You can’t blame Boston’s tech leaders if they haven’t been thinking about KPIs much recently. For many, their main concern in the two weeks since Massachusetts’ stay-at-home advisory went into effect was ensuring that their teams can safely and effectively work remotely. However, after everyone is settled, or as settled as they can be given the circumstances, the next question naturally becomes: “What does all of this mean for my company?”
Of course, the answer to that question varies. Tod Kiryazov, chief product officer and co-founder of Insurify, told us how COVID-19 has impacted his company and caused them to reexamine their KPIs. For him, the most important thing a company can do right now is to set goals that are measurable and lean — and to have a heightened sensitivity for when change is needed.
First, tell us a bit about what’s changed for your business in recent days. How has that impacted your KPIs?
Insurify is an insurance comparison platform and a virtual insurance agent that has helped millions of Americans by finding the best savings for their auto, home and life insurance. While our KPIs have remained the same (traffic and policies sold), we are looking at the inputs driving these KPIs with a different lens. Specifically, how are the habits and needs of our customers changing in recent days? What are people doing and why?
We run polls and surveys to collect qualitative data and analyze our quantitative data sets to uncover new patterns and changes in behavior. We separate our KPIs by different segments, such as region, and look for changes in the KPIs based on specific events in each region. We even published one of the first dashboards that tracks the spread of COVID-19 by state over time.
In light of this, how have you adjusted your KPIs, and how did you determine these were realistic goals for your team?
In these uncertain times, the most important metric is cash flow — do you have enough cash to go through the upcoming recession and continue to build the business so that you are in an even better position than before it started? We are very fortunate to have a lean team. We also recently raised a big Series A round, which allows us to continue to be strategic and focus on growth and product development in spite of the uncertainty that lies ahead.
It is impossible to predict the exact impact of COVID-19 on the economy and how long it will last. We have modeled different scenarios that help us mitigate any impact on the business and are keeping track of all insurance companies and partners and how their businesses are impacted by COVID-19. We are fortunate to have diversified the business over the last few years, and no one partner can have a significant impact on the business.
From a product perspective, with five out of every 10 Insurify users either working from home or losing their job recently, we’re thinking of how we can be more relevant with things such as our product and coverage recommendations. If you don’t need to drive to work, do you need the same policy and coverage as before if lower coverage can save you some money? We’re also looking at whether or not certain product lines are seeing an increase in demand over others.
What adjustments are you making to your business strategies in order to hit these new KPIs?
The most important thing is to keep goals measurable and lean. We do everything in sprints, and every team from business development to content is on a weekly sprint. So we run through a sprint, review outcomes and adjust. It’s about doing more of the same but with a heightened sensitivity to change.
Our business strategy has always been digital first: Everyone can buy their insurance policy entirely online or speak with an agent, if they prefer. We want to remain helpful and relevant to our customers, who we believe will continue to do more of everything online.
Our team is our most important asset, and we have a flat organization and a culture of transparency and accountability, which has allowed us to work just as well from home as we did in the office. We always look for ways to improve the distributed work experience, whether it’s through remote happy hours, playing board games together or our signature employee birthday cake tradition. We believe that when this passes we will come out stronger and better prepared for the next exciting chapter of our company history.
