Product to Product

Latest Episodes:

Personas & JTBD: Getting to know your users better - Mike Belsito & Michael Sacca @ Rocketship.FM Apr 11, 2018

Show notes

Surprise! It’s a bonus episode of Product to Product‘s second season, a podcast for / by product people!

As we continue to explore the human side of product this season, we’ve paired up with Mike Belsitoand Michael Sacca (same first name!), the hosts of Rocketship.FM, for this episode.

Rocketship is a podcast that dives into everything from product to growth, design to management and everything in between. This past season on Rocketship, the entire season was devoted to product and growth. And one of the topics Mike and Michael did a deep-dive into were the tools product people apply to understand their users better—specifically user personas and jobs to be done.

Since Mike and Michael did so much research on the topics, and interviewed a bunch of people using these frameworks, they shared their insights into what they learned from the episodes. Our colleague, Eleni, picked their brains on what differentiates these two frameworks, how to apply these concepts, and why jobs to be done has become the popular tool on the block.

You can subscribe to Product to Product on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify, or get the latest episodes delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To think, or not to think, like a product manager - Melissa Perri @ Product Institute & Produx Labs Apr 03, 2018

Show notes

It’s episode two of Product to Product‘s second season, a podcast for / by product people!

This season we continue to explore the human side of product. Up next to share her real-world, practical stories of navigating the human-related aspects of the product space is Melissa Perri, CEO and founder of Product Institute and Produx Labs.

As a product consultant and founder of a product school, Melissa has trained over 2,000 PMs across her career. And her mission has always been clear-cut: teach people how to effectively think like a product manager.

Seeing as product thinking is a unique skill in itself, our CEO, Latif Nanji, sits down with Melissa to investigate what it means to think (and not think) like a PM, what fuels product thinking and how aspiring / existing PMs can learn this abstract skillset.

You can subscribe to Product to Product on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify, or get the latest episodes delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Taking care of your product team's well-being – Lulu Cheng @ Pinterest Mar 19, 2018

Show notes

Welcome to the first episode of season two of Product to Product, a podcast for / by product people!

For our second season we’ve decided to shake things up. This season, each episode will focus on a specific theme: the human side of product.

We’ll be having candid convos with product people who will be sharing real-world, practical stories of navigating the human-related aspects of the product space. That means we’ll discuss topics like handling tricky relationships with non-technical team members, how to effectively think like a product manger, and how to disrupt human behaviour with human-centered AI design (just to name a few topics!).

For our first episode of the season we’re joined by Lulu Cheng, product manager on the Discovery team at Pinterest. When Lulu first joined Pinterest in 2015, her primary objective was to ship quickly and hit her KPIs. But as she got more comfortable in her role—and the product space—she realized she wasn’t really asking her team, “How are you doing?”

So she made it a personal priority to focus on her team’s “wellness.” Was her team motivated? How was team morale? How are they handling the stress that comes with the role? She realized healthy team members = better team performance = a better product.

So Lulu spoke to Roadmunk's Eleni Deacon about concrete and proactive steps she takes to put her team’s well-being front and centre. Plus: what does this focus on team wellness ultimately mean for her team’s overall performance and product strategy.

You can subscribe to Product to Product on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify, or get the latest episodes delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How a 'free forever' product can = rapid revenue growth – Marc von Brockdorff @ Hotjar Dec 21, 2017

Show notes

The latest episode of Product to Product, a podcast for / by product people, is here. We spoke to Marc von Brockdorff, co-founder + engineering director of Hotjar.

Hotjar is on a mission to democratize user data and feedback by making their analytics platform accessible to everyone—no matter how small their website.

They’re a startup success story that you don’t hear too often. They’re based in Malta, a tiny island in the Mediterranean, and in 30 months, they bootstrapped their way to over 200,000 users and $10 million in annual revenue.

An integral part of their success is their freemium pricing model. Their free forever plan makes it possible for anyone to use Hotjar without ever paying a cent.

Roadmunk’s Eleni Deacon spoke to Marc to found out why they decided to build a free forever plan, how it impacts product decisions and how it contributed to their rapid revenue growth.

You can subscribe to Product to Product on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify, or get the latest episodes delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How a PM career preps you to be an early-stage startup founder – Ellen Chisa @ A new startup Dec 07, 2017

Show notes

This is the latest episode of Product to Product—a product management podcast for / by product people.

We’re joined by Ellen Chisa. You may know her as the VP of Product at Lola, a former product manager at Kickstarter, or as a previous PM at Microsoft. Most recently, Ellen left Lola to launch her own startup that will make it possible to build a complete scalable app in an afternoon. She’s essentially creating a brand new programming language that aims to bring the ability to write software to a billion people. While her startup is still in very early stages, Ellen is completely in founder mode.

Our CEO, Latif Nanji, has first-hand experience with the PM-to-startup founder journey. So we thought, who better to chat with Ellen about how a role in product can prepare you to be an early-stage startup founder? With an increasing number of PMs starting their own companies, the two entrepreneurial PMs discuss how you can apply your PM experience as an early-stage founder. Plus: they determine whether product is actually the right field to be in when starting your own company.

