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Every product leader has to make them: the high-stakes decisions that define outcomes, shape careers, and don't come with easy answers.
The Hard Calls podcast, hosted by Trisha Price, features candid conversations with product and tech leaders about the pivotal decisions that drive great products and the pressure that comes with it. From conflicting priorities and unclear success metrics to aligning teams and navigating executive expectations, you will hear compelling stories and best practices that drive business outcomes and help you make the Hard Calls.
Real decisions. Real stakes. Real leadership.
Presented by Pendo
Learn more at pendo.io/
Follow Trisha Price on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trisha-price-3063081/
Peter Bailey: So you know the decision.
Do you launch something that everybody's
excited about but you know is not ready?
Or do you hold the line and
potentially risk disappointment?
Put your job on the line even
though it's the right thing to do.
Trisha Price: If you build
software or lead people who do,
then you're in the right place.
This is Hard Calls, real decisions,
real leaders, real outcomes.
Hi everyone.
I'm Trisha Price, and welcome
back to the Hard Calls Podcast.
On today's show, we have Peter Bailey,
Executive Director at JP Morgan
Payments, where he leads product teams
responsible for developer experience,
developer portal, and API platforms.
In other words.
Anytime you're moving money
electronically, there's a good chance
their systems are helping make it happen.
Peter and I know each other
well because we go way back.
We both found our passion for cutting
edge technology and product early in
our careers in the FinTech industry.
Working together at Primatics
Financial during our time together.
We reminisce on the values and mentality
at Primatics Financial and how it
impacted our career journeys and product.
We discussed how to navigate AI
and technology disruption and
product innovation in a highly
regulated industry like banking.
We talked about the surprising role
customers play, and then Peter flipped our
roles and asked me some hard questions.
Hi Peter.
I'm so excited to welcome
you to Hard Calls.
Peter Bailey: Very excited to be here,
Trisha thank you for having me honored
to be a guest and looking forward
to talking with you in this format.
Trisha Price: It's gonna be a lot of fun.
Peter, as you know, this is the
Hard Calls podcast, so I like to
start every single episode with a
hard call that you've had to make.
So, looking back over your
career, recent or further back.
Tell us about a hard
call you've had to make.
What made it really challenging
and what'd you learn from it?
Peter Bailey: There's always
one that really jumps out to me.
It was shortly after I joined JP Morgan.
I was hired to be the global
head of product for our
wholesale credit risk group.
And shortly before I joined, we had
received some constructive, if not
critical feedback from the Federal
Reserve about our CCAR submissions.
And CCAR is the process that
large banks go through to submit.
Their stress tests and demonstrate
capital adequacy and our ability to pay
dividends and kind of execute our plan.
And we had received feedback specific
to the way that we were providing
information and our reporting.
And we're at risk of not being
able to execute our plan.
And so when I was hired,
this was the problem I was
given and to go and fix that.
And what we realized almost immediately
was that a lot of the information that
we were providing to to the Fed had to
do with our customer's financial data.
It was the vast majority of the
information that we were providing,
and we had a pretty broken way of
collecting it and reporting it across
all of our different lines of business.
Across our investment bank, commercial
bank, private bank, business bank.
All of these different teams were doing
it differently, and ultimately by the
time it got to the Fed, we were not
showing up well and the Fed knew that.
And it was raising concerns on
our ability to manage risk and
the information we were reporting.
And one of the things we quickly realized
was that we have a lot of public clients,
publicly traded entities, and a lot of
this financial data is publicly available.
So let's bring it into a new platform and
we can structure it and ensure that we're
delivering this information consistently.
And while this was not the end
solution, it definitely was a huge step
forward and it was gonna be able to
demonstrate significant progress that
we were improving our reporting and.
Ultimately it was gonna be foundational to
a lot of the risk transformation that we
wanted to have at the bank, and ultimately
that I was responsible for delivering.
