Season 1
|
Episode 4
Growth design: how to drive business impact
Fonz Morris
Lead monetization designer @ Netflix
May 10, 2023
May 10, 2023
|
53 min
53 min
music by Dennis
About this Episode
Fonz gives a masterclass on growth design in this episode as he pulls back the curtain on designing at Netflix and what it takes to ship to millions of users. We also discuss our journies as entrepreneurs, dealing with ambiguity at work, and the importance of growing as a writer. Fonz is truly a lifelong learner and this episode is gold for anyone who wants to grow in their understanding of business 💪
Deep Dives
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10 episodes featuring:
Fonz Morris
Lead monetization designer @ Netflix
Mia Blume
Past leader @ Pinterest, Square
Femke
Design lead @ Gusto
Kenny Chen
UX lead @ Google
Jorn van Dijk
CEO @ Framer
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Deep Dives
Get Season 1
10 episodes featuring:
Fonz Morris
Lead designer @ Netflix
Mia Blume
Past leader @ Pinterest, Square
Femke
Design lead @ Gusto
Kenny Chen
UX lead @ Google
Join 6K+ designers
HC
HC
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Transcript chapters
Introduction
[00:00:00] Michael: So to start, it's pretty difficult for me to really imagine what the day-to-day looks like for someone that leads conversion and monetization at a company the size of Netflix. I'm wondering if you can just kind of give a little bit of a background and help people understand what does your role actually look like at Netflix.
[00:00:18] Fonz: so my role at Netflix varies because I'm what you would consider a flex designer. So I'm fortunate enough to not be only on one specific project. I was one of the leads on the multi household usage initiative that was about a two plus year project. But even before that, I was bouncing around from project to project there's a lot of things that we're working on at the company. Of course, our main goal is to keep our customers happy, which is customer joy, and then also to increase our subscribers. But if people don't like the platform or don't like the service, they're not going to stay or they're going to downgrade their plan or they're going to just not sign up.[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] So my day is constantly trying to get into the minds of these users and either make them happier or figure out how to make their onboarding to the company easier, whether that's through conversion from our signup flow at the beginning, or how do we bring in more revenue, which would be an example of the multi household usage situation.
[00:01:22] So my day is spent. Depending on what project I'm on, meetings, reading creating documents, talking to teams, slack. Sometimes I'm in Figma. I'm not in Figma as much as you would think I would be. there's a lot of product management as well on this side. We do have PMs, but I can honestly say that as a growth designer, one of these skills and a responsibilities that I've had to become better in and pick up is product management.
[00:01:49] So the day is long, but it's fun and I get to interact with a lot of cool people. I learned something new about the platform every day.
Introduction
[00:00:00] Michael: So to start, it's pretty difficult for me to really imagine what the day-to-day looks like for someone that leads conversion and monetization at a company the size of Netflix. I'm wondering if you can just kind of give a little bit of a background and help people understand what does your role actually look like at Netflix.
[00:00:18] Fonz: so my role at Netflix varies because I'm what you would consider a flex designer. So I'm fortunate enough to not be only on one specific project. I was one of the leads on the multi household usage initiative that was about a two plus year project. But even before that, I was bouncing around from project to project there's a lot of things that we're working on at the company. Of course, our main goal is to keep our customers happy, which is customer joy, and then also to increase our subscribers. But if people don't like the platform or don't like the service, they're not going to stay or they're going to downgrade their plan or they're going to just not sign up.[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] So my day is constantly trying to get into the minds of these users and either make them happier or figure out how to make their onboarding to the company easier, whether that's through conversion from our signup flow at the beginning, or how do we bring in more revenue, which would be an example of the multi household usage situation.
[00:01:22] So my day is spent. Depending on what project I'm on, meetings, reading creating documents, talking to teams, slack. Sometimes I'm in Figma. I'm not in Figma as much as you would think I would be. there's a lot of product management as well on this side. We do have PMs, but I can honestly say that as a growth designer, one of these skills and a responsibilities that I've had to become better in and pick up is product management.
[00:01:49] So the day is long, but it's fun and I get to interact with a lot of cool people. I learned something new about the platform every day.
The skill of a product manager
[00:01:58] Michael: Can you talk a little bit more
[00:02:00] about learning the skill of product management? You have all these really ambiguous problems that you're working on that are, a multi-year project, which is, so vast to me.
[00:02:10] What is it like even knowing what you should be working on at any given moment?
[00:02:14] Fonz: It takes a lot. I think that's one of the hardest parts about working at Netflix. It's very autonomous and your job description becomes very ambiguous at times. That's why they really do need senior level people in this position because you're going to be deciding what you should be working on as well as what this outcome should be. There's a lot of reliance on you as the individual, but there's a lot of focus and there's a lot of communication. We also have a process of everything we're doing leads back into this bigger list of strategy bets that we have as a company.
[00:02:46] We do have a North Star and I'll say, that's it. How you're gonna get to that North Star is up to you. You gonna swim, you gonna fly, you gonna walk and take a fight. However you're gonna get there, that's up to you. But by having that North star now it's up to you to [00:03:00] also understand all of your key partners and stakeholders and how to communicate with them and what different things you know you need to execute on this idea. And that doesn't necessarily mean productizing something, which means rolling out to all 200 million. It could mean just getting a idea validated or not. Getting this AB test up and running. What does it take to do that? You're gonna need to work with your data science partners.
[00:03:23] You're gonna need to work with your engineering team. You're gonna need to work with your product manager. So you start to realize that it takes more than you to get things done. the other major part, I think, of my job and growth design that a lot of people don't talk about is I'm very interested in the business side.
[00:03:39] I'm not just only interested in the ux. I'm way more interested nowadays are we even working on the right problem more than I am what's the execution of it going to look like? And to know if you're working on the right problem, that requires you to be in tune with your customers and in tune with the business.
[00:03:55] And that's why I spent a lot of my time doing consumer insights, which is UX [00:04:00] research, as well as understanding where the business is going, where we may wanna make some tweaks. Are there some low hanging fruit projects that we can do that could potentially impact revenue? there's just a lot of different things that you start understanding is really important for the business, and now you prioritize those and you chisel at them to get the job done.
The skill of a product manager
[00:01:58] Michael: Can you talk a little bit more
[00:02:00] about learning the skill of product management? You have all these really ambiguous problems that you're working on that are, a multi-year project, which is, so vast to me.
[00:02:10] What is it like even knowing what you should be working on at any given moment?
[00:02:14] Fonz: It takes a lot. I think that's one of the hardest parts about working at Netflix. It's very autonomous and your job description becomes very ambiguous at times. That's why they really do need senior level people in this position because you're going to be deciding what you should be working on as well as what this outcome should be. There's a lot of reliance on you as the individual, but there's a lot of focus and there's a lot of communication. We also have a process of everything we're doing leads back into this bigger list of strategy bets that we have as a company.
[00:02:46] We do have a North Star and I'll say, that's it. How you're gonna get to that North Star is up to you. You gonna swim, you gonna fly, you gonna walk and take a fight. However you're gonna get there, that's up to you. But by having that North star now it's up to you to [00:03:00] also understand all of your key partners and stakeholders and how to communicate with them and what different things you know you need to execute on this idea. And that doesn't necessarily mean productizing something, which means rolling out to all 200 million. It could mean just getting a idea validated or not. Getting this AB test up and running. What does it take to do that? You're gonna need to work with your data science partners.
