New week, new market: The unicorn global expansion of ClassPass

Max Morkovkin 00:06
That Jana Ribena management consultant and director at grow through that will be another very interesting and exciting speech on the challenges that Tiana faced with her new position in the company when when she joined grow through, and the scale of this challenge is enormous. So and Tatiana is already here. Hello, Tatiana.

Tatiana Ryabinina 00:38
Hi, Max, nice to meet you.

Max Morkovkin 00:40
Nice to meet you, too. How are you today?

Tatiana Ryabinina 00:43
Good excited about being here. There's a lot to share. So

Max Morkovkin 00:50
stronger by sharing. This is our motto of today's conference. I hope you already feel stronger. Okay, so that Jana, I've already briefly introduced you. And I think it's time to tell everybody about this great story, this challenge that you had with a number of languages and localization process to build in, grow through. So please share your screen. And I think we can move forward.

Tatiana Ryabinina 01:27
Yeah, so they do grow through actually was born as an outcome of this experience with ClassPass because I was an individual consultant back then. And eventually ended up teaming up with my former colleague from ClassPass. And we built growth through to achieve what we couldn't have achieved a class pass. So thank you for clarifying. Let's dive into it.

Max Morkovkin 02:00
Okay, and I will just remind everybody to join smart get community as the questions there. And we'll make sure to deliver those questions to the chat. Here in zoom. Tatiana, enjoying your time with our attendees.

