From San Francisco, it's the CUBE covering Samsung Developer Conference 2017 brought to you by Samsung. Okay welcome back everyone. Live here in San Francisco at Moscone West is the CUBE's exclusive coverage of Samsung Developer Conference. I'm John Furrier, the co-founder of Silicon Angle as well as the co-host of the CUBE. Our next guest is from PostMates, Prerak Trivedi, who is the senior Android developer at PostMates. So, mobile apps, got to have the food, you guys do the food delivery in any city; you're all over the place. How many cities are you guys in? >> I think it's more than 50 markets now. >> Really big time. Welcome to the CUBE. >> Thank you. >> So Android obviously, IOS versus Android, it's been the was since day one, I remember when Google had the first phone, had the first prototype. I saw this coming, and everyone saw it. Apple was owning it, Android has moved so fast. >> Prerak: Oh, definitely. >> What are the hot, cool things about Android right now that you're excited about, and that people should know about? >> Prerak: Oh yeah, sure. So Android, with the recent release, I think the all-year release, they have a lot of good technologies built in, especially if you see three years back, when the KitKat rolled out, it completely transformed Android, right? So today, if you'll see like ... In my opinion, it's surpassed Apple's IOS platform-- >> John: Why's that? What does it have? >> So, it has a lot of cool innovations, especially as an advanced phone user, if you want to multitask on your phone, right? So the split screen tabs, basically, so you can split your apps. So while writing an email, you want to reference the original content, something like that, or you want to listen to YouTube while navigating, right? So I don't know if you guys know, YouTube goes off if you put it in the background. With this new functionality, you can do both things at the same time, so that's why-- >> Yeah, well YouTube's got a lot of problems, certainly on Safari as well, I mean we've had big problems with that, so this is an interesting point. So how about multi-threading apps, I mean, what's some of the innovations, what is Android doing that you like, and what are the things that they need to do differently? 'Cause Samsung's going to give me more goodness with the bigger phone. So-- >> I mean, you have all the real estate in the bigger phones, and as you see, like earlier, three years back, it was like a 5 inch phone, now you have 6 to 6.5 inch phones, and then you have so much real estate, you can do so many things that are on it, like you have a good in-app gaming experience, like you know-- >> So what do you do on the app for PostMates? What are you responsible for? >> I work on the merchant facing Android applications. We provide them tablets, and they give them a platform for other management. >> They're the merchants. Those are the people who make the food. >> Exactly, the restaurants, basically. We partner with them, and we give them a platform to do order management. >> What do they care about that that might be different from the consumer, they care more about who the driver is, do they care about work flow? Is there any design considerations, you think, differently about the merchant versus, say, the end user, or is it the same? >> Oh, yeah, sure. So, when it goes to a merchant, we have to focus on their part, right, like, they don't care about the buyer, or the-- >> John: Or other restaurants. (laughs) >> I mean, basically, when they're preparing food, so we have to focus, and make them focus on the order, right, so we give them the tablet as a kiosk application, where they are focused on only one thing, doing the order management. Then once they are market ready to get it out of there too. >> And they want to make sure their menu >> Exactly. >> is in the right place, >> so there's not a lot of bad orders. 'Cause the worst thing that could happen is, I didn't order that. >> Exactly, yeah. We give them the platform for that as well, everything in one tablet, so yeah. >> Alright, so what's the coolest thing you're working on right now? >> Right now, the coolest thing I would say is providing ... Actually, I can't say much about that-- >> John: Come on, say it! >> (laughs) Yeah, nah. I mean, yeah, so one of the cool-- >> What's the coolest code you pushed? >> So, yeah...actually it's coming out... >> Notifications? >> Okay, so you... >> Notifications is all like... >> Come on! Share something! >> Maybe I can share at the end... >> Okay, share a best practice. >> A best practice? >> Yeah, best practice in the Android, for the Android developers watching. >> Android developers, yeah. If you want to build a scalable Android application, I would say, architecture is very important. Just follow Google IO's architecture components. Getting architecture, is very important because if you want to reuse your UI or if you want to build on top of your existing code it would be very helpful to give a good platform, build on a good platform. Then adding features to it would be extremely... >> John: Alright, so what's your take of this conference here? I mean this is kind of like an awesome conference. They're bringing that Apple Worldwide Developer conference to Samsung. It's their 4th year. It'd kind of clean. I like the messaging, clean in a way, not like being cleaned, like spotless clean, but clean messaging. I love the big screens. They're tying the smart TV. They've given developers what looks like a seamless fabric into the world. Now if I'm a developer, I'm going to raise my hand and say "Okay. I want real APIs that are documented. I don't want to have to go dig around in all the APIs." >> Prerak: Right, right, right. >> I mean, what's your take on Samsung? What are they doing good? What are they doing bad? >> I think I was really blown away with the whole connected SmartThings platform. They focused a lot on the connecting of people and I think feel like in the coming years, connected home, like home automation would be one very important aspect of everyone's life. Let's say if I'm traveling, I want to control my home from somewhere. I was excited about the whole connected home, the SmartThings platform. And with Bixby coming in as well, you know you can control home with your voice. Which excites me the most. >> It would be interesting too, I can see, almost putting my developer hat on... your business would be amazing if >> Prerak: Well yeah! >> the restaurants could learn about my orders. He's a repeat customer, that they send orders back, I'm gluten free, or whatever I do... >> Exactly. >> And that's kind of the AI you want. >> Yeah! >> You want Bixy to learn. >> Yep. >> Bixby to learn. >> Exactly. Learn from the past orders and... >> You guys working on that? >> Somewhat. Something like that. >> (laughs) Cagey! He won't give me any secrets. Okay! Bottom line: Android looking good right now? >> Very good right now, yeah. Android and Samsung doing good things. >> Alright, so what do you say to your IOS Apple friends? When you're arm wrestling over IOS and Android? >> I think IOS is also in very good shape. I mean, IOS gives a very good platform for everyone as well. Like basically it goes hand in hand. The competition is always... >> John: Global is key, right? Global has a big reach. >> Exactly. Global is key. Competition is good in terms of healthy innovation. So I feel like IOS does some innovation, Android does something else. >> Do you guys sit in the same lunch room, or different parts of the building than your IOS team? Do you guys co-mingle? >> We sit next to each other. >> You do? Do you throw stuff at each other? Is there peace? >> We always have healthy competition. Healthy jokes. >> That's always good. It's always fun. It's a religion. Apple versus Android. It's interesting. We look at all of our analytics and our web properties and it's source information. You can almost see the interests. More