Kayvon Beykpour: How to Structure and Manage the Best Product Reviews | 20VC #894

1. 0:00 – 0:24

   Intro

   1. KBKayvon Beykpour0:00

      (beeping) Three, two, one, zero. (ding) You have now arrived at your destination.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings0:09

      Kayvon, this is such a joy for me to do. I've been so looking forward to this one. I've been a fan from afar for a while, and then when Scott Belsky said, "Kayvon is the best, you have to have him on," I jumped at the chance. So thank you so much for joining me today.

   3. KBKayvon Beykpour0:22

      Thanks for having me. Great to meet you, Harry.

2. 0:24 – 3:01

   How did you meet Scott Belsky?

   1. KBKayvon Beykpour0:24

   2. HSHarry Stebbings0:24

      It is so great to me. But I wanna start with actually the story of you and Scott that we just touched on before. So tell me, how did you and Scott first engage around Periscope? And talk to me about that first encounter in those early days of Periscope.

   3. KBKayvon Beykpour0:41

      Yeah. So, um, I was actually introduced to Scott by, um, an investor who we had pitched on Periscope. Um, and this is before we'd even built the product. We had mock-ups, we had prototypes, we had basically a fundraising deck, and this was at the time, I think we had t- like it was just me and my co-founder. Maybe we had, like, one or two other people that we were already working with, um, on, on the early team. But this was, like, pre-the app existing, um, and we were doing fundraising 'cause we wanted to hire a team. And, um, basically, like, everyone said no, um, but a few people were interested. And one of the VCs who we had pitched, um, who ended up saying no, by the way, was like, "Eh, this isn't really for me, but I've been talking to this guy, Scott Belsky, who had, like, shared an idea similar to this back in the day. Let me put you in touch with him because maybe you two can, can hit it off." Um, which I'm so grateful for that introduction because I ended up, um, talking to Scott probably a week later, and we just, it, like, it was instant chemistry. First of all, he had been thinking about this idea. And, uh, you know, at the time, we sort of were imagining, um ... What we wanted to build with Periscope was, like, the closest thing to teleportation, you know? Like, we didn't actually know how to build, like, the Star, Star Trek manifestation of, um, you know, you know, uh, beaming people anywhere, um, though that would be really, really cool. Like, we're just not that smart. So we were like, what's the easiest way we can build the most analogous version of this with the technology we have today? And that's when sort of, like, live streaming entered the picture. And Scott, for whatever reason, gi- you know, he's brilliant in his own way, and had been, uh, very successful building Behance and all that. This idea had been sort of stuck in his mind for, for a long time as well. So I think we instantly hit it off for the shared love we had for this, for this dream. Um, and in that first conversation, I can't tell you how refreshing it was, having spent weeks trying to fundraise and getting, you know, striking out left and right. Scott was like, "I'm in. I wanna support you guys." Um, he wrote us, uh, he wrote us, like, a th- uh, well, I don't wanna share how much the check was. But he wrote us a substantially sized check and, and was like, "I wanna be on the team and help you guys make this come to life." Um, and from then on, you know, Scott was just part of our, he was part of our team. He was, like, just an incredible resource for us to, um, you know, keep iterating on this dream and turning it into a reality eventually.

3. 3:01 – 5:08

   What lessons from Scott impacted you?

   1. KBKayvon Beykpour3:01

   2. HSHarry Stebbings3:01

      Can I ask, you mentioned before we, when we were chatting, that actually some of his lessons really impacted you and how you thought. When you think back to the discussions in the early days, are there any that stand out in terms of really impacting your product thinking?

   3. KBKayvon Beykpour3:16

      I think one of the things that's always stood out to me about Scott is, he's, he's, he's a really powerful storyteller.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings3:25

      Mm-hmm.

   5. KBKayvon Beykpour3:25

      Um, and, you know, the, the ... It's really important to turn tangible product ideas into dreams, and be able to interpolate between the two. Like, a- here's an example of what I mean, right? Like, mechanically speaking, Periscope is a live s- Periscope was a live streaming platform, right? (laughs) You start a live stream, anyone can watch it. And that's, that's great. It's, like, very descriptive to des- to describe things that way, right? But that's one way of describing things. It's another way to describe it to say, you know, Periscope is the closest thing to teleportation. Periscope can help bring truth and empathy to, um, to communication, right? Truth because it's live, it's undisputed. You, you can't debate what's happening. It's, like, literally unfolding in front of you. There's no filters, there's no editing. And empathy because if you can step in someone's shoes and hear their perspective and hear the intonation in their voice, that's really powerful. And, like, that's a total reframing of what is otherwise a very mechanical feature. And I think Scott really influenced how we thought about that, just 'cause his brain works that way, right? Like, one of the reasons he was attracted to this idea was this metaphor of teleportation. And so I think it's probably a very subtle thing that he maybe didn't even think twice about when, when, you know, in our early conversations, but it really influenced how we thought about the product, and it's influenced how I think about all the work that I do. Like, Periscope aside, being able to interpolate between the mechanics of a product and the dream of a product, um, I think is really important to tease out your own excitement about an idea and how big it can be. But also, things like recruiting, being able to explain to others and appeal to others what the potential of a product is. Like, Scott just has that in his bones in a way that's really awesome.

4. 5:08 – 7:12

   What makes great storytelling?

   1. KBKayvon Beykpour5:08

   2. HSHarry Stebbings5:08

      Man, I am getting excited because I think one of the biggest crimes today is actually kind of the lost art of storytelling. I think with the proliferation of capital we've seen, the need to tell a great story is almost reduced. My question to you is, in that kind of transition between the mechanics and the dream, what, what makes the art of the great storytell? Is it resonating with someone? Is it familiarity? How do you think about what makes greatness in that respect?

