Somehow I Manage Product Teams: Recent Episodes

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I’m joined by Diana Stepner who is the Chief Product Officer at Chan-Zuckerberg initiative and has held product leadership roles at SimplePractice, Pearson, Kayak, Razorfish and Monster.com in the past. Diana also runs a cohort -based course on Maven called Product First Leadership - topic that talk about on this episode.

We talk about :

1) What's unique about product leadership role

2) Tactical advice for things a newly minted group product manager : how to organize the team, conduct 1:1s, handle the hard conversations and manage your personal career as a product leader

3) Anti-patterns of product leader

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:44] Diana's product journey

[00:04:16] Diana's role as CPO at Chan and Zuckerberg Initiative

[00:07:16] What's unique about product leadership?

[00:09:50] Archectypes of Product Managers

[00:12:56] Advice for getting started as a newly minted Group Product Manager

[00:16:53] How to structure 1:1s?

[00:21:06] How to create an environment that Product Managers on the team can thrive

[00:24:45] Starting career planning for Product Managers on the team

[00:28:28] Having the tough conversations with career progression

[00:31:32] Anti-Patterns of product leadership

[00:35:09] Managing personal growth as a product leader

[00:37:25] Rapid Fire

Where to find Naveen

• Linkedin : https://linkedin.com/in/naveenpitchandi

• Website : https://numberlock.me

Where to find Diana

• Website : https://www.dianastepner.com/

• Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianas/

• Maven Course - https://maven.com/diana-stepner/product-leadership

👉Episode page : https://Productleaders.fm/11

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Sanchan was most recently VP of Product at Coinbase. Before Coinbase, Sanchan was Head of Product and GM at Airbnb, founder and Head of Product of Instagram Shopping, Director of Product Management at Yahoo, and Lead PM at Microsoft.

In this episode we talk about :

1️⃣ Story behind Instagram Shopping - Hypothesis, Pitch and Execution, Decision making frameworks

2️⃣ How Sanchan built the Product Org at Airbnb - scaling from 40 PMs to over 200

3️⃣ Airbnb COVID-19 war story and leadership lessons from the experience.

This episode is absolute :fire. @sanchan's one of the best story tellers I know.

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:02:18] Sanchan's Product Journey

[00:07:00] Story of Instagram Shopping

[00:11:09] PM Qualities to look for in Zero to One projects

[00:15:20] How do you track execution effectively?

[00:17:12] How do you impart clarity to your teams?

[00:22:04] Difference between Strategy and Innovation

[00:24:28] Managing stakeholders as Head of Product

[00:28:44] Anti-patterns to cross-functional alignment

[00:33:15] RAPID - Decision Making framework used at Coinbase

[00:35:12] How Sanchan scaled Product Org at Airbnb

[00:41:17] What to look for in hiring Product Leaders?

[00:45:32] COVID-19 Airbnb War story

[00:53:05] Rapid Fire Questions

Where to find Naveen

• Linkedin : https://linkedin.com/in/naveenpitchandi

• Website : https://numberlock.me

Where to find Sanchan

• YouTube channel - https://youtube.com/@therealsanchan

• Instagram -https://www.instagram.com/therealsanchan/

• Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/therealsanchan

• TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@therealsanchan

References

• How decisions are made at Coinbase : https://www.coinbase.com/blog/how-we-make-decisions-at-coinbase

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Cassidy was the Senior Director of Product at Pendo and Vimeo and has spent the last decade on product, particularly in B2B. More interestingly worked all remote (we’ll talk a little bit about it in the end) . Cassidy also teached for Mind the Product in her spare time, and occasionally coach PMs early in their career.

In this episode we talk about :

1. Myth behind building B2B products

2. How Cassidy built products at Pendo

3. Cassidy’s ReadMe doc and how she’s successfully managed her career and grown in the last decade all working remotely

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:30] Cassidy's Product Journey

[00:05:15] What makes B2B PMs different from B2C?

[00:16:39] How did Cassidy build Platform Product at Pendo?

[00:22:13] Sharing leadership style using README doc

[00:28:04] How to use the README document to management teams?

[00:33:31] Leading teams remotely

[00:39:04] Rapid Fire

👉Episode page : https://Productleaders.fm/9

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Nicole leads the News Corp's mobile application development platform, which is the foundation for 32+ iOS and Android apps for News Corps brands - some familiar names like News York Post, WAllstreet journal, The Times, Sun and many more.

In this episode we talk about :

1️⃣ How Nicole's built her personal brand as Mary Poppins of Product

2️⃣ How the Mary Poppins characterization has evolved over time

3️⃣ How folks listening can build their own version of "about me" that's catchy

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:02:07] Nicole's Product Journey

[00:06:42] Product Leadership is like Chessboard

[00:08:00] How Nicole became "Mary Poppins of Product"

[00:14:59] How did the branding excercise start and evolve?

