For the Love of Product đđ: Recent Episodes
Product-Led Alliance
Here at PLA, all roads lead to product-led growth and our goal with For the Love of Product is to shine a light on those who are really living, breathing, and embodying PLG. Each episode, weâll be diving into both the passion and the practice of product leadership through thought-provoking interviews with CPOs, Founders, and Inventors.
In this episode, weâre joined by Liam Young, founder of Harper, a technology startup that helps retailers deliver in-store experiences to their online customers. Listen as Liam explores the origin of his company and the hurdles he faced during COVID-19, a tiring time for any business.
But thereâs triumph despite the challenges, and Liam expands on how he pivoted from a marketplace to adding value to merchandisers and retailers as a B2B2C company during the pandemic.
Key talking points
- Liamâs career background
- How he effectively sold his product to merchants
- Whatâs next for Harper from a growth perspective
- His plans for expanding Harper to additional markets
- What advice heâd give to people looking to get investments in their company
- Harperâs target personas and how they influence product decisions
Key Talking Points
- Working on foundational products across the different Meta apps.
- The high and low points of working at Meta over the last 17 years.
- The importance of prioritizing and categorizing user feedback when launching new features.
- How Naomi progressed into a product management role at Meta and how she added value to the company as a non-technical PM.
- Key skills you need to be a great product leader.
Hear Radhika's input on:
- How we create products that make change without unintended consequences
- Step-by-step processes to avoid product disease
- Focus on the who, what, when, why, and how of product design
- How to prioritize long-term vs short-term needs
- Inclusive visions and solving pain points in a holistic way
Take a listen as Elena dives into:
- The highs and lows of job interviewing in the product world
- Finding a company that works for both you and them
- Choosing a familiar role versus what is best for you
- What it takes to be a successful product leader and what does that success even mean
- How your unconventional career is a valuable service in product-led growth
Phoebe Gavin, Executive Director of Talent and Development for Vox.com, explores a number of key talking points, including:
- The power of coaching and content creation in a remote leadership world.
- Why investing in leadership skills is crucial for the success of any organization.
- Why itâs okay to pivot and respond to your audience's needs.
- Building a strong proof of concept and why this is so crucial
- Recognizing the influence of emotional states on the decision-making process.
Laura Marino, Chief Product Officer at TrueML (parent company of TrueAccord) takes us through her career journey and passion for growth stage companies and more, with key talking points including:
- Empowering consumers through digital channels and AI technology.
- The importance of women in product leadership.
- Why company culture is crucial during tough periods.
- The power of combining cultures to transform a complex tech space.
- Why alignment on goals is crucial to avoid making trade-offs between what's good for the client versus what's good for the consumer.
Vaidas Adomauskas, then Chief Product Officer of Uncapped, now CPO at First Circle, unpacks a number of key talking points, including:
- The best practices of Agile for different-sized orgs.
- His practical advice on embedding platform teams into product teams.
- The key indicators of whether youâre achieving optimal results.
- Why working in cross-functional teams is essential for customer satisfaction.
- Critical insights on how to scale a multi-product business.
Oseyi Ikuenobe, Head of Product for Orders & Checkout Experience at Square, takes us through his journey in financial technology, discussing a number of key talking points, including:
- Building outside the bubble and how this impacts products.
- Taking calculated risks to build products that will last.
- The power of meeting with sellers and hearing their stories.
- How a pivotal part of his career development took place in Japan.
- The importance of succession planning in product.
- How his Mom inspired his product leadership journey!
Ronke Majekodunmi, Director of Product Management at Promevo, explores a number of key topics, including:
- The power of inclusive design in product.
- Why cultivating relationships is essential to PM success.
- When to start asking the hard questions in a product job.
- How diversity in cross-functional teams can help you hit product blind spots.
- Why you shouldnât ask how many golf balls fit on a plane in a PM interviewâŚ
Prashanthi Ravanavarapu, Head of Product and Customer Experiences at PayPal delves into a number of key topics, including:
- Inclusive design in the product vision.
- Why a product needs to act and look the same, no matter the customer.
- Leveraging empathy and channeling it into innovative ideas.
- How everyone in the product journey can have the biggest impact.
- Why the best servant leaders thrive as product managers.
Vibhor Chhabra, Head of Tax Products at Shopify discusses the challenges he faced getting started on his product leadership journey, and a number of key topics, including:
- Being âhumbitiousâ and why it matters!
- How you can leverage problem-solving in adjacent spaces to move faster.
- The power of asking for feedback and creating feedback loops.
Hudlâs dynamic duo, Pooja Naidu, Senior Director of Product Management, and John Wirtz, Chief Product Officer, focus on a number of key topics, including:
- Why you need to remain in a beta mindset to drive engagement.
- The right time to bring in a new product leader.
- Why the culture of âfail fast and earlyâ is so important.
- Understanding the pricing, positioning, and packaging of your product.
- The power of growth through modernization.
- Aligning outcomes and goals towards being customer-centric.