   3. KBKayvon Beykpour5:35

      Good, g- great stories are compelling. Great stories are, um, uh, some interesting combination of familiar and incredibly not familiar. You know, like that, that line is very interesting. Like, sometimes a very familiar story can, can tug your heartstrings in a way that's really powerful. And sometimes, a very unfamiliar story can be appealing in its own respect, right? Like, it sort of puts you out of your comfort zone, and, and makes you excited about something you haven't thought about. Um, great stories are inspiring. Great stories are ... make you feel like, um ...... larger than life or bigger than yourself. Like, there's all kinds of ways that I think, um, you could describe great storytelling based on all the books and movies and stories that we've all, all read. And being able to extract those lessons into, you know, creating stories out of all the work we do, I think is just a really important superpower, right? Like, we invest a lot of time and effort into our work, um, and if we can, if we can create compelling stories for ourselves and for the people who we're trying to recruit to, um, you know, work on those things with us, it's really powerful. And then on the other side of the equation, for customers, um, you know, people ha- ha- people are spoiled for choice, right, in terms of the products they can use, the, um, the tools that they have at their disposal. And I think it's a, it's an underrated quality to be able to, um, you know, have the story and what the product stands for be one of the defining characteristics. Um, so I think you're right, it is k- kind of a lost art of storytelling, but something that is really, really important.

5. 7:12 – 12:11

   What were biggest takeaways from Periscope?

   1. KBKayvon Beykpour7:12

   2. HSHarry Stebbings7:12

      Before we dive into the show, I do have to ask you, I was a big fan of Periscope. When you look back at that time and that journey, what were some of the biggest takeaways from that experience, particularly from a product's perspective, that impacted your view on product today, and, and how you kind of approach that with Twitter?

   3. KBKayvon Beykpour7:31

      Um, some important takeaways. Um... (smacks lips) Well, I'll, I'll give you one that's, um, n- not so much about the product, but about the process of starting a company and building something. Like, here is the interesting thing about the idea behind Periscope. Mechanically speaking, you know, back in 2014 when we were building Periscope, the idea of a, like, a live streaming app was not new or r- or, like, rocket science, right? Like, there was a graveyard of consumer live streaming apps that had been, that had been tried for five years before. And then you had apps like, you know, YouTube and Livestream, and I think Vimeo at the time might have had live streaming as well, or maybe this is before they acquired. But anyway, like, there's a bunch of these tools out there. So, you know, everyone's first thought when they, when they hear about a new live streaming app is like, "Okay, another, another fucking one of these? Like, what, (laughs) why do we need this?" And, and by the way, like, no one uses this on mobile devices, 'cause you had apps like Justin.tv that, you know, didn't quite get, go anywhere in terms of the consumer live streaming angle, right? They pivoted into more specialized use cases, like, like Twitch. Um, and so, um, one of the most, like, painful takeaways of that era for me was just how many people thought this was a terrible idea, and how frustrating that was for a group of, you know, people, um, on our founding team that were just really excited about something and had this, like, irrational desire to give, give birth to this thing that no one seemed to give a shit about. Um, and that, the lesson for me there is, um, you gotta be really good at ... k- knowing when other people thinking your idea is terrible should be ignored (laughs) and, like, persevering through that, but not so much that you're lying to yourself. Like, at some threshold, like, it is a bad idea, (laughs) and, like, the, the, the gap in between those two, two things is really, really important. I am sure as hell glad that we did not listen to the many, many people who straight up told us, like, "This is a stupid idea and it will never work."

   4. HSHarry Stebbings9:31

      (laughs)

   5. KBKayvon Beykpour9:31

      Um, so I think-

   6. HSHarry Stebbings9:32

      I think it's called a r- a resilient mind, my friend. (laughs)

   7. KBKayvon Beykpour9:36

      Well, yeah, and that, th- so that's one takeaway for me is, like, th- that whole experience was fascinating. I think from a product standpoint, there's so many interesting lessons. One, we were ruthless about, um, our belief in needing to lower the latency of live video. And what I mean by that is, like, the, the time differential between when Harry, the live streamer, is doing something and when the viewer sees it had to be as close to zero as possible. And mind you, at the time, all live streams that you and I would have interacted with at that, in that time were on the order of, like, 45 seconds or more delayed, because they, they didn't need to be any faster, right? If you watch a YouTube live stream or if you watched, uh, a corporate live stream or whatever of an event, a 45 second or even a minute plus, um, second latency is no problem, right? There's no interaction between the viewer and the broadcaster that would command the need for a faster latency, right? Like, you watch something on TV, no one knows or gives a shit that it's a minute plus latency. And it's important. You have to have a high-quality stream, the buffer needs to be, you know, large enough, and so on and so forth. We were doing something different, right? W- our whole premise was in order to, for it to feel like teleportation, you had to feel like you could rent the eyes and ears of whoever was on the other side broadcasting. And mechanically what that means is Kayvon the viewer needs to be able to influence what Harry the broadcaster is doing, right? If I say like, "Hey, walk left into that room," I wanna see you walk left, like, quickly. Otherwise, it, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't feel like it's actually an interactive experience. And we wanted to break that wall, that fourth wall. And so technically what that meant is we had to take what was sort of industry standard as, like, tens of seconds, if not more, of latency, and bring it down to, like, sub five seconds. And that was an incredible technical challenge that now I think is much more commonplace. Like, we, you know, we literally helped contribute to libraries that, um, um, make this easier to do technically than it was back then. But back then, it was, like, a pretty immense technical effort, and I'm really proud that we, I'm really proud that we invested all that time. Because one of the most magical things about Periscope in the first, like, few months of it being live was people who used it for the first time, their minds were blown. When they would say s- they would type a comment being like, "Ha ha, like, Harry's hair is funny. It looks like a mohawk today," and two seconds later, Harry would be like, "You're right, it does look like a mohawk." And the viewers would be like, "Holy shit, what the, what did, what just happened? Like, I said something and he just responded? Like, this, that's crazy." And it seems so normal now, but at the time, it was a mind-blowing and magical part of...... of the experience of Periscope. Uh, so that-

   8. HSHarry Stebbings12:09

      I, I, I remember. It was that wow moment

6. 12:11 – 14:17

   Is product more art or science?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings12:11

      for sure. We mentioned the art of storytelling. In terms of art and applying it to product, you know, we see kind of this very data-centric, metric-driven approach to product today as well. I'm super interested, how do you think about product? Is it more art or science? What would you say? 80/20? 20/80? How do you think about product as more art or more science today?

