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#008 w/ Carlos González de Villaumbrosia: Why Killing Features is Harder Than Launching Them
Carlos is CEO & Founder at Product School.
Product school is the world's largest product management training provider. Carlos is also the author of the Amazon bestseller "The Product Book" and the organizer behind #ProductCon, the worlds largest Product Conference.
In our most recent episode we had a conversation with Carlos González de Villaumbrosia, CEO & Founder of Product School.
Carlos shared a story, where he had to shut down profitable physical locations of product school for strategic purposes, even though they worked & were profitable.
The Challenge of Emotional Attachment
Product School started out with physical campuses. At one point they operated more than 16 campuses! These were also profitable and served students well. Students showed up to their classes.
At one point, Carlos and his team started an experiment: online classes. This was way before COVID and it wasn’t that obvious that students would enjoy taking virtual classes. It was initially started to also serve students that do not live close to any physical location. Soon the Product School team noticed though that also students that lived close to physical campuses preferred to take their classes online. As the online campus started growing faster, a hard decision emerged. Keep the physical locations or go all-in on online learning?
The team ultimately decided to close all physical locations and focus purely on their online product. This was more scalable and also aligned with a bigger vision.
In the podcast Carlos talked about that this was not an easy decision emotionally. All locations were profitable. The team had successful operations built up around them and many people cared about the locations.
Killing something is just so hard in product. Especially when it’s working.
This reminded me of a couple of situations also I found myself in some times.
Why Do Teams Resist Sunsetting?
As PMs we often try to act as rationally and data-driven as possible. This means sunsetting features, when we see they don’t work.
This is, however, often not that easy. Products aren’t just code. They’re the result of collaboration across teams. This emotional investment makes it hard to let go. Especially engineers have spent weeks or months on solving hard problems and writing code that creates value.
A Framework for Letting Go
Letting go is important though. As a PM you need to prepare your team mates for situations in which your team needs to delete code and takes things offline again. Here’s a couple of thoughts, that will make communicating the decision to your team much easier:
* Anchor Decisions in Strategy: When Carlos moved Product School online, it wasn’t just about cost or convenience. It was about a clear, scalable vision for the future. Make sure to clearly communicate why stopping or sunsetting a feature has strategic value.
* Show Data: While emotions run high, use data to tell the story. For Product School, data showed online satisfaction levels were as high as, if not higher than, in-person. For features with low adoption you can show two things: Its low adoption + the cost it incurrs.
* Have a Transition Plan: Killing features isn’t a one-day task. Carlos shared how the process took six months, with incremental closures starting with smaller locations. Sunsetting features requires proper project management. Make sure to collaborate cross-functionally to make users aware of the transition plan.
What Else We Talked About
Beyond the failure the podcast with Carlos also covers:
Bootstrapping vs. Taking InvestmentsFor seven years, Product School was bootstrapped, allowing Carlos to focus on building the right product without external pressures. However, scaling the business eventually required raising investment to grow faster. He reflected on the trade-offs between staying lean and bringing in funding to accelerate operations.
Keeping Up With Industry Trends Is a Constant ChallengeProduct management is evolving rapidly, with new technologies like AI reshaping the role. Carlos discussed how Product School constantly updates its curriculum to reflect the latest industry trends. Staying relevant requires continuous learning and adapting to change.
Revenue Accountability Is the Future for PMsModern product teams can no longer focus only on user experience. They need to demonstrate business growth. Carlos argued that product managers who understand and influence revenue will have the strongest career opportunities in the future. Aligning product efforts with financial goals is becoming a necessity.
Links
Link to Podcast Episode
* 📹 YouTube
* 🔊 Spotify
* 🔊 Apple Music
In case you want to reach out, please do so on LinkedIn:
* ❤️🩹 Follow Hotfix: https://pal.bio/the-hotfix-podcast
* 🎙️ Follow Christoph: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophbodenstein/
* 🎙️ Follow Stefan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefan-pernek-629901107/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thehotfixpodcast.substack.com
View all episodes
By The Hotfix PodcastCarlos is CEO & Founder at Product School.
