Hey, MagModders! Chris Fedo here. Wordsmith, lover of tacos and all-around marketing maven. I’d like to introduce you to my teammate Timothy Eyrich, who, besides inciting many an office singalong, also heads up MagMod’s Product Development team.
Like many members of Team MagMod, Timothy stays busy outside of work maintaining a healthy wedding photography business. He averages about 25 weddings a year, shooting in Arizona, Colorado and his home state of Nebraska. All that time in the trenches is what keeps Timothy constantly thinking about how we can make photographers’ lives easier with cool new products.
While our new products and their release dates are still super duper secret, we thought you'd be tickled to know that the wait is almost over! *Hint hint wink wink nudge nudge* Since he's instrumental in making new MagMod happen, I sat down with Timothy to ask what's on the horizon.
Chris: I’m gonna pretend that I’m James Lipton. Except better looking and with less facial hair. Here come the fun questions. Chocolate or vanilla?
Timothy: Chocolate.
Chris: Naturally. Sith or Jedi?
Timothy: Oooo . . . definitely Jedi.
Chris: I knew you’d say that. (Editor’s note: See Timothy’s official company portrait below. Je duh, right?) Here’s a less obvious one: If MagMod were a boy band, which heartthrob would you be? You can pick any boy bander in history—NKOTB, Backstreet Boys, Menudo, Boyz II Men—except for Justin Timberlake. JJ is clearly Justin Timberlake.
Timothy: Hahaha! Oh man, that’s tough. Who’s that guy from 98 Degrees? Nick Lachey! I’d be Nick Lachey.
Chris: Very fitting. Voice of an angel. Plus raw emotion. Definitely you. So, besides serenading all of us each morning with country music jams and show tunes, tell the good folks what else you do in the MagMod office on a typical day.
Timothy: I’m the Director of Product Research & Development, which means I mostly spend my days following up with all the different teams who make our new products happen. There’s a lot of moving parts (pun intended). I’m constantly on the horn with our manufacturers to find out the status of new products and when we can get new samples. And then I’m back and forth with our engineers to talk design and tech specs. I also spend a lot of time testing products to make sure they work the way we want them to.
Chris: Which takes a TON of time! Speaking of which . . . I think a lot of folks are gonna read this and be all, “you guys have been promising new products for years. What’s taking so freaking long?” Now that you’ve been in your role for a while and have insight into what goes on behind-the-scenes in Product Dev Land, how would you answer that question?
Timothy: People might not realize that making sure our new products live up to the durability and quality MagMod promises is a seriously intense process. When you’re testing, things always pop up that you thought you had accounted for. And you have to keep working until you’re satisfied that you’ve identified and ruled out all the unknowns. We really put each product through its paces to make sure that when the final version is released, customers feel that the product has intent.
Chris: I think people would be surprised to learn just how much we consider our customers in every choice we make, especially when it comes to product feedback.
Timothy: Definitely. We’re always listening to our customers in both formal and informal ways. We monitor what people ask for in the #MagModCommunity on Facebook. We even send out a survey once a year to see how our customers feel about our current products and ask what they want to see us make next. We want to see if the requests we’re getting align with our vision for the future and what we have in the pipeline. So far, they do.
Chris: I know you can’t spill the beans about what we’re launching next. But is there anything you can share about what you’re working on right now?
Timothy: Yep. Our customers can expect big things—big things that bring our current family of products together so they can function as a full ecosystem.
If you want to be the first to learn about what MagMod has in the cooker, be sure to join the #MagModCommunity on Facebook. Wanna give Timothy and the team feedback on our products? Hit us up at support@magnetmod.com. We're listening . . . to you *and* to NSync.
P.S. - Shout out to Trevor Dayley for providing the solid gold images to accompany this blog.