   2. KBKayvon Beykpour12:33

      It's hard to put numbers to these things. Um, I certainly think that, um, it's a combination of both. There's a lot of science involved, right? Like, um, you, you need to be really good at understanding customer needs. You need to be good at understanding data. Um, you need to be good at, um ... and it also depends on what we're talking about, product generally or whether we're talking about p- product management. But certainly, i- i- as far as product management is concerned, like, being able to, um, communicate clearly around, um, roadmaps and strategies and tactics and sequencing when you're trying to coordinate among- amongst a large group of people that have to collaborate together to make something happen, like, there's a lot of science involved there. Um, I think that art is, frankly, the most underappreciated part of it, like the art of storytelling and, um, the sort of passion and emotion that should go into building products. I have never... I cannot think of a single product that I love that, that, um, wasn't built with a high degree of emotion involved. Like, if you think of, like, the, the most iconic products and, and the teams that built them, I would suspect that they were, like, deeply emotional, um, in, in not a pejorative way, in like, in, in a, um, really valuable way about what they were doing, why they were doing it, why it was important for the world. And so I think, to me, that's like, where a lot of the art comes in, um, right? Like, having, having conviction and passion about something needing to exist in the world and fixing some wrong, or making, um, improving or making less frustrating some, some existing experience. Um, so I think that the, the best products are built with, you know, some combination

7. 14:17 – 17:43

   What does product management mean?

   1. KBKayvon Beykpour14:17

      of, of art and science.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings14:18

      You me- you mentioned the kind of, the difference product and product management. I find product management a kind of term thrown around today, with actually little thought about real definition, and I think it means different things to different people. How do you think about the definition of what product management really means to you?

   3. KBKayvon Beykpour14:36

      Well, b- maybe it's more helpful starting first with, like, what, what is the role of a product manager, and then we can expand out to, like, product management-

   4. HSHarry Stebbings14:45

      Let's, let's do that.

   5. KBKayvon Beykpour14:45

      ... more generally. I think, I think in its simplest form, like, the role, um, the distinct role of a product manager, and I say distinct because on small teams, like, everyone needs to shoulder all the responsibilities, or at- at least I think that can be very powerful for small teams. But I think the distinct role of a product manager is they are the person who should be defining, um, the vision and mission and purpose and strategy of a, of a product, and why it matters for the customer, and, and why and how it can be impactful for the business. Like, the, the why of the product, um, and the how we will measure its success, I think typically we expect product managers to be able to, like, be chiefly responsible for, um, coming up with that definition (laughs) and making sure everyone on the team understands it, right? 'Cause if we're swimming in the wrong direction, or if we're all optimizing for different outcomes, that's not helping anyone. It's not helping the customer. It's not helping the team. And I think a product manager can, can, can be like the, the quarterback that, um, is responsible for making sure there's, at all times, clarity around, like, what are we building? Why? How do we measure its success? Um, so that's like one piece of it, and the other piece of it, I think, is, um, especially for, for larger teams, as, as products scale or as companies scale, there's a lot of people that need to work together and collaborate together across a lot of disciplines, um, to make a product come to life. And part of the role of the p- the product manager and product management is to quarterback that process and coordinate that process, um, and make sure that all these pieces can come together in a really effective way. Um, an- and again, the needs here differ in scale as the company scales or the product scales, right? Like the, all the things that we just talked about look quite different if you're a five-person startup, right? So that you're coordinating among- amongst a maximum of five people. Whereas, like if you bring that out to Twitter's scale, most projects, even the simplest projects at Twitter could potentially have dozens of people working on them, and then complex projects have hundreds of people, right? And that doesn't mean hundreds of people are working at one time, but you know, across product and engineering and design and research and customer service and legal and privacy and marketing and... You know, that's a lot of people to make sure, um, are clear around: What are we doing? Why are we doing it? How do we measure success? Are we all working on the, on the right pieces at the right time and aligned towards the right outcome? And I think, so the product manager bit is really, really critical. To me, product management, if you sort of abstract that out and you have a growing and large organization with, with, with a, with a product portfolio that has lots of different pieces, you know, product management is the group that, um, should be collectively responsible for, um, you know, defining our strategy, uh, making the su- success criteria clear, um, you know, at the, at the largest scale, and, um, you know, making sure that we're ultimately prioritizing, right? 'Cause doing this at scale across a bunch of different products

8. 17:43 – 19:42

   When to hire your first Product Manager?

   1. KBKayvon Beykpour17:43

      is really hard.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings17:45

      Kayvon, you're gonna help me here. I'm a first-time founder. I am building my team, and you are my brilliant advisor. Uh, I, I think I need to hire my first PM, but I'm not sure that now's the right time. When do you think is the right time to hire your first PM? What are signals that would suggest now is the right time?

   3. KBKayvon Beykpour18:04

      Well, I think one signal is if, um, if the team is constantly reacting to...... um, what the product needs. Like, if you're constantly underwater and the things you end up prioritizing, or the things you learn really late are broken, um, and you're, you're not feeling like you can be proactive around identifying where the product is going, then that means that the team is collectively, whatever the current recipe of folks on the team are, doesn't have the right balance of, um, being able to think proactively versus just reacting to things that are happening. And so, that might be a one good signal of, like, "Well, the division of labor and the time allocation right now just isn't right." So you either need to hire a PM to help think about that stuff or hire a PM to help take on a lot of the, the work that's, like, happening so that the, the right subset of people, like the founders or the head of product or design or engineering, whatever, can start to think more about that stuff proactively. Because that can be a very dangerous slippery slope if the team collectively ends up just being reactive rather than thinking about where the, where the product should be going. Um, so that's one. Two, I think another signal is if the team is getting large enough that there's a lot of, um, um, sort of communication lossiness around, "All right. Like, we're, we're doing a lot of stuff now, but not everyone's clear on what the priorities are and we're feeling really disheveled and organized just 'cause it's, like, becoming very expensive to keep everyone on the same page," that can be another signal that you need, um, you need help. And a pr- sort of the, the classical skills that come along with a product manager are very effective at filling those gaps. Um, those are probably, I think, the two most

9. 19:42 – 20:36

   How to structure the hiring process of PM?

   1. KBKayvon Beykpour19:42

      powerful ones, but-

   2. HSHarry Stebbings19:43

      Okay. So now, we have those signals. That's exactly what I'm feeling. You, you... We've got it. I need my first PM. Fuck, I've never hired a PM before Kayvon. I don't know how to structure the hiring process. How do you literally structure the hiring process for a PM? What does that look like in a very granular fashion for you?

