1 00:00:01,970 --> 00:00:04,390 Jordan, what an absolute pleasure. 2 00:00:04,390 --> 00:00:06,230 It's great to talk to you again. 3 00:00:06,230 --> 00:00:07,550 I have a small confession. 4 00:00:07,550 --> 00:00:12,270 It's always fun for me to talk to product managers since that's my thing. 5 00:00:12,270 --> 00:00:14,750 So it's very good to talk to you again. 6 00:00:14,750 --> 00:00:17,790 I want to start with an easy pitch, okay? 7 00:00:17,790 --> 00:00:19,340 I'll have some hard balls. 8 00:00:19,340 --> 00:00:21,410 Those will come at the end. 9 00:00:21,950 --> 00:00:27,498 Tell me about your favorite moment in product management. 10 00:00:39,698 --> 00:00:45,558 I was working at FlyReal and, you know, the other, the other folks in product had 11 00:00:45,558 --> 00:00:46,458 left. 12 00:00:46,458 --> 00:00:54,138 So I was the only product manager and the team had lost the engineering team and 13 00:00:54,138 --> 00:00:57,550 then sort of other teams had lost a lot of. 14 00:00:57,550 --> 00:01:01,310 sort of trust they didn't get a ton of visibility into the product thought 15 00:01:01,310 --> 00:01:05,510 process prior to my joining. 16 00:01:05,510 --> 00:01:11,930 And that was something that I noted right away and worked to resolve, put in place 17 00:01:11,930 --> 00:01:16,230 processes and be very intentional about my communication. 18 00:01:16,846 --> 00:01:22,406 And it took, I mean, I'd say it took like six to eight months of really working and 19 00:01:22,406 --> 00:01:25,606 sort of repeating and being very clear. 20 00:01:25,606 --> 00:01:29,786 But they got to a point where I felt like I really built that trust with both the 21 00:01:29,786 --> 00:01:32,506 stakeholders and the development team. 22 00:01:32,506 --> 00:01:37,006 And that was just a really, a very fulfilling moment for me. 23 00:01:37,074 --> 00:01:42,754 So this is an incredibly important point for product managers. 24 00:01:42,754 --> 00:01:44,544 And I want to break it down. 25 00:01:44,544 --> 00:01:47,014 There's the trust of the engineering team. 26 00:01:47,014 --> 00:01:51,274 And then there's the trust of the other stakeholders, which I want to delve into 27 00:01:51,274 --> 00:01:53,844 each of those and what that relationship looks like. 28 00:01:53,844 --> 00:01:55,594 But let's start with the engineering team. 29 00:01:55,594 --> 00:02:00,054 So if I understand you had an inbound component, you were working directly with 30 00:02:00,054 --> 00:02:01,194 engineering. 31 00:02:01,194 --> 00:02:04,094 How do you build trust with an engineering team? 32 00:02:04,094 --> 00:02:05,970 How can it go wrong? 33 00:02:05,970 --> 00:02:11,046 And if you will give us some tips about how to make it go great. 34 00:02:11,278 --> 00:02:17,178 Yeah, yeah, I think that the biggest way for it to go wrong, and this is from 35 00:02:17,178 --> 00:02:21,806 personal experience, is by... 36 00:02:21,806 --> 00:02:27,626 if the engineering team feels like you are sort of randomly deciding things, you 37 00:02:27,626 --> 00:02:31,566 know, they ask a question or a stakeholder has a request and you're sort of like, 38 00:02:31,566 --> 00:02:35,106 yeah, okay, I don't have a reason to say no to this. 39 00:02:35,106 --> 00:02:38,526 And, you know, they're sort of getting things, but not really connecting how does 40 00:02:38,526 --> 00:02:42,706 this map to our product strategy, our mission, our OKRs. 41 00:02:42,706 --> 00:02:47,326 For me, I think that's the fastest way to lose their trust because pretty quickly, 42 00:02:47,326 --> 00:02:49,666 they get to a point of like, what are you here for? 43 00:02:49,666 --> 00:02:51,992 Like if that's what you're doing, like then, you know, 44 00:02:51,992 --> 00:02:53,992 can do that. 45 00:02:54,412 --> 00:03:00,972 And so I think the biggest piece is really having a strong product strategy that's 46 00:03:00,972 --> 00:03:04,352 really well aligned to the company strategy. 47 00:03:04,352 --> 00:03:09,872 And then continuously repeating that, both when you're speaking with the team about 48 00:03:09,872 --> 00:03:14,432 why we've prioritized and reprioritized things that we are, and in terms of 49 00:03:14,432 --> 00:03:17,212 sharing why you've made decisions in a certain way. 50 00:03:17,454 --> 00:03:21,054 I think the other big piece, and this is really, I think, key to collaborating with 51 00:03:21,054 --> 00:03:26,974 anyone, but is genuinely taking into account their feedback. 52 00:03:27,174 --> 00:03:32,614 So I'm not a past developer, so I don't have that engineering experience. 53 00:03:32,614 --> 00:03:38,314 And I think something that can really rub engineers and probably anyone the wrong 54 00:03:38,314 --> 00:03:42,254 way is when it feels like I'm not taking into account their expertise. 55 00:03:42,794 --> 00:03:45,902 So not only can that destroy trust, it really... 56 00:03:45,902 --> 00:03:49,962 takes away a really valuable input from my own decision -making process. 57 00:03:49,962 --> 00:03:53,642 And so I think by sharing the strategy, sort of contextualizing, getting everyone 58 00:03:53,642 --> 00:03:58,942 on the same page, and then really soliciting their strong input, and when 59 00:03:58,942 --> 00:04:04,002 necessary, changing my mind when something that they say really makes sense. 