Lessons from Stripe on adding new products - Assessing ideas, structuring teams, and tactics for product reviews | Tara Seshan (Watershed, Stripe)

Tara Seshan is the Head of Product at Watershed, a climate platform that companies use to measure, report, and reduce their carbon emissions. Before joining Watershed, Tara was Head of Product at Stripe throughout the launch of Stripe Billing and Stripe Treasury. As a Thiel Fellow and experienced multi-product builder, Tara brings a wealth of experience with 0-1 SaaS products.

In today's episode, we discuss:

The different types of multi-product strategies.

Stories from Stripe’s multi-product success.

How to allocate resources across new and existing products.

How to structure teams for launching new products.

The best personas for building new products and the hiring tactics for finding those people.

Common challenges when going from single to multi-product.

How to assess and prioritize new product ideas.

How to measure success when launching new products.

The 12 questions Tara asks for better product reviews.

Tactics for collecting and interpreting user feedback.

Referenced:

First Round Capital's Newsletter: https://review.firstround.com/newsletter

The 'Wins Above Replacement' metaphor: https://en.as.com/mlb/wins-above-replacement-war-baseball-statistic-explained-n/

Zero to One by Peter Thiel & Blake Masters: https://www.amazon.com.au/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296

Companies Referenced:

Atlassian: https://www.atlassian.com/

Cash App: https://cash.app/

Figma: https://www.figma.com/

First Round Capital: https://firstround.com/

Lattice: https://lattice.com/

Notion: https://www.notion.so/

Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/

Stripe: https://stripe.com/

Watershed: https://watershed.com/

People Referenced:

Jack Dorsey: https://twitter.com/jack

Patrick Collison: https://twitter.com/patrickc

Shreyas Doshi: https://twitter.com/shreyas

Where to find Tara Seshan:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarstarr/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tarstarr

Where to find Brett Berson:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brettberson?lang=en

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/

In this episode, we cover:

(0:00) Intro

(3:55) How Stripe navigated the path from single to multi-product

(6:00) How to allocate resources across a primary product and secondary bets

(7:46) How to launch products using small teams

(12:25) What makes a great early-stage product thinker

(13:08) Key indicators for spotting early-stage product talent

(16:33) A common fail-case when hiring for potential over experience

(18:32) 5 interview questions to unearth hidden talent among product candidates

(20:35) What Stripe got wrong when it first launched Billing

(26:00) How Stripe adapted to new buyer profiles

(28:50) Why new product teams should be treated like a startup within a company

(30:35) The importance of “definite optimism”

(31:44) How Watershed prioritizes new products in an early market

(33:53) The methodical versus analytical approach to picking new products

(40:08) Setting goals and evaluating new product bets

(41:55) How Tara runs new-product reviews

(42:10) “The Enterprise Rent-A-Car Story” and why it matters

(43:56) The 12 questions Tara asks in product reviews

(46:17) How to use product review questions pre-meeting

(46:34) The rationale behind Tara’s 12 questions

(48:13) How Tara re-focusses the questions when building products for net-new-customers

(49:43) How to collect and leverage user feedback when building new products

(51:58) Why product development must start with problem validation

(53:52) Two people who had an outsized impact on how Tara thinks about product

(54:50) Outro