- Why product-market fit is also for existing products.
Teresa Torres, internationally acclaimed Author, Speaker and Product Discovery Coach, takes us through a number of key talking points, including:
- How PLG starts with just creating a really good product.
- The biggest indicator of a productâs success.
- How to create customer and business value by driving outcomes.
- The distinction between what designers and cross-functional product teams do.
- Leveraging more diverse expertise on teams.
- Why ProductTalk is becoming a "course-first business".
Amy Lima, Founder of Diversify Design, explores a number of key topics, including:
- The origin story of Diversify Design.
- How your insecurities can be your greatest asset in your product career.
- Launching your own initiative as a team of one.
- Having the courage to follow your authentic path in product.
- Propelling product design with the power of diversity and community.
Corey Grant, Head Of Product Management at Yellowfin BI, explores a number of key topics, including:
- The power of taking a side-step to progress your product career.
- Tips for senior stakeholders on looking at the entire product journey.
- Why product design is so pivotal to a successful embedded experience.
- The value of joining in and contributing without expecting anything in return.
- Why you should âeat your own dog food.â
Rick Smith, CEO at Axon (Formerly TASER) explores a number of key talking points, including:
- How the product vision is creating a future world without guns.
- Why solving the most challenging problems drives the community at Axon.
- The power of user feedback during a product launch.
- Rickâs advice on building a product team from the ground up.
- Why a customer telling you âhell noâ can be a GREAT sign.
Apurva Garware, VP of Product and GM at Upwork delves into key talking points, including:
- How asking a simple question helped create a very meaningful career
- The benefits of leaving a rising star of the post-pandemic world to do something new
- The opportunity we all can harness from the #GreatReshuffle
- Advice for those moving into the next stage of their product leadership journey
- Knowing when to add value as a product leader
Rick Kelly, Chief Product Officer at Fuel Cycle takes us through key topics, including:
- The importance of maintaining a constant connection with customers.
- Why resilience is so essential to a successful product career.
- How lowering the barrier to entry in product can foster innovation.
- What product professionals can learn from Babe Ruth.
- Why the rate of continuous iteration and execution is ultimately what matters most.
Berea Schaffer, VP of Mobile at Workday, takes us through key talking points, including:
- Key learnings in product-centricity vs customer-centricity.
- Tackling the problem of pricing in product.
- Balancing flexibility and avoiding being a product for everyone.
- Her recommended product tools for driving success.
- The test and learn mindset, understanding that a product solution is just a hypothesis.
Deepak Paramanand, Director of Artificial Intelligence at JPMorgan Chase & Co, discusses key talking points, including:
- Why empathy, diversity, and inclusion are critical to building AI products.
- Why a beginner's mindset is still needed 17 years into a product career.
- How work visas can impact a product managerâs ability to challenge the status quo.
Christine Dupuis, VP of Product Management at Heyday.ai, takes us through key talking points, including:
- The power of having a strategic partner to accelerate growth.
- Making AI accessible to bootstrap product-led orgs.
- Advice on finding a trend early for product-market fit.
- How equalization is re-shaping the product world.
- The key pillars to building an effective product team and better decision-making.
We sit down with product expert Roman Pichler - key talking points include:
- Shifting away from the traditional feature-based roadmaps.
- The power of focusing on the why instead of the how.
- When to use different types of product roadmaps effectively.
- The advantages of having a validated product strategy.
- How leveraging the collective knowledge and creativity of the team adds value.
We sit down with Michelle Parsons, CPO at Hinge - key talking points include:
- A systematic way to approach user problems and produce big metric gains.
- How a shared context and shared buy-in can foster collaboration and progress.
- The power of self-reflection when choosing your path in product.
- Advice for breaking up the standard operating approach to product leadership.
- How developing deeper empathy is effective for building cohesive teams.
We got the chance to chat with David Shim, Co-Founder and CEO at Read - key talking points include:
- The power of pulling off the âproduct-decision bandaidâ all the way.
- What is bad product-market fit and how to spot it.
- When to go free with a go-to-market strategy.
- Why you should stop waiting until you have the perfect product.
- The importance of fitting the right product to the consumer.
We chat with Aditi Sharma, VP of Digital Experience Design at JP Morgan Chase - key talking points include:
- What makes an optimal product team?
- What user experience really stands for in the product journey.
- Treating design as a shared language that bolsters product collaboration.
- How diverse mindsets can scale a customer-focused design process.
- The importance of breaking down silos between the business and the product.
We chat with Gabe Nicolau, Director of Product Strategy and Operations at TikTok, Americas.
- The power of fueling growth through continued user engagement.
- How to accelerate launch timelines and figure out what to prioritize.
- How cross-functional collaboration can streamline user journeys and go-to-market readiness.
- The advantages of setting aggressive targets and OKRs to propel products forward.
- Understanding what ticks⌠and what⌠tocks⌠(sorry) when it comes to having a structured plan and strong alignment with stakeholders.
