PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership

The importance of vision, careful pivots, and the balance between innovation and optimization. 

Her concept of a vision is, to me, one of the very few that I think is actually cutting through the noise and has an impact aside from the cookie-cutter frameworks we had so far.

It’s beyond processes over mere goal-setting in achieving long-term success in startups.

takeaways

• Pivots should be treated as silver bullets, used deliberately.
• A strong vision can save not just a product line but also sanity.
• Innovation should not be sacrificed for optimization.
• Processes should be prioritized over mere goal-setting for better outcomes.

Chapters

17:28 The Importance of Vision in Startups

36:54 Aligning Teams Through Vision and Strategy

51:26 Balancing Innovation and Optimization

01:02:17 The Role of Processes Over Goals

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We discuss the complexities of change management, the importance of direct communication, and the evolving dynamics of workplace relationships vs in the past. How to build trust within teams, the significance of clarity in roles, and the challenges of hiring in today's market, particularly for executive positions.

What’s the difference between really good leaders and bad managers?

Takeaways

• Change management should simplify processes, not complicate them
• Workplace dynamics are influenced by external advice.
• Hiring should focus on long-term vision and fit.
• Leadership requires balancing urgency with pragmatism.

Sound Bites

• "People are getting too much of their work advice from TikTok."

Chapters

02:55 The Art of Direct Communication

05:50 Navigating Workplace Dynamics

09:07 Building Trust in Teams

11:55 The Evolution of Work Structures

14:48 Effective Team Management

18:05 The Importance of Clarity in Roles

24:04 Hiring for the Future

26:54 The Role of Leadership in Change

30:01 The Challenge of Executive Hiring

33:13 The Impact of AI on Recruitment

36:02 Networking in Today's Job Market

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The dynamics of leadership in product management, the importance of a low-hierarchy organization, the challenges of founder mode, and the balance between control and empowerment.

Data in product management, the limitations of traditional tools, and the future of product management with AI. 

Takeaways

• Founders often struggle with letting go of control.
• Micromanagement can be necessary but should be balanced with empowerment.
• Traditional product management tools often fall short in meeting modern needs.
• AI will transform the way product management operates.
• Unshipping features is essential for product evolution.

Sound Bites

• "Ego should really never play a role here."
• "I never make any decisions here alone."
• "There's nobody more incentivized to make this whole thing work than the founders."

Chapters

03:12 The Journey of AirFocus

05:59 Navigating Founder Mode and Micromanagement

09:13 Balancing Control and Empowerment

11:59 The Role of Data in Product Management

14:53 Challenges of Traditional Product Management Tools

18:03 The Future of Product Management with AI

20:55 Empowering Engineers in Product Development

23:49 Unshipping Features and Product Evolution

27:03 Connecting Sales and Product Management

29:51 The Importance of Customer Insights

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Summary

The branding experts Shannon Deep and Kevin Lee dig into exploring the multifaceted nature of brand measurement and strategy.

Misconceptions surrounding brands and risks associated with brand decisions, the importance of aligning brand strategy with business goals, and the challenges faced by founder-led brands in maintaining their identity.

What does marketing look like in the future? Where does product marketing sit?

Takeaways

• Many senior leaders conflate brand with just design and visuals.
• Brand is an additional filtering mechanism for attracting the right customers.
• Measuring brand effectiveness can be complex but is crucial for growth.
• Founder-led brands face unique challenges in separating their identity from the company.
• Brand marketing is becoming increasingly important in the current business landscape.
• You can measure brand through various metrics, including share of search and brand awareness.

Sound Bites

• "Brand is the sum total of all experiences."

Chapters

07:31 Understanding Brand Beyond Visuals

14:41 Navigating Brand Decisions and Risks

22:46 The Role of Brand in Business Strategy

30:43 Measuring Brand Effectiveness

37:28 The Challenge of Founder-Led Brands

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Ami Vora, CPO at Faire, brilliantly lays out a lot of concepts about how she views senior leadership:

How to build a strong bench of performers, balancing authenticity and urgency. How do you make yourself care about boring topics and find joy in work?

Why feedback loops and building team connections become more important as an organization scales. How do we deal with weak performers, skip-level meetings, and when to invest in strong performers?

Why growing others is always paying dividends and make you more secure.