60 00:04:04,658 --> 00:04:06,398 I love that. 61 00:04:06,398 --> 00:04:11,988 I've worked with so many engineering teams and engineers are incredibly intelligent, 62 00:04:11,988 --> 00:04:13,858 they're incredibly smart. 63 00:04:13,858 --> 00:04:19,418 And I found by, you know, pretty subscribing to that transparency that 64 00:04:19,418 --> 00:04:24,618 you're talking about, subscribing to seeing them as a stakeholder and not an 65 00:04:24,618 --> 00:04:28,158 execution arm, you actually get a lot of value. 66 00:04:28,158 --> 00:04:30,290 And I've even found that... 67 00:04:30,290 --> 00:04:33,990 They are more productive when they feel that they are part of the team, they are 68 00:04:33,990 --> 00:04:35,690 listened to. 69 00:04:35,750 --> 00:04:37,650 So I just love everything you said. 70 00:04:37,650 --> 00:04:41,330 I found it to be very true from my own experience. 71 00:04:41,330 --> 00:04:44,510 But the engineering team is not our only stakeholder. 72 00:04:44,790 --> 00:04:49,350 We've got the C -suite, we've got sales, we've got marketing. 73 00:04:49,470 --> 00:04:52,202 Let's dissect this and go one at a time. 74 00:08:04,318 --> 00:08:10,298 I think for customer success, they can often feel underappreciated and like an 75 00:08:10,298 --> 00:08:14,738 underutilized input into product strategy, product decision making. 76 00:08:14,738 --> 00:08:16,958 Like you said, they're the ones on the front line. 77 00:08:16,958 --> 00:08:18,588 They're targeting customers every day. 78 00:08:18,588 --> 00:08:22,498 They have the best feel for the pain points that the customers are feeling with 79 00:08:22,498 --> 00:08:25,498 the product, for the desires that customers have for the product. 80 00:08:25,638 --> 00:08:26,402 And... 81 00:08:26,730 --> 00:08:28,760 I think they can often feel a little bit ignored, right? 82 00:08:28,760 --> 00:08:32,290 They're often bringing bugs or issues that, you know, in product you have to 83 00:08:32,290 --> 00:08:34,510 say, this isn't something that we can work on. 84 00:08:34,510 --> 00:08:38,290 I think it can often feel like, what is the point of sharing these things with you 85 00:08:38,290 --> 00:08:41,690 if you're always like, eh, this isn't a high priority enough to work on? 86 00:08:41,690 --> 00:08:47,330 So I think that the key, you know, both proactively and reactively from the start 87 00:08:47,330 --> 00:08:52,190 is to help them understand that you appreciate and understand what they're 88 00:08:52,190 --> 00:08:53,930 going through, what they're seeing. 89 00:08:53,930 --> 00:08:57,830 and how valuable that can be to the product development process. 90 00:08:58,030 --> 00:09:01,330 And once something comes up, you're not always going to be able to work on 91 00:09:01,330 --> 00:09:01,610 something. 92 00:09:01,610 --> 00:09:05,230 There are going to be times where you have to say, this isn't high priority enough, 93 00:09:05,230 --> 00:09:05,706 but... 94 00:09:05,706 --> 00:09:09,666 again, showing that it's important and then you understand why it's important and 95 00:09:09,666 --> 00:09:15,186 then working with them, you know, as much as possible, not necessarily compromise, 96 00:09:15,186 --> 00:09:15,326 right? 97 00:09:15,326 --> 00:09:19,166 You don't want to do something just for the sake of meeting in the middle. 98 00:09:19,166 --> 00:09:23,236 But something along the lines of can we revisit this in three months? 99 00:09:23,236 --> 00:09:28,386 Can we revisit this if these numbers going up and you see a drastic increase? 100 00:09:28,386 --> 00:09:30,246 Is there a workaround? 101 00:09:30,246 --> 00:09:35,426 Is there a shorter way that we can look at solving this issue that we're having? 102 00:09:36,175 --> 00:09:37,175 It's so important. 103 00:09:37,175 --> 00:09:44,735 I mean, I see this go wrong so many times where customer success is input is causing 104 00:09:44,735 --> 00:09:49,555 churn because it's not listened to carefully, which is, it just has a huge 105 00:09:49,555 --> 00:09:51,595 impact on the bottom line. 106 00:09:51,595 --> 00:09:55,475 And, you know, in the worst situations I've seen customer success are being 107 00:09:55,475 --> 00:10:00,055 treated as QA because engineering processes are failing and then customer 108 00:10:00,055 --> 00:10:04,295 success is, is, is testing basically with the customers themselves. 109 00:10:04,295 --> 00:10:05,767 Just imagine that. 110 00:10:05,935 --> 00:10:08,155 and they're being ignored. 111 00:10:08,455 --> 00:10:16,995 It's just such a huge missed opportunity and your take on really listening and 112 00:10:16,995 --> 00:10:22,855 respecting and really giving customer success a seat at the table is so 113 00:10:22,855 --> 00:10:24,415 incredibly important from my experience. 114 00:10:24,415 --> 00:10:26,755 I really appreciate that. 115 00:10:27,315 --> 00:10:29,855 Let's talk about sales and marketing. 116 00:10:30,975 --> 00:10:34,095 When do we engage with sales and marketing? 117 00:10:34,095 --> 00:10:35,785 How do we take their feedback? 118 00:10:35,785 --> 00:10:40,415 On the one hand, we don't want them going out and saying all the stuff that we, we 119 00:10:40,415 --> 00:10:44,015 have all these new features, but actually we're just talking about future plans that 120 00:10:44,015 --> 00:10:46,415 maybe won't come to reality. 121 00:10:46,415 --> 00:10:50,415 But on the other hand, they're also working with customers every day, not 122 00:10:50,415 --> 00:10:52,415 customers, but prospects. 