So fast forward, within a quarter,
we have a platform that we're ready
to ready to launch and everyone's
really excited about the capabilities,
but ultimately like improving the
data and the submission and CCAR.
And we've made commitments, to our senior
management chain, to our regulators.
And as we were approaching that
launch, one of the things that really
started to become apparent to me and
was just not sitting well, is that
the vendor we had chosen to provide
the data, just was not the right fit.
And, no matter how hard we tried.
It was becoming more and more
apparent that we had made the wrong
decision in terms of how we were
bringing this data into our ecosystem.
And so we had a decision to make of, do
we launch and meet this target, and I
think we still would've been able to show
significant strides from where we were.
Or do we look at it and say, we've this is
not the right time, this is not the right.
Product and we need to take a little
bit more time and go back to the
drawing board so you know the decision.
Do you launch something that everybody's
excited about but you know is not ready?
Or do you hold the line and
potentially risk disappointment,
put your job on the line even
though it's the right thing to do?
I think so much.
Trisha Price: Yes.
So much pressure to make that call.
Peter Bailey: And as product
managers we have these decisions
and you get to make these decisions
and that's the exciting part.
In my case, I was very new to JP
Morgan and I was in that point
where you, you're trying to prove
yourself and ultimately, I held a lot.
And this was the big decision that,
that I got to make or had to make
early in my career at JP Morgan.
And, you know, I think that decision
and reflection it may have almost
got me fired, but in the same
vein, it accelerated my career
and it helped build my career.
And I think it's because it, it
helped me establish trust that I was
willing to make the hard call and
not necessarily the popular call.
Trisha Price: I love that you
shared that example because.
You know, you made the hard decision,
the hard call, maybe not the popular one.
And especially in a company like JP
Morgan in something as visible as a risk
process with the Fed, that's immense
pressure and it's such a great learning
moment for all of our listeners to really
understand when you make the right calls.
That, you know, when your gut is
the right decision for the company
and not the right decision just for
yourself in the moment to feel good, it
usually pays back in terms of career.
Peter Bailey: Yeah.
You know, in the moment it's hard to know.
Right.
What I've learned and taken from
it is really to trust your gut and
to be as transparent as you can.
Yeah.
You're not having to make the decision.
It's not just you, right?
Yeah.
You are collaborating with as many
people around sharing the information
you have, sharing the perspectives,
doing the pro con analysis.
And ultimately if you know, it gets down
to one person making the decision, you've
taken all of those, you've taken all those
perspectives into account and it doesn't,
it, it feels more like a group decision.
And obviously you're working
very hard to build consensus.
And I think that moment it, you know,
was interesting in that it happened
so quickly in my career at JP Morgan.
But it is one that I've certainly
learned a lot from, taken a lot
from, and I know when you asked
me to think about a hard call, I
immediately went to this one decision.
I still think to this day, it's
probably the hardest call I've
had to make as a product manager
because of the circumstance I was in.
Trisha Price: I love it and
so relatable for everybody.
Peter, I wanna take a couple
steps backwards in our career
down memory lane for folks.
And like I said in the intro,
early in our careers, you and
I worked together at Primatics.
And Primatics was such
an interesting place.
To work for you and I, because it
started out as a services company.
We started to build a product, but
we sort of had some outsourcing
and services around that product.
And so the company really went through
a transformation as I think we did too.
In terms of learning what product was
and learning how to be a product company.
And so I'd love to just talk a little
bit about what you learned during
that time and how the experience
shaped you, and how you ended up,
you know, continuing down the path
of product and where you are today.
Peter Bailey: Yeah, so much and
I've got a good question for
you as, as part of this as well.
Yeah.
I think the first thing is.
Like, I never left
FinTech after Primatics.
And the interesting thing is I
didn't know at the time that it
was, it was getting into FinTech.
You know, my story and journey to
Primatics is I was, you know, had been
working in the investment industry.
I had been in New York at a
hedge fund, and when I moved
back to Northern Virginia.
