Technology and social media evolve with each passing day and have become an integral part of everyone’s life. People with a tech background and knowledge are always eager to learn about something new in the market and keep looking for the tools that could help them manage their workload.
“Notifier” is an application that can help tech-savvy people with internet listening and monitor the right keywords. With this application, you can get notified of brand mentions, customer feedback, and link opportunities. Sounds interesting?
It indeed is because the tool can help you look for the keywords that your customers care about. In this interview, the Co-founder of Notifier, Timothy Bramlett, is sharing his journey with us. Let’s read out how this application is helping businesses monitor their brand perception.
Fahad: Hi Timothy, it’s lovely to have you with us! It would be great if you could start by telling our readers about your background?
Timothy: I was a Senior Software Engineer for many years and then got into Product Management. I now manage a new Product Incubation Team for a major Tech Company, where we research opportunities for new Products and then build them entirely from the ground up. Notifier is a Product that I originally started as a side project, and then when I met my co-founder, we decided to build a small team around it and expand it.
Fahad: As a Co-founder at Notifier, please tell us more about your product and how it works?
Timothy: Notifier is an internet listening application. We crawl major social media platforms and the internet itself and look for keywords our customers care about. Then we analyze the sentiment of the surrounding text and alert our customers that the keywords have been found.
Fahad: What’s the inspiration behind launching Notifier? What sort of buyer persona does the tool help?
Timothy: I launched Notifier years ago, and at that time, it was called “Notifier for Reddit .”I was using it at the time to get alerted when specific keywords were “said” on Reddit. I would then comment and casually promote the site I was working on.
Many different types of customers use Notifier. From Sales People looking to promote a product to Brand Managers at major companies who want to track and monitor their brand perception.
Fahad: You have recently had an incredible journey as an IT expert; you were also working with HP. What’s the importance of kicking off on your SaaS product, and what factors to count before making it happen?
Timothy: To be honest, I just decided one day to launch this. I didn’t plan anything and had been just learning along the way.
Fahad: Life is all about ups and downs; what were the challenges you faced at the early ages of your journey? And, how did you overcome them?
Timothy: The biggest challenge with a small Bootstrapped tool like Notifier is always knowing where to invest your time and finding access to affordable talent. We have learned how to do all of this through trial and error.
Fahad: What are your future plans with Notifier? Are you planning to integrate or launch another tool alongside?
Timothy: We plan to continue to scale Notifier, and our goal is to build it into the Premier Internet Listening application. We want to be the Ahrefs (a fantastic tool we use quite a bit) of the Internet Listening World.
Fahad: What’s the importance of marketing to promote SaaS products/tools?
Timothy: Marketing is everything in promoting SaaS Products. But perhaps even more important is to focus on your customer and truly solve their pain point. Building a SaaS is easy in theory:
- Find out what to build by talking to potential customers
- Build it
- Tell Your customers about it and gather their feedback
The problem is the devil is in the details.
Fahad: What’s the biggest motivation in your life?
Timothy: I would say the biggest motivator in my life is building things. I became a developer to build things. I became a Product Manager to build things that people will actually use.
Fahad: Please share your professional pro-tips about SaaS products with our readers?
Timothy: Focus on the customer. Obsessively. At Notifier, we are actually soon going to be launching a small tool and framework that has really helped us manage and focus on the customer.
Fahad: Now it’s time for our Rapid Fire Round.
Rapid Fire Round
| Fahad | Timothy |
|---|---|
| Product Management or Product Marketing | It would help if you had both. |
| Tea or Coffee | Both. Coffee in the morning. Tea in the afternoon. When I went to Turkey, I temporarily got addicted to the whole ritual of Turkish Tea and those small glasses they use for it. Love it. |
| LinkedIn or Twitter | Why not both! |
| Traveling or Watching a Movie | Watching a movie while traveling FTW |
Fahad: Apart from where & how do you spend the rest of your day? Also, please share an image of your workstation or a memory of your favorite memory.
Timothy: My entire day is spent building products, and since I am married to a big Foodie, we also spend a lot of time traveling and trying out new restaurants, etc.
Thank you, Timothy, for your time and being a part of our Champ interview series.
