The Product Show: Recent Episodes

Pony Studio

Insightful interviews with startup founders and product makers (product managers, designers, developers, marketing experts), sharing how they approach product growth and management at their organisations. Tactical tips and strategic advice from some of the best digital product minds in the startup world. For people interested in product management, user experience, and product-led growth. Hosted by Desi Velikova from Pony Studio.

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The odds are… you're afraid of public speaking.

And if not, you've definitely cringed through enough presentations to know it's a real struggle for many.

In this episode of SEEKERS, we speak with Dr. Alexander McWilliam - actor, coach, and one of the few people in the world with a PhD in public speaking anxiety. He’s also the founder of Improv4Business, where he uses improvisation and performance psychology to help people become confident, engaging communicators.

We talk about:

Why public speaking makes people panic—and how to rewire that fear
What most people get wrong about delivering a message
The power of voice, body, and presence
How improv techniques can transform how you speak
Why storytelling matters, even in boring meetings
And whether “fake it till you make it” actually works

Whether you're pitching investors, leading meetings, or just want to stop dreading Zoom calls - this episode is for you.

Connect with Alex:

🌐 improv4business.co.uk

🔗 LinkedIn – Dr. Alexander McWilliam

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Amos Whitewolf is the co-founder and CTO of PerionXP, a platform that’s redefining how gamers interact with Web3 by layering gamified quests and crypto rewards on top of massive mainstream games like Fortnite.

A lifelong gamer and entrepreneur, Amos went from boosting League of Legends accounts as a teenager to becoming the #1 ranked player on Axie Infinity, before launching a startup that’s now onboarded over 100,000 verified players.

In this episode, Desi sits down with Amos to uncover:

How PerionXP gamifies gaming itself, letting players choose the missions they actually love and earn rewards
The real reasons Web3 gaming got such a bad reputation (hint: it wasn’t just NFTs)
Why community-led onboarding crushed every paid marketing tactic they tried
What it takes to build a crypto-native platform that feels fun and sticky, not just speculative
Amos’s bold vision for a Ready Player One–style future, where your in-game identity might be more valuable than your real one
The return of “play for keeps” — how Amos sees in-game ownership reshaping the future of gaming
The billion-dollar question: how do we onboard Web2 gamers into Web3 without alienating them?

If you’re curious about the future of gaming, Web3, or how to build a product that grows organically through genuine love (not hype!) this one’s for you.

Connect with Amos on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amos-whitewolf-258b70140/
PerionXP website - https://xp.gg/
PerionXP on Twitter https://x.com/PerionDAO

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Adam Robinson is the founder of two successful SaaS companies - RB2B, a platform that identifies anonymous B2B website visitors and turns them into actionable sales signals, and Retention.com, which helps eCommerce brands recover abandoned carts and reconnect with lost visitors through identity resolution. He bootstrapped RB2B to $5M in Annual Recurring Revenue in just 15 months, and hit $1M ARR with Retention.com in only 27 weeks - all built with a lean team, no outside investment, and a strong founder-led growth strategy.

In this episode we dive deep into:

Why cold outreach is dying and what’s replacing it
Why freemium can backfire and the danger of selling to the wrong customer
What most early-stage founders get wrong about lead gen and product-market fit
The real stories behind Rb2b and Retention.com (if you're wondering this domain costed him $800K)
How Adam built a $20M ARR business with just a LinkedIn account and some guts
The power of maximizing humanity in a world flooded with AI-generated content
Why building an audience-first is the most efficient launch strategy today
The exact mistakes founders make when they try to “automate” sales too early
Why being brutally honest about your startup is a growth moat in itself
Why Adam believes most B2B startups should forget about outbound (for now)
The mindset shift that took him from email copycat to a differentiated category leader

Connect with Adam on LinkedIn

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Joe Leech is a seasoned CEO coach with over 20 years in tech and a track record of adding $20 billion in revenue across various companies.

In this episode of SEEKERS, Joe shares his insights on the human challenges that often hinder business growth and the mindset shifts necessary for leaders to evolve from founders to successful CEOs. With a background in tech, user experience, and product management, Joe brings a unique perspective to leadership coaching.

