Ep 19: Tome CEO Keith Peiris on Disrupting Powerpoint and Scaling To Millions of Users

Design Challenges

Designing Tome presented unique challenges, especially balancing innovation with user familiarity. Keith Peiris highlighted the tension between creating a novel tool and ensuring it felt intuitive for users accustomed to platforms like Adobe and PowerPoint 1. They aimed to build a live, cloud-connected product driven by models, which required rethinking traditional slide formats 1. Keith also discussed their strategic decision to target a broad range of use cases, from mini websites to visual docs, to grow their user base 2.

If all we were doing was applying AI to slides, then the incumbents will just get around to that faster. So I think because of that, we were always embracing, hey, we have to build our own format.

--- Keith Peiris

   

Iterative Process

The iterative development process at Tome involved refining their design based on user feedback. Keith explained their approach of presenting multiple narrative options to users, allowing them to choose and refine rather than providing a finished product 3. This method mirrors traditional consulting practices, emphasizing the importance of user input in shaping the final output 3. They also prioritized feedback from key user personas, using metrics like sharing frequency to gauge the product's effectiveness 4.

We decided to be a lot more discerning in whose feedback we're prioritizing. So we went sort of back to the Personas who we thought were going to get the most out of Tome.

--- Keith Peiris