[00:03:23] You're gonna need to work with your engineering team. You're gonna need to work with your product manager. So you start to realize that it takes more than you to get things done. the other major part, I think, of my job and growth design that a lot of people don't talk about is I'm very interested in the business side.
[00:03:39] I'm not just only interested in the ux. I'm way more interested nowadays are we even working on the right problem more than I am what's the execution of it going to look like? And to know if you're working on the right problem, that requires you to be in tune with your customers and in tune with the business.
[00:03:55] And that's why I spent a lot of my time doing consumer insights, which is UX [00:04:00] research, as well as understanding where the business is going, where we may wanna make some tweaks. Are there some low hanging fruit projects that we can do that could potentially impact revenue? there's just a lot of different things that you start understanding is really important for the business, and now you prioritize those and you chisel at them to get the job done.
Value of collaboration in UX research
[00:04:19] Michael: How do you approach user research when the user base is the size of Netflix and your shipping to many, many millions of users?
[00:04:26] Fonz: the thing about Netflix that I want everybody to understand is Netflix is a very, very inclusive and cross collaborative company. So because of that, we get really close access to our teammate and they're really there to support us.
[00:04:41] So when you think about how do we get UX research done at Netflix? My UX partners feel like they sit right next to me pretty much in a virtual space where I'm talking with them every day, all day. They're in all of our meetings from the beginning where we're doing UX research at the beginning of the project.
[00:04:59] [00:05:00] as soon as we say we think we have an idea, gotta gotta take it to research, because how do you know you have a good idea? Are you just gonna decide that? So we tend to lean on research a lot. As much as we can do, we will do on any project across the whole company. So it's not just growth that does UX research, it's the whole design team at Netflix tries to do as much UX research as possible.
[00:05:22] we have these super professional researchers on our team that now have the connections to set up as many qualitative or quantitative researchers that we need to learn about whatever specific topic, and that's all across the globe. So if we wanna do a global project, we'll do research all across the globe.
[00:05:40] Meaning we'll do something maybe in Australia, something in the Meia, something in South America, something in uk, something in Europe. So we're at least hearing from the users in those areas to have a clear understanding of what's going on, which I think always goes under user empathy.
[00:05:57] we work really closely with our researchers, and we [00:06:00] help plan out the dates. It's very team focused. So I'm involved with them, they're involved in the designs. I'm constantly sharing our designs with them, getting their feedback. So it's a true collaboration. That's how I think we really get things done is because it's such a close collaboration.
[00:06:15] Michael: Yeah. I mean, it sounds like a well-oiled machine just listening to you describe it.
[00:06:19] Fonz: I mean, we make it one. There's a lot of room for it to become un oiled, you know what I mean? Or unhinged. So that's the other layer that I'm saying of the product management side. Nobody's gonna tell you that you need to do research.
[00:06:31] you should know you probably want to do research, and now you need to figure out with your research partners- what are the right things to take the quals? How are you going to get this stuff done? How are you gonna get it localized? Does it need to be localized? What markets are you gonna put it in?
[00:06:44] So there's a lot of responsibility on us as employees at Netflix, but I think we get the resources to get stuff done.
Value of collaboration in UX research
[00:04:19] Michael: How do you approach user research when the user base is the size of Netflix and your shipping to many, many millions of users?
[00:04:26] Fonz: the thing about Netflix that I want everybody to understand is Netflix is a very, very inclusive and cross collaborative company. So because of that, we get really close access to our teammate and they're really there to support us.
[00:04:41] So when you think about how do we get UX research done at Netflix? My UX partners feel like they sit right next to me pretty much in a virtual space where I'm talking with them every day, all day. They're in all of our meetings from the beginning where we're doing UX research at the beginning of the project.
[00:04:59] [00:05:00] as soon as we say we think we have an idea, gotta gotta take it to research, because how do you know you have a good idea? Are you just gonna decide that? So we tend to lean on research a lot. As much as we can do, we will do on any project across the whole company. So it's not just growth that does UX research, it's the whole design team at Netflix tries to do as much UX research as possible.
[00:05:22] we have these super professional researchers on our team that now have the connections to set up as many qualitative or quantitative researchers that we need to learn about whatever specific topic, and that's all across the globe. So if we wanna do a global project, we'll do research all across the globe.
[00:05:40] Meaning we'll do something maybe in Australia, something in the Meia, something in South America, something in uk, something in Europe. So we're at least hearing from the users in those areas to have a clear understanding of what's going on, which I think always goes under user empathy.
[00:05:57] we work really closely with our researchers, and we [00:06:00] help plan out the dates. It's very team focused. So I'm involved with them, they're involved in the designs. I'm constantly sharing our designs with them, getting their feedback. So it's a true collaboration. That's how I think we really get things done is because it's such a close collaboration.
[00:06:15] Michael: Yeah. I mean, it sounds like a well-oiled machine just listening to you describe it.
[00:06:19] Fonz: I mean, we make it one. There's a lot of room for it to become un oiled, you know what I mean? Or unhinged. So that's the other layer that I'm saying of the product management side. Nobody's gonna tell you that you need to do research.
[00:06:31] you should know you probably want to do research, and now you need to figure out with your research partners- what are the right things to take the quals? How are you going to get this stuff done? How are you gonna get it localized? Does it need to be localized? What markets are you gonna put it in?
[00:06:44] So there's a lot of responsibility on us as employees at Netflix, but I think we get the resources to get stuff done.
Career transition to growth designer
[00:06:51] Michael: Can you talk a little bit about your part of the org as a growth designer and kind of how that fits into the bigger picture at Netflix?
[00:06:59] Fonz: Sure
[00:07:00] So we're still all under product, meaning we report up to the chief product officer. But there's a design side, there's an engineering side, there's the data science side.
[00:07:09] in those now you get into the deeper of front end backend engineering. The data side is our data science engineers, and then you have the design side. And the design team is now split into different parts. Like there's the studio side of Netflix, which is the people that actually help us build the tools that we use.
[00:07:29] And then there's the other side, which is growth. And now the growth team is split into smaller sub-teams that are all focused on certain parts of the growth experience. I'm currently right now working on the monetization side, but there's also a payment side. There's also the ads side. So just look at it as almost if the growth team at Netflix was just a pie, and then you sliced it up into different teams. Sub-teams are focused on different parts that Netflix is trying to grow in.
[00:08:00] Michael: Okay. Thanks for explaining that. It makes a lot more sense. I'm hoping maybe we can step back a little bit from Netflix. you previously joined Corra as lee Growth Designer back in 2018. Mm-hmm. Can you talk a little bit about your journey leading up to that point and how did you get to the place where you decided that you wanted to be in growth design?
[00:08:21] Fonz: So how did I decide I wanted to be in growth design? My journey to Coursera was very interesting. I was doing entrepreneurship right before that. I am a cold-blooded entrepreneur. I love it. shout out to all my entrepreneurs on the podcast right now, what ended up happening was life, honestly, red.
[00:08:41] I was doing a startup with two college buddies of mine. We lost our biggest customer, which then led to us not really being able to have the money to keep the business afloat anymore. At this time, I was now married. I had a daughter. I couldn't take another risk on [00:09:00] entrepreneurship. I needed stability. I needed some steady cash coming in.
[00:09:04] because of my entrepreneurship though, if you think about it as an entrepreneur, you're always trying to grow your business. So I was doing growth design, but just wasn't calling it, it was just. Yep. Called survival, I guess, or growing a business or designing is what most people called it. Just designing.