   3. KBKayvon Beykpour20:03

      Um, well, I think the answer to this question probably can and should differ for- depending on the stage of the company. Um, I think that the needs of a p- the needs and the skills that I'd look for for- in a PM at a very, very small company, um, would have some subtle and important differences compared to, um, what you would look for in, in a, um, at a company like the size and scale of a Twitter. Uh, there's certainly lots of shared, shared similarities there, but I think that's, like,

10. 20:36 – 22:50

    Advice to startups on first PM hire

    1. KBKayvon Beykpour20:36

       one important thing-

    2. HSHarry Stebbings20:37

       That's-

    3. KBKayvon Beykpour20:38

       ... that-

    4. HSHarry Stebbings20:38

       L- let's focus on early stage startup. If we think we have, say, 400,000 startup founders that listen, if we think about them hiring their first PMs, what would you say for their hiring process?

    5. KBKayvon Beykpour20:50

       Well, r- rather than process, maybe first talking about, like, what some of the most important skills are, and then you can build a process around that. I think-

    6. HSHarry Stebbings20:56

       Sure.

    7. KBKayvon Beykpour20:56

       ... um, from a skills standpoint, I think at an early stage, a PM needs to be in, like, in an in- in- infectious truth seeker of what customers need and want. Like, they need to be immersed in your product. And if they're not immersed in your product, they need to have the right skills that will make them the m- like, the most intimate understander of all things that are working well and not working well about the product. They need to be, like, ruthless about spending time with customers. They need to be using the product themselves if that's viable for whatever the product is. Um, and they need to be just, um, hoovering up as much data points, either qualitative or quantitative, around, like, what's working and not working of the product. That's, that's one. Two, um, they need to be, like, incredibly comfortable with ambiguity and with, um, kind of doing whatever it takes. Like, the, the, the startup mode in particular, I think, there's so many ambiguities of being at an early stage startup. And, um, it is not a role... It's- it is not an environment where people who need extreme clarity can thrive in, I believe. Right?

    8. HSHarry Stebbings22:04

       Mm-hmm.

    9. KBKayvon Beykpour22:04

       Like, you need to feel comfortable wearing multiple hats. You need to be comfortable doing things as part of your job description that may not necessarily be part of the classical job description. Um, and I think at a s- at, um... I sometimes see, like, folks that have only worked at larger companies struggle with this because they're so used to having a lot of structure and clarity around, like, "Okay. My job is this, and therefore, my expectations are this. And, like, there are other people who do the other things." Um, and that's, like, a very clean and convenient way of looking at the world. But at a startup, like, just- that- that is just now how the world works. Right? Um, so I think that having someone who's comfortable with ambiguity and comfortable wearing multiple hats and comfortable doing what it takes, um, to scrappily make things work while still having an eye towards making them more durable over time is

11. 22:50 – 24:17

    How to tell if a PM will be comfortable in the job?

    1. KBKayvon Beykpour22:50

       really, really important.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings22:51

       What questions or signs would suggest to you that someone is comfortable? 'Cause they'll say, "Yeah, I'm super comfortable, very flexible, always happy to move with times," but actually, they're not. What are signs or questions that would tease out or suggest someone does actually have that?

    3. KBKayvon Beykpour23:09

       I think hearing about their experience. Right? Like, I think hearing stories of what folks have done in their prior roles and what the, what, what challenges they overcame, or what... You know, even just, like, asking very high-level prompts like, "What's the gnarliest, most frustrating thing you've had to deal with in your last role? Either some customer problem you had to solve or some team dynamic that was really, um, really stressful, and how did you navigate it?" And I think just hearing people talk about, um... Like, ev- ev- people will direct you in very helpful ways if you give them prompts about their own experience, um, and that in itself can be very illuminating. Right? Hearing them share their recollection of something that they perceive to be challenging for them and how they overcame it and how they navigated it. And I think in those stories, you can learn a lot around A, what they've experienced, and B, how they, how they think about these, these, these challenges. So it's always imperfect. Like, you won't really know until you work with someone, but I think, um, soliciting these anecdotes of their experience, um, can be far more helpful than that sort of cookie-cutter interview questions that are easy for folks to have

12. 24:17 – 25:41

    What questions to ask in product interviews?

    1. KBKayvon Beykpour24:17

       good prepared answers to.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings24:19

       Do you have favorite questions that you do like to ask in product interviews?

    3. KBKayvon Beykpour24:23

       Um, I like the really open-ended questions that will solicit the stories, right? Like asking folks to, to describe something they've worked on in their last role or in any role that they're most proud of. Um, something that they, you know, what's something you t- like completely whiffed and failed at? You thought it was totally gonna work, but it didn't, and like what did you learn from that experience? Um, um, eh, I, I think it's important to hear about interpersonal challenges too. Like what's, you know, what's an area of conflict you had? Especially for larger, um, folks that are coming into a larger environment or a larger team, like walk me through a really gnarly interpersonal conflict you had and like how did you, how did you navigate it? Um, I think s- open-ended product ones, I love asking folks, um, what is your, like what is one product that you use every day but can't stand using? Like you wish you didn't have to use it every day, but you do. Um, and then also like what's, what's a product or, or service that you adore and love? However big or small it might be, like why, you know, why do you love it? I think just getting people to talk about the things they enjoy and the things they don't enjoy and why, um, is, is helpful. You learn a lot about them. And it's, it's less about judging the thing itself and more about just hearing, um, you know,

13. 25:41 – 27:20

    Where do founders go wrong in hiring?

    1. KBKayvon Beykpour25:41

       hearing how they, how they think about it.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings25:43

       Where do you think many founders go wrong or make mistakes when it comes to hiring their first product people? Could be PMs, could be more general product team.

    3. KBKayvon Beykpour25:52

       I think the most classical mistake is actually not in making hiring mistakes, but in making, in making the mistake of waiting too long to realize you made a mistake, right? Like, that's the, in my experience, the way harder thing. Um, like you can, you can get really good and you should get really good screening, um, for the right candidates for the right roles at your company. But th- there's always a certain element of, um, un- unpredictability or a certain chance that someone ends up not being the right role for the right n- job. And I think all too often, I've made this mistake (laughs) plenty of times myself, you just realize that too late and it takes too, too long to, um, it takes too long to tr- transition that person out, um, and that is really, really expensive. It's expensive for the, um, the hiring manager. It's not, you know, doing any favors to the, to the candidate who will likely have a better chance succeeding somewhere else. And it's not great for the team, right? The team ultimately, um... Teams who work on really hard problems can either be incredibly inspired by the strength and quality and comradery of their teammates or can be incredibly demoralized by a teammate who's just not the right person for the right role.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings27:07

       Yeah.