In this episode, we sit down with Adam Dille, Quantum Metric, as he explores his journey to product leadership, with key talking points including:
- The power of uniting teams through continuous product design.
- Why putting yourself in someone elseâs shoes should be intuitive to working in product.
- Building products based on a foundation of feedback and tackling the right problems.
- Key advice on jumping from an engineering-led role to a product leadership position.
We sat down with Jelena Vukadinovic when she was the Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder at Zuper, as she explored key topics including; understanding how mistakes are valuable to growth, why your biggest goal as a PM is to provide value and solve user problems, how thinking about product as a value metric can really drive user success, and more.
Tugce Bulut, Founder of Streetbees, explores her unique founderâs journey - touching on key talking points. Including, the power of a support network and product communities for founders. How to kick-start the best product journeys, the importance of validating willingness to pay before taking a single step in product development, and more.
John Fontenot, Founder of Path2Product, explored key talking points; including how to create a systematic path to product that resonates with any org, industry and geography, the value of community and thought-leadership, the power of the side hustle, and more.
Sali Christeson, the Founder and CEO of Argent explores key talking points; including how a product void sparked a new way of looking at the product design process, how a designer-led product strategy helped shape success, ways to identify sweet spots and make your product stand out in the crowd.
Anu Varma, CPO at Path, explores key talking points including; how product culture drives career decisions, how creating a culture of experimentation and healthy discussion can bolster product discovery, the red flags to watch out for that can impact product discovery and velocity, and more!
Ben Jones, Chief Creative and Innovation Officer at Primer, offers a wealth of insights, with key talking points including; how the unity between product teams and technology can pave the way for growth and how active listening and giving an equal share of voice are key ingredients to building a successful team.
He also explores why divergent thinking is so crucial for challenging competitors and propelling innovation, and how structured search can transform the way data is navigated in the future.
Key talking points include:
- The power of learning and why it's crucial to progress in product.
- The evolving world of product and why having a blended team with different skills is the right approach to drive growth.
- Achieving better product-market fit to propel organic growth and stay relevant.
- His advice on the âdiverge and convergeâ approach for ideation and scalability.
- How he learned to build better products, which contributed to his sense of purpose.
Key talking points include:
- How product is always at the heart of Cypherâs business model.
- Cypherâs effective strategy of leveraging product across all channels.
- The competitive benefits of infusing your business with kid wisdom.
- How a direct-to-consumer model helps with rapid scalability.
Key talking points include:
- Her drive to help reshape the Future of work with product.
- The mechanics of starting a business during a global lockdown.
- Turning vision into reality - how to beat the odds and execute on your ambitions.
- Why itâs worth pursuing ideas you're passionate about⌠right now!
We explored Namrataâs inspiration for returning to healthcare, her role at myGP and how the company is growing into a product-led org.
With key talking points including; when you get too comfortable in a job - maybe it's time to join a startup! Why product teams are uniquely positioned to make a big impact for diversity and inclusion. And how âlovely accidentsâ can encompass an incredible 10-year journey from PM to CPO.
Usually we focus on the âheadâ or the âheartâ of product management, but in this episode we take a full body scan as we chat to Marty about his career journey, coaching and the power of people, defining the role of a CPO, building and mentoring effective product teams and more.
In this episode, Caroline Hughes, CEO of award-winning fintech, Lifetise, chats to us all about her founder's journey. And covers topics including feminist femtech, how customer segmentation drives low CAC and high LTV, and what Sliding Doors the movie, Choose Your Own Adventure Books, and The Game of Life has to do with fintech.
In this episode Johnny Quach, CPO and Hostelworld, chats about what drives him to throw himself into product, whatâs forced a change in the worldâs biggest companies when it comes to thinking about being product-led. and why a product-led approach is crucial for the future.
In this episode, we spoke with Paul Debahy, CPO at Joyn. From investment banking to Google to Joyn, Paul has had some incredible experiences and shared with us his top tips for product management.
Paul chatted to us about the differences between working in a small scale startup to the worldâs biggest tech firm, including what geographical differences heâs found working in the US and across Europe.
A hyper-fanatical calendar nerd, CPTO at Zoopla David Wascha gave us his take on product organization structures, and his unique job titleâs place in it all. Having had great success with the CPO and CTO relationship, David offered his advice on how best to harmonize the two roles.
After an 11 year stint at Microsoft, David has been in the C-suite for over 8 years and took us through what makes great products, how heâs taking Zoopla through a transition period into a product-led strategy, and how he goes about his day-to-day role of being a product leader.
Alexandra Lung, Head of Product at Aircall, gave us the story of her career in product from a Strategy Consultant, all the way to her current role. We spoke about what difficulties sheâs faced in the world of product, and why that hasnât been enough to stop her from pursuing the profession as a career.
Alexandra also gave us her unique thoughts on the worldâs greatest ever products, why being product-led helps create greatness, and what she did when presented with a rogue bit of driftwood on her desk.