In this episode of the Product Innovation Show, Maarten van Kroonenburg, founder @ BW Ventures, and Aram Melkoumov dive deep into the realm of enterprise ideation. They explore the ins and outs of validating a business idea, with Maarten unveiling his unique, tried-and-tested processes for determining product viability, customer validation, and effective stakeholder management. The duo emphasizes the significance of securing initial customer commitments and also sheds light on the critical considerations for corporates eyeing acquisitions. Engage in a conversation rich with strategies, insights, and invaluable advice that has the potential to transform your perspective on product development and validation.

About the Guest
Maarten began his entrepreneurial adventure at 19 in the music scene. After dodging some iffy record deals, he thought, "I can do better!" and launched his first venture. He quickly noticed that the way entrepreneurship was taught was flawed. So, six years ago, Maarten founded BW Ventures. Since then, he's guided over 200 startups, helping them find solid business models. Yet, even with a plan, many still struggle to secure their first investment.

SHOW NOTES:

[1:59] Corporate Innovation vs Startups: Maarten discusses the distinct ways startups and corporations approach innovation.
[6:09] Decision-making in Innovation: Companies face dilemmas in building new solutions, buying them, or establishing partnerships.
[11:46] Risk in Innovation: Innovation involves inherent risks, and it's crucial to make calculated decisions.
[17:49] Digital Tools in Business: Emphasis on the role and significance of digital transformation for growth.
[25:05] Pilot Programs: The value of testing new ideas via pilot programs to validate feasibility is highlighted.
[35:59] Importance of Adaptability: The conversation underscores the need for flexibility and adjustments in innovation processes.
[43:41] Stakeholder Dynamics: Addressing stakeholder concerns and managing their expectations is vital in innovation.
[57:56] When to Pivot or Kill a Project: Maarten elaborates on making choices about pivoting projects or discontinuing them.
[59:28] Meeting Stakeholder Expectations: Stakeholders often prioritize visible progress over finalized contracts.
[61:41] Acquisition Strategy: Companies need clarity on their strategy when considering acquisitions.

Quotes from Maarten:
"Showing progress and showing what works and doesn't work is more valuable than just getting that perfect business case out."

"People are most of the times too scared to build a super big business case because they think decision makers are going to ask for that. But what's more important is showing progress and understanding what you're doing."

Books We Mentioned:
1. Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography
2. Mindgames: Phil Jackson's Long Strange Journey
3. The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

Follow Maarten van Kroonenburg
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maartenvankroonenburg/

Mounika Sanikommu, Senior Product Manager at Zuora, is sharing her thrilling journey with ChatGPT, experiments she runs, plugins she discovered and how she uses AI for data analysis in her day job. Monica and Aram also spills the beans on the future of jobs in an AI-dominated landscape. 

About Tadas Labudis:
Tadas leads the Customer AI team at Playvox. He joined Playvox in 2022 following the acquisition of Prodsight, a text analytics startup he founded to help support teams get deeper insights from their customer interactions. In his free time, he likes to spend time with his wife and baby daughter, play drums and try his hand at perfecting espresso and latte art.

SHOW NOTES:
0:00 | Introduction to Tadas Labudis
1:05 | His transition when Prodsight, his company, was acquired in 2022 by Playvox
2:48 | Contrast between his work at Prodsight and Playvox
4:11 | Missing the CEO title at Prodsight
6:19 | User Research Methods for Discovery at Playvox
9:03 | Tools to track the success of a product released to the market
11:07| Validating new features on different products
13:10 | Differences between working at Prodsight and Playvox
15:41 | What Tadas needs to learn in order to be better at doing discoveries
18:00 | Changes in product innovation in big companies
20:33 | How to motivate and foster the spirit of innovation in team members
24:52 | Q/A session
26:22 | Wrap-up

QUOTES:
“When you build a good product, the rest will come easily. People will find you despite how remote your medium of communication may be.” [2:03]

“The core of every company, whether start-up or advanced, is the product.” [3:00]

“For any company growing, it’s only natural to do things without much urgency unless there’s fear of losing the company.” [18:42]

Resources Mentioned
The Mom Test: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H4G2J1U/

Connect with Tadas Labudis
Personal Website: https://labudis.com/
Company’s Website: https://www.playvox.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tadaslabudis/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tadaslab

We all want to maintain high application quality, but without automation and customer involvement, it would be impossible to reach these goals.
Automation plus customer data make your apps scalable, usable, and more efficient for your customers. Create a product and a solution that your customers will love and engage with, not just use.
-  Ayal Cohen, Senior Director of Product @ MicroFocus.

About Ayal
Ayal is a Senior Director of Products at MicroFocus. He spent more than two decades in the world of automation and is leading the next evolution for automated functional testing. Ayal has helped hundreds of customers build their test automation switches and improve their automation. Experienced with translating customer pains and market needs into working and profitable products based on data analysis and market research. He provides a strong R&D and quality assurance background with proven capabilities in managing large-scale products, projects, and organizations.

SHOW NOTES:
0:00 | Introduction to Ayal
1:07 | What is functional automation testing, and why his focus is in this area
3:15 | How automated testing works for different products 
4:29 | The best customer meeting that Ayal has ever had
7:03 | How to ensure you’re adding maximum value in a customer meeting
8:34 | How frequently to hold your customer meetings
11:02| When to consolidate data from customer meetings and do sense-making
12:11 | How the world of products has changed over the years
16:12 | Ayal's biggest product challenge working with big enterprises
18:00 | What Ayal has seen to work in solving customer expectations and requests
20:33 | The definition of enterprise-ready in the product realm
23:21 | The biggest cause of concern and mandate for enterprises today
26:33 | Creating product customers will love and engage with, not just use
27:20 | How Ayal determines the success criteria for a product that is going to be loved
28:33 | How to change your product to approach and achieve growth
31:48 | Initial foundation levels of success to look at when changing your product
33:40 | The last customer engagement syndrome. What it’s and how it works
35:37 | Q/A session
38:08 | Key takeaways for the listeners from Ayal 
39:07 | Wrap-up

QUOTES:
“If you want to learn how customers are using your solution and their challenges, it’s very important to be patient, don’t be afraid of awkward silence, give your customers time to answer the question, don’t put words in their mouth.” [7:06]

“You need to hear more opinions to make sure you are more educated with different varieties of personas to make the right conclusion from the feedback that you have.” [11:31]

“Data is very important and you need to understand how your customers are using your product to understand what is missing and how you can engage more solution.” [31:46]

Resources Mentioned
The Mom Test: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H4G2J1U/

Connect with Ayal Cohen
Company’s Website: https://www.microfocus.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayalc/

About Burak
Burak Kantarci is a Product Manager at Thundra where his main goals are to simplify developers’ daily life and make their workflows more errorless and enjoyable. He lives in Turkey and has a degree in Computer Science.

SHOW NOTES:
0:00 | Introduction to Burak Kantarci
1:17 | Original product at Thundra and the different pivots it has undergone
6:24 | Metrics to track as a product leader before pivoting
9:31 | How to prioritize products
15:52| Burak’s biggest takeaways going from a product designer to a product manager
18:04| Current working framework on his role
22:51 | How to keep product vision in alignment with other stakeholders
25:50 | Key product lessons/ principles Burak keeps coming back to when stuck
30:18 | Parting wisdom and golden takeaways
32:24 | Wrap-up

QUOTES:
“Getting your hands dirty is the only way to understand the problem and the solution of a product.” [17:40]

“Repetition creates clarity and alignment of a company’s product purpose. Product managers should derive a way of constantly communicating the purpose to the stakeholders. This can be through frequent memos.” [24:30]

“Know your superpowers as a product manager, and be aware of the company culture and leadership. It helps you do actionable things” [30:45]

Connect with Burak Kantarci

Personal Website: https://www.burakkantarci.com/
Company’s Website: https://www.thundra.io/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/burakkantarci/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kantarci
Email: burakkantarci.08@gmail.com

Manos Kyriakakis is a Head of Product & Growth at Simpler. They’re aiming to allow shoppers all over the world seamlessly checkout from anywhere. In the past, Manos has worked with other VC-backed startups in industries such as insuretech, ad-tech, and travel-tech, including Pricefox.gr, Avocarrot, Market Group, and Welcome Pickups. He has also collaborated with companies as a consultant and co-founded his own company.

SHOW NOTES:
0:00 | Introduction to Manos Kyriakakis
2:05 | Achieving product/market fit for startups
3:56 | Metrics that show whether you have hit market fit for your product
5:51 | Early challenges in attaining market fit at Simpler
9:35 | Knowing if you are on the right track
14:07| What Manos has done to ensure product vision is common with all stakeholders
17:26 | Confidence, Arrogance, and making Assumptions in products
19:43 | Getting rid of ego from the equation
21:24 | Product biases that Manos has had to deal with frequently
22:44 | The one question Manos desires to be asked as a product manager
24:21 | Becoming not entirely data-reliant in decision making
25:54 | Wrap-up


QUOTES:

“To achieve product /market fit, an entrepreneur should be as close as possible to the target audience. This means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.” [3:24]

“As a product leader, you are responsible for ensuring the product vision is protected and all stakeholders have a clear grasp before making decisions.” [14:07]

“It’s easy for product managers to be arrogant, overconfident, and make assumptions about their products. Such negligence is also easily transferred to the team” [18:32]

Connect with Manos Kyriakakis

Personal Website: https://manoskyriakakis.com/
Company’s Website: https://www.simpler.so/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manoskyr/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/manoskyr

Tom and Aram discuss how and why to build an advisory council. They discuss how to ask questions people want to answer, how getting close to your users makes work more meaningful for your team, and why you should never build a product alone. They also explore why you shouldn’t only think about who your customer is and what they need - but who their customers are and what their objectives are.

