AL (01:46):
Okay, Kristen, let's jump in. Describe Help Scout for me in two sentences.

KS (01:52):
Okay. At Help Scout we're a B-corps that builds software that helps growing businesses better support their customers.

AL (02:00):
Love that that was less than two sentences. Well done. That's a hard task for any marketer to do I think, but you nailed that. So good work.

KS (02:08):
Thank you.

AL (02:09):
And we're talking about this new online publication, this brand marketing initiative called In The Works. So I wanna look at this kind of from three phases of goal and intent, like, why did we wanna do this, the middle messy stuff on, how did it get done? What kind of tools resources were needed? What were all the hiccups along the way, unless it went perfectly, which would be amazing. I wanna hear that too.

KS (02:40):
Has that ever happened?

AL (02:42):
I know. The third phase are the result. So tell me kind of what you're seeing and was that expected, was that different? So start at the beginning for me and just walk me through the stages.

KS (02:52):
Absolutely. So really we set out to think about how can we start a new campaign that really shows who we are as a company and can better build brand awareness for our audience. Help Scout's been around for about 10 years now. It's closer to, I think to 11 or 12 now, what is time? But, you know, we've built a lot of brand equity with a customer support audience, but after doing some go to market research in the summer of 2020, we realized how many folks who were landing on our website were actually not customer support professionals. People were looking at our blog post who were in other areas of the business, whether that be customer experience, customer success, but also a large number of folks were founders in small business leaders who found themselves having to be responsible for offering customer support at very scrappy or, you know, startup companies.

KS (03:44):
Right. And so what we realized from that is that we have this captive audience that we're not really serving well with our content right now, we were really focused on customer support challenges. When this particular piece of our audience has a much broader array of challenges that they're facing throughout the course of their business day. And so with that in mind, we started thinking, how can we reach an audience of founders and small business leaders with content that would resonate with them, recognizing that we think they're probably empathetic leaders, they're probably gritty and resilient, and they care about building companies who care out customers. Right? And so that's a very specific type of leader. And when we looked at the space, there, wasn't a lot of content that was speaking to that. There's a lot of hustle content. I feel like I've starting to make a brand for myself as the anti hustler.

AL (04:35):
I hate it. I hate that language. I hate that word. I don't wanna use it ever. I don't wanna hear it around me.

KS (04:43):
I know. And so we are just like, where is the content that speaks to the founders who are the founders, who are our customers, the folks that are just out there with their, you know, customers, with their employees, building something that they really care a lot about, because they're passionate about the problem that they're solving, or even passionate about being able to lead a company in the right way. So we did a lot of work with talking to founders that we knew people who are customers and asked them, you know, like where are you getting the content that you like, what, like, what's helpful. What do you not like that's in this space? And the result of all of that was really In The Works.

AL (05:22):
Got it. Okay. So you recognized kind of, would we call this an expansion of your ICP?

KS (05:30):
Yeah, I definitely would. I, I think that we, and by we, the sales team was very aware of how many folks who are coming to our site were actually founders and, folks not in support roles, but our brand really speaks more to customer support folks. Part of that is because historically the folks that are on my content team have customer support expertise as well. One of our key writers spent 20 years leading customer support teams, right. And so he is an expert and people know that and we're able to offer a voice that's very realistic for customer support people day to day. On the flip side, we only have a couple people at the company that can talk about founding companies, right. And one of who is our CEO and I don't know, he has a lot on his plate. Right. And so you know, what they're dealing with doesn't really get, or hadn't really been getting elevated in our content strategy. And so I think from an ideal customer profile for our content, absolutely a shift from the folks that are on the kind of like sales side already aware.

AL (06:33):
Yeah. Sales usually knows before anybody else I feel right. They're getting, and they're, they're finding these leads coming in through their, through their, you know, Salesforce or their HubSpot or whatever it is. And they're like, oh, this is interesting. This is really outside of anything that I've had to speak to before this doesn't look like anybody that I've had to speak to before. So how did we get from, you know, this recognition of this new ICP we wanna create, there's clearly a gap of content in the market. We wanna fill that gap. How do we go from that to In The Works?