123 00:10:52,415 --> 00:10:58,365 How does the sales and marketing element fit into the product management picture? 124 00:11:17,886 --> 00:11:21,586 sales and marketing, they tend to get very excited when you talk about potential new 125 00:11:21,586 --> 00:11:25,446 features and forget that word at the beginning of things. 126 00:11:25,666 --> 00:11:28,856 And so I think there's a couple of keys. 127 00:11:28,856 --> 00:11:32,906 One is being very intentional with, you know, what you do share with sales and 128 00:11:32,906 --> 00:11:33,926 marketing. 129 00:11:34,306 --> 00:11:37,514 And being very... 130 00:11:37,514 --> 00:11:41,814 very clear on this is something that we know is going to come. 131 00:11:42,114 --> 00:11:46,554 And being very, I think, generous with your timelines in terms of if it's 132 00:11:46,554 --> 00:11:51,154 something that you're predicting happening in a month, depending on how good you've 133 00:11:51,154 --> 00:11:55,094 been, the team has been at delivering on timelines. 134 00:11:55,374 --> 00:11:59,964 I think making sure that they don't say, well, you said it was coming in a month. 135 00:11:59,964 --> 00:12:01,794 Now I'm going to start telling customers. 136 00:12:01,794 --> 00:12:05,614 So that constant communication back and forth with sales. 137 00:12:06,474 --> 00:12:11,414 I think that the struggle there is that they're out there talking to customers, 138 00:12:11,414 --> 00:12:14,354 sales and marketing, on a day -to -day basis. 139 00:12:14,354 --> 00:12:18,394 And so there can be a lot of blip feedback that they're getting, right? 140 00:12:18,394 --> 00:12:22,954 They have one customer, two customers that say XYZ thing, and they start questioning 141 00:12:22,954 --> 00:12:25,874 the whole direction, or they think that you should go a certain way, a certain 142 00:12:25,874 --> 00:12:27,594 decision should be made. 143 00:12:27,914 --> 00:12:32,794 And so I think having a lot of discipline on the product side to gather that 144 00:12:32,794 --> 00:12:35,210 feedback, because it is incredibly valuable. 145 00:12:35,210 --> 00:12:38,280 but to gather it and then contextualize it. 146 00:12:38,280 --> 00:12:40,810 What kind of a customer was this coming from? 147 00:12:40,810 --> 00:12:42,530 What is the context? 148 00:12:42,530 --> 00:12:44,010 And are we hearing patterns? 149 00:12:44,010 --> 00:12:46,110 Is this a pattern that we're hearing? 150 00:12:46,110 --> 00:12:51,150 And if you can identify that, but it feels really important, then having a plan to 151 00:12:51,150 --> 00:12:52,050 address that, right? 152 00:12:52,050 --> 00:12:56,850 Is that something that sales can continue to ask customers, potential customers as 153 00:12:56,850 --> 00:13:00,436 they speak with them to start digging in a little bit more. 154 00:13:00,559 --> 00:13:03,379 This is such an important point that you're bringing up. 155 00:13:03,379 --> 00:13:08,369 And I mean, we call this in the realm of psychology, recency bias, right? 156 00:13:08,369 --> 00:13:11,379 The sales team goes out, they hear something from a customer and they're 157 00:13:11,379 --> 00:13:13,399 like, this is the most important thing. 158 00:13:13,399 --> 00:13:17,499 And not only that, there's a perverse incentive because they're trying to close 159 00:13:17,499 --> 00:13:18,379 that deal. 160 00:13:18,379 --> 00:13:21,339 So there's recency bias, there's a perverse incentive. 161 00:13:21,339 --> 00:13:22,439 I need this to close the deal. 162 00:13:22,439 --> 00:13:24,599 So now this is the most important thing in the world. 163 00:13:24,599 --> 00:13:28,015 And that most important thing of the world is something else every two weeks, right? 164 00:13:28,015 --> 00:13:31,735 or every month or three months depending on the length of your sales cycle. 165 00:13:31,855 --> 00:13:37,275 As product managers, how do we counter all these psychologies that are working 166 00:13:37,275 --> 00:13:38,115 against us? 167 00:13:38,115 --> 00:13:42,535 And you started to say, right, it's about planning a strategy and capturing. 168 00:13:42,535 --> 00:13:47,795 Tell me more about what that looks like almost on a day -to -day and month -to 169 00:13:47,795 --> 00:13:50,471 -month and quarter -to -quarter perspective. 170 00:13:50,762 --> 00:13:52,202 Yeah, yeah. 171 00:13:52,202 --> 00:13:56,982 I think that product strategy is an often underappreciated piece of product 172 00:13:56,982 --> 00:13:57,782 management. 173 00:13:57,782 --> 00:14:02,742 And I think it has to start with a really strong company strategy, mission, vision, 174 00:14:02,742 --> 00:14:04,322 and guiding statements. 175 00:14:04,322 --> 00:14:08,862 Because products can put together a theoretically brilliant strategy. 176 00:14:08,862 --> 00:14:13,102 But if that doesn't map up to the company objectives and the company mission, then 177 00:14:13,102 --> 00:14:13,722 it's going to be a miss. 178 00:14:13,722 --> 00:14:14,562 It's going to be a fail. 179 00:14:14,562 --> 00:14:17,814 And you're going to have a really hard time getting people bought into it. 180 00:14:17,866 --> 00:14:20,866 So I think really starting with understanding that so that you can 181 00:14:20,866 --> 00:14:25,306 contextualize where product fits within the greater company strategy. 