And was being recruited to Primatics.
I was anchoring around and what I was
being sold is we were an M&A company.
We were helping banks go through
mergers and acquisitions.
And so, you know, first couple of
weeks on the job, and I'm learning
a lot about technology and learning
how we were going to be solving
these problems was was unique.
It was not what I expected.
But I certainly, I loved it.
And that really has kind
of set forth my career.
So, as I was kind of, I always think about
this term that has now become ubiquitous
and FinTech, and I wanted to ask you.
If at the time like,
was Primatics a FinTech?
Did we even know that we were
working for a FinTech at that time?
Trisha Price: I don't
think we used that term.
Do you?
I don't remember using that term.
I don't.
I don't know that I thought
about it in that context.
I think, you know, I came from a
different background, like almost the
opposite of, of you coming in, right?
I came from a technology background.
I had actually been an engineer and
had spent most of my time either
working for product tech companies.
I had that, that, that stint
at Fannie Mae as well, but
had always been in technology.
And so for me coming in, I came into
the company thinking I was coming
to work for a product company that
was in the early stages that just
happened to use some consulting revenue
to bootstrap creating the product.
So it's really funny because I feel
like you and I came into the company
like from exact opposite angles.
I don't know that I would've said it was
a FinTech company either, but I would've
said I was joining a technology company,
building a product, and just using
the services revenue to help fund it.
Peter Bailey: I think we can both
imagine which founder recruited us
based on those, based on those stories.
Trisha Price: I can't wait for
them to both listen to this, Peter.
Peter Bailey: Yeah.
Well, you know, I was.
Reflecting.
So, you know, kind of
the learning perspective.
I think first and foremost, like
meeting you, being, having this
opportunity, You know, meeting Mike,
like many of my best friends, my
mentors came from that experience.
And like I said, I never really
left the industry while I now
work in a much larger company.
Almost everything that I'm doing, I
feel like grew out of, or I learned
at Primatics and working together.
I think that maybe the, the two
biggest takeaways back to kind of your
point of, of services in the product.
One, just the customer empathy.
That, again, not in the moment, was
something that I was consciously
thinking about, which I now all
the time think about and everything
that we're doing in, in product.
But there's certain moments that I reflect
on frequently at Primatics where in my
early days of kind of like starting to
adopt product, we were very focused on
like, "Hey, customer, do this yourself."
Right.
We, we built an interface.
You can do this.
It's self-service.
And I distinctly remember many
conversations where the, our
clients would, they weren't
interested in doing it themselves.
Like that's not what they wanted.
I don't want your product
or your software, I want
it to achieve the outcome.
Like, I wanna actually acquire the
next bank, or I want to complete this
integration so we can move forward.
And that would, that
was really interesting.
And I think something to always think
about of like, what is your customer
trying to achieve and what is the
outcome that they're looking for?
Trisha Price: I love that.
And you just made me think
about like today's environment.
How we would've solved that versus then.
Like I think in today's environment,
we would've immediately jumped
to like, what kind of a agentic
interface could we create?
So they could just ask questions
and we would produce results.
But you know, this was not that time.
Right?
This was a lot longer ago.
Mm-hmm.
And at that time, you're right, the
answer to have come customer empathy and
solve their problem was let's create an
outsourcing team that does it for them.
And it really doesn't matter.
What the solution is, right?
Solutions change based on technology
and what's available to us, but what
mattered is that we solved the customer
problem in a way that worked for
our customer base, which was great.
Peter Bailey: Yeah, and I think that
approach is kind of the second learning
that I've spent a lot of time thinking
about in my career, which is just the,
the value of building really good product.
And where you need to invest
in, in technology and product
experiences versus services.
The Primatics experience was one
where, yes, we had started with
services, we had very talented
consultants, we had very smart people.
And my, you know, opinion is that it's
easier to solve things with services.
It's easier to solve a problem.
Yeah.