KS (07:04):
Yeah. So the first thing I would say is that we had I wanna establish that there was a foundation in a desire to create creative branded content at Help Scout. When I joined the team in the summer of 2020, we were our first kind of, for foray into branded content with a docu-series called against the grain. And a big question that we had was like, what's next. Now that we've done something that's very well produced. And very elevated content, like how do we continue that momentum with establishing ourselves as a company that cares a lot about creativity and well-made content. And so I started off in conversations with our CEO, our VP of brand at the time, our VP of marketing. Talking about, you know, what does it look like for us to continue to make elevated content? And in, within the kind of realm of the world being in a global pandemic, we are a remote company, the idea of our docu-series, which was sending people to shoot on location in different cities with people who were also in offices no longer made sense for where we were.

KS (08:11):
And so we started thinking about, what's an opportunity for us to showcase our brand and to create more content. That's also more easily produced in a very remote society. And so the idea came of like, what does it mean to build a digital magazine? And so we started pursuing a digital publication. That's turned into this really a multimedia platform for us of thinking about short form written content, longer form feature stories short audio snippets, short videos against the grain, our original video series also lives there as a way to create multiple types of content that can engage an audience that you don't have to sit down and listen to, you know, a whole podcast in one in one go, but you could maybe listen to a five minute podcast episode, or maybe there's a snack, you know, a shareable content snack that you tweet from our website.

KS (09:08):
So really trying to think about a diverse mix of content that comes together to reach this audience. And so that's really how it started to form like actually take shape as partially under the guise of constraints, but also this kind of opportunity to do more than just create a new blog that cuz we could have just taken our blog and said, you know what, we're gonna make a section on our blog. That's just for growth. And this is where we're gonna point everybody. And we're just gonna take the, that standard blog playbook. But we wanted to do more than that. We wanted to connect with folks on a broader array of, of types of content and different types of media as well.

AL (09:46):
And as you're having these questions with executive leadership and you know, you've got all of these KPI, ROI driven people in the room and you're coming with this idea that says, yes, we wanna elevate ourselves with this kind of creative content. We wanna be known as this kind of company, but are you also hearing in the room? Okay. But then what? Like how do we bring these people through this beautifully digital magazine into customer? Can you speak a little bit about that?

KS (10:16):
Yeah. I honestly, I feel very privileged to have been able to work at companies where the CEO believes that creativity is a brand differentiator and is a real way for us to drive engagement long term and to deliver value long term to our customers. And so honestly it did not take much convincing for our CEO, Nick to say like, this is a big bet. It's not gonna pay off in MRR once we launch. It's gonna take time. And he has faith in that approach because he wants to be known as a company that supports really well designed products, really offers top of the line customers support in every interaction that we have with our customers and that we take bets and that we're creative. So I think that all of those things matter, but what, at the same time, if we know that this big initiative that we're about to embark on is not going to drive people through the funnel, there are other things that we are doing as part of our well round marketing strategy that ramped up and kind of accounted for trying to drive MRR because it's not that we didn't do anything else on the marketing team to drive revenue while we were building In The Works, right.

KS (11:29):
It's just that we're not holding In The Works accountable in the same way that we would if we're investing in creating more bottom of funnel content. So it's a different set of metrics and luckily being able to explain how all of these things kind of work together and kind of create this content mix that allows people to be attracted at the top of the funnel without overwhelming our subscribers with stuff about our product, right? That all of these things are working together was something that wasn't hard to convince leadership as in my case. I would say that for other folks that feel like they have to do more case building when it comes to doing brand initiatives, a huge part of it is being able to explain what parts of your contents strategy are going to lead to trials and demos. How are you going to continue to feed that beast while you take creative risk and also understanding what is the timeline that you have to do that?

AL (12:25):
Yeah, that's brilliant. That's, I love that we, we get asked a lot about how to get buy in from executive leadership for initiatives that are, are riskier, right. That are, and those in turn always come with a little bit more creativity, a little bit more outside of the box. So I think that's great advice. I love the scope of In The Works. So tell me what it takes to put something like that together from technology and team and how, how often are you doing a publication? Is it every

KS (12:59):
It's about every six weeks. We do a new issue about every six weeks. We kind of set out with the goal of monthly, which is very ambitious for a team of our size. And I'll talk a little bit more about what size team we have, but we're publishing an issue every six weeks. So one thing I will say about In The Works is upfront, it probably took, let's call it six, six to eight hours. So, so six to eight hours of meetings with executive leadership really getting alignment on what it is that we're building. So from how are we defining our audience, how are we going to be measuring our success? How are we thinking about the, how we wanna make people feel when they consume the content that we're making? So we had a series of workshops or, you know, really just white boarding that out.

