Harvard in Tech Spotlight: Laura Schaffer, Head of Growth Product at Twilio
By: Jess Li
Tags: Disruption, Product, Leadership, Harvard, Growth

I spoke with Laura Schaffer, Head of Growth Product at Twilio. When Laura graduated Harvard, her grandfather gave her two pieces of advice that shaped her career: 1) start your career in sales in order to get really close to the customer and 2) pick an industry that is clearly behind. So, Laura started her career in sales at a small startup (Bandwidth, now a public company) in telecommunications, an industry she felt was ripe for change. It was clear that telecommunications, which had been largely unchanged in the business world for decades, was on the brink of significant technological disruption. Bby aligning herself closely to the customer, Laura learned their problems and needs and was able to develop a vision for what was needed to serve these businesses.

Throughout her career, Laura has worked in a wide range of different roles from sales to marketing to product. Following a 4 year run at Bandwidth, she joined Twilio, another technological disruptor in the telecommunications space. With Twilio, Laura appreciated that the company was especially innovative in empowering their customers (developers) to solve their biggest challenges. In every role and company she has worked in, she always aims to solve the most significant problems customers face. She has been problem driven in determining where to channel her energy and implement new ideas. Her diverse experience across a wide range of different roles has helped her see the full picture and serve customers better through her diverse skill set.

Laura shared her advice for effective collaboration, career growth, and adding transformative value.

Segment your data to find insights. Growth leaders are often given the kitchen sink of data and asked to find opportunities, which can feel like finding a needle in a haystack. To draw the signal out from the noise more effectively, always start by having a segment and a hypothesis in mind. In doing so, you refine the haystack, making it much easier to find the insight you are after. What is meaningful data for one segment may not be for another. Always have a clear idea of what type of insight you are after before you begin analyzing, and share that with any analysts on your team who are working with you. For example, tell them where you think the inflection point may be for customers in upgrading their accounts. Then, they can focus on validating whether or not people who hit your inflection point are more likely to upgrade. Providing this starting point, vs. passing that kitchen sink onto them, helps your data partners work faster and helps you reach your milestones more efficiently.

Experiment quickly, and have clear hypotheses. . On Laura’s team she shares the mantra “with every experiment, you win or you learn.” However, this “never lose” approach is only possible if you always have a clear hypothesis that each experiment either proves or disproves. Make sure that you and your team are clear about why you are making changes, and what your expected outcome is, so that unexpected outcomes can teach you something and therefore increase your odds of success next time..

Give everyone the customer context. Staying close to the customer has been a core part of the Twilio culture and a core part of Laura’s philosophy as well. For people in marketing, growth, sales, or product, that customer connection may seem more obviously important. However, other team members such as engineers should also maintain that close connection. Although engineers are operationally focused on building through the guidance of product managers, if they are empowered with deep customer understanding, they can build much better. Instead of just taking instruction from others and hearing customer insights second hand, they can be an active part of the product building process, proposing better ways to reach customer goals. For example, a growth or product person may ask an engineer to deliver a tailored onboarding experience for one segment of customers , but with the proper customer connection and context, the engineer can share a way that with a similar amount of work s/he can deliver this for many segments. When you have everyone thinking about how to improve the customer experience, your product becomes 10x better.

Be the eyes and ears for others. Company leaders look for talent who can solve the customer’s biggest problems. These people get the customer to pay and stay. When thinking about internal promotions, company leaders pay special attention to talent that has this value add. Since starting at Twilio, Laura has stayed incredibly focused on understanding the customer. In the early days of her time at Twilio, she managed Product Marketing for Messaging, but after hearing about customer pain in other areas she actively pursued understanding and communicating these pain points for the company. After many customer conversations, she proposed running a company wide Voice of the Customer event, which was a huge success and attended and appreciated by Twilio’s founder and CEO. Staying close to the customer and sharing her insights with the team helped Laura be a great steward of the business, identifying new areas of growth and opportunity. For example, based on her interactions with customers, she proposed a new onboarding function and was able to lead that program.

Find things to own and lead. On advice she would give her Harvard self, Laura underscores the importance of experiencing leadership as early as possible. Leadership lessons from any organization from clubs to social groups are applicable to other leadership roles, including more formalized ones in professional settings. In this process, be open to feedback and constantly learn and improve through it. Feedback is the best way to grow.

Raise your hand. When asked about advice she would give her younger self, Laura highlights the importance of not self eliminating. Oftentimes when you are earlier in your career or in your time at a company, you may instinctively feel uncertain about sharing new ideas. But a fresh perspective is incredibly valuable. Share information and insight. Do not shut yourself down. Be confident and raise your hand.