People Driven Products

As Director of Product and Design at Shift, Adam Johnston is driven by empathy — both for customers and his employees. His goal is to transform the car-buying experience by highlighting the customer perspective and adapting to the needs of those he works with.

Show Notes

Adam Johnston is not a car guy.

Yet, two-and-a-half years ago he took on the job of Director of Product and Design at Shift, an ecommerce platform for buying and selling used cars. Adam was drawn to the position and company because of its vision — making car buying and owning a simple and trustworthy process for everybody. 

It’s that customer-focused philosophy that Adam carries with him in every meeting he attends. 
A few people had product management job titles at Shift when Adam began but all had been field promoted into the positions. So when he joined the company, the question was: how do you take an organization that has never really had a strong product management perspective and create space for a true product management process?

For Adam, building relationships, which ties back to that customer-focused philosophy, is central. From getting on Zoom calls with customers to customer surveys, Adam says getting that customer feedback is crucial to understanding the “why” and ensuring Shift’s marketing works. 

Building on relationships, Adam says learning about human-centered design has been an asset in his toolbox. Leading with empathy, learning why customers want what they want or why his team has certain goals, leads to more effectiveness and productivity. 

In this episode of People Drive Products, Adam dives into where customer behavioral shifts come from, emphasizing mobile first, trends in the market post-COVID-19 and more.

What is People Driven Products?

As a PM, your job is to make products and features your users love. But we all know that’s easier said than done.

That’s why we made People Driven Products. You’ll learn how to make products people love and get insights from the PM leaders behind some of the fastest growing and most successful tech companies in the world.

The show is hosted by Ryan Glasgow, who has over a decade of experience managing products at companies like Weebly and Vurb (acquired by Snapchat) and is now the Founder and CEO of Sprig (formerly UserLeap).

In each episode, he’ll be talking with PM leaders at companies that are masters of gaining customer insights, and making customer-centric products.

You’ll learn from some of the best PMs in the world and get practical advice on how to create a customer-centric product team, build a customer-focused culture (and get your company on board), get user feedback quickly, make decisions from those insights, craft a compelling story from the data you gather, help your company make the right product decisions, and most importantly, make products people love.

We can’t wait to share these insights with you, and truly hope that each one helps you and your company, create people-driven products.

Subscribe to be notified when new episodes are released, or submit your question to Ryan at ryan@sprig.com.