Skip to content
Lenny's PodcastLenny's Podcast

Tal Raviv: How one IC outproduced a director-level org

Using ChatGPT and Whisper dictation, Tal Raviv writes Gherkin Jira tickets in minutes; he closes Slack until noon and treats product as a team identity.

Lenny RachitskyhostTal Ravivguest
Sep 22, 20241h 31mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:24

    Tal’s background

    1. LR

      (instrumental music) I've had thousands of people tag my CEO on Twitter, (laughs) calling on him to fire me. I was actually on vacation and I got bored, and I was like, "I haven't logged into Twitter, I haven't posted anything to Twitter for a while. What's, uh, what's going on in Twitter?" And I see that the, uh, notifications number is, like, maxed out. It's like 999 plus or whatever (laughs) .

    2. TR

      (laughs) .

    3. LR

      And I was like, "Wait, what?" And I clicked the notifications tab, and I see the first tweet is, has at CEO handle fired at Tal Raviv. And I saw that that has, like, a ton of retweets. And I just keep scrolling down and I start to piece together the story.

    4. TR

      (instrumental music) Today my guest is Tal Raviv. This is a very special episode for me because Tal was one of the first and most active community members when I was just starting my newsletter Slack community, and is a PM I've admired from afar for a very long time. He's got some really unique and insightful takes on how to be a great product leader. And interestingly, he's decided to stay an IC product manager throughout his entire career up to this point, which is over 12 years as an IC PM. I've never met anyone that's stayed an IC for this long. He's been a PM at Patreon, at Wix, at AppsFlyer, and most recently joined Riverside as their first ever product manager. Riverside, by the way, is the platform that I use to record my podcast, so this was kind of a meta experience for both of us. He's also a former founder, and outside of tech he volunteers as a surf instructor for people with disabilities. In our conversation we talk in depth about the IC career path, a bunch of tactical advice on how to be more productive as a PM, including a killer example of how he uses ChatGPT to scale himself. Tal also explains why every tech company has just two departments that matter, the difference between book-smart decisions and street-smart decisions. We also spend the most time I've ever spent in failure corner, where Tal shares all of the times that he's failed in his career, and how those experiences made him stronger. And it was really important for him to share these things, because he wants people to understand that successful people fail a lot, and those failures make you better. If you want to learn more from Tal, he's actually about to launch a course on Maven that's called Build Your PM Productivity System, which based on the conversation that we had, I am confident is going to be awesome. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to follow it and subscribe in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes, and helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Tal Raviv.

  2. 2:24 – 7:05

    Choosing to stay an IC product manager

    1. TR

    2. LR

      (instrumental music) Tal, thank you so much for being here, and welcome to the podcast.

    3. TR

      Uh, thank you. It's great to be here. This is a long time in the making.

    4. LR

      It has been a long time in the making. You're interesting in so many ways. We're going to talk about a lot of different things. One of the things that makes you most unique and interesting as a PM is that you've stayed an IC product manager for your entire career, for 12 years. I don't think I've ever met a PM that's been an IC for 12 years. I imagine you've had many opportunities to be promoted. I imagine this has been very intentional. And I also know a lot of people actually think about this a lot. Should I move into management? Can I stay in IC and be successful? So I want to spend some time here to start. And my first question is just why? Why have you decided to stay in IC? Why have you not moved into management? I don't really have a strategy for my career. Like, my strategy is not to have a strategy. For the longest time I've gone by, am I excited to wake up in the morning, and what's going to make me excited to wake up in the morning? Right? Not every single day, not all the time, but for most of my, you know, days that I work, uh, what's going to make me, you know, hop out of bed and just kind of follow that. And over time, as I got to, you know, have different managers, um, and different, uh, product leaders that I worked with, I've never looked at their schedule or their days or how they spend the highest, you know, high percentage of their time, um, and said, "Wow, that's what I want to be doing," uh, if I compare their days with mine and the, the stuff they're, you know, they're busy with, um, and focused on. And at the same time over the years I've also noticed that the colleagues that I identify with the most, like the ones where I just feel like I most relate to them, many of them have that same pattern where they've gone to, you know, team lead or director and so on, and their next role they request to be an IC. Like, they insist on being an IC. And yeah, so that's, that's from the, you know, from the tech world, that's, uh, what informs that, and the values I had growing up just watching my dad. He's a researcher, he's a professor, uh, and he just has a blast every day. Like, he refuses to retire. He's just so enthusiastic about what he does, and he, you know, he's never, like, aspired to be, like, a chairman, provost like that. Like, he just loves what he does and he's stayed there, and, um, I just see the joy, like, the fun.

    5. TR

      (instrumental music) This episode is brought to you by Gamma, an entirely new way to present your ideas powered by AI. If you hate designing slides and dread that feeling of staring at a blank slide, Gamma is here to help. Just upload your PRD and turn it into a beautiful, ready-to-present presentation in seconds. Gamma works with all types of formats, from Google Docs, PDFs, to PowerPoint. You can even drop in a link to your favorite Lenny's newsletter post and turn it into a presentation for your team. Gamma has become one of the fastest growing AI web products in the world, adding 20 million new users just this past year, and is setting its sights on becoming the modern alternative to PowerPoint. Whether you have design skills or not, Gamma can save you hours of time synthesizing your ideas and shaping your content. Visit gamma.app and use promo code Lenny to get a free month of Gamma Pro. That's G-A-M-M-A.app. This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're building a SaaS app, at some point your customers will start asking for enterprise features like SAML authentication and SCIM provisioning. That's where WorkOS comes in, making it fast and painless to add enterprise features to your app.Their APIs are easy to understand so that you can ship quickly and get back to building other features. Today, hundreds of companies are already powered by WorkOS, including ones you probably know, like Vercel, Webflow, and Loom. WorkOS also recently acquired Warrant, the fine-grained authorization service. Warrant's product is based on a groundbreaking authorization system called Zanzibar, which was originally designed for Google to power Google Docs and YouTube. This enables fast authorization checks at enormous scale while maintaining a flexible model that can be adapted to even the most complex use cases. If you're currently looking to build role-based access control or other enterprise features like single sign-on, SCIM, or user management, you should consider WorkOS. It's a drop-in replacement for Auth0 and supports up to one million monthly active users for free. Check it out at workos.com to learn more. That's workos.com.

  3. 7:05 – 8:31

    The value of IC roles

    1. TR

      So much of that resonates with me. I, there was actually a period of my career where I was, I was not an IC. No, I was an IC and I was just like, "I don't want to be promoted any higher. Everyone I look at above me is just so stressed, and I just don't need this. And things are great. Why would I want to change that?" And I love that you stayed close to that. I know a lot of things pull people towards management. There's compensation, there's status, more impact, trying to, you know, like learning to be a manager. Is there anything there that's just like pulled you and you've been just like, "I'm gonna give that up and I don't need that"? Or is it, or life just as good as an IC for you?

    2. LR

      I won't lie. Um, over the years, despite like everything I said, if somebody who is my, you know, same amount of experience or same cohort, and gets promoted and becomes a team lead and makes that decision and, and, and rises up, it does, you know, like twang in my stomach and it gets on my ego. I have that moment where I'm like, "Wait a minute, like what about me?" And, "Should I be doing that?" And it makes me question everything. Um, and then I say to myself, "Okay, so, you know, go for it." You know? "Tell, you know, tell your manager you changed your mind," or whatever it is, needs to happen. And then I'm like, "Well, like, like do I actually want..." I, I kind of get back to that same logic of like, well, I don't, I don't actually want that. Like, so if I could push a button and, and switch with them, I, I wouldn't. So, but definitely, definitely, you know, very human at the same time.