Takeaways

• Balancing authenticity and urgency is a challenge in leadership, but it is important to be true to oneself while maintaining a sense of urgency.
• Transitioning from an operative role to a product leadership role involves a shift in power dynamics and the need to build connections with team members.
• Managing weak performers can be challenging, but it's important to depersonalize the conversation and focus on finding the right match for the role.
• Skip-level meetings provide unique insights and opportunities for career development.
• Generosity and supporting others in their growth are key qualities of a secure leader.

Sound Bites

• "Invest in what you think the future looks like"
• "Recognize and address mistakes, then move forward"
• "What I do like is like calling everyone on the phone and saying like, 'How are you? What's going on with your career? What can I help with?'"

Chapters

00:00 Investing in the Future: Building a Strong Bench

06:03 Balancing Authenticity and Urgency in Leadership

08:19 Forgiving Oneself: Learning from Mistakes

18:13 Finding Motivation: Understanding Why

25:08 Building Connections: Fostering Unity in Scaled Organizations

26:03 Navigating the Shift in Power Dynamics

27:28 Building Connections through One-on-One Conversations

28:55 The Importance of a Growth Mindset and Feedback

31:20 Managing Weak Performers with Empathy

32:17 The Role of Skip-Level Meetings

34:07 Investing in Strong Performers for the Future

36:27 The Power of Generosity in Leadership 

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Cringe Marketing, Dogfooding, and the limitations of Hubspot and Salesforce with Austin Hay, the Co-Founder of Clarify (CRM).

I talked with Austin on the rise of superficial marketing tactics and what they do to the importance of building a strong brand.

We discuss why Product Managers cannot ignore Marketing anymore and the value of good dogfooding in product development when everyone tells you to “listen to your customer”.

How to transition from being your own ideal customer to targeting a different market segment.

Takeaways

• Marketing is moving from a deterministic approach to a more probabilistic approach, where marketers have less control and understanding of who and how to reach people.
• The rise of superficial and cringe-worthy marketing tactics on platforms like LinkedIn is a result of increased competition and the need to stand out.
• Traditional CRMs have limitations in terms of speed, data entry, and automation.

Sound Bites

• "Marketing is moving back to the ways things were done in the 1960s to the 1990s, where you're not going to have as much control and understanding about who and how to reach people."
• "We're just shifting market shares around without deriving value to the customer."
• "You can be a really good dog fooder of your product, but you may not be the ideal ICP for your product in the future."
• "The core product is never done. Whenever you add something else, it becomes a little bit worse, and then you need to repatch it up."

Chapters

08:12 The Rise of Superficial and Cringe-Worthy Marketing Tactics

13:55 The Importance of Building a Strong Brand

23:40 The Role of Marketing in Product Development

29:03 The Value of Dogfooding in Product Development

31:25 The Value and Challenges of Dogfooding

38:12 The Never-Ending Process of Product Development

39:07 Balancing Customer Feedback and Vision

53:46 The Limitations of Traditional CRMs

01:00:15 Introducing Clarify: Disrupting the CRM Market 

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If you spend money on paid ads, chances are that you’re being taken advantage of. The biggest providers do it to you because they can and they optimize their systems more and more towards it.

Rand Fishkin and me discuss the challenges and limitations of paid advertising, the role of AI in marketing, the importance of organic initiatives and why you can’t skip good quality audience research.

Takeaways

• Many marketers spend money on ads that are shown to people who would have converted anyway.
• The best marketing channels are often the hardest to measure. Paid advertising can be limited and may not always provide the desired results because you don’t see how they really perform.

Sound Bites

• "There's lots of people being taken advantage of in the digital marketing and advertising ecosystem today."
• "There are literally hundreds of billions of dollars that flow into that ecosystem that don't necessarily have careful accounting."
• "We're going to need to do these sketchy things that essentially take credit for sales that would have already happened, show people more ad results, reduce the quality of the organic results, make it harder to identify ads, force people to scroll down further, lazy load the organic stuff and quick load the paid stuff."
• "Treat digital advertising the way Coca-Cola treated billboards in 1965. Test different messages and campaigns in specific markets and analyze the lift in same-store sales to determine effectiveness."

Chapters

06:30 The Issues with Digital Advertising

10:22 Taking Advantage of the Digital Marketing Ecosystem

13:14 The Challenge of Proper Accounting and Attribution

18:29 The Misleading Nature of Digital Metrics

23:03 The Difficulty of Measuring the Best Marketing Channels

23:59 The Limitations of Paid Advertising and the Need for Innovation

25:27 The Impact of AI on Marketing and the Changing Web

28:10 The Value of Organic Initiatives in Marketing

29:31 Testing and Experimentation in Marketing

34:13 The Importance of Working with Competent Experts

41:26 The Significance of Qualitative Metrics in Marketing

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John Cutler on the challenges of scaling and operating a collaborative product organization. 

