Product Leaders Podcast

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience. 

In this episode, Tolik is joined by Jean McCabe, Chief Innovation Officer and Chief Product Officer at Agio, an IT management and cybersecurity service. They discuss the role of people management in product organizations, and explore topics such as the differences between managing product teams and UX teams, the ROI of UX teams, how to manage OKRs, and the importance of people management skills for a successful career in product management. Tune in to hear their insights on these topics and more!


Topics we discuss: 

• The difference between managing product and UX teams
• Looking at OKRs through a different lens
• Why PMs need to add people management skills to their toolkit 
• Why transparency is key to building healthy organizations

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:
The Difference Between Managing Product and UX Teams
The difference between managing product and UX teams is down to the difference in personalities, motivation, and driving factors of the two professions. PMs, in general, are more ambitious, and find accelerated growth a key motivator. People in UX tend to be more creative and intrinsically motivated. For them, the quality of their work is more important than meeting quantified OKRs.
“Measuring the performance of UX teams on business outcomes is a slippery slope”.
Looking at OKRs Through a Different Lens
Jean mentions that she is not a fan of using OKRs for her teams because OKRs are often rehashed business goals and not an accurate representation of employee performance. A better way to use them is as a tool to identify focus areas for the employees. She cites the example of her company where, last year, the overall goal was client retention, while this year it is enhancing gross margin. These overarching goals become focus areas, and individual goals pivot around the business goals.
“Every department can contribute to the overall business goal, and that goal becomes our North Star”. 
PMs Need to Add People Management Skills to Their Toolkit
Jean highlights that people management is an individual skill often undervalued and under-resourced. Since PMs need to collaborate with people in different business verticals, it’s important for them to learn how to manage and deal with different personalities. The ability to identify strengths and weaknesses and make people better at their jobs is a skill that companies need to teach. This is a trick most companies miss, as even while hiring for a people management role, most companies do not ask questions on this topic. 
“At most interviews, you will be asked questions about your function. You do not get questions about how you manage people, how you make people better, how you interface with your team, and how you make the team more cohesive”.
Transparency is Key to Building Healthy Organizations
Jean qualifies transparency as the ability to handle tough questions honestly. For example, she mentions that while inflation in the US was ten percent last year, not everyone at her company got a ten percent raise. A candid conversation with someone who got a five percent raise and hence a net pay cut is important for building trust. Managers often fear sharing company financials with employees for fear that it could cause panic. But the panic is driven by incomplete information and a lack of transparency.
“When you say, this is just how it is, and we couldn't give everyone a 10% raise, and you stop there, people are much more likely to panic than if you say, let me show you kind of the financials of the company”. 

Guest at a Glance:
Jean is an experienced and action-driven product leader who has taken new products and business lines at multiple companies through an accelerated growth path. She has built technology products in B2B SaaS and consumer spaces, managed teams for 5+ years, and brought products through 2 successful acquisitions. Data and user empathy are the key to her product management success.
Jean McCabe on LinkedInAgio Website
Hosts at a Glance:
Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian. 
Connect with Dima on LinkedInFireart Studio Website
Tolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage. 
Connect with Tolik on LinkedInFireart Studio WebsiteProduct Leaders Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience. 

In this episode, Dima is joined by Chetan Pandya, Chief Product Officer at Pragmatic Solutions, an iGaming platform that provides proprietary core technology solutions for regulated gambling business operations. They explore the iGaming industry, including Pragmatic Solutions' proprietary core technology for business operations, responsible scaling without exploitation, and regulated versus unregulated markets.


Topics we discuss: 

• Taking the iGaming industry to the next level
• How to assess and tailor the needs of each operator
• Responsible scaling without exploitation
• The differences between regulated and unregulated markets in the gaming industry

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:
Revolutionizing iGaming
Pragmatic Solutions aims to provide a modern, open, and adaptable microservices platform based on APIs for the iGaming industry, catering to the requirements of even the most extensive iGaming operators. An iGaming product requires account services, deposit management, and cashier services, including risk management. 

