Lenny's PodcastCategory creation and brand building | Barbra Gago (Pando, Miro, Greenhouse, Culture Amp)
CHAPTERS
- 0:40 – 5:01
Barbra Gago’s career journey: people tech, hypergrowth, and Miro’s rebrand
Lenny introduces Barbra Gago and her track record across Culture Amp, Greenhouse, and Miro. Barbra shares a quick overview of her career in B2B SaaS and the kinds of disruptive, “future of work” products she’s helped bring to market.
- •Experience scaling B2B SaaS companies through hypergrowth
- •Work in people tech and enterprise social networking
- •Role at Miro leading global marketing and the rebrand
- •Context for the episode’s three themes: category creation, branding, opinionated software
- 5:01 – 5:55
Barbra’s new startup: “employee progression” and killing performance reviews
Barbra describes the company she’s building now—an employee progression platform aimed at improving coaching, development, and transparency. The mission is ambitious: replace traditional performance reviews with a better, more accountable system.
- •What “employee progression platform” means in practice
- •Why leaders lack effective tools for coaching and development
- •Creating structure and transparency for accountability
- •The goal: eliminate or radically improve performance reviews
- 5:55 – 7:46
Category creation vs. winning an existing category: Miro vs. Greenhouse
Barbra contrasts two paths: Miro’s expansion beyond the “online whiteboard” label and Greenhouse’s struggle to escape the ATS category. She frames category strategy around market scope, budget realities, buyer language, and competition.
- •Miro’s challenge: “online whiteboard” was too small as a market story
- •Greenhouse’s challenge: ATS had a negative reputation but strong budget pull
- •Key decision inputs: existing budgets, buyer wording, competitive landscape
- •Important nuance: categories aren’t ‘real’ until multiple companies claim them
- 7:46 – 9:56
What an ATS is—and why the category had baggage
The conversation zooms in on applicant tracking systems (ATS) to explain why Greenhouse wanted distance from the label. Barbra recounts how legacy ATS experiences were transactional, unstrategic, and widely disliked.
- •ATS = applicant tracking system
- •Historical pain: poor candidate and recruiter experiences
- •Products optimized for transactions vs. strategic recruiting
- •Why negative category perception can pressure repositioning
- 9:56 – 13:06
Defining a “product category”: directories, feature sets, budgets, and pain points
Barbra defines categories in concrete terms using review/directory sites like G2 and Software Advice. A category is essentially a cluster of products with similar capabilities aimed at a recognizable pain point, often mapped to a budget line item.
- •How directory sites operationalize categories
- •Categories cluster by feature sets and user problems
- •Broad vs. narrow categories (all-in-one vs. best-in-class)
- •Budget allocation often signals category maturity
- 13:06 – 14:20
Examples of categories (and how categories evolve over time)
Barbra lists well-known categories—marketing automation, customer success platforms, performance management—and notes that categories and category names evolve as products expand. Culture Amp is used as an example of shifting category framing over time.
- •Examples: marketing automation, customer success platform, performance management
- •Culture Amp’s category language evolved as the product portfolio expanded
- •Specificity can help early go-to-market and later broaden
- •Category naming is tied to ICP clarity and scaling strategy
- 14:20 – 16:35
A failed category-creation attempt: Greenhouse’s ‘recruiting optimization platform’
Barbra shares how Greenhouse attempted to reframe itself away from ATS with new language and messaging, but buyers kept calling it an ATS. The team ultimately redirected energy toward elevating the perceived value of the existing category instead of renaming it.
- •Repositioning attempt: ‘recruiting optimization platform’
- •Tactics used: content, press outreach, new positioning language
- •Why it failed: buyer budget and language remained ATS-centered
- •Strategic pivot: upgrade the category’s perceived value rather than escape it
- 16:35 – 21:15
How Miro created ‘visual collaboration’: packaging many use cases into one story
Unlike Greenhouse, Miro had a fluid product identity used across many jobs-to-be-done (mind mapping, diagramming, HR workshops, marketing planning). ‘Visual collaboration’ became a unifying umbrella that matched a bigger enterprise vision while still allowing entry points from existing adjacent categories.
- •No established budget initially for ‘visual collaboration’—it was vision-led
- •Customers described Miro in many ways; category framed a cohesive narrative
- •Kept optimizing adjacent category entry points while building the new one
- •Category validation grows as other companies adopt the same framing
- 21:15 – 24:05
Mechanics of category creation: customer language, PR testing, analysts, and directory sites
Barbra breaks down the practical playbook: start with deep customer understanding, then stress-test positioning through PR, and formalize it via analysts and directory sites. Content and thought leadership are central because you must educate buyers that a new budget category should exist.
