My Name Is Todd Meyer — This Is Why I Joined Aha!
For as long as I can remember, three questions have guided how I look at most things in the world. How does this work? Why do we do it this way? Could we do it better? As a kid, I spent hours taking apart electronics (small radios, flashlights, whatever could be disassembled with a screwdriver and determination) to learn how they worked, why they worked that way, and to see if my tinkering could make them better.
When I notice that something could be significantly fixed or improved, I cannot leave it alone — any inefficiency I see drives me to affect change.
In retrospect, it is obvious to me how these traits naturally led me down the path of product management. I was curious about how software worked, how it could be better (for the users), and how to make that change happen.
After college, I began my career in program finance at Raytheon, a U.S.-based defense contractor. I quickly saw and implemented efficiencies in my job to increase the accuracy of reporting and also reduce the amount of time required to generate those reports — from days to minutes.
When my wife and I decided to move from Massachusetts back to our home state of Arizona, I took the opportunity to explore roles in an area that had always held my curiosity — helping people succeed with the aid of technology. I joined the customer success team at Infusionsoft, where I helped more than 200 businesses successfully implement the software.
I wanted to deeply understand our customers and understand how the team could best solve their problems and be more efficient.
I was soon tapped to join the product team. Once I began as a product manager, we tripled annual revenue of the product I was working on within 12 months. It was not completely due to my transition, but it was thrilling to see how we were able to positively impact our customers and the business with each improvement.
I went on to launch several more products and pivotal features in the flagship product at Infusionsoft — including an email builder used to send billions of emails each year and a product that processes large volumes of transactions for small businesses in the U.S., Canada, and U.K. I dove into understanding our users, conducting over 250 customer interviews locally and across the country.
After 6 years at Infusionsoft, I knew our customers deeply. I was proud of what we had accomplished. But the company was changing and I was ready to solve new product management problems. Brian de Haaff’s bestselling book Lovability had just been released, so I started reading it for inspiration.
I could tell that Aha! was a company full of ambitious people with a shared purpose that I could get behind — helping product managers build better products.
I was intrigued when I saw the listing for a senior Customer Success manager at Aha! I felt I was a good fit, considering my background. But at first, I was not sure that I was ready to “leave” product management.
After researching the role, I quickly realized that I would remain so close to the industry (working with product managers and product teams all day) that, if I ever wanted to go back, the transition would be seamless. I took the leap and applied — I was immediately blown away by the responsiveness of the team.
Since joining, I have been consistently inspired by the sheer talent and dedication people at Aha! put into their work. Autonomy and trust are through the roof. Plus, we have an engineering team that fixes bugs (even relatively minor ones) within hours (and sometimes minutes) of customers letting us know — it is just amazing.
Working at Aha! has also been my first experience working with an entirely distributed team. I love the flexibility of remote work and meeting up at the biannual onsites. We get to spend a solid week working, volunteering, sharing stories, and having fun in an amazing location.
Together, we are dedicated to making things better, both for our customers and ourselves.
That is why I joined Aha! — and why you should too.
