The Power Of Customer Calls (Not What You Think)
Before I started Ting, I did the classic founder things...
Read every Paul Graham essay.
Listened to Masters of Scale.
Obsessed over founder stories.
There’s always that moment in those stories.
The magical customer call.
The gold-dust that changes everything.
The door-knocking moment (Airbnb).
It is romantic.
But, but. but.
In reality? It’s really, really hard.
People are busy. Most outreach goes unanswered.
You send thoughtful emails.
You DM.
You ask for “just 15 minutes.”
…silence…
But every now and then, someone replies.
And those early calls? They’re some of my most special founder memories.
A recent call that changed how I think about AI
A user reached out saying he loved what we’re building with Ting.
He’d mapped out improvements. (Literally, a diagram!)
Said we could chat - or not.
No pressure. No pitch. No angle. (Take note LinkedIn DM warriors)
We spoke. It wasn’t just product feedback. It was, guess what, human!
One thing he helped me understand (and shame on me for not knowing fully):
For some neurodiverse minds, meeting logistics are disproportionately draining.
The back-and-forth. Negotiating times. Holding moving parts in working memory.
When AI handles that, it’s not just “productivity.”
It removes something most of us don't see.
We talk about AI as productivity.
But what if it is also revealing true potential for some people too?
I always loved AI, now I think I love it more.
We'll try to do more here and communicate with that community, but just getting on a call with a person and having chance to zoom out made me think about something else.
Connection. Why, actually, we started Ting!
Right after the call, I jumped on with @marianaprazeres and we started brainstorming a new feature around serendipity - gently nudging you to reconnect with people you’ve drifted from.
Not for engagement metrics. For connection.
Because meetings aren’t logistics. They’re relationships. That's a line from our website since Day -1.
The real power of customer calls
It’s not the feature request.
It’s not the tweetable (or X-postable) “aha.”
It's just chatting to cool people and learning.
And being grateful people care about your product.
I wrote the full story here on Substack: https://chiefting.substack.com/p/the-power-of-customer-calls-not-what
Replies
also reading Paul Graham’s essays has always inspired me but recently I was struck by his thoughts on cities and how they “communicate” with us through patterns, feedback and energy. Early customer calls feel a bit like that too btw, the small hints, diagrams and human details are like listening to what a city is showing you about how it works.
I really like how you point out that it’s not just about product feedback, it’s about connection. have you noticed any unexpected patterns or common themes that keep showing up across these early customer conversations?
Meet-Ting
@natallia_novik Love the city analogy, hadn't made that connection, but really cool mental model. It's difficult because we're still getting a lot of diverse users as the problem we solve is pretty broad (everyone can get behind the pain of meeting and calendar logistics!!) but more recently at least from product engagement and calls, there's a 'do it for me' user coming into focus. Interesting insight is they can make their own IT decisions, so move fast whereas small teams, agencies and companies have more complexity there. One VC I met couldn't even access the site. I think that's the most interesting bits from the last month anyway!