The Twenty Minute VCMarty Cagan: Product Lessons from Steve Jobs and Elon Musk; Why do we idolize engineers? | 20VC #957
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120 min read · 23,707 words- 0:00 – 3:15
How Marty Became an OG of Product
- HSHarry Stebbings
Marty, this is such a joy to do. I, I, I'm sure you know, but I, I've loved your writing for quite a while now, so a bit of a fanboy moment for me having you on. But thank you so much for joining me today.
- MCMarty Cagan
Well, thanks for inviting me. I'm flattered to be on your show. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
That is very, very kind of you. I wanna start though with a little bit of context. So, you are the OG of product management, as many have, uh, cited. How, how did you come to be the OG of product management, Marty, in a swift two to three minutes?
- MCMarty Cagan
Well, the truth is, I, um, I, I do hear things like that, and I can't help but laugh a little. My interest has actually never been really product management. My interest has always been product teams, um, to m- 'cause I've never seen a product come from a product manager. I've only seen great products come from product teams. And so, um, anyway, sort of a long way of explaining that is, uh, or a shorter way (laughs) of explaining that, I, um, I started as an engineer for 10 years and, uh, I was lucky. I was at a great place, HP Labs. It was, uh, uh, and I was working on tools and products for other developers, other engineers. So, s- very fun 10 years. I had a great time. And that was during the time where they were kind of in their prime.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yep.
- MCMarty Cagan
They were known as the consis- most consistently innovative company in the world at the time, and that's why I went there, and I had a great time. Uh, I did get interested there in more than just engineering. I started asking the questions about, "Who decides we should build this particular product? How do they know that's gonna be a good thing to do?" I started asking those questions, sort of beyond the little swim lane of a typical engineer, and I learned about product, I learned about design, and I learned about go-to-market, and I learned about all these things, uh, which was great. Um, my lucky break happened actually because, uh, I had done all these products for developers, and as you know, Netscape was really the original internet company, and, uh, I got to work for Marc Andreessen. I was, you know, there was already a browser team, there was already a server team, but I was for, uh, platform and tools, in other words, again, doing products for developers. Uh, in this case though, it was the internet, new platform instead of just, you know, W- Windows. And so, um, that was a dream job, honestly. I'd still be there if, uh, if, if it was still going as a company, uh, but as you know, after about five or six years, we, uh, lost the browser wars, to Microsoft and your internet history, and, um, I, and I got to meet, during my time at Netscape, I got to meet the bou- the founder of eBay, Pierre, Pierre Omidyar, and I really liked him. Uh, I loved his vision for the company. You know, eBay was probably the first real app in the internet era, the child of the internet, um, and so it was a great, I was brought on to be their head of, their original head of product and design. Really, he was the original head of product, that's the truth, but, you know, he was the founder, um, and they had got some real traction, really, because of his innovations. And then, um-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I ask you a really unfair question, Marty?
- 3:15 – 8:57
Comparing Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Pierre Omidyar
- HSHarry Stebbings
I'm just intrigued.
- MCMarty Cagan
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
How does Marc Andreessen and Pierre Omidyar compare as leaders/bosses?
- MCMarty Cagan
Two great people, but totally different. Marc Andreessen's literally the (laughs) I think the smartest person I've ever met. Uh, I, I just, it took all of my mental energy just to keep up with what he was explaining to me. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- MCMarty Cagan
You know what I mean? He's just so, uh... And I was so impressed because he was really the epicenter in those years. People don't realize how incredibly valuable this was. He was meeting with the engineering teams every day, he was meeting with prospective customers every day, he was meeting with startups every day, and he, he got to assimilate all this knowledge about where the industry was really going, and I think it helped him to see the future way before the rest of us.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
Um, anyway, I, I loved, uh, I thought it was amazing and I feel like I learned s- I learned way more from him and actually from Ben Horowitz, who was a peer, but he was, you know, Ben is in his own category. Um, I learned more from them than they would ever realize, just by watching and listening and learning and, and sort of, you know, getting the, the, the talks that they didn't have time to give, a lot of them would fall over to me and stuff like that, so I would get some amount of that exposure and it was fantastic.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Are there one or two really big things that have really shaped how you think and operate today from Marc and Ben?
- MCMarty Cagan
I, I realize how ironic what this is. I just told you that I literally think Marc Andreessen's, like, the smartest person (laughs) I'd ever met, but ironically, the lesson that I took away the most, and I remember him sort of saying this over and over, was, uh, "The most important thing is to know what you can't know."
- HSHarry Stebbings
Huh.
- MCMarty Cagan
And, and isn't that essentially a lesson in humility, right? It's like, (laughs) you need to know what you can't know, because that is really the essence of product discovery. W- we can't know. We can't know if our customers are really gonna buy this. We can't know if, how hard it's gonna be to build until we actually go figure it out. And, um, honestly, that has had a huge impact for me, and I th- I hon- I genuinely believe it made me a much better product person when I realized he was right, you know, he was right, 'cause I had sort of grown up in the era where product people were expected to have the answer, right?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
And, uh, you know, I realized, "Well, that's not only not true, but, you know, not right, but it misses such an important point." So, anyway, and then, you know, Ben is a different character. He's one of the best product minds I'd ever seen. Uh, Ben...... I'd s- I'd say one of the things I really got from him was this sort of tough love, you know, g- give it straight, but give it with s- you know, from the right place. Uh, he, of course, was lucky enough to be coached by Bill Campbell, um, and, you know, you could really see the impact of that. You could see him coming through. So anyway, those were great people. A- and I, you know... Pierre was really a different kind of person, but I loved what he was trying to do for the world. It's, you meet startup founders all the time, and some of 'em just have that burning fire that's so addictive. That's my favorite thing about working with startups. It's just contagious. And he had that. He saw, th- he saw that the internet would enable something that's never been possible before, and, um, I, I don't usually talk about this, but the truth is, in my whole career, I've always focused... My interest is really on, on product teams, helping product teams, mostly engineers. But I made an exception with eBay. It was the one time in my career that I was actually... W- 'cause the customers were not developers. The customers were buyers and sellers. And the reason I made that exception is 'cause of Pierre. It was such a, um, persuasive vision, and it was a really good experience for me. If you've ever met, like, classic eBay sellers, (laughs) it's, uh, they're, they're not like a typical developer. They are a totally different beast.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Ah.