You know, you can put smart people
on it and, what I think we started
to learn, and if you reflect back, is
it's very hard to scale that model.
And it's much harder to build a product
that can be dynamic enough to solve all of
your customers different problems and make
it flexible enough or configurable enough.
And so, as I've grown in my career,
I spent a lot of my time thinking
about the first principles and.
Is this a problem that can be solved at
scale within a product, within technology?
And really think very critically before
signing up for a, you know a launch or
a strategy that would require people or
would be signing our operational teams
up to have a lot of manual intervention.
And not to say you should never do that.
I think there's a, an age and a stage
of a company and, you know, a, a
product that you're launching, where
you may need or want to surround it
with people to ensure its success.
But I think that's definitely
something I'm much more conscious
of now based on the experiences
that we had at at Primatics.
Trisha Price: Mean, it's fascinating
when you talk about it because you're
talking about some of the problems
we had that limited scale at a fairly
small company, you know, startup.
Basically to mid-size.
And now here you are at one of the largest
financial institutions in the world
building, you know, an experience that's
complicated and absolutely has to scale.
Right?
And so how did you make
a transition like that?
I mean, it's literally.
As opposite.
I mean, you can't surround what you're
building a developer experience for
payments with lots of services and
almost band-aids as I would say.
So how'd you make that transition?
Peter Bailey: Yeah.
You know, I think that challenge that
you're laying out is probably what
really brought me to JP Morgan initially.
You know, it wasn't as if it
was a, a complete, 180 in that
we had been trying to sell our
software into the largest banks.
We had been trying to sell to JP Morgan,
and we were almost just too early, right?
The big banks had to learn how to
adopt the cloud and data privacy,
and sharing confidential information.
Which led to kind of us spinning up almost
a, a bootstrapped advisory practice.
And so I had the opportunity to lead
that and work with some of these larger
banks and see firsthand some of the
challenges that they were experiencing.
And so I think that the challenge to
really come in and say, Hey, am I at the
point of my career where I can solve these
problems, where I can deliver this at
scale is what to me was really exciting.
And ultimately why I said
yes to coming to JP Morgan.
And so I think some of the
principles that we learned earlier
in the, in, in our career at Pried
and just at smaller companies in
general, I tried to bring with me.
And speed to is certainly one, right?
I think our, our biggest differentiator,
at Primatics was around being able
to, one, being first to market with a
relatively niche offering and being able
to continue to launch and ship quickly.
And there's, you know, many
times we talked about like,
why aren't the incumbents.
Catching up.
And, it's, you know, because we,
we continue to, you know, bring,
you know, just chip fast and
kind of stay ahead of the curb.
And I think that's certainly a
principle that I still try and
instill and myself and our teams.
You know, JP Morgan,
it's a little bit bigger.
You constantly have to be
thinking, very big thinking at
scale, but delivering small.
Right.
I think the, the you have the
risk of like becoming paralyzed
by trying to boil the ocean.
If you're trying to solve the biggest
problem that is gonna work for every
JP Morgan customer and work in every
region and at every customer size.
And so, you know, I still try and
encapsulate that, those concepts of, of
speed, for sure and to my day to day.
I think the other, and maybe the biggest
one was just when you work at a small
company, and you and I used to talk about
this is just the ownership thinking.
Like, you have to think like an owner.
And I don't know, you know, that
was, I was conscious of that, but
it's kind of like you're just gonna
do what it takes to be successful.
Which means some days you're selling,
some days you're solutioning.
Some days you're a product manager.
Some days you're on the
floor with a technologist.
Like you have to do all of those
jobs to build a great product.
And I think that was one of the
things I just loved about working
at a small company and it's, you
have to be conscious of bringing
that mentality to a larger company.
Because we have functions that are
at scale for all of those things.
We have a design practice and
project managers and sales and
business development, product
managers and engineers and qa and
those are, functions that exist.
But if you, if you rely on just, I'm
gonna stay in my lane, you're likely
not going to be successful at having
the impact that, that you wanna have.
