Jina Choi Podcast Transcript
Jina Choi joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Jina Choi. Jina Choi is a dynamic leader with over 20 years of experience in the fintech industry, specializing in the intersection of technology and product development. She began her career in operations, building a strong foundation in fulfillment before transitioning into product technology.
As the Chief Product Officer of Kwillt, Jina plays a pivotal role in launching cutting edge platforms, driving remarkable growth, and expanding client bases in record time. Her strategic vision and hands on approach have consistently led to successful product launches, often within tight deadlines.
Well, good afternoon, Jina. Welcome to the show!
Jina Choi: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. I appreciate doing this again, favorite time of the day for me is getting on a podcast with an outstanding guest and listening to their story and sharing that out with the world. So, let’s just jump into your first question, Jina. You’ve got a unique background that spans both B2C origination lending and B2B in the SAS.
How do you approach the differing demands and challenges in these two spaces when developing product solutions?
Jina Choi: First and foremost, thing that I’ll look at is who is my audience that I’m serving when I’m looking at from a B to C space in the origination lending part. I am looking at from a consumer perspective.
So, I do have to take off my hat from a SME or knowledgeable standpoint and understand as that average American coming into home ownership. What are the initial things that I would like to see do or have tools to help me be more capable of moving forward. Same methodology applies from a SAS B2B standpoint.
In my opinion, I have to understand who is my audience, who am I serving, and what are their expectations and goals for the product that I’m going to go ahead and provide to them? Is it going to be internal tools that are going to help serve their employees, or is it going to then be turning into an outward facing consumer tool and understanding what addressable market for those consumers?
It will vary from client to client based off of how far their arms reach in both methods, from both a B2C along with a B2B. It’s really just understanding in that seat of that user or that audience of what would they like to see and experience and what would help them better their overall experience, whichever goals it may be that they’re trying to achieve.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate that. And I know your background spans quite a big space there, but I appreciate you breaking that down for our audience as well. Jina, as your tenure as chief product officer, and more recently with the launch of quilt, you’ve successfully launched several cutting-edge platforms under tight deadlines.
Can you share your strategy for managing time constraints while ensuring product quality and innovation?
Jina Choi: Absolutely and thank you for the question. From what I look at the overall project and what that North Star is of what the ultimate goal is for designing a product, looking at the launch or even a go to market strategy is really taking a step back.
Looking at what the overall picture is going to be and then being able to componentize that into bite sized pieces that make digestible sense with working with engineering, along with serving the business as my customer. When I work with engineering and I’m looking at what the vision is for that product, being able to provide context has moved needles and needles in regards to the timeframe that I’m able to execute in.
If my engineers are able to understand what the underlying goal is, along with what is the intention, then it helps them understand, well, how can I achieve and build those goals as quickly as possible and as most effective as possible so that we don’t lose the quality nor the innovation. I think it’s a absolute partnership.
You’re going to have your visionary from a product standpoint, but you also need to have that counterpart from an engineering standpoint so that the build is executable in a manner that meets that vision along with that long term strategy and North Star with quilts. It’s been a fantastic journey. And with the recent launch of that.
I work with my partners in regards to not only explaining what do I want the features and functions to be, but why I want them to be that way. So, what is the overall emotion and intent that I’m trying to achieve for my customer base by building this platform? Going through this and having that explanation in that context there has enabled us to build things quickly with quality and really getting into future proofing where that platform is going to lean into doing this in the same manner from a SAS B2B standpoint has been similar, giving context if it’s, you know, very industry specific knowledge container of explaining why Something needs to be built a certain way based off of past history, knowledge and experience of how that audience is going to consume or behave has really led to being able to strive from an innovation standpoint of how do we get better?
That’s great. This will be the baseline. And now we want to get more intuitive, more dynamic and create an overall better experience. So I think even between the B2C along with the B2B, it’s same methodology across that board as well in regards to how do I ensure that my quality does not dip along with meeting very tight timelines and keeping innovation on the growth and making sure that a future proof.
For anything that may come down later that I’m not aware of today, I don’t want to build myself into kind of a concrete walls, but always making sure that the platform that I do develop is enabling for future proofing, which I may not even be aware of today.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate that. I think a few key things that I took away from that, Jina, is the fact that you’ve kind of break down these projects, right, or product launches in bite size digestible pieces, which I think is great.
And then of course you have a great partnership with your engineering staff and you, you know, share with the why, right? And that I think that makes for a long-term collaborative partnership, successful partnership. So, I appreciate that. And of course, you’re always looking at the customer as in the end goal.
So again, thank you. And Jina, you’ve been at the forefront of driving growth and expanding client bases rapidly. What are some of the key strategies you’ve employed to ensure scalability and client retention in fintech products?
Jina Choi: Great, another great question. I would say from scalability and client retention, especially is that you have to have stability.
When it comes to new innovative products, especially with the modern digitized world that we live in today, where you have your smartphone at your convenience at your disposal, and really of everything that you do is handled within that smartphone. A lot of expectations come with understanding that that’s part of someone’s day to day life, that that now transfers over to any other digital platform that they’re interacting with.
The scalability standpoint in that is. The stability of the performance of the product. In my opinion, you have to get your foundation correct once you have your foundational platform, solid, stable and enabled for growth and expansion that really enables you to go more than lean into more innovative items or features that you want to bake into that platform.
From a client retention standpoint, customer service, there’s some things that technology can’t always satisfy for and that being the human-to-human interaction. So, as your product launches, don’t lose sight that there are people behind that contract behind that client and making sure that you are staying connected with them and enabling them to share their feedback.
And that will not only better their experience, but also the product that you’re building forward.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I appreciate that portion of it. Obviously, the customer experience is everything. We’ve all experienced some good and bad and in between. But if you are checking in with the customer and having that feedback, you’re going to end up having better customer satisfaction, obviously, and a better product.
So I appreciate you breaking that down. And client retention is so important these days. Jina, last question of the day. FinTech is evolving rapidly with emerging technologies like AI and blockchain. How do you stay ahead of these trends and how do you integrate them into your product development processes?
Jina Choi: I think when it comes to, you know, AI is a very, very big buzzword today. And when you look at that, it’s don’t shy away from it, lean into it, but you don’t need to apply it to everything. Right? So, when you look at AI and blockchain and other new technology advancements is. Even if they help propel 10 percent of your audience base by using that technology, and it’s not always applicable to 100 percent still take advantage of that 10 percent wherever you can find new technologies, new visions within that.
I think that’s an absolute where you should definitely lean into and do it in a manner that may be swim lane or. In a manner that is only for a cohort of your audience. To work through where you know that you’ve done your due diligence of what makes sense for that cohort, and then expand from there.
You don’t always have to go all in at once. Prove out the theory, make augmentations, make iterations, and then go forward with the expansion once you’ve done a concentration in a specific area that doesn’t cover your entire audience base.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I think that’s helpful. You know, we are, you, you started out with saying it is a buzzword and pretty much that or you’re overwhelmed by all the different platforms and salespeople trying to get you to buy their product because AI is going to fix all your problems, right?
I absolutely agree with you. You need to lean into it where it makes sense. Obviously test the temperature of the water before you jump in. I really like the approach, but I really do appreciate that, Jina. Jina, it was such a pleasure having you on today, and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Jina Choi: Thank you so much for having me, Brian. It’s been a pleasure, and I hope I will speak to you soon again. Thanks again.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Jina Choi Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