    5. KBKayvon Beykpour27:07

       Uh, and that I think is f- the far more common mistake of, of just taking too long to figure that out.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings27:13

       I, eh, you know, I think it's the hardest thing across all roles to be honest, which is like acting decisively enough and moving with speed and,

14. 27:20 – 31:23

    How do you do product reviews?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings27:20

       and executing well there. I, I do want to ask you, I find product reviews fascinating, uh, especially looking in from the outside. When you think about product reviews for you, how do you do product reviews? How often do you do them? Who's invited to them? Can you take me inside the world of how you structure them and, and organize them?

    2. KBKayvon Beykpour27:38

       Sure. Um, so I'll, I'll, I'll first give you the what, and then I'll give you the why. So in terms of like the what, um, we have product reviews on a week- or I, I host product reviews on a weekly basis. Um, and the reason I say I is like cascading down our product organization, some of our product leads have their own cadences around product reviews as well. But sort of at the leadership level, we have weekly product reviews, um, where we have three slots a week. And, um, each of those slots are 45 minutes, um, followed by a 15-minute debrief, which is just for like the leadership team to kind of get our thoughts together. Um, so we end up at most, um, or we typically try and get an average of three of these reviews in a week. Um, and, um, eh, sort of mechanically, like team, team comes in. They share some, um, you know, the product reviews either like at early hypothesis stage, like we're sort of like forming the strategy, here's kind of where we think this is going and we want to get feedback and input on the strategy, the success, success criteria, maybe some early thoughts on the experience. Or it's more of an experiential product review, like this product is actively being built or exists and it's pre-launched, like here's how we're thinking about to go to market. Um, here's what the actual product looks like. We'll do a live demo. Or it's usually a post-launch review, um, and what that means is like this is a product that we've actually launched already or it's, um, um, it's been in the market for a while or it's been in experiment for a while, and really the objective of this review is to understand how is it working? What have we learned qualitatively, quantitatively, and how we're thinking about next steps. So those are like the three different archetypes of the reviews. Um, and we try and have a cadence where we see at least three of these a week. Um, and so that's, that's like, that's the what. The why, um, I, at least the most helpful way that I've th- thought about this, and we've actually iterated on this quite a bit, um, recently, I think there's like two customers for a product review. There's the team that's a customer and then there's like the leadership team that's a customer. Um, the purpose of the product reviews for the team is this is an opportunity for them to get feedback and input from, um, hopefully a smart group of leaders cross-functionally, right? So it's not just me. It's, um, our head of design, our head of engineering, um, our head of research. Uh, basically my cross-functional leadership team for, for consumer, our head of data science, et cetera. Um, and here's an opportunity for you as a team to share your convictions, your strategy, your roadmap with a group of really smart people that are less connected, they're less in the weeds. Like they can kind of look at this from a fresh perspective, you know, through their own vantage point and give you feedback on like, um, either challenging the ideas or, or pushing on, on, on some threads that you might not have pushed on or, um, or just hopefully providing some insight from a different vantage point. Um, and it also can be helpful if you are feeling stuck or, um, if there's a gnarly d- decision to be m- made that you really need input on or n- you need a decision on from, from leadership, which hopefully is rare, but, um, nevertheless happens. So that's one customer. The other customer is the leadership team, right? Like, what, what I get out of product reviews and why I g-... I want to, um, attend them and, and have them is, it is an opportunity for us to get a sense of, how are our teams working, how is our product evolving, what are our teams contemplating? Um, both th- for the product itself, like, "Are we aiming in the right direction? Do we have the right ambition? Do we have the right succs- success criteria?" Um, and also, it can be a helpful macro look at how the teams are actually working, right? Do we, um... Are, are we seeing the right dynamics? Uh, do we have the right velocity? Do we have the right, um, calibration of ambition? And I think, you know, these deep dives into little microcosms of our team can be very helpful for us to have pattern recognition around what's working

15. 31:23 – 34:03

    What are the signs that a team isn’t working well?

    1. KBKayvon Beykpour31:23

       well and what's not working well on our teams.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings31:25

       What are the signs that it's not working well? If it's not working well, what do you do?

    3. KBKayvon Beykpour31:32

       Um, signs that are... that it's not working well. Um, uh, slow velocity, right? Like if, if the team is just, um, treading water and spinning their wheels, and week after week or product review after product review, it just seems like displacement is zero, that's never a good sign. Um, another sign is, um, if the team doesn't convey strong conviction. Like oftentimes, teams make the mistake of assuming that, um, they just need to share what they think leadership wants to hear, and that's actually far from the case. Like what we actually care about, what I care about is, like, the team has a very strong point of view, right? And, and it's very easy to kind of smell test whether they do or they don't, and whether they are just kind of... E- either they're genuinely lost or they're lost and they're just trying to, you know, share a plan that they think will, you know, be blessed by leadership. And that, that's like, I think very corrosive to, um, progress and ultimately the, uh, um, likelihood of like, solving the customer problem. And so, I think, um, that's a sign that we, we try and look for. It's like... A- and the way you, you really tease that out is really pushing the team, like, "Why, why do you, why do you feel this way? Like, why is this the hypothesis? Why is, why is this the solution to the problem that you pushed on?" And like, "Why not this hypothetically?" Um, and what we'd like to hear in those situations is the team standing up for their perspective and really articulating, um, you know, with conviction, w- why approach X is the right approach. And I think some of my most... some of my favorite product reviews are ones where like, intuitively I'm like, "Ah, this doesn't really resonate with me." And, but when pushing the team, they're like, "Here's why you're wrong. Here's why, like, we think this is right." Like, that's awesome. I love when that happens.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings33:20

       Yeah.