Tatiana Ryabinina 02:13
Yeah, enjoy. Yes. Thank you. So I joined class parts in late April 2019. And I'll tell you the story about how it started also, before I was there, and then tolerating what capacity I joined. So for those of you who don't know what LastPass is about? It is it was when I started the world's largest aggregator of fitness and wellness experiences. But it also looks like the beauty today, so well down to in class pass keeping on your promises. So eventually. Right, move on to the next slide. Sorry, a bit stuck on here. There we go. So the expansion efforts were like enormous. And as also the leadership team, mentioned before we achieve the unicorn status was once this expansion was arguably the fastest they have witnessed. So we went from four markets, English speaking into 28 countries, mostly non English speaking, and just a year and a half. So how was it even possible? Yes. So the actual reasons for expansion, what the official ones I would say was that it ClassPass was positively impact in the world. So it was a good reason to scale and really become a global company, that it has a great business model. caveat, it changed the business model several times. So it was still nailing it down at the time, and that it has resources to scale. But actually, the resources were raised for the expansion specifically. So my personal view is that it was really driven by some investment decisions and the pressure from investors that were looking for, you know, IPO eventually, and it just had to scale. So, um, regardless of what it was, and what the recent was for, as mentioned, it had to be done. So it was only possible with a scalable solution and that was an expansion playbook. So essentially, it allowed to replicate the same process when entering any new market. It In an ideal world, it would take about a month and a half to enter any new market. But in practice, obviously, there was more preparation to be done, depending on what country we're entering, because sometimes, you know, you had to establish operations in the in the country. But that was roughly the process and that it changed eventually. But it was the guidelines. And then there were about 10 different functions, that was supporting expansions. And they were always expansion stakeholders. You see the list here and you don't see localization? And you ask, How is it possible that there was no localization function when it was started? I was asking myself the same question. Funnily enough, like if the team understood the real, like the value of localization and the need for it, and they did a lot of, you know, preparation investigation work to understand, like, why we need to invest in localization, because it essentially allows us to enter those markets in the first place, because otherwise you can't operate. And that it will increase the value of ClassPass to the users on both sides of the platform, or consumers that fitness enthusiasts and fitness studios. And it was also seen as a competitive weapon to weaken the competitors that already have and stablish such presence in all those local markets. So it was all clear and like made sense. And the product and engineering team that was allocated to drive this efforts was kind of, you know, the better position function to do that. And because essentially, the product was all digital, and like, a lot of heavy lifting a little bit. And that's hard. And it might not look like it from kind of the outside. But it's really hard for different digital products. Even though like internally, we're also called just, you know, one, which is a consumer app. But um, there was some like class plus audio workouts and video workouts that are part of the same offering. And they were offered for free, but they were sort of kind of included in the app. And then the backend was a solution for fitness studios that could integrate with with this platform. So it was a lot of work to be done here. And obviously, it needed to be phased out. So there was a clear path to to localization. And the team was very, like clear about going in phases, and really focusing on the most important dimensions to start with. So Well, I really, my personal view is that localization as an industry have made it a bit too easy to believe that all you need to support. This kind of initiative is really like a technical solution that would allow you to bring your own linguist on it's cool work in that, in that translation you are whatever it is. So eventually, the teams were just, you know, choosing between different solutions available on the market. And they had, you know, a list of criteria that were important. And like, it all makes a lot of sense. Some observations here that they did point out that it was essential that there was an account manager or project manager, that would be part of this, you know, offering that would support the product managers with all the translation management, but also, some of the aspects such as support for marketing teams, and like legal there was seen as outside the scope of this localization efforts. Also, because it was in a product engineering team. It was it just landed on their shoulders. They couldn't do everything. So it turned out that the whole process was a lot more complicated, time consuming and challenging for the engineers, the product managers, and then just couldn't see the level of support they received from the JMS provider wasn't enough. It wasn't smarter. So, and essentially, there was no dedicated manager to look after all those translations. The features that you know, they bought, were not really working as expected, as expected by the teams, doesn't mean they will not work in at all. But also, it turned out that some of the critical parts of the product and user experience was still not localizable. And it surfaced during the QA. So and that was when you know, the, also the scope of work, what started to be really understood a bit more than it was before. And that's why they decided to hire an Acquisition Manager full time, the product team said, the person needed to have strong technical expertise, because of all those challenges that we're facing. Then the job ad for this position was put together by a marketing team somehow. And I guess they copied it from somewhere else, because I also saw something similar in another company. During the interview that I had with HR, they said, sort of the technical expertise wasn't mentioned in that. So the HR told me that transcreation was really a must have for them. And I had that experience. I'm not necessarily so strong on the technical side of things. And the hiring manager was yet to join the company. So he couldn't really introduce me properly to what was I was about to do. So that's how it classifies ended up hiring a cross cultural marketing strategist, to deal with that translation coordination problems. And that was how I joined. So I had some accident and realistic job preview for many, many reasons. I also had some stretching, stretching loads, and fairly impossible targets. Because like, nobody really understood what localization was about, there was no localization expertise on the team. And like I was joining as an expert. But I had my own take on that position, which I saw as a strategy more than, you know, technical process. So it was a bit of a challenge also, for me. So one of the key targets from my first 90 days, was reducing the time to market for localization from two months to one. It kind of seemed like impossible to us, because nobody had really launched any market in two months. Because we're joined, they had just launched in the Netherlands in the first language was, it wasn't English was Dutch. And during my first two weeks, they were launching in France and Germany. And like, looking back at the process, how it started, when the cell translation work, it really was about more like five months than two. So when we launched my, my first market, which was Denmark, it wasn't what it looked like from the list I was given when I started. So it turned out that the estimated time for localization like just the essential bits to get ready for the market launch required a bit more time than estimated. So engineering needed two weeks after receiving the translations to do their work, and then the QA after that, would need two to four weeks to do like proper QA. And then you asked well, how does it you know, what is squeezing translation here. So it was really impossible to to reduce it. But we ended up launching in quite a few markets eventually, and with the average speed of less than a month and a half for for every new market. So the list of languages I had, when I joined wasn't like nearly close to what we ended up doing. So um, this was my as I speak, I'll walk you through them. My job description. So you know what kind of I was trying to achieve those things that I was tasked with, but it's fun that'd be kind of either impossible or just didn't make sense. So I was supposed to oversee the localization of product and mobile content. But that you will find out soon, soon enough what it was about really. So it was, instead of 13 