  4. 8:31 – 12:36

    Compensation and career path

    1. LR

    2. TR

      For someone that's trying to pursue this path, trying to avoid these sorts of things, and say just trying to be successful in, as an IC, looking back, is there anything that you've learned that has helped you be successful and pursue the thing that makes you happy?

    3. LR

      I think the big elephant in the room is compensation. I think that's like, you know, whenever I have this discussion with friends and colleagues, like that's always like the... Well, there's two things. There's compensation and there's, um, like can it be interesting? Like, don't you get sick of it, right? So I think, you know, that classic book Drive, you know, um, motivation comes from autonomy, mastery, and purpose. And I think for me, the IC role, it's definitely very autonomous. It's one of, being a product manager is one of the most autonomous roles and most amount of agency you can ask for. I think mastery, I once heard Marty Cagan say in a, in a workshop, you know, product manager role is just one of those roles where you can just keep doing it, you know, for a really long time because it just gets, uh, it just keeps changing and you can change industries, right, without having background in it. Um, the situation changes every time you do it in every different context. It's just so, so different and interesting. And, uh, purpose is one that I, I took for granted in the past and I learned how important it is. I think if you feel that you're building something that you really want to see happen in the world and you really want to make sure it's done well, you're like, you don't, you're like, don't trust anybody else to do it. Like, you want to be the one to work on it and, and make sure that this gets done well in the world because it matters to you, then I think you're, you know, you're in a really strong place, uh, from that point of view. Like, that really gets you motivated and you want to be hands-on and it keeps you really focused.

    4. TR

      I want to drill into something you said around compensation, uh, and just generally-

    5. LR

      Yeah.

    6. TR

      ... what you've done to be, to stay down this path, 'cause I know compensation, that's a real thing. Is there anything you've seen or done that has helped you be more comfortable with that in terms of getting the comp you think you deserve being an IC this long, being like basically a super IC?

    7. LR

      I think first of all, you have to believe your worth. Like, you have to genuinely believe and understand that an individual contributor in product management, you know, is, is worth, can have a really big scope, really big ownership, really big impact, and, um, matters a lot. And I think the industry is coming around to that, right? Um, we'll talk a little bit m- more about this, but the, you know, the great flattening of the last few years, and, you know, I've seen like talking to friends who are founders and the founders here at Riverside are really looking for people really experienced who are really hands-on. Like that's, like first of all, we just need people who get stuff done. And just recognizing that in yourself and believing that and recognizing that in the industry and remembering there's a really good analogy here in engineering, right, where, uh, it really makes sense to all of us that like you shouldn't have to rise into management in order to increase your compensation. You're equally or just as valuable, right, um, not as a manager, as like a domain expert. And that's step one. Like, really understand that you are, you know, really, really, really valuable as an IC. I think tactically speaking, one thing that I've done a few times, different interview rounds, is when it comes to compensation, uh, you've probably heard the line, "Well, you know, that's a really high number, but, you know, we can't reach it, but don't worry, we're growing a lot. The product is gonna grow a lot. There's gonna be a lot of opportunities to rise in the management. So, you know, there's gonna be a lot of opportunities to increase compensation over time." And that's like a classic line you might hear from a recruiter or hiring manager. And in those moments, it's kind of like puts you in a weird position where it's like, well, you know, you don't think you're gonna rise up. Y- y- you can't like debate that so well.... and what I say in those moments is, "You know, I'm glad you mentioned that. I actually have no intention of going into management, uh, or rising up, you know, in those ranks. And I know that, you know, you and I know that the industry traditionally undervalues the IC role, so it's really important for me to, you know, have that number now." And that works.

    8. TR

      Wow. Okay. (laughs) Very straightforward.

    9. LR

      (laughs)

  5. 12:36 – 14:33

    Advice for companies on creating space for ICs

    1. LR

    2. TR

      So maybe along those lines, just a final question there on this track is just, for people that are trying to create a space for an IC path at a company, or as a company trying to do this, anything you suggest they do to make this a thing for people that actually want to stay ICs, to set this up as a real career path?

    3. LR

      Have the titles. I think having, you know, good, you know, titles that are clear that you can move up into, first of all just, like, creates it as an idea that there is progress. Creating clear levels and rubric just like you would for, you know, within any level or within any title. I think saying it out loud, recognizing it, uh, I thi- I think it's just, um... Like at the end of the day, you know, we all want respect. We all want to feel that we're growing. We want, uh, to feel that that's recognized. So, I think putting it in words goes a really long way.

    4. TR

      So, in terms of titles, what other titles you find? As a principal product manager is there other titles you've found helpful, and how many levels of IC do you find you need?

    5. LR

      The ones I've seen on, like, LinkedIn (laughs) is there's, there's, you know, product manager; senior product manager; principal product manager. I've seen a distinguished product manager, uh, at Atlassian.

    6. TR

      Oh, yeah. I think Am- Amazon, I think has that too.

    7. LR

      Amazon too? Um, yeah. Um, I think those are, like, the exception not the rule.

    8. TR

      Hmm. Yeah.

    9. LR

      Uh, but, uh, yeah, I think putting it into words really helps.

    10. TR

      Okay, so principal and distinguished. Amazing. Distinguished is the highest level you've seen of an ICPM. And I think you're-

    11. LR

      I think you just created super IC, I guess then. Yeah. (laughs)

    12. TR

      Super IC. And we're gonna talk about that. And then in terms of rubric and career ladder, basically it's just the same way you have a career ladder for managers, just have it further, go further for ICPMs?

    13. LR

      Yeah. I think product is usually, like, the last department to really, uh-

    14. TR

      Hmm.

    15. LR

      Just 'cause it's smaller, I think. Um...

    16. TR

      Yeah.

    17. LR

      Yeah.

    18. TR

      Okay. Amazing.

  6. 14:33 – 22:44

    Leveraging AI for productivity

    1. TR

      Really helpful. We've talked about this idea of super ICs and, as you mentioned, there's kind of there's been rise of and shift of flattening of orgs, as you said, of people hiring more senior product managers is, there's a sense of that, and their companies are expecting more of PMs just doing the work, not managing other PMs. And I feel like you're such an interesting prototypical example of the P- the PMs people want to hire. And with AI, it's unlocking a whole new lever and opportunity for a lot of PMs where they, in theory, can actually achieve this thing that companies are looking for them to achieve, which is just get more done. So, any just thoughts along that track of just, like, more is expected of ICPMs, there's more need for ICPMs, and AI making it easier? What have you seen there? Where do you think things might be going?

    2. LR

      We've seen the last couple years, you know, I think it was, uh... You had on here Nikhil Singal talking about-

    3. TR

      Mm-hmm.

    4. LR

      ... when Facebook had those, uh, really big layoffs, that they were biased towards keeping individual contributor product managers. Um, Zuckerberg, you know, talked about, uh, the flattening. And I've seen, you know, here at Riverside during that same time, um, founders talking about how they're just really looking for, you know, "Can we just find some really, really senior experienced people who want to stay hands-on?" Like, that would be the dream, right? I, you know, I also have heard from friends in, you know, in the market that, um, in the hiring market that there's just a lot more experienced people, uh, competing for the same IC roles as a result of all that. So, I do think that the result of that is, you know, a lot of... S- I think the result of that is, um, like being a 10X PM, for example, is becoming more and more table stakes, especially, like you mentioned with AI. That's just the tailwind for all of that.

    5. TR

      And we don't have to go too far down this track, but have you actually experienced this yourself? Have you found really interesting ways to leverage AI and become more effective?