182 00:14:25,306 --> 00:14:31,166 And then I like to do sort of a, I like to sort of start on an annual basis thinking 183 00:14:31,166 --> 00:14:34,986 about what are the big company initiatives that we're working on this year? 184 00:14:34,986 --> 00:14:39,966 What is our three to five year picture that we're mapping toward and essentially 185 00:14:39,966 --> 00:14:42,106 putting together a North Star, right? 186 00:14:42,106 --> 00:14:45,606 There's always a hundred really important things that you need to be working on at 187 00:14:45,606 --> 00:14:47,338 any point, which. 188 00:14:47,338 --> 00:14:51,118 means that there's no important things if you're working on all 100 of those. 189 00:14:51,438 --> 00:14:55,578 And so really being disciplined about these are the two areas that we've chosen 190 00:14:55,578 --> 00:14:56,658 to focus on. 191 00:14:56,658 --> 00:14:57,748 And here's why. 192 00:14:57,748 --> 00:15:02,418 Here's why this opportunity cost that we're paying is going to be worth it. 193 00:15:02,418 --> 00:15:05,118 And then from there, everything should really cascade down. 194 00:15:05,118 --> 00:15:08,038 So on a quarter to quarter basis, revisiting. 195 00:15:08,038 --> 00:15:11,978 But if you are changing your strategy on a quarter to quarter basis, you better have 196 00:15:11,978 --> 00:15:13,418 a really good reason. 197 00:15:14,383 --> 00:15:15,893 That is so important. 198 00:15:15,893 --> 00:15:22,243 I come to companies and I see they don't have OKRs, which really means that either 199 00:15:22,243 --> 00:15:26,583 they don't have a strategy or they don't have a measurable strategy or their 200 00:15:26,583 --> 00:15:28,963 strategy is just, let's sell more. 201 00:15:28,963 --> 00:15:32,083 But that doesn't help us as product people. 202 00:15:32,083 --> 00:15:36,163 Let's dive into the strategic aspect of helping the C -suite. 203 00:15:36,163 --> 00:15:39,603 So we talked about sales and a little bit of marketing and customer success and 204 00:15:39,603 --> 00:15:40,501 engineering. 205 00:15:40,655 --> 00:15:46,175 But product leadership has a very important impact on leadership. 206 00:15:46,175 --> 00:15:51,875 If they're not giving us good enough, let's say, target strategies, go to 207 00:15:51,875 --> 00:15:55,955 markets, OKRs, there's really nothing we can do with that. 208 00:15:55,955 --> 00:16:00,575 So tell us a little bit about that experience and how we can guide leadership 209 00:16:00,575 --> 00:16:05,635 to have better synergies with their product strategy as opposed to their 210 00:16:05,635 --> 00:16:08,871 company strategy and how those two really fit together. 211 00:16:11,242 --> 00:16:17,522 So I think one really big part of that, I mean, that's a great point. 212 00:16:17,522 --> 00:16:22,302 The product strategy is only going to be as good as what is coming down from the 213 00:16:22,302 --> 00:16:23,002 top. 214 00:16:23,002 --> 00:16:27,754 And I think otherwise what you end up seeing is kind of the random walk, right? 215 00:16:27,754 --> 00:16:30,654 Everyone's working on different things in different directions. 216 00:16:30,654 --> 00:16:37,214 If you have OKRs, if you have KPIs, those are not being meaningfully moved even over 217 00:16:37,214 --> 00:16:38,914 longer time periods. 218 00:16:38,914 --> 00:16:43,514 And they're sort of a question of what is our product, who do we serve, why do we 219 00:16:43,514 --> 00:16:44,733 exist? 220 00:16:45,174 --> 00:16:48,682 And I think one... 221 00:16:48,682 --> 00:16:52,602 key part to that is if they don't appreciate the importance of the product 222 00:16:52,602 --> 00:16:56,782 strategy and connecting that with the company strategy, is just starting to have 223 00:16:56,782 --> 00:17:01,482 those conversations and talking about, here's what the consequences are, here's 224 00:17:01,482 --> 00:17:04,322 what we're missing without that product strategy. 225 00:17:04,322 --> 00:17:09,290 You've seen XYZ over the past three months, and here's where... 226 00:17:09,290 --> 00:17:13,630 Here's where that gap is that's driving these issues that we're seeing. 227 00:17:14,350 --> 00:17:19,110 And I think being willing to work with them to get to something that, you know, 228 00:17:19,450 --> 00:17:22,922 the different inputs are there and... 229 00:17:22,922 --> 00:17:28,482 the executive team understands and feels bought into so that you're not constantly 230 00:17:28,482 --> 00:17:33,262 having to go back and clear every little decision, every little change with the 231 00:17:33,262 --> 00:17:36,842 executive team because you know that you are all moving in the same direction and 232 00:17:36,842 --> 00:17:40,922 that the product development is moving in a direction to move the needle for the 233 00:17:40,922 --> 00:17:41,862 company. 234 00:17:42,575 --> 00:17:44,255 I love that. 235 00:17:44,615 --> 00:17:46,005 Jordan, first of all, thank you. 236 00:17:46,005 --> 00:17:47,715 It's always fun to talk to you. 237 00:17:47,715 --> 00:17:50,005 But I mean, this is so important. 238 00:17:50,005 --> 00:17:53,435 So I just want to call out to the audience what you're saying. 239 00:17:53,435 --> 00:17:59,115 Product strategy does not live separately from the corporate OKRs. 240 00:17:59,115 --> 00:18:03,815 In fact, every product strategy, and Jordan said this before, it ties back to 241 00:18:03,815 --> 00:18:04,835 the OKRs. 242 00:18:04,835 --> 00:18:09,325 How is the product strategy implementing the organization's key objectives? 