Podcasts

Nir Eyal

Guest: Nir Eyal - Author of "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products" and "Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life". Nir is a renowned expert in the intersection of psychology, technology, and business, with his books selling over 1 million copies in over 30 languages. Key Takeaways: Distraction is primarily an emotional regulation problem, not just a technological one. Identify and address the internal triggers that lead to distraction. Implement the 10-minute rule: when tempted to get distracted, set a timer for 10 minutes and either return to the task or surf the urge. Create a time-boxed schedule to turn your values into time, ensuring you allocate specific periods for tasks, including leisure. Use pacts to prevent distraction: effort pacts (like using apps such as Forest), price pacts (financial commitments), and identity pacts (adopting an indistractable identity). In the workplace, foster psychological safety, provide forums for discussing distraction, and ensure management exemplifies indistractable behavior. Topics Covered: Distraction vs. traction, Internal triggers, Time-boxing, External triggers, Effort pacts, Workplace productivity, Psychological safety, Technology addiction myths, Building habit-forming products.

Sarah Tavel

Guest: Sarah Tavel - Partner at Benchmark. Sarah is a seasoned venture capitalist with a strong background in product management, having been the first product manager at Pinterest. She is known for her strategic insights into consumer and marketplace startups. Key Takeaways: Hierarchy of Engagement: Focus on identifying and optimizing the core action that defines an active user in your product. This is crucial for understanding user engagement and retention. Retention Strategy: Ensure your product gets better the more it is used, creating a mounting loss for users if they leave. This is key to building a retentive product. Self-Perpetuating Growth: Develop mechanisms within your product that allow it to grow organically, such as network effects and viral loops, to reduce reliance on paid acquisition. Hierarchy of Marketplaces: Start with a focused, constrained market to achieve product-market fit before expanding. This approach increases the likelihood of tipping and dominating a market. Market Dynamics: Look for markets with currents—dynamics of change that can pull your company forward, rather than just large market sizes. Topics Covered: Hierarchy of Engagement, Core User Action, Retention Strategies, Self-Perpetuating Growth, Hierarchy of Marketplaces, Market Dynamics, Product-Market Fit, Tipping Markets, Dominating Markets, Consumer and Marketplace Startups.

Christian Idiodi

Guest: Christian Idiodi - Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG). Christian is renowned for his expertise in product management, working closely with companies to enhance their product management practices, and is highly regarded by industry leaders like Marty Cagan. Key Takeaways: Essence of Product Management: The core of the role is solving problems for others effectively enough that they reciprocate with engagement, loyalty, or revenue. Building Trust: Accelerate trust by learning from influential people within your organization, extending their trust to you, and building relationships. Discovery Technique: Focus on creating reference customers who love your product and will advocate for it. Aim for 6-8 in B2B and 15-25 in B2C to ensure product-market fit. Coaching and Leadership: Effective coaching involves creating safe environments for practice and learning. Leaders should focus on developing their team's skills before promoting them. Opportunities in Africa: There is immense potential in Africa for leveraging technology to solve basic problems, with a focus on empowering local talent and fostering a product-centric mindset. Topics Covered: Product management essence, building trust, discovery techniques, coaching and leadership, product management in Africa, reference customers, product-market fit, collaborative problem solving.

Matthew Dicks

Guest: Matthew Dicks - Author and Storytelling Expert. Matthew is a 59-time Moth Story Slam winner and a nine-time Grand Slam champion, known for his book "Storyworthy" and teaching storytelling at companies like Slack and Amazon. Key Takeaways: Five-Second Moment: Every good story centers around a moment of transformation or realization, often just a few seconds long, that defines the narrative. Storytelling in Business: Stories help you stand out and be memorable in business settings. Without storytelling, you risk being forgettable. Homework for Life: A daily practice of noting down story-worthy moments to develop a storytelling lens and capture life’s meaningful events. Stakes and Surprise: Effective stories include stakes to keep the audience engaged and use surprise to deliver impactful moments. Personal Connection: Incorporate personal elements into business narratives to create relatability and connection with the audience. Topics Covered: Storytelling in business, Five-second moment, Homework for Life, Stakes in storytelling, Personal connection in narratives, Public speaking nerves, Power of saying yes.