[00:09:19] But what I really was doing was growth design. I, I had already founded three businesses as well as I had work that Comcast on their growth team focused on converting people to sign up for Comcast as well as I worked At some agencies that were focused on creating ads, which was all about conversion.
[00:09:39] So when I look back at my career, most of my career has been in converting users, in acquisition, in retention. And that's the business side of design. I'm figuring out that stuff, but I'm also figuring out now the design side of how to execute on this. because I did all of that, it had already set me up for a growth design position.
[00:09:59] I [00:10:00] love online education and I think education in general can change people's lives. It changed my life. It made sense for me to want to go into an industry that I was passionate about, and that's why I selected EdTech. And then I found out about Coursera through just creating my portfolio.
[00:10:17] I wanna learn some skills. So Coursera, I was like, man, they have some really good information on here. Maybe I could even see if they're hiring. And I ended up just applying online. I just sent my email information over and got a hit back. it just was so exciting because I was in such a tricky spot because the business hat technically failed and now I have to pick myself up.
[00:10:38] So to be able to get this opportunity to relocate my family from the East coast and Philly out to Silicon Valley to live my dream of living in Cali and then working at a tech company was like a dream come true.
Career transition to growth designer
[00:06:51] Michael: Can you talk a little bit about your part of the org as a growth designer and kind of how that fits into the bigger picture at Netflix?
[00:06:59] Fonz: Sure
[00:07:00] So we're still all under product, meaning we report up to the chief product officer. But there's a design side, there's an engineering side, there's the data science side.
[00:07:09] in those now you get into the deeper of front end backend engineering. The data side is our data science engineers, and then you have the design side. And the design team is now split into different parts. Like there's the studio side of Netflix, which is the people that actually help us build the tools that we use.
[00:07:29] And then there's the other side, which is growth. And now the growth team is split into smaller sub-teams that are all focused on certain parts of the growth experience. I'm currently right now working on the monetization side, but there's also a payment side. There's also the ads side. So just look at it as almost if the growth team at Netflix was just a pie, and then you sliced it up into different teams. Sub-teams are focused on different parts that Netflix is trying to grow in.
[00:08:00] Michael: Okay. Thanks for explaining that. It makes a lot more sense. I'm hoping maybe we can step back a little bit from Netflix. you previously joined Corra as lee Growth Designer back in 2018. Mm-hmm. Can you talk a little bit about your journey leading up to that point and how did you get to the place where you decided that you wanted to be in growth design?
[00:08:21] Fonz: So how did I decide I wanted to be in growth design? My journey to Coursera was very interesting. I was doing entrepreneurship right before that. I am a cold-blooded entrepreneur. I love it. shout out to all my entrepreneurs on the podcast right now, what ended up happening was life, honestly, red.
[00:08:41] I was doing a startup with two college buddies of mine. We lost our biggest customer, which then led to us not really being able to have the money to keep the business afloat anymore. At this time, I was now married. I had a daughter. I couldn't take another risk on [00:09:00] entrepreneurship. I needed stability. I needed some steady cash coming in.
[00:09:04] because of my entrepreneurship though, if you think about it as an entrepreneur, you're always trying to grow your business. So I was doing growth design, but just wasn't calling it, it was just. Yep. Called survival, I guess, or growing a business or designing is what most people called it. Just designing.
[00:09:19] But what I really was doing was growth design. I, I had already founded three businesses as well as I had work that Comcast on their growth team focused on converting people to sign up for Comcast as well as I worked At some agencies that were focused on creating ads, which was all about conversion.
[00:09:39] So when I look back at my career, most of my career has been in converting users, in acquisition, in retention. And that's the business side of design. I'm figuring out that stuff, but I'm also figuring out now the design side of how to execute on this. because I did all of that, it had already set me up for a growth design position.
[00:09:59] I [00:10:00] love online education and I think education in general can change people's lives. It changed my life. It made sense for me to want to go into an industry that I was passionate about, and that's why I selected EdTech. And then I found out about Coursera through just creating my portfolio.
[00:10:17] I wanna learn some skills. So Coursera, I was like, man, they have some really good information on here. Maybe I could even see if they're hiring. And I ended up just applying online. I just sent my email information over and got a hit back. it just was so exciting because I was in such a tricky spot because the business hat technically failed and now I have to pick myself up.
[00:10:38] So to be able to get this opportunity to relocate my family from the East coast and Philly out to Silicon Valley to live my dream of living in Cali and then working at a tech company was like a dream come true.
Learning to be lean and scrappy
[00:10:51] Michael: Your story really resonates with me because I also was a founder turn designer. Like I learned design because I was trying to build a business.
[00:10:59] And after
[00:11:00] years of doing it, ultimately it went to zero like unfortunately, a lot of companies do. And and that was my first W-2 role as a designer was exact same situation—outta necessity, I'm married, I can't afford to take another big risk and another big swing. Now what? And I was like, well, I liked the design part the most.
[00:11:18] I'm gonna dive in. And I'm really, really grateful for kind of even the order that I went through things and I'm wondering if you could even expand on that a little bit more. Like how has starting off with entrepreneurship shaped you as a designer?
[00:11:30] Fonz: entrepreneurship has shaped me as a designer as it's made me scrappy, but it's also allowed me to have to care about a lot of different things that if you weren't an entrepreneur, you might not have had to worry about if you went straight into a salary position where I'm always worried about the numbers.
[00:11:46] I'm always worried about money coming in. I'm always worried about money going out. I'm always worried about how happy is the team? are we working on the right or wrong things as opposed to just focused on execution? you learn that as an entrepreneur because your [00:12:00] resources are low.
[00:12:01] It's almost as if you learn how to be lean. You can't ever really go wrong with learning how to be lean. So when you move up the ladder or you move to a larger company, you can still bring a lot of value by maintaining to stay lean and to stay scrappy, as well as thinking about multiple issues or problems or perspectives of things.
[00:12:22] you have to worry about that as an entrepreneur because you don't have anybody else to do it, so you learning all of those skills end up becoming very valuable when you go to a bigger company because they do need you to be multifaceted.
Learning to be lean and scrappy
[00:10:51] Michael: Your story really resonates with me because I also was a founder turn designer. Like I learned design because I was trying to build a business.
[00:10:59] And after
[00:11:00] years of doing it, ultimately it went to zero like unfortunately, a lot of companies do. And and that was my first W-2 role as a designer was exact same situation—outta necessity, I'm married, I can't afford to take another big risk and another big swing. Now what? And I was like, well, I liked the design part the most.
[00:11:18] I'm gonna dive in. And I'm really, really grateful for kind of even the order that I went through things and I'm wondering if you could even expand on that a little bit more. Like how has starting off with entrepreneurship shaped you as a designer?
[00:11:30] Fonz: entrepreneurship has shaped me as a designer as it's made me scrappy, but it's also allowed me to have to care about a lot of different things that if you weren't an entrepreneur, you might not have had to worry about if you went straight into a salary position where I'm always worried about the numbers.
[00:11:46] I'm always worried about money coming in. I'm always worried about money going out. I'm always worried about how happy is the team? are we working on the right or wrong things as opposed to just focused on execution? you learn that as an entrepreneur because your [00:12:00] resources are low.
[00:12:01] It's almost as if you learn how to be lean. You can't ever really go wrong with learning how to be lean. So when you move up the ladder or you move to a larger company, you can still bring a lot of value by maintaining to stay lean and to stay scrappy, as well as thinking about multiple issues or problems or perspectives of things.