Drawing upon their extensive experience spanning several decades, Pragmatic Solutions has crafted a platform that enables any game product to seamlessly integrate and leverage risk management, account management, bonuses, and promotions based on the wealth of expertise accumulated over the years.
“As an iGaming platform provider, we provide a facility where anyone can have an idea for a game; anybody can have an idea in terms of creating a unique product model for gamification”.


Tailoring a Personalized Operator Experience
Providing a personalized experience for each operator starts with a base template consisting of X or Y modules offered by the company to all newly onboarded operators. The individual assessment of operators is determined by three factors: the market they intend to enter, the jurisdiction and rules they plan to adhere to, and their size. 

An onboarding task force, which includes two product managers, a tech lead, an assigned account manager, and a customer success manager, handles each client. With this team in place, clients can be up and running in less than a month.
“The assessment of every operator depends on three factors: which market they're looking to enter, which jurisdiction and which rules they want to implement, and finally, the size”.


Responsible Scaling Without Exploitation
Pragmatic Solutions approaches responsible gaming through two distinct areas. Firstly, the company enforces internal risk management policies that comprise five KYC (Know Your Customer) verifications to ensure that all information provided on the platform is accurate. Secondly, the company adheres to the set of rules and regulations unique to each market to ensure responsible gaming practices are followed.

“Responsible gaming is not something that we enforce just because someone asks us. It's because we all have families. We all have vulnerable individuals, and it's our responsibility. An experience of a game should continue and remain pure in terms of gaming”.


Regulated Versus Unregulated Markets
Chetan suggests that there are approximately ten markets that are subject to gaming regulations, while the rest of the world remains unregulated. Nevertheless, Pragmatic Solutions has shifted its focus entirely towards regulated markets, recognizing that doing so enables the company to offer superior services and attain long-term financial stability.

“From my point of view, the sooner they can regulate, the better it is for all the individuals because then they're able to work with white-level solutions. So they're able to work with platforms such as ours”.
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Guest at a Glance:

Chetan describes himself as passionate about creating value for customers in the B2C and B2B space, experienced in building and scaling start-ups and managing large-scale organizations, focused on the customer journey and KPIs to drive continuous innovation, and demonstrated the ability to lead cross-functional teams and influence stakeholders. 

He is the current Chief Product Officer of Pragmatic Solutions and the Founder of Product Pandit, which specializes in providing all-range product solutions. Previously, Chetan was the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Pragmatic Play and held various roles at Lottovate.

• Chetan Pandya on LinkedIn
• Pragmatic Solutions Website

Hosts at a Glance:

Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian. 

• Connect with Dima on LinkedIn
• Fireart Studio Website

Tolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage.

• Connect with Tolik on LinkedIn
• Fireart Studio Website

Product Leaders Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience.

In this episode, Tolik is joined by Eric Leach, Co-founder Strata Identity, a provider of identity orchestration software and Chief Product Officer at What/Why Consulting. They discuss mindset and core principles to guide your product development.


Topics we discuss: 

• The evolution of product management
• From waterfall to agile companies
• Aligning product and project management
• How to build a product management mindset
• The What / Why Consulting

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:

The Evolution of Product Management


Product management has undergone significant changes in recent years, with the adoption of new development methodologies being among the most notable. Although these changes may seem cosmetic, they have had a significant impact. For example, Eric's early career was focused on writing product requirements documents or PRDs, which provided a comprehensive plan in advance. 


However, contemporary product managers operate under the assumption that they do not have all the answers and, therefore, devote more time to interacting with customers before embarking on product development or sales. This approach emphasizes understanding the customers' problems and needs as a prerequisite to delivering solutions that meet their expectations.


“The biggest difference is that you assume you don't have the answers at the outset. And so you spend much more time with customers before you even start building or trying to sell anything”.



Aligning Product and Project Management


The goals of product and project management are distinct. The product manager's responsibility is to deliver a successful product that meets the market's needs and the company's goals while maximizing profitability. 


On the other hand, the project manager is responsible for defining the project plan, managing the project budget and timeline, and ensuring that the project meets its objectives. Aligning the two functions over time requires transparency and constant communication between the product and project teams.


“Visibility and communication make the collaboration between product and project much more friendly and efficient”.



