Day 1 is about staying focused, working hard, and not making excuses. Jeff Bezos once described Day 2 as stasis, irrelevance, and decline, which is why we work to keep a Day 1 approach. Small improvements add up. Getting 1% better every day makes you 37 times better in a year. Getting 1% worse every day leaves you with almost nothing. This applies to everyone on the team, when each person improves, the whole team benefits.

Chicago, October 2023

In late October 2023, we prepared for a major orthopedic clinic launch in Chicago. We rented an Airbnb near their offices and bought monitors from Best Buy so we could return them after our stay. Outside there was early snow and Halloween decorations. Inside we worked 16-hour days on our first AI agent for handling inbound calls (the first AI inbound call center agent on the market). It was a simple build, connected to a leading EHR, and it was ready for the clinic’s physicians to review.

First Test and Feedback

The physicians’ first call ended with: “This is unacceptable. There’s no way we can let this interact with our patients in its current state.”

The feedback was clear and direct. One important suggestion was to let patients choose appointment times before collecting demographic information. This change is still part of our process today.

Fixing and Testing Again

We addressed all of the feedback, scheduled early morning test sessions with the clinic and our EHR partner, and implemented the changes. When the second test came, we discovered we had accidentally deployed an outdated version missing many of the fixes. The physicians were disappointed. We did not make excuses and asked for one more chance.

For the final test, we updated everything again and checked each detail carefully. The improvements were noticed. On November 13, 2023; we received approval to go live with new patients. Our resolution rate on the first day was 55.56%.

What Day 1 Looks Like Today

Day 1 does not always look like working from an Airbnb before a launch. More often, it means seeing a problem and moving quickly to solve it.

Someone may take on a difficult customer situation instead of avoiding it. They may ship a first version, get feedback, and make it better. They may find a problem outside their immediate area and help fix it because it is slowing down the team. Each of these is a real example of an Assortie being recognized for living our company values.

The common thread is ownership. We do not expect people to have every answer on the first try. We expect them to care about the outcome, respond directly when something is not working, and keep improving.

That is the part of our first Chicago launch we want to preserve. Always Day 1.