Jiaona Zhang: Why All Product Teams Should Have a Scorecard & How to Use It | E1154

1. 0:00 – 0:40

   Intro

   1. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang0:00

      I think it's the most exciting time to be a product leader. The product role is the most chameleon role out of all of the functions. I do think between speed, quality, and scope, something has to give. I am most willing to trade off scope. It's very difficult to get all three at once.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings0:15

      Ready to go? Jay-Z, I have heard so many good things from Alex for a while now. So first, thank you so much for joining me today.

   3. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang0:34

      It's so great to be here.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings0:35

      Now, I am very excited for this. We're gonna take this in a couple of different twists and turns. We always need, like, a good

2. 0:40 – 2:28

   Entry Into the World of Product

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:40

      starting point. I think it's good to understand where the love of product first comes from. So when and where did you first realize that product was really where you wanted to commit your life and time towards?

   2. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang0:51

      When I was an undergrad, I had no idea that this was even a thing. I was an econ major, I graduated, did what's expected, you know, consulting. Then after a few years of doing that, I was just like, "I'm always just advising." Like, I'm spending all this time getting all this knowledge and getting so passionate and worked up about what a company should be doing, and then I just hand it off, and I'm like, "Here's a deck. Good luck." Um, and so I was kind of like, "What can I do? What kind of job would actually let me build?" Like, take the things that I've researched and understood and go make them true. And so this is when I was like, "Oh, there's this thing called product." Uh, so I was living in Boston. You know, thing called product, a lot of them happened to be in San Francisco, and then as I did more research, I was like, "Well, the best places to do this thing called product is at a place like Google, and they only take people with a CS degree," which I did not have, right? Or they only took people from Stanford, MIT, (laughs) which I did not go to. And so I basically got in by being like, "Well, what could I offer that people would actually value?" And from my analytics work, my economics work, I was like, "I can bring you analytics." And so that's how I basically became a mobile gaming PM. How did you find your love for product there? And for me, it's like, well, at the end of the day, like, the, the cycles in which you learn and build and then iterate and learn and build and iterate in gaming is wild. Like, you are constantly just changing the game, because at the end of the day, like, people are coming in, and then they're kind of, like, declining out of the game. So just constantly figuring out, like, how do I engage them? I think the best PMs actually have done some stint in gaming, right? And so that's where I, like, found, like, my love for product.

3. 2:28 – 3:10

   Advice for Entering Product Management

   1. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang2:28

   2. HSHarry Stebbings2:28

      Okay, so number one thing I have to ask you there is, like, when you think about advice to young people or to people who want to enter product, having had that less conventional route of not having the CS or not having the Stanford, like, what would you advise them, knowing all that you know now, who want to enter product?

   3. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang2:43

      I think the first thing I'd advise is, you know, a- a- and also assuming that you can't get into these, like, rotational programs that have these specific requirements, go somewhere, work on a product that you have a lot of passion for, and most importantly, where you can get those learning reps in. Kind of like what I just mentioned about gaming, right? Like, I learned so much. Like, every single week I was shipping a new app to the App Store. That, in terms of reps, is so different than I think a lot of companies today, where you're like, "I spent a whole quarter," or, "I spent a long time." And so get somewhere where you can get

4. 3:10 – 6:01

   Balancing Speed, Scope & Quality

   1. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang3:10

      those reps in.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings3:11

      Is speed in contradiction to quality of product? People often think if you move faster, you're gonna have to trade off on some elements of quality or depth of product. Do you think that they are in contradiction, or you can actually have both at the same time?

   3. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang3:24

      I think that there is a couple pieces here. The first one is that, you know, I, I do think between speed, quality, and scope, something has to give, right? Like, it's very difficult to get all three at once, and-

   4. HSHarry Stebbings3:35

      Can I just... What's scope?

   5. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang3:37

      Scope is essentially, like, how much features, how many features, like, the, the scope of how much you're building, right? So, you know, you can do a little thing very fast with high quality, or you can do a lot of things, like, a much more robust product, probably either very, very fast but low quality, or really, really, you know, high quality, but it's gonna take you a long time. So, like, those are the three levers that I always think about when I'm thinking about, "Okay, which one am I gonna tr- have to trade off?" And that is the reality. Anyone who tells you, like, you can get all three all at once with, like, a team that is still norming and storming is probably lying to you. But it's the idea of, what do you trade off?

   6. HSHarry Stebbings4:14

      Which one are you most willing to trade off?

   7. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang4:16

      I am most willing to trade off scope, and that's because I believe that it is very, very important to get speed. Speed, for any company, any product, is what gets you your learnings. And if your speed at learning is slow, you are going to die, or you're gonna fall behind. I also do not believe that you can trade off on quality, because so many times you'll be like, "Okay, well, I did this thing. No one used it. It doesn't work." And you're like, well, it's really (laughs) because, you know, this is what you did. You did not, you know, do... You did not do it to a level of, um, of quality, right, that, that is gonna be accepted by the market, because, you know, in the market, there's already so much out there. And so it's actually really interesting, because quality and scope have, like, this relationship with each other. And what I mean by that is, in some markets, quality is literally just how beautiful the thing is, you know, in a world where you have a Notion versus a Google Docs, right? Like, Notion really sweated quality to be this, like, beautiful, delightful, simple experience. But in a world where, uh, so again, it also depends on your customer. So there are times when you're like, "I can't give you just..." Uh, like, you can actually be like, "Quality to some customers is a combination of how beautiful the thing is, but also how much scope there is." Meaning today, if you are doing something really manually by spreadsheets, and you get a product out there that, like, makes that thing really automated and really delightful, that could be interpreted as, like, quality or scope, meaning, "Hey, this thing does this job better. It's, it's, uh, beautiful," or it's, like, easy to use, and that actually gives you the edge. And so I think that the bar between scope and quality, like, that's this, like, see-saw that you can ge- pull one lever or the other. And I think you gotta be really thoughtful about which one you're pulling, because your customer has a

5. 6:01 – 7:51

   Managing Feedback Cycles

   1. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang6:01

      certain need.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings6:02

      ... what happens when the data that you get back is slow to come back, or slower to come back? So, when you think about gaming, a da- on a day-by-day basis, you have metrics. It's very quick feedback cycles. On, say, a PLG, uh, SaaS product, it's quick-ish, but it may not be day. It may be week or month, and so the feedback cycles are slower. How do you think about industries where the feedback cycles are slower, and does that change your perception of how you think about the three?

   3. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang6:28

      Here's what I would challenge people, which is, like, there are things that you can get back. Data is just a term. Data just means, like, information, right?

   4. HSHarry Stebbings6:35

      Yeah.

   5. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang6:35

      So, there are things that you can get back in an hour, in a day, in a week, in a month, and so on and so forth. And so, what I challenge even, you know, I've worked in B2C, B2B, right? Like, what I challenge people is, like, "What is it that you are able to get back in a day, an hour, a week?" And that is a leading indicator of things that might take a little longer to converge. So, for example, I worked at Webflow, right? There, there are things where it's like, yes, the sales cycle is not overnight. It takes time, so if you're saying, "I ship this thing, and I wanna see how this thing impacted the sales team being able to sell this thing," that takes a little bit longer. But the thing that you can learn in literally an hour is, "Hey, I have all these customers out there who've been wanting this very specific feature, and now, now I have an alpha version of it. I'm gonna go out to these people, these clients, these customers, and say, 'Here, like, go use it. What do you think?'" They will play around with it, and they will give you data in literally an hour sitting with them, being like, "This is it. This is, like, localization. This is the thing I've been wanting for so long. I'm so excited for it." And that is data, and so I think that what I would challenge is, like, what are you trying to get back? What kind of data? And you can get data back at any given point. It's just, is it a, you know, qualitative piece of data? Is it a input piece of data, or is it ultimately an output metric? Which is what you're talking about, the thing that takes the longest time to return.