[00:12:22] you have to worry about that as an entrepreneur because you don't have anybody else to do it, so you learning all of those skills end up becoming very valuable when you go to a bigger company because they do need you to be multifaceted.
Getting aligned on team goals
[00:12:33] Michael: You've brought up this idea of making sure you're working on the right thing a couple times now.
[00:12:38] Fonz: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:38] Michael: It's always a tricky one for me. How do you know that you're heading in the right direction? What are the different tactics that you use?
[00:12:45] Fonz: Well one, you gotta understand the longer roadmap because everything should be leading into that longer roadmap, right?
[00:12:50] And then you should have like a shorter roadmap that's very directed like, it really has a lot of effect on what you may be doing, right? [00:13:00] So that roadmap is thought out and it's tied into metrics. it's like tied into goals. So it's almost like this is what you guys should be pointing towards. And now, What are the steps that it takes to hit that goal?
[00:13:11] You should only be doing things that are gonna help you get to that goal. Anything outside of that is the wrong thing to work on, unless you're just trying to be innovative at the moment and innovation is fine, but you can still be innovative while working on what you supposed to do, what you should be working on. You create this path and just stay on the trail.
[00:13:29] Like don't weave off. don't become reactive cuz it's very easy to become reactive once you get metrics back in and it's like, whoa, this is not going as well as we thought. Let's go ahead and switch it. But are you ripping that idea by not giving it it's time to breathe and really run as opposed to now going off the path and coming up with a quick new idea. You should stay focused, and I think that's how you decide what you should work on. You have this roadmap and you stick to it. A lot of teams don't have roadmaps, I gotta be honest with you. I've been working closely with my design ops [00:14:00] partners at Netflix now, and they've just really helped me understand how important having things like a roadmap is and making sure that all of the teams are aligned with that roadmap and you're using the right tools like Airtable so that everybody is on the same page. You're not only communicating in Slack. You're having the conversations open in an environment where everybody can see them.
[00:14:21] All of these things is what it take to make sure that you're working on the right thing. So it's not just, oh, you pick something off the list. It's that there's this whole team unison agreement alignment that this thing we're working on will get us to this next step.
[00:14:36] Michael: Once you get that alignment and you actually start the project, how do you identify the right leading indicators that make sure you're actually moving the primary needles that you wanna move?
[00:14:46] Fonz: we just have a lot of really smart teammates that work on specific parts. So for right now I'm working on how do we make sure our plans stay extremely valuable to our customers. I have two [00:15:00] amazing teammates. One is a data science that helps us run and really understand all the metrics that the company would want to see to be able to really decide if this moved the needle or not.
[00:15:09] And we also have somebody from the team to help us really understand the revenue impact that this could have. So we have the specialists in place where, I don't have to figure that out. I just need to figure out the question and now go get the answer. But the amazing part is I can always get the answer.
[00:15:27] The hard part is making sure I'm asking all of the right questions, but if I ask the right questions, I can get those answers. So we have the people in place to actually do the deep dive and tell us, well, these are the metrics that the company is looking for and now from the design side, I need to make sure that the experience that I'm building or the test that I want to run is set up to improve those metrics.
[00:15:49] it's like they kind of give you the blueprint. They give you just a little bit of the blueprint, but you really have to figure it out on your own.
Getting aligned on team goals
[00:12:33] Michael: You've brought up this idea of making sure you're working on the right thing a couple times now.
[00:12:38] Fonz: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:38] Michael: It's always a tricky one for me. How do you know that you're heading in the right direction? What are the different tactics that you use?
[00:12:45] Fonz: Well one, you gotta understand the longer roadmap because everything should be leading into that longer roadmap, right?
[00:12:50] And then you should have like a shorter roadmap that's very directed like, it really has a lot of effect on what you may be doing, right? [00:13:00] So that roadmap is thought out and it's tied into metrics. it's like tied into goals. So it's almost like this is what you guys should be pointing towards. And now, What are the steps that it takes to hit that goal?
[00:13:11] You should only be doing things that are gonna help you get to that goal. Anything outside of that is the wrong thing to work on, unless you're just trying to be innovative at the moment and innovation is fine, but you can still be innovative while working on what you supposed to do, what you should be working on. You create this path and just stay on the trail.
[00:13:29] Like don't weave off. don't become reactive cuz it's very easy to become reactive once you get metrics back in and it's like, whoa, this is not going as well as we thought. Let's go ahead and switch it. But are you ripping that idea by not giving it it's time to breathe and really run as opposed to now going off the path and coming up with a quick new idea. You should stay focused, and I think that's how you decide what you should work on. You have this roadmap and you stick to it. A lot of teams don't have roadmaps, I gotta be honest with you. I've been working closely with my design ops [00:14:00] partners at Netflix now, and they've just really helped me understand how important having things like a roadmap is and making sure that all of the teams are aligned with that roadmap and you're using the right tools like Airtable so that everybody is on the same page. You're not only communicating in Slack. You're having the conversations open in an environment where everybody can see them.
[00:14:21] All of these things is what it take to make sure that you're working on the right thing. So it's not just, oh, you pick something off the list. It's that there's this whole team unison agreement alignment that this thing we're working on will get us to this next step.
[00:14:36] Michael: Once you get that alignment and you actually start the project, how do you identify the right leading indicators that make sure you're actually moving the primary needles that you wanna move?
[00:14:46] Fonz: we just have a lot of really smart teammates that work on specific parts. So for right now I'm working on how do we make sure our plans stay extremely valuable to our customers. I have two [00:15:00] amazing teammates. One is a data science that helps us run and really understand all the metrics that the company would want to see to be able to really decide if this moved the needle or not.
[00:15:09] And we also have somebody from the team to help us really understand the revenue impact that this could have. So we have the specialists in place where, I don't have to figure that out. I just need to figure out the question and now go get the answer. But the amazing part is I can always get the answer.
[00:15:27] The hard part is making sure I'm asking all of the right questions, but if I ask the right questions, I can get those answers. So we have the people in place to actually do the deep dive and tell us, well, these are the metrics that the company is looking for and now from the design side, I need to make sure that the experience that I'm building or the test that I want to run is set up to improve those metrics.
[00:15:49] it's like they kind of give you the blueprint. They give you just a little bit of the blueprint, but you really have to figure it out on your own.
Analytical skillset to accomplish team goals
[00:15:55] Michael: Yeah. I mean that makes, it makes sense. one of the things that I heard you mentioned is [00:16:00] air table. I'm very interested in what tools you use as a growth designer because my assumption is that you are living in the numbers a little bit more than an average, you know, everyday product designer. So can you talk a little bit more about your analytical skillset and the different tools that you use to accomplish those goals?
[00:16:17] Fonz: We have a lot of internal tools that, and remember, like I said before, we have a studio team. So we do have like this software engineering side of Netflix that I think is pretty obvious because we're a tech company, but we also have this like software application development side where we build a ton of tools for ourselves for our contractors to use because certain things are just too hard to try to customize on our own.
[00:16:43] And then our engineers also build a lot of amazing dashboards for us. They work closely with our data scientists to build these different dashboards that show all of the different data and information that we need. So a lot of the tools that I'm using are just internal things that if I explained it to you, you [00:17:00] wouldn't even really know what I'm what I'm talking about.