KS (13:48):
And then I think second to that, the outcome of that was really this kind of brief in some ways, really lack of better term, kind of creative brief about the, what we called at the time, the hub, like we, we called it the hub for founders. And so really thinking about what we mean when we're talking about this, what we wanna accomplish from there, we started to build out the team because part of that finalized brief was really saying, what are the resources we need to make this successful? And for us, we said that what we need as a full time editor, someone that's actually going to own the voice tone and manage the editorial calendar for this publication. We didn't want to split time between, okay, we wanna hire someone that's also gonna do the blog and also do this publication.

KS (14:35):
But really expanding the content team in a way that we create subject matter experts for our individual audiences. So really hiring someone that could come in and own the audience of founders and own the best ways to reach them was what we wanted to do. So we hired a person for editorial lead and then had them hire a content producer and a content writer. So building out the team also took some time but having those three full-time hires that were fully dedicated was a huge part of setting up In The Works as it is now, once our editorial lead got on board, it was really project planning for we kind of took a step back and we said, this is three projects. There's the actual content creation. And the editorial piece of this work, then there's the building of the website and the brand.

KS (15:24):
Actually there's a building of the website and then there's the building of the brand. And those are three different projects that could take people years to do any single one of them. But we did all of this in six months instead. We were just like running fast and hard at things. And so really we started with brand development, working really closely with brand designers on our team, people who are not exclusively working on In The Works, but who do all the design for the marketing team and with that brand team are really developed not only the style guide and kind of the general sense of how we want to represent ourselves to the world, but also thinking about ways to scale the ongoing repetitive release of content that we haven't always done so well on the blog. So I'm talking about, you know, what type of guide and documentation will allow us to use freelance photographers or freelance illustrators and things like that, that, you know, when you're always working with internal teams, you don't necessarily document as well.

KS (16:24):
Right? So it was a lot, it was a lot of heavy lifting from our brand designers working closely with our editorial lead to really, really make this voice and to create the subbrand of In The Works. There was naming it, which was another, you know, series of conversations about how do we strike the right balance with the name. And that all came as part of the brand work. While we also had to build the website to reflect all of this as well. Right? So building that sub domain where we are creating an experience that we don't want to necessarily be reflective of our product or even our marketing website, but really a completely unique experience because we're really trying to make sure that we reflect what we think and what we know founders and business leaders expect from the content that they're interacting with regularly. Building that website took again, probably three, four months after we got requirements. And you know, full-time developers to do that. So yeah, it was, it was a big initiative, big team. And I think it really took all of those pieces falling into place of really defining that audience so that we could have that information to inform how we created a brand for them, and then bringing that brand to life, both in the content that we created. And also the site experience that we worked on as well.

AL (17:51):
Talk to me a little bit about what the conversations were like when you're thinking about giving something like this its own brand and how it is, or isn't, connected back to your Help Scout brand.

KS (18:06):
Yeah. So when we first started talking and this was like in those early alignment conversations with leadership, we first started talking about what are the values that we think are had by small and medium size business leaders that we're trying to target? Like what are the values of the non hustle culture founders that we're talking about? And we started throwing out out some words and like, again, empathetic, resilient, committed, like mission driven, things like that started to crop up for us. And we kind of took a look at the words that we were using to describe those folks. And then the words that we use to describe ourselves at Help Scout, and you would not believe how overlapping those, that sets of words really were. And so I think that at the end of the day, it's like a lens almost on our brand in a lot of ways of like, this is the lens that we can use to better kind of show ourselves to the founder audience.