6. 7:51 – 10:34

   Documenting Data & Learnings

   1. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang7:51

   2. HSHarry Stebbings7:51

      How do you want your teams to codify or document the data and learnings that they have to ensure that teams and product can progress in unison with them? 'Cause you don't want people just kind of having it in their head isolated and it not be valuable and shared amongst team. How do you think about having that cross-functional benefit and, like, team-wide benefit?

   3. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang8:09

      At almost every company I've been at, I've been doing something called, like, a KPI tree. You know, like, what is that? (laughs) So, really, what it is, if you think about a tree, right? You have the top of a tree, and then it kind of, like, flows down all the branches. At the very top is what I call your business output metrics. So, it's like, these are your financial health metrics, so usually the things that appear on a CEO dashboard. You're like, "These are my sign-ups. These are my subscriptions. These are my..." Um, just, like, high level, like imagine Airbnb is like, these are the number of nights booked. These are the highest level metrics, and they're output metrics. Then-

   4. HSHarry Stebbings8:41

      Okay, but just, first, to be clear, these are product metrics. They're not revenue. They're not margin. They're not, are they business, like financial metrics?

   5. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang8:49

      Uh, no. No, they're actually business metrics. So, at the very top of the tree, I have, always have business metrics.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings8:54

      Okay.

   7. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang8:54

      Because at the end of the day, like, your company is living and dying by your business metrics, and I think that there's this artificial separation sometimes of, like, product and business. And there are times where, like, the product owner doesn't own the business metrics, and I actually think that's very harmful, because at the end of the day, your product is helping deliver value to your users and drive the business forward. So, at the very top of the tree, that is shared by every exec and every single team at the company, are business metrics.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings9:18

      Business metrics at the top, then we have what?

   9. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang9:20

      (laughs) Then when you flow down, then you have the input metrics that drive these output business metrics, meaning in order for our revenue, our AR to grow a certain way, these things have to happen. We have to get these many subscriptions to happen. We have to get these many people to not churn. So, now you're getting a little bit closer to, to product metrics, and then we get e- even further out into, like, the lower branches. This is where you have your actual product metrics, which is, for most product teams, the thing you are measuring right out the gate is adoption. It's like, "Hey, is someone using, out of the target audience that could use this product, how many people are using the product, and are they liking it?" Like, generally, if you were to survey a random sample or could just go talk to people, like, what's their NPS? And then it's like, okay, are they actually seeing real behavior changes because they're using it, because they're happy with it? And that's when you're like, "Oh, okay, like, we are actually seeing churn go down," or, "We are seeing retention go up," or, "We are seeing activation go up." Right? And then those, you can see, are even more closely tied to the, the top of the tree that I talked about, which are these, like, output business metrics, which is, like, when you literally do the math of, like, okay, sign-ups have gone up. Activation has gone up. Conversion has gone up. You know, overall, like, retention has gone up. That actually leads to overall

7. 10:34 – 13:12

   Creating a KPI Tree

   1. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang10:34

      higher revenue.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings10:35

      When should we do the KPI tree? Should this be on day one, or should this be when we hit a certain customer count? How do you think about advising startups on when's the right time to have that kind of metric infrastructure in place?

   3. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang10:46

      I think a company should always have the skeleton of the tree, and the reason for that is this is basically how your product works and how things flow through the business, right? You're like, "Hey, I know that these are my levers, and I know that these are, like, if I pull these levers, this is the outcome." I think, you know, there's that classic saying where, like, growth masks all problems. I think that a lotta times, the company's growing, growing, growing. Everyone's like, "Things are great," and then it doesn't grow, and you're like, "Oh my God. What do I do?" And usually at that point, they're like, "We have no idea what this tree looks like. Like, we don't know what's on the bottom and what feeds up to another thing, and then what that then outputs to the next thing." They don't actually, ooh, fireworks. (laughs)

   4. HSHarry Stebbings11:23

      (laughs)

   5. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang11:25

      They don't actually know what that, like, chain of events looks like, and then they start to panic. They're like, "Oh my goodness. We gotta try this. We gotta try that. We gotta do all these things," and then they s- do this, like, slow learning to get to the point where they have that understanding of these are the inputs that lead to our outputs. So, I'd really actually advise companies to try to put even a skeleton of that together, which is, like, an easy way to think about it is tree might feel complicated to someone, but it's like, what are my levers that drive the outcomes that I want for my business? And if you don't know how to identify your levers, you gotta take a moment and be like, "Well, what maybe can I start to tease out, or w- where can I go and do a little bit more research and digging to understand, like, this is a lever that I pull that drives this ty- type of value for my business?"

   6. HSHarry Stebbings12:09

      What do you find are the biggest mistakes that founders make with identifying and then executing against the metrics that they should be focusing on?

   7. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang12:18

      I think the first one is this over...... like, focus on metrics. So, I gave you the whole example of the tree, because it's really just a practice of knowing what are you doing that is resulting in something else? That's really what it is. And if you don't know that equation of, like, "I know I'm going to do something and it's going to make a difference," it's like, you should go figure that out. And so I really believe in this concept of, like, okay, you have this tree that at, at the leadership level, you're, you're really understanding, 'cause you're always like, "Okay, well, do I understand the link between, you know, different pieces of my business?" But then when you're going to teams, you have to give them both a headline. What does success look like that's qualitative, right, like you can describe with words? So, e- like, what's your headline, what is the metric that accompanies that headline, and then ultimately, you should be able to, like, walk away being able to tell a story around the investment levels that you believe in. So you're able to say... Go ahead.

8. 13:12 – 16:40

   Different Metrics for Different Teams

   1. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang13:12

   2. HSHarry Stebbings13:12

      Can I ask, does that differ by team? And so if you think about the product team, is that headline, is that metric different to the sales team and the customer success team and the growth team, or are they unified across all?