We discuss different mental models for how different functions work together as teams and why it’s important to clarify and document the operating model, especially during times of growth, turnover, or changing strategies.

John talks about the concept of scaffolding is introduced as a way to navigate the process of change and improvement and why most crossfunctional initiatives fail.

Takeaways

• Define in an operating model team sizes, roles, and responsibilities
• Reduce single points of failure and promote shared accountability
• Establish a shared language around team and domain evolution
• Stay firm on the chosen operating model and evaluate it within a specific timeframe

Sound Bites

• "We invest in teams, products, and outcomes, not individual projects and deliverables."
• "What are the valid reasons to ask for money and what kind of rigor are you going to put for them for their team?"
• "Teams respond well if there are a small number of things that people are stubborn about."

Chapters

06:45 The Need for an Operating Model in a Growing Company

08:04 Running a Collaborative Product Organization

14:32 The Challenges of the CPO and CTO Tandem

19:26 The Importance of Clarifying and Documenting the Operating Model

29:00 Scaffolding and Navigating Change

38:23 Team Size and Misalignment in SaaS Teams

39:18 Investing in Teams, Products, and Outcomes

41:27 Valid Reasons to Ask for Money and Team Rigor

45:03 The Importance of Being Stubborn

46:46 The Power of Enable Constraints

51:54 Defining Team Sizes and Roles

01:05:30 The Role of Engineering Managers in Teams

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Summary

Pedro Góes, the founder and CEO of InEvent, discusses with me the challenges and strategies of selling to enterprise clients in the event tech industry.

Why in-person interactions and relationship-building can’t be beat by pure self-serve. The value of certifications and how they contribute to higher retention rates.

He shares insights on the event tech market, the role of AI in their product, and the differences between doing business in the US and Europe.

Takeaways

• In-person interactions and relationship-building are important for establishing trust and are not just limited to sales.
• Expanding in-person operations and support can be a key differentiator.
• The challenges and regulations of doing business in Europe and the US differ.
• Finding a niche and focusing on a specific market segment can lead to success in an oversaturated market.

Sound Bites

• "We have been trying to focus on this type of clients because it's better retention."
• "We have been building this for 12 years and it's not ready yet."

Chapters

04:43 The Value of Certifications

09:48 Challenges and Opportunities in Enterprise Sales

18:07 Focusing on Key Product Offerings

23:30 The Importance of In-Person Interactions

28:41 Overcoming Sales Challenges

32:30 Expanding In-Person Operations

39:30 Navigating the European and US Markets

42:21 Conclusion

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What is the role of product managers in the age of AI and the potential impact of AI on roadmapping and expectation management?

Janna Bastow, CEO & Co-Founder ProdPad / Co-Founder of Mind the Product, shares her perspective on how AI is just another tool that can help product managers synthesize feedback and speed up certain aspects of their job.

Why AI should not replace the human element of product management, such as getting alignment from stakeholders and gathering feedback from real users and how we can think about evaluating roadmaps when they all look the same.

Why product managers being skilled in asking the right questions and validating their ideas with real customers is not optional anymore.

Takeaways

• The value of a roadmap lies in the roadmapping process, not just the document itself.
• AI can be used as a sense checker and sidekick to provide feedback and support decision-making, but human judgment is still crucial. Creating a company culture where employees feel comfortable challenging ideas is crucial for innovation and growth.
• Product managers need to understand how their work connects to revenue and develop roadmaps that align with the company's strategy.

Sound Bites

• "The job of a product manager is to get out of the building and understand what users and the market want. Especially with AI being around"
• "Nobody's getting fired for using AI."
• "Product managers who do not understand how their work connects to revenue will be in trouble in the future."

Chapters

00:00 The Role of Product Managers in the Age of AI

09:08 AI as a Tool for Feedback Synthesis and Speeding Up Product Management

23:17 Human Judgment and Decision-Making in Evaluating Roadmaps

25:34 Creating a Culture of Innovation and Openness

26:22 The Role of Product Managers in Driving Growth

27:41 The Impact of AI on Product Management

32:26 The Importance of Asking the Right Questions

35:19 Adapting to the Changing Landscape of Product Management

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