KS (19:07):
It's not a departure from who we are. It's just like, you know, you might wear a suit to court. I don't know why you're going to court. I was just watching SVU, but you know but you know, you wear a suit sometimes, sometimes you wear a golf shirt, whatever it might be. But that's kind of how it felt like less flexing into a totally different space and more recognizing that we're building something for an audience we already have. So they already know us. We can't just create, you know, something totally off kilter. That would be really cool. And I'm sure our designers would've had a blast just like making something up out of thin air, but that it's really rooted and shared values just articulated in a clearer way for founder.

AL (19:52):
And you mentioned that this is an audience you already had because when we started this conversation, we talked about your identification of all these people on your website. So how do we now move them from Help Scout's website to, In The Works?

KS (20:06):
Yeah, so I, one of the things I think is a huge, huge thing for people, people to think about before they embark on a major content initiative is audience development. I think it's always easier to launch something to an audience that you already have versus thinking about, you know, I have to create this, this audience and I have to create demand for this thing that I, I want to launch for me. It's really, we had I mentioned Against the Grain, which was a series that really focused on customer centric businesses. And so it wasn't about customer support professionals in those businesses. It was about the founders and the leaders who cared deeply about their customers and, and really thinking about ways to bring them into a community more so than thinking about them just as users of their products or buyers for their products.

KS (21:01):
And so as we started to generate subscribers for Against the Grain, those people that we're interested in, that aren't necessarily the same people that we're interested in our weekly newsletter that we send about customer support challenges, right? And so we kind of had that existing list that we used to start generating some excitement. And, and we offered not only those episodes of Against the Grain, but I actually hosted like a live webinar with our CEO talking about building a company with purpose. And so we started kind of offering things throughout the year in the roll up too, In The Works that really spoke to that audience. Our CEO did an email series that was about fundraising. That was really about how do you bring in a fundraising partner, a strategic partner without compromising your values as a company? Do you feel like you have to sell out and like, what are all of these steps to fundraising when you're a founder that cares very deeply about what you're building.

KS (22:00):
And so that was another way that we started building our list in advance of launching In The Works. And so really it's like taking an evolutionary approach to building a list up that you can launch more content that you already know they're interested in and really identifying kind of niches within your audience segments that you already have so that you're serving them content that's relevant to them, not just all the content that you have at helps. So I think that, you know, moving forward and I'm sure that we'll talk a little bit now about kind of like what's next in results that pathway back to our funnel is something that we continue to work on building out. Again, thinking about it as a long term play, we have not pressured ourselves to say like, Hey, okay, this content is out here. Why isn't it driving revenue?

KS (22:50):
Because that's not how branding works. Right. But I think that, you know, the point is that hopefully we get into some conversations with folks on the sales side that know us because like we wrote something that they got, that someone shared with them on, In The Works, or they saw someone post something from, In The Works on LinkedIn, which had them click that person's profile. And all of a sudden they know about Help Scout. And they're kind of maybe not quite in the place to make buying decisions about customer support software, but they have that warmth, you know, we've warming up the funnel with every additional eyeball and, awareness play that we have. I feel like we're warming things up for our sales team and hopefully provide more of an opportunity for people to start searching for us.

AL (23:37):
Yeah. Let's talk about results. What are you seeing?

KS (23:42):
Yeah. So one thing that I really appreciate people, you know, asking me early on is like, what is the key metric that you're looking at for, In The Works, and for me it's subscribers. And one of the things that I would say about subscribers is that it doesn't, this might be a hot take. I don't even know. I don't talk to that many people anymore. But I still think the email, an email address is the most valuable thing that you can get as a marketer. And I'm very conscious of being gracious for an email address and how you use someone's email address. And that's something that we don't want to abuse an email address. Once we get it at Help Scout, we wanna be very thoughtful about the information that we send to you. And so for me, as we continue to generate subscribers, it's all about like, do I get this email address and do I use it appropriately?

KS (24:33):
And how, what feedback am I getting that shows me that these people that are on this email list actually wanna be here and that those are the numbers that I'm most excited about that we have over 2,500 subscribers to, In The Works right now out. And that's off of like five issues. Well, four issues we're releasing a fourth fifth issue should be out probably last week when y'all are hearing this. But you know, a big part of that is that of our subscribers. We have 50% open rates on our emails. And so for me, it's, it's really about the quality of subscribers that we're starting to get is like the people, once we get them and once they understand what they've subscribed to, they want the content that we're delivering. And I think that that is something that I'm very proud of. We've also, you know, over the course of the last year had invested in social media and really generating engagements.