243 00:18:09,325 --> 00:18:10,835 And that's so important. 244 00:18:10,835 --> 00:18:11,983 And if the 245 00:18:11,983 --> 00:18:15,873 executive team is not bought into the need for that alignment. 246 00:18:15,873 --> 00:18:19,923 And that's a little bit of change management that product leads and helps 247 00:18:19,923 --> 00:18:20,503 happen. 248 00:18:20,503 --> 00:18:21,833 So it's such an important point. 249 00:18:21,833 --> 00:18:23,163 I really appreciate it. 250 00:18:23,163 --> 00:18:28,183 I want to pivot a little bit away from, let's say, the core product stuff and talk 251 00:18:28,183 --> 00:18:31,543 a little bit about organizational culture. 252 00:18:31,543 --> 00:18:37,621 It has a huge impact on engineering, on product, on sales. 253 00:18:37,647 --> 00:18:41,727 Talk to me a little bit about the good, the bad, and the ugly in regards to the 254 00:18:41,727 --> 00:18:45,807 stuff that you've seen from the perspective of as a senior product leader 255 00:18:45,807 --> 00:18:50,527 and how that positively and negatively impacts the organization. 256 00:18:50,527 --> 00:18:55,507 And really what I want to share with the audience is the CEOs and VPs listening to 257 00:18:55,507 --> 00:18:56,147 us. 258 00:18:56,147 --> 00:19:02,187 What are the cultures that help product and the company be successful from your 259 00:19:02,187 --> 00:19:03,327 eyes as a product leader? 260 00:19:03,327 --> 00:19:05,479 And what are the ones that just get in the way? 261 00:19:07,146 --> 00:19:08,206 Yeah. 262 00:19:08,246 --> 00:19:11,526 So I think that, you know, I addressed this a little bit at the beginning, but a 263 00:19:11,526 --> 00:19:14,246 lack of transparency is a huge one. 264 00:19:14,246 --> 00:19:19,186 That's one where it can lead the team to feel like, you know, you're just randomly 265 00:19:19,186 --> 00:19:19,546 moving. 266 00:19:19,546 --> 00:19:23,226 It can lead stakeholders to feel like, what are you doing as product? 267 00:19:23,226 --> 00:19:29,286 Why have we trusted you to decide what to do next with things that impact our teams? 268 00:19:29,586 --> 00:19:34,786 Because this isn't, you know, this isn't connected and this isn't helping me. 269 00:19:34,794 --> 00:19:38,434 you lose a lot of trust in all of your stakeholders, including the engineering 270 00:19:38,434 --> 00:19:39,514 teams. 271 00:19:40,314 --> 00:19:43,134 So lack of transparency is really key. 272 00:19:43,294 --> 00:19:46,210 I think another... 273 00:19:47,210 --> 00:19:52,570 something I've seen that is difficult culture -wise, is when product and 274 00:19:52,570 --> 00:19:54,830 engineering become a feature factory. 275 00:19:54,830 --> 00:19:58,780 I think that's something that you hear a lot about, but whether it's sales, 276 00:19:58,780 --> 00:20:05,030 customer success, or even the C -suite sort of passing down, hey, we think XYZ 277 00:20:05,030 --> 00:20:09,030 feature would be great, and we would love for you guys to go ahead and implement it. 278 00:20:09,030 --> 00:20:14,730 It's just not utilizing the product and engineering functions to their greatest 279 00:20:14,730 --> 00:20:17,164 advantage, and I think that you get 280 00:20:17,164 --> 00:20:20,184 really low morale in that case. 281 00:20:20,431 --> 00:20:25,291 or my favorite when the CEO comes and shows you a feature the competitor has and 282 00:20:25,291 --> 00:20:27,171 we have to do this tomorrow. 283 00:20:27,911 --> 00:20:31,015 So have you got have you has that happened to you? 284 00:20:34,050 --> 00:20:38,410 definitely from other exec functions have seen that. 285 00:20:38,730 --> 00:20:44,250 A customer had mentioned that this other competitor has this and we need it to be 286 00:20:44,250 --> 00:20:45,650 able to keep up. 287 00:20:45,903 --> 00:20:50,103 I, you know, those are hard ones to deal with, but I always find that going back to 288 00:20:50,103 --> 00:20:54,542 the strategy and seeing how features fit within the strategy is helpful. 289 00:20:55,263 --> 00:20:58,583 and then the other one that I love is, well, you know, is this going to help one 290 00:20:58,583 --> 00:21:03,363 customer and then we're a consulting firm basically, or is this basically going to 291 00:21:03,363 --> 00:21:04,843 help 80 % of the customers? 292 00:21:04,843 --> 00:21:07,453 And then we really are, you know, a product company. 293 00:21:07,453 --> 00:21:09,313 That's, that's wonderful. 294 00:21:09,313 --> 00:21:12,655 I think transparency is such an important point because. 295 00:21:12,655 --> 00:21:17,035 It's not only sharing the information and direction, but also how decisions are 296 00:21:17,035 --> 00:21:18,155 made. 297 00:21:18,155 --> 00:21:23,195 And how decisions are made or how product managers prioritize is such a core, let's 298 00:21:23,195 --> 00:21:25,575 say, part of the science and art. 299 00:21:25,575 --> 00:21:29,915 Talk to me about roadmaps, backlogs in that process. 300 00:21:29,915 --> 00:21:31,575 What does that look like? 301 00:21:31,575 --> 00:21:34,410 And again, how can it go wrong and how does it go right? 302 00:21:34,410 --> 00:21:35,750 Yeah, yeah. 303 00:21:35,750 --> 00:21:39,250 So I think that really starting from the roadmap perspective, which should be 304 00:21:39,250 --> 00:21:44,770 driven by that mission, vision, and those OKRs, everything that you're doing should 305 00:21:44,770 --> 00:21:46,320 really map back to that. 306 00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:50,150 So if I have something on the roadmap that doesn't contribute to one of my OKRs, I'm 307 00:21:50,150 --> 00:21:53,550 going to ask a hard question of why do I have that on my roadmap? 