- MCMarty Cagan
And super fun, super interesting, but marketplaces, you know, it was the first major marketplace. I wanted to learn about that. But then after eBay, I, uh, after eBay, I wanted to get back to... I mean, at that point I was pretty tired too. Several big rides, (laughs) um, and I wanted to get back to what I really loved, which was working with startups. So I, um, uh, I started SVPG as just a way to work with a bunch of startups. L- you know, my timing was incredibly lucky, 'cause if you remember back then, we're talking, like, 2000, 2002, that sort of timeframe, uh, a lot of the early startups were getting going, and a lot of the people either came from Netscape, or they came from eBay, or they came from PayPal. And so, I knew a lot of these people. I knew the p- or, I knew early Google. I knew early Amazon. I knew, you know, these, these people were calling me up and saying, you know, "Hey, the stuff that, um, you know, you used to share with us at Netscape and at eBay, can you share that with our team?" And, um, so it was a perfect timing, really, for that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I mean, uh, perfect timing, but also, uh, skill. Uh, I think, you know, luck is often used when skill should be instead, but I, I appreciate your
- 8:57 – 14:17
What are primary and secondary risks?
- HSHarry Stebbings
humility. Um, you said there about kind of loving working with startups and that just giving you the energy, uh, that drives you. I wanna start on, on one aspect that I think is really interesting, and as you said in particular, product leaders are focused on secondary risk and not primary risk. And so I wanted to start on nomenclature. What is a secondary risk and what is a primary risk?
- MCMarty Cagan
Yeah. And by the way, I'm really talking about product slash, uh, f- company founders there-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
... startup founders. Uh, because as you know, it's usually one of the founders that is the product leader, so yeah. I, I'm including both. I'm not just trying to say, "Oh, you're head of product." This is, we're talking to founders with this.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
Um, and of course, there are all kinds of risks when you do (laughs) a startup. Nobody, nobody denies that. I've never met anybody that thinks it's not risky. There's all kinds of risks. Um, one of the tools I like, actually, is... You know, it goes by various names, but a business model canvas, a startup canvas, a lean canvas. The reason they're nice tools is because they make you, sort of, face your risks, right? They, they spell it out. Um, so there's all kinds of risks. There's, how are you gonna make money? There's, do you have a effective go-to-market channel? Do you have a unique value proposition? You know, do you have the skills to do what you wanna do? Is the technology... All kinds of risks. All kinds. But what I find is that most founders gravitate to the risks th- they're more comfortable with. (laughs) Um, so for example, if one of the f- if the founders are, like, fresh outta business school, (laughs) they will gr- gravitate to the business model. They're super excited about how they're gonna monetize, you know, and, and they're, they're already excited about their spreadsheets and how much (laughs) money they're gonna make. And I'm like, "Okay, yes, that's a risk. But you know what? It's not the primary risk." And so my point to them always is, "Look, all this other stuff, it is only relevant if you can come up with a product that people are willing to buy." Full stop. Now everybody acknowledges that, but too many of them think of it as, like, an exercise left for the reader. (laughs) "Yeah, we'll figure out the wor-" Or worse than that, they think they know. They have this idea, they think they know what that is. In fact, I, I, (laughs) I just, um... Couple days ago, I did a, uh, a call with a founder, um, and, and by the way, I think this founder's quite a good, smart person coming from the right place, but he had kind of, out of frustration, asked for a little time because he had been pounding away for three years, three years, and they couldn't get to product market fit. And, you know, so we had this discussion. He showed me this stuff, and literally, they had not changed their NVP in a s- in a s- significant way in three years. What he had been doing was trying... He figured, like, "I know this is a great s- idea. There must be a market somewhere."And so, he w- they were trying every which way. They were trying different pricing strategies. They were trying different, like, freemium strategies. They were trying different target markets. They were trying different personas. And I'm like, "Look, dude. The problem is you don't have any... You don't have a product. Your product is not valuable, really, to anybody. That's the issue." So, they had basically been dancing around every other risk and not tackling this head-on, which is unless the product is right, you've got nothing. And there's sort of a, w- it's worth double-clicking on one part of that, which is when we talk about getting the product right, there's really two sides to that. The first side is, does anybody have this problem? Right?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
Does anybody need this thing? T- turns out though, that's the easy one. That's the easy one. People spend all this time on that one, again, because it's easier (laughs) . But, um, they spend all this time. That's not hard, honestly. We have very good tools if you're in, at all in... Most of the time, there's no doubt. All you can... All you have to do is look at the competitive marketplace and see how much money people are paying for solutions in that space.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- MCMarty Cagan
So most of the time, it's not rocket science. But if it is a little different, we have very good tools to test demand. The issue is rarely demand.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Right.
- MCMarty Cagan
The issue normally is the solution that you've come up with is not significantly better than the alternatives that are out there.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yep.
- MCMarty Cagan
And if it's not significantly better than the alternatives, people won't switch to your product. And then none of the other risks, none of the other cool marketing strategies, none of the other cool sales models, none of the other cool monetization, none of these things matter, because people don't really want your solution.
- 14:17 – 17:20
Questions to Ask During Product Discovery
- MCMarty Cagan
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I think the question that I have on that note is like, you know, to really test that, um, appetite for your solution, you have to speak to customers, and you have to put yourself in front of them. When you think-
- MCMarty Cagan
Oh, yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... about the, the product discovery process, what are the critical questions that we need to answer in determining whether our solution is right with the customer?
- MCMarty Cagan
Yeah. Well, first of all, f- absolutely, you c- (laughs) I do not know how to do product without intense immersion with customers. Now everybody says that today, but usually when I describe what that really means, they're going, "Oh, wow, I need a lot more time for that."
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- MCMarty Cagan
There's... It, it, it requires a lot. To your question, and this you'll see why you need to go to customers. In product discovery, there's really four questions that we always have to consider. Now sometimes it's easy s-... Any one of these questions might be easy. Some are hard. You never know. But we always have these four questions. The first one is, is it valuable? In other words, will people buy it? Or if they've already bought it or if it's a free service, will they choose to use it? That's the value question.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Sure.
