My career has been focused on putting customers first, always. From my start as co-founder of OpinionLab, where I pioneered voice of the customer (VoC) solutions, I’ve been obsessed with making sure that brands and their customers have the best possible digital experience. It affects so much of what we all do, and I was drawn to inventing technology that lets the brands themselves create and measure the best possible experience.

I truly believe that the key to being successful is satisfied customers. When you partner with a company to provide a product or service, you have to make sure it works and that the customer is realizing value from it.

As a user interface (UI) designer, I was intimately connected with what customers needed in our platform as well as what the end users wanted to see on digital properties. Eventually, I started working more closely with our product and engineering teams to ensure the look and feel were matched with exceptional performance. To ensure value realization of our platform, I made frequent customer engagement a part of the process – from real-time feedback to customer satisfaction measurement to executive alignment sessions. This constant dialog about how to improve experience eventually became known as what we call Customer Success in today’s SaaS environment. I just got there organically.

I love working with customers. The only way anyone is going to be successful is when you’re out there with them, understanding their pain and understanding how you can build products that accelerate both of your businesses at the same time.

It all comes down to humility. Sometimes as entrepreneurs, founders, or C-suite titles, we think we know what’s right and what’s best. Humility is understanding that you might not always be right and that you really need the full collaboration of your employees, your partners, and ultimately your customers in order to make you both better.

I approach my leadership strategy the same way – by listening and collaborating. It’s important to build and establish trust with employees just like we do with prospects, partners, and customers. They have to trust that you have their back, that you’re going to fight for them, and that you’re listening and paying attention to what’s important.

I joined FLYR because I like building. I like to see an impact. Product-market timing is supercritical, and there is a massive opportunity for us at FLYR to disrupt a legacy-driven industry and accelerate at an incredible rate by being able to scale what we’ve done for our current partners and provide it to the wider industry.

“We have a lot of learning to do constantly as technology is changing every day, and I’m excited to connect and empower the team. Ultimately customers buy software from people they trust.”

Creating relationships and sharing stories with each other is the foundation not only for a great business but also for life. We work as much as we live, and you can’t lose sight that what we’re doing in our job is a reflection of who we are. I honestly believe in focusing on relationships and the human aspect of our business, and I’m excited to take that belief to the next level with FLYR.