KS (25:28):
We'll soon be launching individual like In The Works social media accounts. We had, you know, originally just launched In The Works content on Help Scout social media accounts, but we're getting enough traction and getting enough response to really expand our social media footprint specifically for, In The Works now, which we're really excited about. But social media, like engagement, every time we release a new issue, we're getting more and more people that are just responding to us, or just like hitting reply on the email saying thank you or sharing it, you know, and just seeing that word of mouth and that buzz start generating is something that we never really had before it helps get out. Part of that is just like, do you actually, do you actually invest in your social media strategy, which we hadn't before 2021 really. And then on top of that too, is like the actual content itself in terms of page views and like our listens on audio episodes. We have over a thousand listens on some of our most popular audio episodes. And so I'm like, okay, it's five minutes. And maybe that helps some, but the fact that thousands of people are listening to us is kind of, wow, we're a software company. We're not Netflix.

AL (26:41):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and it's, it's a testament to exactly what you've been talking about today, which is at a very basic, is like bringing a content marketing strategy back to providing content for people who want your content and making sure that content aligns with what they want. And I think sometimes content marketing in general gets so wrapped up in the demand gen funnel that it, it begins to serve a very different purpose or it can serve a very different purpose. And that's why I liked what you shared about really keeping some of these efforts separate that your demand gen is not, you know, being sacrificed in order to do something risky creative. And right now they might be mutually exclusive. They might not be in the future, but I think it's important to enable marketing teams to do both long term and short term plays. And whether that is through at Banzai, it's literally separate teams. We have like a corporate marketing team for branding, and then we have like demand gen teams for every product, or it's a splitting of resources within the same department or whatever it is. I think marketers, especially during the pandemic when they were thrown so many other responsibilities need a reminder that you can still do both long term and short term and, find ways to make a pitch for that, to get buy-in for that, so that you don't lose some of your creative opportunities.

KS (28:09):
Well, and I think at the end of the day, it's all about quality, right? We know that you can invest a lot of money and even demand gen campaigns that is ad money that just goes right out the door and the quality, you know, you get a ton more, like you might more traffic, you might even get a bump in your trials or demos or whatever, but like, are those trials even converting, right? And then you've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. You've given it to Google. You just handed it to them. And it's like, you're probably not the size of Google when you're handing this money to them. Right. And it's just, I think at the end of the day, I'm like, give me a hundred thousand dollars for this content that will be timeless. Right. You know, as we see this content growing In The Works, some of our best content or most visited content is still from the first issue.

KS (28:59):
And so it's like, people are finding this content months after we published it, but it's real people like kind of personal interest stories in some ways, right? It's like, it's a story of founders. It's a story about like, you know, how building, when you're building a company, it's not your family, it's a team. And like, how do you kind of demarcate that line while still caring about your coworkers? Right. And that is an issue that people will always be looking for. It's not, it doesn't have to operate on the same cycle. That's like that monthly spend that you're doing from an ad perspective. So I do think that like, it's, it's both, how do you invest in short and long term? Kind of figuratively, but also when it comes to the money that you're spending. I think a lot of us are quick to say, like, of course we have to spend at least $50,000 on ads. And I'm like, do you know what $50,000 of content could get you? Like, I don't know, like as a listener, like, do you actually know? Because it's a lot more than you think. And, and I think that there's a lot of value over time that can be driven through content.

AL (30:09):
Yeah. Great, great insights. All right. Let's pivot to our lightning questions. Are you ready? Are you feeling

KS (30:18):
I'm not, I know that these are definitely gonna be off the rip for me. So

AL (30:22):
I'm excited about this. I'm excited to see what you pull out for these. Okay. Ready? Okay. First thing that comes to your mind, like just like give it to us. Don't (inaudible) me your answer on these. What is one thing you did this week to support your team?

