Guest: Annie Pearl - Chief Product Officer at Calendly. Annie Pearl has a rich background in product management, having served as CPO at Glassdoor and Director of Product Management at Box. She is also a member of Skip, a community for chief product officers, and serves on the board of two companies. Key Takeaways: Product Strategy Clarity: Establish a clear product strategy by defining your target market, segments, and personas. This helps in prioritizing features and aligning the team towards a common goal. Transitioning to Sales-Led Growth: When moving from a product-led to a sales-led growth model, hire salespeople with experience in inbound sales and who understand your target buyer, which may initially be department heads rather than IT leaders. Cultural Shift for Focus: Emphasize focus within the organization by clearly defining target users and markets, which aids in making strategic decisions and saying no to non-aligned opportunities. Planning and Execution Framework: Use a phased approach to product development with stages like discovery, solutioning, build, and launch. Commit to timelines only for phases within your control to improve estimation accuracy. Leveraging Internal Resources: Use internal meetings like OPA (Opportunity/Problem Assessment) to foster collaboration and debate among PMs, enhancing decision-making and problem-solving. Topics Covered: Product strategy, transitioning to sales-led growth, cultural focus, planning and execution frameworks, internal collaboration tools, Calendly's growth story, hiring and team building.
“Strategy is really just an integrated set of choices that outline how you're going to win in whatever marketplace you choose.”
“I think the rawer the answer in terms of how bad it was and why, the better.”
“It's a lonely role a lot of times.”
