Podcasts

Nancy Duarte

Guest: Nancy Duarte - CEO of Duarte Incorporated. Nancy is a bestselling author and speaker who has helped create over 250,000 presentations for influential leaders and brands, including Apple, TED, and Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth." Key Takeaways: Audience as Hero: Always position your audience as the hero of your story. Empathy is crucial; understand their needs and how your message can help them. Story Structure: Use a "what is, what could be, new bliss" framework to create contrast and engage your audience. This structure builds tension and resolves it, making your message memorable. Visual Clarity: Ensure your audience can "see" what you're saying. Use visuals effectively to support your narrative and make complex ideas more digestible. Preparation and Nerves: Prepare thoroughly by understanding your content deeply. Use techniques like breathing exercises or watching funny videos to manage nerves before presenting. Remote Presentations: Maintain eye contact by looking at the camera, and be mindful of your presence and energy even when presenting virtually. Topics Covered: Importance of empathy in presentations, storytelling frameworks, visual communication, managing presentation nerves, remote presentation tips, product management storytelling examples.

Andy Raskin

Guest: Andy Raskin - Strategic Narrative Consultant. Andy helps CEOs and company leaders align their teams around a strategic narrative, having worked with top companies like Gong, Dropbox, Uber, Salesforce, and Square. Key Takeaways: Traditional pitching, often termed the "arrogant doctor" approach, focuses on problem-solution dynamics, which is less effective than framing a strategic narrative. A strategic narrative begins with identifying a shift from an "old game" to a "new game," exemplified by Salesforce's move from software to cloud solutions. Key components of a strategic narrative include naming the shift, defining the stakes, identifying the object of the new game, outlining obstacles, and presenting solutions. Successful strategic narratives align sales, marketing, and product teams, serving as a strategic north star for company direction and decision-making. Testing the narrative in real-world sales scenarios helps refine and validate its effectiveness. Topics Covered: Strategic narrative framework, storytelling in business, Salesforce and Zuora case studies, category creation vs. strategic narrative, impact on product and sales alignment, testing and refining narratives.

Gustav Söderström

Guest: Gustav Söderström - Co-President, Chief Product and Chief Technology Officer at Spotify. Gustav is a product legend responsible for Spotify's global product and technology strategy, overseeing product design, data, and engineering teams. Key Takeaways: Transition from Curation to Generation: The internet has evolved from user curation to algorithmic recommendation, and now to content generation. This shift requires rethinking user interfaces and experiences. AI DJ as a Generative Product: Spotify's AI DJ is an example of a product that couldn't exist without generative AI, providing personalized voice recommendations at scale. Fault-Tolerant Interfaces: Design interfaces that match the performance of your algorithms, allowing for user escape hatches if predictions are wrong. Organizational Autonomy: Spotify has moved away from squads to larger, more traditional teams, placing autonomy at the VP level to balance innovation and strategic alignment. Handling Big Bets and Feedback: When redesigning products, distinguish between user discomfort due to change and genuine issues with the product. Use data and user feedback to iterate and improve. Topics Covered: AI in product strategy, Spotify's organizational evolution, AI DJ and generative AI, product redesign challenges, balancing autonomy and strategy in teams.

Scott Belsky

Guest: Scott Belsky - Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President of Design and Emerging Products at Adobe. Scott is a former founder of Behance, an author of "The Messy Middle," and an angel investor in companies like Pinterest, Uber, and Airtable. Key Takeaways: Develop Empathy: Focus on understanding the customer's problem deeply rather than being passionate about a specific solution. First Mile Experience: Prioritize the onboarding experience to ensure users quickly see value, as this is crucial for retention and growth. Do Half: Implement half the features you initially plan, focusing on the core problem to avoid unnecessary complexity. AI's Impact: AI will empower individuals to explore more possibilities and collapse organizational silos, making teams more efficient and creative. Conviction in Entrepreneurship: Continuously assess your conviction in your solution. If conviction wanes, consider pivoting or quitting. Topics Covered: Product sense development, first mile experience, AI's role in product management, decision-making in entrepreneurship, consumer product success factors, resourcefulness in product development.