Building a product management mindset


The foundation of a mindset is rooted in understanding the "why" behind our actions. Why is this important? Why should anyone care? Why would someone use it? These questions form the basis of a mindset. However, as you progress, you will encounter numerous forks in the road, points of transition, and decisions to make. A mindset provides a set of principles and a foundation to make decisions consistently, logically, and in a way that others can follow. 


Establishing principles to guide daily activities is crucial to maintaining consistency. For instance, designing secure products can be a core principle around which a mindset can be built. When setting a core principle, it is crucial to ensure alignment among team members. Consistently revisiting and reinforcing these principles is also necessary to maintain a strong mindset.


“You can't force people to have a mindset. You have to influence them into a mindset”.


Guest at a Glance:

Eric describes himself as an entrepreneur and product leader with a profound focus on creating new market categories and building teams to tackle the challenges faced by the customers in those markets. He has over twenty years of experience leading product strategy, go-to-market, and innovation for identity management, application security, and data protection products. 

Eric is the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Strata Identity and is also an Advisory Board Member of Baffle, a software development company that offers cloud data protection services. Recently, he also started the What / Why Consulting company. Before Strata Identity, Eric was the Vice President of Product Management at Oracle. He is a contributor to RSA Conference and has written and published several other articles about product management in his What and Why Newsletter.

• Eric Leach on LinkedIn
• Strata Identity Website
  
  

Hosts at a Glance:

Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian. 

• Connect with Dima on LinkedIn
• Fireart Studio Website

Tolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage.

Connect with Tolik on LinkedIn
Fireart Studio WebsiteProduct Leaders Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience. 

In this episode, Tolik is joined by Yasmin Kothari, Director of Product at Bumble, an online platform for connecting with people. Yasmin talks about the demand growth for online friendships and sheds light on making products that build consumer trust and make connecting a seamless process. She also shares her insight on how she fosters professional growth in her team. 


Topics we discuss: 

• Yasmin’s professional journey till now
• The need for building products to connect people
• The art and science of designing products that connect people
• How to foster the growth of your teams

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:
Why is it Important to Build Products that Connect People?
Three clear trends post the pandemic drive the need for these products. The first is WFH, which provides flexibility and convenience on the one hand but leads to a sense of isolation due to a lack of face-to-face interactions. Next is the need for socializing, and here, millennials and Gen Z lead the demand as the loneliest generation. Lastly, how we seek to be a part of a community is shifting to making online friends.
“It’s critical right now to build products that help connect people”

The Art and Science of Building Products that Connect People 
Yasmin highlights three critical areas while building any customer-facing product. The first is setting the right norms to deliver a consistent experience. Next, creating a suite of robust security features in your products is essential to build trust and provide security when the consumer uses your product. Next is to make interactions as seamless as possible.
“There are three important aspects to designing a customer-facing product in the B2C space”

Fostering and Mentoring Growth in Product Teams
Yasmin follows a three-point action plan when mentoring and catering to the growth of her team members. She likens professional development to climbing a wall where you sometimes need to move sideways before moving up. Yasmin asks the “how” questions to determine what motivates the person. Next, she analyzes the person's current skillset and what they need to add to their toolkit to function at the next level and provides a training map to upskill the person. As a last step, she looks for internal opportunities to help the person grow.“ This process can be scaled up over months and years, or it can also be scaled down to like a fifteen-minute thought exercise to figure out what you're gonna do this week”


Guest at a Glance:
Yasmin is a Harvard Business School graduate, and she describes herself as a driven product leader, public speaker, product leadership coach, and angel investor. I am passionate about building high-functioning teams and products that people love. I love coaching PMs for increased impact on their products, companies, and themselves. 
Yasmin Kothari on LinkedIn
Bumble Website
Hosts at a Glance:
Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian. 
Connect with Dima on LinkedInFireart Studio Website
Tolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage. 
Connect with Tolik on LinkedInFireart Studio WebsiteProduct Leaders Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience. 
In this episode, Tolik is joined by Abraham Alappat, Product Manager at Georgian, a fintech accelerator for startups and CEOs. Abraham has over fifteen years of experience in product development and management. He shares his insights on key product touchpoints, including designing MVPs, technical skills required by product managers, and creating an empowering and result-driven culture. He also unpacks the skills toolkit that upcoming product managers need to master.

