Product Rising

In this episode, we got some straight talk from Teresa Torres, learning how she incorporates her masters in Learning & Development from Northwestern into her design of product learning experiences. Teresa shares invaluable insights about when blogs and podcasts might be enough for your growth—and when training courses may really be what's needed to take you to the next level. Do you know if you have blind spots? Or are you navigating some unique and tricky contexts where a coach can help? This far-ranging episode explores all these concepts with the founder of Product Talk and author of 'Continuous Discovery Habits'. 

Teresa discusses the fundamental differences between coaching and training and highlights the importance of deliberate practice in skill development. She offers practical advice on advocating for discovery practices within organizations and provides tips for product leaders to enhance their teams' capabilities. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of product development and improve their practice through structured learning.

00:00 Introduction to Skill Building and Coaching

00:35 Sponsored Segment: SuperInterviews

01:26 Welcome

01:32 Guest Introduction: Teresa Torres

02:36 The Journey from Coaching to Training

05:06 Understanding the Difference Between Coaching and Training

09:57 The Role of Deliberate Practice in Skill Building

14:54 The Importance of Community and Peer Coaching

21:57 Understanding Business Outcomes

22:23 The Challenge of Opportunity Solution Trees

23:22 Effective Discovery Practices

24:57 Choosing the Right Trainer or Coach

27:29 Reflective Questions for Product Teams

32:50 Advocating for Discovery in Organizations

36:42 The Role of Product Leadership Coaching

40:31 Aligning Sales and Product Teams

45:00 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

📚Resources:

• Teresa’s website - Product Talk

• Continuous Discovery Habits
  

✨Where to find Teresa:

• On LinkedIn

💫 Where to find Cassie:

• On LinkedIn 

• At Cassie Camp - Learn more about product leadership coaching and fractional product leadership

🙋🏻‍♀️Where to find Women in Product:

• On LinkedIn 

• Website https://womenpm.org/

• Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/
  

In this episode, Cassie welcomes Bosky Mukherjee, the prolific founder of PM Dojo and SheTrailblazes, and a veteran product advisor, leadership coach, and trainer. Bosky discusses her journey into product leadership, the formation of PM Dojo, and her mission to support women in product management. The conversation delves into the nuances of product management training versus coaching, the impact of AI on the industry, and strategies for driving cultural shifts within organizations. Bosky also shares insights on balancing humility with confidence and offers practical advice on leveraging coaching to unlock business potential and personal growth.

More about Bosky:

Bosky Mukherjee, an executive tech leader with over 22 years of global experience—spanning early-stage startups to high-growth companies like Atlassian.

She’s the founder of SheTrailblazes and a powerful force for change in how women succeed, thrive, and rise to the top. Through her flagship program, Leadership Edge, Bosky equips women to lead with strategic visibility and executive communication—fast-tracking their path to promotion, all the way to the C-suite, and when the time is right, into entrepreneurship.

Her work isn’t just about career growth. It’s about power, parity, and making sure women aren’t just at the table—but driving the agenda.

Bosky is also the founder of PMDojo, where she helps companies build stronger, more strategic innovation teams—equipping product and technology talent to drive bigger business impact and communicate with executive fluency.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome

00:49 Bosky's Journey into Product Leadership

01:36 Challenges and Realizations in the Executive Room

03:05 Founding PM Dojo and Its Mission

04:50 AI in Product Management

09:41 Training vs. Product Leadership Coaching

11:05 Coaching Styles and Skills Development

15:03 Working with Companies and Teams

18:56 Driving Cultural Shifts in Organizations

23:19 Assigning Dollar Value to Business Transformation

23:33 Navigating Product Leadership Challenges

24:38 Implementing Small Shifts for Big Changes

25:25 Facilitating Business Conversations

26:47 Success Stories and Skill Development

28:39 Working It Out: Lessons from School

30:26 Confidence, Humility, and Curiosity

31:55 Hiring a Coach: When and Why

34:53 Building Community and Networking

38:18 Creative Budget Solutions for Product Teams

44:10 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

📚Resources:

✨Where to find Bosky Mukherjee:

• On LinkedIn

• SheTrailblazes

• PMDojo

💫 Where to find Cassie:

• On LinkedIn 

• At Cassie Camp - Learn more about product leadership coaching and fractional product leadership

🙋🏻‍♀️Where to find Women in Product:

• On LinkedIn 

• Website https://womenpm.org/

• Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/
  

Visibility is a superpower for leaders—but building it authentically can feel challenging. On this episode, Surbhi Gupta, host of The Visibility Equation and seasoned product leader, sits down with Lexy Franklin, CEO & Founder of Sidebar, to explore how leaders can own their narrative, amplify their impact, and connect with their authentic selves.