   3. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang13:25

      This brings me to, like, a whole nother concept, which is this idea of, like, at the end of the day, when you do, when you're trying to get your, your company to march in one direction, the thing I believe in the most is having a really crisp strategy. And that is an articulation of your vision, your mission, what you're doing, your investment areas. Like, these are the things I believe in investing in, along with, these are the things I don't believe we're gonna do. That's really, really important. That is shared by every team. It's shared by the sales team, the product team, the support team, the finance team. That is a shared company-level thing. Then when you go a layer down, how the leader wants to push their team towards aligning to that strategy, it will differ. There are some teams where it's like, the best thing to do is to give them a quota. There are other t- like, like a sales team. There are other times when you're like, "I need to give them a quota, obviously," but i- it's really complicated, because, like, it's not just about quota. Like, that could actually result in too much competition. It's really about, um, different parts of the sales process and making sure that, like, success, like, customer success is as important as, like, landing the deal, right? And so I think what I'm trying to say is, at the end of the day, you gotta start with a strategy, then you have to understand what is the thing that is gonna get that team to execute the fastest towards what you're trying to achieve? And then you wanna give that team that metric. And, and going back to a growth team, growth teams are the teams that are most, um, typically given a number. And yes, you, you do need to give growth teams numbers. Like, there are literally, like, sign-up numbers, there are activation numbers, conversion numbers, so on and so forth, right? But you don't want to be over-optimized on a number, because I see so many growth teams do a few things that I think are very big mistakes. The first one is they're like, "I just have these numbers, and so I'm gonna do all these, like, small things to hit this number," when really the thing to hit the number at a global maximum, right, like, "I'm gonna really take this, this thing and do a step function increase here," is to do a very core product change. And so that's, like, another philosophy we can spend a ton of time on, which is, like, how do you structure growth teams, how do you give, like, growth teams goals, how do you think about the line between a growth team and a product team? So I, I do think, like, growth teams have numbers, but they should not be micro-optimizing those numbers. They should be really much changing the product in meaningful ways to get to that next, like, step function level of what we can, what can drive growth. And then I also think that, like, if you're just given a number, you, you don't incentivize teams that come back with strong hypotheses on what can work. And this goes back to this idea of, like, always having theses around what your investment levels are, right, or your investment areas. So I expect to be able to ask any growth team, "What are your biggest hypotheses of what's gonna get you to that next step function change?" And they should be able to come back with a, like literally a verbal answer, not just, "Oh, these are my numbers." They should be able to say, "Hey, I believe that for Linktree, the next big thing is to make it so that, you know, regardless of..." Like, "We can pick up who you are, what your goals are, and really quickly create a Linktree for you that reflects those goals." So the Linktree we build for a restaurant and a chef is very different than a Linktree that we'd build for a podcaster, right? And so, like, I want to hear those, like, hypotheses back, because those are the big ideas that we should be pushing towards, not just giving a team, like, "Here, go optimize this number," because that's where you get very local maximum wins.

9. 16:40 – 26:01

   The Paradox of Planning

   1. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang16:40

   2. HSHarry Stebbings16:40

      How long does it take to prove a hypothesis? Like, sometimes I find the founders slug too long at something that just isn't working. How l- how much data is enough data to know that something's not working?

   3. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang16:51

      Great question, and it brings us back to what I, we were talking about earlier, which is, you know, yes, there are things that can take a long time, if you're looking for this, like, end-end result, but there's also early signal that you can get in literally an hour or a day, right?

   4. HSHarry Stebbings17:04

      Yeah.

   5. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang17:04

      And so for something like that, being able to prototype something and actually put it in front of a restaurant and say, "Hey, if we created this Linktree for you, are you likely to use this as opposed to going out and trying to figure out how to create your own website using Squarespace, Wix, whatever it is?" That signal is signal, right? And so, like, there's every point in the process, there's something that you're getting back. That's the first signal. The second signal would be, like, you don't have to build out the entire flow. You can literally do a, a landing page that allows people to pick templates, and you can see if people are picking some of them. Like, that in itself is data. So you're always, like, you've got the big picture in mind, but you're testing small little increments to make sure that you're on the right path.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings17:44

      JZ, the thing that I think about constantly when I hear you talk is, like, you're just a very cross-functional leader. Like, you could be a CPO, but you could also be, like, a head of sales with the, you know, with the development that you're doing on a customer basis and the feedback questions you're asking. You could also be support in many ways, in terms of understanding user feedback. And so I guess my question is, like, how do you think about the blurring of product into every other fun- y- you're very much a growth leader with ... 'Cause that's clear. Like, how do you think about the blur-

   7. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang18:13

      Oh, ever? Am not. Think I am even in the top 1% of all of growth leaders out there, but it's important function. Yeah.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings18:19

      Yeah. But, but my point is, like, it seems so cross-functional. Do you ever find you're stepping on other people's toes? How do you think about, like, where product ends and where others start, and, and that challenge?

   9. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang18:31

      I think that is a fantastic question, 'cause it, it actually encapsulates everything I believe about product, which is the product role is the most chameleon role out of all of the functions, which means at some point, you're like, "I need to lean into sales, because...... like, that's actually how I can build the best product, by getting that information from my large customers or my ... you know. Sometimes you're like, "I need to lean into support because I'm not even at the sales point yet (laughs) and I just need to understand what's happening," right? So you're always wearing all these different hats because that is the job of the product leader to be able to be that chameleon, to be that glue with that exec team, and to be able to spot, like, what needs more work, and, and go, like, fill that hole. Not necessarily yourself. Either with a higher or, you know, pushing the exec team or the founders to get there. But that's actually how I think about the role.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings19:20

       How do you encourage growth, or sorry, product leaders to, like, push their product teams to the user base? I find often product teams can kind of sit in isolation building product and not spend enough time with the actual people using it. What advice do you have to product leaders who are like, "Hey, go meet customers, go sit in support." How do you do that?

   11. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang19:39

       I think the first one is just that remembrance of so much of your role is understanding that user. I think it's so easy to get caught in the day-to-day execution and you forget that you've got to be close to the user and talk to the user. Then it comes to the point of, "Okay, how do I do that scalably?" And that is where you do lean on your cross-functional partners. You get so much data from your sales team, you get so much data from your support team. And so, like, actually sitting down with them and being like, "What are you hearing? What are you seeing? What are you doing manually for creators? What do creators really wish we actually, like, offered as a platform to make their lives easier?" You get so much data that way, and it's also more scalable.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings20:13

       How do you think about prioritization of user data? When you think about, I don't know, Demi Lovato, Robert Downey Jr., Halsey, some of these amazing names that use Linktree, very different, I'm sure, product feedback to a rational or to, uh, a creator who's got, respectfully, very little following. How do you think about the prioritization of user feedback and where people should spend time and not spend time?

   13. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang20:36

       You know, it is a, a question that I think I've wrestled with almost at every company that I've been at. What I've actually found is that if you really laid out the customer types you care about, and then you laid out their needs and their problems, oftentimes you can find that there's a lot at the intersection of what I call that Venn diagram. So, the first thing to do is be very clear of, like, who are not your users? Who, who is not your, quote unquote, ICP, right? Uh, you know, ideal customer, uh, profile.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings21:03

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang21:03

       Um, that is very important. But a lot of times you go through that exercise and you're like, "I still have way too many people. I still have way too many things that I want to s- like, solve for and, and the people's needs that I want to solve for." My goal there is not to be like, "Let's artificially constrain," 'cause I think that actually artificially constrains your business. That's when you draw that Venn diagram and you say, hey, you know, for Linktree it's ... yes, it's SMBs, and yes, it's creators, but if you put those two, you know, circles together and you actually look at what they need, there are a lot of similarities. At the end of the day, first, they wanna have some way to unify their digital presence because the world is getting increasingly fragmented with every platform out there and, like, what you need to do on every single platform. So, like, that is a universal common need. Second, the whole process of managing that digital presence, not only on Linktree but more importantly on these other platforms, super arduous. And so, you know, how do we make that easier for people? How do we do things, like, look at their workflows every single day? Oh my gosh, I am a social media manager for Aritzia, and I actually need to be able to, like, get all this content in, create all these videos, and, like, schedule it out in a, in a cadence that makes sense. Like, that, that thing, like, that need, is probably something like a, "I need some way to schedule my social media content." That is actually very true for SMBs, where they're like, "Okay, well, I don't even ... first of all, I don't even know what social media content to create, but if there was a world where, like, that I could get guidance on how to create that stuff and then it was sent out for me, that would be massive," right? So, we have a saying at Linktree, which is, like, we believe that, you know, creators are SMBs and SMBs are creators, meaning creators are trying to make money. And SMBs, in order for them to be, to survive in the world today, they need to understand social media, they need to be much more digitally native. We believe those things to be true, and as a result, you can actually figure out the needs across those user groups and prioritize at that intersection.