- •Start with extensive customer conversations to capture authentic language
- •Use PR to get the positioning into the market and test resonance
- •Work with analysts (e.g., Gartner/Forrester) and directories (e.g., G2) for validation
- •Thought leadership + content marketing educate buyers and create budget legitimacy
- 24:05 – 25:53
When category creation makes sense (and when it doesn’t): timing, iteration, and market inflection points
Barbra explains that category creation often aligns with major technology or market shifts (e.g., COVID and distributed work). She also emphasizes pragmatic failure-fast iteration: if it’s not sticking, abandon the attempt and return to a category that aligns with buyer reality.
- •Category creation is wave-driven: innovation inflection points create new needs
- •COVID/distributed work spawned fast-growing new categories (e.g., Deel/Oyster-style platforms)
- •Avoid late-stage category creation if you’re already deeply established in a category
- •Iterate quickly; if language doesn’t stick, stop and refocus
- 25:53 – 29:20
The middle ground: sell in today’s category while building tomorrow’s (Pando example)
Rather than choosing a strict either/or, Barbra outlines a dual approach: rank and sell within an existing category to access current demand, while simultaneously building a longer-term narrative to shift the market. Pando positions within performance management while educating toward “employee progression.”
- •Use existing category for demand capture, buyer intent, and directory rankings
- •Run a long-tail strategy to shift mindset toward a new category
- •Investment is high; you don’t need to ‘dominate’ the new category immediately
- •Parallels to Miro’s approach: maintain current positioning while expanding the frame
- 29:20 – 38:49
Rebranding triggers and lessons: from RealtimeBoard to Miro
The discussion shifts to branding, starting with how Barbra viewed ‘RealtimeBoard’ as limiting for a global, iconic company. She shares rebrand criteria (timing and maturity), plus execution lessons: include stakeholders, involve early users, manage legal/operational complexity, and run the rebrand like a product project.
- •Signs it’s time: name/identity doesn’t match product ambition and scale trajectory
- •Rebrand after PMF but before brand debt becomes too costly
- •Keep continuity for existing advocates (retain ‘essence’ elements)
- •Operational reality: legal, URL/domain, product links, collateral, internal alignment
- 38:49 – 43:12
Building a lasting global brand: values as the foundation for authenticity
Barbra argues that brand should be considered early and treated as inseparable from product and people. Strong brands are authentic when they reflect company values and behaviors—so every customer touchpoint naturally “feels” consistent without excessive training or scripting.
- •Brand + product are both required for loyalty and retention
- •The strongest brands are intertwined with company identity and people
- •Values drive behavior, which drives brand experience across touchpoints
- •Goal: build emotional connection and defensibility (a ‘love mark’ concept)
- 43:12 – 46:37
Company values and brand systems: creating values, and translating them into visuals and voice
Barbra shares a practical values workshop method (brain dump → theme grouping → voting → drafting) and explains how values can translate into brand systems. She describes Miro’s approach of mapping values into shapes/behaviors and designing a scalable visual language usable across cultures and contexts.
- •Values workshop method: brainstorm, cluster, vote, then draft definitions
- •Keep values memorable—avoid too many/too long, and avoid genericness
- •Brand elements: logo, colors, fonts, illustration/photography style, voice
- •Design brand as a system that scales across channels and global audiences
- 46:37 – 51:23
Opinionated software: what it is, when it works, and why Pando is intentionally opinionated
Barbra defines opinionated software as products that embed best practices and enforce principled workflows rather than allowing infinite customization. She cites Atlassian and Greenhouse as examples and explains why Pando must be opinionated to reduce bias and increase transparency and accountability in performance and progression.
- •Opinionated software encodes best practices and constraints into workflows
- •Two paths: enable an emerging best-practice process, or teach a better way to work
- •Greenhouse example: structured recruiting for transparency and reduced bias
- •Pando’s stance: enforce clearer leveling/expectations and shared manager-employee accountability
- 51:23 – 55:47
Lightning round and closing: books, podcasts, shows, interview questions, and where to find Barbra
The episode closes with rapid-fire recommendations and personal preferences, then practical ways to connect. Barbra shares where to find her (LinkedIn) and invites people to share experiences and feedback relevant to employee progression.
- •Book recs: Radical Candor, The Art of War, Kafka on the Shore
- •Podcast rec: Cautionary Tales; show rec: Sandman
- •Interview question: top 10 accomplishments to reveal values
- •Where to reach her: LinkedIn; company: Pando.com; seeking user stories/feedback