Key Topics Discussed:

Identifying Personal Bottlenecks: How leaders can recognise when they are the primary obstacle to their company's growth.
Mindset Shifts: The essential changes in perspective that differentiate a founder from a CEO.
The Inner vs. Outer Game of Leadership: The concept of the "inner game" (beliefs, values, identity) and the "outer game" (strategy, communication, execution), explaining why mastering both is crucial for CEOs.
Evaluating Team Members: Approaches to assess long-standing team members who may not meet evolving company needs.
Strategic Hiring: Determining the next key hire to push your business forward and avoiding hiring mistakes that cost momentum.
The Founder’s Dilemma – Visionary vs. Integrator: Understanding whether you're a "track-layer" (visionary) or a "train-runner" (integrator) and how hiring the right counterpart can dramatically improve your company’s execution.
Letting Go: The importance of delegation and trusting your team to take the reins.
Scaling Company Culture Beyond the Founder: Why early-stage founders’ values naturally shape company culture but become diluted as the business grows, and how to intentionally maintain or evolve culture at scale.
Avoiding Hiring Mistakes That Cost You Six Months (or More): The real cost of hiring the wrong person isn’t just financial – it’s lost momentum. Joe explains how to spot hiring mistakes early and avoid them altogether.
The CEO’s Role in Creating Effortless Success: How great leaders reduce friction in their companies by setting up systems that make success feel "effortless" rather than constantly pushing uphill.

Joe's Website: https://mrjoe.uk/modernceo/
Joe's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeleech/
Joe's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@mrjoe-coach

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In this episode, Desi sits down with Sanjay Lobo, the CEO of OnHand, the leading volunteering platform revolutionising employee engagement. From his humble beginnings in South London, to his impressive career trajectory through senior roles at Lastminute.com and Vistaprint, Sanjay shares his unique journey from lawyer to tech founder.

Discover how his background as a lawyer shaped his innovative approach to business and learn about the pivotal moments that led to the success of OnHand.

Key Takeaways:

Early Life & Inspiration: Sanjay reflects on his childhood in Tooting, the challenges he faced, and the aspirations that guided him towards a career in law and eventually tech entrepreneurship.
Career Path: Insight into Sanjay’s transition from law to senior roles at lastminute.com and Vistaprint, highlighting the skills and experiences that prepared him for founding OnHand. Unlike most lawyers, Sanjay was obsessed with using the law to find loopholes that could drive growth.
Founding OnHand: The motivation behind OnHand's inception, the initial business model, and the strategic shift to a B2B model that focuses on employee engagement and corporate social responsibility.
Challenges & Growth: The critical decisions and challenges faced by OnHand, including the impact of COVID-19 and the transition from a consumer-focused to a corporate-focused platform.
Dragon’s Den Experience: Sanjay shares his experience on Dragon’s Den, securing offers from four dragons, and the subsequent impact on OnHand’s growth and visibility. But are the dragons part of the business today?
Personal Insights: Sanjay discusses the personal and professional transformation he has undergone as a founder, the importance of confidence, and his dedication to making a social impact.

Connect with Sanjay on LinkedIn.

Check out OnHand.

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If you're a football fan, you might remember Thomas Robson-Kanu from his Premier League days at Reading F.C. or his spectacular goal in Euro 2016, which helped Wales reach the semi-finals. Today, Thomas is the founder and CEO of The Turmeric Co., one of the UK's leading functional beverage companies. Born from his personal health journey, The Turmeric Co. was established in 2018 and quickly grew to prominence with its unique turmeric shots designed to promote wellness, boasting over 15,000 life-changing customer testimonials.

In this episode, we discussed Thomas's transition from football to entrepreneurship, the origins of The Turmeric Co., and the science behind their products. Thomas shares how his father's turmeric blend helped him recover from severe knee injuries, leading to the creation of their signature turmeric shots. The blend proved so effective that it became Thomas' "secret weapon" throughout his successful football career. Realising the potential to help others, Thomas and his father founded The Turmeric Co. in 2018 to bring this clinically-backed, natural solution to the market.

Thomas shared the challenges of maintaining high product quality while scaling up the business, the strategic decisions that have fuelled their growth, and the importance of a subscription model for customer retention. He also provides valuable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasising the need for passion, perseverance, and continuous learning.

We also discussed how his background as a professional footballer shaped him into the CEO he is today and the qualities he gained back then that help him grow the company.

"If you have a standard that you're not willing to drop below, then that standard becomes the norm. So you standardise the standard, and if you then have a mentality and a mindset around continuous improvement, all you're doing is increasing and improving that standard all of the time, and that then creates an A-star culture with A-star players within an A-star team."

As a former elite athlete and now passionate wellness entrepreneur, Thomas offers a unique perspective on the importance of prioritising health through nutrition. Tune in to hear his inspiring story and vision for The Turmeric Co.