- MCMarty Cagan
Usually, that's the hardest one. Not always, but usually it's the hardest one. Second, assuming they want to use this because it does something that they need or they want, can they figure out how to use it? That's the usability question. There's very rarely an excuse to do bad on that one if you'd... unless you just don't realize you need product designers. So normally, if you have s- the right skills in the startup, that one we can address if you just do the basics. The third is... The third is, is it feasible? Now this can be a very big one, especially with things like machine learning technologies. But, uh, the feasibility means do we know how to actually build this solution? Do we have the skills on the team to build this solution? Do we have the technology stack available in order to build this solution? Do we have enough time to build this solution? All that is feasibility. And the fourth risks is, can this sustain a business? This is viability risk. In other words, how about this? Is it legal (laughs) to actually do this? Is it, um... Uh, can we afford to pay for it, right? Can we actually get this to market? Do we have the marketing ch- uh, mechanisms, the sales mechanisms? Do we have the channels set up so that we can effectively get this to market? Is it compliant with any re- regulatory, uh, requirements? Um, these are all viability questions. So a s- a product to succeed needs to be valuable, usable, feasible, and viable. And any one of those, of course, can kill a product if
- 17:20 – 21:59
Features vs Product
- MCMarty Cagan
they're not.
- HSHarry Stebbings
M- M- Marty, there are so many points I, I, I want to dig in on. I, uh... On the valuable side, I think the biggest problem that founders often make today is they're building features, not products. I see this a lot in people management solutions, and it really puts into question whether it's valuable enough. Are you gonna switch off something for another feature? And I guess, I constantly question my own definition of features versus product. What is the difference between a feature versus a product, and how should I think about that?
- MCMarty Cagan
Well, uh, at one level, it's very superficial, the difference between a feature and project, and a lot of times we'll just have a definition around the level of effort. So that's not really helpful.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
The way I try to get people to think about it, it's the difference between output and outcomes.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
So the difference is features are just output. We can crank out features faster than we've ever been able to crank out features. If you notice though, the c- the percentage of companies or products that do better is not really going up. Uh, so it's not about cranking out features. We call those feature factories. It just... That's all they do is optimize for features. What it's really about is solving problems for customers and for your company.... and that's what we mean by outcomes. So, when we talk about a product, we mean solving problems for real people. I mean, and again, could be meeting a need like in the entertainment space, or the gaming space. But you're doing something valuable as opposed to just a bunch of features.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah. No, I- I- I really like that output versus outcome, and so I- I totally get you there, and that makes it very clear. I think the thing is when we look at those four, you could butcher the process or not do a good process th- through many different ways. What makes a really great execution of product discovery versus average?
- MCMarty Cagan
This is where, I mean, startups, it's, you know, they're usually, um, the clock is ticking.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- MCMarty Cagan
Right? Uh-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Always ticking.
- MCMarty Cagan
There's a certain amount of runway (laughs) there. Now, it is true that some companies have had much longer runways in the last few years than I'm used to. Um-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- MCMarty Cagan
... so and I- and I don't necessarily think that's a good thing, 'cause people did a lot of really dumb things because they had so much money.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- MCMarty Cagan
Um, and you know, like, like, pushing off the getting to product market fit (laughs) -
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- MCMarty Cagan
... because they could buy customers, you know, things like that. But, um, the clock is ticking for a startup. So, really, the d- the difference in, between a good company, a bad company, you don't really need to use product discovery techniques. If you have essentially unlimited time and money, you could do, we used to call this the old Microsoft model and to their credit, they would pull it off, which is you just, you just assume you're gonna spend three, four, five major iterations and you're taking about a year for each iteration. So, that's why it was normal for Microsoft to, you know, get a good, you know, their first couple years were terrible versions of the product. But by the third year, fourth year, it was starting to get pretty good. Most of us do not have, you know, monopoly profits to fund that stuff, so we have to be smarter, and that's really the difference between good discovery. 'Cause w- even what Microsoft did, that's product discovery. It's just-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Sure.
- MCMarty Cagan
... very slow, very inefficient. But that's what it is. You're trying out an idea. You're seeing if it's valuable, usable, feasible, viable. If it's not, you take another shot at it. In teams that need to work, in teams that really have constrained resources, by the way, this is not just startups, because even in a big company, it's not like they're running outta money, but they do run outta management patience-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Sure.
- MCMarty Cagan
... really quickly.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Of course.
- MCMarty Cagan
But my, you know, we like startups and- (laughs) and I tell them, "Look, here's the reality. You will probably need to do between 50 and 100 attempts before you get to product market fit. So, you either need a boatload of money and time (laughs) or you better learn some skills." It's not that hard to learn the skills. We have great techniques today. This is the part I love about product. It's g- the techniques have got so much better over the years. So, we can do 50 to 100 attempts at getting the product market fit in months instead of, you know, literally decades. Of course-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Why-
- MCMarty Cagan
... most companies would never persist for
- 21:59 – 24:33
How long do you give a new product?
- MCMarty Cagan
that long.
- HSHarry Stebbings
That's an interesting one, 'cause I often think about how long is the right amount of time to get enough data? You know, you need to put it out in market, get, determine customer feedback. How long is enough time to know when the writing's on the wall? 'Cause you c- don't wanna pull it back too quickly and you don't wanna leave it out too long.
- MCMarty Cagan
No. This is where the skills really make a difference, and also, um, first of all, I should say, you just tapped into a very big topic in product that, so we could talk literally all day about this. But the truth is, there are quantitative and qualitative techniques.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
And the qu- the quantitative techniques are about collecting the data. That's actually the definitive set of techniques. That will tell us for sure if something is working or not. But the qualitative techniques, first of all, they're much, much faster (laughs) , and second of all, they're, they do something very different. They tell us why our product is not working. So, the- the quantitative techniques can tell us it's not working (laughs) -
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- MCMarty Cagan
... but that doesn't really help us that much, right? It just says, "Well, that didn't do what we need." Now what we need to do is figure out why, and the qualitative techniques do that. And good product teams are doing a combination of both all the time. So, the- the short answer is most of the time, we can figure out in hours that this is not right. Hours, sometimes minutes. In fact, it's not unusual to do a dozen iterations in a day. Now, when you're doing that, you're not putting it out into the market with 100,000 people using it. That's not what you're doing. But you are putting it in front of real users and customers and trying to understand two things. Number one, could they use it? Could they figure it out? Could they do what they need to do? And most importantly, number two, would they use it? Would they really buy this? And of course, we have a whole bunch of techniques. For the first, that's pretty straightforward. We've been doing that for years. That's called a usability test.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- MCMarty Cagan
For the second, a value test, that's more involved because there are lots of different ways to measure value. It depends if we're talking B2B SaaS, if we're talking a consumer product, y- you know, there's lot of different, uh, factors there, and a lot of different techniques because of that. But the bottom line is, as soon as you're convinced as a product team that this is not there yet, you iterate. You don't wait a month for some, you know, statistically significant results and then a report.
