Rocketship Scholars: Tools, Tech Stacks, Playbooks, Oh my!
Rocketship Scholars Series: Written by Helena Tran
Module 3: Setting up Tool Stack
This module was definitely a challenge – there were quite a few emails, and various tools to sign up and follow. I felt everything was very process driven, very hands on, and I just got lost in the details. The course content was good in that it showed step by step how to set up the tool stack, however, I felt it was lacking the why, and an overview of what each tool is used for. At the same time, I didn’t step back and try to question why we use these tools and how these different tools correlate. It was just a week of following instructions and “ticking boxes” for me.
Overall, it was a week of struggle, trial and error, and a lot of learning from mistakes. I guess you could say it’s through these struggles, the learnings will be ingrained with me more. Onwards and upwards from here!
Module 4: Implementing a customer journey playbook
This module of the SaaS Trial Rocketship course was much easier to follow than last week. I guess it’s because I am more familiar with the concepts taught this week. The concept of ‘Playbook’ is one that I am familiar with, however, instead of calling it ‘Playbook’, I’ve always known these as ‘swimlane diagrams’. Naming aside, this week, we implemented the processes in the playbook using a tool called ‘customer.io’. It was quite interesting for me because I have always created and used swimlane diagrams to understand business processes and the flow of data. I’ve never used it for actual implementation, from start to finish, so it was great to see it in practice.
This week was also quite enlightening as I didn’t realise how easy it is to automate and track emails, and add personalisation for customer names. For some reason, I thought the developers created this using code. It was also the first time I heard of the term ‘liquid script’, which is the code used for personalisation. Again, it’s just interesting how similar concepts can be called different things across industries, and seeing it implemented in different ways is eye-opening.
Also, funnily enough, I noticed as we are creating email campaigns for our business models, I am also receiving email campaigns from customer.io regarding their onboarding tutorials. I realise I am now more conscious of the emails I receive from companies, and now I often think about the purpose of the emails and what stage I’m at in their customer journey.
This week we also dabbled with the slightest bit of HTML. I used to create webpages using HTML a long time ago, so that was exciting to revisit. Overall, this week was an exciting week, as I was able to apply my existing knowledge to a new environment. I used to think some of my knowledge and skills would be non-transferrable when trying to pivot to a new industry, but this course is slowly proving me wrong.
Module 5: Refining your playbook: trial signup
Module 5 was fun. Maybe it was because this week is all about the analytics, insights and dashboards. It’s something I am very familiar with, and something I enjoy doing. I guess I’ve been so deep in the world of coding, that I haven’t really explored self-service analytics tools out there. I was quite surprised at how fast I can generate a dashboard from a tool such as Amplitude, and it’s something I will definitely explore more of in the future.
Speaking of tools, I realise this course so far has been very tool-heavy – every week there is a new tool introduced, and I guess this is why there is a need for a central customer data platform to link it all together. I am slowly understanding how the different tools fit together, and where it fits in the customer journey. I look forward to learning more about this customer journey and I have no doubt there will be more tools to be introduced over the remainder of the course! I do wonder though, if there is one tool out there that can do it all – one tool tailored for PLG and tracking the customer journey – it would definitely be so handy!
Till next time,
Helena
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