301: Asking the Right Questions the Right Way with Typeform’s David Okuniev

Pete Mockaitis
David, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to Be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

David Okuniev
Pleasure to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to get into your perspectives, but first I want to hear a little bit of your back story in terms of you had some time playing in some bands and composing songs. What’s the story here?

David Okuniev
Yeah. Well, I guess I didn’t start my career as an entrepreneur. I actually started as a musician. After I left school I chose to study music. I did a course called Commercial Music, which is kind of a combination of music engineering, music performance, and I guess music business.

It was around the time in my first year of university that I kind of, I formed a band with some friends and we got signed up by at the time – well, the first record company to sign us up was Arista Record, so at the time – I don’t know if you remember that record label. They famously put out Whitney Houston’s first record.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, all right.

David Okuniev
So we got signed up by those guys and then actually the person that signed us up Arista moved over to Sony Records to be the president of Sony Records in London and he moved us over. We ended up recording that album under Epic label.

We put it out there. We had kind of limited success to be honest. We went touring around the country. I was doing it for about three – four years, we’re kind of keeping the band kind of alive, but essentially didn’t really get where we wanted to go. Then the band split up.

I ended up pursuing a bit of a solo career by myself, trying it. I was what? Twenty-five at the time. I just locked myself in my basement and started making music by myself. Actually some of the best times in my life in that period of time.

But at the age of 26, I fell in love with a girl from Columbia and I ended up moving to Columbia with her and I just gave up on music at that point. That’s when I started getting into design.

I’d always been doing a bit of design for the band I was in and I was always like a keen – I just loved to build stuff, so it was only natural for me after kind of leaving music to say, “Okay, I’m just going to kind of give this design gig a proper shot.” I set up a small design agency in Bogotá in South America. Yeah, that was kind of the start of my journey towards an entrepreneurship.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. All right. I’m glad to hear that the music lifestyle, the travel, and the sex and the drugs didn’t overcome you and you’re able to use your faculties still to build cool stuff.

David Okuniev
Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess I had to earn money. My choices for music in Columbia was like writing jingles so that’s kind of not what I wanted to do. But, web design sounded like a decent gig. I could pick my hours and do what I want pretty much.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. Well, I’m pleased as I’m sure many, many other Typeform users are pleased that you chose to invest your energies into building this project here. Could you orient us a little bit? You’re a co-founder, a joint-CEO, a product designer behind Typeform, which I think is just the niftiest. But for those who aren’t familiar, can you orient them a little bit? What is Typeform?

David Okuniev
Basically Typeform is a tool that allows you to collect information from either your employees or customers in a more human and conversational ways.

Think with your customers and your employees there’s many points where you need to ask information from them. Typically you use a web form to do that. We have kind of a new take on the web form whereby we think questions should be asked one at a time and feel a bit more like a conversation and look beautiful. In other words, we help companies build forms actually.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and I am a customer and a believer. What I find so cool about Typeform is that it just – well it does more – it is more human. It’s more pleasant. I feel a little sense of – I’m sure you’ve studied this amply, your team, but I feel a sense of reward if you will as I enter each piece. I’m like, “Oh, I making progress,” as opposed to, “There’s a never-ending form and I am just bombarded by it.” Yeah.

David Okuniev
A normal form is like an interrogation. If someone came up to you on the street and asked you questions, they wouldn’t start reading out a list of questions. They’d go one thing at a time and they’d try to get you into a flow. It’s the same thing with a web form. Why ask a million questions in one bang? You want to go progressively forward.

Pete Mockaitis
I would imagine – do you have any cool data on this in terms of – I would imagine if we go sort of side-by-side against an alternative solution, that you would see impressively higher completion rates … versus another.

David Okuniev
Yeah, we have what I call the smoking gun metric, which is our completion rate, well, median completion rate floats around 57%, which is significantly higher than what we’ve seen other players in the industry reporting.

What I usually say is that with Typeform you can get up to four times the completion rate you’re getting with a normal form and it’s just down to good UX mechanics and just making the user feel like he’s on some kind of journey or some kind of process.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. Well, I used it to collect input for the Do I Stay or Go course and I did have healthy completion rates, higher than I was expecting and I think my expectations were established with using alternative options, so thank you. That was a real treat.

I’d love to get your take then when it comes to surveys, and you mentioned earlier when we were setting this up that you didn’t even consider Typeform to be a survey …. Can you tell us more about that mindset you’re in?

David Okuniev
We actually see ourselves more as a system of engagement as opposed to a system of records.

We’ve never invested heavily in analytics in our platform. We basically – we focus very heavily on just getting that data off people and then we expect you to map that data into your existing system, so integrations is a big player for us.