Topics we discuss: 

• The role of CTOs and PMs when products are led by machine learning
• Finding the balance between speed and perfection when designing MVPs
• Is a technical background mandatory when managing ML-led products?
• The concept of servant leadership
• Building a sustainable high-performance culture
• Tips for upcoming product managers

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:
Finding the Balance Between Speed and Perfection in MVPs
Abraham explains that rapid progress is critical when designing and releasing a minimum viable product. It’s important to remember that when planning an MVP, there will always be a set of unlisted and unstated requirements that will need to be added in. The whole point of an MVP is to get feedback on required add-ons. There’s no point in delaying the MVP process as you try to figure out all variables. An MVP needs to prove the core concept; it doesn’t need to be perfect.
“We launched our MVP and got positive feedback and suggestions on add-on requirements”.
The Concept of Servant Leadership
The servant leadership model hinges on the belief that a leader's primary responsibility is to solve problems, serve their teams' needs, and enable them to win. The leader is responsible for the team's success because they set the vision and direction. Abraham explains that at Gregorian, every success is presented to the management by the product and technical teams, while he presents failures. It helps in building team camaraderie. 
“ Some of us have to step back, put our egos aside, and focus on team success”.
Building a High-Performance and Sustainable Culture
Companies on the high-growth path have teams that can scale quickly and consistently deliver results. Efficient teams deliver results in a culture that promotes teamwork and one where no one is considered a superstar. Teams win and lose together, and these teams are innovative. This culture starts from the top and permeates its way downward. 
“Our teams are continually innovating products and their features and developing MVPs to prove new concepts”.


Product Professionals Need These Skills in Their Toolkit
Abraham highlights three key skills that all product professionals must have in their toolkits. The first skill is to become proficient with the required processes and the ability to work with people. You also need to understand the nuts and bolts of agile methodology. Next, you need to have good functional knowledge of the technology stacks being used. He recommends taking training courses for the critical stacks. Lastly, all product professionals must learn the art of critical thinking when solving problems and understanding why a product is being built. 
“In the end, a product manager's main role is to understand the scale of the problem and why the product is being built”. 


Guest at a Glance:

Abraham describes himself as an entrepreneur and an MBA graduate passionate about product, finance, and strategy. He is putting this passion to work at Georgian - spearheading the development of our internal ML-driven investment engine.
Abraham Alappat on LinkedInGeorgian Website
Hosts at a Glance:
Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian. 
Connect with Dima on LinkedInFireart Studio Website
Tolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage. 
Connect with Tolik on LinkedInFireart Studio WebsiteProduct Leaders Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience. 

In this episode, Dima is joined by Sylvain Grande, CPO at PayFit France, a software platform for digitizing all aspects of HR management. Sylvain walks us through his twenty-plus years in product development and management and shares how the essence of successful product development lies in being close to the customer in both B2C and B2B domains. He also shares valuable tips for young and upcoming product leaders and discusses type one and type two decisions PMs take.

Topics we discuss: 

• Role of design in product development
• Product leaders need to get close to their customers
• Learning from failures 
• Advice to upcoming product leaders