    5. KBKayvon Beykpour33:20

       Um, and frankly, there's a lot of, um... there's a lot of accountability here on the leadership team, because how we conduct ourselves can sometimes set the impression that we are giving teams directives rather than just giving them feedback, and that's something that we also have to take responsibility for. And I, I fall into this trap myself all the time, right? Like, I tend to be very passionate and say things with conviction, but 90% of the time, I'm saying things with conviction not because I'm t- telling the team to do it. I'm just teasing out an idea and I... you know, what the fuck do I know? I'm, I'm, I'm g- gonna be wrong, you know, most of the time. But, um, but I think clarifying the distinction between like, input and feedback versus a directive

16. 34:03 – 36:36

    How do you communicate as a leader?

    1. KBKayvon Beykpour34:03

       is very, very important. So we've had to like, actually-

    2. HSHarry Stebbings34:05

       How, how, how do you do that? Is it asking questions, not telling? Is it tone? How has your communication style changed to make that transition?

    3. KBKayvon Beykpour34:14

       I think there's a lot of basic stuff, like asking questions rather than telling, and tone, and, and all of that. Um, but a- above and beyond the basic stuff, what I've learned is, and it's... feels very unnatural, but, but I think it's important to do nonetheless, um, is just repeating to the point of like, utter repetition and seemingly, like, I feel like I'm a broken record here, but like, "Just to be clear, this is me not conveying a decision. This is me just asking the question." Or, um, "Hey, like, please don't take this as a directive, but I'm curious if..." And like, sort of that, that prefix of making clear that conviction that is about to come out of my mouth is purely a conversation starter. Um, like that, I end up almost tr- trying to almost preface every statement I make with that, um, for fear of it not being misconstrued. Um, the other thing that I've learned is important is just, um, regularly communicating with our teams in, in other forums, like, what is the purpose of product review and how, how should you interpret feedback? So like literally just recently, like three weeks ago was, I sent an update to the whole team saying like, "Hey, we've been doing product reviews this way for some time now. Here are some, like, observations and here's some changes that we're making." And on the observation side, one of the things we made very clear, like, it, it... I think it was, we said something along the lines of, "Assume everything you hear from, um, pr- like, leadership at product reviews, including from my mouth directly, is just feedback and input and not a directive, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Like, in the 5% of time that we make a decision that is overruling (laughs) something that you want to do, we will tell you it is a mandate. But if we're doing that more than 5% of the time or 2% of the time, like, something's really broken. The vast majority of the time, we're just sharing feedback with you and we want you to consider it, but not take it religiously, right? If you feel like the feedback is, um, moot or you've considered it and you're going another direction, like, bless you. (claps hands) No problem. Um, but even just clarifying that and making folks hear it directly from us, um, is, is really important, especially given that like, you know, teams grow. Like we, we might feel like we were clear with the team six months ago, but in the last six months, we've hired hundreds of people, you know? Like, they didn't hear it six months ago. And so restating this stuff, even if it feels very repetitive for you, um,

17. 36:36 – 41:05

    How to priortize tasks?

    1. KBKayvon Beykpour36:36

       is, is important.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings36:38

       Can I ask, product reviews generate and garner a lot of feedback and a lot of ideas and discussion. How do you think and advise on prioritization for leaders in terms of what gets done first, given there's a lot of ideas and feedback?

    3. KBKayvon Beykpour36:52

       This is a good question. So, two, two pieces of this. One, ultimately, this is the job of the, of, of the team, and the product manager, I think, has an immensely important role in this, right? Like, you're constantly getting a barrage of input. You're getting input from customers, you're getting input from all of your telemetry, your, your data, your research. You're getting input from leadership. Um, and your job, as a team and as a product manager, is to take all that input in and make organization and prioritization out of chaos. You cannot react to all the things, you should not react to all the things, and you should have a well-tuned barometer about knowing, "Hey, like these nuggets of wisdom are important to incorporate, and all of these other ones, um, are good for us to consider at some point, but not now. And then these three things we should totally ignore. Like, we heard it, and we're deciding to explicitly ignore it." And again, like the specifics matter of like what that specific pie chart looks like, but fundamentally, you cannot react to everything. Um, it's important to take in all the input and make sensible decisions based on all that. Ba- you know, based on what the customer needs, based on where the team is at, based on what, what's important for the business, et cetera. Um, so that, I think, at the team level, is like the strongest line of defense to make sure that, um, you know, feedback and input doesn't become overwhelming. And by the way, having a barrage of input is a gift. Like, having worked on startup, and m- many people who work on startups would be dying to have this problem of like, "Oh my God, there's so many customers to, that are using our product, and we're getting so much feedback that it's like, there's so much noise. How do we sort through it?" Like, many folks would wish that they had that problem. This is something that I think we're incredibly spoiled about at Twitter, right? Like, we work on a product that we could launch the most trivial feature and 50% of our customers will be outraged, and 50% of our customers will be like, "This is amazing." And there's no shortage of feedback, right? Like, we literally operate a product that hundreds of millions of people are using on a daily basis, and they use our product to give us feedback. Like, this is an incredible gift (laughs) , and it's also incredibly, um, distracting sometimes, right? Like, I get all the mentions every single day in my inbox of like all the verification requests, all the feature requests, like, and that's incredible, but you have to be really good at sorting through it and prioritizing and not l- not succumbing to the weight of it all. Um, so that's one piece of it. Sorry, long-winded answer to your question. The other piece of it is, as a leadership team, we have a huge responsibility when we, um, do product reviews to make sure we are giving clear and not distracting feedback. What I mean by that, if y- i- if you're a, a team, right? If you're a cross-functional team working on some feature, DMs, or you're working on some new feature in DMs, and you come to product review and there's, you know, eight leaders across the company that are giving you... And sometimes, by the way, like the CEO might be there, and you hear 14 different pieces of feedback, and some of them, by the way, are contradictory because like the engineering lead might have a different perspective than the product lead. Um, it behooves us, I think, as a leadership team, to really get crisp on like, okay, what do, what do we actually think is the most important feedback for this team so that we're not overwhelming them and spinning them in different directions? And so one of the, one of the things we've started doing, um, and maybe there are better ways of doing it, but this is just like the way we've adjusted doing it, is, um, after the pro- after we have the live product review, we have a debrief as a leadership team, 15-minute debrief, where we try and, amongst ourselves, say, "All right, we just talked about a lot of stuff. What's the most useful feedback we can, like clarify and, and write down? Let's like write it down, like four or five bullets," right? Like, "Hey, like here's our takeaway feedback for you all." Like, you know, "Please, um, t- take it in, under, under consideration and like, great job. Thank you." Um, and we found that by, I think, that the simple act of doing that, of distilling the entire discussion into like a few bullets and, and putting it in writing as an artifact that the team can refer back to, really ensures that, um, teams don't, um, f- kind of get succumbed to the vortex of like, "Wait, but he said this and she said that, and what do they actually think we should be doing?" Um, so again, like maybe there are better ways to do this, but I found that that step can- is a very useful way of, um, just sort

18. 41:05 – 44:06

    When to listen to customer feedback?

