It’s time to come out of my inadvertent online hiatus to announce my next adventure!
Greetings from Portland, Oregon! I’ve dropped off the face of the online world for good reason because I have a new adventure I am about to embark on.
I’m stoked to announce that I am joining the Customer Success team at Customer.io and tomorrow, July 8, 2019, is my first day on the job!
What is Customer.io?
Mission
Power automated communication that people like to receive.
Vision
Create the single tool relationship businesses need to send targeted and automated messages to their audience.
Strategy
Be the best solution for subscription businesses to send all their messages.
Those three lines were printed on a card that was inserted into a notebook I got from my welcome kit.
The good news is that the company means business but they sure like to have a lot of fun doing it. The company’s mascot is a pigeon named Ami and all the employees get cartoon representations of themselves. I can’t wait to see mine!
If you still have no idea what the company does, they make software that creates lifecycle messages.
Huh? A what message?
Have you gotten an automated email saying “Welcome to _____” after signing up for a new online service? Or a text message saying “Your order _______ is on the way” after purchasing something online?
These are all called lifecycle messages and Customer.io wants to be the best at it! You can check out the company’s website here.
What am I going to be doing?
I will be joining the Customer Success team to work with the company’s bigger clients on a 1-on-1 basis and help them achieve their objectives for the service.
Customers will think of me as their coach who will show them the ropes and make them experts at using the online software to supercharge their business’s marketing and lifecycle messaging needs. Flashes of Mr. Miyagi and Karate Kid are running in my head as I type this!
This role is a great fit for me considering my background in consulting, technical training, and business analysis. I love working with people and I was really excited when I saw this opportunity pop up!

The Challenge
What is really interesting about Customer.io from a teams perspective is that the company is a fully remote and distributed team meaning my colleagues are spread out all over the world. We are currently 50 people strong (and growing) and working with a fully remote team will be really interesting. This will be my first time in this kind of environment! My boss is on the East Coast of the U.S. while I have teammates in Europe, Australia, and all over the U.S.
What this means for me is that I am free to work from anywhere in the world and I love that flexibility. From what I have gathered so far, the team functions on trust, clear communication, and being goal oriented. As long as I kick a lot of ass, I am completely in charge of how and where I do my work.
Fortunately for me, Customer.io has a central office located in Portland so I will be working out of that office on my first day! The following day, I head off to Austin to continue the final 3 weeks of my visit to the U.S and go fully remote while I get up to speed with my new role at Customer.io.
I am excited, elated, and nervous for tomorrow. There is a lot of unpack and I promise to tell all on how I got to this point in upcoming posts. Wish me luck!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nico Atienza
Chief Storyteller
An expat remote worker based in Colombo, Sri Lanka with a penchant for window seats on planes, travel, and technology that makes everyone’s lives easier.