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 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: 

• Does a background in engineering help in product management?
• Selling to different sets of audiences
• Always have a value differentiator
• Complexities of a product managers role

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:

Does an Engineering Background Help in Product Management?
Aniket answers the question by saying that it depends on the situation. For instance, at the product development stage, an engineering background helps to talk to the engineers in a language they understand. It’s also helpful when you need to update the version based on customer feedback. At the same time, one needs to watch out for jumping the gun and diving into the technical design without fully understanding why we need to design or redesign the product.  “Start by focusing on why we are designing the product and the product itself before looking at the technical stuff”
Selling to Different Sets of Audiences
Aniket explains how different sets of audiences require different pitch strategies and how to tailor strategies to individual audience personas and sales cycles. He cites the example at his organizations where there are two distinct customer bases, one that is venue based in stadiums, while the other is the customer at a restaurant. The customer's needs will differ at the two touchpoints; hence, the onboarding and selling strategies differ. 
“It is important for sales and product teams to be aligned to deliver a great customer experience”
Always Have a Value Differentiator
Even if you’re an innovator and the first to market to fulfill an unmet customer need, always build a differentiator into your product to competition-proof the product. Aniket cites the example of CHEQ, where the app tells the customer the average wait time at the different concessioners in the stadium, thereby allowing the customer to choose one with the shortest wait time. 
“The app accurately tells you the waiting time within five minutes at each concession stand for greater user convenience. That is our value add”.
Complexities of a Product Managers Role
The complexities arise from aligning and coordinating with diverse sets of audiences. Aligning with the engineering team requires some degree of technical skills so that you can communicate in a language they understand. Aligning with sales requires a different skillset and the ability to break down the product into a language that sales understand. 
It is essential for product managers to break down problems into hard problems and softer day-to-day issues. The Hard problems require realignment, while the softer ones need flexibility and adjustment”. 
Guest at a Glance:
Aniket Naravanekar has a Masters degree in computer science, and he has spent four years in an engineering role and eight years in product management at companies like Microsoft and Ring Central. 
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 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 Maxim Kalinovich, Senior Product Manager at EZ Texting. Maxim unpacks the playbook for aligning organizational mindsets to discovery and outcome-based mindsets that align with customer needs. He also shares some insights on an efficient product development process at startups and offers tips for product managers who are just starting out.


Topics we discuss: 

• Discovering a discovery mindset
• Aligning outcomes with user needs
• Discovery at startups
• Spreading outcome thinking across your organization

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:

A Discovery Mindset
 A discovery mindset has roots in discovering and understanding reality, understanding the user's reality, not yours. Do the solutions you’re working on align with the user's needs from their perspective? There’s little point in working on a solution if you haven’t done a discovery process for the problem. When we look at product development from this lens, we move the needle from output to outcomes.  
As a product leader, it’s essential to spread this thinking across the company. A simple way to do this is to talk to the stakeholders and identify those with a similar mindset, and they will spread the word among other stakeholders.
“The discovery process starts with you stepping away from your ego and asking questions like what is our segment, who are our users, and what are their needs”?   
Aligning Outcomes with User Needs 
The first step is to get in front of the user to try and understand their issues. Customer support is the one-stop shop for insights into what the customers say and their issues. Try and get in front of your most active users with surveys. Opportunities for product development will emerge through this discovery process.
You then need to convert the opportunities into outcomes and goals. Of course, each discovery process will throw up multiple opportunities, and you will need to prioritize based on your defined matrix. 
“A discovery interview enables you to identify user needs and problems; I recommend starting with your top users or high performers”. 
Discovery at Startups
The discovery process should start with identifying the audience segment you’re trying to address; that is the first goal. Next, identify ten to twenty users in the segment and conduct a discovery process. Keep surveying till discovering new information starts diminishing, and each survey is like the previous one. Now check if your concepts align with the actual customer needs. If you need to pivot, do it before developing your concept proof. 
“Once you have your MVP go back to the people you surveyed at the development stage and check if your product meets their needs”.
Transforming Organizations to an Outcome-Based Mindset
 Start with your sphere of influence, say your product team, by instilling the discovery and outcome-based mindset in them. Let them become the ambassadors for spreading the word in the company. Spreading the word is a bit like a good coach. The coach doesn’t tell the athlete what to do; instead, they ask questions that drive the athlete’s thought process towards a direction. When outcomes align, the idea belongs to the athlete, just like in inception. 
“Ask questions to drive your message. Why are we doing this? Is this what the customer wants? Have we checked?”

