Overcome imposter syndrome and accelerate your career | Julie Zhuo (Sundial, Facebook)

1. 0:00 – 9:24

   How Julie found her way into product design

   1. JZJulie Zhuo0:00

      I think about product and feedback as, as kind of just, you know, the more the better, right? Again, everyone, especially with design, like, has an opinion to some degree, right? And so all opinions are valid because they are a true opinion. The question is how do you then prioritize? How do you figure out what it is that you should do? Because it isn't successful to try and, you know, do things by consensus. You're never gonna get a group of people, uh, smart people to agree about what is absolutely the best design.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky0:26

      (instrumental music) Welcome to our very first episode with Julie Zhu. Julie spent 13 years at Facebook, where she was the head of design for the Facebook app. She actually joined as an IC designer and worked her way up to VP of design. She's also an incredible writer, having written the bestselling book, The Making of a Manager. She's also the author of a newsletter called Looking Glass, which was a huge inspiration to me throughout my entire career. Since leaving Meta, she started her own company called Sundial, which you'll hear a bit about. And in our chat, we cover career advice, imposter syndrome, product review meetings, hiring designers, giving feedback to designers, and so much more. I hope you enjoy this chat as much as I did. This episode is brought to you by Amplitude, the number one product analytics solution. Amplitude helps product teams, growth teams, marketing and data teams build winning products faster and turn products into revenue. Amplitude has everything you need, including an integrated CDP, self-service analytics, and even an experimentation platform to help you better understand your users, drive conversions, and increase engagement, growth, and revenue. Amplitude is built for teams that wanna learn as fast as they ship and ship as fast as they learn. Ditch your vanity metrics, trust your data, work smarter, and grow your business. With over 1,700 customers like Atlassian, Instacart, and HBO, Amplitude is helping companies build better products. Try Amplitude for free. Visit amplitude.com to get started. This episode is brought to you by Productboard. Product leaders trust Productboard to help their teams build products that matter. From startups to industry titans, over 6,000 companies rely on Productboard to get the right products to market faster, including companies like Zoom, Volkswagen, UiPath, and Vanguard. Productboard can help you create a scalable, transparent, and standardized process so your PMs understand what their customers really need and then prioritize the right features to build next. Stakeholders feel the love too with an easy-to-view roadmap that automatically updates, so everyone knows what you're building and why. Make data-driven product decisions that result in higher revenue and user adoption and empower your product teams to create delightful customer experiences. Visit productboard.com to learn more. Julie, I am so excited to be chatting. You've been such an inspiration to me, both in my PM career and in my writing. I think I mentioned that your newsletter inspired my newsletter, and so I'm really excited to be chatting, and I'm really thankful that you're joining me on this podcast.

   3. JZJulie Zhuo3:22

      Thank you, Lenny. It is a pleasure to be here. I think it's gonna be a super fun conversation.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky3:26

      For listeners who maybe aren't familiar with you and your career, could you just kinda briefly walk us through your journey in design and then a little bit about what you're up to these days?