Ayo Omojola

Guest: Ayo Omojola - Chief Product Officer at Carbon Health. Ayo co-created and scaled Square's Cash Card and Cash App, and is an experienced product leader with a background in fintech and health tech. Key Takeaways: Product Differentiation: Successful products are not only different but also better in ways that matter to users. Cash App's focus on instant transactions was a key differentiator that set it apart from competitors like Venmo. Small, Senior Teams: Building a successful "startup within a startup" requires a small, tightly-knit team of experienced individuals who are trusted to operate independently. Deep Understanding: In complex and regulated industries, going deep into the details and understanding the end-to-end process is crucial for success. Hiring Founders: Hiring former founders can bring high output and innovation, but also comes with challenges like higher attrition and a tendency to challenge inefficiencies. Network Leverage in Healthcare: Success in health tech often depends on leveraging networks to navigate complex systems and reach decision-makers. Topics Covered: Product differentiation, startup within a startup, fintech vs. health tech, hiring strategies, deep problem understanding, healthcare industry challenges.

Jonathan Becker

Guest: Jonathan Becker - Co-founder of Thrive Digital. Jonathan is a seasoned expert in performance marketing, having managed over $3.5 billion in paid acquisition budgets for major companies like Uber, Asana, and Square. Key Takeaways: Diversification in Marketing: Avoid over-reliance on a single marketing channel. Diversifying across multiple channels, including offline marketing, reduces volatility and risk. Creative Testing: Rigorous creative testing is crucial. Use structured testing within ad platforms like Meta to iterate and refine ad assets, focusing on different stages of the funnel. Attribution Models: Attribution remains subjective and complex. Employ multiple validation methods, including media mix modeling and customer surveys, to better understand the impact of marketing efforts. AI Integration: AI is transforming performance marketing by automating routine tasks and enhancing strategic focus. Tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E are used to generate creative assets and streamline processes. Hiring for Growth: Look for candidates with technical backgrounds and experience in managing ad channels. A strong aptitude for problem-solving and strategic thinking is essential. Topics Covered: Performance marketing strategies, creative testing, attribution challenges, AI in marketing, hiring for growth marketing, TikTok and emerging ad platforms, Snap and Uber client stories.

David Placek

Guest: David Placek - Founder of Lexicon Branding. David is a pioneer in the field of brand naming, having created iconic names like Powerbook, Pentium, Blackberry, and Swiffer. Key Takeaways: Distinctiveness Over Descriptiveness: A great name should stand out and create a unique experience, not just describe the product. This distinctiveness can provide a cumulative and asymmetric advantage in the market. Polarization Indicates Strength: If a name creates debate and polarization within a team, it often signals a strong and memorable choice. Creative Process: Use small, diverse teams to generate a wide range of ideas. Encourage creativity by assigning different contexts to the teams, which often leads to more innovative names. Linguistic Considerations: Each letter has a unique vibrance and experience it evokes. Understanding this can enhance the emotional impact of a name. Implementation and Storytelling: Support the chosen name with a strong narrative and visual prototypes to help stakeholders see its potential in the marketplace. Topics Covered: Importance of a great name, creative process for naming, role of linguistics in naming, challenges with AI product naming, tips for startups on naming.

Carilu Dietrich

Guest: Carilu Dietrich - Former CMO and advisor to hypergrowth B2B companies. Carilu has advised CEOs and CMOs of companies like Segment, Miro, 1Password, and was head of marketing at Atlassian through their IPO. Key Takeaways: Hypergrowth Essentials: Achieving hypergrowth requires an amazing product that people love, organic and viral word of mouth, and hiring leaders who have experienced the next stage of growth. Product-Led Growth: Atlassian's success was driven by focusing on product excellence and minimizing sales spend, allowing the product to sell itself. Strategic Bundling: Bundling is effective for sales-led growth but can slow down product-led growth. Focus on single-product lands for faster conversions. Cross-Company Strategy: Big growth levers like moving upmarket or entering new segments require a company-wide strategy, not just departmental efforts. Building Trust: CMOs need to focus on revenue, understand metrics, and align with CEO and board expectations to build trust and avoid being replaced. Topics Covered: Hypergrowth strategies, product-led growth, sales strategy, bundling, building trust as a CMO, career advice, meditation tips.