Guest at a Glance:
Maxim describes himself as someone with ten years of product and project management experience for high-trafficked B2B and B2C web SaaS and mobile apps.
Maxim on LinkedInEZ Texting 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

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 Alejandro Carrillo, Senior Product Manager at Oyster. Alejandro shares his insights on a wide range of topics, including the importance of customer-led growth, intuitive vs structured decision-making, and the current environment for startups. 

Topics we discuss: 

• Intuitive vs Structured decision making
• Lessons learned from working at a mission-led company
• Product-led vs customer-led growth, which should you adopt?
• The current environment for startups

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:

Intuitive vs Structured Decision Making
Let’s say you’re thinking about solving a problem for your customers. The intuitive way would be to think of the solution that would solve the problem and then build your product accordingly. The structured way to solve the same problem is to go through a discovery process and collect and analyze data to arrive at a solution. The basis of your decision-making is different in both use cases. 
Generally speaking, intuitive decisions work well when dealing with less-developed products with more uncertainty. An example is when you want to develop features that differentiate your products. While structured decision-making works well when the product is well developed and less uncertain, for instance, Amazon, Meta, and Google. 
“Use cases with higher uncertainty are better suited for intuitive decision-making while at companies like Google and Amazon, decisions are more structured since it’s all about data”. 
Mission-Driven Companies Make a Difference
Companies that are driven by a vision and mission tend to focus on more than just revenue and profitability; they aim to make a difference in people's lives. Alejandro gives the example of Oyster, a company that helps hire off-shore resources. Their pricing policies vary with geographies and the economic development of the country. The company prices its products below cost in some geographic locations to provide employment and make a difference. Mission-driven companies generally have more motivated teams.
“If you put money in someone's pocket in those countries, you will generate a positive economic loop in that geography”.  
The Current Environment for Startups
The current economic environment is characterized by slower growth, tighter money supply, and a flatter customer demand curve. This trend will play out for 2023 and the first half of 2024. The conventional wisdom is that this is the wrong time to start a business venture, but the fact remains that some of the biggest startup stories have happened in a tempered business environment. If the idea is validated, investors will be ready to fund it.
“After each crisis, there are huge opportunities, and if someone is looking to build a product, now is the time to do it”.
Guest at a Glance:
Alejandro describes himself as a product manager who launches and scales startups globally. He has over five years of experience in product leadership roles across a wide spectrum of companies and industries, including at startups. 
Alejandro Carrillo on LinkedInOyster 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

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 Andrea Ho, Senior Growth Product manager at Atlassian. Andrea unpacks the critical skills for product professionals and explains the difference between a product manager and a growth product manager's role. Tolik and Andrea discuss topics, including using A/B testing for decision-making. Andrea touches on advice for professionals coming to product management from a different business stream.


Topics we discuss: 

• Does a product manager need tech skills to collaborate with engineers?
• The imposter syndrome in product management
• Difference between product management and growth product management
• Advice for professionals starting out in product management

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:

A Product Manager Only Needs Surface Level Tech and Statistic Skills 
A product manager needs to collaborate with teams across different functions, from design to engineering. The two critical skills are at least a surface-level knowledge of what the team in a given function is trying to achieve and the ability to communicate in the language they understand. 
Within the product team, the product manager needs to be familiar with the concept of A/B testing for decision-making and to keep a sharp focus on the deliverability of the product without getting distracted by the noise. As a product leader, you either need to have these skills or quickly develop them by interacting and learning from different teams.
 “When collaborating across functions, it’s important to speak their language and understand why they are doing something instead of exactly what they’re doing”.
Tackling the Imposter Syndrome in Product Management
Andrea shares how every product manager she’s spoken to carries varying degrees of insecurity because they only have surface-level knowledge on multiple topics without being a specialist in any. A jack of all trades but a master of none.
Her response in these situations is to reassure the manager by telling them that product management is a generalist role where the leader needs to have functional knowledge across multiple verticals but a holistic vision that ties the functions together and delivers the final product.   
“You definitely don’t need to learn how to code or be an expert at UI/UX to be a successful product manager”.
Product Management vs Growth Product Management
A traditional product manager is focused on developing a new product that meets a particular user need. It’s a product-focused approach where the core objective is to deliver a product with predefined attributes in a given timeframe and budget.
On the other hand, growth product management is revenue-centric, focusing on maximizing the revenue pipeline for a company's existing products. Revenue product management has a commercial bias, and the core objective here is to continually grow the user base for different products.
“In growth product management, we’re not building new products for new customer value; instead, we’re focused on taking the existing product to new customers”.  
 Advice for Professionals Starting Out in Product Management
Andrea has a unique take here. Her advice to those starting out in product management is to start by reimagining themselves as a product. Start by understanding your goals and the milestones you need to achieve. Build the ability to pivot on these as you learn more about the role. Seek a mentor who can guide you and help you acquire the requisite skills.
A critical part of your learning process is your ability to create your professional network by connecting with the community. Make it a habit to attend product meetups and project management conferences. You will learn a lot by interacting with peers across different industries and make an effort to meet different companies at these conferences; they could be your future employers.  
“I tell young aspiring product managers to think of themselves as a product to build the skills required for product management”.
Guest at a Glance:
Andrea describes herself as someone who started out as a fashion designer before transitioning to product management with a passion for teaching and mentoring.In her current role as Growth Product Manager at Atlassian, Andrea is responsible for creating growth strategies for Atlassian products through cross-flow expansion.
Andrea Ho on LinkedInAtlassian 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

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 Satnam Singh, CPO of Tax and Trade, Global API, and Cloud Leader at Thomson Reuters. Satnam shares his insights on the critical skills that every effective product leader needs and a five-point framework for product development.


Topics we discuss: 

• How to build a customer insight pipeline and why you need one
• Does your toolkit have the ACE framework?
• Why your products need to be industry compliant
• The five P framework for product development

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:

Building a Customer Insight Pipeline
Most companies focus on the sales pipeline, but you must also create a customer insight pipeline to measure and monitor how effectively your product solves customer problems. Customer insights are developed from feedback received from every customer touchpoint, including sales, customer support, product marketing teams, and user research.
“It’s important to understand the relationship between what we’re putting out in the market and what is or isn’t resonating with the customers and leads”. - Satnam Singh
As a Product Leader, You Must Add ACE Skills to Your Toolkit
ACE stands for accountability, curiosity, and empathy, which are skills integral to a successful product leader's role. Accountability is the ability to accept imperfect outcomes and thrive in an environment that doesn’t penalize mistakes. Curiosity is the innate desire to understand the problem at its base level, and often, the best solutions flow from this curiosity. 
A product leader deals with multiple verticals across the company, including engineering, sales, marketing, and customer support. Empathy is the ability to look at issues from different points of view and understand the challenges faced by these stakeholders.
“The one quality all product leaders must have is the ability to put themselves in the shoes of the engineers, the sales team, and the customer support team for a day”. - Satnam Singh. 
Ensure that Your Product is Industry Compliant
Product leaders must be aware of industry regulations and compliances that apply to the product being delivered. Statutory compliances like HIPPA and GTPR are norms across a wide range of products. No customer wants to buy a product where they need a supplementary product to ensure that it is industry compliant. Compliance needs to be woven into the design stage for all new products.
“It’s all about making sure that your customers can use your products without requiring additional support”. - Satnam Singh
The Five P Framework for Product Leaders
The five P framework for product development is built on purpose, plan, priority, principles, and promotion. The purpose of any product is to integrate seamlessly into the user's workflow. Hence, awareness of the user’s upstream and downstream workflow activities is critical to ensure that your product integrates into this workflow. Once you understand the user’s workflow, it becomes easy to plan the development activities of your product. 
Priorities are easy to define but must allow for a certain degree of agility and flexibility. Everything will not go according to your plan; hence, priorities will need to be shuffled around. Every product leader will come to a fork in the road where they need to take a call on going left or right. Well-defined principles define their decisions at this juncture and ensure that decisions aren’t taken under pressure.
Promotion is the ability to share your success within your team and the across the organization, and important to ensure that everyone is pulling in the same direction.
“I’ve applied the five P framework across travel and insurance products and data, analytics, and AI products, and it has worked for me across the board every time”.  - Satnam Singh. 
Guest at a Glance:
Satnam Singh is a mechanical engineer by qualification and a product leader by practice. He describes himself as a commercially minded, execution-focused leader with a proven track record of value creation. He has fifteen years of expertise in product management, data, analytics, and AI. He is also a Columbia Business School graduate and mentors MBA students at Columbia Business School and Rutgers University.
Satnam Singh on LinkedInThomson Reuters 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’s 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 and hi to all product leaders. Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your host 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 Jamin Brazil, Chairman of HubUX, a platform for qualitative and UX Research. Jamin describes himself as a career market researcher and career entrepreneur. He shares his insights on using customer inputs to develop a product they will love to use and how product pricing strategies impact the revenue stream.
Topics we Discuss:

• The difference between product development and customer-led development
• Resource allocation prioritization pre and post-launch
• How to leverage user insights to refine your product and deliver enhanced UX
• Freemium pricing, yes or no

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:

Market-Led Approach Gives a Base Product, Refine it with Customer Insights
Market-led product development gives you a base product; you’re now offering the basics offered by your competition. You need to refine this with customer insights to gain a competitive edge and delight your customers. Pre-launch, ensure you have invested in the discovery process, where you talk to a relevant audience and understand their real problems. Post-launch, you continue tweaking your product based on customer feedback. Product development is a bolt-on approach. 
“What I do is create a platform by which I can service the core customer need, and then I listen to customers, watch what they do, and talk to them every day”. - Jamin Brazil.
Invest Wisely at Every Product Development Stage
In the pre-market stage, you need to focus your spending on the discovery process, including customer interviews and continual prototyping. You’re investing in identifying the real issues of the audience and testing if your prototype addresses those issues. Post-launch, the investment focus shifts to creating awareness of your product through marketing while constantly seeking out customer feedback on what they like and dislike and the additional features they require.
“I’ve personally lost a tremendous amount of wealth by building products that I thought were right for the market without validating customer need”. - Jamin Brazil.
How to Acquire and Leverage Customer Insights
Focus on collecting qualitative feedback from your customers. Quantitative data like NPS scores don’t answer why the customer rated you a five instead of an eight on the one to ten scale. Identifying and refining based on the why is the difference between retaining a happy customer or losing them to the competition. 
How you frame the questions defines the feedback you will get, and for qualitative questions, show the stimuli or solution before asking the question. The reason here is simple. Most times, our purchase decisions are based on emotions, and that is the side the questions should address. Customer feedback should be garnered using qualitative surveys that provide a business with feedback on user experience and potential growth opportunities. 
“Companies spend over 80 billion dollars annually on quantitative survey data and eight billion on qualitative data. Over the next five years, there will be a role reversal where qualitative research will replace quantitative data”. - Jamin Brazil.
Jamin’s Insights on Freemium Pricing and its Impact on the Revenue Stream
Jamin firmly believes in the credo, “if you’re providing a service to the customer, that service should be monetized.” He believes that freemium pricing is essential for getting a customer to try your product, which applies at both a startup and enterprise level. However, freemium pricing should have a time limit; otherwise, it negatively impacts a company’s revenue stream. 
In the B2B space, you’re competing for customer dollars already being spent on your competitor's product. To win over those dollars, you need a product that outperforms the competition, and you need to look at issues like pricing and trade terms.
“I do not believe in free business service. I think if I’m providing a service, then it needs to have an associated cost”. - Jamin Brazil.


Guest at a Glance:
Jamin Brazil is passionate about building products that address endemic problems in business and is a strong proponent of customer-led product development instead of a market-led model. He has over 20 years of experience using market research to collect customer insights and then apply them to build great products. 
Jamin Brazil on LinkedInHubUX on LinkedInHubUX Website

Hosts at a Glance:
Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company with a commitment 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 company’s and user’s 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

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