    6. LR

      Just this week I have an example with my team. I have one team that's trying to introduce much more rigorous SCRUM as it hires a lot more developers. Part of that is a lot more paperwork, uh, as a product manager. In some companies, it's a whole, like, role that they hire, uh, just to do that. And what we did is, uh, basically took ChatGPT, told it the format, you know, of the stories and epics and so on, and, uh, tried something where I just dictated and spoke as if I was doing a kickoff, and I just talked naturally. And, you know, out it just put out all this, uh, really, really, really amazing detailed, uh, stories and so on, and, you know, just had to edit it a little bit, but, um... So that was, that was like a, you know, aha moment for me, like, okay, that would've taken either dividing the team into smaller pieces or multiple product managers to be able to keep up. And, you know, obviously the next step is like, we just take the actual kickoff, record that, transcribe that, and, like, feed that in. We- we're playing around with that as well. You can imagine what might have taken, you know, 10 years ago, five years ago, a director organization, like a director level organization and everybody reporting to that director, to achieve something could probably be achieved with an IC now. And I think the... You know, this ties in because, like, the product career path is gonna be even less about people management and just more and more about, like, leadership, right? And, like, the, the core, uh, core product manager skills.

    7. TR

      Uh, this is an really interesting example of how you're using AI. I want to definitely spend more time here. He- help me understand exactly what you did. So you had a, a bunch of projects that you were kicking off with a bunch of different teams with a PM leading each one, or SCRUM master leading each one.

    8. LR

      So this is actually, we tried this on, on one team.

    9. TR

      Okay.

    10. LR

      But it was, like, a really big project.

    11. TR

      Okay.

    12. LR

      Like a ton of... Yeah, it was a ton of stories. Yeah.

    13. TR

      Can you explain what the project is briefly or-

    14. LR

      Sure.

    15. TR

      Okay.

    16. LR

      Um, it's a... I'll say it's, like, a pretty fundamental change to the user experience, uh, so touches on, like, everything in the product.

    17. TR

      Oh, shit. Of Riverside. Okay.

    18. LR

      Yeah.

    19. TR

      Oh, man. Here we go.... I'm excited.

    20. LR

      (laughs)

    21. TR

      Okay. So you have this big, uh, project you're kicking after to rethink the experience of Riverside. And normally, you're saying you would have had to write all these one-pagers and specs of the components of this project, like the different features and products. Is that right?

    22. LR

      So the, like, high level why we're doing this, you know, usability studies, the design, the vision, all that stuff, we did without AI. That was, you know, me, director of design, and, and our founder. But then it came time for, you know, the rubber meets the road. Uh, we did a kickoff on the engineers. You know, everybody's bought in, everybody's excited. And now we need to, like, really make sure that things are really, really well-defined and very, very clear and easy for, you know, testing afterwards, and, and just, like, make all that stuff, the high level stuff, really, really specific. Uh, and so that means user stories in Jira, in this case, right, for this team, that's how they prefer to work, and the specific format, like, that, you know, they've, they've asked for. And so it's like a story, and there's a... It's called, like, Gherkin. I'm learning this too. This is new to me. You know, given this, when that, then that, it's, it's really tedious. Uh, when it's small, it's actually really fun to write, because it makes you think. But when you have, you know, so many things that need to change, uh, it's overwhelming, and would either delay the team, that would be the bottleneck, or we'd just have to split it up. And what we did is we took that template. My team lead said, "Hey, this is the template I would love." I gave it to ChatGPT. I said, you know, "You're an expert PM, product owner, SCRUM master, whatever. This is the template. Do you understand?" It's like, "Yeah, let's go." And then I said, "Well, actually, before we get going, um, I want to tell you..." I- I'm like, you know, holding down, like, the dictation button. Um, we use Whisper, uh, Whisper AI to dictate. And I was like, "You know, let me just tell you a little bit more background." I just, like, started talking to it like I would for a developer, you know, joining the team. And I just started to talk about, like, why we're doing it and so on. I was like, "So do you understand that?" It's like, "Yeah, cool. Let's go." And then I said, "Okay, well, the first thing is we're going to change this area, and it's gonna work like this, and it's really important that this and this happens." And I just talked supernaturally to it, like just, just like I would to a person. And, uh, when I was done, I hit enter, and it created that, you know, that user story (laughs) in that format, uh, with all those cases that would have taken me so long to write. And I would say the thing that we re- still really needed a person for was deciding how to break up this really, really big change into those stories, like what is the logical way to split it up, uh, engineering wise, which my, uh, team lead did. But once you have that, like each one individually worked really, really well. So I'm now experimenting with taking the transcript. I tried this actually, i- experimenting with taking the transcript of the actual kickoff that we did and that we, well, we recorded, uh, on Riverside and had it transcribed, and I copied it and put it into ChatGPT. It didn't work as well. Um, so I'm experiment- tweaking it to see, like, how far, how far can we push this?

    23. TR

      This is awesome. I love that you're sharing this. Uh, so you had basically... You sh- described the project and all the different compo- all the different features and user stories in words using Whisper just... And to use Whisper, is it an app or is it within ChatGPT? Where do you actually access this?

    24. LR

      It's built into ChatGPT's desktop app and-

    25. TR

      Okay, got it.

    26. LR

      ... mobile apps, like if you dict- if you dictate it that way.

    27. TR

      Got it.

    28. LR

      Um, I also have, like, a desktop app on my own that I use, 'cause it's just such a great, uh, you know, transcription model.

    29. TR

      Awesome.

    30. LR

      But it's open source, free, uh, provided by OpenAI.

  7. 22:44 – 26:01

    Managing your time

    1. LR

    2. TR

      ... let's shift a little bit. Is there anything else you found to be really helpful in having leverage as an ICPM kind of along these lines, whether it's AI or not, just being that super IC, essentially getting more done as an IC?

    3. LR

      So the way I think about this is how you manage your own time, how you design your days, your energy, your focus, and then your team and how you build that culture and those habits to just give you a lot of leverage as an IC so that, you know, still as one person you can, you know, own a lot of, uh, scope, you can influence a lot, you can, um, manage a lot. So personally, for my time, I really believe, and I think you've written about this as well, in actively designing your days. And for me, I really strictly s- split my days between deep work and what I call ping pong or, you know, ping pong you can imagine it's like when you're, uh, you open Slack and it's just constant, you know, hitting the ball back and forth. It makes your brain feel like scrambled eggs. You're not going to be doing any deep thinking or reading or strategy. So for me, I'm a morning person and I, I block off my morning for meetings, you know. A lot of people give that tip. I go even further and I don't open Slack before noon.

    4. TR

      Wow.

    5. LR

      I've been doing this for eight years.

    6. TR

      Oh, I love that.

    7. LR

      I don't open Slack at all to the... It gets really extreme to the point where like if I need to send a message, like it usually fails, I usually open Slack, um, before noon because I needed to send a message. And then I realize like all these messages don't need to be sent before noon, right? Just 'cause I thought it at 11:00 AM doesn't mean I need to send it at 11:00 AM. There's no urgency.... at that level. So I actually keep a section in my to-do list, which is, when I open Slack, here are the messages I'm gonna send. And I write them as if I'm about to hit Enter in Slack, but they're in my to-do list. And sometimes if I, like ... really, really, really rare moments, I'll need to check something. I'll ask the person next to me, like, "Hey, can you go into this channel and just show me that thing?" Because like I, you know ... And all their notifications don't, like, you know, trigger my brain into scrambled eggs again. So ...

    8. TR

      That's an awesome tip.

    9. LR

      Yeah.

    10. TR

      And I know people will hear this and be, like, "There's no way I can do this." Is your insight is you can?