About Tom O’Neill
Tom is the Founder and CEO of Parallax. He built a stellar product by first building an advisory council because he believes that great products are never built solo, they’re created by great teams. Tom is also the co-founder of Frebella and was previously the CEO of The Nerdery.

SHOW NOTES:
00:05 | Who is Tom O’Neill?
00:38 | How and why to build an advisory council
04:15 | How to find product advisors
05:34 | Running advisory council sessions
08:47 | Nobody leaves a banging nightclub…
11:19 | Do advisors become clients?
16:59 | Wrong ways to think about your client
23:49 | How to build ANY product
27:27 | He doesn’t want to learn this lesson again
29:47 | Fireside: attitude, crazy features, focus, mentorship

Quotes:
(03:16) “I think a lot of people enjoy being a part of building something. I think that the idea of being an advisor to a product development team is appealing to them and that's how we positioned it.”

Follow Tom O’Neill
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomoneill/ 

What happens when you accept that many people can do a better job than you? Why should you treat your company as a product? This founder took what he learned working at Amazon and Siemens and started his own company.

About Pierre Brunelle
Pierre Brunelle is the co-founder and CEO of Noteable. Previously, he was a technical product manager at Amazon Europe. He also held a role at Siemens earlier in his career. That said, Pierre has always been an entrepreneur at heart. In fact, he started his first business when he was 15 and it’s still operational today! 

SHOW NOTES:
00:00 | Who is Pierre Brunelle?
02:50 | Being a technical product manager at Amazon
04:46 | Amazon EU vs Amazon US
07:36 | Starting a furniture business at 15 (it’s still running)
11:32 | What’s it like to work at Siemens?
13:35 | Is raising $25M enough?
16:03 | Nothing gets done alone
19:06 | How often should you pivot? OR When should you pivot?
22:43 | How product documents are reviewed at Amazon
28:26 | Copying Amazon’s internal operations
30:53 | Creating ownership: dos and don’ts
34:40 | Building a product organization
39:14 | How to do boring work
41:59 | Why he moved from Amazon to entrepreneurship
44:04 | Do technical product managers need to be technical?

Quotes:
(16:56) “I always believe that I don't achieve anything by myself - I think as a CEO or co-founder, it's a great mindset to have.”
(20:41) “Commit to something. And when you get small signals, change, adapt, and commit to the second thing until you have information to make you change your opinion.”

Follow Pierre Brunelle
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brunellepe/  

What do you get when you rely on your intuition instead of just what customers tell you? The iPod. Today we discuss the creative leaps of faith you should and shouldn’t take when developing your product.

About Ravi Swaminathan
Ravi Swaminathan is the CEO of TaskHuman. He believes in egoless leadership. Egoless leadership is about being at peace with not having all the answers today and believing that more answers will come with time. Previously, was President at WiZER and a VP at SanDisk amongst other roles.

About Seth Barron
Seth Barron is the Head of Product Management at TaskHuman. He thinks new features should only be added if they remove friction from the user experience. His litmus test is asking: will things be simpler for the user after adding this feature? Previously, Seth spent 16 years at Google. He is also a Yogi.

SHOW NOTES:
00:00 | Who are Ravi Swaminathan and Seth Barron?
01:12 | Google, but for people
04:04 | Obsessing about consumer experience
07:53 | Egoless product development
11:22 | More than a paycheck
14:46 | Asking your customers vs. following your gut
17:59 | Taking data-driven leaps of faith
21:55 | Is the feature good enough yet? (litmus test)
25:49 | Myth of objectivity

Quotes: 
(17:42) “I'd rather follow what people are doing rather than what people are saying.” - Ravi
(19:39) “I think a lot of product leaders get lost is they get lost in the data and they don't effectively synthesize the insight. The data is just the observation, The insight is the understanding. So something that I think about all the time is: how do I synthesize the signal from the noise?”

Follow Ravi Swaminathan
https://www.linkedin.com/in/raviswaminathan/ 

Follow Seth Barron
https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-barron-nyc/ 

You can be a product manager and have 0 technical skills. Sound controversial to you? Today’s product director has never written a single line of code - he has played professional soccer though. Find out how not having technical skills makes him a sharper PM.

About Mor AviHanan
Mor AviHanan is the Director of Product Management at ZoomInfo. He doesn’t consider himself a technical guy, in fact, he never wrote a line of code in his life. To him, coding is just another language, and communication is not restricted to it or by it. In another life, Mor played soccer for the Israeli national team. He has to leave soccer behind due to an injury.

Links We Mentioned
Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography https://www.amazon.ca/Pep-Guardiola-Another-Winning-Biography/dp/1409129462
Mindgames: Phil Jackson's Long Strange Journey https://www.amazon.ca/Mindgames-Phil-Jacksons-Strange-Journey/dp/0803259980
The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses https://www.amazon.ca/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

SHOW NOTES:
00:05 | Who is Mor AviHanan?
01:03 | Do you need to have technical skills as a product manager?
05:28 | Talking to developers when you aren’t a technical PM
08:20 | Being an athlete vs. being a product manager
12:17 | The secret to running 7 SCRUM teams
16:43 | Running a team of genius minds
19:42 | Book recommendations from sports and tech
21:30 | Saying ‘why not?’ instead of ‘no’ 
22:22 | Visualizing your ideas and innovations
23:17 | Turning sport into a product

Follow Mor AviHanan
https://www.linkedin.com/in/moravihanan/

Work with Crowdlinker:
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

The way a design team is managed can fuel creativity or stifle it. What happens when you direct ideas too early? How do you challenge your designers without overwhelming them? Today’s guest built his design team in 4 months, this is what he learned.

About Mike Townson
Mike Townson is the Director of Product Design at Order. When he started at Order, there wasn’t much of a design or product team. It was just him and the VP of product. There, he had to build an internal design team in 4 months. As a leader, he believes that you don’t always have to be right - but you always have to be surrounded by the right people. His approach to building a design team is to set up the team to be self-led and empowered. In another life, Mike would’ve been a tour guide.

Links We Mentioned
Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams https://www.amazon.ca/Org-Design-Orgs-Building-House/dp/1491938404 
Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers Into Leaders https://www.amazon.ca/Around-Story-Turning-Followers-Leaders/dp/1591846404

SHOW NOTES:
00:05 | Who is Mike Townson?
00:24 | What is Order?
01:29 | Becoming a director of product design
05:34 | First reality check as a design manager
07:48 | Do you have to become a people manager to grow as a designer?
10:10 | The most exciting part of management
14:04 | Building an internal design team from scratch OR Building a design team focused on jobs to be done
17:47 | Scaling a design team
20:49 | Why do great designers have impostor syndrome?
23:23 | Objectivity of design: is it real?
26:04 | Best ways to track design metrics
30:42 | Leader-leader method 
33:49 | Fireside: illustration, VR, design meetings, throwaway work

Follow Mike Townson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/miketownson/

Work with Crowdlinker:
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

When Wrike was a start-up, winning was easy. Its biggest competitor was Excel. Today, it competes with Asana, Monday, Trello, and more. What do you do when your market becomes more competitive? How do you make it impossible for your clients to leave you?

About Alex Zhezerov
Alex Zhezerov is the Director of Product Management at Wrike. He is also a blogger and newsletter writer who runs a B2B SaaS newsletter for founders and executives. He likes to begin his morning with a thinking routine and is currently looking to establish a stronger personal brand for himself through writing. Alex has a unique perspective when it comes to project management - he runs a product that was once in an easy-to-win market and is now in a heavily competitive one.

Links We Mentioned
The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you https://www.amazon.ca/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/dp/1492180742
Porter's Five Forces: Understand competitive forces and stay ahead of the competition https://www.amazon.ca/Porters-Five-Forces-ahead-competition/dp/2806270626
7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy https://www.amazon.ca/7-Powers-Foundations-Business-Strategy/dp/0998116319
The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business https://www.amazon.ca/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Change-Business/dp/0062060244

SHOW NOTES:
00:00 | Who is Alex Zhezerov?
00:23 | B2B SaaS thought leadership and morning thinking routines
03:53 | 3 differentiation strategies
06:28 | Vertical SaaS vs. Horizontal SaaS
08:13 | Should you build a vertical tool with a low budget?
10:06 | Differentiating Wrike from Asana, Trello, and Monday
12:03 | Product priorities after market saturation
15:01 | How to make sure people don’t leave you
19:03 | Million-dollar product management question
22:14 | What every product manager must do to win (and 3 must-read books)

Follow Alex Zhezerov
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexzhezherov/
Alex’s Newsletter: https://zalex.co/

Work with Crowdlinker: 
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

In this episode, our host Aram Melkoumov is speaking with with Jorge, a product leader at Resilia, about the growing influence of AI, particularly GPT-4, in the tech industry. They dive into the ways AI can change our everyday experiences and discuss the potential for AI to replace certain roles.

Key Takeaways:

The Power of GPT-4: Jorge reflects on the advancements in AI with introduction of GPT-4. He shares his experiences about the potential uses of and capabilities of this tech in writing human-like text.

Medici Effect: Jorge emphasizes the power of interdisciplinary knowledge and how viewing use cases from different perspectives can lead to innovative ideas.

Real-World AI Integration: Aram and Jorge explore the application of AI in real-world scenarios, particularly through the use of browser extensions and APIs. They discuss how these integrations can help create more relevant and updated information, improving efficiency.

AI in Content Creation: Jorge shares his experience with using AI in content creation, particularly in real estate. He also mentions Synthesia, an AI avatar company, as a potential tool for those who may not feel comfortable being on camera.