You can subscribe to Product to Product on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify, or get the latest episodes delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is "PM culture?" – Aman Manik @ Square Nov 23, 2017

Show notes

This episode features Aman Manik, a product manager at Square. He’s been a part of Square’s product team since 2015 when Fastbite, the company he co-founded, was acquired.

As Aman was getting ramped up at Square, he noticed that the PMs he was working with all came from different backgrounds and had varying perspectives on what the role of a PM should be within an organization. So, he decided to get them all together to come up with a singular definition of what it means to be part of their product team. And they created what Aman calls a PM culture guide.

Aman spoke to Nick, our own product manager at Roadmunk, about the guide (the process of making it, how it’s used, the feedback it received, and how other teams can benefit from the same exercise.)

You can subscribe to Product to Product on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify, or get the latest episodes delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why PMs need to be great writers – Evan Michner @ Atlassian Nov 09, 2017

Show notes

Welcome to our third episode of Product to Product—a podcast for / by product people.

In this episode we have Evan Michner, Principal Product Manager at Atlassian—specifically for their chat tools, Stride and HipChat. Evan is one of those product managers who, as he describes it, stumbled into product. He went to school for creative writing and started his career in ad copywriting. After a few years of feeling meh about copywriting, he got invited to do “product-y stuff” for a new startup. Despite not fully understanding what that meant, he said, “Sure, why not?” and his career as a PM launched from there.

My colleague Eleni, who’s also a former-writer, was curious about Evan’s transition from writing flashy headlines to working in product at a massive tech company. But more specifically, how he applies his creative background and writing skills in his day-to-day at Atlassian.

With such a need for product managers to be ‘world-class communicators,’ Eleni and Evan’s chat makes the case for why writing isn’t just a nice-to-have soft skill for PMs, but a necessary tool for them. Plus: Evan’s experiences offer some concrete ways for PMs to keep scratching any creative itches they may experience.

You can subscribe to Product to Product on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify, or get the latest episodes delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Burndown framework: An alternative to scrum – Matt Bilotti @ Drift Oct 26, 2017

Show notes

Welcome to the second episode of Product to Product, a podcast for / by product people.

This episode features Matt Bilotti, product manager at Drift. Matt recently co-authored an ebook with Drift’s CEO, David Cancel, called “Burndown: A better way to build products.” The ebook explores the Burndown framework that Drift’s product team has adopted for product development.

But what is Burndown? Think of Burndown as a more iterative and flexible version of agile that’s heavily influenced by user feedback. Comprising of smaller releases and shorter sprints (i.e. micro-sprints), Burndown helps product teams make better decisions driven by user feedback because, unlike your traditional scrum and agile sprints, micro-sprints can change practically anytime based on incoming data and feedback the team receives.

According to Drift’s ebook, not only has the company perfected Burndown, but switching over to the framework has resulted in a 5x increase in revenue. So our CEO Latif picked Matt’s brain on how the framework compares to agile, some common pain points and challenges, and how Burndown feeds into Drift’s customer-first approach to products.

You can subscribe to Product to Product on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify, or get the latest episodes delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Making smarter decisions with machine learning – Inga Chen @ Squarespace Oct 11, 2017

Show notes

Welcome to the very first episode of Product to Product, Roadmunk’s brand new podcast! 🎉

For context: As a company that builds roadmapping software for product people, we’re immersed in the product community. We’ve seen how helpful product people are when it comes to helping their peers. They’re open to sharing their own experiences of working in product (both the good and the bad) in very honest ways—and they’re very generous with advice.

The candid conversations that are happening in product communities online make for excellent podcast material. So, we decided to start one. Product to Productwill feature two product people talking about one product-specific topic—like applying machine learning to the right problems and building a healthy PM culture (and what “PM culture” is). We have really cool episodes coming up with product managers, designers, marketers and engineers.

This episode features Inga Chen, a product manager at Squarespace. Inga manages the team responsible for Squarespace’s analytics platform—which their clients rely on to get data-driven insights about their websites and e-commerce stores.

Machine learning is a passion of Inga’s—and she’s specifically interested in helping other product teams build machine learning models that solve real problems for end users. Inga spoke to my colleague Eleni Deacon about how product teams can properly prepare for machine learning, gathering user feedback and what to do when a model fails.

You can subscribe to Product to Product on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify, or get the latest episodes delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Product to Product: A sneak peek Oct 05, 2017

Show notes

At Roadmunk, we build a product for product people; and as part of the product community, we’ve seen how open product people are to helping their peers. They share their own experiences of working in product, both the good and the bad, in very honest ways. We decided to take the candid conversations that are happening in product communities on Reddit and Slack and Medium – and turn them into a podcast.

Product to Product episodes will be released every other Thursday, and we have really cool interviews coming up with product managers, designers, marketers and the odd engineer, too.

You can subscribe to Product to Product on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify, or get the latest episodes delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.