    1. KBKayvon Beykpour41:05

       of documenting clear feedback.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings41:08

       You mentioned the sheer inbound that you get, and you also mentioned kind of listening to people earlier in the Periscope journey versus not listening. Final question before we do a quick fire, but just simply, how do you think about when to listen to customer feedback versus when to go on product gut intuition?

    3. KBKayvon Beykpour41:22

       I think, well, listening to customers is always important. I think the, the, um, the, the mistake sometimes people make is listening to their solutions rather than listening to their problems. I think there's always truth and, um, clarity in the problems that people are experiencing. But, um, you know, sometimes the, you know, sometimes that can blend into like, "And you should just do this to solve my problem." And I think that can sometimes be a slippery slope where, um, you know, it's, it behooves a team to like really absorb and think about the underlying problem and be expansive and creative about the possible solutions, even if those solutions, um, are not, you know, even on the minds of, of the customer or the, you know, might be different from what the customer might have suggested. Um, and, um, so this is like the, the, the Henry Ford quote, right? Like faster horse versus a car type thing. Um, like there's an underlying problem there that is important, but the solution may not be what might be on the mi- the co- the mi- the minds of the customer. Um, I think in terms of the intuition question, I believe that a healthy dose of intuition is always valuable, right? And I think you have to balance intuition with data and insights. Um, but intuition can be the difference between, um...... you know, uh, just choice paralysis and needing and requiring an exhaustive amount of data and validation before you do something, versus taking the leap and making a data informed decision, um, that is propelled forward with the rocket fuel of your intuition. Like, I think that combination can be very, very powerful and healthy because a lot of things, you know, seeking, seeking data and validation and customer feedback at its maximum will either not be possible, um, or will take too long compared to, um, putting a little bit of intuition in there, and, and, and then just making sure you're getting the right validation or invalidation using data and insights. So, these are all just words obviously, that the balance of these things is what actually matters, and people will get it wrong, and people will get it right, and I think that's, um... But what I worry about, what gives me anxiety is sometimes folks feel like it's bad to incorporate intuition. And I just, I'm not, I don't believe, I think we should feel comfortable having a healthy dose of intuition as long as we're not, um, as long as we're also leveraging data and, um, and qualitative

19. 44:06 – 47:41

    What did you learn from a product mistake?

    1. KBKayvon Beykpour44:06

       insights and customer research and all that.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings44:08

       Final one for the quickfire, I promise. You said there about mistakes. Uh, can you take me through a product decision that you made that was a mistake? What did you learn, and how did it impact your thinking?

    3. KBKayvon Beykpour44:19

       I think one of the biggest mistakes we made with Periscope is we, um, we changed the default, um, sort of data retention to, um, persist indefinitely. What I mean by that is, like, for the first six months or so, maybe even longer at Periscope, you would start a live broadcast, and when it ended, it would go away after an hour, right? We, we had, like, an hour long recording window so folks could watch it if they missed the, the live notification or whatever, but like, Periscope broadcasts were essentially ephemeral in nature. And, um, we ended up kind of swinging the other way, and, and I was like the chief proponent of this, by the way, um, which I regret now in retrospect. Um, and the reason why we were like, "Oh my God, we need to make sure Periscope's can last forever," is because we saw so many incredible broadcasts, right? So many iconic moments being captured live, and they just felt like a, a grave injustice to society and the world for this, like, incredible content to go away, right? Like, why is this recording being deleted an hour from now? We had this, like, incredible celebration or this breaking news event that was captured live on, on video, on our platform, and it's, like, being deleted. What is that all about? Um, and, um, and so our solution to this, um, which we sprinted really hard on, was we, um, we made recordings, um, we made it so that recordings could persist forever, and we made the default, um, that if Harry went live, it would persist forever. So, if you really wanted to delete it, we let you do that, but you'd have to go out of your way to do that. And I think in retrospect, that was one of the downfalls of Periscope.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings45:59

       Why?

    5. KBKayvon Beykpour45:59

       Uh, the reason for that is, despite our initial dream of Periscope being about teleportation and helping you see what was happening somewhere in the world, um, that was our dream. And to this day, people use live video for that, by the way. It's an incredibly powerful medium to share what's happening in the world. But that is not the product market fit use case. That is the exception use case. The product market fit use case is people use live video to hang out. They want to just talk to people, you know? They want to have a conversation. It's very powerful. And this is literally what Spaces is today, right? It's just not live video, it's live audio. But people, people are having a conversation, they're talking, they're hanging out. And the reality is that the ma- vast majority of people who use live video to talk and hang out, they don't need that to last forever. They're ha- trying to have an ephemeral conversation. Um, and that, this was what people were using Periscope for from the very beginning, and we lost sight of this. You know, we, we ended up focusing on the sexier use case of, um, some breaking news event happening somewhere in the world or, you know, the whole, the plane landing on the Hudson type situation, which by the way, very important for our product to support, but it's, it's not the rule, it's the exception. Um, and we, we made the defaults conform to the exception rather than the rule. Um, and I think that was a, in retrospect, there would, would have been a more elegant way of, um, choosing a default that would align more to the primary use case and ensuring that the product had an elegant way of supporting the smaller percentage use case.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings47:28

       So funny. Scott Belsky said on the show, "The devil is in the default." Um-

    7. KBKayvon Beykpour47:33

       Totally.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings47:33

       ... which is, uh, it's a great one. I do want to finish on my favorite though, which is a quickfire round. So, I say a short statement, you hit me with your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay?

20. 47:41 – 49:04

    Which product leader do you most admire?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings47:41

    2. KBKayvon Beykpour47:41

       Sounds dangerous. Go for it.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings47:43

       Incredibly dangerous. Which product leader outside of Twitter do you most admire and why?