SHOW NOTES

1:06 - Introduction
2:15 - Initial Reaction to ChatGPT
4:09 - Prompt Engineering
6:57 - Learning and Challenges
8:19 - Leveraging ChatGPT Plugins
13:16 - Investment in AI
14:16 - Learning and Content Consumption
16:28 - Doomsday Scenario or Paradise
18:14 - Finding Irreplaceable Roles

About Jorge Sierra

Jorge, with over nine years of experience, has honed his skills as a Product Manager, Startup Advisor, and Consultant across the technology industry, from startups to large corporations, and as a founder of his own businesses. His entrepreneurial achievements include the successful establishment and management of two startups and a software factory firm, all aimed at introducing disruptive technologies to Latin American and Hispanic markets.

Across multiple sectors, including e-commerce, fintech, and artificial intelligence, Jorge has consistently adhered to user-centric design and agile methodologies to develop intuitive, effective products.

Connect with Jorge:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jorge-sierra-guerra/

Connect with Aram:
https://www.crowdlinker.com/

What’s it like to run a team from Seattle that’s largely based all the way in India? And how can you develop your product using an evolutionary perspective? Get answers on today’s show - because today’s guest does both of those things.

About Carmen Williams
Carmen Williams is the Head of Product Marketing at Zuper; but, she’s also a Chief Evolution Officer. Her zone of genius is in leveraging evolutionary science to help companies grow. Carmen holds a Unicist Masters in Science of Evolution. Alongside her work at Zuper, she is a fractional CMO at DayEDigital.com and a board member at AdvisoryCloud. 

SHOW NOTES:
00:00 | Who is Carmen Williams?
01:03 | What is an Evolution Officer and what does Zuper do?
02:48 | Building a team based in India
04:05 | What does a product marketer do at Zuper?
08:14 | How to run an India-based R&D team
09:33 | What metrics does a product marketer care about?
10:41 | Which features should you build?
14:30 | Failed website launch: what went wrong?
17:49 | What product marketers miss
19:19 | Biggest product marketing insight
20:27 | Fireside: hiring, thought leadership, working for free, evolution theory with reading, growth mindset

QUOTES:
(23:00) “Once you’re thinking about your next career move, pick learning. Pick knowledge and the pay will come.”
(24:13) “If you do have that capacity for empathy then constantly be working on your growth mindset - that ability to put yourself in other people’s shoes, to self-reflect, to evaluate, to adapt, to get rid of fear. That is the number one obstacle to growth, your fear of change.”

Follow Carmen Williams
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmenlwilliams/ 

Work with Crowdlinker: 
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

How do you make sure you’re building product processes that scale? Can a new product manager easily pick up where you left off? Find out why hiring her first associate PM shook our guest today.
 
About Rachel Folz
Rachel Folz is the Director of Product at Cerkl. In fact, she was team member #3 there - right after the two co-founders. They started working together after Rachel took great interest in the product as an active and invested user. Being a pioneer at Cerkl, she helped form the product team and all the processes that come with the territory.  In a previous life, Rachel was a journalist for over five years.

Links we mentioned:
Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug: https://www.amazon.ca/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758
INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan: https://www.amazon.ca/INSPIRED-Create-Tech-Products-Customers-ebook/dp/B077NRB36N
Radical Candor: Fully Revised & Updated Edition: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your
Humanity by Kim Scott: https://www.amazon.ca/Radical-Candor-Revised-Kick-Ass-Humanity/dp/1250235375
Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday:
https://www.amazon.ca/Ego-Enemy-Ryan-Holiday/dp/1591847818

SHOW NOTES:
00:00 | Who is Rachel Folz
00:28 | What’s exciting about product management?
02:18 | What is Cerkl?
04:19 | First things a new project manager must do
07:29 | Product growth tipping point
08:40 | How to have a great relationship with your principal designer 
10:31 | The secret to managing roles between designers and developers
11:46 | User testing process at Cerkl
15:46 | How to filter out bad advice
17:39 | Bad product advice on Reddit
18:19 | Hiring the first associate product manager (wake up moment)
21:28 | Don’t let great get in the way of good
22:24 | Passionless products
23:13 | Fireside: practice, rephrasing, listening, execution vs. strategy, it’s not always fun

QUOTES:
(06:56) “My favourite question in user testing is: if you could wave a magic wand and change three things about your work inside [product] every day, what would you change?”
(10:02) “A designer is more than just a person who can move the pixels around for you. What they are is another creative partner who has a different kind of mind than you do - that can help you see around corners.”
(23:51) “You don’t want a product full of buttons, toggles, and switches - you want one that makes an impact.”

Follow Rachel Folz
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelfolz/ 

Work with Crowdlinker: 
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

About Ahmad
Ahmad Kadhim is a software product leader who’s been in tech for close to 10 years now, mostly in hybrid roles at early-stage startups. He has also been a veteran of three other marketplace startups like AquaMobile, #paid and 500px.Being cross-disciplinary played to his strengths as a zoom-in-zoom-out thinker.

SHOW NOTES
[01:10] Intro
[01:30] Being A Product Leader Working Closely With Sales Teams
[02:50] Collaborating
[03:25] Digital Transformation
[04:00] Product Leader Next Steps
[06:50] First Customer Success
[10:15] Overcoming Pitfalls
[13:20] Rushing To Build Something
[14:14] Wake Up Call Moments
[17:35] Saying No To Feature Requests
[18:37] Spending Your Gifted 5 Hours
[19:35] Controversial Views
[21:09] Community Manager vs Product Marketer
[22:05] Personal Questions
[24:57] Outro

QUOTES:
“Am I in the right direction at all or is this not landing?” 
“Eventually, we started creating some systems, we started kind of teaching each other as much as we could about our disciplines so we could collaborate more effectively that way.”
“Be patient with us, give us feedback.”
“All the successful products I think we’ve worked on are ones where the product leaders spend most of their time talking and listening to the customers.”

Connect with Ahmad
Website: https://ahmadkadhim.com
Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/ahmadkadhim
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ahmadkadhim/

OTHER LINKS FROM THIS PODCAST:
https://aquamobileswim.com
https://hashtagpaid.com
https://500px.com
Show note editor: www.fiverr.com/mickperry

Work with Crowdlinker:
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

About Jeffrey Greene
Jeffrey Greene is the Director of Product and Design at NinePatch. He has been working in the design space since 2006 and held roles such as Senior User Experience Designer at Quantros and Director Of Product Design at Stella Technology. He holds a Master’s degree in architecture from Harvard but didn’t work in architecture. Outside the office, Jeffrey enjoys reading books that expose people’s diverse life experiences from notable activists such as bell hooks, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin.

Links We Mentioned:
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't https://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/0066620996
In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing https://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-Elegance-Ideas-Something-Missing/dp/0385526504

SHOW NOTES:
00:00 | Who is Jeffrey Greene
00:31 | How to get leadership to hear you out
03:54 | Being heard as a designer
08:35 | How to translate a pitch deck into reality
14:55 | When things don’t go as planned (technical debt)
19:01 | Why push design work to the end
22:56 | Mental models are so underrated 
24:35 | Complex problems need simple solutions
26:47 | Method acting for product managers: why it works
28:45 | Saying no to yourself
31:22 | The joy of prototyping
32:29 | Personal fireside questions: street food pub, leaving architecture, not having a “real job”...

QUOTES:
[02:17] “You have to try and get on leadership’s radar somehow. And hopefully, if you have good ideas, you just try and figure out a way to get those heard in any venue possible. Hopefully, there's at least one executive out there who's open to hearing things.”

[25:08] “The more complex the problem, the simpler the solution has to be. You can't chase complexity with complexity so the more complicated something is, you have to really try and distill it down.”

Follow Jeffrey Greene:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/archisonic/ 

Work with Crowdlinker: 
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

There’s too much focus on trendy concepts like being agile. There’s too much distortion because of ego and pride. How do you stay authentic, skip the trends, and have better judgment in your work as a product manager? 

About Edoardo Ferrara-Bardile
Edoardo Ferrara-Bardile is a Senior Product Manager at N26. He started his career as an HR professional and transitioned into the product space as a self-taught individual. Being curious about technology, he eventually became a SAP consultant. Eventually, he held several product management roles. In another life, he would have become a carpenter.

Links We Mentioned:
Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/
Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products by Marty Kagan: https://www.amazon.com/EMPOWERED-Ordinary-Extraordinary-Products-Silicon/dp/111969129X

SHOW NOTES:
00:00 | Who is Edoardo Ferrara-Bardile
00:52 | Not having a product background
06:36 | 2 issues with data
10:37 | How to remove bias from decision making
12:54 | Fake agile companies OR How to actually become agile
16:48 | Discovery taking too long? OR Balancing discovery with delivery
20:34 | Useful product management tools
22:43 | Who knows more than you?
24:38 | Fireside: open-ended questions, going faster, negotiation, data

QUOTES:
[08:21] “Data has two main issues. First, it doesn't give you everything. You may have tons of data but it won't give you everything. Second, it’s highly interpretable so it's how you will interpret data. It doesn't mean that data is telling you something -  it means that you are understanding something from the data. You have your biases, your previous experience,  your previous knowledge that will make you think of data in the way you do.”

Follow Edoardo Ferrara-Bardile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/edoardo-ferrara-bardile/

Work with Crowdlinker:
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

Being the first product person in a company is similar to being a detective. You have to expose, articulate, prioritize and map out the founder’s vision. Sometimes you’re met with skepticism and other times you’re misunderstood. Tune in for this PM’s story of being the first product person in his company.