[00:17:02] But we do use Airtable for stuff like management wise to make sure there's a central place for people to be able to get the information that they need. Everybody stay on track. And then of course the obvious, like Jira, when we're doing design qa. And then the super obvious ones like Google Docs. We create tons of docs. and this is how I can tell you I've grown as a designer. When I first started, I didn't like writing docs. They kind of made me uncomfortable because I didn't feel what I was creating was ever a good enough doc. So if I've ever had imposter syndrome, it wasn't with design. It was always with creating docs, because you don't think docs and design. You think design is more visual, and when you see docs you like, who created the seven eight page Google Doc talking about this specific product? And that's where I am now. So I spend a lot of my times in Google Docs reading as well as creating them. And then from the analytical side, a ton of internal dashboards. Man, that's really what I'm looking at most of the time [00:18:00] because we have dashboards for everything.
[00:18:01] Competitors, specific movies, users, cancellations, signups. think thousands and thousands of dashboards. That's the best way I can explain it.
Analytical skillset to accomplish team goals
[00:15:55] Michael: Yeah. I mean that makes, it makes sense. one of the things that I heard you mentioned is [00:16:00] air table. I'm very interested in what tools you use as a growth designer because my assumption is that you are living in the numbers a little bit more than an average, you know, everyday product designer. So can you talk a little bit more about your analytical skillset and the different tools that you use to accomplish those goals?
[00:16:17] Fonz: We have a lot of internal tools that, and remember, like I said before, we have a studio team. So we do have like this software engineering side of Netflix that I think is pretty obvious because we're a tech company, but we also have this like software application development side where we build a ton of tools for ourselves for our contractors to use because certain things are just too hard to try to customize on our own.
[00:16:43] And then our engineers also build a lot of amazing dashboards for us. They work closely with our data scientists to build these different dashboards that show all of the different data and information that we need. So a lot of the tools that I'm using are just internal things that if I explained it to you, you [00:17:00] wouldn't even really know what I'm what I'm talking about.
[00:17:02] But we do use Airtable for stuff like management wise to make sure there's a central place for people to be able to get the information that they need. Everybody stay on track. And then of course the obvious, like Jira, when we're doing design qa. And then the super obvious ones like Google Docs. We create tons of docs. and this is how I can tell you I've grown as a designer. When I first started, I didn't like writing docs. They kind of made me uncomfortable because I didn't feel what I was creating was ever a good enough doc. So if I've ever had imposter syndrome, it wasn't with design. It was always with creating docs, because you don't think docs and design. You think design is more visual, and when you see docs you like, who created the seven eight page Google Doc talking about this specific product? And that's where I am now. So I spend a lot of my times in Google Docs reading as well as creating them. And then from the analytical side, a ton of internal dashboards. Man, that's really what I'm looking at most of the time [00:18:00] because we have dashboards for everything.
[00:18:01] Competitors, specific movies, users, cancellations, signups. think thousands and thousands of dashboards. That's the best way I can explain it.
Value of writing in design
[00:18:12] Michael: How have you improved as a writer? What are the different steps that you've taken to feel more comfortable being someone that creates these really polished docs?
[00:18:19] Fonz: Just creating them and not being so hard on myself. Just jumping out there, and the best part is my team has noticed it. this is one of the best compliments I've ever got at Netflix. And I don't even think my teammate knew when she told me how impactful it was gonna be, because I was telling her like, oh yeah, I'm still trying to work on my dogs.
[00:18:36] like I'm a type one up for this. And she was like, what do you mean you still trying to work on them? You create amazing docs. And I'm like, what are you talking about? She's like, man, no. Your docs are so detailed. They're really important. They help the team understand what's going on. I was so happy to hear that because I remember years ago My same design manager telling me that she thinks that I should communicate more.
[00:18:58] So it's literally just [00:19:00] been trying red, it's just been trying and learning and always being in this research and discovery mode where when somebody else sends me an amazing doc, I'm scanning it and I'm understanding what I like about it So when it's time for me to create either a similar doc, I could refer back to that for some kind of a outline, or I at least take out the pieces of that that I know I should have in the doc that I create.
[00:19:21] So I'm always trying to look for what that perfect doc is, and when I find it, I take pieces from it, man. But this is the personal thing that I knew I needed to get better in. I didn't want somebody to have to tell me to get better in my doc creation. So I just put the time in man.
[00:19:37] Michael: it's really encouraging to hear you saying that actually because in my last role at Maven, that's kind of been the same answer for me too. Where right away, like my source of imposter syndrome wasn't necessarily my design, it was my writing. Cuz all of a sudden I was injected into this writing culture where you were expected to communicate your ideas rigorously and as concisely as possible.
[00:19:58] And that can be a little bit intimidating [00:20:00] for especially more junior designers who are just like, well, I'm just like level up my Figma game and actually you are expected to nail communication and that's the biggest part of your role.
[00:20:10] Fonz: And if you think about all the people that are going to be reading this doc. Rid, when I tell you you'll have a doc at Netflix that might be 10 pages, but the doc actually ends up stretching to be like 22 pages because you have that many comments.
[00:20:24] We're a very feedback focused company, so we leave our docs open for any and everybody to give feedback. And that's how you start to see all of the interconnections of things because you'll have somebody give feedback and it's like, well, why would they respond? And it's like, oh, you didn't know that they're affected because of this.
[00:20:39] And it's like, oh wow. So when you start to go through all the comments, you see one, all the people that's just interested and how smart they are and just how passionate they are that they would want to give feedback maybe on a project that they're not even working on. But then second, you get to see how many people touch different things by the amount of people that leave comments.
[00:20:58] I was trying to think of a [00:21:00] positive way to say what growth design is and I came up with, it's just the evolution of product design. It's just the next step because when you think product design, you may not automatically think business.
[00:21:11] The metrics behind things, revenue, stuff like that, dollars and cents. you need to worry about that. And if you're gonna be worrying about that, then you're gonna find yourself in different conversations with different people that might not want to get in Figma. So they're gonna wanna read docs, so you have to know how to create docs.
[00:21:28] And then they're gonna create things like dashboards. So you have to know how to use dashboards and understand how queries work. you'll get to a certain point where you have more responsibilities, and those responsibilities require you to learn new things, new skills. And those new skills, I think, is what takes you to that next step of growth design.
Value of writing in design
[00:18:12] Michael: How have you improved as a writer? What are the different steps that you've taken to feel more comfortable being someone that creates these really polished docs?
[00:18:19] Fonz: Just creating them and not being so hard on myself. Just jumping out there, and the best part is my team has noticed it. this is one of the best compliments I've ever got at Netflix. And I don't even think my teammate knew when she told me how impactful it was gonna be, because I was telling her like, oh yeah, I'm still trying to work on my dogs.
[00:18:36] like I'm a type one up for this. And she was like, what do you mean you still trying to work on them? You create amazing docs. And I'm like, what are you talking about? She's like, man, no. Your docs are so detailed. They're really important. They help the team understand what's going on. I was so happy to hear that because I remember years ago My same design manager telling me that she thinks that I should communicate more.
[00:18:58] So it's literally just [00:19:00] been trying red, it's just been trying and learning and always being in this research and discovery mode where when somebody else sends me an amazing doc, I'm scanning it and I'm understanding what I like about it So when it's time for me to create either a similar doc, I could refer back to that for some kind of a outline, or I at least take out the pieces of that that I know I should have in the doc that I create.