open source folks love Android. More global, more API-centric thinking, web services, micro services, docker containers, people who are thinking about kubernetes and cloud native. They love Android! Do you agree? >> Prerak: I agree, yeah. >> I won't say the lazy guys do IOS, but there's big money in Apple, too. Some nuances are there. >> Yep. Which one do you think is having better market share for you guys? >> I think IOS is better than Android, personally. In terms of I use both. But I think there is a lot more work Android has got to do. But what attracts me to Android, certainly Samsung and others, is that there are other platforms out there that need to be open and everything will be in API. >> Prerak: Exactly. >> Micro services trend in the cloud with kubernetes and containers, specifically kubernetes. The orchestration of work loads are going to be instrumental and that's going to win the game. So I think Android is tipped for the future to be open and better than Apple. Apple's closed. But Apple's the fine jewelry of the ave. It's for push button, get what I need. Less sophisticated user. >> Sure, makes sense. >> I guess I'm over-simplifying, over-generalizing. That's how I see it. I think, most people, that's the way that they see it. How about you? What do you think? Obviously, you're biased. You're Android. >> Nah! As I told you earlier, I'm all for innovation so as long as it's done by IOS or Android, we need to keep moving forward and that's... >> John: Alright, so message to your friends at home, other Android developers that didn't make this event, what are they missing? What should they know? >> Everyone should definitely check out SmartThings. I think that's the really cool thing because the whole ecosystem, like having your light bulb and those things controlled by you remotely. Definitely check out SmartThings. I'm excited about AR Core, Samsung and Google partnership as well. That could be one interesting thing coming out as well. >> John: AR kits out there too, what do you think about that? >> Oh yeah. >> Security. >> The AR kit? >> Yeah. >> I haven't really... >> It's got more security, stuff's more IOT based IR Core, AR Core certainly the other big key. Alright, Preket, thank you so much for coming on the CUBE. Android developer here shared his take on the CUBE. Talking a little smack with IOS, of course Samsung's got the bigger phone here. In the show here, love the Note 8. Going to give it a good run against my iPhone. It's the CUBE coverage here at Samsung Developer Conference. More after this short break. (music)

>>Well, good day, everybody. And it's great to have you with us here on the cube. As we continue our key conversations as a part of the AWS startup showcase, please welcome Jennifer Johnson. Insidery, Jennifer's the chief marketing and strategy officer at amplitude, which is a global leader in product intelligence, and she tells her friends collar JJ. And so today it's still all JJ, how are you doing? I'm doing great, John, how are you doing very well. Thanks for being with us. We appreciate the time. Um, first off, tell us a little bit about amplitude about your work and job for those who might not be familiar. And also, I like to hear a little more about product intelligence about that concept. It's certainly taken on probably a pretty different meaning in this digital world that we're in today. That's right. That's right. Well, so I've been at amplitude. >>I joined in October of 2020. So, uh, not that long. Uh, and let me tell you, I, anyone who knows me knows that I am a CMO, but I am also a category designer. So I look at, uh, I look at companies, I look at opportunities as market creation opportunities, and we're going to talk about that because that's a big reason why I joined amplitude and why I'm so excited for the future of amplitude. Um, and so when we think about our website today says product intelligence. If you read between the lines and I tell you I'm a category designer, you might understand that maybe that will evolve over time, but what product intelligence actually means is it, is it really connects digital products to revenue. And what do I mean by that? And we all know that everything is digital. I don't need to tell you that everything is digital. >>We have the whole world just moved to digital. Um, and it's interesting because we think about digital and we think about the door dashes and the Peloton of the world, but really it's every company and every industry, um, you know, are some of our largest customers are hundred-year-old companies, right? And they have had to not just because of the last year in the pandemic, but they've been really thinking about how do we disrupt ourselves. Really? It's not even about disrupting the industry. It's actually about disrupting their own business around digital. So digital really, isn't a nice to have anymore. It's existential. And we all, I think we all know that at this point. Um, but you know, if the whole world has moved to digital and I think I read something that IDC wrote, we're going to spend $6.8 trillion by 2023 on digital transformation. We're spending an enormous, I mean, I think enormous has even an understatement amount of money on digital. >>So what is the next thing that you have to do once you've spent all this time and money and effort and probably millions of dollars, billions per company actually transforming is you have to actually optimize it and you have to figure out what your, what digital products and digital investments you're making. You have to make sure that actually connect to business outcomes. Things like, uh, revenue, things like lifetime value of things like loyalty, things that drive your business forward. And that's really where product intelligence and the future where amplitude is going is so critical. Because if you think about actually one of our customers said it best the customers of yesterday or the companies of yesterday. They put a website in front of their old way of doing things, their old products, their old way of doing things and call it a digital, like we just put a website in front of it. >>So it's digital. That is no longer the case. Now it's about redesigning your business and transforming value through new digital products and services. So digital products are actually the future of how businesses will operate in the new era. And so what happens is companies say, okay, we need to go build all these new products and services. And we have these goals of growth and revenue, and we hope the revenue comes out the other end, but there's really no way for, or no really effective way for companies to actually figure out how to manage and measure that in between you build a product, you put it out to market. Revenue comes out the other end, but how do you actually know if you're building the right things in the first place? How do you know what, uh, what features, what behaviors, what actions, what combinations of those actually lead to things like engagement and revenue and loyalty, and then how do you actually go and double down on those? >>And what I mean by that is adapting the experience. If you know, something works and you know that every customer that looks like that person will do this and you can predict an outcome. Why wouldn't you serve that up to every single person that looks like that. And really that whole notion of prediction and understanding, and prediction and adapting, that's really where amplitude plays a role. And that's what got me really excited about joining amplitude and really excited about the future is every company is a digital company and really companies have to completely rethink how they manage digital because it isn't just putting a website in front of it anymore. >>Yeah. I mean, you you've hit on something to them. In fact, we've got a lot to unpack here, which is great. Um, but, but you, you talk about that. Digital's lost, right? You