About Usama Khan
Downloading the founder’s vision onto a product roadmap was Usama Khan’s job when he first started out at Stage 10 where he is Head of Product. He was the first product person there. Today, he leads a whole product team there. Usama has been working in the product space since 2013. He believes that one of the most valuable skills a product manager should hone is their ability to communicate and articulate the reasoning behind the decisions they make.

SHOW NOTES:
00:00 | Who is Usama Khan?
00:37 | Being the first product person joining a company
03:18 | Framework for uncovering the founder’s vision
09:22 | The hardest part of running a product department alone
13:39 | Building a product team from scratch
14:20 | Marginal improvements vs. shipping fast
18:58 | Differentiating your product from clones/copycats
25:50 | 3 expectations every product manager has to juggle
33:27 | Fireside questions (researching your questions, understanding user behavior, prioritization, why data metrics aren’t enough, why product managers are misunderstood)

QUOTES:
[04:54] “When you have access to the founder you can try and understand, from his or her perspective, where they want to take the company, what’s the intention, and what their board thinks about it.”
[33:54] “If you’ve thoroughly researched what you want to know from your users and stakeholders, you usually get better answers.”

Follow Usama Khan:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/usamashahidkhan/

Work with Crowdlinker: 
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

About Aram
Aram Melkoumov is the CEO of Crowdlinker. Crowdlinker is an end-to-end digital product studio based in Toronto and Barcelona. Crowdlinker turns 10 in the fall of 2022. He works with startups like Freshbooks and enterprises like Unilever. 

Follow Aram Melkoumov 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/melkoumov/?originalSubdomain=ca

Work with Crowdlinker: 
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

Creating products that help people achieve their life goals requires a sober view of growth. Focus needs to always be purposeful, and distractions minimal.

About Abhishek
Abhishek Bhasin is Head of Product at Uplinq. He is a subject matter expert when it comes to credit. He is a product manager that has dedicated his career to financial inclusion. His other roles include being a Product Leader at TransUnion, a Senior Manager at RBC, and a Director at Equifax. Abhishek believes that the best decisions are made based on merit backed by data rather than democracy. His best investment is a piano he bought for his daughter.

Links We Mentioned:
Art of Happiness by The Dalai Lama: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Happiness-10th-Anniversary-Handbook/dp/1594488894

SHOW NOTES:
00:05 | Who is Abhishek Bhasin?
00:54 | How to identify your purpose as a product manager (and stay focused on it)
03:36 | What’s wrong with product-market fit (and what to watch out for)
06:14 | Solutions vs. wishful thinking
08:38 | Managing multiple persona types when validating a product (customer segmentation)
13:25 | Measuring traction before rushing to scale
17:50 | Should product managers prioritize sales?
21:01 | Sales-driven vs. product-led growth
23:35 | Being a spokesperson for your customer OR How truly believing your idea makes a huge difference
26:22 | Fire round questions (questioning assumptions, talking to people, democratic thinking) 

QUOTES:
[03:35] “The big problem with the word product-market fit is that the product comes first. I wish it was market-product but that doesn’t sound right”
[17:35] “Product ARR is your key metric or gauge to see whether you’re gaining traction or falling behind.”
[23:21] “if you are sales driven, then you’re always most likely playing a price game”

Follow Abhishek Bhasin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhishekbhasin

Work with Crowdlinker:
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

About Mahdi Farra
Mahdi Farra began his fascination with products when he was just 14. Today, he is a Director of Product Design at Ronday. He held many various roles including Lead Product Designer at Airtime and Senior UX Designer at Rakuten Ready. Mahdi has many interesting ideas about common practices that, in his view, are nothing but expensive distractions.

Summary
Mahdi Farra joins Sergey to discuss a plethora of things he saw going wrong in his project management career. He tells the story of an expensive and time-consuming mistake he made in one of his posts at a startup and shares all the nuggets of insights he gained along the way. They then discuss other common practices that Mahdi believes should not take place.

SHOW NOTES:
00:05 | Who is Mahdi Farra?
00:37 | The worst product Mahdi worked on (an expensive lesson)
04:48 | Building your own software vs. using an existing product
09:30 | How to make sure your quality assurance is on point 
13:25 | Why you shouldn’t invest in creating a design system
18:40 | Why you should ask your team to work on specific goals rather than high-level goals
24:11 | Having unrealistic expectations from your team (reality realignment)

QUOTES:
[08:06] “If you have a well-designed solution for a problem that nobody cares about, people are just going to look at it and say “Okay, this looks nice but I’m not going to use it”.”
[14:25] “I don’t think you should invest in building your design system or building a design system in general. I think you should try to focus on the build speed in other ways. Do not complicate things by trying to make sure that everything is standardised.”

Follow Mahdi Farra
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahdif/
Website: https://mahdif.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mahdif

Work with Crowdlinker:
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

About Filippo Di Trapani
Filippo Di Trapani is a Director of Product Design at a Web 3 company called remx.xyz. Previously, he was a design lead at Automattic and Partner Operations Manager at Shopify. Creative work makes his heart happy. He wishes others would push him the way he pushes himself.

Summary
Filippo and Aram have a conversation about web 3 and product management. Filippo compares his experience working with web 2 companies like Shopify and his experience working with web 3 companies like remx.xyz. In their conversation, they also discuss how to make remote work seamless and effective, how to avoid ambiguity when working remotely, the difference between SaaS products and web 3 products, what it would take for web 3 to become mainstream, and what the internet will look like when it is.

Links We Mentioned
Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela: https://www.amazon.com/Long-Walk-Freedom-Autobiography-Mandela/dp/0316548189
Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? By Seth Godin: https://www.amazon.com/Linchpin-Are-Indispensable-Seth-Godin/dp/1591844096

SHOW NOTES:
00:10 | Who is Filippo Di Trapani and what is remx.xyz?
01:02 | Jumping into Web 3.0 wearables at an early stage
02:55 | The difference between web 1, web 2, and web 3.
05:44 | How is creating a web 3 product different?
08:01 | The difference between web 3 products and SaaS products.
10:34 | How can web 3 technologies become more mainstream?
13:26 | The biggest lessons Filippo learned at Shopify
17:02 | Filippo’s experience working at a remote companies 
19:01 | The secret formula to effective remote work
22:04 | Remote work epic fails
24:12 | The pitfall of sharing your product too late (it’s never too early)
27:10 | Money can’t buy thorough processes
28:12 | The disadvantages of having people agree with you
29:40 | Fireside questions: distracting features, creative work, objectivity, and creating space for experimentation and play

QUOTES:
[26:10] “In the web 3 world, what we’ve embraced on our end is getting stuff out a lot earlier and maybe in states that we’re not 100% comfortable with. But, it’s always paid off to get something out to an audience and get their input versus keeping it inside and just building that extra feature or adding that polish. At the end of the day that stuff matters but at the same time I think it matters more to get things out in front of people.”

Follow Filippo Di Trapani
https://www.linkedin.com/in/filippoditrapani/

Work with Crowdlinker:
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

In this episode of Product Sessions we delve into an insightful discussion with Anton Aleksandrov, associate Director at CleverTap, on how artificial intelligence is shaping product. We get into the impact of AI on development, workplace efficiency, and the potential consequences of its rapid adoption.

Show Notes:

02:15 - Role of GPT-4 in product research
05:30 - AI adoption at CleverTap
08:45 - Swift growth of AI applications and emerging companies
11:20 - Advice for product leaders on investing in AI

About Anton
Anton is director of product at Clevertap - the complete platform that helps personalize and optimize all customer touchpoints. Some years ago he switched from management consulting to product management and never looked back.

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips and DMs.

About Pavan Singh
Pavan Singh is the Vice President Of Product Management at Lynx Software Technologies where he works on enterprise infrastructure. He earned his MBA from the Kellog School of Business at Northwestern. Amongst other previous roles, he had a 6-year career at Cisco performing various leadership roles. If he wasn’t a product person, Pavan would want to be a public speaker.

SHOW NOTES:
00:00 | Who is Pavan Singh?
00:34 | What is enterprise infrastructure?
03:21 | Mission-critical edge: how to make software last for 15 years.
06:52 | Enterprise infrastructure vs. product management
09:10 | How to make SaaS products last longer
11:25 | Dealing with unexpected requests when building enterprise infrastructure
15:27 | Two ways enterprise infrastructure goes wrong
17:50 | Balancing white-glove offerings with startup growth
20:48 | How many big ideas should you focus on (and 3 ways to validate them)?
26:48 | Using partnerships to tap into easy revenue expansion
29:14 | Observing the customer vs. interviewing the customer
32:44 | Rapid fire questions: asking better questions, what to do instead of saying no, speed of innovation, in-person meetups, product innovation.

QUOTES:
[07:21] “Until a few generations of product back, it was okay that enterprise infrastructure product user experience wasn’t the best.  Now, it is no longer acceptable. Now the user experience of an enterprise infrastructure product really matters. And by user experience, I mean not just the UX but also APIs; the quality of APIs, how easily you integrate it with something else, does it comply with standards that make it easy for other products to be integrated?”
[24:31] “We never talk about how internal alignment is as important, if not more, when it comes to innovation. It has to be aligned with the capabilities of the company, the culture, and the operational processes - it has to be aligned with what the new idea is. And more than that, it becomes about people. Does the company have the right people who have done similar things and have the know-how?.”

Links We Mentioned:
Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/0066620996

Follow Pavan Singh
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavansingh/

Work with Crowdlinker:
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips and DMs.

About Manuel Breschi
Manuel Breschi is the director of product at Typeform. Typeform is a no-code SaaS platform with tools that help companies grow their businesses by engaging with their audience. He studied at the University of Illinois, where he did his MBA, and has expertise in product engineering, business management, and marketing.