[00:18:44] How can others create their own narrative and brand?

[00:25:00] How can Nicole help others create their narrative?

[00:27:45] Impact of a narrative or brand in career

[00:31:29] Rapid Fire

👉Episode page : https://Productleaders.fm/8

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Description

I’m joined by Ani Mohan from Google.

Ani leads the product team at Google Labs building three new generative AI products across (1) software development, (2) video, and (3) 3D.

Previously, Ani was co-founder and general manager of GameSnacks, a web gaming platform reaching 35M+ monthly players. GameSnacks was funded by Area 120 and acquired by Google Ads in Jan 2022.

Ani was also featured in Forbes 30 under 30 under the games section during his time leading the GameSnacks products and business.

In this episode

we talk about

1) Ani’s experience building GameSnacks as part of Area120 - Google’s incubator

2) Tips for folks looking to build 0-1 Products

3) Building products for Generative AI

This was recorded weeks before Google I/O and understandably why we couldn’t talk much about what Ani was working on. But goes without saying that Google took the challenge came out dancing and had some impressive announcements.

This has got everything - great success story and actionable advise on the hottest topic right now.

Chapters

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:02:27] Ani's Product Journey

[00:03:27] Inception of GameSnacks

[00:07:17] Incubating products within a large company vs Building a Startup

[00:10:48] Pivots in GameSnacks to reach Product Market Fit

[00:16:34] Advice on building 0->1 products

[00:20:38] What excites Ani about GenAI

[00:23:24] Building AI products

[00:30:00] Rapid Fire

Where to find Naveen

Twitter : twitter.com/@numberlock11

Linkedin : linkedin.com/in/naveenpitchandi

Instagram : instagram.com/@numberlock11

Where to find Ani

Twitter : twitter.com/ani_c_mohan

Linkedin : linkedin.com/in/anirudhmohan/

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Shelly built the product & design team focussed on Partners at Meta. We’ll definitely talk a lot of about how she went about building this team in the episode. Prior to Meta, Shelly spent sometime at American Express in a product leadership position building the consumer mobile app that had over 17M+ monthly active users.

Shelly recently started a 4 part blog series on LinkedIn sharing her thoughts on Product Strategy, Women in tech called You Belong Here. We explore some of those topics in this episode.

We touch on 4 key areas :

1. Talk a about building a team from scratch, and how Shelly built product and design team at Meta
2. Product Strategy definition, an example of how Shelly built product at Amex (prior to Meta)
3. Giving feedback about how you can be strategic. Shelly got feedback during her career about how she’s not strategic enough - without any real guidance on what that means and what the expectation was. This is a great section for managers to listen in.
4. Finally, talking about growth. contrary to conventional wisdom, Lateral growth is also career growth

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:08:14] Benefits of Product and Design under one leader

[00:10:00] How Shelly defined Product Strategy at Meta and Amex

[00:12:29] An example of how Shelly shipped product at Amex

[00:18:05] "She is not strategic enough"

[00:22:00] What could leaders be doing better

[00:28:33] Tips for Women in Product to level up

[00:39:10] Preparing context for collaborative strategy excercise

[00:41:25] Lateral growth is also career growth

[00:43:58] Rapid Fire Questions

Where to find Shelly

Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/shellykalish/

Where to find Naveen

Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/naveenpitchandi/

Twitter : https://twitter.com/numberlock11

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Bandan is a Financial services and Payments product leader, has directly led financial services products and teams for tech companies and regulated financial institutions. Bandan currently leads the Buy Now Pay Later Business Unit for Riverty (Europe’s second largest BNPL player) leading Product Development, Product Management and UX teams. Prior to Riverty Bandan led Product at Booking.com, Gojek and Aditya Birla Capital. Bandan also manages a subtack newsletter - Productify - collection of high quality product case studies, innovation & growth articles, product upskill narratives and moreIn this episode we covered 3 main topics , starting with Product Manager Growth equation that Bandan formulated based on his experience and coaching teams under him How Bandan defines product strategy with a case study from his experience at Gojek (highly recommend this section) Bandan’s global point of view of BNPL - an area that he’s spent better part of the last decade building.References : Top 1-5% product manager growth equation : https://productify.substack.com/p/the-top-1-5-pm-growth-equationGibson Biddle Strategy : https://gibsonbiddle.medium.com/2-the-dhm-model-6ea5dfd80792Where to find BandanLinkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/bandan/Twitter : https://twitter.com/bandanjotSubstack : https://productify.substack.comWhere to find NaveenLinkedin : https://linkedin.com/in/naveenpitchandiTwitter : https://twitter.com/numberlock11

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I’m joined today by Faraz Jamal - Director of product at Banyan Security

Faraz and I were colleagues at VMware and someone that I’ve worked closely with for few years and even watched him transition into Product Management. Faraz left VMware to join an enterprise B2B security startup few years back and has symbiotically grown with the startup in it’s early stage growth. We spoke about how to go against the Big Fish being an early stage startup in the enterprise space, how they prioritize, make decisions and some hot takes on making gut based decisions. I wanted to get Faraz on this podcast as I felt like he was poised to share stark differences and challenges and he’s seen it on both sides of being with the Big Fish and now swimming as a small fish in the red ocean of enterprise B2B.