got to have it's existential now you're dealing with business, which I think is absolutely correct, but because it's everybody and it is everywhere and you've got a lot of categories, right. Um, as a chief strategy officer, uh, you can't be all things to all people. You can't go off in every which way, but, so how are you focusing then your efforts in terms of identifying the key categories of prime categories, as opposed to looking at this huge landscape, and that could be overwhelming, you know, in some respects, how are you focusing? >>Yeah. I mean, there's, there's two ways to look at it and it is, you know, every company is a digital company, but really any company that has any kind of a digital product or an app digital app, anything that's digital is a as a relevant target for, for amplitude. Um, traditionally we have focused with probably no surprise. We focused on the, probably the, what I'd say the digital native companies, the companies that are more mature, but really they grew up through digitally through digital native. Those are the door dashes, the Postmates, the Uber's, the Lyft's right. Um, and those companies were just built by design to think this way, right? We're building products. Our app is our business. Our product is our business. So we need to make sure that we deeply understand how the interactions with our customers through that experience actually translates. And how do we continue to tweak and test and optimize and digitally native companies tend to understand that inherently. >>So that's been a lot of the early adopters of amplitude have been those digitally native companies. Now what we're seeing and no surprise is there's a really long tail of companies and more traditional industries. I mean, everything from, uh, you know, hospitality and restaurants, obviously media is going through a huge digital disruption right now. Um, automotive, I mean, any, any company that's looking at, how do we build new ways to engage and provide experiences to our customers through any kind of a digital means digital, digital product and app. Those are relevant targets for amplitude. So I think, you know, people think, Oh, it's every, every, uh, industry looks very different, but the commonality is everyone needs to move to digital. And the great thing for amplitude and for the market at large is a lot of our customers are these digitally native, what I would call the thought leaders around digital. And so if we can help bring that, bring those best practices and bring that approach to some of the more traditional companies in traditional industries and help them become more like the Peloton and the door dashes of the world. Then that's great for everybody, >>You know, JJ, when you talk about this transformation that's going on and the spaces in which is going on, which is everywhere right now, I imagine there are still some folks who might be a little reluctant, right? And you talked about slapping the new website and the old material, and they think they're done and they wash your hands and they go away and it's not that simple. Right. Um, so what's that conversation like to people who maybe aren't willing to jump in to take that risk as they see it, whereas, you know, it's an essential to their business. >>Yeah. So, you know, I do think that every disruption, technologically speaking or other is really change management and digital is no different, right? It's not just about moving to digital, it's changing the way that you're organized, it's changing your business structure, your, your strategy priorities. So I think that that organizations know they have to go there now. And even the ones that are reluctant, I'd say, if they're reluctant, they're probably going to get disrupted. So I think everyone understands they need to go there. Our role is really to help organizations get there without, I mean, digital, the, the word that usually follows digital is transformation. And I think a lot of people think that digital transformation needs to be this, you know, three to five year strategic journey and costs millions of dollars with armies of consultants. And really what we're helping to do is help organizations just answer the question, how is our product tied to our revenue? >>And we do that by bringing the data to the teams that actually need it. And it was really, it was really surprising to me to understand the process and some of these really large enterprises around how product and marketing teams, uh, get data. And, and a lot of times, if you have a question about something, if you're a product, if you're a product manager, obviously you want to understand how is our product doing what features are resonating? What features are leading to things like engagement or revenue or subscriptions or loyalty or whatever it is, right. As a marketer, you also want to know that as a marketer, you also want to know what campaigns are we driving that are actually creating value. Are there things that we should be doing? Are there areas we should double down on? And so the process is if you have a question about something or a hypothesis that you want to answer, a lot of times you have to send this request to some centralized data team or a data science team. >>Uh, you know, organizations have, you know, large B2C organizations. Most of them have armies of data scientists and business intelligence platforms. And you send a request and you might get an answer back in a few weeks, maybe a month. And, uh, maybe it's the right answer or usually what happens. And I think we can all relate to this. As you ask a question and you get data back and then it sparks five more questions. And so that whole process is the cyclical thing that I always say, if by the time you actually figure out the answer to your question, it's enough time to get Amazon in the new digital era. And so what we're actually doing is helping to bring that data, which we all know is the crown jewel of any organization. We're bringing that data and we're democratizing it and bringing it to all the teams that actually need it, lock, unlock it from data scientists and BI and bring it to the teams that need it, whether it's product, whether it's marketing, whether it's sales, whether it's customer success. >>And the greatest thing is it's not as a tool for everyone. And then all of a sudden you have these silo tools marketing as their tool product has their tools. CS has their tool is you actually have one platform, one system, and one source of data that all those teams use. So marketing doesn't say, well, yeah, my mind says this and it looks at it from this lens. And product says, well, my data says this, but it looks at it from this lens. All of a sudden you've removed that entire conversation or that entire debate. And that changes everything. It changes the way that companies get insights into customer behavior. It changes the way that they build products. It changes the way that the teams work together, product and marketing can now work off of a common set of data. And so really amplitude is helping to drive that change. >>And you don't have to do it through a three year implementation with an army of consultants that come in. It's something that can be done very easily. And so, and it, you know, I know everyone wants an easy button. Um, it is quite easy though. It's not, it's not the, the three-year or even the one year transformation. It's actually a way to, to bring that data to the teams that need it quickly. Um, the other thing I'd say to it is it's bringing the right data to them. Um, I was reading something from Gardner that said 85% of marketing analytics tools. Now these are tools that usually track things like ad attribution, website visits and how that, you know, how that relates to revenue well in a customer acquisition scenario, while you just want to know what ads actually lead to a cart, uh, put someone going to a cart, someone