As Senior Vice President of Presence and Commerce at GoDaddy, Lauren Antonoff oversees the development and operations of our website builder and e-commerce solutions for small business around the world.

Prior to GoDaddy, Lauren spent eighteen years at Microsoft, where she was most recently Director of Program Management for SharePoint, leading the effort to make the SharePoint a tool that people love to use to get work done. Her leadership was instrumental in building one of the most successful products and businesses at Microsoft, and helping SharePoint navigate the shift to the cloud.

While at Microsoft, she founded the Step Up Program, designed to increase the number of women in senior management roles by helping women become stronger candidates for these roles. Lauren studied Rhetoric and Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley.

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Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest:

• Lauren has surprised herself when she ended up in software as she thought she was going to be a civil rights lawyer. But as she thought about the problems that we encounter in technology, she felt that she can make the world a better place if she can solve these problems so people can use technology to get things done in their lives. She attributes her attitude of going out there in the world, taking on the challenges as you can and fight for the things you believe in to her mother, fighting for what was right.
• As Senior Vice President of Presence & Commerce at GoDaddy, the job was supposedly pretty straightforward: they help people make websites. But when she got there, it was way more than that. The group had a whole portfolio of tools designed to help customers establish their businesses online. Website builder, online store, SEO products, listings product, etc. Immediately she learned the disparate teams were stretched too thin. A key change she implemented was to address the platform it as a singular customer experience rather than a portfolio of products. One experience which helps people get online and create a holistic experience to guide them through their journey.
• GoDaddy is known for domains but they are more than that. They can present a whole range of solutions that they are likely looking for and this is what they are trying to showcase in their project, GoCentral. It’s a suite of capabilities which include a website, but just as importantly, also the things which come after making a website: managing your social profiles, engaging customers through email marketing and the whole nine yards.
• Bringing individual pieces which are currently in silos to work in concert together is one of the challenges that their company is currently facing and making use of data to understand what is working and what’s not is key. If you can use data to measure whether something is effective, you have the most powerful tool.
• How do you know which hypothesis to prioritize, how do you know which one is worth testing or not? You can use inputs to get ideas and use an agile methodology which is hyper targeted and placed in a controlled testing environment before rippling it out to other areas and environments. Dip your toe in the water and if it works, double down on it.

Rapid Fire Questions

• What is your definition of innovation?

Innovation is about always striving to figure out new ways and better approaches to solve old problems.

• Would you put more emphasis on the idea or the execution? How would you weigh each of them and why?

Either without the other is worthless is it’s a 100% on both sides – I don’t care if that math doesn’t work out.

• What is your biggest learning lesson on your journey so far?

The value of failure.

• What is your favorite business book?

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

• What is your favorite digital resource?

Google

• What is your favorite app and why?

Doctor on Demand