Connect with Thomas Robson-Kanu and The Turmeric Co.:

The Turmeric Co. https://theturmeric.co/

Follow Thomas on social media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashalrobsonkanu/
https://www.instagram.com/robsonkanu/
https://x.com/RobsonKanu

Diego Borgo is a seasoned Web3 and Metaverse advisor with a track record of guiding Fortune 500 brands and boasting collaborations with companies like adidas and Mastercard.

He’s also the co-founder of BorgoLabs, a consultancy that helps companies position themselves and drive growth in the Web3 space.

We recently collaborated with Diego on a client's project and, as usual, was impressed by the innovative yet practical approach he takes to his projects.

He's the first person we invite for a second interview on this podcast, mainly because we wanted to delve deeper into why we're still in the web3 dip and when the space might recover.

We discussed the reasons why web3 and blockchain have yet to become strong, independent industries. We also touched on some fresh new projects that offer real value and explored where the space is heading in the next few years. And of course, no podcast would be complete without bringing AI into the equation - that's where things really get interesting!

You can find Diego on LinkedIn.

Check out Borgo Labs

Today, we’re speaking with Jack Parsons and Leon Marseglia - the forces behind the UK’s largest community for young people, The Youth Group.

Since launching the company 4 years ago, "Young Jack," as he's often called, has managed to grow their community to 1.7 million young individuals and connect thousands of them with some of the best UK companies offering jobs, upskilling, and mentorship. Their exceptional accomplishments have been recognized by countless awards and honors, one of which is Jack's 'UK's Kindest Leader' award by the Financial Times. When Leon came onboard, they took The Youth Group to one of the top 25 startups in the UK.

What we discussed:

The inspiring journeys that led Jack and Leon to become successful entrepreneurs in their 20s.

The pressing issue of mental health among young people in the UK - why 1 in 6 children in the UK has been identified with a probable mental health problem.

The importance of instilling resilience from a young age - why and how.

Navigating Choices: With a plethora of opportunities at their fingertips, how can young people find their passions and areas of expertise? Jack and Leon share practical advice.

What are the most pressing needs of young people in 2023, and how can we address them effectively?

What are the top skills that employers are looking for in young individuals? (Some of them will surprise you!)

The growing gap between educational institutions and workforce expectations and what are some practical changes to bridge it.

Opportunities Beyond Cities: While cities often take the spotlight, we'll explore actions to create more opportunities for young people in rural areas.

Check out Youth Group

Connect with Jack Parsons on Linkedin

Connect with Leon Marseglia on LinkedIn

Whether you're into crypto or not, many foresee blockchain as the foundational layer for future technologies. From finance and healthcare to entertainment and sports, the consensus seems clear: "The Future Will Be Tokenised."

Join us in this super interesting conversation with Brent Annells, CMO of Smart Token Labs. With a background that boasts senior roles at Facebook and Uber, Brent offers a uniquely informed perspective on the revolution that tokenisation promises to bring, especially in reshaping customer engagement.

In this episode, we dive into:

An introduction to Smart Token Labs and their mission in the tokenization landscape.
Demystifying tokenisation: What it is and its future significance.
Real-world tokenisation applications and intriguing projects Smart Token Labs is currently working on.
The project "Catch Max": a real-world example of Open Loyalty
The evolution of loyalty programs: The rise of "Open Loyalty" and why this is a game changer
Delving into the challenges: Why are we still in the tokenisation experimentation phase?
The balance between decentralisation and compliance in web3: what do we need to do for better regulation and security
Global leaders in Web3 adoption: Countries at the forefront
Brent's journey: Contrasting Web3 marketing strategies with his experiences at Facebook and Uber.
The educational divide: Can you sell and educate at the same time?
Predictions on the next big wave in the Web3 universe

You can connect with Brent on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentannells/

Check out Smart Token Labs: https://smarttokenlabs.com/

Learn more about CatchMax: https://www.catchmax.io/

Eamonn Carey is a seasoned investor, the General Partner at Tera Ventures, a former Managing Director at Techstars, an advisor to dozens of startups, a founder, an author, and a former journalist. With experience evaluating thousands of deals, we thought he would be the perfect person to discuss the investment climate in Europe.