purchasing that was probably sufficient, but in the, in the new world, that's just not answering the same question. >>Like if you need to add, answer a question of what features, what behaviors, what actions within the product actually drive business outcomes, knowing what ads people clicked on and what web visits that you know, that, that, you know people had. And that's not going to answer it. That's not, it's just answering a totally different question. And 85% of companies are using marketing analytics tools to actually answer questions like what features we need to build. So that's another key point here is companies need to answer this question. They know they do. They just don't have the tools to do it and the data to do it. So they're using tools that were designed for a completely different purpose. And so really that's another great thing about amplitude is we're actually giving them the actual, the right data to answer the questions. >>So if you're, if you're somebody who's headlights, you know, for down the road, then in terms of, you know, you're looking for behavior, straights and patterns, you're looking for increased customer engagements, right. They have all these wonderful tools now, you know, not that you're missing anything, but where do you think that you could even sharpen the pencil a little bit more so that down the road here, what, what do you think technologically, you are capable or you would like to be able to, there's a making that an even richer in case even a bigger, a deeper dig? >>Well, I mean, so we, we have this, this, uh, immense deep, fast, smart database of customer behavior. So if you think of it, it's almost like the possibilities are endless. Anything that you need to be able to know or any question you could ask of your data to know what combinations of features, what combinations of behaviors actually lead to things like retention or churn or revenue. And then you can actually start to model those into cohorts. If I know that a customer does these five things in this order, and they're five times more likely to churn, well, then any customer that actually doesn't just look like that based on your demographics, who you are, where you live, et cetera, but based on actually what you do in the product, we can start to cohort them and say, this person actually looks like this other person based on their behavior. >>And therefore we might actually personalize an experience for them. We might send them an offer if we think they're going to turn, because we know they're likely to turn base cause other people that look like them do, um, or we're not going to send them anything because we already know they're loyal. So they're already likely to buy. So it's answering more questions, but then it's also, how do you actually use that to really personalize experiences? And I, that word is so overused, but in this way, I mean, it's not about I'm going to serve you a piece of content because I know what industry you work in, or I know where you live. I'm actually going to personalize your experience because I know that you, John, as an individual, do these things. And therefore I know that you are either a loyal customer or you've got a high likelihood to churn, et cetera. >>And then I'm going to personalize an experience. That's a good experience for you, but also it could experience for the business. So I think there's more, um, types of analytics. There's more ways to personalize and build experiences. I think in the, in the modern way, not the old demographic way. Um, but also even every organization around the company, like everyone touches the customer. So, you know, customer experience, as we know, is, is, you know, I hate to call it, call it the buzzword. Of course, everybody wants a great customer experience, but everybody talks about customer experience. Anyone who touches the customer as part of customer experience, which is basically the whole company. And so if you think about today, there's obviously product teams, marketing teams are heavy users of, of amplitude, but going forward, I mean, imagine a world where, you know, anytime, you know, anytime you have a touch point with a customer, you can use this, this insight into what they're actually doing in the product to, to get some level of, of intelligence that you didn't have before and use it to proactively give them a better experience, right? >>Whether it's, you know, uh, you know, at renewal time or you know, that they're likely to do something. So you offer something that gives them a better experience or you're in customer service. And wouldn't it be great to actually know if someone's logging a support ticket, what they're actually doing in the product it's going to help you give them a better support experience, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, the options here I think are because of the data that we have and the way that we can, like you said, build these patterns and pattern match, what features and actions lead to outcomes. Uh, I think the options are limitless. And I think this is the new way, like customers, that companies that understand this is the Holy grail of the new way of, of digital and understanding your customers and having this intelligence into the product is the new way to engage the customers that get that are going to be the customers that win. >>What is the new game you're right. I think limitless is a really good word too, because the capabilities that you're developing and the product and services you're providing. Um, so thanks for sharing the time and the insight and pleasure to have you on the queue. Thanks for being here. It's been great. Thank you, John. You've got jumbles here on the cube to conversation on AWS startup showcase. In fact, we have Jennifer Johnson.

(upbeat music) >> Well, good day, everybody. And it's great to have you with us here on the theCUBE. As we continue our CUBE Conversations as a part of the AWS startup showcase. Pleased to welcome Jennifer Johnson in today. Jennifer is the Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at Amplitude, which is a global leader in product intelligence. And she tells me her friends call her JJ. And so, today it's... Hello JJ, how are you doing? >> I'm doing great, John. How are you? >> I'm doing very well. Thanks for being with us, we appreciate the time. First off, tell us a little bit about Amplitude, about your work in general for those who might not be familiar, and also, I'd like to hear a little more about product intelligence and about that concept, if you will, and how that has certainly taken on probably a pretty different meaning in this digital world that we're in today. >> That's right. Well, so I've been at Amplitude, I joined in October of 2020. So not that long. And let me tell you, anyone who knows me knows that I am a CMO, but I am also a Category Designer. So, I look at companies, I look at opportunities as market creation opportunities. And we're going to talk about that 'cause that's a big reason why I joined Amplitude and why I'm so excited for the future of Amplitude. And so when we think about... Our website today says product intelligence. If you read between the lines and I tell you I'm a category designer, you might understand that maybe that will evolve over time. But what product intelligence actually means is, is that it really connects digital products to revenue. And what do I mean by that? And we all know that everything is digital. I don't need to tell you that everything is digital. The whole world just moved to digital. And it's interesting because, we think about digital and we think about the DoorDashs and the Pelotons of the world, but really it's every company in every industry. Some of our largest customers are 100-year old companies. And they have had to, not just because of the last year in the pandemic, but they've been really thinking about how do we disrupt