In this Focus Forty episode of The Design Your Thinking Podcast, I talk to Joe Cotellese who is an executive-level product developer and Head of Product Management at AWeber and we talk about focusing on customer experience.

Who is Joe Cotellese?

Joe is an executive-level product developer who has a real passion for creating consumer facing technology products.

Over the last 20 years he has worked with a range of companies – from pre-investment startups to large corporations – to bring high-tech consumer products to life.

Much of his recent focus is in product management and product marketing with a concentration on SaaS, iOS and Android product development. He is also well versed in product lifecycle management, product roadmaps, product positioning, business models, product requirements documents, user stories, UX and interaction design.

Throughout the course of my career he has either directly managed, launched, or developed software for the following:

– An online video advertising network

– An interactive music video network

– A 3D body scanning system to help women find great fitting clothes

– Video set top boxes for hotel pay-per-view services

– A personal video recorder akin to TiVo

– Audio sound cards for the music and video game industry

– A SaaS marketing automation platform that helps businesses connect with their customers

He has been included in a few lists of Product Managers to follow.

In this particular episode, you will learn

* Why is Joe successful as a product manager?

* How Joe manages staying productive?

* Joe’s secrets in managing the balance between being productive and being creative

* What Joe believes are the top 3 things a Product Manager should be good at

* Joe’s view of how the discipline of Product Management would change in the next 5 years

* How does Joe see the role of a Product Manager evolve in the years to come?

Highlights

* Team

* Delegate and Trust

* Tools & Processes

* Getting Things Done

* Omni-focus

* Treat Your Own Life As if it were a Product

* Vision

* Mission

* Roadmap

* Balance

* Headspace

* Scheduling time

* Consume less content

* Getting in touch with customers

* Focus on solution

* Selling and customer experience

* What else do they need to get job done?

* Fail fast

* Failure is Feedback

Useful Links

* Joe’s Twitter handle – @JoeCotellese

* Joe’s website link – joecotellese.com/dyt

* Books

* Creating Flow with Omni-Focus by Kourosh Dini

* Getting Things Done by David Allen

* Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull

* Tools

* Ethnio

In this Friday Fifteen episode, I will help you understand if Product Management is for you, and help select the right kind of Product Management job. In this particular episode, you will learn You will learn a learn a 3-step process to understand your strengths, motivations and fears, give an overview of the kinds of […]

In this Friday Fifteen episode, I will help you understand if Product Management is for you, and help select the right kind of Product Management job.

In this particular episode, you will learn

You will learn a learn a 3-step process to understand your strengths, motivations and fears, give an overview of the kinds of Product Management roles and help select the right kind of Product Management job and role.

Detailed Transcript

Hey welcome to the fourth Friday Fifteen episode on The Design Your Thinking Podcast…and I’m your host, teacher and friend, Karthik. Hope you had a good week! If you are listening to this episode, you are either making products or looking to move to the product world. You are either a product manager who has been managing products for a little while and now looking to explore more product roles, or something who is thinking of switching roles and considering product management as an option.

No matter which bucket you fall into, this episode is for you. As you know, the Friday Fifteen episodes don’t follow any particular order. I pick topics based on what listeners and readers are interested in, as long as I see them relevant to the larger community. Today’s topic is one such. Many people have asked me why and how I got into product management. While there are many who are interested but unable to make the switch, there are others who are just confused if they should get into product management, or product design, or user experience or something else.

Thanks to the world of options today, there are numerous roles out in the market that aid to this confusion. “Product Consultant”, “Innovation Strategist”, “Product Strategist”, “Product Manager”, “Product Owner” and the list just goes on. I’ve been asked by many people who went on to do their MBAs from top B-Schools, but are unhappy with the roles they are in. Some have found their sweet spot by trial and error and gotten into careers and roles that they have always wanted.

So I decided to do this episode and help you navigate this maze and find out if product management is indeed something for you. Will you be happy making the switch? Let’s go and figure out by jumping right in..

ConvertKit Sponsor

Before we went on any further, I’d like to give some love to today’s sponsor – ConvertKit. I wrote an eBook back in the February of 2016 and switched to ConvertKit from another email provider. Having hosted my eBook in GumRoad, I found ConvertKit’s integration with Gum Road, the autoresponders and sequences, Automation triggers very helpful in segmenting my audience and also growing an audience from literally 0 to over a 1000 in less than 4 months!