In this episode, we cover:

Eamonn's transformative journey from being an aspiring journalist to becoming an ambitious founder closing deals with companies like O2, Emirates, and Diageo.
How Eamonn's own business experience influences his approach to evaluating startups and potential deals. - The unique investment opportunities presented by the Baltics and Eastern Europe.
How the 'launch fast' philosophy has evolved in the age of brand-conscious startups.
Eamonn's perspective on startup success, providing insights into the factors that suggest a startup is likely to thrive.
What makes a perfect pitch, along with the common mistakes startups make when seeking investment?
The delicate balance between encouraging innovation and inflating investment bubbles, particularly in currently hyped industries like AI. Do VCs bear responsibility for sometimes damaging a sector?
The defining characteristics of a great early-stage investor and the ways they can support young startups beyond just providing funding.
Eamonn's biggest investing regret and the deal he wishes he had taken.

You can find Eamonn on LinkedIn and Twitter.

In this episode of The Product Show, we explore the intersection of sports and web3, questioning whether web3 can fix the broken aspects of football or if it's too broken itself to make a difference. We all know that fan engagement is essential in sports, and web3 and NFTs seem to be the perfect tools to harness the power of communities. However, the reality is not so straightforward.

To help us navigate this topic, we spoke with Jean-Charles Gaudechon, CEO of OneFootball Labs and former Electronic Arts Vice President. According to JC, we're only at the beginning of the sports revolution, and web3 is the future of sports and gaming.

Here are some of the highlights from the episode:

JC's journey from game creator at EA to CEO of One Football Labs.
Why JC believes that Web3 is the future of sports and gaming and that we're only at the beginning of the marathon.
What it means to own a moment from a football game and whether you can truly own anything.
Whether football fans are genuinely excited about web3 and what the industry is doing to increase adoption.
The practical applications of NFT technology in sports that we can expect to see in the near future.
When we might see the Aha moment of the NFT industry.
The teams and footballers who are already doing exciting things in the web3 space.
The main lessons JC learned from the highs and lows of the past year.
JC's favourite football team that he can finally reveal after hiding it for 16 years.

Find Jean-Charles Gaudechon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcgaudechon/

See the full transcript and the video version of the episode: https://pony.studio/design-for-growth/is-web3-the-future-of-fan-engagement-in-sports-jean-charles-gaudechon-ceo-of-onefootball-labs

Oliver Yonchev is the co-founder and CEO of Flight Story, a company he co-founded with Steven Barlett in 2021 that "helps brands stay at the forefront of what’s possible". Prior to Flight Story, he served as the managing director of Social Chain, one of the most successful social media marketing agencies in Europe.

In this episode, we covered a range of topics, including:

Oliver's earliest childhood memories and how they shaped him as a person (spoiler: he wanted to become a professional footballer when he was younger)
How he became managing director of Social Chain at the young age of 26 and led its expansion into the US
The strategic decisions that helped scale Social Chain into one of Europe's leading marketing agencies
What sets Flight Story apart from Social Chain and its approach to helping brands stay at the forefront of what's possible
The growing importance of community building and the influence of retail investors in today's business landscape
Oliver's views on nurturing a thriving community around your brand
The future of Web3 and what the big players are getting wrong
When can we expect to see Oliver on the Diary of a CEO?

Tune in to this episode to hear Oliver's insights and experience in the world of marketing and entrepreneurship.

Two years ago, "two kids, one from Singapore and the other one from Africa" left their jobs to set up a company. It all began with a single spreadsheet and their obsession to build a product that people really need.

Today, their venture, ADPList, has over 15,000 mentors and hundreds of thousands of users, helping people all around the world find the right mentor. ADPList is transforming the way we think about mentorship - "we're all learners," says its co-founder and CEO, Lee Felix. They have been growing so phenomenally well that they managed to raise funding from Sequoia Capital.

Coming from a modest family, Felix says that "these things don't usually happen to people like me." Well, I say - these things should happen exactly to people like you, Felix! His work ethic is rarely found these days, and at only 25, he has a more mature outlook on life than most 40-year-olds I know.

In this episode, Felix shares with me:

His personal story and the childhood experiences that shaped him as a person.
Why he started ADPList and what the early signs were that he was onto something big.
His early acquisition strategy and the things he did exceptionally well that helped him grow in the early days (he got deals with Slack, Figma, etc.).
Why he thinks his design background had a great impact on ADPList's growth.
What happened when he tried to introduce payment (spoiler: it was met with a bad backlash).
The different monetization strategies he will be exploring in the near future.
The importance of mentorship and what to do if you're unsure how to approach a person you'd like to be your mentor.

You can find Felix on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Check out and sign up for ADPList here (it's free!)