ourselves, really. It's not even about disrupting the industry. It's actually about disrupting their own business around digital. So digital really, isn't a nice to have anymore. It's existential. And we all, I think we all know that at this point. But, if the whole world has moved to digital and I think I read something that IDC wrote, we're going to spend $6.8 trillion by 2023 on digital transformation. We're spending an enormous, I mean, I think enormous is even an understatement amount of money on digital. So what is the next thing that you have to do, once you've spent all this time and money and effort in probably millions of dollars, billions per company actually transforming, is you have to actually optimize it. And you have to figure out what digital products and digital investments you're making. You have to make sure that they actually connect to business outcomes. Things like, revenue, things like lifetime value, things like loyalty, things that drive your business forward. And that's really where product intelligence and the future where Amplitude is going is so critical. Because if you think about... Actually, one of our customers said it best. The customers of yesterday or the companies of yesterday, they put a website in front of their old way of doing things, their old products, their old way of doing things and called it digital. Like we just put a website in front of it so it's digital. That is no longer the case. Now it's about redesigning your business and transforming value through new digital products and services. So digital products are actually, the future of how businesses will operate in the new era. And so what happens is, companies say, "Okay, we need to go build all these new products "and services. "And we have these goals of growth and revenue "and we hope the revenue comes out the other end." But there's really no way for... Or no really effective way for companies to actually figure out how to manage and measure that in-between. You build a product, you put it out to market, revenue comes out the other end, but how do you actually know if you're building the right things in the first place? How do you know what features, what behaviors, what actions, what combinations of those, actually lead to things like engagement and revenue and loyalty. And then how do you actually go and double down on those? And what I mean by that is adapting the experience. If you know something works, and you know that every customer that looks like that person will do this, and you can predict an outcome, why wouldn't you serve that up to every single person that looks like that? And really that whole notion of prediction and understanding and prediction and adapting, that's really where Amplitude plays a role. And that's what got me really excited about joining Amplitude and really excited about the future is, every company is a digital company and really companies have to completely rethink how they manage digital because it isn't just putting website in front of it anymore. >> Yeah I mean, you've hit on something there. In fact, we've got a lot to unpack here, which is great. But you talk about that digital (mumbles) you got to have. It's existential now to doing your business which I think is absolutely correct. But because it's everybody, and it is everywhere and you've got a lot of categories, as a Chief Strategy Officer, I mean, you can't be all things to all people. You can't go off in every which way, so how are you focusing then in your efforts in terms of identifying maybe key categories or prime categories, as opposed to, looking at this huge landscape, and that can be overwhelming in some respects how are you focusing then? >> Yeah. I mean, there's two ways to look at it. And it is... Every company is a digital company, but really any company that has any kind of a digital product or a digital app, anything that's digital is a relevant target for Amplitude. Traditionally, we have focused with probably no surprise, we focused on the, probably what I'd say the digital native companies, the companies that are more mature, but really they grew up through digital native. Those are the DoorDashs, the Postmates, the Ubers, the Lyfts. And those companies were just built by design to think this way. "We're building products. "Our app is our business. Our product is our business." So we need to make sure that we deeply understand how the interactions with our customers through that experience actually translates, and how do we continue to tweak and test and optimize. And digitally native companies, tend to understand that inherently. So that's been a lot of the early adopters of Amplitude have been those digitally native companies. Now what we're seeing, and no surprise is, there's a really long tail of companies in more traditional industries. I mean, everything from, hospitality and restaurants. Obviously media is going through a huge digital disruption right now. Automotive. I mean, any company that's looking at how do we build new ways to engage and provide experiences to our customers through any kind of a digital means, a digital product, an app, those are relevant targets for Amplitude. So I think people think, "Oh, it's..." Every industry looks very different but the commonality is everyone needs to move to digital. And the great thing for Amplitude and for the market at large is a lot of our customers are these digitally native, what I would call the thought leaders around digital. And so if we can help bring that, bring those best practices and bring that approach to some of the more traditional companies, in traditional industries and help them become more like the Pelotons and the DoorDashs of the world, then that's great for everybody. >> You know, JJ, when you talk about, this transformation that's going on and the spaces in which is going on which is everywhere right now, I imagine there are still some folks who might be a little reluctant. And you talked about slapping a new website on the old material and they think they're done and they wash their hands and they go away. And it's not that simple. So what's that conversation like to people who maybe aren't willing to jump in, to take that "risk" as they see it, whereas you know, it's an essential to their business. >> Yeah. So, I do think that every disruption technologically speaking or other, is really change management. And digital's no different. It's not just about moving to digital, it's changing the way that you're organized. It's changing your business structure, your strategy, your priorities. So, I think that organizations know they have to go there now. And even the ones that are reluctant, I'd say if they're reluctant they're probably going to get disrupted. So I think everyone understands they need to go there. Our role is really to help organizations get there, without... I mean, digital, the word that usually follows digital is transformation. And I think a lot of people think that digital transformation needs to be this, three to five year strategic journey, and cost millions of dollars with armies of consultants. And really what we're helping to do is, help organizations just answer the question, "how is our product tied to our revenue?" And we do that by bringing the data to the teams that actually need it. And it was really surprising to me to understand the process in some of these really large enterprises, around how product and marketing teams get data. And a lot of times if you have a question about something, if you're a product manager obviously you want to understand how is our product doing? What features are resonating? What features are leading to things like engagement or revenue or subscriptions or loyalty or whatever it is. As a marketer you also want to know that. As a marketer you also want to know, what campaigns are we driving that are actually creating value. Are there things that we should be