SHOW NOTES:
00:11 | Episode intro and a quick bio of Manuel Breschi
01:32 | Manuel's journey consulting, entrepreneurship, and then product management
04:30 | Given an opportunity, where would he invest between Europe and the USA
06:43 | How to counter common decision-making biases in product management
09:00 | A data-driven bias and how it has affected his product decision-making process
13:46 | How to effectively leverage a product’s historical data to make better decisions
15:43 | Other common product biases that can impact a good decision-making process
18:47 | How can a product team successfully approach decision thinking
20:50 | An exercise he has done to check his PM’s assumption process
21:59 | The worst product that Manuel has ever worked with, and why
27:20 | Rapid Fire Round
31:25 | Guest’s takeaway and end of the show

QUOTES:
“If you think that you can measure the future performance of a product based on the past history, you will be disappointed.”  [11:34]
“It’s better to be data-aware than data-driven because if you derive decisions based on data, that is not enough.” [11:46]
“Before creating any product, you should always think of the substitute competitors out there. You don't go to the market to compete with somebody but with substitutes.” [23:48]

Connect With Manuel Breschi:
Website: https://www.manuelbreschi.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuelbreschi/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manuelbreschireal/
Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/drmanuelbreschi

Fear and anxiety can derail excellent products. This episode is all about how not to fall into the anxiety trap or become a prisoner of your fear as a product manager. Our guest, Stephen Grillos, shares how he stays strong even in contentious moments with CEOs.

SHOW NOTES:
0:00 | Who is Stephen Grillos?
01:57 | How martial arts and product management are connected
03:40 | Fail fast, NOT ship fast
04:39 | How fear can make you build the wrong thing
07:21 | Your job as a project manager is entirely based on influence
08:58 | How most projects fall apart
10:49 | How often should you talk about vision?
13:38 | 3 principles for shipping great products every time
20:17 | Not letting your ego dictate how you ship your product
23:36 | How to get out of a moment of anxiety (when presenting the product to your CEO)
26:49 | The #1 reason why frameworks don’t work
29:15 | Focusing on why we build more than on how we build
31:00 | The easiest way to ask better product questions
31:13 | Stop adding new features
31:30 | More snappy fireside questions (personal and professional)
32:35 | Book recommendations

QUOTES:
“People just say fail fast and really mean ship fast and they don’t actually learn from the thing that they’re shipping.”[04:09]
“I don’t care if it’s the first line of the spec, if people didn’t know it was in there that’s your fault. You know it is our job to drive clarity. It is our job to drive focus.”  [09:40]
“I want to ship products that empower my users to do their job while also delivering value to the company, right? My ego has nothing to do with that, my ego can only mess that up.” [23:12]
“Look, we’re all humans here. I want to be seen, heard, and understood. And as a product manager, your job is to see your customer, to understand your customer, and show them that you understand them. Not just tell them oh yeah, I’ll get to your thing in the future and blah blah blah.” [25:33]
“The thing about these frameworks though is - they’re frameworks. You have to actually believe them.” [27:52]

About Stephen Grillos
Stephen Grillos is an aspiring rockstar turned product manager. He is the Senior Director of Product at SiteRx and a Krav Maga instructor. Heavily influenced by his martial arts training, you’ll notice that Stephen prioritizes emotional intelligence in his actions when building and presenting a product. He is very cautious about how ego and the progress your make on your product can get entangled and disrupt your flow. He shares 3 principles that empower him to stay sharp and put his ego in its place when it matters most.

Resources we mentioned:
Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss (FBI negotiator)
Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice by Clayton M Christensen
The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday

Follow Stephen Grillos:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephengrillos/ 

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips and DMs.

About Aram
Aram Melkoumov is the CEO of Crowdlinker. Crowdlinker is an end-to-end digital product studio based in Toronto and Barcelona. Crowdlinker turns 10 in the fall of 2022. He works with startups like Freshbooks and enterprises like Unilever.

SHOW NOTES:
0:08 | What is staff augmentation and why do we need it?
01:28 | How to execute staff augmentation correctly.
03:13 | Staff augmentation: how to test for team fit to avoid difficulties
05:36 | Why do companies choose to do staff augmentation?
09:04 | Staff augmentation for companies scaling past Series A
09:50 | How are staff augmentation contracts structured?
12:46 | How much does staff augmentation cost? (squad model vs. time materials model)
14:19 | Hiring a product studio vs. hiring a dev agency: what should you do and when?
17:30 | How to select the right product studio for staff augmentation.
20:05 | Can you test product studios before hiring them for a big project?

QUOTES:
“Staff augmentation is a concept where you take, you know, individuals like a product manager, a developer, a designer -  and a company can hire those people and make them part of their team.” [00:27]
“Squad model is really great for longer-term kind of projects, a few months long. Whereas time and materials model is good for open-ended shorter-term projects.” [13:55]
“This is an onboarding period with any type of new project and like a honeymoon phase, right? So, you know you typically get to know pretty quickly whether or not the product studio that you hire is good or not based on how prepped and how ready they are coming into say the kickoff meeting or what are some of the questions they ask even during the sales process.” [19:05]

Follow Aram Melkoumov
https://www.linkedin.com/in/melkoumov/?originalSubdomain=ca

Work with Crowdlinker:
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips and DMs.

About Aram
Aram Melkoumov is the CEO of Crowdlinker. Crowdlinker is an end-to-end digital product studio based in Toronto and Barcelona. Crowdlinker turns 10 in the fall of 2022. He works with startups like Freshbooks and enterprises like Unilever.

SHOW NOTES:
00:17 | What is product discovery?
01:25 | Who is normally involved in the product discovery process?
03:21 | How long does the product discovery process take?
06:57 | How to have a more effective discovery process
09:39 | Top 3 questions clients ask about product discovery
12:01 | What your competitors CANNOT replicate
15:10 | When you shouldn’t work with a product studio for product discovery
17:45 | When you should work with a product studio for product discovery
19:29 | Fluency in technology
20:36 | Aram’s big audacious goal
21:24 | Are you building the right thing?
21:57 | The right time to spend money on your product

QUOTES:
“Discoveries can take various shapes and forms. On average, they take about four to six weeks. In situations when they could take less time, like 2-3 weeks, is dependent on the level of preparation that the client has put to date around that idea.” [03:39]
“80-90% of the time, every product idea that you already have has already been done. And so, why try to go and reinvent the wheel as well when you could go and study the competitors. You could look at the market, you could do a tear down of like user flows or existing competitor solutions to see how they did it.” [07:43]
“The more, kind of like, engagement you have with your users at the very beginning all the way through to launch and then post-launch via these communities is something that a competitor cannot go and replicate. That becomes, in many ways, your IP.” [13:01]

Follow Aram Melkoumov
https://www.linkedin.com/in/melkoumov/?originalSubdomain=ca

Work with Crowdlinker:
https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips and DMs.

As product managers, how much should we rely on data? How much does data tell us about our nuanced realities? Can user interviews be manipulated to confirm bias? Tune in as we explore these questions.

About Blagoja
Blagoja Golubovski is Vice President of Product Management at Visit.org. Among other roles, he previously was the Vice President of Product Management at Simpplr and the Director of Product Management at Vindicia. In any room, Blagoja is likely the least controversial; he brings people together into the center.

Books mentioned:
Originals by Adam Grant: https://www.amazon.com/Originals-audiobook/dp/B01A7Q61LI/ 
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom: https://www.amazon.com/Tuesdays-Morrie-Greatest-Lesson-Anniversary/dp/076790592X/
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho: https://www.amazon.com/Alchemist-Paulo-Coelho/dp/0062315005/

SHOW NOTES:
00:00 | Who is Blagoja Golubovski?
00:28 | Why you shouldn’t use data as your bible
01:21 | When are data indicators not useful?
02:41 | Common b2b problem: having a much lower adoption rate than expected
06:44 | Main misconception about product management
08:04 | What’s a great product?
10:23 | Sales-driven approach vs. a product-led approach: can they co-exist?
13:15 | Biases in decision making: putting too much emphasis on user interviews
16:56 | Not taking scale seriously
19:03 | 3 True and tested principles of product management
21:09 | What no amount of money can fix (a lot of products have this problem)
22:59 | Working towards arbitrary launch dates: do or don’t?
24:22 | How to ask better questions in your user interviews
24:47 | Getting comfortable saying no
25:36 | Working for only two hours per week: is it possible?
26:56 | The talent of being uncontroversial
27:48 | Most worthwhile investment of Blagoja’s life: one hour that changed everything
29:12 | 3 book recommendations

QUOTES:
“As a PM you should use data as a signal, as one signal, but you also have a lot of other forces that are at play.” [01:04]
“A great product is innovative, it solves a problem, it’s easy to use, and it has emotional value.” [09:02]
“I know people say the product sells itself. The product never sells itself. It’s the users that use it that sell it for you and that’s a very kind of subtle difference but when we’re building a product we make it easy for people to tell their friends. And we make it intuitive enough and emotional enough that they’re actually gonna go and be champions for you. So that’s the case where the product actually is taking a lead and you’re fueling growth by making your product great.” [12:32]
“Money can buy you a lot of things but it will not get you a clear sense of purpose. I thought about this and no amount of money can, really in the world, can solve for you not having a clear purpose. Unfortunately, a lot of products kind of fall into this category.” [21:16]

Follow Blagoja Golubovski:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/golubovski/

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips and DMs.

When you think of design, you probably think of beauty and delight. But, that’s not really what design is about. That’s just the most overrated aspect of design. What’s the most underrated?