[00:19:21] So I'm always trying to look for what that perfect doc is, and when I find it, I take pieces from it, man. But this is the personal thing that I knew I needed to get better in. I didn't want somebody to have to tell me to get better in my doc creation. So I just put the time in man.
[00:19:37] Michael: it's really encouraging to hear you saying that actually because in my last role at Maven, that's kind of been the same answer for me too. Where right away, like my source of imposter syndrome wasn't necessarily my design, it was my writing. Cuz all of a sudden I was injected into this writing culture where you were expected to communicate your ideas rigorously and as concisely as possible.
[00:19:58] And that can be a little bit intimidating [00:20:00] for especially more junior designers who are just like, well, I'm just like level up my Figma game and actually you are expected to nail communication and that's the biggest part of your role.
[00:20:10] Fonz: And if you think about all the people that are going to be reading this doc. Rid, when I tell you you'll have a doc at Netflix that might be 10 pages, but the doc actually ends up stretching to be like 22 pages because you have that many comments.
[00:20:24] We're a very feedback focused company, so we leave our docs open for any and everybody to give feedback. And that's how you start to see all of the interconnections of things because you'll have somebody give feedback and it's like, well, why would they respond? And it's like, oh, you didn't know that they're affected because of this.
[00:20:39] And it's like, oh wow. So when you start to go through all the comments, you see one, all the people that's just interested and how smart they are and just how passionate they are that they would want to give feedback maybe on a project that they're not even working on. But then second, you get to see how many people touch different things by the amount of people that leave comments.
[00:20:58] I was trying to think of a [00:21:00] positive way to say what growth design is and I came up with, it's just the evolution of product design. It's just the next step because when you think product design, you may not automatically think business.
[00:21:11] The metrics behind things, revenue, stuff like that, dollars and cents. you need to worry about that. And if you're gonna be worrying about that, then you're gonna find yourself in different conversations with different people that might not want to get in Figma. So they're gonna wanna read docs, so you have to know how to create docs.
[00:21:28] And then they're gonna create things like dashboards. So you have to know how to use dashboards and understand how queries work. you'll get to a certain point where you have more responsibilities, and those responsibilities require you to learn new things, new skills. And those new skills, I think, is what takes you to that next step of growth design.
Culture of receiving feedback
[00:21:46] Michael: It's fascinating. I haven't actually heard it phrased like that before, but it does make sense cuz it's an expansion of a lot of the core skillsets that you would associate with product design. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm interested in hearing you talk a little bit more about the feedback process too, because [00:22:00] as someone that is really deeply embedded in the business side of Netflix and not necessarily just the product org, I would imagine that you're pretty consistently dealing with the diversity of stakeholders and a lot of higher up people that, you know, really have a lot of weight at the company.
[00:22:15] And so what advice do you have for people to improve the way that they solicit feedback internally?
[00:22:21] Fonz: advice from funds on how to take feedback from not just executives, but anybody in life. I think you first, you have to be a good listener.
[00:22:30] I think the best thing you can do is take in all advice. You should openly take in it all. That's the first thing though, is you can't be defensive out the gate. You have to listen. become a good listener. That's the first rule. My wife told me that years ago. She was like, you're not really that good of a listener.
[00:22:46] And I'm thinking to myself like, what? I'm the master listener. I actually wasn't. I have to be honest with you, I feel like ever since that day, I've been so much more conscious about listening, which means I'm being more respectful in conversations cuz I'm not [00:23:00] overtalking people. I don't come to conversations thinking people only want to hear from me or I have everything to say.
[00:23:06] I want to hear from other people. It's kind of hard to learn when you're talking, right? So when you're listening, And if you're fortunate enough to get feedback from various people, isn't that really like a positive?
[00:23:18] Michael: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:18] Fonz: The thing I think is that a lot of people equate feedback with criticism, and I think that's a culture thing that's not necessarily true. I could give you positive feedback for the rest of your life and you never take it as criticism and you look forward to it.
[00:23:32] Now, if you've only received feedback that felt more negative or condescending or personal, then you're gonna have a different perspective on feedback. At Netflix, we look at feedback as, I'm just trying to help you get better or be better, or make this project better. part of the culture deck at Netflix, which is this amazing document that we have, I don't know if you've ever seen this. But it's called the Culture Deck, and it's just like amazing oath that the original team of Netflix drafted. It's this [00:24:00] like iconic Silicone Valley artifact that just talks about what the culture of Netflix is, right? And everybody at Netflix, your decisions that you should be making should all be for the better of Netflix. Like whatever you're doing should be for the betterment of Netflix at its heart, right at its core.
[00:24:16] So if you're living by that, then any feedback you give somebody should be technically because you think this would be better for Netflix as a whole. So it's never like, Hey, red, I think you should just change this design because I just want to see you work harder, or I just don't like your designs.
[00:24:34] It's, I like what you did, but you know what? Remember 50% of our customers may not be coming from this device. So if that's the case, even though I love your current design, I don't know if it's gonna transfer to these other devices as smoothly, and it's like, wow, that's great feedback. That's not even a critique.
[00:24:53] I told you I love your design. I'm just telling you, I don't know if you've thought about it far enough for it to work in all of the different use [00:25:00] cases that we needed to work in. You want an environment where people feel comfortable giving that feedback because I'm right, but you want that kind of environment for people to be able to receive that because they probably won't even make that mistake again.
[00:25:13] The next time they'll say, oh, wait a minute. I know this design looks fabulous, but I have to make sure it's gonna work for all of our users. So that's an example of how you want this feedback loop where people are constantly growing. Designs are growing cuz designs are organic, so they should be getting better every day.
[00:25:29] it also fosters communication, which I think is another critical part of growth design that we spoke about earlier. As designers you need to be sharing often and early and having people. Design is inclusive, but in certain places, and I think at certain times, design becomes very exclusive. that's not how I design as a designer.
[00:25:49] I'm sharing with everybody all the time, all across the board, everybody's involved. So when it's time for a design to roll out or for me to share to a bigger team or a [00:26:00] bigger. Or I'm confident because so many different people have already given feedback on this, that it's ready to go. So the feedback is super important and we do it all the time and we're very candid about it and I think it's one of the parts that people really love about working at Netflix.
[00:26:16] Michael: What's some feedback that you've received that has impacted your career or how you work?
[00:26:20] Fonz: My PM told me, and I'm gonna be very transparent with you. So what's some feedback that I've received at Netflix that's changed my career? My PM gave me some feedback last year that sent me through almost all of the different feelings of emotions.
[00:26:35] I was shocked and then I was sad, and then I was curious and then I was understanding and then I was happy and then I was appreciative at the end. She told me, Fonz, when we're having these team presentations on these meetings, you have to stop reading off of your docs. It sounds like you're reading from a script and it sounds like you don't know what you're talking about and [00:27:00] you know what you're talking about.
[00:27:01] She gave me some other positive feedback in it as well. It's like, you're great with your designs, I think you bring a lot of to the table, but it was that second part and at first I was like, man, that's some harsh feedback. It sound like I don't know what I'm talking about. so I kind of doubled down on it the wrong way what she was saying was, I'm doing a disservice to myself.
[00:27:18] This is time for me to show up in front of my peers, leaders in the company. I've been working on this stuff so hard. I understand it so well. Why get to the point of explaining it and falling short because I'm reading off of a script. You should not be reading off of a script when it's time to present to a bigger audience. You should understand what you're going to say, and you should almost have your script memorized so that you can be natural. You can flow. You want your eyes focused on the camera.