   16. HSHarry Stebbings22:51

       When I hear you speak, everything is very structured. We've got the KPI trees, we have the kind of focus on, you know, product strategy, uh, very intimately. But then you've said to me before about planning not existing and maybe planning should not exist, and I'm like, it seems in, in paradox. Can you talk to me about why planning should not exist, and does that not go against everything that we've just done with KPI trees, metrics, prioritization? How do you think about planning should not exist?

   17. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang23:19

       I think that a lot of people spend a lot of time talking about planning, and they talk about process. And those two things I would really, um, turn on their heads. So, what I believe in is if you could spend your time doing anything, I'd spend 80% or more of your time on your strategy and on your rituals. Like, those are the two things I really believe in. So, let me talk you through, like, what that means. The strategy th- we talked about this earlier, is, like, where are you going? What's the world that you believe in? And, like, how does that world become different because your product exists, right? Your strategy has a couple of key p- pieces to it. It has that piece. It has the piece of like, what makes you uniquely positioned to win? Like, if you can't articulate that, like, keep figuring that out. And then it also includes, like, what are you not doing? I talked to you about this concept of having these investment areas and also having this concept of like, okay, well, if these are what we're investing in, these are not what we're gonna do. These- this is not in focus, right? You have to articulate all those things. And you can call it a plan, that's, that's fine, but I really like to call it a strategy because I think so many times you, you go through planning cycles as a company, whether big, medium, or small, and then literally by Q1 of the next year or, like, fiscal year rolls around (laughs) like, everything goes out the door. You're like, "Oh, this took a lot longer to build than I thought," and, "Oh my gosh, this new, like, customer just came through the door and they are really important, they have all these needs." Right? Like, that happens so often. So, I think that a lot of companies that really index on planning get really disappointed.... they're disappointed by the amount of time they put in and the amount of value that they get back out of it. And so, that's why I really, like, really push companies and, like, push myself to, like, move away from this concept of planning, and I spend so much time on this concept of, like, strategy. And strategy, to make it really concrete for people is, you should be able to articulate your strategy in a two-page document, not six pages, not, you know, like, not, like, huge thing, but, like, a two-page concise document where one person holds the pen, and ideally that person is the CEO, but a lot of times that requires a partnership between the CEO and, you know, say, the CPO to- to- to really write it. Like, so it's opinionated, it talks about what you're going to do, all the things I just mentioned. That is the basis of all the things that you do. Right? So, like, if you spend most of your time on that document debating that document, debating, "Hey, this is what our advantage is. This is our alpha." Debating, "These are the things that we're gonna invest in, and these are the things that we're not gonna invest in." If you do that really, really well, you actually do the most valuable parts of, quote unquote, "planning," and you throw away all the non-valuable parts of planning that are really just, like, a show. And then, actually I'll pause for your questions, but I- I would love to talk about rituals, which is what I think is really important as

10. 26:01 – 30:27

    Building Successful Product Teams

    1. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang26:01

       opposed to processes.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings26:02

       No, I was gonna exactly ask, like, what is a ritual and how does that differ from a process?

    3. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang26:06

       Again, you might just be like, "JZ, these are all semantics," but I think the words matter. They matter a lot, and I think that really great product people, they, like, sweat every word, because they realize that, like, communication is so much of their job, and what you say and the words you pick matter. So, a- a ritual is, like, these things that you do on a habitual basis that really build muscle in the organization. I think that's why I, like, lean so heavily towards rituals. I always tell my team, I'm like, it's like, "We're going to the gym and, you know, today you're lifting weights for the first time. It's, like, really hard. But if you keep lifting the weights, it's gonna get easier and easier."

    4. HSHarry Stebbings26:41

       Mm-hmm. So, you come into Linktree, what are the rituals that you instill to have a healthy product talk?

    5. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang26:46

       I believe in three really important rituals, and it's because I believe in three principles. The first thing I- I believe a lot in is this idea of, like, transparency. If you don't know what's going on across an organization, it's really hard to get work done, and Linktree is a remote culture. You know, our founders are in Australia, we have people on the West Coast, we've also people in London. We're- we have people around the world. And so, you- if you don't have transparency, it's very, very difficult to get people to do their jobs well. And so, for transparency, um, a thing I've done at Web- uh, Webflow, even, uh, for my teams, you know, at- at, um, WeWork, I did- I do this thing called Scorecard. And Scorecard is essentially, like, these are the most important projects, it's not everything. I think, like, once you get to everything, you're like, "We might as well just use, like, Linear (laughs) or a tracker, right?" But, it's like, these are the 10 most important projects at a company that we all need to b- be rallying around. Right? And- and again, if that number can be less than 10, that's great. Like, five, even better. Um, but, you know, what are the most important projects that we need to be looking at and have transparency around, because they involve multiple teams getting their act together and working in unison? So, Scorecard is really important, and- and I think the thing I want to teach, going back to the gym concept, what I want to teach my teams is, there are so many times where you do Scorecard for the first time, everyone's like, "This is going great. Green, green, green." So, you grade every single week, like, are you on track, green, at risk, yellow, or are you really off track, red. Right? And so, we have, like, a whole, um, like, system there. And you just- you just see teams being like, "Green, green, green, green, green." And then the quarter is closing and they're, like, "Red," with no chance of salvaging it. That is bad, meaning, like, there's not enough, like, understanding what the risks are, and de-risking and unblocking yourselves. You know, a- a- like, a good scorecard is you're like, "Hey, this is at risk everyone, this is yellow, this is red. Let's, like, I need these resources, I need this to get de-risked, I need, like, go-to-market to do whatever." Like, that's a good scorecard, and a great scorecard is like, "Hey, I already spotted this was a problem. It's Scorecard today, but two days ago I already met with the go-to-market team, I already did A, B, C, D things, and, like, even though it is at risk right now, I've taken the measures to get us back to green." Right? So, you- you basically start to train your team. First of all, you need the transparency. Transparency's really important. And then you train your team to get a lot better at being able to spot the fact that, like, something's gonna go wrong, and then to go correct it before it becomes a real problem. So, like, that's one ritual that I believe a lot in, this concept of Scorecard that gives you that transparency.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings29:15

       How do you spot something going wrong? Is it just about analyzing data?