About Sean Dekkers
Sean Dekkers is the Head of Product Design at Digits. Throughout his career, he held many important roles including Senior Interaction Designer at Google, Senior Designer at IDEO, Associate Design Director at Mckinsey, and Principal Designer at Visa. For him, the definition of great design is talking to people, understanding their problems, and then trying to solve them.

SHOW NOTES:
0:00 | Who is Sean Dekkers?
02:23 | Focusing on worthy problems before brilliant ideas
03:57 | How to collect ideas using the double diamond design approach
05:28 | Having a transformational experience working at IDEO
10:38 | The design story behind Ferrari keys and creating resale revenue for Ferrari
19:48 | How many people do you need to interview to find a pattern?
21:14 | Having visions that make sense in theory but not in practice
26:58 | Being scrappy and handy when you test
29:54 | Why do companies keep making the same bad design decisions year after year?
32:08 | The discomfort big companies have around talking to customers
34:59 | The misconception about what designers do
36:59 | Product design vs. product management: what’s the difference?
38:48 | How important is the visual component of design?

QUOTES:
“I think I’d love it if people would kind of shift from focusing on ideas and solutions to going back to the problem and just want to make sure it’s a really good problem. And it’s an important problem and has an impact. And then, once you’ve all that due diligence - then you can start thinking about ideas.”  [03:11]
“Unless it’s solving like a real problem, just keep it simple.” [31:36]
“Obviously beauty and delight are very important, but for me, I’d say it’s the most overrated element.” [39:37]

Follow Sean Dekkers:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-dekkers-a450815/ 

Do you think of your product as part of a larger ecosystem or are you tunnel-visioned? Tune in to this episode to find out why your product’s ecosystem shouldn’t be an afterthought. In fact, by relying on strategic partnerships you can save money and strengthen your community.

About Kabir
Kabir Mathur is the Head of Product Partnerships at Typeform. He believes that positions focused on partnerships and ecosystems will be the norm in the next few years, especially as web 3.0’s influence on web 2.0 grows. Kabir earned his Bachelor’s degree in business at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a founding member of the Forbes Business Development Council, an Advisor at Exchange Labs and Lypho, and a Member of Partnership Leaders.

SHOW NOTES:
0:00 | Who is Kabir Mathur?
01:05  | Using notion and slack connect to ship better products
01:40 | You can throw money at any of your product problems.
02:20 | When you should and when you shouldn’t seek customer feedback.
03:11 | Blurring lines between customers and owners with Web 3.0.
04:09 | Being bold and Kabir’s personal goal.
04:59 | How web 3.0 will influence product design in the near future. OR What trends from web 3.0 will make their way into web 2.0 soon?
06:45 | Companies that will be quickly impacted by web 3.0
07:58 | How Typeform invests in their community
11:26 | What do people misunderstand about partnerships?
19:01 | The basics of establishing strategic partnerships. OR How to begin establishing strategic partnerships OR What to consider when establishing strategic partnerships
22:58 | How to derisk big bets through partnerships
25:10 | Should product people be hunters or farmers?
28:23 | The overlaps between Chief Ecosystem Officers and Chief Product Officers OR Is this the decade of ecosystem? OR Stop making ecosystem an afterthought.

QUOTES:
“When you’re trying to build more visionary products, asking users isn’t always necessarily the best way to do it.” [03:04]
“Some customers are so invested in your product that they’re willing to organically help you. But, I think, fostering that motion early on can very easily then help you then invest in making a full-blown thing later on.” [10:57]
“At the end of the day you’re trying to delight your customer and I think if you have a really deep understanding of your ecosystem and how your product interacts with other products you have a much better chance of delighting your customer.”  [15:58]
“We’re seeing a few, very few, companies invest in a Chief Ecosystem Officer and I think people like this will have a very strong overlap with Chief Product Officers. I think this will become the reality. I’ve heard people call this the decade of ecosystem.”  [28:58]

Key Links:
Crossbeam (partner ecosystem platform): https://www.crossbeam.com/
Notion: https://www.notion.so/
Slack Connect: https://slack.com/connect

Follow Kabir Mathur:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathurkabir/ 
Typeform: https://www.typeform.com/ 

Product-led growth is not for every company. Yet, lots of people have jumped on the product-led growth bandwagon inexplicably and have ended up disappointed or frustrated. Tune in to discover why most people get product led-growth wrong and what to do to get it right.

About Meraj
Meraj Imani is the Director of Product Management at Fiix by Rockwell Automation. Previously, he was Group Product Manager at Checkout 51 and Director of Product Management at BioConnect among other product management roles. He stumbled into product management while he was at the beginning of his career as an engineer.

SHOW NOTES:
0:00 | Who is Meraj Imani?
06:45 | Bringing B2C experimentation and mindset to B2B
09:24 | What is a painted door experiment?
10:26 | Why do so many people get product-led growth wrong? OR 4 main reasons why most people get product-led growth wrong
14:18 | Who should the product marketing officer report to?
15:42 | The challenges that come with product-led growth
18:03 | Metrics that can accelerate growth for product directors and product managers.
22:25 | Should Product Managers act like CEOs?
25:32 | How documenting questions and assumptions can future-proof your product
29:30 | Thought experiment to ship better products
30:18 | Never outsource THIS part of your product development process
32:04 | Gauging customer expectations
33:13 | How to get rid of distractions in your product development process
33:58 | Streamlining user experience is not always right.
35:38 | Should you have fun at work?

QUOTES:
“A painted door experiment is when you don’t have something built. You’re sort of wondering if it’s going to impact a particular behavioral outcome and so you just put a link to it or a button to it or a call to action to it. What that does is it introduces the user to “hey we have this” or  “can we talk to you about this” or “is that something that you’re interested in”. It’s important to have tracking for it.” [09:28]
“People get attached to the solution that they’re thinking about and you kind of lose sight of the problem that you’re solving. So be attached to the problem, not the solution.” [22:06]
“The most successful product managers in a long period of time that I know have always been collaborative, extremely humble, good storytellers, and have empathy.” [24:00]

Follow Meraj Imani:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merajimani/ 
Fiix by Rockwell Automation: https://www.fiixsoftware.com/ 

Embracing product bias. Navigating conflicts with design teams. Directing clients that don’t have clear goals. Everything is on the table as behind-the-scenes anecdotes of client meetings and discussions are revealed.

Idoh’s main frustration with B2B SaaS companies is that they don’t talk to end-users enough. In fact, he tells the story of his time consulting for a company that has never before spoken to its end users. Tune in to find out what he discovers when he becomes the first person there to speak to an end-user - and lots of other tales from his product management escapades with many different clients.

About Idoh
Idoh Gersten is a Product Manager at Circle CI. Previously, he was Senior Product Manager at Dynamic Signal and Director of Product Management at ROBLOX among other roles. He is a law school graduate from the University of Iowa. Idoh believes that there is a universal consciousness that we collectively tap into. Also, if it were up to him all websites would be designed like Craigslist.

SHOW NOTES:
0:00 | Who is Idoh Gersten?
03:17 | Why having product bias is POSITIVE. OR Why you should have product bias.
08:54 | Should you release products that aren’t fully polished?
11:46 | Having conflicting design philosophies
15:37 | Most difficult features to work on as a product manager
21:52 | How to convince clients to prioritize workflows.
23:32 | Important product data that B2B SaaS companies skip over.
34:12 | The golden rule of shipping better products.
34:29 | The right question to ask customers (instead of asking them what they want).
35:22 | Only throw money at your product problems after achieving this.
36:46 | Is there a universal consciousness?
37:34 | Idoh’s personal goals and note to self.

QUOTES:
“One way of thinking about bias is what tradeoffs you’re making. Where on the tradeoff spectrum do you just kind of land?”  [07:25]
“I think there’s a huge amount of uncertainty around plans and I think having a very high-level vision makes a lot of sense but having an extremely detailed plan that stretches out for 6 months…once things go out into the real world and hit customers, plans always change.” [08:13]

Follow Idoh:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idohgersten/ 

In this episode of Product Sessions, we discuss how chatGPT can be applied to Customer Success and Product Strategy. Our guests, Laura Blackmore from Cascade and Danielle Latimore, Senior Customer Success manager, share their insights on using AI to increase efficiency, tailor customer experiences, and navigate the ethical challenges.

Show Notes:

0:00 - Introduction
2:37 - Laura shares her experience with ChatGPT and its versatility within Cascade
4:32 - Benefits of learning from other organizations and tailoring the ChatGPT prompts to suit your brand's voice and customer needs
6:15 - Laura talks about the two big bets she would make in the era of AI
11:19 - AI's potential in the market and the need for responsible use of data
13:28 - Future of AI

About Danielle
Danielle supports Cascade's customers as a success manager and heads up a variety of customer programs. She is focused on enterprise support, streamlining internal and external processes to scale that support effectively.
Relatively new to the tech space, Danielle's background is in consumer goods sales and operations (particularly in new categories / budding markets). She has also studied math and analytics and loves using data to tackle complex problems.
Outside of the virtual office, you can find Danielle taking advantage of working remotely through traveling, hiking, and camping all over the United States.

About Laura
Laura is currently leading Cascade’s strategic initiatives, with a focus on products. She is also supporting our amazing customers across Europe, by onboarding them onto the Cascade platform, and building a community of like-minded strategists.

Laura has over 10 years experience scaling startups, and working closely with customers in the manufacturing, retail, pharmaceutical space to name a few! Laura is passionate about delivering incredible customer experiences and working with products.

Tune in to learn how to differentiate your product even if you offer something similar to your competitors, why you should integrate user feedback at the very beginning of the development process, and learn about specific situations where seeking customer feedback would do more harm than good.

