Oji Udezue was most recently Chief Product Officer at Typeform, where he led product strategy across the company’s growing suite of tools. Previously, he was CPO at Calendly, where he helped scale one of the most beloved PLG tools in the market. Before that, he was Head of Product for Creation and Conversation at Twitter, leading core features like Tweets, DMs, and Spaces. At Atlassian, he led all communication products, including the launch of Atlassian’s first post-IPO product.

Oji also spent years at Microsoft, building foundational experiences across Windows, Outlook, Hotmail, and Internet Explorer.

In addition to his product leadership, Oji is the founder of Kernel Fund, an early-stage fund supporting startups across Africa. He writes about product, growth, and leadership at his newsletter Product Mind and is the author of the upcoming book Building Rocketships—a guide for high-growth product teams.

Discussed in this Episode:

• When to hire your first PM (and what to look for).
• Why great product teams include marketing from day one.
• A framework for picking winning startup ideas.
• How AI is changing how we build (not just what we build).
• What product leaders can learn from Microsoft’s Longhorn failure.
• Why 3x better isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s a must.
  
  

Highlights:

04:52 – Why marketing is essential to product leadership.

12:02 – How AI is transforming the process of building products.

17:07 – Common product mistakes founders make early on.

24:16 – Building Rocket Ships: Why Oji wrote the book.

31:08 – Framework: Where to fish for unicorns.

33:17 – The “3x better” rule for product value.

37:07 – The challenge of true product differentiation.

39:22 – What Microsoft’s Longhorn failure taught Oji.

44:51 – When (and how) to hire your first PM.

48:31 – The importance of fast, early customer feedback.

54:46 – How AI is changing go-to-market strategy.

57:32 – Why marketers must master signal in a noisy world.

Guest Speaker Links (Oji Udezue):

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ojiudezue/
• Kernel Fund: https://www.kernelfund.com/
• Product Mind: https://www.productmind.co/
• Building Rocketships (Book): https://a.co/d/0HGjf18
• SubStack: https://ojiudezue.substack.com/

Host Speaker Links (Sophie Buonassisi):

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/
• Newsletter: https://substack.com/@sophiebuonassisi

Where to find GTMnow (GTMfund’s media brand):

• Website: https://gtmnow.com/
• LinkedIn:

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.