Product Happy Hour

🍻 Join us for happy hour in your sweatpants! In this episode, Era and Ajay are here to provide a non-filtered perspective on user testing. We provide a primer on user testing, along with 5 hot tips for PMs on how best to participate!

📣 Subscribe for the latest episode updates, and our new paid feature: Q&A! If you're a paid subscriber, you can ask us ANYTHING and we'll do our darndest to help out. Check out our post on Q&A for more.

🙏 If you haven't become a paid subscriber, now's the time to get the above! It’s either $5/month or $30/year, that’s one Starbucks latte a month or one Doordash order a year! Subscribe below to get your personalized help today:

🎥 Check out the video on YouTube:

✍🏾 Show Notes

00:00 Intro

01:24 Episode overview

01:46 What's That Drink?!

02:44 Drinking game: drink on the word "bias"

02:56 User testing definitions

06:08 What is NOT user testing

09:59 What does user testing do for you and your product?

17:13 Tools of the Trade

24:36 5 hot tips for Product Managers to participate in user testing

27:48 Cool Product Thing: Zero Fasting App Activity Tracker

31:10 Outro

📚 Resources referenced in this episode

Tools we love:

* Fullstory

* Hotjar

* UserTesting.com

Follow us for more, comment and let us know what else you'd like to learn or see:

* TikTok

* Instagram

* YouTube

You can also contact us here, leave us ideas, questions or feedback: [email protected]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.producthappyhour.com

🍻 Join us for happy hour in your sweatpants! In this episode, we reveal 7 time hacks for PMs! Era and Ajay are here to provide 7 non-filtered time hacks for PMs that are very busy folks. You'll learn about how to make space for critical tasks, how to eliminate unnecessary work without getting fired, and how to make it win-win.

📣 Subscribe for the latest episode updates, and our new paid features: Q&A and templates. If you're a paid subscriber, you can ask us ANYTHING and we'll do our darndest to help out. Check out our post on Q&A for more. Templates also help you execute on the most critical PM tasks.

🙏 If you haven't become a paid subscriber, now's the time to get the above! It’s either $5/month or $30/year, that’s one Starbucks latte a month or one Doordash order a year! Subscribe below to get your personalized help today:

🎥 Check out the video on YouTube:

✍🏾 Show Notes

00:00 Intro

03:34 CELEBRATING 10 EPISODES OMG 🎉 🍻

08:46 1. Block out focus time on your calendar

13:31 2. Find work to do during status meetings

17:50 3. Use already scheduled meetings

22:02 4. Determine your priorities, CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL

27:18 5. Delegate to your team

30:08 6. Use calendar as to-do list

36:43 7. Keep running decks

40:03 Cool Product Thing: Yelp's Quote Feature

43:36 Outro

📚 Resources referenced in this episode

There are a number of great resources out there for time management. The ones we mentioned:

* Deep Work by Cal Newport

* Indistractable by Nir Eyal

Follow us for more, comment and let us know what else you'd like to learn or see:

* TikTok

* Instagram

* YouTube

You can also contact us here, leave us ideas, questions or feedback: [email protected]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.producthappyhour.com

🍻 Join us for happy hour in your sweatpants! In this episode, we answer Russell's question, "What makes for a well written epic?"! Era and Ajay are here to provide a non-filtered primer on what an epic is, the components of a typical epic, and how to write a good one.

📣 Subscribe for the latest episode updates, and please consider a paid subscription to support the show 🙏 It’s either $5/month or $30/year, that’s one Starbucks latte a month or one Doordash order a year! It helps us keep the party going and keeps ads off the show:

We would love to hear what you think! Have any other EPIC writing ideas for Russell? Any ideas for great drinking games?! Let us know in the comments! 💬

🎥 Check out the video on YouTube:

✍🏾 Show Notes

4:35 What is an Epic

8:10 3 main parts of an Epic

10:40 A real Epic use case

12:55 Characteristics of a well written Epic

15:27 How to decide Epic scope

20:32 Cool Product Thing: iPhone Pro line evolution (14 Pro)