Lexy shares practical strategies on building visibility, overcoming public speaking anxiety, nurturing relationships, and navigating the leadership journey. Together, they dive into inspiring stories, actionable insights, and the realities behind professional growth at leadership levels

🎧 Episode Highlights:

02:28 Key Skills for Success and Visibility

03:26 The Importance of Learning and Mentorship

05:16 Embracing Failure as a Path to Success

08:17 The Power of Asking for Help

18:22 Owning Your Story and Wins

27:00 The Necessity of Visibility

30:52 Embracing Uncertainty and Positive Energy

31:50 The Art of Decision Making

36:56 Building Blocks of Visibility

42:24 The Power of Books and Personal Growth

52:42 Celebrating Success and Leadership

53:55 Final Thoughts and Book Recommendations

Resources

• 🌟 Where to find Surbhi 

• On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/surbhi7/

• 💫 Where to find Lexy 

• On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexyfranklin/

• During the conversation Lexy mentioned the following books

• Crossing the Unknown Sea, David Whyte

• Let My People Go Surfing, Yvon Chouinard

• 🙋‍♀️ Where to find Women in Product:

• On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-product/posts/

• Website https://womenpm.org/

  Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/

The Visibility Equation is a weekly podcast series that demystifies the art of professional visibility. It is designed to empower ambitious product leaders (and leaders across tech) to own their narratives and amplify their impact. Through in-depth conversations with accomplished leaders in product management, design, and engineering, we'll delve into practical strategies, inspiring stories, and actionable insights to help listeners build visibility without falling into the “humble brag” trap.

This episode is a conversation with Shyvee Shi, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft. Shyvee shares her experience at LinkedIn where she built a large and engaged product community of over 100,000 followers and the more focused building of an AI community at Microsoft.  She shares her insight and experience of sharing and building in public, and building spaces for others to share. She touches on how to get started sharing, building visibility inside and outside of your current role, and her passion for learning, sharing with others and supporting people’s learning and growth.

In this episode she shares insight 

01:58 Taking Risks

02:09 Overcoming Cultural Barriers

02:49 Career Transition During COVID

03:03 Building a Public Presence

07:20 Choosing the Right Platforms

09:46 Starting the Visibility Journey

18:29 Misconceptions About Professional Visibility

22:25 Nurturing Relationships and Community

27:07 The Myth of Overnight Success

27:19 The Modern Approach to Launching

27:59 Building and Testing Your Ideas

29:09 The Role of a Future of Work Product Builder

30:49 Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety

32:51 The BRAVE Framework for Public Speaking

38:22 Handling Criticism and Negative Feedback

44:18 Future Plans and Career Reflections

45:40 Advice for Building Professional Visibility

50:15 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Resources

• 🌟 Where to find Surbhi 

• On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/surbhi7/

• 💫 Where to find Shyvee 

• On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/shyveeshi/

• During the conversation Shyvee mentioned a website that she used early in her journey called, Visualize Value, you can find it here - https://visualizevalue.com

• Shyvee also wanted to share a talk from her former VP at Maven on building a personal brand. You can find it here - Lighthouse Lessons on Maven

• Shyvee also shared a deep-dive interview she did with a fellow career coach on how we can leverage AI to communicate better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-To9KdJ9RI8 

• 🙋‍♀️ Where to find Women in Product:

• On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-product/posts/

• Website https://womenpm.org/

• Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/
  

The Visibility Equation is a weekly podcast series that demystifies the art of professional visibility. It is designed to empower ambitious product leaders (and leaders across tech) to own their narratives and amplify their impact. Through in-depth conversations with accomplished leaders in product management, design, and engineering, we'll delve into practical strategies, inspiring stories, and actionable insights to help listeners build visibility without falling into the “humble brag” trap.

00:00 Introduction to The Visibility Equation

01:25 The Importance of Visibility

02:59 Surbhi's Personal Journey

06:59 Strategies for Building Visibility

11:25 Why Visibility Matters Now

14:55 About the Interviews

18:20 First Episode Preview

Resources

• 🌟 Where to find Elizabeth:

• On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethames/

• 💫 Where to find Surbhi 

• On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/surbhi7/

• 🙋‍♀️ Where to find Women in Product:

• On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-product/posts/

• - Website https://womenpm.org/

• - Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/

The key to longevity in today’s ever-changing tech landscape? Yes, you’ve heard it before: maintaining a positive outlook and a growth mindset so you can remain as versatile as possible. Easier said than done? Perhaps. But this week’s guest, Japna Sethi, absolutely embodies this. Japna runs the Jira product group at Atlassian, and has turned her origins in physics and materials science into a career that spans hardware design, software development, growth product management, advising, angel investing, even real estate. Hear about her path and be inspired by her advice on networking, lifelong learning, and doubling down on your strengths. Japna encourages us to get to know our authentic selves better, and to engage in regular, healthy bouts of self-reflection. 