    11. LR

      Yes. Uh, usually when I share this, people are like, "Well, what if something urgent happens and people are looking for you?" This has happened, like, twice a year. Like I ... You, you realize how not urgently needed, uh, the PM, uh, role ever is, like? (laughs) And first of all, over time, people really respect it. They, like ... They learn that this is how you work and they, they come to really respect this. Um, and second, the key people that I work with have my phone number and I tell them, f- you know, "Feel free to call me at any time. If I'm not on Slack, if you really need a response, just call me, WhatsApp me, whatever it takes." And first of all, it's like a, a barrier, right? It's not like a quick message. So it really is only for urgent stuff. And, you know, all ... I have, like ... You know, for e- Twice a year, I'll get, like, a WhatsApp message from my manager, from my team lead, "Hey, something urgent is happening in Slack. Like, we really need you." And then I'll open Slack and I'll violate my rule. It's totally fine. Um, but that's, like ... It's so rare that, uh, the system works for me.

    12. TR

      Amazing. Okay. Anything else along those lines? This is an awesome

  8. 26:01 – 27:52

    Product scrapbooking

    1. TR

      little tip.

    2. LR

      I personally keep a weird habit. I've, I've realized it's a weird habit. I call it product scrapbooking, um, where I have this, like, massive notion database of every opportunity, big or small, that's ever come up. And when a, like a piece of evidence, you know, out in the world comes in ... It could be, like, a support ticket or, like, a CSM sends a Gong call or, like, there's a really great Slack thread with, like, a amazing brainstorm happening and ideas, da- piece of data, whatever it is, right? I'll file it. I, like, I actively take a screenshot or whatever it is. I file it and I start to, like, cluster these in this, like, really messy notion. And the reason I do this is that I've learned that, you know, we have these, like, roadmaps and strategies that, like, seem linear, but, like, life and customers and, you know, insights are not. So when the time does come around to work on that thing and that opportunity comes up, I can pull up that notion and I already have a bunch of, like, really, you know, in the weeds, real world clues to start with, and even persuade people that we should dig deeper into this. Or, for example, another advantage is that, uh, if I'm on a conversation with a person from sales or CSM, from customer success, and they'll mention a request, you know, I can open that up and I'm like, "Yeah, this is ... Actually, uh, this client and that client and that client also mentioned that." And, uh, you know, you see, like, in their face that they've, they feel heard. Like, "You've been listening all this time? Like, you've been writing this down?" Um, it's a really ... I think that's really important as well.

    3. TR

      I love these tips. I love product scrapbooking as a term. It makes so much sense and it's just immediately clear what you're gonna be doing, and I love how simple the approach there is. Is there anything else along those lines or is there m- something you want to share around the kind of, this other bucket, that I think you hinted at, of helping your team set you up for success and

  9. 27:52 – 36:32

    Cultivating self-reliant teams

    1. TR

      get more done?

    2. LR

      I believe in cultivating very self-reliant teams.

    3. TR

      Mm-hmm.

    4. LR

      And I think that's really key to being, having a lot more leverage as an IC. Uh, being able to manage multiple teams if needed, uh, on much bigger areas of the product. I think the key of that is having this mindset that product isn't a role, it's a team. And, yeah, I read a quote once, um, by Ebi Ateuwode and she's worked at Netflix and Uber and, and she's super experienced and she says something like, "It's not about waiting for products. You know, product said this or that or waiting for product. Like, we're all product." And I really try to, like, have that, that as the cornerstone of a culture of, of any team that I, uh, I'm on, that ... You know, I had, uh, a new teammate come up to me, uh, recently. He just joined and, uh, he was in engineering. And he's, he came up to me excitedly and he's like, "I found a case that you didn't think about." And I was like, "Okay. Awesome, but hold on one second. Let's talk about language. Like, product is a, is not a role, it's a team." And, uh, whatever it is, I don't even know what it is, but everything that we're, we own, like, it's ... Uh, both design was involved. Engineering was super involved. You know, yes, I was there and it's ... Let's call it, "Hey, I found a way to improve the product." Or, "Hey, I, I found something that we didn't think about." It's really, really important. So first of all, like, that language, that culture, uh, that, you know, it's not like this hub and spoke model and, like, the, the PM is at the center and making all these decisions and, um, you know, passing things through. So first of all, that's, like, that's, like, a fundamental mindset. Uh, it's really important for each team to have, to, to be more high-leverage as an IC. The second thing is, personally, to seek to not be needed but be valuable. And the difference is, like, if you think about your day as a product manager, like, look for situations where ... Is there a game of telephone that's constantly passing through me? Uh, are there a lot of situations where clearly you're the bottleneck? Like, your attention, your ability to get to something is the bottleneck and a lot of people are waiting on you? Do you find, like, a lot of communication is happening in direct messages with you instead of public channels for the team? Are a lot of working meetings just, like, you and one other person on the team instead of maybe two or three? You know, not too many either. So all those ...... are like opportunities where you can create a different situation, or a cu- a culture on the team, where people are figuring things out between themselves, and maybe involving you at the very end. So one of the things that I really put a lot of energy into is really encouraging people to get conversations out of direct messages and into channels. This is like a really important, um, way to cultivate people who are just working together and figuring things out, uh, and between one another. And any time somebody sends me a direct message, I say, "This is a great question. Can you please put it in this channel with the team? I'll answer there." But it's really important for me that any decisions we make are transparent, that it's easy to find it later, that, you know, there's a few other people who should probably chime in if they want to. Uh, and this could be at the team level, um, I work at a company that had a really, really big customer success organization, they'd constantly, like, find you as a PM and just DM you these questions. And I'd say, "Great question. Put it in, like, this really big channel." That way, you know, give a reason, so that way other people on the customer success team can search the channel and find the answer later, right? It can help other people. And if you do this enough, it becomes a snowball effect, because other people on the team will see that other people are posting in public channels and feel more comfortable with it, and that just becomes a chain reaction.

    5. TR

      Such awesome advice. There's, like, it's so kind of counterintuitive also, I think, um, to a lot of product managers where you're basically saying, like, remove yourself as the dependency, uh, delegate more, empower everyone on your team, have engineers come up with ideas, have them write things, like when PageRespects, things like that. Like, become less valuable almost, which I think is not the natural tendency for a product-

    6. LR

      Become obsolete.

    7. TR

      ... become obsolete. And-

    8. LR

      Yeah. That's the dream, no? That's my dream.

    9. TR

      I love that. But I think there, like if I thought of, if I think about trying to do this, I think you need like a real confidence as a PM, and be in comfort with chaos. A lot of times, PMs, they want to be the hub because the more they can control the narrative, the more they can control what people see. If you see CX pinging an engineer, like, "Oh, my God, they're just gonna start working on this thing. And we have this roadmap, we have priorities. What are they gonna..." How do you manage that challenge?

    10. LR

      Yeah. There's a great phrase I heard a mentor once say, which is, "Culture over process." You know, process is important and, and some things you need process to scaffold till you build the culture. But I think it's, it's like you view, you got to view the team as like this asset you're building, right? This culture is an asset that you're building and you're, you're investing in it and you're, you know, cultivating it, and you want to build something that's stronger than, uh... That's a great example. A CX person or salesperson just directly messaging an engineer or just asking for something. You want to build something that's resilient to that. Like that's the real product that you're building as a PM, I think, is the team that builds the product and is resilient to all those things. It doesn't happen overnight. It's not gonna happen in the first quarter that that team is formed. But it happens, you know, over time gradually with little messages and little interactions and positive feedback and, you know, asking people to work a little bit differently and giving them a reason why and building trust. And, you know, I, I think that success in my job is to build a very self-reliant team that's very resilient to all those things that I would otherwise, you know, like you said, keep me up at night, like really make me worried.

