From a Designer in Atlassian to a Founder of Dovetail | Benjamin Humphrey (Co-founder and CEO of Dovetail)
Welcome to Growthmates with Kate Syuma — Growth advisor, previously Head of Growth Design at Miro. I’m building Growthmates as a place to connect with inspiring leaders to help you grow yourself and your product. Here you can learn how companies like Dropbox, Adobe, Canva, Loom, and many more are building excellent products and growth culture. Get all episodes and a free playbook for Growth teams on our brand-new website — growthmates.club, and press follow to support us on your favorite platforms. Listen now and subscribe on your favorite platforms — Apple, Spotify, or watch on YouTube (new!). In this episode, Kate speaks with Benjamin Humphrey, founder of Dovetail, who opens up about his shift from corporate design roles to the challenges and rewards of startup life. Benjamin's story began as a designer at Atlassian before taking the leap into the unknown to create Dovetail, a user-focused product built to simplify research and UX processes. He delves into the defining moments that guided his journey, as well as the challenges of moving from a structured corporate environment to the entrepreneurial world. — Dovetail’s mission is to improve the quality of every thing through the power of customer insights. In only six years, Dovetail has grown to drive research innovation at over 3,700 organizations including big brands like Harvard Business, Universal, Deloitte, Porsche, Starbucks, Shopify, Atlassian, Shell and more. Dovetail was deployed early at global design software company Canva, who set up its customer insights hub. Canva’s product team has used Dovetail since the very beginning to analyze customer research data, uncovering insights that improve their product’s user experience. Try out and start collecting your insights here → www.dovetail.com — Brought to you by Command.ai — a user-focused platform offering an alternative to traditional popups or chatbots. Their AI “Copilot” answers questions, performs actions, and simplifies complex tasks. Use “Nudges” to guide users with timely, relevant messages, all within a no-code platform. Perfect for Product, Support, and Marketing teams to positively influence user behavior while respecting their needs: — Key highlights from this episode 👇 * From Designer to Founder: Benjamin shares his path from the corporate world of Atlassian to founding Dovetail. Leaving a stable, rewarding job to pursue a personal vision, he discusses the mental shift required to step into a startup's uncertain world. * Leadership and Team Building: Starting Dovetail required Benjamin to learn new skills quickly, from securing funding to making critical business decisions. Unlike his past roles where teamwork and large-scale collaboration were paramount, as a founder, he had to adapt to the demands of a smaller, more agile team. * The Value of Progressive Disclosure in Design: Benjamin introduces the principle of progressive disclosure—gradually revealing features to users as they explore. He emphasizes that this approach not only optimizes user experience but also aligns with Dovetail's vision of helping users discover tools contextually, when they’re most needed. * Insights on AI and the Future of Dovetail: With the release of Dovetail 3.0, enhanced with AI capabilities, Benjamin discusses the challenges and opportunities AI brings to his product. He shares his vision for responsibly integrating AI, ensuring it complements users’ research without sacrificing transparency or control. Special announcement 🚀 Join the Design Career Accelerator on December 2-6! How do you decide where to grow? IC vs Manager, in-house or solo? There are so many paths. For years, I’ve collected frameworks that helped me and my coaching clients from Loom, Intercom, and more. This year I want to share these practices with Senior IC Designers, Leads, and Managers who are on a cross-way in planning the next career step. To help you dedicate time for that at the end of the year