doing? Are there areas we should double down on? And so the process is if you have a question about something or a hypothesis that you want to answer, a lot of times you have to send this request to some centralized data team or a data science team. Organizations have, large B2C organizations. Most of them have armies of data scientists and business intelligence platforms. And you send a request and you might get an answer back in a few weeks, maybe a month and maybe it's the right answer or usually what happens, and I think we can all relate to this. Is you ask a question and you get data back and then it sparks five more questions. And so that whole process is the cyclical thing that I always say, by the time you actually figure out the answer to your question, it's enough time to get Amazoned in the new digital era. And so what we're actually doing is helping to bring that data which we all know is the crown jewel of any organization. We're bringing that data and we're democratizing it and bringing it to all the teams that actually need it. Unlock it from data scientists and BI, and bring it to the teams that need it, whether it's product, whether it's marketing, whether it's sales, whether it's customer success. And the greatest thing is it's not a tool for everyone. And then all of a sudden you have these siloed tools, marketing has their tool, product has their tool, CS has their tool. Is you actually have one platform, one system, and one source of data that all those teams use. So marketing doesn't say, "Well yeah, my mind says this "and it looks at it from this lens." And product says, "Well, my data says this, "but it looks at it from this lens." All of a sudden you've removed that entire conversation or that entire debate. And that changes everything. It changes the way that companies get insights into customer behavior. It changes the way that they build products. It changes the way that the teams work together. Product and marketing can now work off of a common set of data. And so really Amplitude is helping to drive that change. And you don't have to do it through a three-year implementation with an army of consultants that come in. It's something that can be done very easily. And so, I know everyone wants an easy button. It is quite easy though. It's not the three-year or even the one-year transformation. It's actually a way to bring that data to the teams that need it quickly. The other thing I'd say to it is, it's bringing the right data to them. I was reading something from Gartner that said, 85% of marketing analytics tools, now these are tools that usually track things like ad attribution, website visits, and how that relates to revenue. Well in a customer acquisition scenario, well, you just want to know what ads actually lead to a cart. Put someone going to a cart, someone purchasing that was probably sufficient, but in the new world, that's just not answering the same question. Like if you need to answer a question of what features, what behaviors, what actions within the product actually drive business outcomes, knowing what ads people clicked on and what web visits that people had, that's not going to answer... It's just answering a totally different question. And 85% of companies are using marketing analytics tools to actually answer questions like what features, do we need to build? So that's another key point here is, companies need to answer this question. They know they do. They just don't have the tools to do it and the data to do it. So they're using tools that were designed for a completely different purpose. And so really that's another great thing about Amplitude, is we're actually giving them the actual, the right data to answer the questions. >> So, if you're somebody's headlights, for down the road, then in terms of, you're looking for behavior, straights and patterns. You're looking for increased customer engagements, and you have all these wonderful tools now, not that you're missing anything, but where do you think that you could even sharpen the pencil a little bit more so that down the road here, what do you think technologically you are capable or that you would like to be able to deliver, because of making that an even richer engagement, even a bigger, a deeper dig. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, so, we have this immense deep, fast, smart database of customer behavior. So if you think of it, it's almost like the possibilities are endless. Anything that you need to be able to know or any question you could ask of your data to know what combinations of features, what combinations of behaviors actually lead to things like retention or churn or revenue. And then you can actually start to model those into cohorts. If I know that a customer does these five things in this order, and they're five times more likely to churn, well then, any customer that actually, doesn't just look like that based on your demographics, who you are, where you live, et cetera, but based on actually what you do in the product. We can start to cohort them and say, "this person actually looks like this other person "based on their behavior." And therefore we might actually personalize an experience for them. We might send them an offer if we think they're going to churn because we know they're likely to churn base 'cause other people that look like them do. Or we're not going to send them anything because we already know they're loyal. So they're already likely to buy. So it's answering more questions, but then it's also, how do you actually use that to, really personalize experiences? And that word is so overused, but in this way, I mean, it's not about I'm going to serve you a piece of content because I know what industry you work in, or I know where you live. I'm actually going to personalize your experience because I know that you, John, as an individual, do these things and therefore I know that you are either, a loyal customer, or you've got a high likelihood to churn, et cetera. And then I'm going to personalize an experience, that's a good experience for you but also a good experience for the business. So, I think there's more types of analytics. There's more ways to personalize and build experiences. I think in the modern way, not the old demographic way. But also, even every organization around the company, like everyone touches the customer. So, customer experience as we know is, I hate to call it the buzzword. Of course, everybody wants a great customer experience but everybody talks about customer experience. Anyone who touches the customer is part of customer experience, which is basically the whole company. And so if you think about, today, there's obviously product teams, marketing teams, are heavy users of Amplitude. But going forward, I mean, imagine a world where, anytime you have a touch point with a customer, you can use this insight into what they're actually doing in the product to get some level of intelligence that you didn't have before, and use it to proactively give them a better experience. Whether it's, at renewal time, or you know that they're likely to do something so you offer something that gives them a better experience or you're in customer service. And wouldn't it be great to actually know if someone's logging a support ticket. What they're actually doing in the product is going to help you give them a better support experience, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, the options here I think are, because of the data that we have and the way that we can, like you said, build these patterns and pattern match what features and actions lead to outcomes, I think the options are limitless. And I think this is the new way. Like companies that understand this is the Holy grail of the new way of digital and understanding your customers and having this intelligence into the product is the new way to engage, the customers that get that are going to be the customers that win. >> Well, it is a new game, you're right. I think limitless is a really good word too because the capabilities that you're developing and the product and services you're providing, really are limitless. So thanks for sharing the time and the insight, a pleasure to have you on theCUBE. Thanks for being here. >> Thank you. It's been great. Thank you, John. >> You've got John Walls here on theCUBE, CUBE Conversation on the AWS startup showcase. I'm talking with Jennifer Johnson from Amplitude. (soft music)