308 00:21:53,550 --> 00:21:56,430 And sometimes there may be a good reason. 309 00:21:56,430 --> 00:22:01,770 And as long as I can know that and as I can explain it to all of my stakeholders, 310 00:22:01,770 --> 00:22:05,910 That's fine, but you really want to be careful how much time you're spending on 311 00:22:05,910 --> 00:22:09,310 things that aren't going to move the needle and what you've decided are most 312 00:22:09,310 --> 00:22:11,750 important for the team to focus on. 313 00:22:11,770 --> 00:22:16,090 And so putting together the roadmap, you know, I think being realistic about timing 314 00:22:16,090 --> 00:22:20,869 because, you know, engineering work and product projects always take longer than 315 00:22:20,869 --> 00:22:22,970 you want them to. 316 00:22:23,010 --> 00:22:27,190 And adding in time to iterate because your first version is rarely going to be 317 00:22:27,190 --> 00:22:28,290 perfect. 318 00:22:28,750 --> 00:22:31,904 And so, you know, there's nothing... 319 00:22:32,106 --> 00:22:36,946 I think there's nothing worse than feeling like you've sort of gotten your minimum 320 00:22:36,946 --> 00:22:43,366 product, your minimum version in, but don't have time to do iterations on it and 321 00:22:43,366 --> 00:22:45,246 sort of ready to move on to the next thing. 322 00:22:45,246 --> 00:22:50,486 It just feels like you've incompletely sort of half done something, right? 323 00:22:50,486 --> 00:22:54,366 You've taken time to do it, but you haven't really fully done it. 324 00:22:55,106 --> 00:22:57,846 But I think those are really big pieces of the roadmap. 325 00:22:58,474 --> 00:23:03,734 There's a balance between flexibility and sort of letting your long -term 326 00:23:03,734 --> 00:23:05,594 commitments guide you. 327 00:23:05,594 --> 00:23:08,074 I do think that it can depend on the team a little bit. 328 00:23:08,074 --> 00:23:10,534 It can depend on the product and the industry. 329 00:23:10,534 --> 00:23:14,194 But having that flexibility, I found, can be pretty important. 330 00:23:14,354 --> 00:23:16,874 We tend to roadmap like a year out. 331 00:23:16,874 --> 00:23:22,754 But the reality is, especially if you're not in a hardware space, you don't really 332 00:23:22,754 --> 00:23:25,134 know what's going to be most important in nine months. 333 00:23:25,134 --> 00:23:27,854 You may have a pretty good idea at the high level of what's going to be 334 00:23:27,854 --> 00:23:28,586 important. 335 00:23:28,586 --> 00:23:31,546 But as to the projects that are actually going to be most important to contributing 336 00:23:31,546 --> 00:23:33,858 to those things, you don't really know. 337 00:23:34,575 --> 00:23:36,565 That is so important. 338 00:23:36,565 --> 00:23:42,095 And I think there's, have you experienced this gap between the product management 339 00:23:42,095 --> 00:23:46,715 leadership and the C -suite where they don't really understand this philosophy of 340 00:23:46,715 --> 00:23:52,355 we have a theme, we have features, those are not the same thing. 341 00:23:52,355 --> 00:23:55,575 And, you know, we have the strategy. 342 00:23:55,835 --> 00:23:59,935 Talk to me through how the difference between, you know, we're not really 343 00:23:59,935 --> 00:24:02,735 product managing, you know, one feature at a time. 344 00:24:02,735 --> 00:24:06,425 but we're basically, we have a strategy and then we have themes in that strategy. 345 00:24:06,425 --> 00:24:10,175 And we're going in a direction towards, I think you called it a North Star at the 346 00:24:10,175 --> 00:24:11,415 beginning. 347 00:24:12,395 --> 00:24:17,235 Tell me more about if you've experienced that gap with management and then how 348 00:24:17,235 --> 00:24:21,135 you've kind of walked through that and how do you communicate to your environment 349 00:24:21,135 --> 00:24:23,719 that, let's say philosophy of product management. 350 00:24:23,978 --> 00:24:25,078 Absolutely. 351 00:24:25,078 --> 00:24:29,378 I think that latching onto specific features is something that's very easy to 352 00:24:29,378 --> 00:24:29,468 do. 353 00:24:29,468 --> 00:24:33,958 It's very common and it's something that you have to learn pretty early on in 354 00:24:33,958 --> 00:24:36,578 product that can be really dangerous, right? 355 00:24:36,578 --> 00:24:40,298 Because your goal isn't to build XYZ feature. 356 00:24:40,338 --> 00:24:48,798 Your goal is to serve XYZ customer in completing their job and to move XYZ 357 00:24:48,798 --> 00:24:50,570 business metric that... 358 00:24:50,570 --> 00:24:53,970 you know, shows that you're moving toward where you want to be going as a company, 359 00:24:53,970 --> 00:24:56,170 that North Star that we were talking about. 360 00:24:56,170 --> 00:25:01,230 And so when you have that, you know, great strategy, great mission, a great idea of 361 00:25:01,230 --> 00:25:03,790 where you're going, and then you have sort of these are the three big areas that 362 00:25:03,790 --> 00:25:07,310 we're focusing on in order to achieve that, what that gives you is that 363 00:25:07,310 --> 00:25:08,530 flexibility, right? 