And so applying that ownership
thinking, which doesn't mean you're
necessarily doing all of the jobs,
but you are consciously connecting.
The people and the functions, and
collaborating and building that
comradery and just thinking, like,
thinking like an owner, is love.
That is something that I brought
from, from JP Morgan to or
from Primatics to JP Morgan.
Trisha Price: I love that ownership
thinking, and it is so critical as we
move up in our careers and become leaders
that regardless which function we're in,
we can take that ownership mentality.
And I think you and I did do pretty
much every role that was possible
when we were at Primatics and so.
Kind of being able to have empathy
for all the roles around us, and then
use that in the ownership thinking.
I love that as a big piece of how
you've been successful as you've
transitioned, into the banking industry.
And, you know, the banking industry did.
Industry is incredibly, highly regulated
and you work for one of the largest,
most complex ones in the world yet.
You are innovating and you are doing new
things and there are disruptors popping
up all over the place, and you have new
technologies, ai, blockchain, crypto how
do you approach innovating in the space of
payments with all of the new tech coming
up yet still balancing the importance of.
Of this regulated large institution?
Peter Bailey: Great question.
I think the fact that there is
so much innovation in particularly
the payment space is actually what
brought me to the job that I'm in now.
You know, we started the conversation,
I joined JP Morgan to lead our risk
practice and really enjoyed it.
And had a great had a kind of a
great role, great team, and that.
Brought us into COVID and you know, during
COVID it's like the height of when risk
platforms, are these companies gonna go
under, is the airline industry gonna fail?
Is the hospitality industry gonna fail?
Like you talk about
stress testing, this was.
A everyday exercise for us.
And, it was really gratifying and
satisfying to see a lot of the hard work
I had done, you know, get, really put and
stress tested in its own, in its own way.
But at about the same time, you know,
looking at what was happening in the
industry of just, the amount of apps
that you're downloading on your phone
to send money, Venmo, PayPal, square
Cash app, Stripe, like just on and on.
And with blockchain and some of
these, these new you know technologies
and crypto starting to become, you
know, a bit more ubiquitous is what
brought me into the payment space.
And, I think that really is
kind of my, my own ethos.
So I'm gonna answer this
question like twofold.
I think me personally.
It's learn, learn, learn.
Like I spend probably 10 to 15 hours
a week listening to podcasts, reading,
taking online classes through Udemy and
just training myself on these technologies
that are going to have a big impact.
I think it's fair to say
they will have an impact.
Now how big?
We can talk about that.
But being able to be conversive
and understand how I might be
able to take advantage of them.
Has been something that's I've
really enjoyed just growing
personally on the professional front.
And you know, I think as a product
manager, we should all, maybe the number
one trait we need to have is be curious.
Trisha Price: Yeah.
Peter Bailey: Right.
Think about how could you use blockchain
in your platform or in your product?
How could you use AI in your product?
Is there a role for these
innovative technologies?
And if you're, if you're not thinking
that, I think the disruption part
of it feels threatening, but if
you are, it feels really exciting.
Trisha Price: Yeah.
Peter Bailey: I think the second piece,
certainly for me in my role that I
have now is being really intentional
because it's not easy, right?
To incorporate these new ideas and
new technologies, some of which.
You are, can be a little bit scary,
or in our case, we have not yet
fully positioned around how we want
to use ai, or, blockchain or crypto.
And so you have to be very
intentional about how do you go and
explore the art of the possible.
And I think the third is going with
that, of collaborating with the experts.
So there's not gonna be a defined path
that says, Hey, here's exactly how you
should incorporate an AI agent into
your website yet that we'll get there.
But if you wait, you know, you
have that risk of really falling
behind and being disruptive.
And one of the things that's always
kept me at JP Morgan, I'm now going
on my eighth year here, is how
innovative of an organization we are.
And, that, you know, starts at the top.
But all of our leaders are constantly
talking about innovation and
investing heavily in new technologies.
