they sent the lead. Um, and then we also in our database can provide the market that, which they're tied to. And that's really helpful for, um, you know, we want to know how X Caesar's and X city are performing with this new test.

So. Um, we can do some qualitative stuff like that by reaching out to them. Um, and then, uh, it's just really easily for that. But for screening people, we can't in that database, we don't have age, we don't have student. So pairing those two things together is really useful. And, you know, you can get the certain market information, the date information, and how many leads they have sent.

Uh, and then we pair that with user interviews, screening of like, . Um, are you a student, are you working professional? Are you a couple, or are you in a relationship? Um, do you have a family, uh, and like potential salary range and those things are really, really nice to pair together to get a, uh, a clear picture of who you're talking to.

JH: [00:22:15] Gotcha. Gotcha. And is that kind of, just to make sure you have some balance and a mix, or are some cases like some of those things are actually like disqualifying, like somebody in this income bracket is actually not a good fit for what we're looking into right now.

Chad: [00:22:27] Yeah. Uh, although we do love our feedback from our retiree community.

JH: [00:22:32] In that example, sorry,

Chad: [00:22:36] you have an ongoing, like, um, NPS score essentially. And we get a lot of feedback from our retiree users. Um, And, uh, so sometimes it's useful for us to talk to them in particular markets, but our primary inventory focuses on, uh, young professionals working professionals and in tier two cities. And so we want to make sure that the feedback we're getting, if it is applicable, um, is from those particular users.

Is

Erin: [00:23:04] that, is that a term I'm allowed to use? Tier two? I say that all the time, just like,

Chad: [00:23:09] uh, and maybe I'm just blind to it.

Erin: [00:23:11] Now I'm going to stick with it. You're talking about not, not in New York, Chicago, LA like your Nashville's.

Chad: [00:23:18] Yes. Yeah. So Apple is Milwaukee, uh,

Erin: [00:23:22] Madison, Madison.

Chad: [00:23:24] Beautiful town. 200. Yeah.

We love it here too. About a couple of minutes of summertime. The rest is we're hibernating, but no, it's lovely here, but, um, yeah, that's, that's when we met here,

Erin: [00:23:37] I grew up in a tier tier four city. Not sure

Chad: [00:23:42] mine's not even out of tier. Let's see the city I grew up with. Does he make it here? So.

JH: [00:23:47] Is the, the, is the tier two city focus, um, is that like partially a function of, um, renters have a little bit more like leverage and rights in some of those markets then maybe like, you know, a place like San Francisco or something where the rental market is just crazy and the landlords can do whatever they want or is it just how, or for a different reason, I'm just genuinely curious.

Chad: [00:24:11] Yeah, not to get too much into our, our first, first leg demo pitch that we had. But, um, we, we sampled the great Sam Walton and his, uh, you know, rural business expansion. And, you know, we took on Kmart. He noticed that, you know, he called it big business, ignoring big business. And what he meant by that was Kmart was only in these big cities.

So of course, people who lived in big cities had the. Opportunity to go to Kmart. And he wanted to provide that for other people and other cities that necessarily weren't in these metropolitan areas, major metropolitan areas. So that's, that was the, the analog for us when we started out. Um, and like I said before, our beachhead was universities and college students.

And so far we've expand that to the markets that those universities exist in. And otherwise we are, um, Pretty prevalent in Chicago as well. But, um, that was the main, uh, that was the Genesis of the tier two cities was just overlooked markets that clearly have renters. And why isn't the technology of the software or the, um, you know, the tools there for them.

JH: [00:25:21] Nice. That's really clever. I like that.

Erin: [00:25:27] Yeah. I'd never heard that ingesting Walmart. Sure. There are books, many books on Walmart and I him. Oh yeah. We always like to ask, uh, you know, what do you love most about user research?

Chad: [00:25:40] Uh, I love the outcomes that come from it. Um, my favorite things. So far our, when people start talking about, maybe it's not personas exactly or a persona in particular, but when somebody from my team starts talking like our renters, or like, they bring up like, Oh, Hey, remember that one renter who really, really put a lot of emphasis on square footage because she has two kids and she really needed to be close to a public transportation.

Like. That like those kind of aha moments when they come up in conversation is I think it has to be the, my favorite thing about it.

Erin: [00:26:28] Thanks for listening to awkward silences brought to you by user

Chad: [00:26:31] interviews,

JH: [00:26:33] theme music by fragile gang

Erin: [00:26:36] editing and sound production by Carrie Boyd.