languages, we did actually have 14, I guess. And then we ended up localizing for markets that never launched. Because, as we, you know, was skating, the competitive situation would change was changing. And we had to react very quickly. So, it was a lot of moving it like postponing some work resuming doing many languages in parallel. So it was continuously over. I mean, they were all at different stages of readiness. So kind of getting them ready on time was very challenging. Also, considering that, like, this two months, were really very, very stretched as a goal. But we did manage it. So were the first languages as well, let's get ready. So it was less than two months for like, and from the moment that we knew we will enter in Denmark until the moment that we launched. So what no delays, but obviously, it was a hell of a challenge, to be honest. And at some point, because of all those overlapping priorities, and like, they kept changing, we ended up being able to launch in one new market per week. And some of the those were like, also English speaking. So essentially, we had five weeks when we were entering five new countries. So that was a craziest period. And I don't know how we manage that. I think it was the great team that we had. But honestly, it was very difficult to freely think things through. And we didn't have enough market research to make our decisions. And it was just about just doing it, and then figuring out later what, what it was what needed to change. So as I said, the scope of work, chain will kept changing. And to kind of make things easier also. And clearly, I decided that we were never going to localize audio and video workouts. I just imagined how counts down like, what do you do? Subtitles? You can't really so probably the most effective solution is just shooting them, like recording them from scratch for every new market. But is it really worth it? Because that was part of the offer? It was free? So invested in things like that was just out of the question. So there was what you see on the left was kind of scope of work volatilization as it was initially thought. And eventually, I ended up dealing with what was outside of scope for product engineering, localization efforts. So it was marketing, sex, partnership, communications, some social media, and things like that. But also, it turned out that there were many more stakeholders that needed support from localization. And this cup of work for me, so you know, luxation team of one was a lot more than it was for product. And we also ended up doing some of your consulting work for internal stakeholders. That really is not something that you think a localization manager would do, but everyone needed us. So if I knew from from the beginning who the stakeholders were, because I was kind of misguided a little bit, is that, okay, it's product and mobile. But it truly wasn't just that. So if I knew who are the stakeholders, and what were the needs for localization, what content they needed, were a little late. I would have certainly approached it differently. But there wasn't time for it. And like, every, every day, like, I'm not kidding, every day, there was someone new, who would reach out to me and ask for something related to translation. Because also, as we were expanding, the organization was growing and like there was so many new startups and like they would all join to support the international expansion. And they all need a translation in one way or another. So the challenge was that with it, we didn't really have integrations, the CMS solution didn't have integrations with all those tools. It's different teams were using. And it was an extremely manual process for everyone involved. Imagine, like 300 people from 20 functions, because those essentially what my stakeholders internal, they were all doing, copying and pasting every single day. So how much does it cost? So really, you're just if you're just starting, start with this, understand? Who are the people that need content, and how they work, where all the content lives, what they do with it, when they need it? All of it. Like, it's really, really important, it will save you from from failure. So how many functions business functions do you think should be involved and feel accountable for localizing one email? Not seven, I guess. But this is what it was, it will literally we had seven different business functions that were looking into just one email and trying to figure out what, what to do with it. And this is what I inherited. So I ended up being the owner of 126, US centric consumer emails that only the coding before before they could be turned into something localizable. So I ended up doing like coding, copy and pasting, uploading, downloading, clicking and ticking for just days in a row. Because emails, support for marketing, just was outside the scope. So some questionable practices also been introduced by people who had no experience, but they they all had, you know, doing their best to get it right. So who can blame them? So one day, I had someone who asked me, Well, why our ads are not performing better than English than in other languages? What's wrong with translation? But there were many reasons why that just translation didn't work for us. And it wasn't just about that, because localization is more about it's a strategy. It's, it's about being locally relevant. It's about understanding your audience and how you reach out to them. And translation is, it's not even always part of localization. So we were targeting experts, and like, it was, you say, what is it? Do they even need, you know, this content we localized? And we did run ads, like in English, as well. So really comparing the translated versus non translate it was a bit of, like, not so intuitive, and like, can you really compare it the I just different audiences? So what the challenge I faced was really about what localization meant for ClassPass. Because for me, it's, it's tragic. For the product and engineering, it was ability to translate copy, back in 2018, but then it turned into being an adaptation of products to meet the language, cultural and other requirements of specific market. So it also kept changing for them. For brand, it was a global brand, whatever it means. But for the expansion, the team leading the expansion efforts, it was just like in a list of dimensions that needed to be considered. The impact is pretty much the entire expansion operation. But what we didn't know is like how to translate those dimensions into a proper strategy. In a sense, well, a journalist, I have a strategic background, but can I really drive it is if it impacts just the entire company. But what I was hired to manage, not to the Manage coordinate translation. So I was a bit in a tricky position. I knew that it was a big challenge, but at the same time, I wasn't hired for that. So it was a bit of a struggle. But we did manage to to get As closer to to what localization should be achieving. And so at some point that one of the teams was conversion marketing, they realized that there was a key page that wasn't performing. Like, just they couldn't understand what what was wrong with it, why people were not signing up, because we're offering such a great deal, sign up, save up to 70%, off dropping rates, but it's realized. So what was an amazing German copywriter on my team. So as she led us hands to understand that that value proposition really didn't have a lot of value to our customers in Germany, because they were not after discounts. And then the concept itself of dropping rates just didn't exist in Germany. So and we had a translated into like, something that would be closer to it. But it just didn't make sense. So we had to rewrite it. And we just tweaked like a couple of lines really, investment of 100 pounds, and that boosted our click through rate on that key landing page by 126%. So well done, we used those data also to, to pitch form more resources to support localization versus just translation turned out to be helpful as well. So if if you need to pitch for more resources, do something like that. So other objectives from my job ad, was working closely with marketing product and country managers to ensure global launch readiness. The challenge here is that there were other teams who were ensuring global launch regiments, and their work wasn't necessarily visible, and how they ended up being overlooked. So I ended up seeing this, so we had product engineering, who was needed translations to be done as soon as possible, because you, you saw the the timelines that we were having. So there was a risk of releasing the app, you know, in, not localized. Or, also, if you don't do translation properly, then the QA would flag issues, and then kind of translating those missing bits, was also challenged. So it was important to get it not just quickly, but also right. But at the same time had on the b2b side of things. We had other teams who were, you know, an enabling the launch, without necessarily, you know, knowing what, what was relevant for the market. And they were also struggling, like, they didn't have any integrations with our tools. And