Product school is the world's largest product management training provider. Carlos is also the author of the Amazon bestseller "The Product Book" and the organizer behind #ProductCon, the worlds largest Product Conference.
In our most recent episode we had a conversation with Carlos González de Villaumbrosia, CEO & Founder of Product School.
Carlos shared a story, where he had to shut down profitable physical locations of product school for strategic purposes, even though they worked & were profitable.
The Challenge of Emotional Attachment
Product School started out with physical campuses. At one point they operated more than 16 campuses! These were also profitable and served students well. Students showed up to their classes.
At one point, Carlos and his team started an experiment: online classes. This was way before COVID and it wasn’t that obvious that students would enjoy taking virtual classes. It was initially started to also serve students that do not live close to any physical location. Soon the Product School team noticed though that also students that lived close to physical campuses preferred to take their classes online. As the online campus started growing faster, a hard decision emerged. Keep the physical locations or go all-in on online learning?
The team ultimately decided to close all physical locations and focus purely on their online product. This was more scalable and also aligned with a bigger vision.
In the podcast Carlos talked about that this was not an easy decision emotionally. All locations were profitable. The team had successful operations built up around them and many people cared about the locations.
Killing something is just so hard in product. Especially when it’s working.
This reminded me of a couple of situations also I found myself in some times.
Why Do Teams Resist Sunsetting?
As PMs we often try to act as rationally and data-driven as possible. This means sunsetting features, when we see they don’t work.
This is, however, often not that easy. Products aren’t just code. They’re the result of collaboration across teams. This emotional investment makes it hard to let go. Especially engineers have spent weeks or months on solving hard problems and writing code that creates value.
A Framework for Letting Go
Letting go is important though. As a PM you need to prepare your team mates for situations in which your team needs to delete code and takes things offline again. Here’s a couple of thoughts, that will make communicating the decision to your team much easier:
* Anchor Decisions in Strategy: When Carlos moved Product School online, it wasn’t just about cost or convenience. It was about a clear, scalable vision for the future. Make sure to clearly communicate why stopping or sunsetting a feature has strategic value.
* Show Data: While emotions run high, use data to tell the story. For Product School, data showed online satisfaction levels were as high as, if not higher than, in-person. For features with low adoption you can show two things: Its low adoption + the cost it incurrs.
* Have a Transition Plan: Killing features isn’t a one-day task. Carlos shared how the process took six months, with incremental closures starting with smaller locations. Sunsetting features requires proper project management. Make sure to collaborate cross-functionally to make users aware of the transition plan.
What Else We Talked About
Beyond the failure the podcast with Carlos also covers:
Bootstrapping vs. Taking InvestmentsFor seven years, Product School was bootstrapped, allowing Carlos to focus on building the right product without external pressures. However, scaling the business eventually required raising investment to grow faster. He reflected on the trade-offs between staying lean and bringing in funding to accelerate operations.
Keeping Up With Industry Trends Is a Constant ChallengeProduct management is evolving rapidly, with new technologies like AI reshaping the role. Carlos discussed how Product School constantly updates its curriculum to reflect the latest industry trends. Staying relevant requires continuous learning and adapting to change.
Revenue Accountability Is the Future for PMsModern product teams can no longer focus only on user experience. They need to demonstrate business growth. Carlos argued that product managers who understand and influence revenue will have the strongest career opportunities in the future. Aligning product efforts with financial goals is becoming a necessity.
Links
Link to Podcast Episode
* 📹 YouTube
* 🔊 Spotify
* 🔊 Apple Music
In case you want to reach out, please do so on LinkedIn:
* ❤️🩹 Follow Hotfix: https://pal.bio/the-hotfix-podcast
* 🎙️ Follow Christoph: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophbodenstein/
* 🎙️ Follow Stefan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefan-pernek-629901107/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thehotfixpodcast.substack.com