    11. TR

      You shared an example of how you do that, these little mi- I call these micro-interactions. Like, so much of a PM is these micro-interactions with team members, which is so much harder now in a remote world. We can't just walk by and just, like, do a little ta- a little chat. Uh, the, the chat you shared, I think, is an awesome example where the language was a really powerful shift in how this person thought. Is there anything else along those lines you could share of how to create this sort of culture?

    12. LR

      One thing that I try to do is when somebody takes something that would be my job, right, and does that, like, uh, whether it's on the design side, they, like, you know, lean in more, or on the engineering side, they lean in more. People bring ideas or they say, "Hey, I took the liberty of doing this." It could be as small as, you know, something bureaucratic or, like, as big as, like, an idea or suggestion. I just shower them with positivity. I just show them just, you know, how excited I am that they did that, that ha- you know, I just want that to happen again, (laughs) and them to feel even more bold. And just, like, when somebody takes something off your plate, when somebody, you know, think, does kind of the, the PM, what you think is like, "Oh, that's PM thinking. What are you doing," right? Just really want them to feel that that is extremely welcome.

    13. TR

      And I imagine there's a bunch of coaching you do to, like, help engineers, designers, researchers, data people think the way you think almost to kind of become more PM-y. Is that a part of this, too?

    14. LR

      I don't, I don't know if I would call it coaching. It's, um, it's like a lot, like you said, just a lot of little behaviors. So one thing I try to do along those lines is when there's something that's, you know, on me to do, uh, for someone or, like, the next logical step, um, I try to do that live with them. So if, uh, somebody asked me a question about, "Hey, what does the data show about this?" If we went that direction. I'm like, "I don't know. Let's find out." Instead of saying, "Hey, I'll get back to you," let's open, you know, Mixpanel. Let's play around with this." And I don't tell them, "Hey, it'd be great if you..." I just show them how easy it was. Like, "Hey, if I could figure this out, like, you know, this is Fisher-Price data for PMs. Like, this is, you could totally figure this out." That's the, that's what I'm trying to imply by showing it. Um, or, uh, you know, if it's a, "Write a, create a Jira ticket just to make something happen quickly and document it," uh, I am like, "Hey, let's just do this together on the call right now and make sure I get it right." And what you see is over time, you know, some people more than others, but they start to just naturally want to do that themselves, ask you for that access, uh, start, start to do those things. "Hey, uh, you know, um..."... you know, I did this and I wrote the Jira ticket for it. I did this and I did the data analysis.

  10. 36:32 – 37:39

    Tal's Maven course: Build Your Personal PM Productivity System

    1. LR

      And, you know, that grows over time.

    2. TR

      You actually have a course that you're, uh, launching-

    3. LR

      Yes.

    4. TR

      ... or is out now, or about to launch that teaches a lot of these things. Talk about that.

    5. LR

      Yeah. Um, uh, this is a passion project I'm working on, uh, with Maven, uh, the learning platform. It's a course called, uh, Build Your Personal PM Productivity System. And it, it really goes super deep and super practical into these topics exactly, like how to design your time, how to manage yourself, how to manage your emotions, uh, how to cultivate self-reliant teams, how to give feedback and create a product org, you know, with less, that puts less overhead on you as a, as a PM. And yeah, it's the, the idea is to just take all these topics and just make this like really, really, really hands-on.

    6. TR

      Awesome. Uh, I feel like I wish I had this. And I feel like you're such a great person to teach this because, as an IC, this is, this is how you succeed. This is the thing that makes it real hard to stay as an IC. And again, with the rise of AI almost creating a space for super ICs, as we talked about, it feels like this kind of stuff is going to be more and more important. So, uh, so we'll definitely link to that in the show notes.

  11. 37:39 – 44:32

    Contrarian opinions and insights

    1. TR

      I want to shift to a different topic. Uh, I think you've, you've kind of shown people this already, but you have a lot of very unpop- uh, contrarian opinions about a lot of things. You see things a little differently, and there's a few other things that I've seen you talk about that I want to spend a little time on. So I'm just gonna go through a few of them and just share whatever you want to share on this. Sound good?

    2. LR

      Sure.

    3. TR

      Okay. Okay, cool. Uh, the first is you have this phrase that, uh, or this concept that every tech company basically has just two departments that matter.

    4. LR

      So yeah, over time working at, at a bunch of, uh, hypergrowth companies, I've started to notice that there's some departments that are the reason that company won the market. And also started to realize that, and this is sometimes true of the department, you know, that I'm in, product, that even if, you know, product did a 10X job, you know, it wouldn't be a 10X outcome for the company over the decade. But, for example, it could be if marketing did a 10X job, the company would have a 10X outcome over the decade. And I started to observe this over the years, and I noticed it's roughly usually, like two things, two companies, uh, sorry, two departments. It's roughly, like two departments that this boils down to in each company. So I'll just make this really concrete without naming names. Uh, the companies that I worked at, the two departments at one company was product design and support. Like those are the, like if those two departments were 10X, then the company would win. Another company was data accuracy and customer success. Another company was, the thing that made them win in the market was trust/brand, like a trusted brand, and payments. And another company that I worked at, looking back, what made them win in the market was marketing and engineering, like scalability. So product sometimes is on this list. Uh, so one of the companies I worked at, like I mentioned, you know, product design, product. Um, if, if, if that department does 10X, uh, impact, then the company will succeed 10X in the market. Uh, but it's, in my career, it mostly hasn't been product. Product has to do a good job, but it's not the, you know, not the biggest lever for that company, even though it's a tech product company. And I think this really crystallized for me when I finally worked in a company where product is that department. You feel that.

    5. TR

      Okay. So the, uh, $64,000 question, whatever billion-dollar question is how do you know which of these, how do you know which two departments matter most?

    6. LR

      First of all, look at what really drives the growth. Like, what's the growth model? You know, what are the levers? Ask, ask those questions. How does it work? Ask officially and ask as part of your back channeling and, you know, reference checking. And the second thing is if you're really seriously, you know, checking out a company, evaluating a company, truly understand that customer and, like what are they actually paying for in this industry? You know, what is the thing that, what is the real product? What's the real value that they're getting? Uh, clearly they're paying for a product or service, but, like what is, beyond that, what are they actually paying for? Ask those questions, and I think that'll, uh, make it clear.

    7. TR

      I think maybe one trick here is just see what team drives growth. Oftentimes, it's gonna be sales. Oftentimes it's gonna be product experiments they're running. It could be marketing.

    8. LR

      Exactly. And, um, the, that department, if you're, whatever role you have, if you're in that department for that company, that's gonna be your career-defining work. Like that's why it's so worth it. That's kind of you're gonna attract like, you know, the best colleagues. Your careers are gonna, you know, have a step function jump. Like it's, it's a, it's a totally different experience.

    9. TR

      And this is when people say a company is engineering-driven, product-driven, marketing-driven, sales-driven. This is exactly what they mean, which team matters most to the company because they are driving the most growth. So if you're a salesperson on a sales-driven company, you will be valued more highly than being a product person at a sales-driven company.

    10. LR

      Yeah. When I, uh, graduated from college, I had a friend give me advice. He was like, "Don't be a finance guy at a tech company and don't be a tech guy at a finance company." (laughs) This was 2009. So like yeah, anyways. (laughs)

    11. TR

      Yeah. And I think this is where a lot of people struggle where they're a PM at a company that's very not product-driven and they, you read all these books about being empowered and having agency and autonomy and, and instead they're just the team that people, they're just feature factories because other teams run the show and we don't need your opinions. We know, we know how to grow this thing. Just build this thing for us.