the processes were extremely manual. And they had lots of content. And it was all like mission critical, because they had to the that their processes were interdependent. So if we didn't deliver translation on time, it would mean that they just had to wait and crunch everything in just a few weeks instead of the four that they were given, because they also had a long time. And I wasn't aware of that when I joined. So because I only knew its product and marketing. So it was a bit of a challenge. It took us a while to figure out what how to go about that. But to be honest, it was more of an operations management problem rather than anything to do with localization as such. So what we did is just, you know, whoever needs translations first, get them first. So those, you know, launch teams and onboarding teams that were looking after the partnerships, there, they became our top priority and not a product. And then when those you know, workflows are already established, and they don't take into account the localization needs, localization is functioning really has like, not a lot of influence, to be able to change that it just becomes very, very complex in freedom making improvements. Is is A lot of work. So think carefully about how you establish workflows in the first place, because then changing can be a nightmare. One of the product managers one once asked me, Well, can we just onboard more translators to speed up the process. And I was already managing about 50 translators, and more translators meant more work for me to look after them. But also Americans, I would have, I would have less time to really focus on improvements. And there were teams that just continuously copying and pasting, and like I just couldn't do not ignore them. So I kept thinking about what can be done better, so that they don't have to do all that copying and pasting continuously. So bit of a trade off. It's not just about, you know, getting it translated, but also making sure that you don't do any extra work in the meantime, and just don't block everyone else. Implementing ongoing quality assurance system. Well, you saw the timelines, I was like, I just, possibly, it's not as a team of one, it wasn't something that I could even think about doing. Because it was meant that I would essentially need to replicate all the processes that the QA product QA team was already relying on. And like, it didn't make a lot of sense. And as someone who firmly believes that prevention is better than cure, I just thought we'll skip it. And I focused on making sure that we had more context provided to translators so that we prevent issues from happening. And, well, it worked for us. But it was a lot of copying and pasting from me. Because our content just didn't. Then the TMS solution, with all the integrations that was supposed to be there, they were just not working and like the context wasn't pulling in. So just was about providing more screenshots, and really passing on the information about what we were translating, and what was coming. So that the main was had a better idea of, of what they were doing, really, so that we had fewer issues, create, manage and maintain glossaries and style guides. This is like a very trivial thing. And when I started on the job, I'd like that kind of told me that's kind of a bit of a junior role for me, but I took it anyway, because I'm just excited about multisided platforms. So I'm here that was a challenge that I inherited those glossaries and from before somebody else already created them, so I couldn't really build them or change them too much. But also, we had the CX team, who was you know, translation needs words were not supported by localization as a function, because they relied on it like aI powered machine translation, solution, platform, whatever it was. So they had the wrong glossaries and the wrong teams. That one not just working. So we ended up having the things like, don't be a foreigner, instead of don't be a stranger that we're continuously communicated to, to our international customers. And bicycle day was supposed to mean your monthly membership renewal date, and lunch. So and how do you fix that? So we started looking into it when we estimated what it would cost us to review those in our translation memories. 30,000 pounds, I was like, No way it's not happening. So instead, I teamed up with a copywriter and also translated to develop some guidelines that would help the teams to write in In a way that is machine translation friendly, because cycle dates is really not so intuitive. So, but also we were, I kind of acted as a negotiator between the CX team and that AI translation better to get them review those teams, and we train those algorithms for free. Because it was just, it wasn't our team's fault that it wasn't working for them. And work closely and maintain relationships with translators and brothers, that was the easiest part. And the most rewarding. So if anyone who was there for me is watching, thanks a lot, for being for being awesome. So and that was like, in not, not just when training the relationship, but really investing in those relationships with translators was my top one priority, because we were relying on these guys to communicate on our behalf. And like, without really any support without direction, because I couldn't direct them, because I didn't know what we were doing exactly, I was just executing. And really making sure that they have everything they need to feel empowered, and just be there for us was was something that I do. I've always deeply cared about, but like in that times, even more, and I really had, like, support of an amazing, amazing team of translators. And that was was really critical for success. Without them, nothing would have been possible. So thanks a lot, guys. And, and let's get to takeaways, I wanted to leave a bit more time for questions. I do have many other slides you want to enjoy. But we will get back to any of the questions that do you want to ask? So I don't have like, you know, actionable takeaways, but what I want you to take away from it is just really ask yourself, what what you're doing. And it's always taken for granted that, oh, we need localization we need to do like because it will enable us to enter a new market, blah, blah, blah. But what do you really mean by it? What is localization? Because it can mean anything to anyone? And it's strategy? For me, it's a translation of copy for the product team, how do we work together? Like, what are we we achieving with this? Why do we need it? Where are we heading? And also, like, at what cost? Because it's really, you can localize anything, but how much you should be investing, we really didn't have like a well defined budget for all our concession needs, and I, I own the budget, but I couldn't just, you know, throw it away. So really having more clarity about how do you go, like, how will localization support your your growth and translating it into into numbers is critical. But also having someone who really drives it, mystically, not just sit on the translation bit of things, but it really getting the everyone's buy in, because when you start you know, entering new markets, you become an international company. And it's more about just how you operate as an international organization. Like that is the biggest biggest challenge, localization is just you know, it, if you see it, if you see that a strategy that supports, you know, all your decisions that are related to, you know, entering new markets and operating wireless communication with the customers as it really should be in my view, if you see it that way, then you start to understand that you really need to make sure that all your processes will need to change and changes on the fly is impossible, like as we saw like it was a total nightmare. Because there was so if you if you are an established company, and you have like many, many functions within it, the ways they work the ways they work together, the ways that they do that their work are just they will have to change as well. And to be able to support them properly. You need a proper proper position. So strategy, you just cannot plug in, you know, any technical solution into it. So on the technical side of things, it's like, it's very easy nowadays, but it's more of an managerial problem. If you just don't, don't think beyond translation. And there are many more stakeholders than you can possibly imagine, in all this localization process, and really understanding who they are, what they need, who owns what, who owns, you know, localizable content, versus who owns localized content. I ended up owning everything, but how to, you know, manage your position project, when you're the sponsor or the owner, and like, you also execute is kind of it can become very, very, it can put a lot of strain not just on the localization team, but also on everyone who is dealing with it and everyone involved. So more than, you know, there are more questions event. And so we answer them. It's my, my seem that need answers to so this, this, how am I learnings? I hope you learned something from it as well. So shall we