- 24:33 – 26:39
Steve Jobs and Elon Musk on Product
- HSHarry Stebbings
C- c- sorry, can I ask you a question, though? On the qualitatives that I'm just stuck on, I speak to a lot of founders and they're like, "We spoke to customers and they told us they would buy it, but-"
- MCMarty Cagan
(laughs) I know.
- HSHarry Stebbings
"... they haven't bought it." And I'm like, "Well, how did you ask the question?"
- MCMarty Cagan
I know.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How did you-
- MCMarty Cagan
This is product 101. Product 101.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So, like-
- MCMarty Cagan
Yeah, you, you don't... and also, to be honest, we don't really care what people say. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- MCMarty Cagan
We know. And you have to realize, the reason we don't care is because they, our customers, as much as we love them, they don't know what's possible. Right? They don't know what's possible. So, no, we're not... that's why there was a great quote from Steve Jobs, he would hold up his iPhone and say, "You can conduct 100 focus groups. You are never gonna get an iPhone." In fact-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Oh... so then, what was it, then? Does qualitative feedback even matter? If they can say-
- MCMarty Cagan
Oh, yeah, because that's not what we're doing. We're not asking them, "What would you like in the product?" (laughs) "What would you..." you know, people that don't know what they're doing, they'll often ask things like, "So, pretend you're the designer. What would you change?" (laughs) It's like, no, that's totally missing it. What you can do, in fact, there's a...
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- MCMarty Cagan
... there's a great... Elon Musk, of course, he's very good at this, uh, (laughs) very good at product, and his argument is, with qualitative feedback, your goal is to find all the things that are wrong with the product.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Correct.
- MCMarty Cagan
So that's the difference. You're not looking for affirmation, which is what these, you know, naive founders are doing. They're not, you're not doing that. You're actually the opposite. You're going after all the reasons they would not use it. That's much more helpful to us. What are the reasons they wouldn't use it? Now, that doesn't necessarily tell us what to do. We have to use our... we have to assimilate all this together that what we're seeing, and then we put together a model, and if we keep working at it, you know, there's no guarantees in this. It could be a... you could never get there, uh, right? Some products are never gonna happen. But the idea is to dramatically accelerate the time to decide... to get to the point where we actually
- 26:39 – 30:54
Qualitative vs Quantitative feedback
- MCMarty Cagan
have something that resonates.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How many do you need to hear that from? And what I mean by that is, you know, um, there are some products where I say, "Oh, I need this for it to be useful," and the truth is, I'm a super user or a very different type of user, as some cohorts of users are. How do you have enough data to know that that's a broad enough swathe that we should listen-
- MCMarty Cagan
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... versus it's an isolated case?
- MCMarty Cagan
Yeah. The, the, uh, the general heuristic here is don't go there. In other words, when we do qualitative feedback, we're not looking for a number.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
When we do quantitative feedback, we are. So, the quantitative, that matters, and there's a function of how much time are you willing to wait to get the degree of confidence you need to be able to either have evidence or statistically significant proof. That's where we go, but that's different. We're talking qualitative. We don't... we're not, like, saying, "Oh, we got six people that didn't have an issue. We're good to go." (laughs) That's not what we do. What we're looking for with every user is, what are the reasons that they would not use it? Now, we're also crafting a value test to see if they're serious about it, 'cause ev-... most people are nice, especially when you sit down with them, and they're, they're not gonna tell you... you know, the joke is, they're not gonna tell you your baby is ugly to your face.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- MCMarty Cagan
Right? They're gonna say, "What a cute baby." But the truth is, they're like, "Yeah, I'm never gonna use anything like that."
- HSHarry Stebbings
So, how, so how do you-
- MCMarty Cagan
That's completely..."
- HSHarry Stebbings
... get the truth out of them, Marty?
- MCMarty Cagan
Well, there's a lot of ways we have. One way is to see if they'll actually pay for it. So, literally, see if they'll pay for it. Pull out a credit card. You've probably heard of this idea of a non-binding letter of intent to buy. That's one of the techniques. To pull out a payment card is another technique. To be able to, uh, commit to time is another technique. To, to pay with your reputation is another technique. The, the book Inspired, I wrote that book a few years ago. Inspired is meant to describe the major techniques that teams need to do good product work. Um, there's a lot more techniques out there. But those are the, like, the, the ones that everybody needs, and it describes several of these tests you can do. Uh, another test of doing i-... to measure this is the Sean Ellis test, which I'm sure you've heard of. Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Of course. Can I ask you a really, really hard one? And you can absolutely detest me for it. When we compare quantitative and qualitative, there comes this question of, like, is product today more art or science? We've never had more metrics. We've never had more tooling. But then we... have we lost the art? How do we think about that?
- MCMarty Cagan
Well, so when you say product there, do you mean product management or product development?
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I mean, actually, product development.
- MCMarty Cagan
Yeah. Well, I would say product development today is a great blend of the two. It is absolutely... in fact, what I just described, the qualitative with the quantitative, that is a beautiful blend of the two. Uh, if I had to... if you forced me to pick one, I would definitely say it's more art than science.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
But part of the art is deciding when to count on the science, (laughs) right? When to use the science to when to really do that and reali-... really know, look, this is very risky, this is very important. I don't want to commit the resources to building this until and unless we have statistically significant evidence this is gonna succeed. That's a very reasonable statement. I, I work with teams where that is exactly what you want to do. For other teams, it's like, "We don't need that. We don't need that. We just need some confidence (laughs) that we're not going in the wrong direction. So, that's all we need. We can get that faster." This is the kind of judgment that product teams are making every day, and I would argue that judgment is much more art than science.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I loved it. Scott Belsky actually said on the show, "Uh, intuition is what takes you to the mountain. Data is what takes you up it." Um, and I thought like, that ... uh, oh listen, it was a brilliant saying, and uh, it was very good for TikTok. (laughs)
- 30:54 – 33:54
When to Hire Your First Product Team Member
- HSHarry Stebbings
- MCMarty Cagan
(laughs) Oh, yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, I, I do, I do want to ask though, you know, I think in terms of building the teams themselves, you said that when we said about the primary risk, this is for founders. At some point, the founder has to start hiring the team, and I think there's just a lot of confusion around, like, when is the right time to hire your first product people? How do you advise founders and how would you advise me on when is the right time to hire your first product people?