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As in any profession, it’s more about yourself than the role, that’s important to pay attention to. Any job could be yours, if you did the right preparation, but it’s important to understand if you’ll be happy doing that job. So in today’s episode, I’ll share a set of 3 steps that will take you from where you are, to deciding to applying or not, to a product management gig.

In the next 10 odd minutes, we are going to see how to go about –

* Understanding yourself – your strengths, motivations and passion

* Understanding the product management job and its variations

* Bridging the gap between You and Your Dream PM Role

First, Understanding Yourself..

In this Ferris Wheel episode of The Design Your Thinking Podcast, I talk to Laurence McCahill and deconstruct his Product Mindset by asking questions that get deep into the way he thinks. Who is Laurence McCahill? A recovering digital agency founder, Laurence co-founded The Happy Startup School as a backlash against the prevailing startup culture of high […]

In this Ferris Wheel episode of The Design Your Thinking Podcast, I talk to Laurence McCahill and deconstruct his Product Mindset by asking questions that get deep into the way he thinks.

Who is Laurence McCahill?

A recovering digital agency founder, Laurence co-founded The Happy Startup School as a backlash against the prevailing startup culture of high growth and fast exits. In less than 3 years this has grown into a 100,000 strong grass roots movement, having built their reputation on a series of game-changing events and programs.

In this particular episode, you will learn

The first part of this conversation with Laurence – https://designyourthinking.com/dyt-012-happy-startup-canvas-happiness-business-part-1-laurence-mccahill/

* Have you trained or coached others to do what you are doing as an entrepreneur? How successful have they been in being able to replicate the results?

* Frankenstein Factories

* What are the biggest mistakes you see product startups make? What do you see as a waste of time in what they do today?

* What are the biggest mistakes you see bigger product companies make?

* No one does Lean Startup and do the hard stuff first

* Jeremiah Gardner – The Lean Brand

* Most valuable money you spend on a startup is 2-3 bucks on a cup of coffee with a customer

* Great entrepreneurs don’t try to be proven right, but try to be proven wrong

* Bad news gets worse the longer you leave it – Rob Fitzpatrick

* Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face – Mike Tyson

* What are your key principles for a happy startup?

* Start with the Why and the Purpose

* If you had 5 ideas, which one would you do if Money was never the purpose?

* What are your favorite books & resources on making products and running product startups? If people had to teach themselves to start a business using Happiness as the Business Model, what do you suggest they do?

* If you had to coach me for 4 weeks to get build and launch a product business, and you had a million dollars in the line, what would the coaching look like? What would it look like in 8 weeks?

Useful Links

* Laurence McCahill on Twitter @welovelean

* Introduction to The Design Your Thinking Podcast – designyourthinking.com/episode000

* Ash Maurya on “Lean Product Mindset and Running Lean” – designyourthinking.com/episode007

* The Happy Startup Canvas – www.thehappystartupschool.com/blog/2015/9/29/introducing-the-happy-startup-canvas

* The Happy Startup School – www.thehappystartupschool.com

* Books

* Winning Without Losing book by Martin Bjergegaard

*

In this Ferris Wheel episode of The Design Your Thinking Podcast, I talk to Laurence McCahill and deconstruct his Product Mindset by asking questions that get deep into the way he thinks. Who is Laurence McCahill? A recovering digital agency founder, Laurence co-founded The Happy Startup School as a backlash against the prevailing startup culture of high […]

In this Ferris Wheel episode of The Design Your Thinking Podcast, I talk to Laurence McCahill and deconstruct his Product Mindset by asking questions that get deep into the way he thinks.

Who is Laurence McCahill?

A recovering digital agency founder, Laurence co-founded The Happy Startup School as a backlash against the prevailing startup culture of high growth and fast exits. In less than 3 years this has grown into a 100,000 strong grass roots movement, having built their reputation on a series of game-changing events and programs.

In this particular episode, you will learn

* What is Happiness as a business model?

* What does the Happy Startup School do?

* Who Laurence thinks are the most unorthodox product / startup people? Why? What do you think of them?

* Who Laurence thinks are the most impressive, lesser-known teachers in the product / startup space?

* What makes Laurence different from other entrepreneurs and makers?

* Who are the people that’ve influenced Laurence the most? Why?