Max Morkovkin 41:26
believe? Yeah, our tent is definitely learned something. And I saw the messages in chat, and there are people appreciating you sharing this great experience and challenges you faced. Thank you very much. And thank you for having these motivating pictures, background of your slides, it keeps reminding me of money and exercises, I should do them more often than I do. Thank you very much. So we have six, seven minutes to answer the questions. And let me help you with that. So there is a question from Renata Fernandez that Jana are all classes free, or is there a premium plan for ClassPass?

Tatiana Ryabinina 42:16
You so the audio and video workouts that we do? Because we're supposed to be free. But now you signed up with the free strike? Well, I don't know now, because I'm not really there. But you, you will join LastPass as a with a free trial. So you can really explore it and see if it works for you. But it's a paid membership with different plans. But there was because the actual product is not digital products. It is that supply. So unless you know studio owners, they need to be paid for what they offer. So it's it can never be free. But digital, I don't know you can do. I guess pretty much. It's not what LastPass is doing it? Yes.

Max Morkovkin 43:06
Okay, thank you for answering and the question from an rosena Cedella. I'm sorry, if I pronounced it wrongly, the process you're describing from management point of view is impossible. Were you also working remote at the time? Have you raised the misinformation with the management? It constitutes a great lesson fertilization managers and project managers for all industries. Yeah, well, Mission Impossible.