- MCMarty Cagan
You know, there's different schools of thought on this for sure. You probably hear this from different ... Investor communities feel differently. I'm a big believer in the founder as the product leader. I believe ... I, I personally never invest in a startup unless at least one of the founders is a proven product leader. So now of course, the equation, the calculus is a little different if neither or none of the founders are a product leader. Then you've ... You know, first of all, I, I don't have a lot of confidence in that company. But second, you know, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to bring products expertise on much, much sooner.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
But if we can assume in this discussion we have at least one founder that's a proven product leader, then, uh, then it actually becomes quite clear. A- and honestly, it's a function of the number of engineers more than anything. That's the heuristic I use. And that's because at a certain point, there is no way for that founder to be close enough to all of the engineers to be able to make the daily decisions on the product that that founder needs to make. You know, and, and partly this depends on just how much, you know, how many hours is this founder willing to invest in this stuff. But realistically, once you get past about 25, 30 engineers, a founder is saying like, "I, I ..." Or the teams are saying, "I can't get enough time with the, the founder. I just can't get enough time. We're going too slow. We're waiting. We're making bad choices or no choices," which is worse. So-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Marty, that seems, that seems like an awful lot of engineers, 25, before you make that hire. No? Um ...
- MCMarty Cagan
No. No. I mean, not really. Realize that, um ... Well, okay, I'm double clicking in here a little bit.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah. Go on, then.
- MCMarty Cagan
Realize it's not like 25 flat engineers were all, are considered equal. What they are, they're naturally gonna group around product teams, and i- if you have 25 engineers, you've probably got a minimum of three, probably four or five product teams. Each one of those will have a very senior engineer. Th- we usually call them a tech lead, but whatever they're called. And it's those people that have to have that very, very close relationship with the founder. Uh, and so what is that? Five? Four, five? That's not too many for them to do.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Sure.
- MCMarty Cagan
And then that tech lead, of course, is talking in detail with all the other engineers about how they're gonna
- 33:54 – 45:49
How to Structure Hiring Process
- MCMarty Cagan
divide and conquer on the work.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So, Marty, I need your help on this. You are my, uh, angel investor in this hypothetical situation.
- MCMarty Cagan
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Very, very thrilled, uh, by the way you are invested in my company. Um, we've discovered now 25 engineers is that kind of tipping point. I've never hired this, this product person that we need now before. How do I structure the hiring process for them? Uh, w- how many meetings do we have? What do I want to achieve in each meeting? Can you h- help me literally from scratch?
- MCMarty Cagan
Yeah. And you meant meeting, you mean like at the interview, how many interviews?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah. Absolutely.
- MCMarty Cagan
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Like, how do we structure the interview process?
- MCMarty Cagan
Sure. Well, first thing, probably the most important thing, actually, yeah, and I have this chat with a lot of founders like you about like, "Let's talk about what you really need here."
- HSHarry Stebbings
Right.
- MCMarty Cagan
What kind of person are you looking for? Is it literally just your capacity is out, or do you need, maybe you're much more the visionary and you need somebody that knows how to make this machine work a lot faster. I mean, these are some pretty different responsibilities that you're talking about. So, we want to be very clear on the kind of product person that you're really looking for, um, and then we can get to work. Yes, for sure. There's, uh ... Uh, most companies, in my opinion, don't do a very good job on the whole hiring process. You know, they're just very random. Another big thing we need to talk about is, you know, what is your philosophy on this? Would you rather hire, say, university graduates and develop them into the kind of people you need, or do you say like, "No, I want people that are been there, done that, and I'm willing to pay a lot more, but I'm paying for that experience"? We have to have that discussion. I can-
- HSHarry Stebbings
I get, like-
- MCMarty Cagan
... both of those can work. Don't get me wrong.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you think, do you think so? I, I find it really hard. I think if you're a really early stage startup, you ... The best people are, are not gonna leave the incumbents or the fastest-growing companies. Your job as an early stage company is to find the diamonds in the rough before they're diamonds. No?
- MCMarty Cagan
Well, (laughs) uh, don't get me wrong, a lot of people have no choice but to do that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- MCMarty Cagan
They have no choice. But I also believe, this is what's great about startups, you know, some but not all. Some of them have ... The biggest reason ... Let me put it this way. The biggest reason somebody great would join your company is because of your product vision. You are trying to do something that inspires them. Look at all the people that go work for Tesla or SpaceX despite crazy everything, because they are so passionate about what those companies are trying to do. Now-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Sure.
- MCMarty Cagan
... a- and you don't have to be like, going to Mars in order to have something-... passionate, people get excited about. But this is, this is our number one tool for attracting strong product people, is having a very inspiring and compelling vision. Now sometimes the founders need a little help articulating that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Right.
- MCMarty Cagan
You know, they can say it to you or me over a dinner, but they really can't get it out clearly in a way that can, uh, sell people on an interview, the right kind of people you want to have. So here's the thing though on hiring that's most important. If you decide, for whatever reason, you're gonna hire junior people, then the worst thing you can do is do that and not have somebody in place, sort of true best sense manager, to develop them. If you just hire junior people and they have no coaching on an ongoing basis, you're just throwing good money after bad.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Sure.
- MCMarty Cagan
That's exactly what happens in so many companies. So the prerequisite for hiring junior people, and I wanna be clear, I love this model. (laughs) And it, and this is the most scalable ou- model I know. Look at Google, look at Apple, they do a ton of this. But they have the mechanism in place, Microsoft too, the mechanism in place. They n- their managers know their number one responsibility is to coach and develop these people.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Okay. So le- let's run with this though. We, we've gone for that model. How do I know the best ones? And how do I structure an interview process to determine the quality of these young but potentially brilliant candidates?