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:
The Role of Design in Product Development
Sylvain is a product leader with a passion for design. He recalls his days at Nokia, where he developed Here Maps, the precursor to Google Maps. He was actively involved in UI design, which sparked his passion for design. He believes that the best products have minimalist designs, thereby making the product user-friendly. Sylvain believes that design is an integral part of the product development process.
“We had to really think about key design elements like offering one search field or two while minimizing any trade-offs”.
Customer Centricity and Product Development Go Hand in Hand
Customer centricity for a product leader has two aspects: how close you are to your team and an ongoing interaction and feedback loop from potential customers. While the latter is easier to do in the B2C domain, more B2B companies should include product leaders in client meetings. Listen to the podcast as Sylvain explains how customer empathy ties into product development.
“All feedback has its inherent biases, and as a product leader, you need to be able to sift that out when actioning the feedback”.
Treat Success and Failures as two Imposters
 Success and failure go hand in hand for all product leaders and must be treated differently. The euphoria of successfully launching a product is often short-lived because something bigger and better will come along. On the other hand, failure is a time of introspection and learning because you learn something new every time you fail. Product leaders need to look at success and failure as two imposters and treat them as such.
“I think it’s important to take positives and learnings from both success and failure when looking at their overall impact”. 
A Veteran’s Advice to Upcoming Product Leaders
Sylvain advises product leaders and team members to spend more time defining the project's scope and clarifying the priorities. Spending some more time at the start can prevent delays down the line. Next, explicitly communicate all trade-offs and their short- and long-term implications. Categorize all decisions as categories one and two, where one refers to revolving door decisions that can be changed down the line, and category two decisions are pivots that can’t be retracted. Listen in as Sylvain explains how product managers are multi-specialists and why they need to develop anchor skills.
“PMs, in a way, are multi-specialists, and while you can’t be a specialist at everything, you need to develop anchors in relevant fields”.

Guest at a Glance:
Sylvain Grande is an expert in digital advertising and subscription revenue models with strong experience in general management, revenue development, and product management. Over a twenty-year career in product development, he has managed P&Ls from scratch and up to $350m.
Sylvain Grande on LinkedIn
PayFit France Website
Hosts at a Glance:
Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian. 
Connect with Dima on LinkedInFireart Studio Website
Tolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage. 
Connect with Tolik on LinkedInFireart Studio WebsiteProduct Leaders Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience. 
In this episode, Tolik is joined by Vivek Bhaskaran, Founder and CEO at QuestionPro, a leading provider of online survey software. The platform offers tools for creating, polling, distributing, analyzing surveys, and data visualization. Vivek shares his insights across a broad spectrum of topics, including bootstrapping, prioritizing product development, always be selling, and the secret behind success and longevity.

Topics we discuss: 

• Bootstrapping and its viability in today’s environment
• How to prioritize product development
• Always be selling
• The secret of eighteen years of longevity as a founder

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:
Bootstrapping and its Viability in Today’s Environment
Vivek mentions that bootstrapping, if anything, has gotten simpler now. He recalls how he started eighteen years ago by writing code and building his server by himself. Today, software development is a much simpler and quicker process. For founders wishing to go the bootstrapping route, there are many more opportunities today. He also mentions that the constant across the eighteen-year timeline is that the real challenge is getting the software in the hands of the first thousand users.
“Building software is relatively easy and straightforward; the real challenge is distribution, getting in the hands of your first hundred or thousand customers”.

Product Development - Taking a Unique Problem and Making it Generic
How you handle customer feedback-based product modifications depends on your growth phase. In the initial stages, when you’re still trying to optimize product market fit, you must resolve the customer problem in totality. In effect, you’re customizing your product for the user. When you’re further down the growth path, you first generalize the customer issue and apply minor tweaks to the product. Customers who still want specific issues to be addressed are an opportunity to open a revenue pipeline through customization.
“The ability to generalize a specific problem is the most important skill for product developers”.
 Always be Selling
Many people have issues with selling, yet we have all been in a situation where we need to do the selling. The key is to look at selling as solving a problem. You have something to offer that a specific group of people need; all you need to do is find the buyer-seller match. Another fear linked to selling is the fear of rejection. The way around this is to stop personalizing the rejection. If someone says no, keep moving on till someone says yes. 
“If you want to be good in sales, you must overcome the fear of rejection”
The Secret Behind Surviving and Thriving for Eighteen Years
Viveks pegs his longevity as a founder to motivation. He stays motivated by taking regular breaks and not the vacation types. He took a break from QuestionPro from 2010 to 2015 and trusted the management team to run the company successfully. He started new ventures and learned new skills. When he returned to QuestionPro, his role changed from the day-to-day operation to a more strategic vision of taking the company to 100 million dollars in sales. Listen to the podcast to get insights on how to stay motivated and prevent burnout.


“Taking a company from one to ten million is very different from taking it from ten to thirty and on to 100”  


Guest at a Glance:
Vivek Bhaskaran describes himself as a computer engineer driven by two things every day; motorcycles and client success. He is the Founder and CEO of QuestionPro, and he has bootstrapped his way to a thirty-million-dollar company.  