Watch the video interview here.

No matter if you’re in web2 or web3 , as you scale your products to cater to thousands of users, you’re faced with one of the most common challenges for technology startups - how to scale your engineering team fast. Scaling is not just about rapidly hiring people, it’s about building resilient systems and effective team structures that will help the talent you hire thrive and deliver outstanding results. Put a brilliant person in the wrong environment and you can expect nothing but frustration and disappointment.

We discussed the topic with Alex Rashkov, Engineering Manager at Meta. Alex has also held senior engineering roles at HSBC, Moo,com and a few smaller startups. He spent years setting up and leading dev teams and he shared with us his vision on how to build a high performing engineering team. We also talked about effective team collaboration and building cross-functional teams, how to motivate your team to improve their performance, how to measure the results of their work and the key qualities that excellent engineers have in common.

Is “complete decentralisation” possible any time soon? Can human nature handle it? When are we going to have a really immersive, organic Metaverse experience (as opposed to just having fun with our lookalike avatars in a clumsy virtual environment)? What shall we do to avoid the mistakes we did with web2 and avoid tech giants swallowing us up again?

We discussed the future of the Metaverse with Dr Mark van Rijmenam, international speaker, strategist and book author on the future of tech, blockchain and the metaverse.

He’s recently finished his latest book “Step into the Metaverse” and as part of his writing journey he has discussed these topics with over 250 metaverse experts and tech visionaries, so he has a pretty good guess where space is heading. Enjoy our latest episode.

Follow Mark on Twitter and LinkedIn

Check out his website, TheDigitalSpeaker.com

You can also preorder his book, Step into the Metaverse.

If you’ve been thinking how to bring your company into web3, this episode is for you! We’re back with a set of super interesting episodes dedicated to web3.

Diego Borgo is a Metaverse native, Web3 ambassador, NFT collector and advisor to global brands. Diego's mission is to help mainstream adoption of blockchain and NFT technology.

He does that by:
1. Advising major global brands on how to enter the space in the right way.
2. Consulting Metaverse & NFT projects, and acting as a member of advisory boards.
3. Offering education through conference keynotes, workshops and on-demand content.

As a brand & marketing strategist, Diego's last work was helping adidas bring "Into the Metaverse" to life.

In this episode we discussed:

Why every brand should be thinking about their presence in the Metaverse and how to approach the process;
What’s in the NFTs’ DNA that makes them so powerful from a community building perspective;
How to launch a successful NFT campaign (or what you should do instead!);
Most important distributions channels;
Many marketers think NFTs are a “pointless fad” - why this mindset is dangerous;
The market is about to crash (and why this is good news!

You can connect with Diego on LinkedIn and Twitter.

You can also meet him in June at the Met Ams event in Amsterdam.

The car insurance provider Marshmallow went from an idea to one of the latest UK unicorns in just 4 years! Founded by twin-brothers Oliver and Alexander, and their friend David, the company is turning the centuries-old insurance industryon its head. We spoke to their VP of Product Martin Shwitzner to find out how they’re achieving this phenomenal growth. We discussed:

How did they do it? How is Marshmallow different from a traditional car insurance provider?
The mechanic and approach to generating over 8,000 (mostly) positive online reviews (4.6 rating on Trustpilot).
How can you deepen the relationship with your customer when in reality they don’t want to hear from you;
How the role of the VP Product changes when the company moves from series A to series B;
The product tweak that turned into a massive win (it involves the mobile app!);
What roles the company is hiring for and how they’re assessing the right candidates.

Marshmallow is actively hiring at the moment, so make sure you check their Careers page https://www.marshmallow.com/jobs - plenty of exciting opportunities in Product & Tech, Design, Operations, and more!

Full transcript and the video version of the episode here: https://pony.studio/design-for-growth/making-insurance-sexy-interview-with-martin-schwitzner-vp-product-marshmallow

We spoke with Raluca Bujoreanu, Principle Product Manager at Zalando and instructor at Product School to discuss how the product needs change depending on the size and maturity of the company. Raluca shared with us:

Her favourite methods for evaluating product features and continuously uncovering user problems before they become major product issues;
How to make sure we work on the “right” thing;
What’s the ideal profile for a Head of Product at an early stage startup;
The first actions she’d take to understand the customer needs and the opportunities on the market;
The books that helped her grow in her career

Video version and transcript: https://pony.studio/design-for-growth/how-to-become-a-successful-product-manager-raluca-bujoreanu

Personal branding expert Amelia Sordell started her personal branding agency Klowt last year and in just over a year they’re a team of 7, serving dozens of clients and growing. How come they’re growing so fast? Well, first - Amelia is absolutely amazing! She’s confident, authentic, interesting. She does what she preaches - she has built a strong personal brand. But also - personal branding has never been more important. Personal accounts on LinkedIn have 10x the reach of company pages. The growing number of people who built their companies on the back of their personal brands is the real proof of why personal branding is the future of branding, or some even say the future of marketing. People buy from people they trust, and having a strong personal brand allows you to have a connection with people you’ve never met before. It’s like networking on steroids.