- MCMarty Cagan
Yeah, and this is where it really is different. If you're hiring experienced people, that's one interview. If you're hiring, by definition, inexperienced people, that's a very different one. You're looking in the, and obviously when if you're looking for experience, you're looking to, you're, you're looking for whether they can prove to you they've learned about the business, they've, uh, learned about customers, they understand the techniques. To me, that is much more straightforward. When you are hiring instead of experience, you're hiring on potential, which is what we're talking about, right?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
Based on potential. Uh, then you're making a bet on really more innate traits. And then you're looking for things like, is this person got a strong work ethic? Does this person have a strong sense of curiosity? Is this person the kind of s- person that gives up very easily when they run into roadblocks? I mean, the-
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you-
- MCMarty Cagan
... at Google early, early Google they-
- HSHarry Stebbings
How, how d- how d- how do you like to test for that?
- 45:49 – 52:01
How to Structure Onboarding Process
- HSHarry Stebbings
to quickly. I- I love hearing this, but learn what they need to quickly, three months. L- love that as a timeframe. How should the manager structure those three months, and what is the right way to onboard this new person to make sure that they're adequately supported in those three months?
- MCMarty Cagan
Sure. Uh, you know, I- I, recently, I started ask- answering that question by telling (laughs) what happened to me when I was onboarded as a product person. And I told it once, and people seemed to say, "Oh, well, that gives me hope." Uh, and- and- and I say that because I actually was harder to, it was harder for me to get to that confidence level than I think most. So my situation was I was an engineer for several years, and I wanted to learn product. And my manager, who was an engineering VP, said, "I- I can't. I don't know it, but I can introduce you to somebody who could coach you." And HP was really good about that. So they introduced me to a guy. It was remote. He was in Colorado, I was in Palo Alto. He had started four successful product divisions at HP, and he, um, he agreed to coach me. And the first thing he did, and by the way, I've just copied what I learned from him for years. So, the first thing he did was an assessment. Uh, and I have a tool, it's in the book, Empowered, to assess people. So you start with an assessment, 'cause everybody's different, right? You're different than I- I am, and we're all different. That's normal. There's a whole set of things he was looking at. I did- I had been an engineer for several years, so the technology side was like my one advantage. Funny enough, I thought my big advantage was gonna be, since the product I was building was tools for other engineers, I'm like, "I know our customers." And he said, "Well, the only thing I know is that that is never true."
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- MCMarty Cagan
"You are never your customer." And so, in fact, he- he- he was so bothered by my confidence about that, that he said, s- explicitly, I was not enable- I was not allowed to make a single decision for my product team until after I visited 30 customers. And further, he wanted me to visit 15 in the US and 15 in Europe. He made a call to the sales organization. It was a three-week business trip, and within about two days, I realized how right he was. I didn't know anything about our customers. I thought that engineers are engineers (laughs) , and I thought, there, how different could they possibly be from us in Palo Alto, sitting on these very expensive workstations? You know, (laughs) just turns out, I was way off. And I went to places like Walmart, and FedEx, and British Telecom, and- and I- I learned, no, it's not the same. So first of all, I learned I didn't know our customers at all. But he was smart enough to know that was an area I needed to learn.... another thing he asked me about was, "Do you know HP's go-to-market path?" And I didn't even know what that really was, honestly (laughs) .
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- MCMarty Cagan
Um, a- and so, he said, "Okay, this is also extremely important." On those same sales visits, he's gonna make sure that I learn the entire... You know, HP basically had two major channels, a direct sales channel and a reseller channel, and he wanted me to learn both. He wanted me to learn how it worked, he wanted me to learn what they're capable of and what they're not capable of. Um, and I learned that and, uh, it was all new, completely new to me. The next area he assessed, and this was pretty embarrassing actually, but, um, 'cause you know, I, I had a c- I studied computer science. I had zero classes in finance, which I think was... I, I regretted. As soon as I learned this stuff, I regretted that that was the case. But the truth is, I had zero classes in finance. So, I knew really-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Still coming.
- MCMarty Cagan
... nothing. And he asked me a few questions about the analytics around my product. And I remember the only one I could get right was he, he said, "Do you know what LTV stood for?" And I somehow knew that stood for lifetime value. (laughs) And then he asked me, "But do you know how that's calculated?" (laughs) And I'm like, "I have absolutely no idea." So, he realized-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- MCMarty Cagan
... that I was totally incompetent around the financial side, which is pretty important when you're responsible for a product. And so, he said, "I'm gonna do two things. First of all, I'm gonna send you a book," which was a basic accounting for... It was, like, called Accounting For Finance or Basic Finance For Business or something like that. And it was not fun to read, but it was straightforward and I, you know, everything, every page was new for me. But the, the other thing he did that was incredibly helpful, was he called a friend of his in the finance organization of my division, the re- and he asked him to tutor me. Uh-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
... and once a week, he sat down with me and he said, "Look, I w- you need to understand. If you're gonna be product manager for this product, you need to understand every one of the KPIs that's used to judge your product. And more than that, you also have to know which ones are actually in good shape and which ones are in bad shape." (laughs) Uh, I, I know that th- the most embarrassing part of this, I'm sharing, you know, the, the truth, you know, here. The most embarrassing part was, um, I didn't even know our product was losing money. (laughs) I, I was an engineer on the team. Nobody told us this stuff. And I remember going to the rest of the engineers and saying, "Do you know that we're actually losing money every, every sale on this product?" (laughs) And, um, uh, you know, it was... We were so clueless. But he not only explained to me the, the, the meaning of each KPI, but he explained to me, like, "Just so you know, this is really bad." (laughs) "Uh, this number is not sustainable. If you don't find a way to fix this, you know, the leaders are gonna kill this product. You know, that's, that, it's that bad." Um, and, and other ones-
- HSHarry Stebbings
And, and I, I c-
- MCMarty Cagan
... were like, "This is above average, this is good." So, I didn't have
- 52:01 – 53:57
Do we idolyze engineers too much?
- MCMarty Cagan
any of that subjective sense.