   5. JZJulie Zhuo3:35

      Okay. So let's see. I'm a first generation immigrant to the United States, and so with Asian parents, there were really only three options that I had for a career. From, like, the time I was six years old, I was told I could either be a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer. Nothing else was really in the realm of possibilities. Unfortunately, you know, I was really scared of blood, so I couldn't be a doctor. And I only liked reading fiction growing up, so I was like, "I could never really be a lawyer." So I was always like, "Okay, try this engineering thing." But actually it was during middle school and high school that I discovered what I love to do is drawing and, in particular, digital art. And the reason for that is because I actually have very shaky hands, and so whenever I draw a line, it never looks good. I have to erase it, start over, you know, and so by the time the, the art was done, it was like a mess. It was like, here's, like, 20,000 eraser marks. But when I discovered MS Paint, and I kid you not, that was my very first design application. I was like, "Oh my gosh, I can draw a line, and even if it looks crummy," which it always does 'cause you had to use a mouse in those early days, "I can just Control + Z, goes away, I can just keep trying over and over again." No one ever has to know how often I, I tried to get to this to be what I wanted. And so MS Paint became Paint Shop Pro, and then one summer I finagled my way into a pirated copy of Photoshop 'cause, you know, I couldn't actually afford real Photoshop, and I was off to the races in, in my digital art career. And it was actually through digital art that I realized, "Okay, I've actually amassed all this collection of art. What should I do?" And I was like, "Well, let me go and actually build a website." You know, it's all, all these artists that I admire on the internet did that, like, so I'm gonna learn how to write HTML and put together a website, and that's essentially what I did on the side in my middle and high school years. So that's kinda how I got into, like, design, but I didn't know it was design because I really still thought of myself as an artist, and I thought that the only thing I could be was an engineer. But I went in and studied computer science in college, right? I always had this, like, vision, "Okay, if, if I like building websites, maybe, you know, computer engineering is, is the closest thing to that." And I had this idea that maybe I could go work for one of these big tech companies, and it was really after I took a class my senior year that taught me, you know, what is Silicon Valley? What is entrepreneurship? By the way, here's, like, all these stories of two people in a garage, and then they went and built something big, and I totally just was so into that. I was like, "All right, I do not wanna work for a big company. I wanna figure out if I can do this startup thing and, you know, make something."... Small into something big, and I just happened to be very lucky at the time. I was, you know, there was a startup down the street from my university. Um, it's a product I had been using for two or three years. It was Facebook. It was still a high school and college social networking product at the time, eight million users. They were doing a lot of recruitment at Stanford, and so that's how I decided to go and join for an internship. And on my first day, I remember my mentor, Aruichi, she said, you know, "What kind of engineering do you like to do?" And I was like, "The stuff that people see, of course. You know, I wanna, like, be able to..." Uh, it's the stuff that I'd always done, right? And she goes, "Oh, I see. You should go sit next to the designers." And that was the first time I heard that design was a profession, that it was actually a job. It was like a thing that people did. And back in those days, you know, all of, all of the design team was technical. So we were both the front end engineers as well as the designers. But I, I felt like I'd found my tribe. I had found people who kind of had, had always been passionate about this thing that I did that I didn't really realize was a job. And so I realized though, as well, that I had a lot to learn about design. You know, I was never really formally trained in it, right? I'd only ever designed for myself, for me to express my creative, artistic side. So there was a lot in those first three years. I would think of my time at Facebook as chapter one, learn how to be a designer. You know, learn about usability, learn about the actual language, nomenclature of design. You know, learn how to think about the user as somebody separate than just me and my own work. Then, because Facebook was always, uh, scaling, I got the opportunity to eventually manage a team of designers. Totally unprepared for that, no idea what I was doing. Kind of jumped in and, and just, you know, started to manage. But there was a huge amount of learning around, you know, recruiting process. Like, what even is good design? What is the, the way that we wanna design at this company and our team? And so tons of learnings there. And then I think the third chapter is just sort of thinking about scale, right? Learning how to scale in management, learning how to build a wide diversity of products, learning more about strategy and how design fits into, you know, working with all of these other disciplines to build something great. So that's kind of how I think about my time at Facebook and the, the various chapters. And the latest chapter is, you know, I eventually, I left Facebook about two years ago and now I am, uh, a startup founder. So it's something that I've always wanted to do, so go back to that, that early phases of figuring out how to build something from zero to one. And I'm working on a product, uh, and product analytics. I'm really passionate about the idea of making data accessible, about I've seen the power firsthand from working at Facebook of what data can do to help us make better products. Especially for people at scale, to help us reduce the bias in our intuitions and how we think about what is the way that we should prioritize. And I'm really passionate about the idea of making that such that every single company, every single business in the world can properly use data, know how to interpret it correctly, know how to use it to influence roadmap strategy and prioritization decisions, and make better decisions as a result.

2. 9:24 – 12:31

   How Julie navigated impostor syndrome at Facebook

   1. JZJulie Zhuo9:24

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky9:24

      I feel like this idea that you're working on has such intense founder market fit, and I can't wait to hear more about it when you're ready to kinda go deeper and, and for people to use it. But going back to your time at Facebook, you kind of like made it sound like you just kinda like, "Oh, I joined as a designer, figured out design, became a manager," and then like somehow you became VP of design, and it sounded too easy. And I'm curious what... That's like an insane trajectory for someone to follow. Do you have any thoughts or advice on what contributed to your success rising through the ranks that quickly, for folks that are kinda just early in their career, maybe?

   3. JZJulie Zhuo9:59

      Absolutely. And I wanna make it really clear. I would say that like the first seven or eight years that I was at Facebook, every single week I felt like an imposter. Had no idea really what I was doing. You know, the constant refrain in my head is like, "Well, do you really deserve to be here? Do you really know what's happening?" You know, d- you don't, "You're not really prepared for this job. You've never done this before." Like, "What right do you have to be put in this situation and, and get to do what you do?" Right? And that was really the constant refrain in my head. But looking back, you know, I, I think it probably took me about, yeah, seven or eight years until I became a little bit more comfortable with that. You know, a- after seven or eight years, I could look back, I could see all of the things that I got to work on. I could see all the ways that I had grown and learned in that experience. And something clicked for me where I realized, you know, it's kind of two sides of the same coin, right? Being in an uncomfortable situation, being in a position where you feel like, "Hey, you know, do I really know how to do this? I'm not prepared for it," is kind of, uh, coincides with the, the fastest and, and most intense periods of growth in, in, you know, in one's career. And I started realizing, well, maybe it's not so much of a bad thing, right? Maybe if I'm constantly putting myself in a situation where I haven't seen this problem before, that's also what's gonna push me to grow and learn, right? And so, yes, if you ask for specific advice, I think there's two things. The first is, well, I was lucky. I was in the right place at the right time. I was at a company that was scaling. And when you're at a company that grows, there's always a lot more opportunity to then be able to try something new, right? To raise your hand, to volunteer for things, to be just thrown into, because somebody has to do it, because it's a growing company and there aren't a lot of other people. So, so the first piece of advice I would have would be like, you know, if you want those types of opportunities, sometimes you just have to be at a smaller place and you have to be at a place that is going through that, that rate of growth. The second thing is, you know, embrace the fact that it's okay to be in a position where maybe you don't know what to do, you haven't been trained for it, right? It, it, it does coincide with that intense learning, maybe.... approach it with that sense of curiosity and that sense of, you know, yes, it's hard, yes, I might be an imposter and I might feel that way for a while, but this is also what's going to help me get there. It's gonna, it's gonna be what forces me to do the work, and in that process, learn and become better.