    7. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang29:18

       No. I mean, honestly, I think that's actually, it's- it's less about data and more about judgment. Like, you should be able to, at any given point in time, you should be able to ask a product leader of the team, a design leader of that- er, team, and also an engineering leader of the team, and you can be like, "Is this on track?" And I think, first of all, the- the first thing- the first thing to do is just articulate what success looks like. If you d- if that team does not know what success looks like, it's gonna be really hard for them to report out that anything's off track. But if you know what success looks like, it's actually quite easy for you to go around and be like, "Hey, you three, you guys are the, you know, functional leaders of this area. Is this thing on track based on what you've outlined as your goals?" Very easy, right, for- for the engineering leader to be like, "I am really worried about this dependency on this other team, on this platform team. Not thinking we're gonna make it." (laughs) And again, and, like, you start to see, like, you know, sometimes the product leader thinks it's on track, the engineering leader thinks it's off track, and the design leader, like, doesn't know. And that's a whole nother problem that you have to diagnose. You have to be like, "Okay, everyone, we gotta get on the same page." Right? And so, like, it's actually, um, the judgment piece and the ability for each person in that trifecta to play their role actually contributes to, like, learning predictability of what you're able to deliver and whether or not you can actually hit some of these deadlines.

11. 30:27 – 37:52

    Rituals for Effective Product Development

    1. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang30:27

    2. HSHarry Stebbings30:27

       Okay. So, we have transparency... Uh, just help me understand. So, we have transparency and Scorecard. One is a ritual and one's a principle?

    3. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang30:34

       There are three rituals that I do with my teams, so the first ritual is Scorecard, and it really gets at transparency. The second ritual I do with my teams is what I call product jams.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings30:44

       How do you do product jamming?

    5. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang30:46

       So again, there are some things that just have to be true, which is like, if you guys are all not aligned on what success looks like, no amount of jamming and brainstorming is gonna be productive. In fact, you're just gonna go in circles. So, I do think that, like, a product review, you have to do a couple of things right, which is, you need to be clear on what success looks like.... qualitatively and quantitatively. You need to be able to under, like define your biggest risks and assumptions, and work through those things. But the difference between a review and a jam is I think a lot of times in a review culture, you're like, it's just this like waterfall process. So you're like, "Okay, (smacks lips) you know, I've gone through my review and now I'm going to design review. Now I'm going through ex-" You're, you're kind of like just going through this phase. And the reason I believe in jams is you actually get the best brain power together, and you actually create agility. So you're not like going from step to step to step and you're like, "Okay, like this is gonna be the next week of the step." You're trying to get, you're condensing all the steps together to be like, "How do I, like create this like really fast cycle?"

    6. HSHarry Stebbings31:41

       Who do you invite to jams and how often do you do them?

    7. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang31:44

       Yes, it depends. It does depend on the stage of the product. So if you were doing a zero to one product, I actually feel like a product jam should be happening almost daily. Like I think when you're doing a zero to one product, you either need to be in a synchronous, like physical space or you need to approximate that as much as possible based on, like getting that team working on it, including sometimes the founder or the head of product just in there. Because any small degree of like misalignment, uh, is gonna just cause a bunch of problems. And you're also learning at a pace that is really hopefully fast, right? You're like, "I just tested this thing. I just put this in front of users. I just went and asked this question." Like, you're learning all the time. So that's what I believe like in a zero to one product. If you're a little bit more further along, I think I would say the jams are most important when you are at certain stages of the product where you have to go, like you'll have to go figure something out. So maybe you, you want to jam at the beginning because you're like, "We need to jam on what success actually looks like here." It's not enough for us to say like, "We wanna beat the competitor." That's never a, you know, user human driven, um, statement, right? Like, "I wanna beat X competitor." Instead we gotta like jam on, "What's the real problem here? What is the thing that we're trying to solve for for people?" You might be jamming a little bit later where you're like, "Hey, we're in the solution space, the general part of the, the, the cycle." Meaning like we know what the problem is, we know what, um, we know how important it is, like how important this problem is, but we, we could go multiple different ways in order to solve this, this problem. We can go this solution, that solution, this other solution. Let's actually jam together through the divergence proc- part of the, the, you know, general brainstorming process to make sure like we've actually thought about all the ideas. And so I think that when you go from a zero to one product to something that's a little bit mature, you have to identify, you know, where you can benefit from the jams most often and also like who you're jamming with. There are a lot of times the jams are with founders. There are other times when you're like, "Hey, maybe the jams should be with the sales team so that we are developing in lockstep."

    8. HSHarry Stebbings33:40

       Are jams worse when they're done asynchronously? Or not asynchronously, but not in person?

    9. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang33:46

       They are harder for sure. You need to do more prep, but they're not impossible. Again, Linktree is a distributed team, so we have to figure it out. And there are ways you can figure it out. There are tools out there, right? If you are doing a jam with something like, uh, a FigJam or a Miro, you can actually get, you know, a lot of the people cursor-wise, mind-space wise in the same space putting up Post-it Notes, you know, brainstorming together. Nothing quite beats a whiteboard in my opinion, especially in the zero to one phase, but you can get there.

    10. HSHarry Stebbings34:15

        Totally get you. Okay, so that's number two. What's number three in terms of the ritual?

    11. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang34:20

        Yeah, so the last thing I care about, so the first one again, transparency, which is why a scorecard. The second one is, um, this idea of like co-creation and like the best ideas out there and being able to move really, really fast, which is why you have jams. And the last principle for me, or like last thing I really try to get out of teams is this idea of like pride of ownership and accountability of their work. And that's where I really believe in this concept called like demo power hour. And so I brought that, you know, to Webflow, brought that to Linktree. And this idea is like you literally have an hour and it's very free-flowing. It is like people just showing you what's in progress. And I think that there's so many times where teams feel like things have to be so polished. You know, designers have this fear of like showing something before it's like per- pixel perfect. Engineers have, you know, sometimes this fear of like, "I don't wanna like show you the thing in my sandbox or before it's ready," and, you know, it could break during demo power hour. And I really encourage this idea of like, let it break. Let us see like the, you know, the work in progress because it shows, it actually reinforces this concept of velocity. If every demo power hour is packed to the gills with stuff that people are shipping and showing at all the different stages, you're, you're a- able to see like across the organization everything that's going on. And it brings this level of pride. Like engineers are like, "I'm so proud to have done two demos in demo power hour, three demos in, in demo power hour." Right? And so you get this sense of like speed and, and ownership even when you're shifting the culture from that because it didn't exist before.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings35:50

        I think there'll be a lot of founders who listen to this and go, "Shit, I don't feel like we're moving fast enough and I don't feel like we have that urgency." What would you advise them to instill that sense of urgency in product de- deployment, development? How can they inject their organization with urgency?

    13. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang36:10

        The first thing is that I think humans respond the best when they're like, "I am making an impact on other humans." Like humans in general feel very motivated when they can see the results of their work. So the first thing I'd recommend is founders should really bring that impact to life, right? Like that impact is on the users out there. Whether their prospective 'cause you're a really early startup or, you know, they're existing, right? 'Cause you have a more established user base. Bring that to your company, you know, show people what that looks like. At Linktree, we have, we bring a user literally every, almost every single all hands, which happens every other week. We bring a Linker to that all hands to show people how they use Linktree, the things that they're struggling with, the things that they love about Linktree. And that builds that user empathy where you're like, "I just know that the thing I'm doing is gonna help that person." And when you're like, "Ah, man, the thing I'm doing is gonna help that person," you're motivated to do it faster, to do it really well. So I think that's the first thing, which is like bring your users closer because humans are driven by making an impact on other humans.I think the second thing is, like, you, you want to model that behavior, right? Like, it's really unproductive to be like, "Everyone move with urgency," and you're, you know, sitting there (laughs) and you're not moving with the same urgency. I would actually encourage leaders to almost model, like, 1.5X what they're hoping out of their team. So, if you're like, "I want my team to move faster," then you, as a leadership team, need to make faster decisions. Y- you know, you can't be like, "Oh, wait, I want to, like, consider all the angles, and I got, I got to, like, make this thing perfect," and then not expect that to seep through the culture. You'll see that, like, everything starts from the top. Whatever your leader does, it will always make its way through the organization, so I push my founders really, really hard to model the behavior that they want at scale at the company.