Tatiana Ryabinina 43:36
What I didn't tell you is that I was working across 14 time zones. So the it was more challenging them than you think it was. So I had an engineering team in Singapore, and the product team in San Francisco. Although on the job, I just was like the time difference was just with the headquarters in New York. But I was based in London, my manager was in Barcelona, his manager was in essentially, in New York. It was, you know, we are all working remotely. And everyone really had a challenge. And it wasn't just me struggling with it. It was also everyone else who needed to rely on a function that was you know, wasn't close by. So while I didn't raise this question, I asked for your for a team and I had an one team member, extra on top of me and she joins when it will just started to slow down really, but she was the best, best, best, best, best teammate I could ever have. So with her being there, we really had a bit of a bandwidth to think about how we can do it better. But before it was really impossible, it's true. super frustrating, but I also had the support of the entire team and my, my best teammate with whom I am now you know doing things with growth. But really like raising these questions, it can be difficult and can we all result in some tensions but I was voicing it and but what I really gained from it was the support of everyone. Even if it didn't result in me growing, having a bigger team, but at least we managed to pull it through this collective efforts.

Max Morkovkin 45:42
So if you guys hearing someone telling you that they're doing something impossible, encourage them to listen presentation by Tatiana. I think that they will change their mind. Okay, and we have questions from smart get community by the way, guys, thank you for joining us that community and asking your questions. So the question from Yulia Bouwmeester, what are the main soft skill challenges when it comes to starting out as a localization manager?

Tatiana Ryabinina 46:11
Oh, good question. Plenty. So you need to be able to really communicate with people who have different opinions, or have different views or like, it's, you can't, you really have to adapt to the way they think the way they view localization, which might not align with yours. But also, in keeping calm, staying positive. Because otherwise, localization is a highly cross functional initiative, and then you need to be able to work cross functionally, and then everything you do has an impact on everyone else. And you need to be the bridge really, and like, be able to also bond people together. And being able to delegate like, managing up is critical, because then you can't do everything on your own. And it's not just about you know, you, it's a team effort. So if you can delegate up, you have better position than anyone else.

Max Morkovkin 47:37
And be able to use this ability of 15 minutes between meetings to have a quick snap, and then return back refreshed, right? Someone is asking, Catherine is asking, When did you sleep, Tatiana? And another question from Katherine, more serious? If you had to do it all over again, knowing what you know, now, what would you do differently strategically? Or otherwise? Do you just have one minute to answer this question, and we will have to wrap up

Tatiana Ryabinina 48:08
everything, I would do everything differently. But I would start with really identifying the stakeholders. And like, understanding what they think localization is about how it impacts their processes. We just serve a survey the entire company asked them, Okay, we are doing this. What what do you need? What content do you have? How, how does you know the translation process would integrate with you? Why do you need this content? What, why it matters? What, what if it doesn't, you know, you don't get translations, what happens? Really understanding the impact of loudness, localization, translation, whatever it means, and really understand everyone's perspective on that and how it relates how it impacts their work. Start with that, analyze it design processes around that. Don't choose any translation solution yet. So I would start with that.

Max Morkovkin 49:20
The journal Thank you very much for going through all of these challenges, having these amazing achievements and sharing this experience with us. It is it is wonderful. Thank you very much.

Tatiana Ryabinina 49:33
Thank you for being here.

Max Morkovkin 49:35
Great and I encourage you to stay if you have time and to listen to other speakers and our panel discussions