I'm a little hard to put in a box – my professional interests are all over the place, from product to strategy to marketing to partnerships. Luckily, I've managed to find a role where I can do a little bit of everything and hopefully make life easier for our customers while I do it. I'm Blair, and I work at Tidio as our Head of Ecommerce.
What does "Grow with Tidio" mean to you?
There is a common myth perpetuated in stories that true mastery comes from taking yourself into a literal or metaphorical cave in the mountains and dedicating yourself in isolation to your craft for a long period of time. In my experience, nothing has been further from the truth. Before I joined Tidio, I had predominantly been a consultant outside of a couple of full-time gigs (at i.a. Shopify) for the most recent phase of my career. Although being a consultant came with much freedom, I questioned whether I was growing by working alone.
I think the key to "Grow with Tidio" is the "with Tidio" part – working with a large and growing group of people, who are at various stages of the journey towards mastering their craft. Nobody knows everything, but everyone has something to offer others in their own journey to improve.
What attracted you to Tidio in the first place? Where did you first hear about Tidio?
I had known Tidio for nearly ten years before I joined – in fact, I learned about Tidio shortly after it was started through my work in the Shopify ecosystem. I didn't keep a close watch on the company over the years, but eventually reconnected with some folks and started consulting with a couple of teams throughout the company.
When the opportunity to join full-time came up, I jumped right at it. Beyond the excellent people I knew, what attracted me most was the opportunity to work on interesting and meaningful problems at scale.
So many small and medium businesses call customer support and experience the largest drains of their time; 2023 presents a unique opportunity to fundamentally change how this work is done, and Tidio is at the forefront of developing interesting solutions to this problem.
What are your career goals, and how is Tidio helping you achieve them?
One of my main goals is to found a company someday.
At Tidio, we can work 100% remotely, and we also have access to our two offices in Szczecin and Warsaw. What is your favorite way of working?
I am of two minds about remote work: on the one hand, I have a young family and working remotely provides me the flexibility to not only be there for important moments with my family. It also means I don't have to relocate them across the world to take an interesting job. Warsaw and Szczecin are beautiful cities where I am sure my family would be happy, but they are a long way away from where I am based in Ottawa, Canada.
On the other hand, I place a lot of value on being able to connect with my coworkers in meaningful ways. I am glad and proud that Tidio also organizes annual events like Tidio Camp that bring the whole company together as well as smaller team gatherings throughout the year.
What is your favorite part of your role?
As Head of Ecommerce, I have the opportunity to work with a number of teams across Tidio to make sure that we're providing the best experience for our brand and ecommerce sellers that use Tidio, and to make sure that we're getting that experience into as many hands as possible.
I think that's my favorite part, really – the diversity of work I get to do. No two days are the same. You're as likely to see me working with the product team on tweaks to onboarding as you are to see me preparing a webinar with other ecommerce software providers to share how Tidio works. I never get bored.
What are your hobbies? What do you love to do after work?
With a wife, a dog, a toddler, and another child on the way... Life outside of work doesn't give me much time to pursue hobbies. That being said, I try to find time to do two things for myself every day: reading and running. I try to read a few books a month, and I currently run about 70km per week.
If I had unlimited time, you'd see me playing more video games (particularly retro – I miss Gameboy!) and learning to do something with my hands. In the past, I've experimented with leatherworking and had a lot of fun.
