Hello Nick Bazley, Director of Product at Time by Ping
Coming from the agency world, Nick Bazley (Baz) is used to tight deadlines and rapidly learning specs, scope, and skillfully traversing the path to completed excellence. He’s helping us manage the product, and we’re lucky to have his skills on the job.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Hi, Nick. We have a fun one to start it off — what’s your superpower?
A personal super power outside of work that I’ve really enjoyed using over the last few years is using my British sarcasm and waiting as long as possible to see how long it takes for Americans to catch on.
High level — How’d we get here? What’s your career/life story?
I did a degree in Sport, Leisure and Culture at Leeds Metropolitan University, but after that I had no idea what I really wanted to do. I ended up managing a bar restaurant and one of the regulars was a guy named Rob Noble who ran Great Fridays, a design agency, in Manchester and San Francisco. One day he came in and offered me a job that turned into something incredible, and I’ll always be grateful for that opportunity. I started off in sales and then transitioned into a Producer role, which is just a fancy name for a Project Manager.
I fell in love with it instantly. We were working on amazing design and development projects with clients like MasterCard, Microsoft, and Vodafone.
Over the years, I managed product design, development, service design projects. I even dabbled in some industrial design, which was absolutely fascinating. I remember arguing with a supplier who ended up drilling a hole in a printed circuit board (PCB) that was 0.1 of a millimeter too big, which meant that all of the screws that were going to be too small for it to fit together. It caused absolute chaos, but it was one of those moments where you reflect on it like, “I never thought I would be arguing over 0.1 of a millimeter.”
My journey to California started when I ran a design event at the Adobe offices in San Francisco. My trip was only supposed to last four days, but when I was in the air, two big design projects dropped for our San Francisco studio, prompting my manager to ask, “How would you like to stay for longer?” It was a no-brainer for me.
I fell in love with the city and the California lifestyle and ended up meeting my now wife on my second day in the country!
We essentially helped to build a cow dating service, which sounds strange but was absolutely fascinating. You’d take a single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP, snip) of many cows’ ears and analyze their DNA, then match cows together with optimal genomes.
We worked on some incredible projects back then. For example, with an animal genetics company, we essentially helped to build a cow dating service, which sounds strange but was absolutely fascinating. You’d take a single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP, snip) of many cows’ ears and analyze their DNA, then match cows together with optimal genomes. It was like, “hey farmer, you should match Cow A with Cow B because their genetics cross perfectly, which will make the healthiest calf.” Learning all about this process and then designing a tool to help analyze and present results really tested our teams ability to design for any industry.
That was just one example, but my time was spent working on a variety of projects, from service design, to vision projects as well as VR/AR projects which was an awful lot of fun and kept things interesting.
How did you get involved with Time by Ping?
On my first trip over to California, I got to know Michael and Ryan as friends. I heard what they were trying to do with Time by Ping and wanted to try and help them as much as possible, as a friend more than anything, as I wanted to see them succeed.
I facilitated a design consulting workshop with the team to help frame what the business could be, who were the personas, what was their value proposition, and defined some principles they could align behind.
I helped out reasonably regularly after then, whenever I could, and loved the mission and the vision. After a sun-soaked beer garden session with Mizono talking about life and work, the stars began to align and I was able to join the team in September 2019.
Your role has shifted since joining. Can you tell me about that?
I joined as Director of Design Operations, then helped out with Customer Success. We were helping to roll out our product to our client base through pilots and to make sure that everyone had the best experience possible when using our product.
Later, I began to operationalize the delivery arm of the business, making sure that we had all the processes in place to successfully deliver pilots consistently across all of our clients. From there, I moved back into my sweet spot where I could help Michael, our Head of Design, to redesign the product for our customers.
I am now moving into more of a Product role taking on responsibility across the holistic product.
You used to come from the design agency world, where things move quickly to get excellent, complex product out the door. What did you learn there?
Working in agencies, you get thrown into the deep end to do things in compressed timelines. What you learn in an agency in a year might take you three or four years elsewhere.
Working in agencies, you get thrown into the deep end to do things in compressed timelines. What you learn in an agency in a year might take you three or four years elsewhere.
Some of the projects we were able to push out in 5 weeks truly astounded me. When teams move in unison, anything is possible.
What is it like working alongside incredible operators like Patrick and Niket?
Pat has been a fantastic leader with a vision to improve the product month over month and has helped take the team to the next level. It’s been great working closely with him and I trust him to continue to improve our team and make us unstoppable!
That big picture is critical because it starts to seed into my day to day work for product management. It’s been absolutely valuable and has helped me tremendously as we make fast decisions for the value of the company.