>> Narrator: Live from San Jose, California in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE, covering QuickBooks Connect 2016. Sponsored by Intuit QuickBooks. Now here are your hosts, Jeff Frick and John Walls. >> And welcome back here to San Jose, the Convention Center. We're on theCUBE to continue our coverage of QuickBooks Connect 2016. We're here for the rest of today and onto tomorrow for two days at this great event, third year event, that is now going on with 5,000 attendees. So record attendance, great keynotes this morning, another keynote session coming up, by the way, in just about a half hour or so. We'll have some guests after that and then continue our coverage here tomorrow on theCUBE. Along with Jeff Frick, I am John Walls. We're joined by Yumi Clark who's the SVP of product development at Capital One. And Yumi, thank you for being with us here on theCUBE. >> Thank you very much. >> First time, right? >> Yes. >> On theCUBE. >> Yes, first time. >> So Capital One, what are you doing here? In a good way, of course. But what do you find of interest from a professional standpoint with the small business crowd? >> Yes, so Capital One is here because we want to meet our customers where they are today, and many of our customers are actually here at the show, QuickBooks Connect. Whether they be accountants or small business owners themselves, we are looking to build products for them and solutions for them based off of the pains that they have and the problems that they're having. So we're here to do much of a data gathering exercise and see what we can provide to our users. >> So I assume this is an ongoing process, right? This isn't just a one-time hit. Generally speaking, what do you hear from the people with whom you work or that you're supporting, in terms of their pain points for the services you provide and what you can do from a solutions standpoint? >> Yes, well actually here at QuickBooks Connect we have been doing some informal polls with the people that have been attending, and we often hear these types of things also as we're leading the businesses within the product development space. We're seeing a lot of the people talk about the passions that they have with regards to the business, and oftentimes they start the business because of their passion. They're actually not starting it because they want to start a business itself. Because oftentimes those businesses have a lot of administrivia tied to them in process. That's not what they're doing to start that business. They want to make sure that they're creating something that really speaks to them and speaks to their passions, and because of that, they've created a small business. >> But then, unfortunately, they have to tasks and they have to do accounting and they have to do payroll, they have to pay the vendors, and they have to get up from making whatever they're making and selling whatever they're selling to deal with the reality, and that's really where the opportunity at QuickBooks has done. But part of the thing they're trying to do is build this ecosystem not only to provide the tools, but really to provide other services to enable these folks to be successful. So within the Capital One world, as you look at small businesses as kind of a category, what are some of the unique challenges that they have that you guys are trying to help them with? How do you see the small business world as an opportunity? >> Yes, so in the same way, Capital One is also looking at that ecosystem. First and foremost what we do as a financial institution is provide very competitive savings and checkings and credit cards as part of our plethora of products that we offer. From a savings perspective, we have a 1% cash back, and from a credit card perspective we have a 2% cash back rate so that we're truly competitive from that perspective. In our recent surveys and the research that we've done, we've also seen that many of these small businesses, whether they're here or somewhere else, they have more than two bank accounts in order to run their small business. Also what we see is that they have anywhere between 10 to 12 different applications that they are stitching together to get their financial health of their small business right. Knowing that that's the problem, what we're doing at Capital One is helping them stitch that together. Not only do we have a competitive checking and savings accounts so that they can actually pay their bills and do the invoicing and the payroll, we are also looking at things to help them in future. And most recently in August what we did as Capital One is launch the Spark 401k service. 50% of all Americans either own or work for a small business so it's a huge crowd that needs to be addressed. Even though it's 50%, only 13% of those small businesses are offering some type of retirement benefit. And because of that we saw that as an opportunity and challenge that we can help resolve, and that's why we've launched the Spark 401k service this past August, which is specifically targeted to those small businesses so they can help not only themselves but the employees that work for them think about the future. >> So how has this changed the way you do business? Because you're looking for new products, you're looking for new services, you're looking to be more expansive in the kinds of things that you're offering, right? >> Yumi: Yes. >> But I'm sure the migration has... sometimes it's not natural. You're introducing new concepts to your workforce and to your people and so how's this impacted what Capital One does, in terms of looking to stretch yourself? Basically to create new opportunities for your clients. >> Right. Well, there's two ways that we're addressing the client relationship. One is that we're definitely seeing that digital transformation happen. Most recently in a poll that we took there was about 30% of small businesses were using some type of mobile device, but in the most recent study that we've seen it's about 60%, it's more than doubled in terms of the mobile banking and the mobile device that they're using to run their small business. And because of it we're leaning in to many of the mobile solutions that Capital One can provide so that small businesses can do things anytime, anywhere and any place as they're trying to run their business. 