About Avadhoot

Avadhoot Bhambare is a product executive. In 2020, he left his role as Lead Product Manager at PayPal to join Womply as the Director of Product Management. Being resourceful when things hit a tough spot, he tackles problems at their root - or how he puts it “I always look at any problem by solving it structurally”. Sometimes, he bites off more than he can chew by being scrappy and being quick to say that he can do it - but, with a long career working with Olympus, Citi, Cisco, Paypal, and Womply it seems to have worked out quite well for him.

 
SHOW NOTES:

0:00 | Introduction to Avadhoot Bhambare
00:52  | Nickel and dime pricing quarrels: pricing a harddrive
03:14 | Creating synergy between UX designers and product managers
05:38 | Aligning teams and skillsets at Womply
08:36 | Differentiating your product offering in the b2b market
10:22 | 3 things you can do when you don’t have enough capital to create your own infrastructure
13:50 | Acquiring the skill of thinking from the customer’s perspective OR What product managers usually forget
17:53 | Bringing user feedback into the development process immediately
19:37 | How to get user feedback before investing money in production
21:20 | Difficulties with Olympus: a funny story on language barriers in Tokyo
24:35 | What should project managers start doing tomorrow?
25:08 | Aspects of product development that money cannot fix
25:48 | Should you ask your users what they want you to build? OR Special use cases where user feedback is NOT useful.
27:04 | When should you fix a product problem with money?
27:41 | Believing that you can do it, against all odds
29:09 | Why you should focus on building relationships in your company

QUOTES:

“There will always be your competition who will be giving a similar offering and all. I think what differentiates you is how you treat your customers.” [09:33]

“Understand more about their users. Involve all the stakeholders like specifically the designers who people bring in along with your core engineers. And always think about what can go wrong.”   [24:44]

“Ownership or the loyalty between the team is something you cannot get on any budget.” [25:22]
“Particularly in a corporate career, you have to work with a lot of people. The more friends, the more acquaintances you have in different parts of the ecosystem, it helps you to accelerate your work. I would focus on that.” [29:47] 

Connect with Our Guest

Follow Avadhoot Bhambare:
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/avadhootbhambare/ 
Womply: https://www.womply.com/ 

Conversation highlights:
 
- Removing biases in AI decision making and product management (data privacy, AI ethics)
- Product Council at EdCast: teams, processes, and the CEO veto
- Business epics vs. architectural epics: importance of planning processes
- Bhaskar’s top 10 go-to metrics

About Bhaskar

Bhaskar is the Global Head of Product Management & AI at EdCast, a global e-commerce platform. In the past, he led product management, data science, and engineering teams in companies like Oracle and Informatica. His product management experience includes leading product strategy, defining go-to-market strategies for products in multiple business domains.

Highlights:

- Six Seals of product development: from defining product vision to launch and optimization (key responsibilities of a PM)
- Product-Market Fit survey: measuring value to customers
- How Ale manages product teams at Payfit
- Most reliable frameworks in the product development process at Payfit

About Ale

Ale is focused on enabling cross-functional teams to deliver user-centric experiences on eCommerce and SaaS products. He is the Global Director of Product Management at PayFit, a payroll software for companies. At Payfit, Ale leads a cross-functional team of Product Managers, Designers and Engineers to scale the adoption of existing products and find product-market fit for new ones.

Highlights:

- Why onboarding is a critical part of your customer experience
- The significance of establishing a cross-functional onboarding team
- What is the EUREKA framework
- How to transition from free to paid and offering more ‘free’ in your product.

About Ramli:

Ramli John is well known in the Toronto ecosystem as a demand gen marketer. A product growth marketer with over 10 years of experience, he runs a successful podcast as the founder and host of the Growth Marketing Today and Managing Director at Product Led Institute. 

Before this, Ramli started as a full stack developer and a data analyst and now he helps product-led companies convert more free trial users into lifelong customers. 

He also just launched his new book about user onboarding and customer activation – EUREKA, be sure to check that out. 
You can get the first chapter for free @ https://productled.com/eureka

Highlights:

- How the AI Product Management at Veriff builds identity verification system
- Concept behind Probabilistic Vs. Deterministic world: from an AI Product Managers’ viewpoint
- How to make a machine do what humans can do using Artificial Intelligence
- Liisi’s take on fully autonomous vehicles by 2025

About Liisi

Liisi's career focus has been on automating processes using machine learning technologies. She’s a  Product Manager for Verification Engine at Veriff, a global tech company building a visionary AI driven verification platform. She is passionate about machine learning and how to create products that make our lives easier. Liisi has also been the Chief financial officer at NPO Geeks on Wheels for 7+ years.

Links to AI courses

https://www.deeplearning.ai/

https://www.coursera.org/learn/ai-for-everyone

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips.

Highlights:

- Decision-making process for building features in a three-sided marketplace at Shipt
- Battling confirmation bias and setting OKRs that match company’s goals
- Secret sauce of managing people: PMs must be outcome-oriented, not output-oriented

About Vishal

Vishal is a Product Leader with a passion for building, launching, and scaling next-generation consumer products spanning marketplaces, transportation, advertising, search, messaging, gaming, and retail industries. He has been responsible for $Billions in revenue, opex, and P&L, and is passionate about solving audacious problems through a principled, outcome-oriented, and collaborative approach.

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips.

Highlights:

- CTO vs CPO: How Jean managed both roles at Brigad
- Why it is important for PMs to build roadmaps around initiatives before introducing features
- How and why a complicated product feature led to customer churn at Brigad
- Importance of stakeholder of feedback and transparent processes

About Jean

Jean Lebrument is the Co-Founder, CPO and past CTO at Brigad. He’s an absolute technical expert, and a former EPITECH graduate. Previously Jean worked at companies like Printic, Sounds, and Jamjitsu in France and abroad.

Feel free to DM our CEO Aram directly with product questions:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/melkoumov/

Specifically, in this event you’ll discover:

- The right way to plan, strategize, design, and develop your MVP
- The secret hacks we use to improve efficiency and output
- A step-by-step breakdown of a real-world MVP we built for one of our clients’

This is what our awesome panel looks like: Aram Melkoumov (Founder and CEO of Crowdlinker), Fiona Haller (Director of Product at Crowdlinker), Turgut Jabbarli (Senior Product Delivery Manager at Crowdlinker), and our host Sergey Ross.

A word on who we are:

Crowdlinker is an end-to-end digital product studio working with clients like Shopify, NBC Universal, MLSE, and over 50 others. Over the years, we’ve worked with Start-up Founders and Product Leaders across North America to bring their MVP to life by leveraging our design, development, and product talent.

Conversation highlights:

- Future of AI in the next 10 years (multilingual voice recognition systems)
- How deep learning works at companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple
- How Miguel builds product roadmaps from talking to internal customers at Rev
- Buying AI data to build products from companies like Appen and Define.AI

About Miguel

Miguel is the Head of AI R&D at Rev.com, an online marketplace that provides transcription engines to companies. Recently, Miguel’s teams’ paper titled, “Curriculum Optimization for Low-Resource Speech Recognition”  got accepted to ICASSP 2022. He is also the Co-Founder, Head of Speech Recognition and Machine Learning at Temi.com.

Conversation highlights:

- “The Golden Cage” of Google employment
- Product Marketing VS. Product Management from customer’s perspective
- Why Product Marketers NEED to be a part of the early-stage product development
- What PMs often forget to do after product launch

Connect with Vaishnavi
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vaishnaviravi/

About Vaishnavi

Vaishnavi is the director of product marketing at Poka inc, a Web and mobile app that is the leading connected worker platform for driving manufacturing excellence. She is an Ex-Googler, who worked as a digital Marketing Consultant for large UK & US clients.

About Marlon Hope
Marlon Hope is the Head of Product at Netacea. He is PRINCE 2 and Agile qualified, with years spent in banking, operations management, procurement, and logistics. The golden thread in his career is strong project management skills and consistent, high-quality delivery.

SHOW NOTES:
0:11 | Episode intro and what’s in for you
0:57 | How a computer game made Marlon a better product owner
5:07 | Good product building involves processes and patterns
7:38 | Marlon’s first principles of a good product design
10:01 | Marlon’s framework of stripping the root cause of a problem
14:00 | How project management and delivery helped Marlon become a product manager
18:43 | Common myths that prevent people from becoming a success in product delivery 22:50 | How being non-technical has helped Marlon in his product journey
27:17 | A bit about Netacea, how it works, and its difference from the competitors
29:40 | Other product lessons and key principles in terms of how Marlon operates
32:00 | How much your product’s data can give
13:15 | Wrap-up
 
QUOTES:
“Being a product developer, you don’t always have a perfect environment to be able to achieve excellence. There’s always some form of compromise that you have to make.” [5:40]

“Effective solving of problems that seem impossible requires quick experimentation. Don’t be hung up on getting the right answer, but plot a path of trial, failing, start again, but do it quickly and take opportunities to validate what we do.” [13:14]

“Being non-technical forces us to speak a common language that a four-year-old can understand.” [26:25]

“When you follow data, it’s very hard to make wrong decisions.” [31:37]

Connect with Marlon
Company’s Website: https://netacea.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marlonhope/

Customer feedback is no trivial matter at Trainual. 6 hours of weekly customer calls are non-negotiable. It’s how they build a product that’s replica-proof.

At the beginning of the episode, Taylor shares the story behind Trainual’s restructuring exercise that they went through after discovering inefficiencies that were stopping them from scaling. In Taylor’s words “people were stepping on each other’s feet too much”. He explains how a new vertical structure helped free teams and streamline workflow.