Niket has been incredible to work with since he’s already built a startup, sold a startup, and run major product management initiatives, so learning from him has been fascinating. In our weekly one on ones, we’ll talk strategy and what needs to happen at a high level. That big picture is critical because it starts to seed into my day to day work for product management. It’s been absolutely valuable and has helped me tremendously as we make fast decisions for the value of the company.
What do you think is the role of process in organizations and companies, and how should you build, abandon, and break those processes?
You have to have a certain amount of process in place for teams to be effective, but you also cannot be scared of breaking them when needed. At a startup, everything moves at such a fast pace and you can’t be tied to a rigid process that will never change.
You have to have a certain amount of process in place for teams to be effective, but you also cannot be scared of breaking them when needed. At a startup, everything moves at such a fast pace and you can’t be tied to a rigid process that will never change. It will slow teams down and make them less efficient, and gives the impression of a lack of trust. If people need to either skip steps, or abandon them completely, it’s fine.
Trusting others and generating trust from them is key to ensure that we will meet our goals as quickly and efficiently as possible.
It’s a fine balance that you have to find in order to achieve the maximum output, as well as maximum enjoyment, across your team. Trusting others and generating trust from them is key to ensure that we will meet our goals as quickly and efficiently as possible.
I hear you’re a recent father to a wonderful little guy, Mason. How has your life changed as a father, and how does that influence your perspective of building this product?
He’s four months now! It’s been a definite life change, and even more interesting and challenging considering that he was born in the middle of this global pandemic. The biggest bright spot of COVID has been being able to watch him grow up every day as we have been working from home.
Once he arrived, my whole perception of time has changed. Prior to this, if I had to spend a couple more hours at work, it wasn’t the end of the world because I could always see my friends another time. Now, I try to work as efficiently as possible so I can spend time with my son when he’s awake and then jump back into work as he sleeps. He’s changing so rapidly and I know I will not get this time back.
Time isn’t infinite and knowing that has a profound effect on me day-over-day. I’ve notice I enjoy the small things in life more, and don’t take them for granted.
Time isn’t infinite and knowing that has a profound effect on me day-over-day. I’ve notice I enjoy the small things in life more, and don’t take them for granted.
With Coronavirus and the travel ban, my family back in England hasn’t met Mason yet. We’ve been doing lots of FaceTime, but I know when we’re able to see each other in person, that time is going to be so precious.
By monitoring and tracking workers’ time, you’ll have a huge responsibility to the world to be ethical. What do you think about building a moral/don’t-be-evil brand, not only in the product, but in the very essence of Time by Ping’s cultural/operational DNA?
It’s an interesting balance. Whenever you start to onboard users, the first question everyone seems to ask is, “Are you guys Big Brother?” and of course we’re not. We’re not building monitoring software with alarms ringing if you haven’t worked in thirty minutes.
It’s actually the opposite. We’ll be there to support you so that you can spend your time with intention, not on busy work.
We have to practice what we preach internally as well. We have a company holiday on Ryan’s late Mum’s birthday representing a company value of “finding your Randa,” or, in other words, the reason why you work to make a difference in the world. On Randa’s birthday, we reflect on our why and tie it back to a bigger idea. I think it’s amazing. My why is my new little family and my family back home.
Fifteen years ago, people would go into the office, and only work from nine to five. Now, all of a sudden people are always on. Being able to go home and switch off at five o’clock is almost impossible.
Who knows what’s going to happen in 15 or 20 years. For instance, the iPhone has changed work paradigms forever, and I still don’t think companies have even responded to that change. Fifteen years ago, people would go into the office, and only work from nine to five. Now, all of a sudden people are always on. Being able to go home and switch off at five o’clock is almost impossible.
If you ask any worker how many times they check or respond to emails in the evening, they’ll say, “All the time.” Are they getting paid more? Probably not. Are they getting more breaks or more holidays for these extended working hours? No. If Time by Ping can say we’ve given people their time back, then at 2:00PM on a Friday they can choose to enjoy their lives or help other people — or find their own Randa. There are so many things we can do with our time other than busy work and I’m proud to work at a company who is driving this change as a force for good.
Niket wanted to ask — how much do you love your favorite football team, Arsenal?
I had to look up who Arsenal were. Joking! My team is Manchester United, so I don’t really pay much attention to a small, mid table team like Arsenal.
Thanks for the time, Nick, and looking forward to how the Product progresses with your design and project skills at the helm.
Stay tuned for more interviews from Time by Ping’s leadership.