12. 37:52 – 43:16

    Hiring Product People

    1. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang37:52

    2. HSHarry Stebbings37:52

       You said about pushing your founders there. I do wanna ask about, like, hiring, and, and go through a couple of different lenses, 'cause it's really hard, but so many people have said that you're incredible at it, so I do want to spend some time on it. First, when's the right time to hire a CPO, and how do you think about hiring a CPO versus a head of product?

    3. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang38:10

       Let's put aside the titles for a second, and let's talk about, like, when do you hire a product person?

    4. HSHarry Stebbings38:13

       Yeah.

    5. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang38:14

       And, uh, let's talk about it at each scale. So, I do think a classic mistake is that you hire a product person too quickly, and you delegate the responsibility away. You're like, "I'm a founder! I need to scale myself!" And therefore, you, like, bring in a product leader. I do not think you do that. I think that is very dangerous. You need to stay really, really close to your product for as long as possible. In fact, I do recommend a lot of early-stage founders, I'm like, "Look, if you want leverage, look at your existing team and think about the people that can create that leverage for you." It might be the engineering manager. It might be the designer. It might be the customer support person who's really, really close to the user feedback, and they can play that PM-like role to give yourself a little bit more leverage. So, I think the, the first caveat is, like, do not hire too quickly and try to delegate away that responsibility. Okay, then if you're like, "I am definitely not delegating away that responsibility. We have s- you know, product market fit, I'm really trying to scale this thing. Like, I really cannot physically be in all these places, and there's not enough internal people to really, like, kind of lean in." Then I would say, okay, go hire a product leader. The biggest advice I usually give here is, like, understand yourself deeply, because of all the functions out there, the product leader is the most, um, like, complementary to a CEO. Right? So, getting that relationship right is really, really important. You want your product leader to bring out the best out of you. And I think that there's a classic, um, failure case there too, where, like, founders are like, "I am..." I'll give you an example. Like, I'm super, super visionary, and so when I go interview founder, or g- go interview product leaders, you know, that visionary founder gravitates towards other really visionary product leaders. And what often happens is they'll join the company, and you have two competing visions, and both people will not, like, you know, concede (laughs) , um, right? 'Cause you, when you hire this, like, really senior product person, they're like, "I have these strong convictions." And so I think you got to really be like, "What's gonna complement me as a founder to bring out the best out of myself?" And that could be like, "Hey, I have a really strong vision, um, but I really don't know how to sequence. Like, I, I see the world, I can see all these pieces, but, like, how do I sequence this thing?" Like, that is a certain type of product leader you go after, right? Or, it might be like, "Hey, I actually am great at sequencing, but I need to think about the next, like, four steps. Like, I have product A, but if I want to create a portfolio of products, what is product B, C, and D?" Then you might want to go out, and you might actually want to look for someone with, like, more industry expertise, like, "Hey, I've done this portfolio thing in this kind of, like, space." So, it really depends, and I would say, you know, I say this about all product things, whether it's building the product, building the product organization, always start with a problem. What problem are you trying to solve? And I think that founders really need to be able to understand that for themselves, what problem am I trying to solve in this hire, and being able to be honest about it and go look for it.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings40:56

       Do you care if they've had domain expertise in the domain that you're building for?

    7. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang41:00

       It, again, it depends. If you really need that domain expertise for that area because you don't see it on the team today, and that's actually what's gonna be the differentiator between okay to, like, good or great, then of course, like, go get that domain expertise. In general, I, I, like, again, it depends on people on your team versus, like, the head of product. In general, I've personally found, at least for myself, that there's a lot of benefit, there's a great power in being a generalist. And, you know, we can talk about that really quickly, but it kind of boils down to a few things. Like, as a generalist, I think that, like, I always go into a situation without that expertise. It's like, I don't assume I know it. I'm, like, going in eyes wide open, really uncomfortable, 'cause I'm like, "I don't understand this space." Right? So, like, the rate of learning that I, I push myself to have in any given role is, is really, really high. And I think that's really valuable, 'cause you can have, like, you have a lack of bias, you have a lack of, like, preexisting assumptions. I also think you can take, like, mental models from different places and apply them. So, the, the number of times I've been like, "Hey, I built a marketplace, and that's really interesting." What if, at Webflow, yes, we have a SaaS business, PLG, but, like, if you actually put a marketplace here, so you can connect companies that need these beautiful websites built with freelancers and design agencies that can do it. Like, that un- unleashes a new, um, vector of growth. Right? And, like, same thing, like, coming into Linktree and being like, hey, again, I have built marketplaces, and I see a really, like, interesting thing where you have the, the supply, you have all the creators. You can easily get the demand. You can get all the brands that want this data, that want access to these creators. You have the supply and the demand, and, like, you can build this really interesting marketplace in a way that nobody else can't at the scale that we can. So, the- these, like, existing mental models for a generalist help you kind of, like, spot opportunities that I think, like, sometimes, like, a domain expert could get really tunnel visioned on. And then lastly, like, I just, like, the world is changing at a rate that we've never s- like, we're, it's changing at a really fast rate. I wouldn't say that we've never seen before, 'cause I do think there's these, like, waves of innovation, but in that world, you're like, what I believe true to be today versus, you know, in a month versus the next time that OpenAI releases something (laughs) , like, it, it's just gonna, like, vastly differ. And so being able to, like, throw all those things away and start kind of from first principles is really,

13. 43:16 – 53:06

    Navigating a Rapidly Changing Landscape

    1. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang43:16

       really important.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings43:16

       Is it harder to be a product leader, say, than ever before, given in a month OpenAI can, uh, uh, I mean, not always OpenAI, but most of the time OpenAI, can release a feature, and it just completely changes everything again?

    3. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang43:29

       I think it's the most exciting time to be a product leader, because I think that there's so much innovation happening. And so if you're someone who's really excited about, like, "Well, what is, what does that mean for real users and real people, for the problems that they have?" That gets really, real exciting 'cause I think before, you're like, "I could do this thing for a really long time and hope it works," and you're like, "I can just prototype. I can prototype this tomorrow, see if it works, get learnings, and move on."

    4. HSHarry Stebbings43:54

       What is hard today?

