Supra Insider

Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. In this episode, Marc and Ben sit down with Chris Hulls, the founder and CEO of Life360, the world’s leading location-sharing app for families. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in scaling a tech startup and Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. In this episode, Marc and Ben sit down with Chris Hulls, the founder and CEO of Life360, the world’s leading location-sharing app for families. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in scaling a tech startup and understanding the intricacies of product management in a rapidly growing company. the intricacies of product management in a rapidly growing company.

All episodes of the podcast are also available on Spotify, Apple and YouTube (video).

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

In this episode, we covered the following topics:

* Chris's journey from founding Life360 to taking the company public

* The qualities Chris looks for in product leaders at different growth stages

* His views on metric-driven product culture and the lean startup ideology

* Why Chris brought on Gibson Biddle as an interim product leader and his reflections on the experience of hiring fractional executives

* How Life360 maintains agility as it scales

* Chris's approach to building conviction and product taste as a founder

* The challenges and benefits of being a publicly traded company

* Chris’s future aspirations and continued motivation after 17 years in the business

* And more!

If you’d like to watch the video of our conversation, you can catch that on YouTube:

Links:

* Life360 careers page: https://www.life360.com/careers/

* Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benerez/

* Marc: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbaselga/

If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with a friend or colleague 👇

Also, if you’re a new subscriber, we encourage you to check out some of the recent episodes you might have missed (Spotify links embed better but you can see all of these on other platforms, too, from the podcast page on Substack):

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suprainsider.substack.com

Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. This time, Marc & Ben sat down to talk about Ben’s recent experience launching a course on Maven. This episode will be extremely relevant to anyone considering launching a course.

All episodes of the podcast are also available on Spotify, Apple and YouTube (video).

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

In this episode, we covered the following topics:

* Ben’s motivation for the course

* What it took to get the course off the ground and drive initial demand

* Figuring out the positioning and course materials

* The time commitment for the course

* How to nail pricing and the cohort size

* Learnings from the first cohort

* And more!

If you’d like to watch the video of our conversation, you can catch that on YouTube:

Links:

* Ben’s Maven course: https://maven.com/ben-erez/pm-interview/

* Ben’s Lightning Lesson on Maven that drove signups for the course:

https://maven.com/p/2acf4f/how-to-ace-product-sense-analytical-thinking-pm-interviews?utm_medium=ll_share_link&utm_source=instructor

* Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benerez/

* Marc: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbaselga/

* Brenton’s learning talk on “Foundations for Exponential Growth”

If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with a friend or colleague 👇

Also, if you’re a new subscriber, we encourage you to check out some of the recent episodes you might have missed (Spotify links embed better, but you can see all of these on other platforms, too, from the podcast page on Substack):

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suprainsider.substack.com

Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. This time, Ben joined Estee Goldschmidt on her podcast, The Estee Show, to dive into Ben’s learnings from the past six months of fractional product work.

All episodes of the podcast are also available on Spotify, Apple and YouTube (video).

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

In this episode, Ben and Estee talked about:

* What fractional product work means and why it’s appealing to people

* How to build a pipeline of fractional opportunities by warming up your network and promoting yourself authentically

* The surprising context switching costs incurred with multiple part-time PM roles

* How startups can leverage advisors to improve and accelerate execution

* The importance of finding work at the intersection of strengths, joy, and value

* And more!

If you’d like to watch the video of our conversation, you can catch that on YouTube:

Links:

* Estee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esteegoldschmidt/

* Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benerez/

* The Estee Show Website: https://theesteeshow.com/

* The Estee Show on Substack | Spotify | Apple | Instagram | LinkedIn

If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with a friend or colleague 👇

Also, if you’re a new subscriber, we encourage you to check out some of the recent episodes you might have missed (Spotify links embed better but you can see all of these on other platforms, too, from the podcast page on Substack):

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suprainsider.substack.com

Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. This time, we’re excited to bring you our second conversation with Josh Herzig-Marx (a follow up on episode 16).

Josh was one of the early facilitators in Supra, has been a successful founder who sold his company to Google, held multiple early stage product leadership roles, and in recent years has found meaning in his role as an early stage product coach.

All episodes of the podcast are also available on Spotify, Apple and YouTube (video).

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

In this sequel to our previous episode with Josh (episode 16), we talked about:

* Josh’s scaffolding framework (soothing, insights, practice)

* When founders should delegate the hard thing vs do it themselves

* How to think about playing to your strengths as a founder

* When to hire full-time vs fractional

* Why anything other than product and sales/GTM is a distraction before you have product-market fit

* And more!

This conversation will be particularly useful for founders, early stage heads of product, product advisors, and founding PMs. Hope you enjoy it!

If you’d like to watch the video of our interview, you can catch that on YouTube:

If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with a friend or colleague 👇

Links:

* Josh’s LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuaherzigmarx/

* Josh’s website: https://joshua.herzig-marx.com

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suprainsider.substack.com

Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. This time, we’re excited to bring you our conversation with Heather Phillips, Senior Director of Product Design at Slack.

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

Before Slack, Heather held multiple design leadership roles at companies including Abstract (where she worked closely with Ben), Designer Fund, RelateIQ, and Yammer.

In this episode, we talked about

* What it means to make a product “sing”

* The benefits of investing in user delight

* How to instill a delight-forward mindset in your team

* Pitfalls to avoid when attempting to level up your product’s design

* How Slack structures its teams to make their products “Slacky”

* And more!

Heather is an incredibly thoughtful design executive who is passionate about building world-class user experiences and has unique views on ways to do so by bringing brand design and product design closer together. We loved chatting with her and learned a ton. We hope you enjoy the episode!