    12. LR

      And here's the thing. That's okay. Like that's what that company needs.... you know, to succeed in the market. You know, think about the Olympics. This is an analogy that came to mind recently. It's like-

    13. TR

      Hmm.

    14. LR

      ... um, if you, let's say, uh, you can think like how a marathon runner looks and how a swimmer looks, right? They're very different. They look very different. You can, you can spot them, you know, uh, I- in the row of athletes. And if you imagine, you know, product being a lat muscle, that's the product department, you know, you can be a lat muscle (laughs) for a marathon runner, you can be one for a swimmer. And a marathon runner needs one and it needs to work, uh, but right, it's, you want, where do you want to be that lat muscle? On the swimmer or on the, on the marathon runner?

    15. TR

      I love that analogy. (instrumental music) This episode is brought to you by Eppo. Eppo is a next generation A/B testing and feature management platform built by alums of Airbnb and Snowflake for modern growth teams. Companies like Twitch, Miro, ClickUp and DraftKings rely on Eppo to power their experiments. Experimentation is increasingly essential for driving growth and for understanding the performance of new features. And Eppo helps you increase experimentation velocity while unlocking rigorous deep analysis in a way that no other commercial tool does. When I was at Airbnb, one of the things that I loved most was our experimentation platform where I could set up experiments easily, troubleshoot issues and analyze performance all on my own. Eppo does all that and more with advanced statistical methods that can help you shave weeks off experiment time, an accessible UI for diving deeper into performance, and out-of-the-box reporting that helps you avoid annoying prolonged analytics cycles. Eppo also makes it easy for you to share experiment insights with your team, sparking new ideas for the A/B testing flywheel. Eppo powers experimentation across every use case, including product, growth, machine learning, monetization, and email marketing. Check out Eppo at geteppo.com/lenny and 10X your experiment velocity. That's geteppo.com/lenny.

  12. 44:32 – 52:51

    Book smart vs. street smart decision-making

    1. TR

      Let's move on to another, uh, let's say, hot take that you have. You have this kind of phrase that there's a big difference between book-smart decision-making and street-smart decision-making. What's that about?

    2. LR

      Yeah. Uh, this one comes out of, uh, a lot of mistakes I've made myself and, uh, seen around me as well. Uh, so I'm, I'm so guilty of this. Book-smart decision-making as a PM is all the stuff we talk about all the time. That's data, you know, uh, design, technology, strategy, frameworks, all that stuff. And it's really important and, you know, it's why we're strong at it. Street-smart decision-making is taking all that and then seeing something from somebody else's point of view. This goes beyond empathy. I'll explain what I mean. It's like, like giving the customer's perception just as much weight as you would to logic. Um, a really big example of this, and I, I won't name the company. I was at this company that changed the structure of the pricing, and the change was actually not meant to make more money. It was meant to unblock a payments roadmap and like enable all these feature requests that were stuck behind this fundamental change. And in preparing for this, the company did a lot of analyses and just made sure that, you know, this was really, actually really good for customers and, uh, that this would, this would only, um, like on, the numbers and the predictions and the models were like, "This is a positive thing." And I know all the people that were involved were the most empathetic, really did this because they really cared about this customer, uh, genuinely. I've never seen people that are, you know, at the executive level, um, at the product level, at the data level, like these are the people who, who really genuinely wanted the best, uh, for this customer. And they rolled out the change, and in reality what, well, bottom line, there was a big, you know, revolt on the internet. It, it was, it was a big deal, and, uh, it was rolled back. And the bottom line why there's such a gap between, you know, everything... And actually, by the way, all the analyses proved out to be, to be correct. All the models, all the predictions, like es- everything played out, uh, the numbers as, as predicted. The problem was the perception, uh, the narrative behind it, what it looked like when you logged into the product and you saw only the negative, but you didn't see all the positive because the positive was, you know, would happen 30 days later and you saw the negative immediately. You know, a lot of things like that. And I, I, I would have made exactly the same mistake. I w- you know, I, not a criticism, I would have probably made more mistakes. But that, that's like what opened my mind to, oh my God, you have to really think more than just logical, more than just like, you know, utilitarian. Another example of this is there was a, a company I worked at where all the features that were on a, a higher plan were invisible to the lower plans just 'cause everything was built really fast and it was just, uh, it was time to, to make them visible so people could upgrade. So we got that ready and, and we did this and we were about to release it and we realized, you know, tomorrow morning a bunch of customers are gonna log into the product and there's all these features that they've been asking us for because they didn't know that we have them because they were locked and only on the higher plan. Suddenly, from their point of view, the company built everything they'd asked for and all of it requires paying more money. How are they gonna feel? And so we didn't roll it out that way. We rolled it out in smaller pieces and, you know, different ways, um, because we realized like that's gonna feel really shitty if you think about it, you know? But practically speaking or theoretically speaking, we didn't, we didn't, uh, upsell every- anything. We didn't start to, you know, these are all things we already had built. Everything is above board. That's the perception that was gonna happen.

    3. TR

      In that second example, is there anything that triggered that recognition? Or is it just people sitting around being like, "Oh, what about this?" Or was it ... 'Cause the first example, you had a great point where you ... customers were telling you this isn't necessarily what they want. And you were like, "No, no, no. You're gonna do great. Trust us. It's gonna be really good for you." But there's feedback, at least in the second example. Is there something that's like ... And I'm ... What I'm asking about is, like, how, how can people develop this skill? 'Cause I, I love this advice.

    4. LR

      Yeah. I think that intuition came from, um, spending time in the customer community and support tickets and just noticing smaller versions of that, um, that people had feedback on. And you kind of start to see, you know, what our customers, you know, at the time of, like, what they would tend to, like, what their suspicions always were. And, like, they're very, like, you know, trigger-happy to blame the company for X, Y, Z. And, uh, if you see enough, you know, raw data from customers, uh, or if you get on a customer call and they mention nickel-and-diming and all these things, right? Like, you start to understand, like, this is, this is the target persona. This is, this is how they think. This is what they're sensitive to.

    5. TR

      It's interesting, 'cause at Airbnb there was a lot of that, a lot of hosts being really upset about changes. Like, constantly. Everything that changed their ... And usually the changes are to help the business in some way, help the guest in many ways. And there's always this balance of, "We're just gonna ... We gotta do this. This is just the future." Is there anything there, just real quick, of just, like, learning when we gotta do this anyway, even though they're gonna be pissed? Versus, like, "Oh, shit."

    6. LR

      Yes.

    7. TR

      "Let's roll this back." Okay. (laughs)

    8. LR

      Yes, for sure. Um, this is just, this is just ... Like, what I'm talking about is to recognize it. What you do with it, right? Is a different thing. But, you know, I, I joke when we, when we do, uh, changes to, um, like, redesigns or changes to UX and we're gonna get inevitable, you know, complaints. I just tell my team, "We're gonna deploy this and we're all gonna log out of social media for two weeks. That's the strategy." Right? It's extreme. We don't actually do that, and of course, but that's what we, uh, we wish we could do sometimes. Yeah.

    9. TR

      And the insight there is just social media will amplify one person's loud voice versus, like, how many people are actually upset about this? How important-

    10. LR

      Yeah.

    11. TR

      ... are they to the business, right? It's like, don't pa- pay attention to the loudest person.

    12. LR

      Or also, um, the ... I think the key there is the two weeks.

    13. TR

      Mm-hmm.

    14. LR

      Because if people are still complaining after two weeks-

    15. TR

      Mm-hmm.