Failure

Guest: Compilation Episode - Various Guests. This episode features insights from multiple experienced product leaders, including Katie Dill, Paul Adams, Tom Conrad, Sri Batchu, JZ (Jiaona Zhang), Gina Gotthilf, and Maggie Crowley, sharing their personal stories and lessons learned from failures in their careers. Key Takeaways: Trust and Leadership: Katie Dill emphasizes the importance of earning team trust and listening before implementing changes, as demonstrated by her experience at Airbnb. Embrace Failure: Paul Adams highlights the value of failing as a learning tool and encourages a culture of experimentation and adaptation. Understanding Core Issues: Tom Conrad discusses the criticality of addressing the fundamental business model and market timing, as seen in his experiences with Pets.com and Quibi. Conclusive Testing: Sri Batchu advises designing experiments to fail conclusively to ensure meaningful learning and avoid repeated mistakes. Avoiding Solution Fixation: JZ shares the pitfalls of being solution-focused rather than problem-focused, as illustrated by the Airbnb Plus initiative. Resilience and Perspective: Gina Gotthilf talks about the importance of recognizing and learning from the 'B side' of one's career, which includes failures and setbacks. Experience with Mistakes: Maggie Crowley suggests that having shipped a poor product is a sign of experience and growth in a product manager's career. Topics Covered: Trust-building, Embracing failure, Experimentation, Business model validation, Problem vs. solution focus, Career resilience, Product management mistakes.

Anuj Rathi

Guest: Anuj Rathi - Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Jupiter Money. Anuj has extensive experience in product management, having held senior roles at Swiggy, Flipkart, and Snapdeal, and is highly regarded in the Indian product management community. Key Takeaways: Full-Stack PM Approach: Product managers should own outcomes, not just features, by thinking holistically about marketing, user experience, and business impact. Working Backwards Process: Implement this by writing three divergent PR FAQs to explore different strategic directions before committing to one. User Experience for New Users: Focus on the next wave of users by simplifying the value proposition and maintaining consistency from marketing to onboarding. Four BB Framework for Strategy: Allocate focus across Brilliant Basics (tech debt), Bread and Butter (product optimization), Big Bets (innovative projects), and Breaking Bad (transformational initiatives). Marketplace Dynamics: In marketplaces, ensure stability across all sides before prioritizing customer segments, and recognize that traditional OKRs may not work due to interdependencies. Topics Covered: Product management in India, user experience, working backwards process, full-stack PM, product strategy frameworks, marketplace dynamics, AI integration, contrarian views in product management.

Ebi Atawodi

Guest: Ebi Atawodi - Director of Product Management at YouTube, overseeing the creator experience. Ebi has previously held significant roles at Netflix and Uber, where she developed a reputation for her tactical approach to product vision and management. Key Takeaways: Vision Crafting: A compelling product vision should be lofty yet attainable, grounded in a clear problem, and devoid of current technical limitations. Use storytelling frameworks like "Once upon a time" to articulate this vision. Vision Communication: Employ various methods to communicate your vision, such as writing a future press release or creating visual mockups. This helps in aligning teams and stakeholders. Empathize with Users: Continuously update a living document of the top problems users face. This helps in maintaining a clear understanding of user needs and informs the vision. Product Management Craft: Focus on clarity and conviction. Clarity involves defining problems and strategies clearly, while conviction is about having a strong belief in the chosen path. Team Culture: Foster a culture of vulnerability and strong interpersonal relationships within teams. This enhances collaboration and effectiveness. Topics Covered: Product vision frameworks, storytelling in product management, user empathy, product management craft, team culture, YouTube product updates.

Inbal S

Guest: Inbal Shani - Chief Product Officer at GitHub. Inbal has a rich background in technology and leadership, having previously served as a general manager at AWS and Microsoft, and as a senior software developer for Amazon Robotics. Key Takeaways: AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement: AI tools like Copilot are designed to assist, not replace, developers. They allow developers to focus more on understanding systems and architecture rather than just coding. Junior Developers' Advantage: AI tools can help junior developers spend more time understanding systems and products from the start, rather than just learning to code. Importance of AI-Driven Testing: As AI increases code production, AI-driven testing becomes crucial for maintaining quality and security across various testing types. Metrics for Success: GitHub measures Copilot's success through a combination of productivity, code quality, and developer happiness, rather than just time savings. Innovation and Experimentation: Encouraging a culture of experimentation and learning from failures is key to driving innovation and finding the next big product like Copilot. Topics Covered: AI in software development, Copilot's impact, AI-driven testing, developer productivity, innovation in tech companies, future of software engineering.