If you’d like to watch the video, you can catch that on YouTube:

Links:

* Heather’s LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-phillips/

* Heather’s personal site: https://www.heatherphillips.com/

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

If you’re new to the pod, check out some of our recent episodes below:

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suprainsider.substack.com

Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. This time, we’re excited to bring you our conversation with Josh Herzig-Marx.

Josh was one of the early facilitators in Supra, has been a successful founder who sold his company to Google, held multiple early stage product leadership roles, and in recent years has found meaning in his role as an early stage product coach.

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

In our conversation, we talked about

* Josh’s decision two years ago to take a break from full-time salaried work to become the primary parent for his two daughters, supporting his wife Carla’s booming career as a bestselling author and clinician

* The founding PM + founder relationship and why it’s critical for founders to own the product vision and strategy for longer than comfortable

* The role of product coaches in early stage startups and Josh’s journey into the coaching world

* And more!

This conversation will be particularly useful for founders, early stage heads of product, and founding PMs. Hope you enjoy listening!

If you’d like to watch the video of our interview, you can catch that on YouTube:

Links:

* Josh’s LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuaherzigmarx/

* Josh’s website: https://joshua.herzig-marx.com

* Josh’s wife Carla Naumburg’s newly released book: https://www.amazon.com/How-Stop-Freaking-Out-Ultimate/dp/1523518243

* All of Carla’s books: https://www.carlanaumburg.com/books/

* Article: Why You Want to be the *Second* 1st PM by Jason Evanish

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suprainsider.substack.com

Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. After Ben shared a fun story on LinkedIn about how he got his first tech job, we thought it would be fun to do an episode about how we landed our first jobs in tech.

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

In this episode, we talked about

* The story of how Ben joined Life360 as employee #35 through a roadtrip

* The story of how Marc joined Asana as their first PM intern

* Actionable takeaways from these stories for driven people to find opportunities

* And much more!

We hope you enjoy listening!

If you’d like to watch the video of our conversation, you can catch that on YouTube:

Links:

* Marc: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbaselga/

* Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benerez/

If you’re a new subscriber, welcome! Feel free to check out some of the previous episodes you might have missed (Spotify links embed better but you can see all of these on other platforms too from the podcast page on Substack):

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suprainsider.substack.com

Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. This time, we’re excited to bring you our conversation with Kelly O'Shaughnessy, Head of Product - Self Serve at Airtable.

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

Getting new products off the ground at established companies is notoriously challenging. But when it works, it can meaningfully expand the company’s TAM and introduce new revenue streams.

Kelly O’Shaughnessy is one of the earliest members of the Supra community and before her current role at Airtable, she spent four years at Uber focusing on marketplace & pricing dynamics, core consumer experience, and B2B offerings.

In this episode, we talked about

* Kelly’s experience being recruited into a ”volunteer army” at Uber, ultimately leading to the development of new products worth $1B+

* Advice for passionate product leaders to get people excited to join their “volunteer army” for new initiatives through storytelling and data

* Why forming tiger teams with cross-functional partners is critical for the success of new initiatives (especially with GTM)

* The importance of setting aside ego to inspire people to follow you

* And more!

This conversation will be particularly useful for listeners at larger companies looking to get new initiatives off the ground. We loved chatting with Kelly and learned a ton. Hope you enjoy listening!

If you’d like to watch the video of our interview, you can catch that on YouTube:

Links:

* Kelly’s LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyoshaughnessy/

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suprainsider.substack.com

A couple of months ago, Ben wrote a thought-provoking LinkedIn post about the potential damage Marty Cagan's advice on Lenny's podcast could cause to feature factory PMs. This sparked a conversation between Ben and Estee Goldschmidt on The Estee Show, which caught the attention of Lenny Rachitsky. Recognizing the importance of the topic, Lenny invited Ben to write a guest post for his newsletter, "In defense of feature team product managers," which went live today.

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

In this episode, Ben and Estee talked about:

* The controversy around current product management practices, emphasizing the difficulties PMs encounter when trying to implement change within their organizations.

* Ben’s perspective and experiences, outlining the challenges of transitioning a company from being output-oriented to outcome-oriented, highlighting the risks and personal consequences PMs face in such endeavors.

* Strategies for PMs in 'feature factory' settings and the importance of aligning job performance evaluations with the realities of the work environment.

* The contrasts between the aspirational aspects of product leadership and the on-the-ground realities for PMs, offering insights and advice for navigating these challenging terrains.

* And more!

If you’d like to watch the video of our conversation, you can catch that on YouTube:

Links:

* Estee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esteegoldschmidt/

* Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benerez/

* The Estee Show Website: https://theesteeshow.com/

* The Estee Show on Substack | Spotify | Apple | Instagram | LinkedIn

Also, if you’re a new subscriber, we encourage you to check out some of the previous episodes you might have missed (Spotify links embed better but you can see all of these on other platforms, too, from the podcast page on Substack):

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suprainsider.substack.com

Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. This time, Marc and Ben sat down to reflect on the first 11 episodes of the pod.

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

In this episode, we talked about

* Key decisions we made at the offset and how those have played out

* Our runbook for publishing episodes

* How we gather and incorporate feedback to make every episode better

* Where we’re hoping to go with the pod from here

* Why podcast analytics are terrible

* And much more!

We’re excited to make this type of reflection a habit every few months and hope you enjoy listening!

If you’d like to watch the video of our conversation, you can catch that on YouTube:

Also, if you’re a new subscriber, we encourage you to check out some of the previous episodes you might have missed (Spotify links embed better but you can see all of these on other platforms too from the podcast page on Substack):

Links:

* Marc: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbaselga/

* Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benerez/

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suprainsider.substack.com