Zoom’s Smita Hashim on building for a more complex hybrid future

“At Zoom, process is less important than the responsiveness to [customer] feedback. So finding that balance is different here.”

Video communications service Zoom’s business shot into the stratosphere in 2020, almost overnight, as the result of the pandemic. The platform’s focus on simplicity, ease of use, and reliability is largely credited for that success.

Zoom now faces a far more complex customer base to cater to, as there are almost as many combinations of remote and hybrid work as there are businesses — not to mention more competitors on the field. To help lead them into that next phase, the company brought on Smita Hashim as chief product officer.

Smita is a tech industry veteran with decades of experience in video. She spent significant time building & leading products at both Google and Microsoft, and before that, was a research scientist with a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science. 

In this episode we chat about how Zoom’s is adapting for the future, the company’s unique product approach to addressing customer feedback, and how Smita continues to nurture and benefit from a growth-mindset.

Here are some key takeaways from my conversation with Smita, all of which follow a common thread of learning and growth with feedback:

Managing product like an academic researcher

“Clearly, convincing people that this hypothesis matters and what you have said is meaningful. I think that's what a lot of us do with our products. We have to build products which our customers accept.”  

It’s not easy to cross the chasm between academia and industry, but Smita was able to apply her research capabilities to drive practical, market-driven applications. She compares writing a research thesis to managing a product life cycle, noting that both require a very strong understanding of the problem, a structured methodology to solve it, and effective communication to share the results. 

Zoom’s unique approach to customer feedback

“[the] Sales team can reach out to anyone with the customer feedback. I'm directly connected to so many customers. So many of our product managers are directly connected to customers. This, by the way, is in contrast to my prior roles, where you didn't have this kind of engagement or fluidity. But there's a lot of comfort with direct conversations. I think that's amazing because once we have that, then the conversations just move really fast.”

A core aspect of Zoom’s culture is being highly responsive to and learning from customer feedback. This spans beyond the R&D team into every function and being role-modeled by Eric Yuan, the founder and CEO of Zoom. The interactions with customers are direct, authentic and fast-pacing.

Balancing stability and adaptability with a product roadmap

“You have to be flexible in your notions of things like product roadmap. Yes, there's a roadmap, but if you say I have a roadmap, so no to you customers, then who are we building it for?”

Zoom’s responsiveness to customer feedback materially affects how they build. They prepare themselves for the fact that some elements of their roadmap will shift, while others require absolute commitment. This requires a great deal of flexibility built into the product roadmap and extreme clarity on what product commitments are set in stone to avoid creating too many fluctuations. 

It's one thing to just be responsive to customers. It's another to set up a virtuous cycle where your customers feel empowered to reach out with feedback and requests. Smita said she considers Zoom users as a part of her team and key group she can learn from. 

Zoom really pushes on actively listening to customer feedback and incorporating it into their roadmap quickly. Can you recall a way in which you materially changed your product or roadmap based on customer feedback? 

Let me know in the comments.

Check out the full episode of #BuildingOne for more insights and make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation. 

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