Tom Conrad

Guest: Tom Conrad - CEO of Zero Longevity Science. Tom has an extensive background in product management and engineering, having served as CTO of Pandora, VP of Product at Snap, and Chief Product Officer at Quibi. He played key roles in both successful and infamous product ventures, including Pandora and Quibi. Key Takeaways: Founder's Myth: Not everyone needs to be a founder. Many talented individuals could make a more significant impact by joining existing teams and solving problems collaboratively. Business Model Insight: Understand the "math formula" of your business. A broken foundational equation can't be fixed by product iterations alone, as seen in Quibi's failure. Customer Engagement: At Pandora, direct and genuine customer interaction (e.g., everyone responding to support emails) was crucial in building a loyal user base without paid acquisition. Iterative Success: Successful products often require iterative refinement and a deep understanding of user needs, as demonstrated by Pandora's growth strategy. Burnout Prevention: Align your work with your passions and focus on building meaningful relationships. Balance work with personal life to sustain long-term career satisfaction. Topics Covered: Product failures and successes, the importance of understanding business models, lessons from Quibi and Pandora, career advice for product managers, maintaining mental health and avoiding burnout, the role of a CEO.

Paul Millerd

Guest: Paul Millerd - Author of "The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story for Work and Life." Paul is recognized for his influential work on redefining traditional career paths, especially within the tech community, and has sold over 40,000 copies of his self-published book. Key Takeaways: Sabbatical Exploration: Consider taking a three-month sabbatical to disconnect and explore new interests. This time can help you reconnect with yourself and discover what truly energizes you. Mindful Experimentation: Engage in activities from your past or new interests during work hours to assess your feelings about work and life. This can reveal hidden passions and redefine your relationship with work. Pathless Path Concept: Shift from a default career path to a "pathless path," where you embrace uncertainty and focus on work that brings you joy and fulfillment. Financial Strategy: Lower your cost of living or create a financial runway to support exploration. Consider turning your current job into a contract role to gain flexibility. Community and Connection: Engage with others on similar unconventional paths to gain insights and support. This can help normalize your journey and provide valuable guidance. Topics Covered: Default path, pathless path, sabbatical benefits, financial strategies for exploration, community engagement, redefining work and success.

Melissa Perri + Denise Tilles

Guests: Melissa Perri - Founder of Produx Labs and author of Escaping the Build Trap. Melissa is a renowned figure in product management, teaching at Harvard and consulting with numerous companies. Denise Tilles - Product leader, coach, and consultant at Produx Labs. Denise helps companies with product vision and strategy. Key Takeaways: Role of Product Ops: Product operations (product ops) is crucial for allowing product managers to focus on strategic work by handling data insights, customer insights, and process optimization. Emergence and Popularity: The role has rapidly grown in tech companies, with about half of scaling tech companies having at least one product ops person. Three Pillars of Product Ops: Business and data insights, customer and market insights, and process and practices. Each pillar addresses different needs within a company. Starting Product Ops: Begin with one person focusing on the most pressing need among the three pillars. Hiring someone with experience in product ops or related fields can accelerate implementation. Impact on Product Management: Product ops frees product managers from operational tasks, allowing them to concentrate on decision-making, strategy, and stakeholder management. Topics Covered: Product operations role, benefits of product ops, starting a product ops function, differences between product ops and project management, case study of product ops implementation.

Brian Chesky

Guest: Brian Chesky - CEO and co-founder of Airbnb. Brian started Airbnb in his apartment with co-founders Joe and Nate, transforming it into an $80 billion global business with a presence in 220 countries. Key Takeaways: Leadership in Details: Brian emphasizes the importance of leaders being deeply involved in the details of their company, distinguishing between micromanagement and being informed to ensure quality and alignment. Unified Roadmap: Airbnb operates with a single, rolling two-year roadmap updated every six months, ensuring all teams row in the same direction and focus on cohesive product development. Product and Marketing Integration: Airbnb has merged product management with product marketing, ensuring that those who build the product also understand and communicate its market value effectively. Functional Over Divisional Structure: The company shifted from a divisional to a functional model, reducing bureaucracy and enhancing collaboration across design, engineering, and marketing. Focus on Reliability: The introduction of "Guest Favorites" aims to combine Airbnb's unique offerings with hotel-like reliability, addressing a key consumer concern. Topics Covered: Leadership and management, product development, company structure, marketing integration, Airbnb's product strategy, personal growth and balance, innovation in design.