We discussed:

Amelia’s playbook to building a successful personal brand;
When and how to start if you’ve never invested any effort in building your personal brand;
Amelia’s story of how she became a personal branding expert and created Klowt;
Why personal branding is the future and why you should be building yours alongside your company brand (especially if you’re a founder or a CEO!)

Don't forget to subscribe to our channel for more insightful and actionable content on branding, design, and product growth.

There’s one question we’ve been asking almost all our guests so far - have you ever done a small UX tweak or a product improvement that had a disproportionately high impact on the product, considering the effort it required. Something tiny that turned out to be a big win. In fact, finding out the answer to this question was our main motivation to start this podcast. Can we all learn tactical tips from successful founders and product managers at some of the greatest companies and use them as an inspiration for our own product experiments. Or sometimes even apply them straight away.

In today’s episode we’re sharing how 11 of our guests answered Desi’s favourite question - small UX tweaks that turned into big product wins. We have:

Callum McKeefery, Founder and CEO of Reviews.io

Tessa Pettman, Global Head of Product Marketing at Wise

Emeric Ernoult, co-founder of Agora Pulse

Faris Aziz, Lead Product Manager at Bloom & Wild

Megan Murphy, VP of Product at HotJar

Ari Last, CEO and Founder at Bubble

Eric Peters, Senior Growth Product Manager at HubSpot

Irina Scarlat, ex Global Head of Growth at Revolut

Zoe Desmond, founder and CEO at Frolo

Matt Lerner, founder of Startup Core Strengths, ex-PayPal and 500 Startups

If you’re a startup founder, you’ll find our conversation with Matt Lerner super valuable! Matt is the founder and CEO of Startup Core Strengths, a growth accelerator and training for early-stage startups. With 11 years at PayPal and almost 4 years at 500 Startups in his resume, he’s the perfect person to learn from when it comes to startup marketing. He believes that 10% of what you do drives 90% of your growth and he shared with us his advice on how to discover the 10% you should focus on.

In this episode of The Product Show, we discussed:

What are the 5 core strengths that form the foundation of every successful startup;
How does messaging affect your;
When is the right time to invest in branding and how much should you invest in it;
Is paid marketing right for you and how to discover your best distribution channels;
What if you only have one successful acquisition channel;
How do you know it’s time to give up - are there any clear signals suggesting you’re not going to “make it”;
What’s the biggest mistake founders make when it comes to metrics?
Which part of the business an early-stage founder should never outsource or delegate?
The industries that will keep growing in the next decade

Zoë Desmond is the perfect example of how the founder’s personal story and pain empowered them to create a product that solves a problem for millions of people. Zoë's app Frolo helps single parents access guidance and support, connect with each other and organise events and playdates.

With 3 million single parents in the UK and almost no competition in the space, Zoë knew she was onto something when she became a single parent shortly after her son’s 1st birthdays. As a non-technical solo founder and a young single mum, she’s breaking all stereotypes what it takes to build a community of over 24,000 users.

In this episode, we discussed:

how the idea for Frolo was born and what were the early signs of customer validation;
the importance of building the community before launching a community-based product;
how Zoë is planning to monetise the product (would people pay for using a social network?)
the key milestones in their user lifecycle
the mistakes she made and what she learned from them

As Head of Product - Engagement at ASOS and with two books and dozens of talks and events in his resume, Marc Abraham has mastered the art of managing growing products with way too many moving parts - from processes and frameworks to people and tools. As he puts it, no two days are the same, and “the job of a product manager is never done unless the decision is made to terminate the product”.

His books on product management, “Managing Products = Managing Tension” and “My Product Management Toolkit”, are well worth a read!