'Cause the reality is is that they're not just sitting in one place nine to five running their business. They're running off, doing other things, they're doing it at home. Also we're exploring different experiments so that if we're meeting the small businesses where they are, trying out different devices and different technologies, I don't know if you've seen some of the announcements that we've made but we're also looking at IoT and some of the Alexa form factors by which you can test and see how is my daily balance, what are the transactions going through and the sort of thing as well. So we're marrying a lot of the technologies that we are seeing and helping small businesses make that transformation themselves where they are today. If they're using one type of device, we'll be helping them with that mobile device. We're helping them with Alexa, for example, as well. And the helping them make that transition. >> So many choices. >> Go ahead, Jeff. >> I was just going to say and then there's now the gig economy, right? >> Yes. >> I wonder if you guys are, I'm sure you're looking at it, how do you see that as being fundamentally different? We were at a thing at the Stanford graduate school the other day and we were talking about the gig economy. At least a small business are thinking about things like retirement and setting aside money for taxes and potentially there's all types of retirement options if you're a small, self-employed person. But then you think of the gig economy, it's a guy doing four hours of week before class to run its Uber, or Postmates or all these kind of little bits and pieces. It doesn't appear from the outside looking in, I have no data, that they're really thinking through what is their total cost? Not only for the insurance and the wear and tear on the car, but then to set aside for taxes, and then are they putting some aside for insurance? Are they putting some aside for retirement? It just feels like that's a whole different kind of category of work and yet it's the one that's growing the most rapidly. >> It is and it isn't, actually. I think that oftentimes financial institutions have been geared more towards companies, business entities and that sort of thing. If we think about the most recent Spark 401k launch that we did, we're looking at companies of one, which are actually gig economy workers, if you really think about it. And then we are able to support those types of employees or businesses as well. The second thing that we're doing in terms of the gig economy is the reality is a lot of these people are, in the same way as I was mentioning before, stitching together their work life. And stitching together their work life means that they're using multiple applications and multiple revenue streams in order to be financially stable. And because of that, one of the pain points that we wanted to address was can we make it easy for these people to stitch together? And that's why we have the aggregation of the top 12 financial institutions within Spark Business so that they can get a complete financial health history of where they are today. >> We've been speaking with different folks from Intuit today and one of the striking conversations we had was about adoption within the accountant community and the cloud migrations, and people with very traditional perspectives or very regimented viewpoints about this is how I do things and the reluctance to change. What are you seeing in terms of digital adoption, what businesses are doing, how willing are they to accept some of these new products, or understanding this is a better mousetrap? And how do you grow that to make them understand this is maximize your efficiency and lower your cost, it's all good. But it's hard to get 'em there. >> Yes. One of the things that we actually see is not solving for the sake of creating a new feature. In the same way that I would feel if I were a small business, just because there's something out there doesn't necessarily mean I want to use it. You have to show the benefit to that small business owner. And if you think about where small businesses have been, they have been going to the bank, but they become more technologically savvy using, for example, mobile deposit capture because that saves them time, and all they have to do is take a picture of the check and it just works to deposit those moneys into a financial institution. And that's what we're providing as part of Capital One. If you show the benefit first, rather than the solution first, I suspect that more people will say, I'll give it a try. And that's what we're seeing in our base as well. We're seeing people saying, I'll give it a try, I am technologically savvy, I am using my mobile device more than I was before, sure, why not, and I'll give it a try. >> John: And that works? >> It has been working for us and we're seeing definitely more people going towards our Spark ecosystem solution, and they're stitching together all of the different applications because they are definitely feeling the pain of trying to do it themselves. And it's really hard to figure out themselves. >> So what's your biggest challenge, then? In terms of, it sounds like adoption, you're working and making progress on that front, you're here surveying your customer base, trying to understand what their needs are. It sounds like everything's great, everything's good, but that isn't always the case, obviously. There are challenges. In your perspective, from your viewpoint, what is it? What's the big hurdle you think that is keeping in the way a progress for you as Capital One and for the small business owner? >> I think really honing in, I think a lot of people often talk about small business owners trying to manage their financial health and their cashflow. That's the reality of running a small business. The question is how you solve that. Is it thinking about the savings and the checking accounts? Is it about thinking about the 401k in the future? Is it about that balance? Is it about tying savings and efficiency? And there's quite a fine line between thinking about just the actual solutions themselves and really offering the benefit. And so that, for us, is kind of the biggest challenge. Meaning that as we test into all these different applications, we need to make sure that we are improving their cashflow and showing them transparency around their financial health. >> It's funny you talk about whether there's a benefit or not and I just think from your customers' point of view, the small businesses, just all these different ways to pay. They want to take that money in and put it in and put it in their Capital One account. Whether it's Google Pay or Apple Pay or they even have Samsung Pay, I don't know why I'd ever want Samsung Pay, and who knows what tomorrow pay is going to be. From your customers' point of view, what do they think of this wave of options that their customers, the end customers, want to have, they think they want to have? They got people pushing these different alternatives down their throat. Are they really necessary? Do we need Samsung Pay along with Apple Pay and Google Pay and I already have credit cards and ATM cards and chip cards and god help us if I pull the 20 out. I went to one restaurant, they wouldn't even take cash. Like, we don't take cash. What, you don't take cash? It's so much more complicated now. There's just so many options coming out. I think of driving through a snowstorm at night with your headlights on. It's just like-- What do you tell 'em? How do they navigate this way? Oh, by the way, I'm still trying to just run my business. >> Right, actually, that's one of the things that we want to do at Capital One. We wanted to give small business owners the personalized delivery of data and looking at what would help them as they're running their small business. Because there are so many choices there, we want to help them make the choices by showing them the data that nudges them towards perhaps you might want this rather than this. That's what we're doing from a short term perspective, and more longer term, what we're also looking at, what is the benefit that we can actually provide? And showing those benefits clearly and transparently to the small business owner. There are a lot of choices out there. >> A lot of choices. Well, Yumi, we've asked you a lot of questions. The one that I think we don't have to ask is what's in your wallet, right? (laughs) We know what's in your wallet. >> Yes, a Venture credit card. (laughs) >> Yumi Clark from Capital One, thank you for joining us here on theCUBE. We appreciate the time. And good luck with the rest of the surveying. I'm sure this is a pretty fertile territory for you in terms of finding out what your customers need, what they want, and what you can do for 'em. >> Thank you so much for having me. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. Back with more on theCUBE here form San Jose in just a minute. (elecronic music)