- HSHarry Stebbings
The thing I worry about is, with the idolization of, of product people and engineers today, 'cause the best are in such short supply, I almost find leaders cosset them. Where it's like, "You just do what you're best at, and we'll make everything around you perfect, because you're the special ones." And it means they're not forced to read accounting books.
- MCMarty Cagan
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
They're not forced to study go-to-market variants. And they're just, they're the special ones. "Don't, don't bother the engineers and the special product people." I worry about that. Do you know what I mean?
- MCMarty Cagan
Well, you should worry about that. It's one of the biggest... It's one of the most obvious differences between great product companies and the rest.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Sure.
- MCMarty Cagan
Is the way they think of their... Especially, how they think of their engineers. Uh, we say if you're just using your engineers to code, you're only getting about half their value. We're getting into a more general topic about engineers. But the truth is, like Bill Campbell used to say this, "There is nothing more than port- more important than empowered engineers."
- HSHarry Stebbings
True.
- MCMarty Cagan
And if you look, you know, if you look at companies like Tesla, SpaceX, Google, Amazon, Stripe, Apple, that's the foundation of every one of those companies, empowered engineers. And what really gets me, if you really wanna know what gets under my skin, look at all those companies out there that outsource their engineering. Literally outsource their engineering. I'm li- when I find a founder that thinks that engineers are somebody you can just do a contract with Accenture or somebody, I'm like, "You're not serious about this. Come back if you decide to get serious."
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I also think it's moronic, 'cause they're like, "Oh, it's just for the short term, and then we're gonna hire in." What great engineers are like, "Oh, great! I just inherited some substandard stack
- 53:57 – 56:48
Right and Wrong Ways to do Onboarding
- HSHarry Stebbings
that some outsourced team just did." I'm totally with you. So, I agree that. But the question is, okay, we love that. We have the go-to-market knowledge needed, we need the customer base needed, we need the finance, like side of the business, what drives the business. How do we give them that? Do we put them a week in sales, a week in-
- MCMarty Cagan
Well, there's a lot of different ways. My, my view is, you do this assessment, which honestly takes a few hours. To do a- an assessment is easy. Then you need to do a coaching plan. And every... my view, every manager that manages individual contributors is responsible for a coaching plan for their people. And it, at the beginning, that coaching plan is just to get the person to competence, getting them to the level where they can do their job their team needs them to do. After that, it gets more fun. It's more about helping them reach their potential. In fact, I was taught at that same HP Engineering program, uh, that my job was to get people promoted, to get them ready, uh, to earn a promotion. That's how I was judged as an engineering leader. So, that is, um...... that's the, uh, coaching plan side. Now, ev- these coaching plans are different for everybody, right? Now, sometimes they literally need to spend some time in the field. Sometimes what they really need to do is spend some time on the phones in customer success. Sometimes... You know, there, it just depends on that person. I am also a big fan of onboarding programs though, where whole cohorts of new employees go through, uh, sort of training programs. These are less personalized, but it's more like, "Look, I don't care how good you are. Everybody that joins this company, you're not gonna know our customers, you're not gonna know our culture, you're not gonna know our leaders, you're not gonna know how decisions are made here." So an onboarding program is a way to accelerate this for a whole cohort of people.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) What do you think people most may do wrong in the onboarding of new talent? Where are you like, "Oh, God, they made this mistake again"? (laughs)
- MCMarty Cagan
Well, the biggest thing I see is that they assume... 'Cause you know what? Most companies they're like, "Ah, I don't... I'm just gonna hire somebody. Been there, done that." So they get somebody from Amazon, they get somebody from Stripe, somebody that's clearly experienced what good looks like. But then they assume that just because they were successful there, that they're gonna be successful in our company. And that's not a true statement. There are so many differences. So our job in onboarding is to close that gap. Our job more generally in coaching is to close that gap.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I totally agree with you. Uh, I, I, I just, uh, wish they would do it (laughs) sometimes sooner.
- 56:48 – 58:40
How To Create Alignment Between Product & Sales
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, I, I do wanna ask one, one final thing before we do a quick fire. It's often I see tension between product and other areas of the org, specifically sales. Um, "Oh, well, we, we couldn't sell because we didn't have that product capability," and product going, "Well, it's not our fault you couldn't sell. It's your fault." How do you think about creating alignment between product and sales, which is normally a frictious relationship?
- MCMarty Cagan
Yeah, it is. Um, but no, this is another one where there are different schools of thought. But I was trained very explicitly that, look, um, which would you rather be? Would you rather be in sales being forced to sell this piece of crap product, or would you rather be in product where you can actually make it a good product in order to sell? And the, the, the bottom line is the responsibility for the sales is on the product team. And in fact, if you really care about something like the real meaning of OKRs, which is all about outcomes, it is eg- it is designed that way intentionally. This is Andy Grove. He intentionally... So that if my product is not selling, I need to get my ass out of the office into the sales organization, sit with them to figure out why it's not selling. Is it because the customers are not seeing it? Is it because the sales force has no idea what this product is really doing or how it does? Is it because they don't have the sales tools that they need? Is it because there's no reference customers? Is it because the pricing is out of whack? It could be any of these things. The point is that this is what we are supposed to do on a product team, and explicitly, this is on the product manager.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I totally agree. It is
- 58:40 – 1:02:31
Rise of the Operative Product Leader
- HSHarry Stebbings
on the product manager. And final, final one, I promise, and then the quick fire. But you mentioned Shreyas Joshi earlier. He says about the three types of product leaders, uh, the visionary, the craftsman, and the operator. Um, I see a huge amount of operator product leaders who honestly just install red tape. They lack creativity, and they're just real process people that hold things up, and they come in at Series C and they kind of just churn two years at St- a stellar company, two years at another stellar, and they're just not very good. Do you agree with my assessment there of this rise of this kind of operative product leader?
- MCMarty Cagan
So I, I've also heard Shreyas describe this, which I absolutely love, but there's a whole dimension to this. In fact, I'm gonna write an article, and I'm gonna ask him to review it, that he do- didn't, doesn't talk about. But it gets to what you're describing, and I think this is huge, because in general those three buckets are right. The, the... There's a whole dimension though, which is there are two kinds of, uh, of, um, operational people. There are those that believe in s- in operation or scale really, what this is usually about, with process, and those that believe in scale with coaching. The problematic behaviors that you're describing, which, by the way, you are spot on. And I hate to say this 'cause I absolutely love Europe, but it's a bigger problem in Europe than it is in the US.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Agreed.