📚 Resources referenced in this episode

Where Epics fit in organizationally. We stole this graphic from a great Atlassian article

Follow us for more, comment and let us know what else you'd like to learn or see:

* TikTok

* Instagram

* YouTube

You can also contact us here, leave us ideas, questions or feedback: [email protected]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.producthappyhour.com

🍻 Join us for happy hour in your sweatpants! In this week’s episode, we provide some guidance on how to transition 🔁 into product management! Era and Ajay are here to provide non-filtered advice on questions you should ask yourself to assess if PM is right for you. Also covered is common paths to moving into PM and their own stories of how they made the switch.

If you're already a PM, congrats! 🎉 Please share with anyone looking to make the change!

📣 Subscribe for the latest episode updates, and please consider a paid subscription to support the show 🙏 It’s either $5/month or $30/year, that’s one Starbucks latte a month or one Doordash order a year! It helps us keep the party going and keeps ads off the show:

We would love to hear what you think! Have any other process ideas for Russell? Any ideas for great drinking games?! Let us know in the comments! 💬

🎥 Check out the video on YouTube:

✍🏾 Show Notes

6:00 How to tell if PM life is right for you

14:08 Mindsets that don’t work in PM life

19:55 How to transition into product management from school

22:28 Transition into product management from a product-adjacent role

24:17 How to transition into product management from a non-tech company

29:21 5 Skills you need to be a solid Product Manager

41:40 Key things you can do NOW to transition into product management

52:14 Cool Product Thing: Cognitive development & slow feeding dog toys 🐶

📚 Resources referenced in this episode

* Tips on how to diagnose issues with your product in Episode 7

* Mentally Simulating dog toys Era recommends, here & here.

Follow us for more, comment and let us know what else you'd like to learn or see:

* TikTok

* Instagram

* YouTube

You can also contact us here, leave us ideas, questions or feedback: [email protected]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.producthappyhour.com

🍻 Join us for happy hour in your sweatpants! In this episode, we answer Russell's question, "What’s your process for building strategy?" Era and Ajay are here to provide a non-filtered primer on what is a good strategy, what's a bad strategy, and the process for building a good one!

📣 Subscribe for the latest episode updates, and please consider a paid subscription to support the show 🙏 It’s either $5/month or $30/year, that’s one Starbucks latte a month or one Doordash order a year! It helps us keep the party going and keeps ads off the show:

We would love to hear what you think! Have any other process ideas for Russell? Any ideas for great drinking games?! Let us know in the comments! 💬

🎥 Check out the video on YouTube:

✍🏾 Show Notes

7:26 Today’s “Cool Product Thing”

13:30 Show outline

14:07 Join our episode’s drinking game

18:30 What are the 3 components of a strategy

19:57 Diagnosis

22:22 Guiding policy

23:17 An actionable plan

23:45 Strategy example from UberX vs Lyft

29:15 How to know if a strategy is bad

37:00 Methodologies to build a strategy

35:54 How OKRs relate to a strategy

37:16 SWOT method for diagnosis

40:15 Salon style discussion for building a strategy

43:48 Check for wake to evaluate your final strategy

45:14 Share early and often to fine tune

📚 Resources referenced in this episode

* Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt

Follow us for more, comment and let us know what else you'd like to learn or see:

* TikTok

* Instagram

* YouTube

You can also contact us here, leave us ideas, questions or feedback: [email protected]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.producthappyhour.com

Join us for happy hour in your sweatpants! This episode is a special one: our first interview. And what an interview to kick things off with one of our favorite people, Seth Hodgson! Seth is someone we’ve learned a lot from, and we’re looking forward to sharing what we’ve learned from him, with all of you! 🎉

📣 Subscribe for the latest episode updates, and please consider a paid subscription to support the show 🙏 It’s either $5/month or $30/year, that’s one Starbucks latte a month or one Doordash order a year! It helps us keep the party going and keeps ads off the show:

We would love to hear what you think! Do you like interviews on the pod? Anyone you’d love for us to interview going forward, interview ideas? Let us know in the comments! 💬

✍🏾 Show Notes

3:12 Seth’s early career milestones

10:43 Seth’s current career

The Art of Product Management 👩🏻‍🎨

13:13 What product management done well looks like

19:42 Things PMs do that drive Seth crazy

25:39 The skills of successful PM and PM-led teams

Experimentation 🧪

36:25 A Seth-style primer on experimentation

43:59 When to use Bayesian inference vs Frequentist (Null Hypothesis)

50:18 Common pitfalls of experimentation & product management

56:34 What is MDE and why you should care

1:00:56 Advice & resources for PMs starting out with experimentation

Instrumentation

1:04:16 Seth’s primer on instrumentation

1:11:07 What the hell is Event Storming & when is it useful

1:20:27 Common pitfalls of self-service analysis tools

1:24:14 Seth’s parting thoughts about metrics & just being a cool human PM

Resources referenced in this episode

Find Seth on LinkedIn! 

MDE Calculator:  https://www.evanmiller.org/ab-testing/sample-size.html  

Seth’s book reco for PMs starting out with Experimentation: Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments

Seth references Ray Dalio’s: Principles in his parting thoughts on metrics 

Follow us for more, comment and let us know what else you'd like to learn or see:

* TikTok

* Instagram

* YouTube

You can also contact us here, leave us ideas, questions or feedback: [email protected]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.producthappyhour.com

Join us for happy hour in your sweatpants! In this episode, we break down qualitative research, quantitative research and the relationship between the two. A trippy topic, and Era and Ajay are here to provide their non-filtered perspective.

Something new: donations! We're accepting donations now so we can continue to do the pod with minimal ads. If you'd like to start a $1, $5 or $10 monthly donation, you can do that here, please and thank you! https://www.producthappyhour.com/support

Let us know what you think! Follow us for more, comment and let us know what else you'd like to learn or see:

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@producthappyhr

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/producthappyhr/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl8HEn4OjeSjx3y1JjF4_ig/

You can also contact us here, leave us ideas, questions or feedback: [email protected]

---

This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/product-happy-hour/support

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.producthappyhour.com

Join us for happy hour in your sweatpants! In this episode, we break down "what the f is product management?" An excellent question, and Era and Ajay are here to provide their non-filtered perspective.

We are also trying out some new segments this episode! What's That Drink, where we discuss officially our drinks, and Cool Product Things, where we break down a cool product thing Era or Ajay observed in the wild that exemplifies a key product concept. Let us know what you think!

Follow us for more, comment and let us know what else you'd like to learn or see: 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@producthappyhr 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/producthappyhr/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl8HEn4OjeSjx3y1JjF4_ig/ 

You can also contact us here, leave us ideas, questions or feedback: [email protected]

---

This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/product-happy-hour/support

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.producthappyhour.com

Join us for happy hour in your sweatpants! In this episode, we dive deeper into working with designers this time, our very close partners. Sorry for the loooooooong delay, Ajay got sick (yay!) and that pushed everything back. More to come soon! Follow us for more, comment and let us know what else you'd like to learn or see:
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@producthappyhr
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/producthappyhr/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl8HEn4OjeSjx3y1JjF4_ig/

You can also contact us here, leave us ideas, questions or feedback: [email protected]


---

This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/product-happy-hour/support

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.producthappyhour.com

Join us for happy hour in your sweatpants! In this episode, we dive deeper into working with engineers, some of our favorite folks. Sorry for the loooooooong delay, Ajay got sick (yay!) and that pushed everything back. More to come soon! Follow us for more, comment and let us know what else you'd like to learn or see:

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@producthappyhr

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/producthappyhr/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl8HEn4OjeSjx3y1JjF4_ig/



You can also contact us here, leave us ideas, questions or feedback: [email protected]

---

This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/product-happy-hour/support

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.producthappyhour.com