A lot of our users just put their data straight into Google Sheets and then they do their analytics on that side. We do provide some basic analytics and the ability to see your data on Typeform, but essentially it’s more a plug-and-play kind of system.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, you’ve done a great deal of thinking associated with the human side of this and what makes it engaging, what makes it conversational and the proof is in the pudding. Wow, four times completion rates. That is smoking gun like.

Tell us on our side if we’re using Typeform or heaven forbid an alternative means of collecting this information, what are some of the best practices in terms of getting the best possible input from folks that we’re trying to learn from?

David Okuniev
Sure. The Typeform format itself is a best practice of like going one question at a time. People really do respond better to conversation as opposed to interrogation so that’s the first thing.

What I usually say to people is try and be yourself. Given that this is a conversation, you don’t have to treat each question like a label. You can be friendly, use relaxed, non-business language to get familiar with your respondent.

Let them know at the start also how long it’s going to take for them to fill in. If it was a survey, just hold them by the hand. Tell them that you’re with them and you can also share with them some insight into like why there’s benefit for them to take part.

One other thing is definitely don’t ask too many questions, especially in a survey where actually most of the benefit is for the questioner. Obviously the more questions you have, the higher the drop off rate is going to be.

Then, as far as other best practices with the Typeform format, try and use images and videos and animated GIFs just to keep rewarding the user as they go one question at a time. Take a break in your questions to make a joke or give some piece of information. Just keep it conversational as much as possible right through to the end.

Pete Mockaitis
I like the point there where you said show how the survey respondent is benefiting. Could you give us some examples of that because indeed it does seem like the questioner is the one reaping the rewards. What are some examples of benefits that the respondent can be having as well?

David Okuniev
I guess it depends on the use case. But if it was a survey and you’re surveying your customers, just bring them close, try to get them to empathize with the fact that you’re trying to improve their experience through the survey. Sometimes you just want to offer a full on reward at the end, like I’ve seen many lead generation forms where they offer some kind of prize at the end.

Just lead them with something to start off with. But if you just say, “Hey, here are my questions. Please answer them,” people aren’t going to be that inclined to answer. The more you can do to just tempt them into the questions, the better you’ll be off.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that, the straight up reward incentive is cool. I’m thinking I’m about overdue for a full scale survey of listeners, but I did it previously and it was handy.

I think sometimes there’s a bit of an intrinsic motivator in terms of, “By sharing this information we’re better able to give you just what you want,” or “that which is going to be the most relevant to you,” or “You’re helping thousands of listeners get content that’s all the more applicable and delightful for what you’re up to.”

David Okuniev
Yeah. Well, I mean in your case you can also offer them some kind of bonus episode, maybe something that you’ve – I don’t know. I don’t want to tell you how to do things, but maybe you could do like a digest of all the best conversations that you had with the people on your podcast and then put that as a downloadable at the end of the Typeform.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh that’s handy because information does not have a variable cost associated with it the way gift cards or other incentives may.

David Okuniev
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. I’d also like to hear, what are some of your favorite questions, items that have just proven again and again to be super helpful for you and for Typeform users?

David Okuniev
I don’t know about whether they’re my favorite, but I come across an article recently and I thought it was a really nice way to do an NPS. It was a bit of an alternative way of doing it.

But basically it’s a very short survey with three questions, which would give you a really good kind of barometer in what your customers are thinking about your company. As I mentioned, it’s basically an NPS survey, but the structure is a little bit different and it has a little bit different angle to it.

The first two questions are kind of qualitative and the last question is quantitative like a typical first question you ask in an NPS survey. I actually wrote this down here. The first question was, “What is the first word or short phrase that comes to mind when you think about business?”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I like it.

David Okuniev
That’s the first qualitative question.

Then, “Tell us about the time when our business exceeded your expectations.” Actually you could ask them also like, “Tell us about the time when the business did not exceed the expectations,” as well. Then thirdly like, “I cannot imagine the world without our business: a) strongly disagree, disagree, not sure, agree strongly, agree.” That’s kind of like the NPS question, but a bit kind of alternative.

I really like those three questions. I think they really give a good kind of insight into how the customer is feeling.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s interesting, “Imagine the world without it.”  I think that speaks to – I really like it when for better for worse, something breaks with the email and then – but when I get listeners say, “Hey Pete, for your Ten Days for Winning at Work series I got the days one, two and three, and then five, but where’s four?”

It’s like, oh boy. They notice and they care enough to follow up, so imagine the world without it is resonating in terms of that means something.

David Okuniev
… It’s kind of a good question because it gets the user to use their imagination. It’s kind of a ‘what if’ question, which I like.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. That’s cool. I’d like your take as well when it comes to if you have a bunch of responses, you said you’ve deliberately not gotten too into the analytics game.