KS (30:38):
I had a conversation today with someone who maybe doing a LinkedIn and resume refresh workshop with us, a good friend of mine offers that as like she does career consulting. And I think it's really important to kind of follow up with roadmap conversations that we've been having over the last month about where people wanna go long term with actually like making sure that we are all are presenting our best selves on LinkedIn and in our resume. So I think that, you know, whenever you have a roadmap conversation with your team and you're talking about long term and short term goals, that's an opportunity where you have this kind of refinement and clarity around what their role is now, what you want their role to be in six months or a year. And so it's like the perfect opportunity to like say, okay, well, have you, does your LinkedIn reflect this at all?

KS (31:28):
Because if it doesn't, then that doesn't reflect well on me either. Right? Like I want, I want anyone to go and like, kind of figure out, well, who must be on the content team at Help Scout and then like, look at their LinkedIn and be like, oh, well, they do really cool stuff. Right? Like, I don't know that that's where it is right now. And so that's one thing that we are looking into is like, how can we all work together to kind of refresh our resumes, refresh how we present ourselves as a team, to the rest of the world.

AL (31:57):
Great. I love that answer. Okay. Number two, what is your most embarrassing webinar moment?

KS (32:06):
Oh, I feel like if I had thought about this, I'm sure that I made some really like obvious GAFE in a webinar before. Nothing. I can't think of anything too funny or salacious right now. I, I do, I do a lot of webinars. I've done a lot of webinars in my life, like, and I feel like I'm so particular about like, getting things right. That I can't think of something that has gone wrong recently probably because I was so scarred and then blacked it out. So I can't say that there's never been anything that would be a lie, but I feel like I'm so particular about like, not locking the door, but like, you know, basically there's an On Air sign to my door at this point in time. And my son who is five months old, has not managed to make an accidental appearance yet. So I think I'm doing okay.

AL (32:56):
Oh, but he should,

KS (32:58):
I know.

AL (32:58):
Really should. Five months old are like the only thing anybody wants to see on video. Nobody wants to

KS (33:04):
I mean, these are, this has happened. Yeah. Yes. Yep. You're right. This is what I keep hearing from my colleagues as well.

AL (33:10):
Yeah. Like bring him over. My dog. I was doing a webinar once and my dog started like barking in a way that was so unexpected, so loud that I literally like fell outta my chair. It was like, so I was like, the house is on fire. Like something tragic is happening right now. And I was so embarrassed and immediately in my chat, people were like, can we please see her, like pick her up, show her to us? And I was like, oh really? And they were like, yes, like some kind of like loving interaction, like please hold your dog. And I was like, okay.

KS (33:41):
I like, honestly I think that a lot of people get caught up on being very perfect with webinars, but at the end of the day, like whenever something goes wrong on a webinar, my biggest advice is just like lean into it because we don't want, like, we're all people, the majority of us are probably still working from home and it's like, you know, just, just things happen. And I think people like to see that side of folks who are presenting, it's like, you're a real person. You're not just reading a script. This is actually happening live. That's actually, maybe this is a funny webinar story. I used to do product webinars. When I was on the team at Wistia was doing product webinars for a product called Soapbox, which is like an online video recording tool. And so we had this huge influx of folks who are new users when everybody kind of started working from home and early in the pandemic.

KS (34:34):
And so we started offering product webinars, which was a really great strategy for us. And I was doing them weekly and I, and it was a product that I had previously managed. I mean, I know Soapbox in and out, or I did at the time. And I remember it, someone in the chat said, is this live like this, this is a recording. This isn't live. So he didn't actually believe that. Like, I guess I was so polished that he thought that it wasn't live. And so I was like, this is live, hi, John, this is live I'm here, here's your question and your concern. I just happen to know a lot about this product and I've done this a lot of times. And so it was like a good reminder that, you know, even when you're doing something over and over again, like give the people a little bit of vulnerability and a lack of polish so that they, they

AL (35:25):
Have a little rough, a little rough around the edges. Exactly. You know, that, that's so funny you say that that exact same thing has happened to me. And I think, I grew up like a theater kid. I have like all these degrees in theater. Hi,

KS (35:37):
Same. Hi,

AL (35:38):
Obviously. I mean, literally two pieces in a pod here. I get very performative. I can get very, like that's, I'm on stage. I've got my lines memorized. Like I'm showing up. And literally the same thing somebody has said to me, and I have also said like, hi, this is live. Like we're here. And that is such a good reminder. And it's, it also goes to show like my, my terror over this dog and everyone was probably so grateful for me to just stop talking for two minutes. Like you have a real moment, you know what I mean? Like, okay. Third question. What is your favorite tool that you can't live without?

