In our latest employee spotlight, we sat down with Kady Combs, one of BuildingLink’s Product Managers. Kady shares insights into her role, the challenges she navigates, and how her work contributes to BuildingLink’s mission to deliver impactful solutions for their customers.
Crafting Customer-Centric Solutions
As a Product Manager, Kady works with BuildingLink’s designers and engineers to create and improve gold-standard property management solutions. She also oversees product operations for the entire product team. From managing go-to-market (GTM) scheduling and product marketing for new releases to identifying tools and processes for the team, Kady also works closely with the CX, sales, and marketing teams. “Product is a big passion of mine,” Kady shares, “and I’m especially excited that I get to work where I do. In my past career in the condo/HOA management world, BuildingLink was regarded as one of those wonderful tools that made property managers’ lives easier. The knowledge I’ve gained through this experience has been invaluable and there’s no shortage of things to learn, so I’m never bored.”
Kady defines success in her role as delivering value to internal and external customers, building trust with stakeholders through consistency, and producing value-adding deliverables on-time. When asked how she plans her product launches or updates, it’s clear that Kady puts the utmost priority on serving BuildingLink’s customers. “GTM scheduling can be somewhat of a moving target because there are a lot of variables to consider when working with so many teams,” Kady says. “All teams need to get their deliverables complete and ready to go by the launch date. We have to measure how things will impact our external and internal customers, and we’re always focused on communicating how any changes will help and impact customer workflows.”
In terms of upcoming work, there are a couple of initiatives that Kady is especially excited about. “The first one is our platform enhancement initiative, which will allow us to seamlessly introduce new features,” she shares. “We’re also working on implementing new feedback loops with customers so we can build the most impactful solutions. Our sales and CX teams are already great at sharing feedback from customers, so we want to keep empowering the customer to share continuous feedback and provide easier ways to do so. I believe this will be especially important as state legislatures are continuously implementing new requirements for condos/co-ops, which could impact how some customers use our platform.” Kady has also been grateful to spend many hours with customers lately listening to their experiences with BuildingLink, hearing the pain points in the day-to-day, and learning new ways for the BuildingLink solution to offer even more value in the coming year.
Embodying Strength in Unity
When asked about the challenges she faces, Kady shares that time management can be a significant hurdle in her role. However, she’s developed a way to maximize her productivity. “I like to implement small frameworks to squeeze the most time out of my day,” she says. To stay on top of her responsibilities, Kady also uses tools like Jira for tracking GTM content through its entire lifecycle, Pendo for crafting in-app communications, and HubSpot for managing email campaigns, ensuring that every detail is handled efficiently.
Despite the complexity of her role, Kady finds support in BuildingLink’s core values. For her, the value of ‘Strength in Unity” stands out the most. “Our team does a great job of embodying this value and our platform enhancement initiative is an amazing example of this. We’ve all had to find strength in unity through this project and as a result, we’ve come up with bold ideas and process improvements!”
Kady adds that this value can be seen throughout the entire organization. “Everyone is willing to pitch in and help. There’s always lots of knowledge sharing and a great sense of camaraderie,” she says. “We’re frequently coming up with ways to improve processes and work across departments to achieve a common goal. In fact, one of my proudest accomplishments was when I worked on a cross functional team. We implemented an in-app resource center containing walkthrough guides and product announcements, helping us better serve our customers.”
Kady’s passion for innovation extends beyond her daily responsibilities. Looking to the future, she hopes BuildingLink will continue to introduce new innovations and endeavors while also polishing up existing projects to better serve their customers. Outside of work, Kady is equally dedicated to helping others. “I volunteer with a non-profit rescue group that helps needy cats in the city,” she shares.