    16. LR

      ... okay then, there's something here.

    17. TR

      Mm-hmm.

    18. LR

      But in those two weeks, there's gonna be a lot of feedback that comes from a resistance to change that they're gonna, you know, adapt to and can be ... can't ... won't, won't be able to remember what was before. Um, but, you know, sometimes you, you make mistakes and, you know, people will ... (laughs) You know, if there's a real mistake, you'll know about it for a long time.

    19. TR

      Yeah, and obviously you'll pay attention to, like, support tickets and all that stuff. It's just-

    20. LR

      Yeah, obviously. Yeah.

    21. TR

      ... social media. (laughs)

    22. LR

      And disclaimer, like, during those, those two weeks we look at every support ticket and, you know-

    23. TR

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    24. LR

      ... we look at everything on social media, and we ... Yeah, for sure. (laughs)

    25. TR

      Okay.

    26. LR

      I have two more examples about the, the Street Smart, Book Smart that are, that are really important. Um-

    27. TR

      Oh, please. Let's do it, let's do it.

    28. LR

      This has happened twice to me, um, where I, I worked on a team that made a very logical UX change and quickly found out that we ruined the sales demo. (laughs) So for the users of the product, the, you know, the experience became a little bit smoother. It was an optimization, it wasn't something critical. But then for, uh, the sales demo, it communicated the value less. It was harder to, for people to really understand, you know, in, in one glance. So a lot of times, uh, this comes from taking something that's very, like, visual and making it very efficient and small. So you might gain, you know, fewer clicks, but it'll make it harder for our, the sales team to, you know, to communicate, uh, and for the a-ha moment to happen on a call. To the point where, uh, we made this change and then salespeople would send me Gong link recordings, you know, in the past and in the current demos, and just show me the difference. And it would, it would pain me to watch these. And I was like, "Oh, we gotta fix this." Like, "People aren't getting the value. How are they even gonna experience it?"

    29. TR

      Okay.

  13. 52:51 – 57:03

    There's no right way to get things done

    1. TR

      I know that you have a couple more hot takes that I wanted to make sure we had time for. One that I love, that I agree with, and it's kind of the thesis of this podcast almost, which is that there's no right way to get things done in a product team in a business, uh, in spite of what you may read online. I'd love to hear your take here.

    2. LR

      Yeah. I didn't always understand this. In fact, I moved continents, uh, because I had professional FOMO. So I moved, um, from Israel to San Francisco because I believed, and, and actually a lot of people, you know, had that feeling that, you know, whatever we're doing here in Silicon Valley, they know how to work. Like, that's the big leagues. And I got to work shoulder to shoulder with people who came from Apple, um, YouTube, Salesforce, Facebook, you know, Slack, Amazon, Stripe. Like, I got to work with the people who came from these companies I admired so much. And I came away with the conclusion that we're all just making it up as we go along, (laughs) in tech. Uh, we're all just improvising, as we should. That's the beauty of it. Every situation is different. Every market is different, right? Every company is different. What it takes to win is different. And so myself, I've had phases where I've been this, like, zealot of, you know, everything has to be outcomes driven. And, uh, then I've gone to like, "Let's just ship as much as possible and figure it out," and, "Everything needs to be A/B tested," and, uh, you know, "Quarterly planning has to work this way," and, "Should do Scrum or don't do..." Right? And I just realized, like, there is no ... It's not that simple. It's about figuring out the problem at hand and optimizing for that and having an open mind, and just understanding that we're all improvising.

    3. TR

      That's really powerful. And I, I think people may hear this and be like, "Yeah, I think I get it."I guess for people that are just, you know, everyone's reading, reading my newsletter, reading all the newsletters, re-listening to podcasts, listening to How People, Uh, Work, what's your advice? Is it just, like what should people think in your mind when they read about how another company runs?

    4. LR

      My personal story, like one of the things that happened when I landed in San Francisco, I really felt like an imposter. I was like, "Okay, wow, everybody else here really knows, you know, How to Work and I need to, like, learn from them." And six months later, I found myself giving talks and writing blog posts about How to Work, and you know, like blog posts that, you know, were being used in like Reforge courses and, and all that and, uh, advising people and, and sharing. And that's when it hit me, like that's the beauty of this industry is that that can happen because everything is changing so fast, like because... Like I, how, like how did I get there? I was just on a team doing something really difficult and interesting in a very unique way. And you, that's how you learn. That's like the real way to learn. Um, my manager, Adam Fishman at the time, uh, told me, you know, something related to this, which is like, "The best networking is just to do really good work at a successful company and like everything else will work out." So I think the same goes for like learning, right? The best learning is to just do, do really good work at a really good company with really good people that, and solve problems that have never been solved before in, in this way, which will inevitably happen, right? That's what, what we're all doing. Um, and everything else will work out. Like you'll be the one writing the blog posts, not just reading them.

    5. TR

      Yeah. Such important advice. So kind of the takeaway here is just if you want to become much better, if you want to be the one sharing advice versus the one reading advice, easier said than done, but the advice is work at a company doing interesting hard things, driving impact, being, growing, being successful, and that's, that's how you level up.

    6. LR

      Yeah.

    7. TR

      I love that. Yeah.

    8. LR

      That's the best way. Yeah.

    9. TR

      Yeah. And again, easier said than done. Not everyone can join an awesome, you know, high-flying tech startup. Um, interestingly you did this like in Israel, right, away from the core of Silicon Valley. So you can find great places outside of-

    10. LR

      Yeah.

    11. TR

      ... outside of Silicon Valley.

    12. LR

      Absolutely.

    13. TR

      Great. Okay.

  14. 57:03 – 1:19:04

    Failure corner

    1. TR

      So I know that, uh, you wanted to spend a bunch of time in Failure Corner, which I love. It's this recurring segment on this podcast where folks share times they failed in their career and things they've learned from those experiences. And you ma- you wanted me to carve out meaningful time here, which tells me that you've had a lot of these experiences-

    2. LR

      (laughs)

    3. TR

      ... for better or worse. So what I'm thinking is let's just go through a few of these stories that you think might be helpful to people to hear about times you, things didn't go great and what you learned from those experiences. How does that sound?

    4. LR

      Yeah. Um, yeah. It's really important for me to share this. I think during s- you know, low points in my career, having someone, uh, share with me a failure story, um, just really helped me understand that that's part of it and I'm not alone. And, you know, you browse LinkedIn, you see these incredible profiles with these incredible pedigrees and what you don't see, uh, it gives you this like sense that everybody's just had a smooth sailing and everything's going great. Um, and everybody has had, you know, some, like e- everybody who's been here long enough has had a ton of failure stories and ton of low points and self-doubt. So it's really meaningful for me to, to just talk about this.

    5. TR

      Well, let's do it.

    6. LR

      Uh, yeah.

    7. TR

      Let's get into it. Let's get real.

    8. LR

      So, um, I'll say this, I've wasted twice, twice I've wasted an entire quarter of a growth team's time because of my poor use of user research.

    9. TR

      Hmm.