• Vivek on LinkedIn
• QuestionPro Website

Hosts at a Glance:
Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian. 
Connect with Dima on LinkedInFireart Studio Website
Tolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage. 
Connect with Tolik on LinkedInFireart Studio WebsiteProduct Leaders Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience. 
In this episode, Dima is joined by Sohaib Thaib, Chief Product Officer at Foodics, a cloud-based POS and restaurant management platform. Dima and Sohaib have a free-flowing conversation around product management, including hiring and retaining, customer centricity, and the discovery to the GTM cycle in product management. 

Topics we discuss: 

• Hiring and retaining talent
• Keeping the customer front and center
• Competition and product differentiation
• Product management and the discovery to GTM cycle

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:
Hiring and Retaining Talent
Sohaib starts with a value match of the company and the candidate, assessed over multiple interviews. Next, he looks for a curious mind that doesn’t accept things at face value but digs deeper for greater clarity. Equally important is the ability to give and receive feedback. With these checkpoints, Sohaib establishes the candidate's experience, scope, and impact. On the retention side, it’s important to make the employee feel like they are a part of building a solution for a real-world customer need instead of just being paid to do a job. 
“You want to make people understand why they’re doing something instead of making them feel like they’re being paid to do a job”
Keeping the Customer Front and Center in Product Management
Customer centricity lies at the heart of product management. Good product managers and teams always represent the voice of the customer in an organization. Product teams leverage qualitative and quantitative data to determine the customer's wants. Good teams always discuss customer needs and use this to shape the product.
“The stronger the product team, the better grip they have on what the customer wants”
Competition and Product Differentiation
Your competition isn’t everyone providing the same service that you do. The competition is other players offering the same service to the same segment of customers that you serve. That is the starting point. Awareness of what the competition is doing is a must, but there is a big difference between having an onlooker's awareness and blindly copying what they’re doing. 
“My philosophy is not to focus too much on what the competition is doing; instead, I focus on what the customer is saying and what they want”
Product Management and the Discovery Cycle
The discovery process marks the start of the product journey. Qualitative data from customer feedback and quantitive data are combined to derive high-level assumptions. The engineering and product teams collaborate to build the prototype, which is beta tested with the customer and feedback is sought, and modifications are made. There could be two to three iterations before the product is ready to be rolled out. 
“A/B testing is a must when you’re building new products or improving existing ones”
Guest at a Glance:Sohaib is a seasoned product leader recognized for entrepreneurial thinking with a pragmatic and data-driven approach to delivering growth at scale. He is an expert in building high-performing teams across mobile gaming, e-commerce, and two-sided marketplaces. 

• Sohaib on LinkedIn
• Foodics Website

Hosts at a Glance:
Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian. 
Connect with Dima on LinkedInFireart Studio Website
Tolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage. 
Connect with Tolik on LinkedInFireart Studio Website

Product Leaders Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience. 
In this episode, Tolik is joined by Abhishek Jain, Chief Product Officer at Devtorium, an artificial intelligence software company providing services ranging from product, web, and SaaS development. Abhishek shares insights on the future and challenges in the AI space and breaks down the benefits of open and democratic work culture and how it helps attract the best talent. 

Topics we discuss: 

• Benefits of a democratic work culture
• Role of company culture in attracting talent
• AI and content generation tools
• Challenges in the AI space