About Taylor

Taylor Sell is the Director of Product at Trainual. When he first started out at Trainual in 2019 he made sure that weekly customer call days are a staple of their discovery process. In fact, customer call days are 6 hours long. They take place every Friday - and you can’t weasel your way out of them if you’re part of Taylor’s product team.

Key Web Links: 

Product Board (product management system): https://www.productboard.com/ 

Grain (recording tool): https://grain.co/
Follow Taylor Sell: LinkedIn 

Website: https://www.trainual.com/

SHOWNOTES:

0:10 | Who is Taylor Sell (Trainual)? 

00:43 | The story behind the Trainual’s hyper-growth. 

03:02 | Challenges that were hindering Trainual from scaling. 

04:36 |  How creating product lines helped Trainual operate at scale. 

06:28 | Getting buy-in from employees before shifting the workflow.

08:27 | How long does it take to make a workflow shift in a start-up (and speed bumps along the way)? 

11:41 | Opening avenues for relationship building when restructuring your start-up. 

14:05 | How do you fill data gaps when you cannot get in front of your customer on time.

19:25 | Why customer call days have to be a pillar of your discovery process. 

21:25 | How to prepare for customer calls, what to focus on, and how long to spend preparing. 

23:43 | Should you focus more on iterating existing features or rolling out new features?

27:37 | Tools to help you track or discover new product requests. 

29:37 | Why companies don’t invest in transparent product processes.  

32:58 | How to avoid the distracting pressure of big clients.

34:40 | Shiny object syndrome: how to develop a product that cannot be replicated.

36:47 | Should you ask your users what you should build? (and how to phrase questions to extract useful information)

39:21 | How to determine the validity of building a new feature from customer interviews. 

QUOTES:

“As product managers, as people in product, we are juggling so many different things.  So if you really don’t carve out time to have those types of conversations or sit down with customers, you will fill it with a million other things that are on your plate. So, for us, we do customer call days every single week.”  Taylor Sell  - [17:50] 

“Do we want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building something that could be wrong or do we want to take a little bit of time for a couple of individuals to do some of that validation early on and the chance of success - the chance of building something that’s actually going to valuable to our customers is going to go much much higher. And so if you think about it that way and the money you’ll spend on a product that fails vs. spending a few hours upfront or a day upfront to make sure the success of that feature or product goes up significantly - it’s a no brainer.”  - Taylor Sell   [20:49] 

“It’s important to understand as a product leader, and as even product management, who is our customer? Who are we trying to solve for?  What are the problems that they have? And how do we solve those problems a thousand times better than anybody else in the market? And that should be your focus - it is doing something so well that people can’t reproduce it and people can’t replicate it easily.”  Taylor Sell  -  [35:13]

Think of the customer-led growth approach as a holistic psychotherapeutic user interview. Who is a product manager if not a therapist who is well-versed in their product?

About Aggelos

Aggelos Mouzakitis is a jobs-to-be-done customer researcher. He currently works at a company called Growth Sandwich in London and has master’s degree in psychotherapy. Aggelos is a qualitative researcher with passion for numbers. His take on hard data?  “I find them complex, inhumane, and they make me sleepy”. Tune in for more of his straight-shooting and insight-rich delivery.

SHOW NOTES:

0:00 | Who is Aggelos Mouzakitis?
00:34 | The story behind the brand name “Growth Sandwich”
01:07 | The difference between sales-led growth, product-led growth, and customer-led growth.
04:40 | The impressive attention to detail of the customer-led growth research process.
09:50 | 3 reasons why some companies SHOULDN’T be product-led.
13:03 | Why you shouldn’t be completely product-led or completely sales-led.
16:34 | Best practices in the customer research process
23:14 | Do customers know what they want? (customer imagination)
30:31 | How can product managers build better products? (Two scalable tactics that product managers don’t do enough)
34:13 | Quantitative vs. qualitative data in customer-led approach (and how to quantify qualitative data).
37:14 | Two breakthrough moments in Aggelos Mouzakitis’ career.
39:44 | Why qualitative research is unscalable but critical for great product management (and why you should do unscalable things).
43:35 | Two things every product manager must understand when they conduct research.

QUOTES:

“Customer led growth basically leverages mainly qualitative research to help a company drive product and growth decisions.” - Aggelos [01:20]

“We cannot eradicate the human factor from any value proposition. The human factor has a position, and being product-led isn’t the silver bullet for everything.” - Aggelos  [12:48]
“I would say, in pretty much any area - whether it is finance, whether its product or sales, when anybody has a polarizing opinion like ‘only do this’ it’s like black and white and they’re super aggressive - usually it is a red flag.” - Sergey  [15:40]

“The perception of value that users expect is always biased from what they have seen already in their lives, from what they have experienced in competitor products.  So, if we would strictly ask customers ‘what do they want us to build’ we would have some sort of oligopoly where every solution would be almost the same.”  - Aggelos [24:15]

“Customers are the worst to tell us what we should build. Customers, on the other hand, are great to tell us about their problems - and then we would figure out how to solve their problems.”  - Aggelos [26:47]

“Empathy is the best way to be a good product manager even if you are not very sophisticated about quantitative stuff, and data, and graphs.”  - Aggelos [33:59]

“What is a marketing problem? Is it a matter of the copy that you’re using in your ads? Targeting that you’re having? Nobody cares. What matters when your marketing doesn’t work is you are communicating something that doesn’t resonate with the people that see it.” - Aggelos [39:44]

Connect with Aggelos 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aggelos-mouzakitis-25011218/
Website: https://www.growthsandwich.com/

Feel free to DM Aram directly with product questions: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/melkoumov/

Specifically, in this event you’ll discover:

- The right way to plan, strategize, design, and develop your MVP

- The secret hacks we use to improve efficiency and output

- A step-by-step breakdown of a real-world MVP we built for one of our clients’

Our awesome panel: 

Aram Melkoumov (Founder and CEO of Crowdlinker)

Fiona Haller (Director of Product at Crowdlinker)

Sergey Ross (Event Host & Content Creator @ Crowdlinker)

Who we are/what Crowdlinker does:

Crowdlinker is an end-to-end digital product studio working with clients like Shopify, NBC Universal, MLSE, and over 50 others. Over the years, we’ve worked with Start-up Founders and Product Leaders across North America to bring their MVP to life by leveraging our design, development, and product talent.

About Dan

Dan Toma is a founding partner at Outcome, a consultancy that helps large companies navigate innovation for the future while maintaining the health of their core business. An entrepreneur with a startup orientation, he brings a blue-chip depth of knowledge that spans the full spectrum of established industries. Co-author of "The Corporate Startup: How Established Companies Can Develop Successful Innovation Ecosystems," Dan is a seasoned guide who leverages the ecosystem approach to digital transformation and innovation. Among his clients: Bosch, Jaguar Land Rover, Deutsche Telekom, Bayer, John Deer and Allianz. He has also worked with government bodies in Asia and Europe to augment development capabilities and implement national business acceleration strategies noted for their innovative vision. His most recent book is "Innovation Accounting: A Practical Guide for Measuring Your Innovation Ecosystem's Performance."

Key Takeaways

0:00 | Introduction to Dan Toma, including his professional bio and thoughts on browsers.

1:36 | About Dan’s recent book, "Innovation Accounting: A Practical Guide for Measuring Your Innovation Ecosystem's Performance."

3:28 | The Innovation Accounting system is useful for telling the story of an entrepreneurial venture before the hard data indicators are fully available.

4:00 | Dan provides a first-hand account of the importance of aligning your product with corporate strategy to protect against being dropped for amorphous reasons.

6:03 | Dan’s personal experience working with “Zombie” products that were dropped amidst a leadership change that left a bullseye on product development. The reason given not only to stop financing the product but to kill the product altogether was a vague “lack of alignment.”

8:54 | It’s not uncommon in Dan’s practice to see accelerators flounder when their labs aren’t aligned with internal corporate strategy, leaving project orphans with no internal champion or home at the end of the process.

10:40 | Beware false assumptions that can leave you out of step as a product owner with the overall corporate strategic umbrella.

11:33 | Defensive strategies: Ensure you have internal corporate sponsorship and understand the strategic shifts likely to occur in the near- and medium-term. If your development road map for a combustion engine extends beyond the deadline for eliminating combustion engines … You have left yourself in a precarious position.

13:36 | It’s incumbent upon corporate culture and governance to establish transparent strategic plans, widely accessible for internal and external innovators with product development ideas.

15:41 | Strategy and sponsorship are key when it comes to establishing an initial stake. Then your results can start to speak for your value-add.

16:30 | The importance of stakeholder management. If you are a product owner within a large organization, your startup orientation within the larger organization is key. Who are your influencers, champions and where do they stand? It’s up to you to gauge information flow and cultivate those relationships.

18:49 | Innovation metrics must evolve as projects evolve, adjusting expectations and performance evaluations based on the changing playing field.

20:52 | It’s important to look at both process metrics and results metrics. One impacts the other, and it’s all too easy to mislabel key indicators and distort the actual landscape.

24:20 | When your development process doesn’t exist out of the gate? Consider it good fortune. No one is going to hold you accountable to a legacy expectation and you are in a position, along with your product team, to optimize your own product innovation processes.

25:25 | If you have an opportunity to establish your own product development process, look outside the building. Have a conversation, read the books, read the blogs, attend the conferences and do it better than it has been done before!

25:44 | Where to find Dan’s books. His first book, “The Corporate Startup,” can be purchased here. His latest offering will soon be widely available in North America with more information available immediately at the Innovation Accounting website.

Contact Dan
Website: www.innovationaccountingbook.com
@LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dantoma/