    10. LR

      Uh, first time I, I can look back and after 12 failed A/B tests and then, you know, 12 failed A/B tests set us on the right path and got us to re- you know, revisit our hypothesis, but if I had only spent more time with the customer, and this was, you know, the kind of, uh, A/B testing that people say, "No, you can't do user research. You can't ask somebody what they're, you know, how a button's gonna affect their purchasing." But, uh, if I had spent time with the customer to just understand who they are, what motivates them, how they got there, why they're paying, all that stuff, I would understand that, um, not every checkout process, you know, is the same psychology as Groupon or, you know, Amazon or Booking.com. So the things that work on those sites work not just 'cause, you know, people are the same, uh, everywhere, but they work because people are in the same mindset, you know. On, for, for Groupon, for example, Amazon is different. Booking.com is different. And what you're working on, why people are buying, you know, in this situation that I was, that I was in was so different. They had so much motivation over such a long period of time, you know, they, they, uh, had, um, constant reminders naturally in their lives that they were happy to get. And the things that didn't work were all the things that worked, you know, that, that Groupon and Booking and Amazon and all these e-commerce sites did. Those were not relevant. And we tried all those things and, and they fell flat. The moment we realized that and it clicked for us, uh, and all these, you know, all these A/B tests that should have printed money did nothing. Once we realized that, um, then it, we really started to, you know, increase conversion and it was a super successful team. But man, I look back at if I had just, you know, had just used more qualitative research, even though it was an area that traditionally you don't use qualitative research, I could have saved so much time.

    11. TR

      It's also a great reminder of just not assuming wins that work at another company will win for you. Which I think everyone's like, "Yeah, I know that," but I think people don't know that. I think they often, "Oh, look, look at this. Amazon's killing it with this feature. We're gonna, if we add it, we're gonna-"

    12. LR

      Yeah.

    13. TR

      "... we're gonna win so hard."And so that's a great reminder, don't just take stories from others. There's something Shreyas actually talks about a lot is don't take stories from other companies as gospel for your company because there's so many things that are not the same. Awesome.

    14. LR

      Yeah.

    15. TR

      What else? What else you got?

    16. LR

      The, the second example of that is, um, I was building a referral program and, uh, we made a user research plan and we ended up only executing half of it, which means we talked to the people who were already using it successfully and we decided to skip, uh, talking to the people who should use it but didn't. And we were like, "Yeah, we get it. It's probably the same feedback." We were in a rush for a lot of other reasons, there was a lot of pressure, um, just unrelated reasons and just decided that, "Okay, we have enough information. We don't need to spend more time. Let's start shipping." And that was a huge mistake as well, just spent so much time building something that didn't work. Um, and, uh, yeah, I think my, my lesson there is the reasons that got me to hurry and, and you know make, make that decision with, with not as much data, uh, were reasons that I just kind of took people's word for stuff. I, um, I didn't think as first principles as I should. And, uh, I, I really caved into the time pressure. So yeah.

    17. TR

      It's like talk therapy.

    18. LR

      I learned to listen better. (laughs)

    19. TR

      Just, just letting it all out. This is great. Um, and so, so far our recurring theme is spend a little more time in user research, talk to more customers. Again, something we always hear-

    20. LR

      Yeah.

    21. TR

      ... but a lot of people are like, "Ah, user research. I don't need that." And what we're hearing here is it would have saved your team m- months and quarters potentially.

    22. LR

      Yeah. Each of those, each of those wasted an entire quarter.

    23. TR

      Oh, geez. All right. Cool. All right. What else? What else we got?

    24. LR

      (laughs) I have, uh, three times been a hair away from getting fired. And, and what I mean by that is a senior executive has come to me and said, "You are a hair away from getting fired." Uh, (laughs) um, and, uh, one of them, um, you know, one of them is there were, uh, changes that the head of product really wanted to make and I, uh, I felt strongly they shouldn't be made and I voiced that directly, um, candidly, personally and re- repeatedly. And then I, we had that conversation (laughs) and a colleague told me, "Listen, um, look at it this way. Like if you trust the leadership team to adapt if something's not working..." I said, "Yeah, I trust them." "Well, like what they need from you is just to rely on you that you're going to be with them even if, you know, disagreeing commit, like that's what they need from you. If you're right, they'll adapt. If you're wrong, then great you learn something, you know, product will get better." So the most important thing was, you know, there's like a song that, a lyric that goes, "You got to give in to win." Um, like it wasn't about being right, it was about just like being supportive and, uh, letting things fix themselves instead of, uh... So that was, that was that moment. It was really, like literally that was, that was the conversation. The second moment is a bigger story, but I was on a group that the, uh, my manager and I, um, we just weren't a fit and that happens. It's really important to share that that happens. It's, it's, it's common. And, uh, he's somebody I respect deeply and has done amazing things and I still respect them and, um, we just, we didn't work well together. And the next step was, "Okay, well I guess, you know, it's time to let me go." And, uh, his manager was like, "Hey, you know, before we let you go, I, I want you to stay at this company and let's find you another group to work in." So I was like, "Okay." He's like, "Just finish, you know, the initiatives you're on. Don't start new ones. And quarterly planning is coming up, sit in all the meetings, look for opportunities and, and things will work out." And I did that and I didn't find, uh, an opportunity that I was excited about and my initiatives wound down and I didn't know, okay, well what's going to happen? Um, and then, uh, there was a group where actually three PMs left at the same time. One went on maternity leave, one, uh, got an offer from FAANG and one had to start like an emergency tiger team, uh, for their area of expertise. And, uh, this director, he filled two of the roles, one internal hire, one external hire and there was one more role. And, uh, I reached out to him and he's like, "Yeah, great. You know, come put your desk next to mine. We'll just, uh, just, uh, work on a few projects together, get to know each other." And I could tell after a few weeks that even though we'd been getting to know each other, he was still interviewing for that third role. And I realized that like something was stuck. And at the same time, the director who had, uh, reached out and said, "Hey, please stay at this company. You know, you'll find something." Called me with a very different tone. He's like, "Listen, you can't just float around (laughs) without a role. Um, if you don't find something, you know, soon, we're going to have to let you go." And he was right. And so I found myself in this situation and I actually reached out to a friend, Guy Peled, he's a friend and a mentor. I actually met him through the, uh, Lendi community.

    25. TR

      Oh, amazing. Oh, love it.

    26. LR

      And yeah, he's here in Israel. We got coffee. And...

    27. TR

      That's so awesome.

    28. LR

      And he told me, "Listen, like clearly you have nothing to lose. Like there's probably an elephant in the room. You know, this new director, uh, is wondering why'd you leave this old group. He's not opening, he's not broaching the topic. Uh, so it's up to you to do it." And I was like, "Okay, what do I say?" He's like, "Well, what would, what would you say to him if you didn't have to edit yourself? You didn't have to censor yourself." And I just, I told Guy, "Well, this is, this is what actually happened. This is what I believe. This is what I did, could have done better. This is..." You know. And he's like, he's like, "Dude, that's totally fine to share. You should share that, like word for word, just say that."... so the next day, um, I took, uh, the director, you know, aside and I, we had this conversation. I shared, uh, vulnerably just like, "Here's what I, I think I messed up. Here's what I think I, I wasn't under my control." And that conversation just, uh, like, the vibe changed. I could feel like a weight off our shoulders. It was like, we really felt like we got closer and, um, two days later I was, you know, part of the group. I joined the group. We did some really awesome work there.

    29. TR

      That's such a powerful lesson right there, of just, uh, opening up and being vulnerable, and just sharing what you're actually feeling. And this has come up a couple of times in the podcast, is what brings people closer. You think being vulnerable and showing weakness makes people think less of you, but almost always it, they think more of you because they didn't realize what they were doing. They didn't realize what you were going through. You kind of re- think they're reading your mind.

    30. LR

      Yeah, we've all been through that. Like, you know, it doesn't look like it, doesn't, when you see someone suc- you think is successful that you admire. Um, you, you look at somebody's, uh, LinkedIn profile. You look at their resume, you look at their bio, right? It doesn't look like that. But we've all been through all of it, you know?

Episode duration: 1:31:22

Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript

Transcript of episode wFhurV1l6Jk

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

Add to Chrome