364 00:25:08,530 --> 00:25:12,490 So you have the ability then to say, we thought that this project was going to be 365 00:25:12,490 --> 00:25:16,770 the highest priority, we thought it was going to be the highest impact, but we 366 00:25:16,770 --> 00:25:20,656 learned these things, which actually mean that this is an opportunity, 367 00:25:20,656 --> 00:25:22,236 a better opportunity. 368 00:25:22,356 --> 00:25:27,156 And so it means that you're able to be responsive to things that you hear and see 369 00:25:27,156 --> 00:25:30,276 in the market, to what you're seeing in the data. 370 00:25:30,276 --> 00:25:34,136 And essentially you keep that agility, that nimbleness that, you know, especially 371 00:25:34,136 --> 00:25:38,936 for startups and young companies is really what differentiates them from the big 372 00:25:38,936 --> 00:25:41,291 behemoths who have to move very slowly. 373 00:25:50,379 --> 00:25:53,229 product managers, we don't have a crystal ball. 374 00:25:53,229 --> 00:25:55,259 We don't have the word from God. 375 00:25:55,259 --> 00:26:00,379 What we do is we build a hypothesis and then we test that hypothesis. 376 00:26:00,379 --> 00:26:04,499 Then we collect data and then we change our mind based on the data we've 377 00:26:04,499 --> 00:26:05,499 collected. 378 00:26:05,499 --> 00:26:10,735 Tell me, let's jump into a specific story that you have and tell me about. 379 00:26:10,735 --> 00:26:15,575 one of these instances where you thought you were going there, but actually the 380 00:26:15,575 --> 00:26:17,831 data showed you should go somewhere else. 381 00:26:19,338 --> 00:31:32,682 question. 382 00:31:32,682 --> 00:31:34,982 came into a startup. 383 00:31:34,982 --> 00:31:40,402 And so what that meant was that a lot of what we had been doing up to that point 384 00:31:40,402 --> 00:31:45,242 was figuring out exactly what our hypothesis was, what the market was, what 385 00:31:45,242 --> 00:31:47,142 the customer need was. 386 00:31:47,142 --> 00:31:53,502 And that had been driven by very close collaboration with a few clients who were 387 00:31:53,502 --> 00:31:54,942 working with us. 388 00:31:54,942 --> 00:31:55,530 And... 389 00:31:55,530 --> 00:31:59,360 the input that the company had gotten from those clients was invaluable. 390 00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:03,290 It was the only reason why we were where we were at that point when I joined the 391 00:32:03,290 --> 00:32:04,370 company. 392 00:32:04,490 --> 00:32:11,230 But I think that when I joined, we were at a bit of a transition point and where we 393 00:32:11,230 --> 00:32:19,590 needed to shift from, you know, primarily led by client XYZ wants this feature to 394 00:32:19,690 --> 00:32:21,660 led by a strategy, right? 395 00:32:21,660 --> 00:32:24,650 A thinking about here's what we can do in this market. 396 00:32:24,650 --> 00:32:28,850 Here's our 80 % customer rule here, the kind of customers that we want to serve 397 00:32:28,850 --> 00:32:34,790 and exactly how we want to serve them, and continuing to iterate on small hypotheses 398 00:32:34,790 --> 00:32:40,810 rather than moving wherever our customers had whims from a day -to -day basis or a 399 00:32:40,810 --> 00:32:42,390 month -to -month basis. 400 00:32:43,350 --> 00:32:48,570 And so when I joined, we were really focused on, we had this long list from 401 00:32:48,570 --> 00:32:52,830 customer success and from sales of these are the features that our customers want 402 00:32:52,830 --> 00:32:54,122 us to build next. 403 00:32:54,122 --> 00:32:58,082 And that was difficult. 404 00:32:58,442 --> 00:32:59,572 It was a plan. 405 00:32:59,572 --> 00:33:04,682 They had been communicating that with our customers for months and been promising 406 00:33:04,682 --> 00:33:05,462 these things. 407 00:33:05,462 --> 00:33:07,882 We were already behind on delivering those things. 408 00:33:07,882 --> 00:33:12,282 We had had a lot of over promise and under deliver actually on the product and 409 00:33:12,282 --> 00:33:13,782 engineering side. 410 00:33:14,502 --> 00:33:19,822 And so there was a real lack of trust, I think, between customer success and sales 411 00:33:19,822 --> 00:33:22,522 and the product organization. 412 00:33:23,114 --> 00:33:28,534 There was also, I think, a frustration on the product side with, you know, we can't 413 00:33:28,534 --> 00:33:32,254 just build these features because customers want them because they want them 414 00:33:32,254 --> 00:33:32,504 the most. 415 00:33:32,504 --> 00:33:35,934 And we've been promising them for a year that we were going to build them. 416 00:33:36,174 --> 00:33:43,254 So, you know, we hit a really low point maybe five or six months in where we were 417 00:33:43,254 --> 00:33:46,374 still having trouble delivering on all of those things. 418 00:33:46,474 --> 00:33:50,254 You know, we'd started to talk about whether those things made sense. 419 00:33:50,494 --> 00:33:51,754 And... 420 00:33:51,754 --> 00:33:55,874 I think a really big question in customer service and sales mind is, are we going to 421 00:33:55,874 --> 00:33:56,974 lose these customers? 422 00:33:56,974 --> 00:33:59,814 For customer service, are we going to lose these customers that we've been working 423 00:33:59,814 --> 00:34:00,694 with for years? 424 00:34:00,694 --> 00:34:04,894 For sales, are we going to not close this prospect that we've been working for quite 425 00:34:04,894 --> 00:34:07,814 a long time to get to closing? 