In this episode, we discussed:

how to know when to use your instincts and when to rely on customer validation;
effective user research methods for new products (with no users!);
how to make sure you’re getting the most out of the customer feedback loop;
the rights structure of a product management team;
the key ingredients of a successful user interview;
what qualities Marc is looking for when hiring product managers for his team
the mindset you need to lead a product to success

We get so obsessed with building the perfect digital experience that we sometimes forget that for many products, even if they rely on digital, the magic for the customer happens offline. We’ve been keen to speak to a company that successfully bridges the gap between the offline and online CX and we finally found the perfect product person. Faris Aziz is the Lead Product Manager at Bloom and Wild. Even if you haven’t ordered flowers from them, you probably remember that they pioneered the letterbox flower delivery back in 2013. 8 years later and a few months after their £75M Series D funding round, Faris shared with us:

How they bridge the gap between online and offline;
How they create demand and retain customers;
Insightful findings from recent growth experiments they’ve done internally;
His advice on how to grow in product management while growing the product

How do you define “hypergrowth”? If you google examples of hypergrowth companies, Uber and Revolut would be some of the first examples you’ll see. For this reason and because I think she’s a fascinating product leader, I spoke with Irina Scarlat, who was Global Head of Growth at Revolut until March 2021 and she also let Uber's growth in Romania until 2018. She shared with us her recipe for achieving hypergrowth.

In this episode of The Product Show:

What it was to grow Revolut from 20k to 1.5M users in Romania - the strategies that worked in the early days;
How to use product-led growth, community-driven growth, and marketing-driven growth to achieve hypergrowth
The butterfly effect - why small product tweaks and attention to every single detail can take your product far
Why the real proof of product-led growth are non incentivised referrals
How to make sure you’re not rushing marketing-led growth
Why Irina believes that product-led growth can’t take you to be a unicorn
What does it take to land a job at Revolut and Uber?

Trust and Safety is sometimes everything when it comes to retaining users, yet we don’t discuss this topic enough in the product community. It’s one of those aspects of building a product that we don’t think about in the early days until it becomes a problem. We discussed the topic with Neil Shah, who leads the Trust & Safety efforts at Lyft to find out how they keep their riders and drivers safe. He also had a similar role at Twitter, where he ran a number of projects to fight misinformation, so if you want to learn more about Trust and Safety and where they sit in the project management puzzle, he’s the one to learn from!

In this episode of The Product Show, we discussed:

Where do you start from and how do you build a product that users trust?
A couple of interesting projects Neil ran at Lyft and Twitter
How do you measure trust? (this is the hardest part, but Neil’s got an amazing playbook to share!)
The difficult relationship between Growth and Trust & Safety and how to make sure they work in harmony
How to get the buy-in from the rest of the team as a Trust & Safety product manager (given that 99% of the company is focused on growth)

Enjoy this episode and if you want to share your feedback, drop me an email at desi@pony.studio

Growth design is a central part of the way we think about design at Pony and it was an absolute pleasure to discuss the topic with one of the senior design leaders at Dropbox, Phil Vander Broek. He comes with a wealth of experience in growth design and is super excited about the future of this field and how they approach results-driven design at Dropbox.

In this episode we discussed:

Dropbox’s journey to their organisational model and where Growth sits within their company structure
How does Growth exist in companies - is there a one-size-fit-all model
How do we create alignment about the overall goals the teams are working on, delivering cohesive user experience and business results
Building "awareness - discovery - evaluate - commit” for the user
The growth design playbook - an example from the Dropbox kitchen to get you thinking about your approach to growth
How to prove the value of design for the overall business
Why all designers should do their duty in growth design
How to create a win-win situation where great user experience drive strong business results
The most important qualities for a designer in 2021 and beyond
Is design becoming a commodity?
Why designers must always be impact-oriented

Patrick Campbell is the founder and CEO of ProfitWell, a software that helps subscription companies with their monetization and retention strategies. He strongly believes that people should get more comfortable with working on their pricing strategy and should avoid “the path of least resistance”. It’s not easy, but it’s not more difficult than many other aspects of building a successful product and it’s surely one of the most important ones.

In this episode we discussed:

when is the right time to start thinking about monetization
why Brand and Design influence our willingness to pay by up to 25%
how to decide what to bundle with your main pricing plan and what to leave as an add-on
why you should always lead with Freemium and the data that backs it
strategies how to switch to an annual plan
why discounts should be offered in “physical” amounts rather than percentages
most common mistakes to avoid when it comes to your monetization strategy
how often should you review your pricing strategy (it’s more often than you think).