And so, you know, I think that trickles
down and I've really tried to embrace
that and build a lot of kind of my own
career and that curiosity and exploring
the art of the possible, to go and
build a great product and to go build
great experiences for our clients.
Trisha Price: I often talk about
innovation with, you know, the industry
conferences and customers, and I talk
about it just like you did Peter.
I talk about the fact
that innovation requires.
Inside out thinking and outside in
thinking and inside out thinking,
meaning you've gotta learn, you've
gotta go play with these technologies.
You've gotta take classes, you
gotta get your hands on, you know,
all the different models, all the
different AI tools that are out
there and figure out which ones work.
And it's not just like which ones work,
which ones work in which situations.
But then you have to combine that
with, okay, like it's great that new
technology is coming out, it's, but.
What's the customer problem
you're trying to solve?
And so I call that outside in thinking
and it's like you really can't innovate
until you can find sort of that perfect
intersection between the inside out
thinking and the outside in thinking.
And you know, that's what
you were just articulating.
And it's so great to hear
that's encouraged at a company
like JPMorgan and not just at.
You know, startups and tech companies
because I think that's important
to serve our customers and to do
our jobs well as product leaders.
And you know, for you in part.
You know, you are trying to innovate.
You are, you are innovating your
shipping product and you're doing
that to attract new customers and
also you have existing customers.
And a lot of times when it comes
to different banking products,
well any product really, customers
can be resistant to change.
So how do you handle that trade off of,
you know, taking advantage of innovation
and some of this inside out thinking that
you're doing and investing in yourself.
Yet making sure that you are
putting customers first and
thinking through their experience.
Peter Bailey: In my experience, it's
always easier to build something new.
Right?
Green field, brand new idea, let's
go and attract new customer segment.
You know, it's a lot of fun doing that.
And it, it probably is, it's quite a
bit easier than, you know, building for
your existing customer base and taking
the complexity into consideration.
You know, one of the things that I think
I've gotten better at in my career,
and I've learned so much at JP Morgan.
Is, I think the earlier that you
can start talking to your customers
about your ideas, the better.
Yeah.
So if you, if you are building
something new, there's no harm in
going and talking to your customer
and saying, we have an idea.
We want to be great in this space.
So we wanna be, we wanna have
the best developer experience.
We want to make all of our
APIs publicly accessible.
We want to deliver self-service
digitally native capabilities
to you, but we're not there yet.
But we would really love for
you to collaborate with us and
bring you along for that ride.
And if you're open to it.
Like maybe even try it out or join an
advisory panel or participate in a beta.
And there's a lot of different softer
ways to bring your existing customer
a lot closer to the innovation.
You're not breaking anything that they're
doing, you're not forcing them to migrate.
And I think that approach
builds a lot of trust.
It builds a lot of very strong
relationships, and you're getting
really great feedback and kind
of pressure testing your ideas
and what you're building.
But if you do it right, like there's
an opportunity to create this shared
accountability and kind of a, almost
like a pride where your clients are
participating in that journey and
eventually are, Hey, I want the new thing.
I, how quickly can I get there?
And can then be an advocate for the
next wave of customers who maybe
didn't go on that journey with you.
But can be advocates for the
products that you're building.
So that's, you know, certainly one
approach that, that I've really tried
to employ and really encourage, you
know, my teams and you know, the
people I work with to spend as much
time as possible sharing the vision
and sharing the intent and sharing the
strategy, not just sharing the product.
Trisha Price: I love that.
I love your concept of one building trust.
To bring them on the journey.
But equally important to building trust
is getting their feedback, getting their
buy-in, getting them excited about it.
So they're obviously sharing
their feedback, they're helping
you build a great product.
You have more confidence in your
product because customers are giving
you that clear feedback and helping
you design what works for them.
But then they're there, they're
excited and they can, you know.
You know, be your biggest cheerleader
and advocate with other customers
and talk about why it works for them.