426 00:34:08,494 --> 00:34:12,674 And feeling real frustration and... 427 00:34:21,674 --> 00:34:27,094 we hit a point where we had the hard conversation of are we going to be that, 428 00:34:27,094 --> 00:34:30,574 are we going to be that consulting shop that every single customer that we 429 00:34:30,574 --> 00:34:34,374 currently have, we have to keep them and so we do whatever they ask us to do, or 430 00:34:34,374 --> 00:34:38,294 are we going to have a cohesive approach, that cohesive approach, that North Star 431 00:34:38,294 --> 00:34:42,374 that guides the product and are we going to decide what kind of a product that we 432 00:34:42,374 --> 00:34:43,094 want to build? 433 00:34:43,094 --> 00:34:47,674 Of course, driven by customer feedback, we can't build in a vacuum without any 434 00:34:47,674 --> 00:34:49,114 customer input. 435 00:34:49,706 --> 00:34:51,466 But we're kind of at that point, right? 436 00:34:51,466 --> 00:34:52,396 We're not babies anymore. 437 00:34:52,396 --> 00:34:55,026 We're not doing the random walk that you're doing at the very beginning of a 438 00:34:55,026 --> 00:34:58,506 startup where you're just building what people ask you to build. 439 00:35:00,435 --> 00:35:01,945 incredibly difficult, right? 440 00:35:01,945 --> 00:35:04,775 I mean, first of all, thank you for sharing that story. 441 00:35:04,775 --> 00:35:09,815 I think there has never, like every single product manager has gone through that pain 442 00:35:09,815 --> 00:35:15,035 of, am I going to make a decision now where we're going to lose a customer? 443 00:35:15,115 --> 00:35:20,645 And it's very easy to be the product manager that tries to please everyone. 444 00:35:20,645 --> 00:35:25,135 And that's a pitfall, I think, to fall in, which leads you to the random walk into 445 00:35:25,135 --> 00:35:25,711 the... 446 00:35:25,711 --> 00:35:30,691 to basically, and you said it perfectly, it turns you into a consulting firm. 447 00:35:30,691 --> 00:35:36,951 And then making these hard decisions and bringing engineering, sales, the executive 448 00:35:36,951 --> 00:35:39,871 team together, that's a hard thing to do. 449 00:35:40,131 --> 00:35:43,751 What are the, let's say, elements? 450 00:35:44,171 --> 00:35:46,151 And what did you actually do in that story? 451 00:35:46,151 --> 00:35:51,671 How did you bring everyone together around a common goal and say, look, this is gonna 452 00:35:51,671 --> 00:35:54,543 be painful, we might lose some customers. 453 00:35:54,543 --> 00:35:59,223 but we're losing the wrong customers and we're focusing on the right customers that 454 00:35:59,223 --> 00:36:02,343 will ultimately lead to the business's success. 455 00:36:02,343 --> 00:36:05,799 And yes, it's going to suck for a while, but this is the right thing to do. 456 00:36:05,962 --> 00:36:09,782 Yeah, I think really it was a function of two things. 457 00:36:09,782 --> 00:36:11,322 One was time. 458 00:36:11,322 --> 00:36:17,842 So from that point of sort of making that suggestion to actually getting a company 459 00:36:17,842 --> 00:36:24,642 mission, vision, sort of really getting toward those guiding things, it took about 460 00:36:24,642 --> 00:36:25,832 nine months from there. 461 00:36:25,832 --> 00:36:30,302 And so it took quite a lot of time just continuing to build relationships and 462 00:36:30,302 --> 00:36:32,010 trust with those stakeholders. 463 00:36:32,010 --> 00:36:37,270 And then having lots of one -on -one conversations to really to really share 464 00:36:37,270 --> 00:36:42,230 that view and that perspective that that you mentioned Of you know, here's here's 465 00:36:42,230 --> 00:36:47,190 why things feel kind of broken right now Here's what we're gonna see right so 466 00:36:47,190 --> 00:36:51,590 showing that I'm not predicting that everything is gonna go great this as soon 467 00:36:51,590 --> 00:36:57,050 as we do the silver bullet of You know orienting around this this North Star and 468 00:36:57,050 --> 00:37:00,394 deciding that we're gonna, you know grow up a little bit 469 00:37:00,394 --> 00:37:02,474 everything's gonna be perfect, customers are gonna be happy. 470 00:37:02,474 --> 00:37:05,514 No, I mean showing that you really understand that there are risks here and 471 00:37:05,514 --> 00:37:09,434 there are gonna be consequences to your decisions, but connecting to the big 472 00:37:09,434 --> 00:37:09,864 picture. 473 00:37:09,864 --> 00:37:11,704 This is what we ultimately care about. 474 00:37:11,704 --> 00:37:16,194 This is what we care about for the next year, the next five years, our 10 -year 475 00:37:16,194 --> 00:37:16,754 vision. 476 00:37:16,754 --> 00:37:18,194 Here's what we really care about. 477 00:37:18,194 --> 00:37:20,534 This is how that gets us there. 478 00:37:20,534 --> 00:37:22,674 And this is why we can't get there today. 479 00:37:22,674 --> 00:37:27,574 And I think really helping people connect the dots there is the biggest key, and 480 00:37:27,574 --> 00:37:29,738 especially on an executive level because... 481 00:37:29,738 --> 00:37:33,398 you know, having that understanding of everyone has this shared idea of we want 482 00:37:33,398 --> 00:37:36,738 to, you know, with a startup, we want to make a lot of money and either go public 483 00:37:36,738 --> 00:37:39,218 or sell to someone. 484 00:37:39,338 --> 00:37:44,042 And so what's important there, I think that's what is really shared.