David Okuniev
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
But those who do, what are some of the best things they do with abundant data. Because I think that’s just the worst thing is like, “Hey, we did a huge survey.” “Okay, that’s cool.” “Here are some bar charts.” Okay, noted.” Then that’s it. What was the point of that?

David Okuniev
Yeah, I guess it depends what you’re looking at, like the qualitative or the quantitative data.

Like I said, I’m no expert, so full disclaimer here, but if you get a lot of qualitative analysis and usually that’s where you really can dig the trends out of what people are saying, but to do that you need to kind of run a proper analysis.

There’s an analysis called the thematic analysis, where you look for common codes or patterns in the feedback. It’s actually one of the most common forms of analysis in qualitative research.

What it does is it emphasizes pinpointing, examining, and recording of themes of these codes within the data. It’s actually simple to use and it’s pretty good for novice researchers. It’s not like an advanced thing. Just Google it, thematic analysis.

I also pulled out a couple of books for broader qualitative research. There’s one called Introduction to Qualitative Research by Uwe Flick. Don’t know if I pronounced that well, sorry, Uwe. Then there’s something that’s a bit more in depth called Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook by Matthew B. Miles and A. Michael Huberman. Yeah, so check those out.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, well any other thoughts that come to mind when you’ve got a bundle of inputs that have come your way and you can do the thematic analysis, anything else that is just a smart move in terms of, “Okay, now that I have a bunch of these responses that’s going to inform and equip me in some key ways?”

David Okuniev
From my experience, I like to look at the qualitative data and try and draw a conclusion and then draw action points. Just create a list of the major takeaways, the major things that I would need to do in order to change some of the opinions.

If you’re getting a lot of negative feedback, try and group that feedback together and then from that you can draw out some solutions.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, sure. Well, now then could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

David Okuniev
Yeah, I’m a designer, so I always liked this quote by a guy called Paul Rand. He was the guy that designed the IBM logo. It’s a famous 1960s designer. He famously said, “The public is more familiar with bad design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design because that is what it lives with.”

I think there’s just an opportunity to improve things all the time because people are just used to seeing stuff which doesn’t really work or kind of doesn’t look right or doesn’t function right. There’s just always opportunities around to improve things in everything. Just as a designer I find that exciting. It’s like an unlimited ocean of possibilities to improve on.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite study or experiment or a bit of research?

David Okuniev
I don’t know. But I have a favorite book.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. Let’s hear it.

David Okuniev
Yeah, it’s actually not to do with entrepreneurship, but I think I really kind of get my escape through a writer called Bill Bryson. … you’ve heard of it. He’s a travel writer. He’s a guy that has a really interesting take on the world and he just documents his travels around the world.

It’s just – it’s really hilarious. It’s the kind of thing that if you’re on a train, you have to be careful not to laugh out loud. Definitely would recommend that for anyone that’s into travelling.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. How about a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

David Okuniev
Well, part of my time I still design, so Sketch, which is a great kind of vector graphics tool for UI and web design. I use that all the time. I just love it. Couldn’t live without it. There are other good tools out there as well, but I’ve just kind of stuck with that one.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Do you have a favorite habit or personal practice of yours that helps you out?

David Okuniev
Yeah, I mean as a person I’m pretty impulsive, kind of a daydreamer as well. What I kind of do to kind of ground myself is I like to play the drums. That’s kind of my meditation. Try to get like any aggression out. It’s also a very good way to kind of study something that’s pretty regimented. Yeah, that’s one thing I do.

I take plenty of walks. Also, just in work things like try to avoid having too many meetings in a closed room. Also, just taking someone out, like back to going for a walk, like taking someone out for walk for a meeting is usually more productive.

Pete Mockaitis
Is there a particular nugget that you share with folks that really seems to connect and resonate with them? They’re nodding their heads in agreement.

David Okuniev
Is there a particular-

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, a particular thing that you say often that folks really say, “Oh yeah.”

David Okuniev
Yeah, I often find myself repeating that creating a good product is like origami because in origami every fold that you make counts towards the final output. If you miss a couple of folds, then that’s going to affect the following folds.

Actually, the quality of a product is a collection of really well executed tiny details. If you don’t look after those little details, then your final output isn’t going to be as good. Yeah, Typeform, I’m always kind of banging on about looking after the details as much as possible.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. If folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

David Okuniev
I Tweet not that often. We have a really good blog at Typeform, where we share a lot of information on conversational data collection and just general entrepreneurship, so check out our blog, www.Typeform.com/blog.

Pete Mockaitis
Do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

David Okuniev
Yeah, think about the user first. Don’t think about the success that you want for yourself. That isn’t output. Try and really solve a problem for people and as an output you will hopefully have monetary success, but it shouldn’t be the input.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well David, this has been fun. Thanks so much for sharing this and keep on making Typeform so delightful as it is.

David Okuniev
Cool. Thanks.