[00:27:45] There's just a lot in that feedback that she gave me. Ever since then, I've just looked at the way I present a lot different. And you know, I do public speaking as well, so this helps not only with just my Netflix career, but this just helps with my career as a [00:28:00] communicator. that was some amazing feedback and I'm so thankful for it.
[00:28:04] I didn't know how to take it at first. I took it personally. That's what I did. I took it personally and she wasn't being personal, she was being professional. She actually was caring and saying, my bro, you're like missing your shots to show how smart you are by reading off of a script.
[00:28:17] Stop.
[00:28:18] Michael: Yeah, I love that example. It also kind of shocks me a little bit too, cuz I know you and I've talked to you enough where it, it feels like communication is effortless for you. So to hear you reading up a skip, I'm like, you're presenting.
[00:28:28] Fonz: But the thing is, when you're presenting certain things, you don't want to ramble, you don't want to freestyle when you're in front of 200 people and you only have a couple seconds.
[00:28:37] So it's not that I was reading off of a script like A, B, C, D, E, F, G. It's the fact of you can tell when somebody is looking at something to make sure that they're saying it right. Like their eye movement and things of that nature. when you want to become a master communicator at the highest level that I know she's pushing me to be, you have to master that skill of, no matter how complicated the content [00:29:00] is, you should be able to express it in the most clearest and simple ways and understandable ways.
[00:29:06] And I thank her for that feedback.
[00:29:08] Michael: I'd love to double down on this. I think there's a really, really excellent sound bite in here. All of these different things that you're hitting on with communication and presentation skills. So I'm gonna ask the question again and just give you another chance and if you restate stuff, that's totally fine. What's some advice or, principles that you would recommend for designers who want to improve the way that they present their work and communicate with different stakeholders?
[00:29:29] Fonz: will, I would say this is bigger than designers. Feedback I would give anybody that want to communicate with stakeholders or team members about something. One, you should be organized. And confident. You should know what you're going to talk about. And when I say you should know what you're going to talk about, not scrambling to know what you're talking about.
[00:29:50] I'm saying being versed enough that you don't need a script or any kind of sheet or any notes when it's time to present in a bigger audience. Bigger audiences are [00:30:00] more comfortable with it sounding as if you're naturally flowing and you're paying attention to the camera and you seem confident. When you may have notes or something like that, and it looks like you may pause for a second because you're looking at your notes, your audience can notice that, and It's just another step of communication that you can level up to. It's something that I've been practicing on. I got some feedback from a PM of mine that she felt when I use my notes, it takes away from my presentation of truly understanding the topics, even though she knows I understand it. that was some interesting feedback for me because I took it personal where I should have took it professional. And after I got outta my feelings, I did. now that's something that I actually tried my best to avoid.
[00:30:44] I studied my notes before, multiple times before it's time to present. when it's my go, I'm smooth, ready to go clear. I'm happy with whatever I'm presenting visually. then it comes off a lot more natural. And I think that's what people are looking for in [00:31:00] the leader. When it's time to communicate, you give off this calm, poise, natural, confident feeling.
Culture of receiving feedback
[00:21:46] Michael: It's fascinating. I haven't actually heard it phrased like that before, but it does make sense cuz it's an expansion of a lot of the core skillsets that you would associate with product design. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm interested in hearing you talk a little bit more about the feedback process too, because [00:22:00] as someone that is really deeply embedded in the business side of Netflix and not necessarily just the product org, I would imagine that you're pretty consistently dealing with the diversity of stakeholders and a lot of higher up people that, you know, really have a lot of weight at the company.
[00:22:15] And so what advice do you have for people to improve the way that they solicit feedback internally?
[00:22:21] Fonz: advice from funds on how to take feedback from not just executives, but anybody in life. I think you first, you have to be a good listener.
[00:22:30] I think the best thing you can do is take in all advice. You should openly take in it all. That's the first thing though, is you can't be defensive out the gate. You have to listen. become a good listener. That's the first rule. My wife told me that years ago. She was like, you're not really that good of a listener.
[00:22:46] And I'm thinking to myself like, what? I'm the master listener. I actually wasn't. I have to be honest with you, I feel like ever since that day, I've been so much more conscious about listening, which means I'm being more respectful in conversations cuz I'm not [00:23:00] overtalking people. I don't come to conversations thinking people only want to hear from me or I have everything to say.
[00:23:06] I want to hear from other people. It's kind of hard to learn when you're talking, right? So when you're listening, And if you're fortunate enough to get feedback from various people, isn't that really like a positive?
[00:23:18] Michael: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:18] Fonz: The thing I think is that a lot of people equate feedback with criticism, and I think that's a culture thing that's not necessarily true. I could give you positive feedback for the rest of your life and you never take it as criticism and you look forward to it.
[00:23:32] Now, if you've only received feedback that felt more negative or condescending or personal, then you're gonna have a different perspective on feedback. At Netflix, we look at feedback as, I'm just trying to help you get better or be better, or make this project better. part of the culture deck at Netflix, which is this amazing document that we have, I don't know if you've ever seen this. But it's called the Culture Deck, and it's just like amazing oath that the original team of Netflix drafted. It's this [00:24:00] like iconic Silicone Valley artifact that just talks about what the culture of Netflix is, right? And everybody at Netflix, your decisions that you should be making should all be for the better of Netflix. Like whatever you're doing should be for the betterment of Netflix at its heart, right at its core.
[00:24:16] So if you're living by that, then any feedback you give somebody should be technically because you think this would be better for Netflix as a whole. So it's never like, Hey, red, I think you should just change this design because I just want to see you work harder, or I just don't like your designs.
[00:24:34] It's, I like what you did, but you know what? Remember 50% of our customers may not be coming from this device. So if that's the case, even though I love your current design, I don't know if it's gonna transfer to these other devices as smoothly, and it's like, wow, that's great feedback. That's not even a critique.
[00:24:53] I told you I love your design. I'm just telling you, I don't know if you've thought about it far enough for it to work in all of the different use [00:25:00] cases that we needed to work in. You want an environment where people feel comfortable giving that feedback because I'm right, but you want that kind of environment for people to be able to receive that because they probably won't even make that mistake again.
[00:25:13] The next time they'll say, oh, wait a minute. I know this design looks fabulous, but I have to make sure it's gonna work for all of our users. So that's an example of how you want this feedback loop where people are constantly growing. Designs are growing cuz designs are organic, so they should be getting better every day.
[00:25:29] it also fosters communication, which I think is another critical part of growth design that we spoke about earlier. As designers you need to be sharing often and early and having people. Design is inclusive, but in certain places, and I think at certain times, design becomes very exclusive. that's not how I design as a designer.
[00:25:49] I'm sharing with everybody all the time, all across the board, everybody's involved. So when it's time for a design to roll out or for me to share to a bigger team or a [00:26:00] bigger. Or I'm confident because so many different people have already given feedback on this, that it's ready to go. So the feedback is super important and we do it all the time and we're very candid about it and I think it's one of the parts that people really love about working at Netflix.
[00:26:16] Michael: What's some feedback that you've received that has impacted your career or how you work?
[00:26:20] Fonz: My PM told me, and I'm gonna be very transparent with you. So what's some feedback that I've received at Netflix that's changed my career? My PM gave me some feedback last year that sent me through almost all of the different feelings of emotions.