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:
A Behind-the-Scene Look at a Truly Democratic Organization
Abhishek shares the example of his current company as one with a genuinely democratic work culture and how it leads to an environment where people are no longer afraid to challenge themselves. The company is patterned on the Swiss democratic system, where everyone has a vote on key issues. A democratic culture is where the junior most person can question a c-suite decision openly without fearing retribution. Abhishek explains how this requires a shift in mindset, especially from senior management, but the benefits are higher productivity and lower churn.
“I am the chief product officer, but the junior most person on my team can tell me that my idea is horrible, and either I have to convince him or modify my idea”.
Attracting Talent in the AI Space
Abhishek says there are two elements for attracting the best talent. The first is the company culture, and the second is the company's philosophy. Achievers are people who aren’t afraid of challenges, and the company philosophy should be forward-looking. While custom development jobs pay the bills, the company should also focus on developing tomorrow's technology. Once this is in the company’s DNA, attracting clients and talent becomes easy. 
“If you truly believe in participating in tomorrow's technology, you don’t need to advertise it. It should come across from how you think, behave, and interact with people”.
AI and Content Generation Tools
Bringing AI-generated content at par with human-curated content is the holy grail for content generation tools. And with all the industry majors, including Google, Microsoft, Bing, and Yahoo working on it, it sets a trendline for future things. Every successive generation in content creation tools takes us a step closer to the goal, and the underlying objective is to get AI to think like humans.   
“Every generational leap in technology makes it better, faster, and more efficient. Thereby making us smarter”. 
Challenges in the AI Space
The biggest challenge in AI is anticipating what’s the next big technology. Technology has evolved from building frameworks and data sets to having multiple framework templates at your disposal to directly get to the problem and the logic you need to build. The main challenges when dealing with new technology are its stability, scalability, and ability to evolve, bringing us back to the challenge of predicting tomorrow. 
“As far as challenges go, the constant challenge is always what’s next”
Guest at a Glance:
Abhishek Jain describes himself as a builder of highly successful and scalable marketing strategy, technology solutions, and product development teams in digital, cloud, mobile, and Artificial Intelligence, with expertise in start-ups and scaled growth stages.

• Abhishek on LinkedIn
• Devtorium Website

Hosts at a Glance:
Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian. 
Connect with Dima on LinkedInFireart Studio Website
Tolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage. 
Connect with Tolik on LinkedInFireart Studio WebsiteProduct Leaders Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience. 

In this episode, Tolik is joined by Aniket Naravanekar, Chief Product Officer at CHEQ, a social payment platform that connects consumers to food and beverage businesses. Aniket is a computer science engineer who has transitioned to product management. He shares insight on the pros and cons of having an engineering background in a product management role and details on the product at CHEQ. 
Topics we discuss: 

• Leveraging customer data and feedback to address user pain points
• The role of a CPO in organizational growth and hiring
• Learning to co-create with customers

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:
Leveraging Customer Data and Feedback to Address User Pain Points
Aniket recommends a multi-faceted approach when seeking customer feedback for a more holistic view of the problems. It is important to have multiple channels to gather feedback, including direct one-on-one conversations with the customers. It’s important to ask qualitative questions like why you chose this product and how we can improve it. This feedback loop is supported by feedback loops from sales and customer service teams. Ask customers to rate your product to get an idea of where you stand. Then convert this raw data into insights and new product development goals. 
“Ask your customers to rate you on a given scale to get an idea of overall user satisfaction levels” 
The Role of a CPO in Organizational Growth and Recruitment
From a growth perspective, a CPO can always look at creating additional revenue streams by either modifying an existing product or designing and creating a new one to fulfill the additional needs of existing customers and attract new customers. Product development in both cases stems from customer feedback and the ability to identify unmet needs in that feedback. The scene then shifts to hiring the right talent to deliver the updated or new product.
“While creating new revenue streams, we have an internal discussion to define the framework and then focus on developing the product”. 
Learning to Co-create with Customers
We all learn from our mistakes, and Anikiet recounts the time when he started creating a product based on his understanding of user pain points. Long story short, after devoting substantial time and resources to the development, the product did not meet the customer's expectations. The fault lay in not acquiring a deep understanding of what the customer really wanted. Aniket’s learning from the project was to always interact closely with the customer at the discovery stage before transitioning to product development. 
“The best thing you can do is to co-create with your customers by putting them front-and-center and giving them a seat at your table”.
Guest at a Glance:
Aniket Naravanekar has a Master's degree in computer science and has spent four years in an engineering role and eight years in product management at companies like Microsoft and RingCentral. 
Aniket on LinkedInCHEQ on LinkedIn
Hosts at a Glance:
Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian. 
Connect with Dima on LinkedInFireart Studio Website
Tolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage. 
Connect with Tolik on LinkedInFireart Studio Website

Product Leaders Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so