Useful Links

* Laurence McCahill on Twitter @welovelean

* Introduction to The Design Your Thinking Podcast – designyourthinking.com/episode000

* Ash Maurya on “Lean Product Mindset and Running Lean” – designyourthinking.com/episode007

* The Happy Startup Canvas – www.thehappystartupschool.com/blog/2015/9/29/introducing-the-happy-startup-canvas

* The Happy Startup School – www.thehappystartupschool.com

* Winning Without Losing book by Martin Bjergegaard

* Rework book by David Heinemeier Hansson of Basecamp (previously known as 37Signals)

* Remote book by David Heinemeier Hansson of Basecamp (previously known as 37Signals)

* The Seven-Day Weekend book by Ricardo Semler

In this Friday Fifteen episode, I will teach you how to think effectively and come up with creative ideas. How often have you wondered “I wish I could think and come up with great ideas like Steve Jobs!”? How often have you thought “I am not a creative person”? Well, that kind of thinking will […]

In this Friday Fifteen episode, I will teach you how to think effectively and come up with creative ideas.

How often have you wondered “I wish I could think and come up with great ideas like Steve Jobs!”? How often have you thought “I am not a creative person”? Well, that kind of thinking will change after you finish listening to this episode! I know this is a lofty promise and I’ll try to live up to it in the next 15 minutes!

In this particular episode, you will learn

You will learn a 5-staged process and 5 thinking techniques to get you instantly started to change the way you fundamentally think.

Detailed Transcript

Hey welcome to the third episode of the Friday Fifteen on The Design Your Thinking Podcast, and this is me Karthik. Today we are going to learn something that will transform your thinking forever.  How often have you wondered “I wish I could think and come up with great ideas like Steve Jobs!”? How often have you thought “I am not a creative person”? Well, that kind of thinking will change after you finish listening to this episode! I know this is a lofty promise and I’ll try to live up to it in the next 15 minutes!

Well, I’m not selling snake oil or making empty promises, as what I’m about to teach you today has been tried and tested by experts. I learnt these techniques that I’m about to teach from experts in creative thinking and design, like John Thakara, Edward de Bono, Erik Stolterman and many others. These techniques have deep roots in Greek philosophy and has later been described by many authors in various different ways for business, creativity, design and many other disciplines.

My research in “thinking” and “creativity” has been on for over 12 years and it was triggered by this brute realization that hit me in my 20s when I realized that I was far more creative as a young kid as opposed to what I’d grown up to be. Have you observed something similar with yourself? Someone famous seemingly said this, and I quote “We are born creative, but education spoilt us.” Well there is some history to the way the modern education system does this.

If you are interested, you can check out the show notes for some very interesting reads. For now, let’s get back to the topic – “How to Think Effectively?” So, are you ready to change the way you think? Alright, let’s jump right in…

5 Steps to Thinking with the PUNCH

Thinking effectively can be broken down into 5 steps. While I am tempted to give you 5 different steps so you can try and remember them, I’ve found it extremely tough for people to internalize learnings. So I have an acronym for you. I am a martial artist and kicks and punches are the first thing that come to my mind. So the one word you need to remember is PUNCH, to help you think better!

To be able to deliver good PUNCH, you need to know your target, the surroundings and what you want to do with the PUNCH – knock-out someone or just distract and defend.

So what does PUNCH stand for?

“P” stands for Purpose. Thinking without purpose can be extremely useless and sometimes is called day-dreaming. So it all starts with a Purpose. As it is to be successful with anything, your thinking needs to have an aim, a purpose or an objective. Where are we going with this thought? Where and what do we want to end up with? What would define the ideal end state?

Best way is to start by writing down the purpose. Breakdown the purpose or rewrite it multiple times to be clear as to where you want to end. What are you thinking about? Just be mindful of the fact that this definition is very important. For example, if your purpose is to “reduce commute time”, you could do it in multiple ways – work from home, change your job, work out of a closer office space, etc.

Alright, let’s now look at the next step, which is “U” in “PUNCH”, which stands for “Understand the situation”.

In this Focus Forty episode of The Design Your Thinking Podcast, I talk to Marc Abraham about his success & thinking and the Product Mindset. Who is Marc Abraham? Marc is an experienced product management professional, having developed a wide range of products at companies such as 7digital, Notonthehighstreet and now at World First. In this particular […]