    4. KBKayvon Beykpour47:49

       Um, Scott Belsky. (laughs)

    5. HSHarry Stebbings47:53

       (laughs) He's actually paid for this show, partnered with Scott Belsky. (laughs)

    6. KBKayvon Beykpour47:58

       (laughs) Um, no, I, I'm, I really, really admire Scott for so many reasons. One, because he's had such an incredible role in my career and in the product that I, in, in a product that, that, you know, I worked on, that I was incredibly proud of in, in Periscope. And two, I think what he's achieved at Adobe is incredible. I mean, just the, the number of trends that they have managed to navigate, right? Um, box software to cloud subscriptions, um, relatively manual software to AI-driven software. If you think of all the, like, AI/ML-driven stuff they're doing with Photoshop and Premiere, um, just absolutely incredible. Um, you know, AR VR, they're sort of on the leading edge of. Like, all of these, these are like, each of them, and sorry, like the box software, not just box to cloud, but like-... one-time software to subscription-based software. Like, any one of these fundamental business transformations would be hard to pull off. They've pulled off, like, multiple in parallel, and I think Scott is abs- ... I mean, I don't work at Adobe, but I'd imagine Scott is, h- absolutely has been at the helm of driving this transformation,

21. 49:04 – 49:49

    Piece of advice for product leaders today

    1. KBKayvon Beykpour49:04

       and it's one of the reasons why Adobe is doing so well. So, like, huge props to him.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings49:08

       What one piece of advice would you give to a product leader today starting a new role?

    3. KBKayvon Beykpour49:12

       Don't work on a product that you are not insanely, irrationally passionate about. Like, if you don't go to bed and wake up in the morning dreaming of and thinking about that product, um, life's too short. There's other products that you should work on, um, 'cause I think that, that's what it takes to build something great. The difference between something great and something meh, and good, is, like, you have to have an, a rational amount of passion and conviction about that product needing to exist in the world and being the best that it can be. And by the way, this is not just true for product managers. This is true for the designers and engineers and, you know, the best things are built from

22. 49:49 – 51:15

    Biggest takeaway from angel investing

    1. KBKayvon Beykpour49:49

       those who really were passionate about them.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings49:52

       What's been your biggest takeaway now from also angel investing?

    3. KBKayvon Beykpour49:56

       Angel investing as someone who's very, who, who has l- strong opinions and convictions around building product is, is, is always tricky business, 'cause you have to know that you're, um, you're so far from the details, and you're, you shouldn't necessarily volunteer your perspective unless it's, um, asked for. Like, I can't treat one of my angel investments like a product review. You know? Like, I have s- even less context for what those teams are going through as, um, a team that's coming to a product review. And I think with the right level of context and, um, and, uh, and, and prompting, I, I would hope that an angel investor could be very, very valuable, as Scott was to us, um, in the early days of Periscope. But you have to be very, I think, conscious of, um, when that's useful and when that's solicited (laughs) , um, and when it's, when it's not, when like, when, when, when the startup and the, and your portfolio company, w- when what they need from you is actually something else. Right? Um, and so I think that's usually the way that manifests for me, is like, um, just being, trying to be, uh, incredibly supportive when called upon and when asked, um, and not trying

23. 51:15 – 54:25

    What recent product strategy have you been most impressed by?

    1. KBKayvon Beykpour51:15

       to, like, step on toes. You know?

    2. HSHarry Stebbings51:18

       A final one for you. What recent company product strategy, other than Twitter, have you most been impressed by?

    3. KBKayvon Beykpour51:26

       (sighs) Um, uh, m- I mean, macro, I meant what I said about Adobe. I think the transform- fundamental transformation they've navigated is really impressive. The other one on a totally different, um, totally different token is I am awestruck and inspired by what SpaceX is doing.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings51:47

       Hm.

    5. KBKayvon Beykpour51:47

       Very different type of product than a social media technology company, um, but I think that there's so much that's fascinating about SpaceX. One, I think that it is one of the most ambitious products and teams on the planet, literally, soon to be not just this planet. Um, and just that level of ambition, right, like making life multi-planetary, um, is j- insane. Like, most people hear about it and they're just like, "Wha- (laughs) what?" Um, and it's, it's truly ambitious, um, in a way that I think is incredibly inspiring. Two, uh, the speed at which that, the team is working, right, just like, you know, with something so sophisticated and challenging, both technologically and financially and operationally, the speed at which they're literally building rockets is, um, it's, really puts a lot of things in perspective, right? When like some feature that we are working on is like going really slowly, it's like kind of helpful to ask the question like, SpaceX kind of built a rocket in less time than we're saying this will take. Um, so I think-

    6. HSHarry Stebbings52:48

       (laughs)

    7. KBKayvon Beykpour52:48

       ... that's inspiring. And then third, you know, they're, they're building in public in a way that is incredible. Right? Um, and it, it... To some extent you can't not build a rocket like that in public because it's literally like the largest flying object ever made. And so like, you know, people can see it. (laughs) Um, but I think there's something really interesting and incredible about, um, your work being flaunted and your process being flaunted, including your failures by the way, pretty dramatically in public. It's an interesting form of accountability. Um, it's an interesting form of self-motivation and it's also an interesting form of, um, inspiration and recruiting and, um, transparency into the process, right? Like, you get to see Elon and his team doing stuff in YouTube videos every once in a while where you get some vlogger walking around, you know, Boca Chica with Elon hearing about the process. And I think this stuff really matters for inspiring others and, um, and, and, and this is like, I mean very different scale obviously, but we've always tried to be, in the last like three or four years, very public about what we build at Twitter, right? Like, we share stuff super early. We s- we share very experimental stuff. It's not ready for, for, for prime time yet and we solicit feedback from our customers. And I think that type of transparency is really, really important and helpful and has lots of benefits for us internally. It makes people feel more comfortable sharing their work, it's public accountability, yada yada yada. And so to see SpaceX doing that at larger scale is also really, really cool.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings54:15

       I love those two examples, two different examples. But Kayvon, as I said, I had so many great things. I was keen to do this one for a long time, so I'm thrilled that we could do it. And thank you so much for joining me.

    9. KBKayvon Beykpour54:24

       Thanks for having me here. It was a lot of fun.

Episode duration: 54:25