goTenna Employee of the Month Spotlight: May 2020

Name: Mike Robinson

May’s shoutout of the month went to Michael Robinson, Product Manager. The award recognizes Michael’s tireless commitment to goTenna’s product development, market research, and roadmap. He talked to us about how goTenna has contributed to his professional growth.

What is your position and what does that entail?

My position is Product Manager, which at goTenna, means a little bit of everything. Primarily, I help define and prioritize what we work on, so that we can provide the most impact to our customers. My role involves working alongside many teams at the company, including Engineering, Customer Experience, Sales, and Marketing. It takes a lot of coordination to process orders, ship products, make sure our customers know how to use our product, and provide [those customers] with the best experience possible. I also speak with our customers on a regular basis to learn more about what they do and how they use goTenna. These conversations ultimately help us make our product more useful for the critical work they do every day.

Tell me about your career before joining goTenna and how you ended up here.

I’ve always worked in the world of mobile and emerging platforms. I joined the workforce when iPhones didn’t exist. Ringtones and games were the most interesting thing you could do on a phone. Eventually, once mobile apps became popular, I spent a bit of time in the publishing world, helping magazines transition to mobile and tablet platforms. Most recently, I was working on building music and podcast apps for automotive platforms at a well-known audio streaming company. I’ve always known of goTenna since the initial launch of their first product and I was excited to have the opportunity to come on board. It has been a good way to merge my background with my interest in the outdoors.

What is an exciting project you have been working on recently? What is your proudest professional accomplishment at goTenna?

We just recently released a big update to our Pro mobile apps to beta testers. The project has been over a year in the making and it took a bit longer than we first anticipated. The team did a great job getting the release to completion and I’m excited to finally get the devices into the customers’ hands. We learned a lot from the process and I think it will be a great platform for some exciting releases in the near future.

What is your favorite part of working at goTenna?

Coming from a media background, I’ve enjoyed the transition to solving more tangible problems instead of focusing on things like generating pageviews and ad revenue. We help people do important work in ways that were not possible (or affordable) prior to the introduction of goTenna to the market. From a product development perspective, it is a lot of fun.

What is something you would want others to know about goTenna?

goTenna has attracted a diverse group of really great people. The entire team is smart, thoughtful, and cares a lot about what they do and how they do it. I really enjoy working with them and have learned so much as a result.

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?

If I’m not chasing my two kids around, I’m probably riding or fixing a bicycle.