- MCMarty Cagan
So... And the re- the reason is because so many of those people are process people.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Sure.
- MCMarty Cagan
They really are. And they don't understand. And, uh, I've been sharing all these quotes from people they respect, like Elon Musk, says, "In big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking," or Bezos describing, "Be very careful because process, uh, ends up controlling everything." Um, Steve Blank talking about process people taking over. Steve Jobs talking about process people taking over, and no good product people wanna work there anymore. I mean, this is such a serious disease, and it has killed so many companies, b- not just in Europe, I mean, all over. But, uh, this is... For some reason, process is especially attractive...... to Europeans (laughs) .
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- MCMarty Cagan
You might have a better theory for why than I have.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I think it's because we lack self-confidence more actually, and I think process gives you a structure with which you can point to, and it gives you something to rely on other than pure intuition and gut.
- MCMarty Cagan
Maybe it's a confidence thing. I mean, I see some companies, like Spotify has done fabulous, and they are much more set to dial, you know, like we would in Silicon Valley for sure.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I did- I just had Gustav, the CPO and CTO on the show, and he actually said the most fascinating thing. He said, "Talk is cheap." And I said, "Yeah, I agree." And he goes, "So we should do more of it. We should have a lot of debate all the time." And I thought that was so interesting in product, because I was like, "No," like it's about speed of execution, it's about iterate, iterate, iterate, let go. And he's like, "No, no, no, talk is cheap, let's talk lots." Fascinating, love him.
- MCMarty Cagan
It is. Well, you've probably also heard the think deeply to move quickly. It's kind of-
- HSHarry Stebbings
No.
- MCMarty Cagan
... what we're talking about. Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Same thing?
- MCMarty Cagan
Same idea. Yeah, like Stripe is Amazon, they believe think deeply to really... just, so for example, the written narrative is a way to-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- MCMarty Cagan
... force you to really think things through, uh, and then you're gonna move a lot faster.
- HSHarry Stebbings
No, I love that. Uh, Marty, I could talk to you all day. Uh, I do want to do a quick fire round, so I say a short
- 1:02:31 – 1:04:40
How To Get Promoted as a PM
- HSHarry Stebbings
statement and then we rock and roll. Sound good?
- MCMarty Cagan
Sure.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So tell me, uh, what should you focus on if you want to get promoted as a PM?
- MCMarty Cagan
I mean, the right answer, the short answer is outcomes. If you deliver results, you are gonna do really well (laughs) . And of course, that's the- that's an outcome, like I said, literally it's an outcome. But the best way to kind of get there is to do your homework. So the biggest thing I emphasize to new product managers is do your homework. That means go deep with your customers, go deep with the data, go deep on the industry, and go deep on the enabling technology.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you create PMs with founder mindsets?
- MCMarty Cagan
This is a... this would have been a great topic in the bulk of our discussion, because this is really the difference between an empowered product team and a feature f- a feature team.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MCMarty Cagan
Uh, the... in an empowered team, you are literally giving ownership responsibility to the team. And so, uh, that they build those skills, they build that confidence, they build those muscles. In a feature team, they're literally just mercenaries doing what they're told. So the, the way you do it is you empower them. You say, "Look, you own this." This is why on a pr- on a product team, a product man- on an empowered product team, a product manager is responsible for the value and the viability of the solution. In a startup, the founder is responsible for the value and viability of the solution. That's th- that is not an accident.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I totally agree. Um, this one's really unfair. I was looking at it wincing. Which product leader do you most admire?
- MCMarty Cagan
(laughs) Honestly, I get to meet a lot of product leaders. I, I'll just mention that I came out with a book recently called Empowered, and I featured eight product leaders that I really admire, and I highlighted them because very few people know them, and I... and that really bothers me. They should be well-known, but, you know, they all kind of worked in companies where the founder
- 1:04:40 – 1:05:15
Advice for Product Leaders Starting Today
- MCMarty Cagan
got the, the, the glory. But they were awesome.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Tell me, what one piece of advice would you give to a product leader starting a new role today?
- MCMarty Cagan
I would say the first and foremost thing is you have to establish that foundation of trust with the rest of the leaders of the company. And the best way I know to do that is to immerse with customers, and really become first name basis with major customers, make it so that nobody on the senior team, nobody in the company doubts that you know
- 1:05:15 – 1:06:00
What would you change about the world of product?
- MCMarty Cagan
your customers, what the issues are, what you need to do going forward.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What would you most like to change about the world of product?
- MCMarty Cagan
(laughs) There's a lot of things. I would say-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- MCMarty Cagan
... the, the... I was alluding to this earlier, but, uh, if I could... (sighs) don't... I mean, this is a hard one to say. I am not anti-agile. I've been a big advocate for agile, but agile has had this unintended consequence, because agile is just a delivery process. But if I could remove one thing, it would be that there would be nobody calling themselves product owners, and all these people teaching product owners how to do their job would not be doing it, and they would instead be
- 1:06:00 – 1:07:16
Whose product team have you been most impressed by?
- MCMarty Cagan
people that know product would be teaching them the job.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I like that. Uh, final one. What recent company product strategy have you been most impressed by?
- MCMarty Cagan
Oh, this is, uh, this is a fun one. Um, I mean, you mentioned TikTok. TikTok has been amazing what they have pulled off. Abso- just nothing short of amazing. I would say what Tesla has pulled off is nothing short of amazing on every level. Just phenomenal. And their product strategy has been a very visible product strategy. They kind of had to, because it tied in so closely with the financing strategy. Uh, those are two very good examples. What Amazon has done with AWS has been brilliant. Um, you know, and w- we could keep going. Stripe has been... I l- I mean, Stripe is just hitting on all cylinders right now, and so... yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I think what's amazing with Stripe also is the new product creation and new product execution. It's not just maintenance of core-
- MCMarty Cagan
No.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... but the ancillaries that they have is insane. Uh, Marty, I feel like I could talk to you all day, um, uh, but this was so much fun to do. Thank you so much for making the time, and it was such a joy.
- MCMarty Cagan
Well, I enjoyed it too. Thanks for inviting me, Harry.
Episode duration: 1:07:16
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