Chapters:

00:05:53 The Challenges Of Being A Product Manager: Prioritizing And Problem Solving

00:10:42 Balancing Urgency And Team Growth In Product Development

00:15:14 Leaders Should Remember The Purpose Of Their Company

00:18:44 The Importance Of Gut Instinct In Startups For Career Success

00:23:36 Selling What You Build vs Building What You Sell

00:26:20 Mitigating Risk And Validating Functionality In Product Management

00:29:33 Balancing Customer Segments And Upsell Opportunities For Sales

00:33:22 Prioritizing Outcomes, Pragmatism, And Happiness In Startup Culture

00:35:13 Importance Of Knowing If Employees Are Committed For The Right Reasons

Key Takeaways

1. Prioritization frameworks should start with the company vision and strategy, but also incorporate gut instinct from product leaders to make the right calls.

2. Startups should focus on building for a big shift in the market, rather than trying to compete with larger incumbents on features alone.

3. It's important to identify early on whether team members are aligned with the company's mission and vision, and manage them out if necessary.

Where to find Faraz

Linkedin : ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/fjamal15/⁠

Where to find Naveen

Linkedin : https://linkedin.com/in/naveenpitchandi

Twitter : @numberlock11

Instagram : @numberlock11

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Ibrahim Bashir is VP of product at Amplitude. Prior to Amplitude, Ibrahim led products at Box, Twitter was also part of the team that launched Kindle Fire at Amazon. Ibrahim shares his thoughts on a very insightful newsletter on substack about building products, frameworks and thoughts from his personal experience. Ibrahim also runs a cohort based program for scaling B2B SaaS - we’ll talk a little about this on the episode.

We spoke about B2B strategy, decision making frameworks, writing and somehow meandered to talk about Windows Phones!

References

Fail Whale : https://business.time.com/2013/11/06/how-twitter-slayed-the-fail-whale/

Invisible Asymptote : https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2018/5/21/invisible-asymptotes

Creativity Faucet : https://www.julian.com/blog/creativity-faucet

Why Windows Phone failed : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrwsKFyPmXw

Where to find Ibrahim

Linkedin : https://t.co/ib

Twitter : https://twitter.com/ibscribe

Substack : https://t.co/btMrlUYddE

Scaling B2B SaaS : https://www.getsphere.com/cohorts/scaling-b2b-saas

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Kent is the Head of product at Universe Software (a holding company for Vertical Fintech Businesses) And is also the Head of product for one of its’ subsidiary - Goldie. Prior to Universe, Kent was Director of product at Greenlight financial - building financial products for families and empowering parents to raise financially smart kids.

Kent is also the founder and managing director of Atlanta’s largest product community - ProductATL - we’ll talk a little more about this community later in the episode

We spoke about hiring and what to look for in product talent, product strategy and how product leaders are the guardians of this strategy bridging an alignment across stakeholders, executives and our own teams in early-mid stage companies - I think the advice could generally also be extra-polated to larger organizations.

References :

Product ATL : https://www.productatl.com/

Blue Ocean Strategy : https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Ocean-Strategy-Uncontested-Competition/dp/1591396190

The End of the World is just the beginning : https://www.amazon.com/End-World-Just-Beginning-Globalization/dp/006323047X

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Chantal Cox is a prolific product Leader at Meta leading 4 pillars (Discovery, personalization, new experiences and notifications) on Instagram focusing on creating communities and new messaging experiences for teens and 50M creators leveraging Machine learning.  Prior to Meta, Chantal was working on building the future of streaming and Entertainment: Watch Parties with Amazon Prime Video content on Twitch. And stints at some other large tech companies like Adobe, CreditKarma, ebay along with an entrepreneurial journey building “Let’s App”.   

Chantal’s a public speaker, mentor and has over 30,000 followers on LinkedIn who enjoy her posts and shares - including myself, and how I reached out to Chantal to join us today.   

Chantal’s wide ranging experience leading products and teams at some of the top tech companies in the world lured me into learning more about her leadership style and simply the brass tacks of how she leads her product teams.  

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Where to find Chantal:  

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chantalcoxsf/ 

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Where to find Naveen:  

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/numberlock11

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naveenpitchandi

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/numberlock11 

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