Thought Experiment: The Product Internship

Photo by Helloquence on Unsplash

This week I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts — Seeking Wisdom — when something David Cancel said struck a chord:

The company that gets closest to their customers wins.

Why did Netflix destroy Blockbuster? Why did Google win when everyone thought that search was over? Why does Amazon win in every category that it decides to play in? In each case the innovator faced a crowded category with many incumbents, but were able to thrive because they had an unfair advantage: they cared more. They did the work to understand what the customer really wanted rather than what they were willing to settle for.

How Close Can You Get To Your Customer?

Last week, I was on my way to Providence, Rhode Island at 4:00 in the morning to take the train to NYC and bam! Out of nowhere a massive deer jumped out of the woods and ran at my car. I saw it, and was able to swerve to avoid direct deer-to-face contact. It still did a number on my car:

I lucked out. Seriously. I was able to drive it the 20 miles or so to Providence so I could park it in a lot. I honestly thought I avoided real damage and thought there would be a minor ding. No airbag deployed. The only indicator that came on was one saying my adaptive headlights were inoperable.

When I got to the lot, I went to open the door….and it wouldn’t open. I had to crawl through the passenger side. I walked around, and was floored at the extent of the damage. It was bad.

You can still see the fur….we can get DNA to find the deer that did this to me. Let’s do it.

I had 15 minutes to get to my train, so I sent the pictures to my wife and ran to the station. The insurance company was less than helpful. They asked us to call Mercedes roadside assistance and offered no help.

Mercedes said they’d handle it. They asked if I was okay. When I was on my way home from NYC, I called them and they arranged a tow truck and just asked me to leave the keys in the car. I didn’t have to wait around, and they actually paid for my parking to get the car out. They then took the car to the nearest dealership and then to the collision center. All of this just happened without me worrying about anything. At each step and with each different person I talked with, I got the feeling that they honestly cared about me. It felt genuine.

I realized that aside from the used car I bought, they sold me confidence. At every interaction, I felt like I didn’t have to worry about anything and that hey had my back. In a weird, scary situation, they made me feel totally comfortable.

So What Does This Have To Do With Cyber Security?

Sure, you think. Mercedes can afford to spend the time going out of their way for customers. They charge more, and can hire people that are able to spend more time with customers. That’s just not realistic when it comes to software, right?

Bullshit.

I don’t know why, but I started to think about the process by which enterprises evaluate and subsequently purchase software. It starts with a proof-of-concept (POC), where the company tries out a vendor’s offering to see if it fits into what the company needs. Evaluation criteria are agreed upon, with the thought that if all the boxes are checked, the software will be purchased.

The whole thing seems so artificial. The vendor has a product and the entire POC exercise is one where the two parties try to stretch the product to see if it fits into the customer’s unique environment to solve a challenge worth paying money for. In many cases, both parties know that the product isn’t going to solve the actual problem, but it may solve something that is worth paying for.

What If We Thought About A POC As A Product Internship?

What’s the difference between buying a product and hiring a person? Both are supposed to do work and provide value that exceeds what you are willing to pay. But one is expected to be part of the culture and adapt to the values of the company. The other is inflexible, and expects that the company is going to change the way it operates to match how it works. Seems wrong.

What if a POC was framed as an internship where the product being offered is expected to fit into the way the company wants to work? What if the product was required to be like an intern and demonstrate the digital equivalent of:

• Showing up early and staying late to prove it is willing to hustle and grind to earn a paid spot at the table
• Learning both “how things are done here” as well as the inherent inefficiencies that come from any organization and bridge the gap while offering actionable innovation
• Making others in the department say that it would be a huge mistake not to hire the intern and shudder at the thought of losing them at the end of the free period

So How Do We Turn Software Into Interns?

Again, for fear of being a distinction without a difference I think we need some concrete steps that would turn the concept into something actionable. It’s cute to say “we think of our POC process just like having an intern within your company”, but it’s empty as a sales tactic. How do we make it real?

1. Take the time to work with the people — Rather than thinking of our products as entities that the customer has to organize their teams around, how can we organize our software to act more like a member of the team that does work? The last thing anyone (especially in cyber security) wants is yet another system that takes up more people time and requires dedicated headcount. You wouldn’t hire an intern and then pay an FTE to dedicate their time to managing them. Why should we expect the same with a software product?
2. Establish success criteria — An internship is kind of like a free trial, but most companies don’t want to hire 25 interns when they only want to hire one person. It would be a total waste of time, a management headache, and too much overhead to justify the program. The same is true with software: IT and Security teams are stretched too thin to even consider trying 5 different products for a month, measuring each head-to-head “consumer reports style”. Establishing clear success criteria from the beginning minimizes the probability that everyone involved will be wasting their time, which leads to…
3. Don’t be afraid to admit it’s not going to work out — I’ve seen this too many times to count. The customer wants a race car, and the vendor is selling a donkey. There are no race cars that look exactly like the customer wants, so they’re willing to try any form of transportation, so they see that the vendor has something that moves and agrees to try it out. No matter how much marketing and positioning the vendor uses to package the donkey, they know it’s never going to be what the customer wants. They’re faced with a decision:
   A) Spend time and resources trying to turn a donkey into a McLaren knowing that they’ll eventually disappoint the customer and tarnish their reputation.
   B) Be up front and candid, saying “Listen, I think you are looking for something different from what we have. I certainly think our product would be beneficial and would put you in a better place than you are now, but if you have your heart set on something else, let’s connect later.”
4. Make sure there’s a culture fit — Even if an intern is a total superstar genius, it you don’t want to work with them, you wouldn’t hire them. The same is true for a product that either requires unnatural acts to work with, or a team behind said product that isn’t likable. I remember a few years back using a product that was incredibly well designed, automated a bunch of work, and both sales and marketing teams loved it. To get us to renew our subscription, the company behind the product:

• Increased the cost by 40% to renew (with no additional features or licenses)
• Shut off our access to the product early and wouldn’t let us get our data back
• Went back on their own word (in writing) that we’d have a full month to try out new features before making a renewal decision about an upgrade

I remember having a heated argument with the company in which the salesperson said “I don’t know why you are upset. You said you love the product and there’s nothing out there that gives you what it can do. So just sign the contract and you can continue using it.”

I did not.

In the end, it’s all about people. How would you build your products differently if they were going to be interns within your customers’ workplaces? Is there something you’re not doing now that is simple and easy, that you would do in the intern experiment?