As former Chief Product Officer at Whoop, Ben Foster had a front-row seat to one of the boldest product decisions in wearables: selling hardware as a subscription. In this encore episode, Ashok and Ben explore what it takes to align hardware, firmware, and software teams to create a seamless membership experience—and how that strategy set the stage for Whoop’s continued success, including the recent release of the Whoop 5.

The Convergence.fm podcast team is taking a break in the month of August, but we’ll be back with new episodes in the fall. Until then, Ashok wants to share one of his favorite episodes, starring Ben Foster of Prodigy, who opens up about building hardware-enabled subscription products and crossing the product-market chasm. We’ll be back in September with a new set of episodes on fostering engaged teams who ship delightful products. Thanks for watching and listening. 

This Episode originally aired May 21st, 2024

You’ll hear how Whoop adapted to serve both elite athletes and everyday health-minded users, how Ben’s frameworks helped prioritize roadmaps under pressure, and how the team leveraged personas and retention metrics to shape the product strategy. If you’re navigating the shift from services to scalable product thinking—or just love geeking out on wearable tech—this one’s for you.

Unlock the full potential of your product team with Integral’s player coaches, experts in lean, human-centered design. Visit integral.io/convergence for a free Product Success Lab workshop to gain clarity and confidence in tackling any product design or engineering challenge.

Inside the episode…

• Why Whoop bet on a subscription-only hardware model—and how it paid off

• Navigating product strategy across hardware, firmware, and software

• What it really means to build for product-market fit

• A breakdown of Whoop’s layered user personas

• How to cross the chasm without losing your early adopters

• The importance of clarity, vision, and playing offense as a product team

• Lessons on persona development and roadmap prioritization

• What product leaders get wrong about saying “no”

• Behind the book: Build What Matters and the frameworks inside

Mentioned in this episode

• Whoop

• Prodigy Group

• Build What Matters (book)

• Integral Product Success Lab

• Microsoft Spot

Subscribe to the Convergence podcast wherever you get podcasts including video episodes on YouTube at youtube.com/@convergencefmpodcast

Learn something? Give us a 5 star review and like the podcast on YouTube. It’s how we grow.