WHAT DO WE DO AT SQUAD?

Great at

  • Following instructions.
  • Repeatable tasks.
  • Working lightning fast.
  • Not taking coffee breaks.
  • Not wanting a raise.

Sucks at

  • Subjectivity.
  • Exceptions
  • And anything it hasn’t been trained on yet.

Great at

  • Subjectivity.
  • Thinking strategically (sometimes).
  • Understanding context.

Sucks at

  • Working long hours.
  • Being perfectly consistent.
  • Not complaining.

Do Things that don't Scale ;)

Case Study 1: Workflow Engine

Workflow Engine v0.1

But.......

It worked for us for ~6 months.

  • The team used to build workflow on whiteboards.
  • Developers used to write code for translating that workflow into something that system can understand.
  • Custom code for each client.
  • Developers needed for changes to the workflow.

Workflow Engine v0.2

  • The team identified a common pattern in workflows for all clients.
  • Each next level depended on the responses/actions in the previous level.
  • We baked that thing into the system so similar WFs can be built faster, without a dev's involvement.
  • Complex WFs were still hard to do

But.......

It worked for us for ~4 months.

Workflow Engine v1

  • Completely configurable and extensible by the Operations team.
  • Developers needed only when a new block has to be added.
  • Anyone from any team can visualize the workflow.
  • Extensibility to include AI models, disaster control mechanism, fail safe, etc.
  • Now the same Engine empowers our ETL system.

Do things manually until it becomes a pain, and then automate it.

~ Brian Chesky, Co-founder Airbnb

Case Study 2: Voice 

v0.1: Validation

  • Users call up the required number.
  • Use a recording app to record the conversation.
  • Upload it to Google Drive and submit the link to the mission.

 

We handled 10-100 calls a day,

We validated this for a month.

v2: MVP

  • Integrated Cloud Telephony in the app
  • Added a new feature on the app where  you can just click on a button and we connect you to the person you have to talk to
  • Recordings and all other things are now managed by Squad automatically
  • The UI of the app was still not optimised for a conversation flow, and we could put more effort to improve the UX of the users

We ran with this version for ~6 months. Adding features that were necessary, noting down requirements all the while

v3: Voice App

  • A different section in the app. 
  • UI/UX completely geared for conversation flow.
  • Ability to change the text from English to Hindi.
  • More relevant information on the screen.
  • More efficiency for the Users.

"Speed is the ultimate weapon in business - all else being equal, the fastest company in any market will win"

Dave Girouard, CEO of personal finance startup Upstart

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