Elena Verna

Guest: Elena Verna - Growth Advisor and Instructor at Reforge. Elena has extensive experience in growth and product-led strategies, having worked with companies like Miro, Amplitude, and SurveyMonkey, and is a leading voice in the product-led growth (PLG) community. Key Takeaways: Product-led sales (PLS) bridges the gap between product-led growth (PLG) and sales-led growth by converting product usage into sales opportunities, especially for enterprise-level solutions. A successful PLS motion requires a shift in internal collaboration, with product teams taking accountability for creating a sales pipeline through product-qualified accounts (PQA). Start small by using existing tools and manual processes to identify PQAs before scaling with automation and specialized tools. Common pitfalls include treating PLS like traditional sales, failing to involve marketing, and not holding product teams accountable for monetization. Key metrics for PLS include the number of users, usage volume, and velocity of usage changes, with a focus on creating network effects within companies. Topics Covered: Product-led sales vs. product-led growth, identifying product-qualified accounts, internal collaboration between product and sales, data and tooling for PLS, common pitfalls in PLS implementation.

Ada Chen Rekhi

Guest: Ada Chen Rekhi - Executive Coach and Co-founder of Notejoy. Ada has held roles such as SVP of Marketing at SurveyMonkey and led LinkedIn's marketing efforts, bringing a wealth of experience in growth and product management. Key Takeaways: Curiosity Loops: Use this structured approach to gather contextual advice by asking specific questions to a curated group of people. This helps in making informed decisions by understanding different perspectives. Explore and Exploit Framework: In early career stages, focus on exploring various roles and industries to understand what you enjoy before settling into a specialization. Values Alignment: Regularly assess your personal values against your career path to ensure long-term satisfaction and avoid the trap of optimizing solely for external achievements. Coaching Considerations: Not everyone needs a coach. Evaluate if a coach is the best resource for your specific goals or if other methods like courses or mentorship could be more beneficial. Constructive Conflict in Partnerships: When working with close partners, especially in startups, focus on attacking problems, not each other, to maintain a healthy working relationship. Topics Covered: Curiosity loops, early career advice, values alignment, executive coaching, working with a partner, women in leadership.

Varun Parmar

Guest: Varun Parmar - Chief Product Officer at Miro. Varun has an extensive background in product management, having previously served as CPO at Box, and brings deep insights into building and scaling product teams in competitive markets. Key Takeaways: Continuous Improvement Framework: Every product release either improves or worsens the product. This mindset helps maintain focus on delivering customer value and staying competitive. Empathy and Teamwork: Miro emphasizes empathy both internally and externally, ensuring that cross-functional teams work collaboratively and understand diverse perspectives. Product Development Process: Miro employs a hybrid structure with a focus on personas, using a rolling six-month roadmap with specific commitment levels to balance agility and strategic planning. Unique Cultural Practices: Miro's AMPED structure integrates analytics, marketing, product, engineering, and design, fostering a holistic approach to product development and accountability. Rapid Learning and Iteration: The company prioritizes speed to learn quickly from failures, advocating for being the first to hit the "brick wall" to gain insights faster than competitors. Topics Covered: Product development process, competitive strategy, team structure, empathy in product management, product marketing integration, growth strategies, balancing innovation and maintenance, cultural practices in product teams.

Casey Winters

Guest: Casey Winters - Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite. Casey has extensive experience advising and working with top consumer companies on product and growth strategies, including Pinterest, Airbnb, and GrubHub. Key Takeaways: Communication is Key: Effective upward communication involves starting with the company strategy and assumptions before diving into specifics. Role-playing and pre-meetings can help prepare for executive questions. Balancing Simplicity and Complexity: Eventbrite aims for "perceived simplicity," where advanced features are discoverable but don't complicate the user experience for those who don't need them. Justifying Non-Sexy Investments: Align with peer leaders to prioritize essential but less glamorous projects like performance and stability improvements. Demonstrating potential future risks can help justify these investments. Product Management Spectrum: PMs range from idea generators to execution-focused individuals. Moving towards the middle, where strategy meets execution, is crucial for career advancement. Growth Strategies: Early-stage companies should focus on "kindle strategies" to unlock scalable "fire strategies." Consider product-led sales for B2B growth and build growth loops into the product early. Topics Covered: Product management communication, balancing product complexity, justifying infrastructure investments, product management spectrum, growth strategies, product-led sales, data network effects.