KS (36:17):
Oh man. Okay. This is like a, this the new mom moment, but I will say right now, the answer is a Snoo. If you have the opportunity to rent a Snoo, it's a smart bassinet.

AL (36:30):
Oh Okay. My kid is six and I swear to God, that was not a thing six years ago. Like what's happening with the baby technology? Why is it moving so fast?

KS (36:40):
This is like, I mean, I, I don't know. This is a SaaS podcast. You probably want me to say Slack or, you know, I, I, I really only use Slack and Dropbox, so I

AL (36:50):
No gimme the real stuff. What the hell is a Snoo?

KS (36:54):
So Snoo was created by pediatrician as a, a way to help with baby sleeping. And so it, they actually like rock the baby when they're crying, there's white noise. And they also like to market themselves as the safest baby sleeping environment, because the little like sleep sack that they have keeps them on their back. And so like a whole way for him to like stay asleep. And I will say that I do think that it is the reason that my baby started sleeping through the night at six weeks. So this is not an ad, but if Dr. Harvey Carp is hearing me, I'm happy to be sponsored by Snoo.

AL (37:36):
Thank you, Snoo, for all that you do for parents everywhere. That sounds incredible.

KS (37:43):
I do think, the last thing I read about this, I think they're trying to get like certified as a medical device so that it could be covered by FSA is not a cheap investment. So, right. That is the only thing. We rented ours, but I think that that's, that's the main hurdle right now is unfortunately it's not accessible to all.

AL (38:01):
That movement thing is no joke. I remember when my kid was like two months old, I remember furiously rocking him in a car seat. And I don't mean like in a car. I mean,

KS (38:12):
Like, I know what you're talking

AL (38:13):
About the car seat. I put him on the hardwood floor while I'm watching Netflix and with a motion is so gratuitous that I was sure that not only would I wake him up, but that, that I would push him through the floorboards, but no, he was just, so this was his, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is, this is what it was like in the womb. That feels terrible, right?

KS (38:39):
No, yes.

AL (38:40):
That's the tool you can't live without. I mean, you're you have a five month old that's that's.

KS (38:45):
I do think that, that last time I was asked this question on a podcast, I said a wine key, and I stand by that answer as well. Cork screw.

AL (38:52):
Yeah. Also maybe a lot of caffeine, I don't know. Do you do caffeine?

KS (38:56):
Yeah. Yep. Nespresso, big fan of Nespresso. I was not a at home coffee person before, but like now I'm an at home coffee person.

AL (39:06):
Yeah.

KS (39:07):
I don't know. There's something about when you have like pod driven coffee makers. It's like, when I use a pod that I don't typically use, it feels like I went to a different coffee shop. You know what I mean?

AL (39:19):
I, I really do know what you mean. Actually, I do that in a different way where I exclusively drink my coffee black. I always have, but every now and then I'll be like, what about this little flavored creamer in my fridge? Like, what would that taste like? And I get a little edgy and I don't measure it. And I just drop that sucker in, spin it around my coffee's now a completely different color and tastes wildly different. And I'm like, look at me.

KS (39:48):
It's like, you tried a new cafe. That's like, what I exactly right. It's just like a little story. You know, we all tell ourselves stories throughout the day. That's the story that I tell when I switch up the pod.

AL (39:59):
I love that for you. I love that journey for you. Well, this, okay this was such a pleasure. Kristen, I want you to wrap us up, tell us where we can find more about you Help Scout and In The Works.

KS (40:12):
Absolutely. So you can find more information about In The Works at InTheWorks.Help Scout.com. You'll also find a lovely link to Help Scout.com if you're in the mood for looking around at really great customer support software. And if you're interested in following me and my musings and probably more about my baby in this the Snoo, you can find me at Kristen Bryan Smith on LinkedIn.

AL (40:34):
Thank you, Kristen.

KS (40:37):
Thank you.