00:00 Introduction 

01:48 An unusual path to product management

06:08 The scientific method works for product, too

09:15 Always be learning

10:13 Double down on your strengths

12:45 Leverage network effects

13:38 How to think about angel investing

15:30 The “Get Sh*t Done” framework

21:00 Why we should be excited about AI

22:50 Save time to explore

24:45 Where to learn more about Japna

📚Resources:

• Atlassianhttps://www.atlassian.com/

• “Get Shit Done” by Jeffrey GitomerAvailable on Amazon, Kindle, B&N, and bookstores nationwide

• Calendlyhttps://www.calendly.com/

• Product Boardhttps://productboard.com/

• Loopshttps://www.getloops.ai/

• Otter.ai

We all want real advice on how to grow a career, right? Meet this week’s guest, Laura Schaffer, Vice President of Growth at DigitalOcean. Laura got her start in sales, and now leads a cross-functional team that includes Growth R&D and Marketing. Prior to DigitalOcean, she built Growth and Product teams at companies like Twilio, Amplitude, and Bandwidth, bringing a depth of experience in product-led growth and experimentation. In conversation with host Shannon Peavey, Laura offers her perspective on making your mark as a product manager, and talks about the power of spending time on validation and fast-fail experimentation. 

00:00 Introduction and Sponsor Message

01:48 How a sales job lead to a growth career

06:50 North Star metrics for the win

09:03 How PLG work WITH, not INSTEAD of sales

10:00 Bringing sales “snacks” to yield a “buffet”

18:34 Validation doesn’t have to mean A/B testing

24:00 Experiment fast - and often

27:00 Big wins can come from small changes

30:00 How is product management changing?

33:00 Make time for AI

📚Resources:

• Reforgehttps://www.reforge.com/

• DigitalOceanhttps://www.digitalocean.com/

• Amplitudehttps://amplitude.com/

• Bandwidthhttps://www.bandwidth.com/

• Twilio

https://www.twilio.com/en-us

🌟 Where to find Laura:

• On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauraschaffer/

🙋🏻‍♀️Where to find Women in Product:

• On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-product/posts/ 

• Website https://womenpm.org/

• Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/

In this episode, Pendo’s senior vice president of product and u/x Nichole Mace talks with host Shannon Peavey about the growth mindset that infiltrates her company’s culture. She illuminates the differences between core product work and product growth work and shares her tips on ways companies can cultivate a collaborative environment, where the spirit of experimentation becomes contagious.

Chapters:

4:05 Why growth needs to be prioritized

6:19  Organizing your mind for pursuing multiple goals

7:50 Cultivating team spirit

9:30 Knowing when the time is right for a growth push

10:50 Why experimentation can be contagious

13:40 Nichole’s path into growth

15:45 Skills for great growth leaders

18:50 How pivots happen: the ZipCar example

21:00 Growth loops are golden

23:00 Nichole’s 6 Core Product Growth Principles 

31:00 What’s AI’s impact?

32:15 Life in balance

Where to find Nichole:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nichole-mace-44bb65/

Nichole Mace’s PLG website

https://www.nicholemace.com/

Resources:

Pendo https://www.pendo.io/

Constant Contact https://www.constantcontact.com/

LastPass https://www.lastpass.com/

BevSpot https://bevspot.com/

ZipCar https://www.zipcar.com/

In this episode, product growth leader Sandhya Ganesh talks with host Shannon Peavey about the way Tinder builds product-led growth into its culture and its business strategy. She defines common acronyms for measuring success and shares details of her unique path from engineer to product manager. Sandhya offers advice on developing the right mindset to cultivate explosive success.

Chapters:

1:08: Sandy defines “growth product” and “product-led growth”

5:22  Acronym soup

10:08 Stickiness metrics

11:02 The marketing-product growth partnership

14:14 Sandy’s journey from engineer to growth product manager

19:06 Critical skills and mindset for product growth

21:54 How approaches differ in B2B vs. B2C

26:00 Strengthening relationships with your teammates

28:33 How Tinder tested rewards programs

30:45 The importance of secondary and counter-metrics

33:00 Why to hypothesize when experimenting

34:15 Why failure needs to be part of the culture

Where to find Sandhya:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhya-ganesh/

Resources:

Deloitte Consulting https://www.deloitte.com/

Tinder https://tinder.com/

Lending Club https://www.lendingclub.com/

In this episode, host Shannon Peavey welcomes the one and only Elena Verna. But wait, it’s not the illustrious, highly sought-after growth expert herself, but her AI agent, powered by SuperMe. “She” shares deep knowledge from her expansive body of work in growth from Miro to Amplitude to Loveable and shares why company stage matters when thinking through a growth strategy.

Chapters:

1:50: Elena defines PLG
3:45  Skills for aspiring growth PMs

4:20  Choosing the right success metrics

5:58  Why company stage matters to growth strategy

7:10  How companies can get started with growth

8:12  Stories from SurveyMonkey, Miro and Amplitude

10:15 Hitting the ground running at Lovable

11:20 Refining the ICP13:00 Collaborating cross-team

14:00 Personal reflections

Where to find Elena Verna:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenaverna/

Elena’s SuperMe AI Agent: https://www.superme.ai/elena

Resources:

Elena Verna’s Substack: https://www.elenaverna.com/

SuperMe https://www.superme.ai/

Lovable https://lovable.dev/

Miro https://miro.com/

SurveyMonkey https://www.surveymonkey.com/

Amplitude https://amplitude.com/

Sanity.io https://www.sanity.io/

MongoDB https://www.mongodb.com/