Rohini Pandhi: Why founders should be the PM until it breaks

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

January 12, 2025

Duration

1h 19m

Channel

Lenny's Podcast

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Rohini Pandhi is a product leader at Mercury, and previously spent over seven years at Square/Block leading product work on Square payments, invoicing, and the Bitkey hardware Bitcoin wallet. She’s also the co-founder of the startup bootcamp Transparent Collective and is an active angel investor. In our conversation, we discuss:

• Key indicators that it’s time to hire PMs
• How to build your early PM team
• Why founders should initially take on the product manager role themselves
• How to attract top PM talent
• What she’s learned about going multi-product
• A case for investing in quality
• More

— Brought to you by:

• Cloudinary—The foundational technology for all images and video on the internet: http://cloudinary.com/lenny
• OneSchema—Import CSV data 10x faster: https://oneschema.co/lenny
• Airtable ProductCentral—Launch to new heights with a unified system for product development: https://www.airtable.com/lenny

Skip the Mercury Personal waitlist: https://mercurytechnologies.typeform.com/lenny Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-build-your-product-team-from-scratch-rohini-pandhi Where to find Rohini Pandhi:

• X: https://x.com/rohinip
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohinipandhi

Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Rohini’s background (05:00) The role of product managers at Mercury (09:51) Key indicators that it’s time to hire PMs (13:18) Building the product team at Mercury (19:53) Why you should avoid hiring PMs too early (22:26) The different flavors of product management (26:15) How to attract top talent (35:59) Advocating for quality in product development (44:10) Going multi-product (46:37) Organizational structure for multi-product success (50:57) Organizational culture for multi-product success (52:07) Customer obsession and product development (57:36) More lessons from going multi-product (01:05:57) Transparent Collective: supporting underrepresented founders (01:09:54) Lightning round Referenced:

• Immad Akhund on X: https://x.com/immad
• Mercury: https://mercury.com
• Square: https://squareup.com
• Product management career ladders: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/product-management-career-ladders
• Pioneers, Settlers, Town Planners [Wardley]: https://orghacking.com/pioneers-settlers-town-planners-wardley-9dcd3709cde7
• Jason Zhang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-zhang-5645a860
• What is ‘Dogfooding’?: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/business/dogfooding.html
• Mercury Bill Pay: https://mercury.com/bill-pay
• Zip: https://zip.co
• Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira
• The art and science of pricing | Madhavan Ramanujam (Monetizing Innovation, Simon-Kucher): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-and-science-of-pricing-madhavan
• Gokul Rajaram on designing your product development process, when and how to hire your first PM, a playbook for hiring leaders, getting ahead in you career, how to get started angel investing, more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/gokul-rajaram-on-designing-your-product
• Gokul Rajaram on X: https://x.com/gokulr
• Transparent Collective: https://www.transparentcollective.com
• 16 Reading Tips from Naval Ravikant: https://alexandbooks.com/archive/16-reading-tips-from-naval-ravikant
• Shrinking on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/shrinking
• Bad Sisters on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/bad-sisters
• Slow Horses on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/slow-horses
• Severance on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/severance
• Presumed Innocent on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/presumed-innocent
• Waymo: https://waymo.com
• Adam Robinson on X: https://x.com/IAmAdamRobinson
• Cyan Banister—From Homeless and Broke to Top Angel Investor (Uber, SpaceX, and 100+ More): https://tim.blog/2024/11/28/cyan-banister
• Bobby Matson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbymatson
• Jobs at Mercury: https://mercury.com/jobs

Recommended books:

• Vectors: Aphorisms & Ten-Second Essays: https://www.amazon.com/Vectors-Aphorisms-Ten-Second-James-Richardson/dp/0967266890
• The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance: https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Game-Tennis-Classic-Performance/dp/0679778314
• Pachinko: https://www.amazon.com/Pachinko-National-Book-Award-Finalist/dp/1455563927
• Cutting for Stone: https://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Stone-Abraham-Verghese/dp/0375714367
• The Song of Achilles: https://www.amazon.com/Song-Achilles-Novel-Madeline-Miller/dp/0062060627

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Lenny Rachitsky

  host

• Rohini Pandhi

  guest

• Christina (OneSchema ad spokesperson)

  guest

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, featuring Lenny Rachitsky and Rohini Pandhi, Rohini Pandhi: Why founders should be the PM until it breaks explores from PM Skepticism To Multi-Product Success At Mercury And Square Lenny interviews Mercury product leader Rohini Pandey about how Mercury went from proudly having zero product managers to building a 30-person PM org, and what that transition required culturally and operationally.

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