[00:26:35] I was shocked and then I was sad, and then I was curious and then I was understanding and then I was happy and then I was appreciative at the end. She told me, Fonz, when we're having these team presentations on these meetings, you have to stop reading off of your docs. It sounds like you're reading from a script and it sounds like you don't know what you're talking about and [00:27:00] you know what you're talking about.
[00:27:01] She gave me some other positive feedback in it as well. It's like, you're great with your designs, I think you bring a lot of to the table, but it was that second part and at first I was like, man, that's some harsh feedback. It sound like I don't know what I'm talking about. so I kind of doubled down on it the wrong way what she was saying was, I'm doing a disservice to myself.
[00:27:18] This is time for me to show up in front of my peers, leaders in the company. I've been working on this stuff so hard. I understand it so well. Why get to the point of explaining it and falling short because I'm reading off of a script. You should not be reading off of a script when it's time to present to a bigger audience. You should understand what you're going to say, and you should almost have your script memorized so that you can be natural. You can flow. You want your eyes focused on the camera.
[00:27:45] There's just a lot in that feedback that she gave me. Ever since then, I've just looked at the way I present a lot different. And you know, I do public speaking as well, so this helps not only with just my Netflix career, but this just helps with my career as a [00:28:00] communicator. that was some amazing feedback and I'm so thankful for it.
[00:28:04] I didn't know how to take it at first. I took it personally. That's what I did. I took it personally and she wasn't being personal, she was being professional. She actually was caring and saying, my bro, you're like missing your shots to show how smart you are by reading off of a script.
[00:28:17] Stop.
[00:28:18] Michael: Yeah, I love that example. It also kind of shocks me a little bit too, cuz I know you and I've talked to you enough where it, it feels like communication is effortless for you. So to hear you reading up a skip, I'm like, you're presenting.
[00:28:28] Fonz: But the thing is, when you're presenting certain things, you don't want to ramble, you don't want to freestyle when you're in front of 200 people and you only have a couple seconds.
[00:28:37] So it's not that I was reading off of a script like A, B, C, D, E, F, G. It's the fact of you can tell when somebody is looking at something to make sure that they're saying it right. Like their eye movement and things of that nature. when you want to become a master communicator at the highest level that I know she's pushing me to be, you have to master that skill of, no matter how complicated the content [00:29:00] is, you should be able to express it in the most clearest and simple ways and understandable ways.
[00:29:06] And I thank her for that feedback.
[00:29:08] Michael: I'd love to double down on this. I think there's a really, really excellent sound bite in here. All of these different things that you're hitting on with communication and presentation skills. So I'm gonna ask the question again and just give you another chance and if you restate stuff, that's totally fine. What's some advice or, principles that you would recommend for designers who want to improve the way that they present their work and communicate with different stakeholders?
[00:29:29] Fonz: will, I would say this is bigger than designers. Feedback I would give anybody that want to communicate with stakeholders or team members about something. One, you should be organized. And confident. You should know what you're going to talk about. And when I say you should know what you're going to talk about, not scrambling to know what you're talking about.
[00:29:50] I'm saying being versed enough that you don't need a script or any kind of sheet or any notes when it's time to present in a bigger audience. Bigger audiences are [00:30:00] more comfortable with it sounding as if you're naturally flowing and you're paying attention to the camera and you seem confident. When you may have notes or something like that, and it looks like you may pause for a second because you're looking at your notes, your audience can notice that, and It's just another step of communication that you can level up to. It's something that I've been practicing on. I got some feedback from a PM of mine that she felt when I use my notes, it takes away from my presentation of truly understanding the topics, even though she knows I understand it. that was some interesting feedback for me because I took it personal where I should have took it professional. And after I got outta my feelings, I did. now that's something that I actually tried my best to avoid.
[00:30:44] I studied my notes before, multiple times before it's time to present. when it's my go, I'm smooth, ready to go clear. I'm happy with whatever I'm presenting visually. then it comes off a lot more natural. And I think that's what people are looking for in [00:31:00] the leader. When it's time to communicate, you give off this calm, poise, natural, confident feeling.
The rewarding journey of becoming a designer
[00:31:06] Michael: If we were to create a little side by side and on one side we have 2018 Fonz, about to enter Coursera and Fonz today. What's the biggest way you think you've grown as a designer?
[00:31:15] Fonz: How have I grown between 2018 and 2023?
[00:31:20] I would say,
[00:31:21] I don't know if I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm a designer, prove to the world anymore. I know my confidence rid. I think that's what I would say is my confidence because being able to perform on what we will all consider as being the biggest stage of at a ad tech company like Coursera. Helping them go i p o and having tens of millions of users and seeing people using my work and then moving over to another superstar company like Netflix and being able to be there three years plus and still be considered as a shining star and solving these big problems and knowing I can do it. That's the thing is that I know I can do it, and I do [00:32:00] it every day. I'm great at my job, and I think by having that understanding, I can have fun with my job and I'm not anxious, or I'm not nervous, or I'm not over talking or overworking.
[00:32:11] I'm doing what I know needs to be done because I'm a professional and I'm experienced at it. So I would say my confidence.
[00:32:17] Michael: I think a lot of people would look at 2023 Fs and think, dang. Like he made it. He totally made it. You know? And so that's why it's so here's thing, you're the most humblest guy. I'm so, I know you're.
[00:32:27] Fonz: So Don't cut this out of the podcast. You have to keep the yourself I'll. I'll thank you so much for that compliment, man. Because I still am down to earth Fs, I'll still go grab a slice of pizza with you. I'll still get on the phone with you for 15 minutes. But sometimes when I look in the mirror, I am very, very proud of where the journey that I have endured to get to where I am now.
[00:32:49] And then for it to still feel like I still have so much more to go. it's even, even brighter in the future than it is now is very humbling. But if, but it's rewarding at the end of the day.
The rewarding journey of becoming a designer
[00:31:06] Michael: If we were to create a little side by side and on one side we have 2018 Fonz, about to enter Coursera and Fonz today. What's the biggest way you think you've grown as a designer?
[00:31:15] Fonz: How have I grown between 2018 and 2023?
[00:31:20] I would say,
[00:31:21] I don't know if I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm a designer, prove to the world anymore. I know my confidence rid. I think that's what I would say is my confidence because being able to perform on what we will all consider as being the biggest stage of at a ad tech company like Coursera. Helping them go i p o and having tens of millions of users and seeing people using my work and then moving over to another superstar company like Netflix and being able to be there three years plus and still be considered as a shining star and solving these big problems and knowing I can do it. That's the thing is that I know I can do it, and I do [00:32:00] it every day. I'm great at my job, and I think by having that understanding, I can have fun with my job and I'm not anxious, or I'm not nervous, or I'm not over talking or overworking.
[00:32:11] I'm doing what I know needs to be done because I'm a professional and I'm experienced at it. So I would say my confidence.
[00:32:17] Michael: I think a lot of people would look at 2023 Fs and think, dang. Like he made it. He totally made it. You know? And so that's why it's so here's thing, you're the most humblest guy. I'm so, I know you're.
[00:32:27] Fonz: So Don't cut this out of the podcast. You have to keep the yourself I'll. I'll thank you so much for that compliment, man. Because I still am down to earth Fs, I'll still go grab a slice of pizza with you. I'll still get on the phone with you for 15 minutes. But sometimes when I look in the mirror, I am very, very proud of where the journey that I have endured to get to where I am now.
[00:32:49] And then for it to still feel like I still have so much more to go. it's even, even brighter in the future than it is now is very humbling. But if, but it's rewarding at the end of the day.
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