6 Months at Alarmy

I work as a product designer for the Alarmy team. I define product and business problems and requirements to design user experiences. I'd like to share a few of my most memorable experiences from the past six months working with the Alarmy team :)

Alarmy, a highly profitable service

I first heard about Alarmy through a passing comment from an acquaintance.

"I heard Alarmy makes a ton of money."

Like destiny (?), I later stumbled upon a job posting for a product designer at Alarmy.
Through the posting, I could see that the Alarmy team designed their product based on data and made deep, thoughtful improvements. I had always been curious about how to utilize data and wanted to know how users react to design changes, so I knew I really wanted to join the team.

In many companies, design is often treated as an afterthought. On the other hand, the Alarmy team gives its designers full support and decision-making power, which made me feel even more affection and interest toward the product and the team.

In fact, even though I had only recently joined, I was put in charge of the planning and design of a screen directly tied to revenue. If you want to know how crucial the Alarmy team considers design for the product, please read the article below 🙂

Everyone is a designer. Accept it.

What changed after joining

I also worked as a product designer at my previous job. However, the experience I had after joining the Alarmy team was completely different, from the scope of work to the working methods.

The scope of design expanded, and naturally, my perspective on the product expanded with it. The Alarmy team works mainly in squads, and the squad I belong to is the Subs squad, which develops premium features for a more certain wake-up and focuses deeply on creating the subscription model that offers those features. Because of this, I needed a strong understanding of the business side to design a product that meets our goals.

I had to find answers through numbers rather than vague intuition, and since I used to get a headache just looking at numbers, I took related courses and participated in internal study groups. Now, when I have data I want to see, I check it through charts. For example, I verified user behavior with data and used that as a basis to improve related features.

Early on after joining, I was tasked with adding a new feature that requests reviews from users. Previously, I had only designed UI layouts on a screen-by-screen basis, but this was my first time designing the feature definitions and triggering conditions. Being my first time, I made many mistakes and faced quite a few hiccups, but with the team's help, I gradually learned how to look at data and understood what kind of experiences hold value for users. I also recently improved that feature again. During the improvement process, I modified the existing conditions and checked through data whether the number of users encountering the dialog under those conditions would be sufficient. If the sample size is too small, it's difficult to get meaningful results. Even if you put a lot of effort into building a feature, if the user flow isn't right, no one might end up using it. Fortunately, the sample size was sufficient, and it was successfully implemented in the product.

The design group

The design group works primarily within their respective squads, but we collaborate on improving the design system and the overall design quality of the product.

There are Alarmy work principles we must follow during our tasks. Because these work principles define everything from the core values of the service to our behavioral norms, we can maintain consistency when designing the user experience and exchange fast feedback.

All design work starts with WWH.
WWH stands for What, Why, and How. We define what the problem is, why we are solving it, and how we will solve it before proceeding with the design. If the WWH is unclear, the design ends up vague, and the problem-solving itself becomes unsatisfactory.

At first, I found it difficult to tackle problems based on WWH, but through my teammates' help and multiple iterations, I've become very used to it.

One of the most impressive things about the design group's culture is how much it values psychological safety. To help us feel psychologically safe, we have tea times, daily scrums, and retrospectives. Recently, my teammates and I watched a lecture on burnout and took the time to think about how we can work while protecting our health. Thanks to this culture, we've been able to find better solutions and freely share our opinions.

How to turn "someday" into today

Work wasn't the only thing that changed after joining the Alarmy team.

Alarmy is a product that can boost an individual's productivity by allowing them to wake up at their desired time. Naturally, all the teammates who care for and are passionate about this product are also very interested in productivity.

Because of this, I get to see firsthand people who wake up early, get to work early, and leave early, as well as people who love working out and even teach their teammates how to exercise.

The year before last, I set Nike's ad copy "Yesterday you said tomorrow" as my phone wallpaper and tried hard to build habits, but I ultimately failed. However, seeing my teammates inspired me to try again. I constantly experimented and made improvements, asking myself how I could grow further and whether my methods were right. And from the beginning of this year until now, I've been living according to a morning and evening routine.

I wake up in the morning, read a book, do a light workout, and then head to work. During lunch, I work out with my teammates to boost my productivity and take care of my health as well.

Going forward

There are two more things I've learned since joining the Alarmy team.

First, the rumors were true, and Alarmy does make a lot of money. Alarmy's revenue has been growing rapidly and consistently upward from 2018 up to now in 2021.

Second, the saying that "the best perk is the best colleagues" is absolutely true.

It's rare to get a chance to work with such outstanding colleagues, so I feel incredibly lucky. And by "outstanding," I don't just mean professional expertise, but also a considerate and respectful mindset. Even when they were busy, they were always willing to share what they'd learned and offer advice generously, which made it easy for me to adapt. Because they listened to my opinions with an open mind, I believe I was able to grow to where I am today.

Recently, I've developed two goals I want to achieve at Alarmy.
One is for Alarmy to become a true brand, and furthermore, a well-loved brand. The other is to be a great teammate to my current colleagues and to those who will join us in the future. To achieve this, I plan to steadily hone my skills and keep putting in the effort.