And I think that's such a
great approach for sure.
Peter Bailey: I think that there's also a
huge piece of just, by sharing the vision
and the art of the possible, you are in
a very collaborative posture early on.
Yeah.
Oftentimes I think like a lot of
the strategy of launching a new
product is like, let's launch an MVP.
It truly a minimum viable product, and
you're bringing that to a customer.
And all you're gonna hear
is all the new things.
What are the next set of features?
Where's this, where's that?
I need this.
I want that.
And you're in a bit of a defensive
posture and you're playing catch
up from the beginning versus
this is where I like to go.
How does that sound?
Do you want to go on that,
that journey with us?
Is that the right journey to go on?
Do we have the right roadmap to get there?
You're also indirectly saying, I
don't have all of that right now.
And, I think it's been really
successful to helping us with adoption.
So when our customers are adopting
our newer products, there is a
understanding of this broader roadmap
and commitment to continue to be great.
And I think that's where a brand
like JP Morgan and the investments
that we've made over years into our
different platforms really helps because
there's a higher level of trust that,
hey, what I'm getting today is gonna
get better tomorrow and the next day.
And by, you know, a year from now.
Should be really great and my
voice is gonna be heard and will
be incorporated into into the
experiences that, that I'm adopting.
Trisha Price: I love that.
And, you know, it's clear in
your prior roles and then.
In your current one as well, you've
been really successful at this balance
of innovating, investing in yourself,
investing in your team, and learning
new technology, whether it's AI or
blockchain or crypto, and all the things
that relate to payments and and beyond.
Right?
And that's not easy to do when you're
balancing what you just talked about,
which is building customer trust and
bringing customers along for the journey.
There are lots of listeners out there
today who haven't been able to balance
those two things who are struggling.
At their institutions, especially ones
that are highly regulated or moving
slower than others to do what you've done.
What advice do you have for product
leaders who are struggling to sort
of get over this hump and transform
and take advantage of some of the
newer technologies and concepts?
Peter Bailey: Yeah, I think
it's invest in yourself.
Learning in this environment because
of all these new technologies
is not an expensive proposition.
Right.
It's a priority conversation that
you need to have with yourself around
am I going to carve out time to go
and learn about these new ideas?
And everybody learns differently, but
because of all of the different formats,
whether it's watching YouTube, listening
to a podcast while you're working out,
doing some hands-on experimenting with,
you know, an Udemy type platform.
There's a lot of different ways
to go and educate yourself.
But I think it's, you know, putting
down, you just letting yourself
be okay with not being the expert.
certainly I had the moment of feeling
pretty threatened, not too long ago
where you're like, man, like I don't
have a background in computer science or
artificial, you know, or data science and
everything's AI and LLM and everything
you read is that, you know, working in
technology, there's gonna be efficiencies.
And so I really just took it
as I think an opportunity.
Said, Hey, like, I'd love to just go and
learn more and understand how this works
and understand how it could be applied.
And particularly with, you know, my case
and I think we should all be thinking
about this, is as product managers,
I think we have different strengths
ranging from, you know, creativity,
strategy, down to actually execution
and, you know, hardcore delivery.
How do you take these technologies
and apply them to your strengths?
Trisha Price: Yeah.
And I think no matter which of those
strengths you are and how technical
you are, there's an opportunity
to do exactly what you just said.
Peter Bailey: Yeah.
I had a question for you, 'cause I
thought you were gonna go in a slightly
different direction, which is, as a
product manager, this differentiating
between being a subject matter expert
and the domain that you're working in
versus being a expert product manager.
Your career of working at Fannie Mae, the
largest loan institution in the world
to come into Primatics, we were working
at the intersection of risk and finance,
but ultimately building awesome loan
accounting engine and then reserving.
Taking that expertise to nCino
where you continued to kind of build
upon a similar set of expertise.
Yeah.
And then go into Pendo.