    5. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang43:56

       I think that if you are rigid, your life is gonna be harder, right? So I, I do think you're probably gonna get different answers based on who you talk to. I think for some people, they're like, "Yeah, it is really hard. It's hard to plan." Well, it, it literally means you shift from things like what I was saying about planning and process and these things that feel very rigid, to, like, what's your strategy and what are your rituals? Because at that level, you can be, like, "You know what? New information just came out. We are actually gonna update our strategy. We just learned XYZ. We believe that now this is, uh, you know, something that we didn't think we had an advantage on before, but we do today." So it's actually really easy to update your strategy and have that flow through, versus if you have plans and processes and, you know, these rigid roadmaps and you're like, "I think the world works in a certain way," it is much harder to be a product leader in that world 'cause you're like, "The ground is changing underneath me all the time." But if you're not like that, if you're like, "I really have sweated the details of my strategy. I know what new information coming in would make me change aspects of the strategy, and I have enough of a system in place with my rituals, but they're not so rigid as to, like, this is the exact, like, step-by-step process that something needs to flow through," that gives you the agility with enough structure to not be, like, ca- complete chaos (laughs) , right? It gives you enough of, of the combination of, like, agility and structure so that you can get... You can catch these waves and catch the new things coming out.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings45:12

       I worry in the end that a lot of businesses will just converge in the same center point, whether that's, you know, your Squarespace and your Wix and your Webflow kind of converging with actually Linktree in terms of, you know, creating amazing websites for restaurants or landing pages for restaurants and everything in between. Also, with Square doing the same and then maybe a Toast doing the same, and then actually people being able to just create that in OpenAI with one simple command. Do you worry about this kind of convergence of where everyone ends up?

    7. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang45:41

       The, the first thing I'll say is, like, actually, really great businesses are built in crowded spaces because, like, one, I think that usually when there's a crowded space, you're like, "There's something here." There's user demand, there's user pain, there's user need. And, you know, I'll just go with the example that you gave, given Linktree, Webflow, a couple of places I worked at. The need for a, you know, a digital representation of self-entity, business, whatever it is, that has only gotten... Like, that has only increased, and that will continue to increase. Like, there... That, that is a trend that is going up. So, like, I really believe in that, like, call it whatever you want, the TAM, the, the trend, the future. Like, I believe in that. Then the question is like, okay, within that trend, what do you actually believe will be true? Do you believe that, like, in the future, you're gonna be like, "I would like a website that looks like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," and boom, just gets created for you? Like, do you believe that? Like, what do you actually believe? And also, like, at what pace do you think the market is really going to change? I believe, personally, that, like, I think there's gonna be two, two, two things which actually benefit both Linktree and Webflow, and part of the reason why I went to Linktree after Webflow. Um, I don't think I'm destroying value in any sense. I think that there... (laughs) I think that there is, you know, companies out there that, you know, for the past f- 10 years plus, they've been spending very expensive engineering dollars, development dollars on building their website. There are real engineering teams for the many past years that I've been at, like, in Airbnb where it's like, you are building their website. But when I think about marketing pages, like, these, like, really important websites, your, even your main dot-com, I don't see a world where you need to be having your engineering teams do that anymore. I believe that that, that really will get, get solved by software. But I do believe that those companies have a very strong desire to have, like, pixel perfect websites. Like, their w- their website is their brand in many ways, again, like, based on the trend that I just talked about before. So in that world, you actually want tools, technology that enable that, like, deep brand, um, like, affinity and being able to, like, do... Like, building an apple.com, like, you can do that on Webflow. You can't do that with any other tool really on the market, right? And so, like, I believe that that is going to continue. Like, every single company is gonna have a marketing website. They are going to want that web- marketing website to look really beautiful, really perfect, and, uh, they want a lot of control, and they are definitely not gonna be spending engineering, like, hours on it. They're going to outsource that 'cause that's way cheaper. So, like, I believe in that trend. At the same time, I also believe that for most people who are not, you know, Amazon, Nike, you know, Apple, like, all of those companies, I believe that for everyone else, including, you know, you and me, um, but more you than me 'cause I, I'm, uh, pushing myself to be a creator when I'm actually not really a creator. That's why I'm teaching so much, to, like, get that empathy. But, like, for you, you're like, "I have a real... I have, like, a fun, but I also have, like, you know, all the podcasts." Like, I think that for creators, the, um, and for SMBs, basically what I talked about before, I think this idea of, like, needing a digital presence, but, like, not wanting a Webflow. Like, that Webflow is not for these people. Like, not wanting to get-

    8. HSHarry Stebbings48:43

       Webflow is a really hard product. Sorry.

    9. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang48:46

       It

    10. NANarrator48:46

        I'm sure it is.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings48:46

        ... is about that. Like, W- Webflow's a bit like Shopify. They're, like, fucking hard.

    12. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang48:51

        (laughs)

    13. HSHarry Stebbings48:51

        Like, I'm really sorry. I know, I know (laughs) I'm picking apart, but Jesus, it's, like, not that easy. Sorry.

    14. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang48:58

        No, I, I totally agree, and that's something I wrestled with a lot when I was at Webflow. I was like, you know, the, the trade-off between power and simplicity, right? And I-

    15. HSHarry Stebbings49:05

        Yeah, uh, uh, who do you solve for? Like, the power users who love it and who need that depth, versus me, who's like, "Oh my God, this was more challenging than I thought."

    16. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang49:14

        I think the power users, and, and, like, you know, I'm no-

    17. HSHarry Stebbings49:18

        Why?

    18. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang49:18

        ... Why? Because for Harry, the right solution is a Linktree, and it's not a Webflow.

    19. HSHarry Stebbings49:24

        But I would then say that Webflow sits in the messy middle. It's like, people who really want, like, advanced features, but not that advanced that they're, like, on the most pro tools, mm...... and then the, do you see what I mean?

    20. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang49:36

        I, I know what you mean, and it is something I wrestle with, but here's what I actually believe. I think you're right, it is in the middle. But you're competing against, uh, so, so I think the, the ultimate question is how much up the stack can you get for Webflow, right? So, the reason we bought Int-Intelli... Yeah, I can't talk. Intellimize recently is because at the end of the day, like, you build a website, that's what Webflow's really great at, but there's all this other stuff you do, and there are all these companies out there. There's like, Optimizely, there's like, all this other stuff. If you can actually build that full website development stack, like, I'm at Linktree and I am actually, like, now a customer, and I am not even pushing Webflow. I'm like, "Hey, Farnaz, hey team, like, you guys decide." But like, you go do the research, and I think they're doing the research. They're like, "I'm looking at, one, just putting my own engineers on it. No-go. So expensive, not a good use of time, right? Like, not gonna happen." Two, they look at, like, software-esque tools like a Vercel, and they're like, "Ugh, that's still gonna require a non-trivial amount of engineering work. Like, that's also not gonna happen, right?" And so ultimately, you're kind of like, "Okay, well, how do I get, like, the brand f- um, like, flexibility, and, like, the pixel perfectness that I want?" We decided on Webflow because we were like, "Hey, these are all the things that we need. We are not gonna spend, you know, millions of dollars," because that's, that's how much it costs if you put, like, engineers on it. We're happy to spend, like, the 50K with Webflow, not a big deal. And then once Webflow goes and gets the other parts of the stack, this is where, like, every marketer is like, "I'm trying to test the crap out of my landing page." Like, header, button, layout, like, that's where I think the, the repeat usage actually is. 'Cause I think what, with Webflow, um, what was troub- was hard was, like, we would land very easily, but you wouldn't be able to expand. 'Cause they're like, "Oh, okay, like, I built a website," and then they're like, "What else?" And so you gotta get into the expansion motion, and that's where I think a lot of the money is. And so Webflow need- really needs to nail that.

