Checking in with CPO Dave Chiang
Our new Chief Product Officer Dave Chiang joined TextNow 3 months ago to oversee our engineering, product, and data analytics teams. He's hit the ground running, learning about all aspects of TextNow and working with the rest of the leadership team to plan for a huge 2022. We checked in with Dave to ask how he's settling in and what he's prioritizing this year.‍
Hey Dave! It's been three months since you joined TextNow - how are things going so far?
‍It's going great! It's been 90 days and everyone has been super supportive, giving me context and guidance. I joined at a great time, because it was right when we started planning for 2022 and now I get to see that roadmap and rally cry through.
‍What's your favorite thing about TextNow?
‍"The people" sounds so cliché – but it's beyond that. TextNovians are so engaged, they really care about our customers, our product, and each other. Everyone is so supportive and wants to do their best. For example, when you send out an engagement survey at some companies you see some open-ended feedback and limited engagement. But at TextNow, you get so much detailed feedback and engagement – especially at a time like this with covid and everything that has brought with it. Everyone wants to make this place better and really deliver democratized phone service to our customers.
‍What is one thing that has surprised you about TextNow?
‍You come in to any job or company with assumptions, but it's been even better than I expected. When you join a company that is doing $100 million in revenue with only $1.5 million in funding, you know they are doing something right. But everything has really been moving as planned – growing users, improving the product, growing the team. And the leaders across the organization have been great.
I guess the surprise would be how aligned everyone is under Derek's leadership, everyone is rowing in the same direction and we're really poised for hockey stick growth.
‍Now that you're settled in a bit, what have you identified as your top priority?
‍We had a tremendous year in 2021 growing our team, and it's going to be the same in 2022. We have huge goals, and it will take a village to bring it together. We are always looking for top talent who can help us grow. We want to continue to keep the bar high and hire the best people.
We crossed 200 employees earlier this year, and we're going to be looking to keep expanding across the board – engineering, data analytics, product, you name it.
We're working on really interesting, difficult challenges that I think should excite engineers, because we're updating and disrupting the really antiquated technology of legacy telecom providers. The fact that we're working on such a big goal, with the additional mission to make the service even better while keeping it free, brings a really unique set of problem solving opportunities.
‍What are you most excited about for 2022?
‍I'm excited for us to get going. We have a solid plan, a solid idea of where we want to go. We have big plans for our wireless service and I'm really excited to see how we can continue to provide free phone service for our customers and keep making it better. We have some really good product initiatives planned, and I'm excited to see how the customers react to them and engage with them, and continuing to democratize phone service.
‍Any final words?
‍If you're looking to do exciting, career-making work at a place that truly puts people first, check out our open positions or just reach out to me directly because we're always looking to add talented new team members.