Ep.202: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Scott Barstow (@ScottBarstow).

My guest today is Scott Barstow. Scott has founded and led tech companies and teams throughout his career. He now supports the Pacific Lake portfolio as an operating partner focused on building great software product and engineering orgs. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Scott through my Chief of Staff role with HW Media and Pacific Lake’s executive leadership program, and I think highly of his perspective on software and team construction.

Scott has spent years thinking about what makes high-performing product orgs work, and in this episode, we dive into key characteristics of high performance and how software CEOs can implement them in their product teams. We talk about key fundamentals like culture, communication, ICP, to more complex topics like Conway’s law, the role of leadership, and recruiting tactics and strategies.

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Links:

Pacific Lake

Scott on LinkedIn

The Alliance by Reid Hoffman

Topics:

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:04:14) - Framing the goals of a Product org and key roles

(00:07:53) - Defining Product Software companies and key differences between product and engineering

(00:14:16) - Who determines the priorities of features and creates a product roadmap?

(00:16:48) - How to effectively communicate across an organization

(00:23:04) - How the CEO’s role plays in prioritization

(00:25:43) - Building trust in an organization

(00:33:19) - Benchmarks for timing from idea to shipping

(00:39:15) - How $5-$10m ARR product orgs scale

(00:47:34) - Keeping teams independent and autonomous

(00:56:41) - Recruiting

(01:07:18) - Final thoughts