    21. HSHarry Stebbings51:22

        Do you think Linktree is $100 billion business?

    22. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang51:25

        I think it has a shot to being $100 billion business, um, but I think that the most important thing that we gotta do is we gotta sequence it right. Because the $100 billion version of Linktree is one that is very consumer first, and I think we are far away from that, right? Like, being the place where you actually discover all of the content from your favorite people, that is the $100 billion dollar play. But that is, you, you gotta really, like, crawl, then walk, then run, and we gotta do that in sequence.

    23. HSHarry Stebbings51:55

        No, I totally agree with you. I, I'm constantly telling Alex we just need to be like TikTok. (laughs) 'Cause a lot of what-

    24. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang52:01

        I, I actually... So, I think that if you go too hard there, you're gonna be underwhelming, and people are just gonna be like, "Nah, no thanks." But if you, if again, going back to the crawl to walk to run, this is where I think, like, if Linktree today, you're like, "Hey, we do have just a lot of people using Linktree. We have some semblance of, like, this is, like, people's most important stuff." If we get to a world where it's like, "Hey, there is repeat usage," like, like, creators are actively... Like, there's no more, like, go from your Instagram to your Linktree to your LTK or to your Shopify. Like, if you just, like, cut that layer out, that's where I think it gets really interesting. That's the crawl, right? So, you're like, "Okay, like, we are gonna be, like, the... We're gonna get closer to being a destination than being just a train station, or at the very least, we're gonna cut out one stop in the multiple stops of the train station." And so th- I think that's the crawl phase. And then I think, like, you get to run, and the run phase is like, "Oh, my gosh. Like, we have all the data. We have all these brands coming." Because we have brands coming, creators will go to the place where brands are because they offer partnerships. Like, that's the, the run. Or sorry, that's the walk. And then over time, you earn your right

14. 53:06 – 58:17

    Quick-Fire Round

    1. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang53:06

       to run.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings53:06

       Listen, I wanna do a quick fire round. So, I say a short statement and you give me your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay?

    3. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang53:11

       Sounds great.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings53:13

       So, what's the most common reason founders don't get product-market fit, in your mind?

    5. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang53:17

       I would say it's because they jumped straight to the solution space, and they skipped really understanding people's problems.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings53:24

       What's your biggest advice to PMs who want to get promoted today?

    7. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang53:28

       Be very, very useful. (laughs) Um, stop thinking about the promotion. Just do really great work on an area that is high impact. And then lastly, I would also say, like, be known for something. So, be incredibly good at one thing that you develop a brand around it, and so you're constantly picked because of that brand.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings53:45

       What's the most recent wow moment you've had with a consumer product, and what was it about it that made it so special?

    9. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang53:50

       Uh, I'll give you two, actually. I think that one, obviously, is, like, ChatGPT. Like, with every version you're like, "Oh, my gosh." Like, yesterday's announcement, you were like, "Ah, we are in the world of Her, and this is really amazing, multimodal, like, being able to take all these inputs, video, audio, super cool." Um, but I would also say, you know, Quest has actually come a really long way. I think that when Zuck al- first bought Oculus, I was like, "Huh? Like, what?" (laughs) Um, and, and then I actually give Zuck a lot of credit for, like, really seeing, like, the long-term view and using the most latest version of th- uh, the Quest. So, like, Oculus, Oculus Quest, you know, Quest 1, so forth. Like, I'm pretty blown away about how far it's come 'cause before, the earlier version that I tried is, like, made me sick. It had to, like, have all these sensors, it was really plugged in. And being able to just, like, put the thing on and do a workout, it- it's been amazing.

    10. HSHarry Stebbings54:41

        What function has the most tension with product?

    11. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang54:44

        Every function should have tension with product. I typically would say it comes in the form of, like, sales and engineering in the sense that they're always asking for... Th- they're trying to push on prioritization probably as much as product is. But I really believe in the best orgs, there's always tension across all the functions, but then the product person is able to dissipate that tension and turn it into something really productive.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings55:04

        What would you most like to change about the world of product today?

    13. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang55:07

        Going back to what we were talking about before, it's a chicken and egg thing. To get a great product job, you have to have been a product manager before. So, how do you break that cycle? I think taking bets on younger people. You know, I teach a course. I hire from my course. I really believe that we should be hiring designers especially from the younger generations who just... You know, there's so many people where you're like, they, like, use something like Snap and they're like, "I don't get it," versus, like, Gen Z, they're like, "Oh.... I get it, this is how we grew up and this is like, I'm okay with the idea of, like, there's more flexibility, personalization. I actually love that. They're able to see some of those trends in a way that I think that, like, not all older (laughs) folks, myself included, are able to see. So I really f- like, want to give more young people that opportunity to build.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings55:54

        When you think about other companies' product strategy, which one have you been most impressed by recently?

    15. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang55:59

        It's hard to pick one, but I- I've touched on two of them just (clears throat) so far. So the first one is OpenAI. I think just the way they've been able to execute, you know, them going after search, I think that is very obvious value-add. Like, what is the search experience in a world where we can actually have, like, AI, right? Like, I think they've really executed really well there. So if you can just imagine a world where you take some of the components of like Arc browser organization, you merge it with, you know, ChatGPT, kind of like th- the power of it. They just hired the search leader from Google. Like, the- they are going to go after that space, which is, like, the most lucrative space and also a space that, you know, should be innovated on. Like, that's very impressive. I think another one, I- I talked about Zuck. I just feel like, you know, what he's seen with, like, something like VR/AR, but also even- even something as simple as, like, messaging. But, like, just the way he thought about the world of, like, here's Facebook, here's WhatsApp, here's a Venn diagram of people who use the two things. And in a future where we want to reach everyone and, like, getting in touch with people, like, that, like whether it's customers or friends, like, that is the most valuable thing. Being able to bet on something like a WhatsApp that has the market penetration it does, and also really relies on the fact that the rest of the world, like, very data. Like, oh sorry, data meaning like, you know, telecom data, right? Like, very data-driven. Like, it's just super, super smart, and I do think WhatsApp is doing crazy amount of business, and, like, just being able to see those chess moves is really fascinating. And maybe the last one I- I just say is, like, t- 'cause I have kids, and so I've been suckered into paying for that subscription, but, like, Disney+ is also really fascinating, because I feel like what Disney saw at the end of the day very quickly, um, well actually, maybe they could have seen it even faster, but this idea of, like, at the end of the day, like, streaming platforms are all the same. Content is king. Like, who has the content? Disney has the content, right? And so, like, just, like, I've just been really impressed by some of these, um, companies seeing some of these, like, bigger moves and going for it. Like, taking that big bet.

    16. HSHarry Stebbings57:53

        L- listen, I- I totally agree with you on Disney+, and I think that Zuck is probably consistently the most underrated CEO. I'm like the biggest buyer of META stock that there could be, so, uh, I'm totally aligned here.

    17. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang58:05

        Yeah.

    18. HSHarry Stebbings58:05

        And this has been so much fun, right? You saw the schedule that we sent beforehand, didn't really stick to it, so I'm glad that I sent it so late. Um, but thank you so much for being so brilliant, and also for such a great discussion.

    19. JZJiaona “JZ” Zhang58:16

        Of course, it was super fun.

Episode duration: 58:18