Where the domain is not important,
based on my understanding and
more the experience that the
consumer or the business is having.
I'd love to hear your thoughts
around like that intersection of what
makes the great product manager and
how much of it is truly the domain
versus the function and some of the
things we're talking about here.
Trisha Price: You know, I love
that question, Peter, for me.
I felt, you know, there's obviously
certain pieces to all of our
success that are sort of, our
attitude and our aptitude, our
willingness to learn the questions,
our engine, you know, our drive.
And I think a lot of what made
me successful was that right.
I'd always be the one who was
willing to outwork everybody and
ask a lot of questions and learn.
I did become an expert in a lot of, I'll
just call it the loan domain lending
credit risk lending, loan accounting,
through those experiences, and I
certainly think that that was a really
important part of my success at nCino in
terms of getting customers to trust me.
To your earlier conversations about
getting customer trust, and I think
that expertise in something as important
when you're building and selling a
commercial loan origination system
to some of the largest banks in the
world, they wanna know that the person
in charge of product understands
what the heck they're talking about.
And I think that expertise and that
knowledge, earned me the right for
customers to trust me and earned
me the opportunity for the role.
But I think what ended up separating
our product at nCino from the others
and why we got the Black Turtleneck
Award for innovation and best product
and why we snuck up on our competitors
and outperformed them and out executed
it and won that market, I think
was because of my product craft.
And I think that, you know, when we did
things like auto spreading, which is
for people who don't care about banking,
basically taking a financial statement of
a company and extracting, using AI all the
information out of it and categorizing it,
no one else was doing those things, right?
This is well before the LLMs, and I
think that was the innovative mindset,
and that was my product mindset
that helped me execute and win.
And so when I decided it was
time to do something different,
I decided that honing that craft
was what was critically important
for this next piece of my career.
And I knew there'd be no better place
to do it than coming to Pendo where I'm
surrounded by the best product managers.
I get to spend time with the best
product leaders all over and really
understand what tools they're missing,
what problems they're trying to solve.
And so, just like you talked about, the
ways that you're investing in yourself by
listening to podcasts and listening and
learning, that is truly why when I was
leaving nCino and figuring out my next
opportunity, I wanted to come to Pendo was
to really learn and hone that craft, and
then I know I can apply it to anything.
And so, I think that
the craft of product is.
The only way and the most important
way to win if you're building
great product and execute.
But I think when you're working in
a highly regulated industry like I
was at nCino and you are at JP Morgan
you can't earn people's trust if you
don't know what you're talking about.
Peter Bailey: That's great answer.
I've always wanted to know that.
Trisha Price: That's funny because
you and I have known each other
for so long and I don't think we've
ever really had this conversation.
Peter Bailey: Yeah.
I mean, go, going back to, you know, what
you were asking me and as product managers
like that's an area of investment, right.
And it's an area in building your
own confidence and knowing that the
things that you've learned in one
area can be applied to another area.
Trisha Price: Yeah.
Great advice for all of our
listeners today too, right?
You don't have to feel
pigeonholed or trapped.
If you've always worked on, you
know, a horizontal platform like
Pendo, like anything you know of
that nature, that doesn't mean you
can't go work in a highly specialized
industry and take what you've learned.
It just means you're gonna
need to invest to learn that.
And if you have been in a highly
regulated or specialized vertical,
and you wanna apply that.
You have those product management
skills, be confident in 'em, but
be willing to invest in 'em as
you, as you try something new.
So I really like that.
Peter Bailey: Yep.
Trisha Price: Great.
Well, Peter, I thank you so much
for being on Hard Calls today.
Thank you for taking me down a
little bit of memory lane and
sharing a lot of your experience
and expertise with our listeners.
We really appreciate it.
Peter Bailey: Oh, it's been an honor.
Thank you for having me.
It's been a lot of fun.
Wish this podcast the best of
success in the future and look
forward to seeing you soon.
Trisha Price: Thanks, Peter.
All right.
Bye.
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