“Humble Decisiveness” is the Most Important Quality of a Product Manager - Megan Murphy, VP of Product at Hotjar

We spoke with Megan Murphy, VP of Product at Hotjar, to find out how they’re growing one of the most successful user research products in the world and how their fully remote team is serving over 700,000 businesses. Megan comes with a wealth of experience in product management, having worked at companies like Skyscanner and N26, so her deep product thinking is nothing short of inspiring.

In this episode:

How is the product team at Hotjar structured and how they operate
How to build a remote corporate culture beyond the posters on the wall (it starts with hiring!)
How they use user personas and Jobs to be Done at Hotjar
How to balance optimisation and experimentation to make sure you’re delivering towards the business objectives
What are the red flags that a product is heading for trouble?
Some interesting findings from experiments Megan ran at Hotjar and Skyscanner
What are the most important qualities of a good product manager?

Eric Peters, product manager at HubSpot Academy, shares how offering online education and certification can empower product growth. HubSpot Academy is the worldwide leader in free online training for marketing, sales, and customer service professionals. With over 200,000 customers, it has become the hub for their prospect and existing customers and it’s a product on its own. We discussed:

How they approach the needs of all the different users - existing customers, prospects (unseasoned and seasoned professionals) and content creators
How they identify the Academy users that could turn into Hubspot customers
Retention tactics
How to exceed expectations and create delightful moments
Managing intermediary stakeholders and external contributors that impact your users
Why the “hybrid” model is the future of education

For the video version and more conversations on product-led growth, product design and product strategy, visit https://pony.studio/design-for-growth/the-product-show

How do you build the safest and smartest marketplace in the world? - You add friction. But how do you grow and scale it - you get rid of friction. This is one of the biggest challenges you’d face if you’re building a marketplace in the childcare industry.

We spoke with Ari Last, founder of Bubble, to find out the ups and downs of building a marketplace in one of the most sensitive industries. And no, Bubble is not “the Uber for babysitting”.

In this episode:

Ari’s personal journey to building a platform of 130,000 members
How do you drive demand without being too salesy (your child is not a pizza, right?)
How is the product addressing the leakage issues?
What’s the impact of lower pricing on activation?
Why the first-time user experience is everything for consumer products that deal with such a sensitive area
What’s the biggest challenge for the childcare industry
And of course, the elephant in the room, Covid, and how they’re fighting back

What's the role of Product Marketing in the product management puzzle?

Tessa Pettman leads the Product Marketing team at TransferWise, one of the most impressive fintech startups in the world! They were founded in 2011 and were recently valued at $5 billion, with over 8M active users around the world.

In this interview, Tessa shares:

what are the differences between product marketing and traditional marketing
how they approach product growth at TransferWise
what she believes is the future of the fintech market in the UK
what qualities she's looking for when hiring product marketing managers
the findings from some interesting experiments they've been running internally
what she believes sets TransferWise apart and how they have become one of the world leaders in fintech

Emeric Ernoult is the co-founder and CEO of Agorapulse, a social media management tool aiming to be in the Top 3 social media SaaS products in the world for SMBs.

He's been through 12 years of failure, according to his words until he and his co-founder Ben finally founded Agorapusle in 2012. As he says, he's "a dinosaur of SaaS". Emeric likes to talk straight, he's French after all, he doesn't believe in quick wins and he has learned how to manage a company.

In this interview, you'll learn:

Why, in SaaS, you have to be aiming to be the tool that someone needs on a daily basis to do their job;
What's the basis of a strong experimentation culture
What they learned from A/B testing Facebook ads
Where and how he would spend $1,000 on social media advertising
Why having a simple pricing page would convert much better than "trying to reinvent the wheel" with fancy UX tweaks
Why he didn't inject money in the product, after raising a healthy VC funding round in 2019

Former financial analyst Dhruv Ghulati and his team are working on an AI startup with a mission to restore trust in news media.

In this episode you will learn:

What should be your strategy if you want to raise funding from world-class investors like Mark Cuban, Biz Stone, and Craig Newmark;
When you should listen to your customers and when you have to lead the market and innovate;
Why you and I are the future of journalism and why we need a product like Factmata to make this happen.

Callum McKeefery is the co-founder and CEO of Rreviews.io, a company offering reviews collection and management solutions. He shared with us how he started the company 10 years ago from his kitchen table with his wife and co-founder Nikki and how they grew to 10M in revenue with no investors funding.

In this episode you'll learn:

How rain impacts your conversion rate
What’s the hottest method for customer reviews collection in 2020?
- How you can bootstrap a company from 0 to 10M