3. 12:31 – 16:57

   Advice for people feeling imposter syndrome

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky12:31

      It's amazing to hear that you had imposter syndrome for such a long period of time and you, you basically ran design for, like, the Facebook app, right?

   2. JZJulie Zhuo12:40

      Yeah.

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky12:41

      That's kind of an empowering, inspiring insight that someone at, at your level went through that for so long and made it through that. Do you have any other advice or thoughts on just, like, for folks that are going through that? 'Cause I had that too for a number of years, just like, "What the hell am I doing here? People are gonna see I don't really know what I'm doing and it's all gonna crumble as soon as I make my next mistake." Do you have any other advice there for folks going through that themselves?

   4. JZJulie Zhuo13:04

      I think that so much of the, you know, just exactly what you said, Lenny, right? I think so much of it that helped me was realizing that everyone feels this way to some extent, and, and that's also why I, uh, I always wanna talk about that, right? Because I feel like sometimes you can see from the outside, you're like, "Oh, this person has this title, they have this position, they have these responsibilities. Clearly, they've made it, they know what they're doing." But that's never the case. And, I mean, logically, let's think about it, right? If you're gonna do anything new for the first time, how are you ever gonna feel totally comfortable, you know, totally prepared, right? Every time there's something new that you hadn't encountered before, you know, it's always gonna be a little bit rough. It's, you're never gonna feel, like, perfectly at ease. It's only upon doing something multiple times that you start to see the patterns, you start to realize, okay, it's, it's gonna be all right. And even, you know, now, the people that I talk to, the people I really look up to, the people who I think are role models and mentors for me, I mean, they regularly also share with me that it's the same. It's like they, you know, they still encounter, uh, things that are unprecedented, right? And if we work in tech, I mean, the rate of change, the rate of, you know, the industry and companies and k- kind of these new experiences that we have, that never goes away, right? That's just par for the course. And so, I think that feeling always exists. What I have learned is that there are better, you know, tools in your toolkit for dealing with it. One of them is, of course, me just reminding myself that if I feel uncomfortable, it's okay. Other people feel that way too. Everyone does. It's totally natural. But then, to also find other pieces in that toolkit, right? One is, I am much better at asking for help now than I was earlier in my career. You know, I used to actually just try and hold it all in. I was like, "Hey, I better fake it till I make it, you know. If no one thinks that I... If everyone thinks that maybe I'm coming to the table like I know it, then, then, you know, then, then I can fool them." And now I realize I was really just, uh, I was preventing myself from, from being able to get that support and that empathy and that camaraderie and that advice that would have helped me actually grow faster and maybe with a little bit less pain in the process. And so, one of the things I've learned is it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to f- reach out to people who both may be going through the same things you're going or maybe are a step or two ahead of you in the journey, right, who have actually gone through that and have lived to tell the tale and can tell you it's gonna be okay. 'Cause o- often, that's just what you need, you know? Is you just need people to tell you, "It's gonna be fine. You're fine. You're good. You've got this." And that, you know, that's so meaningful, right, whenever, you know, we sometimes feel down about ourselves. So that's another, you know, I would say tool in the toolkit, right? Asking for help, finding groups of support. And then, I think the third is, it's also okay to just be vulnerable and just talk to people about it, right? Like, you know, I, I found that some of the most meaningful conversations I had, whether with people at managers or whether with my own reports, is when we can, you know, be much more open about what it is that we find hard, what are we struggling with. And in that way, you know, i- you actually form deeper connections and, and people are more able to help out, right? They're able, we can, we can spread the load a little bit, you know? We can put our heads together and brainstorm a better way to solve the problem. And I, I find that too, even as, like, you know, the head of a, a department, right, or, like, a founder. It's like, not gonna solve everything myself. I'm never gonna have all the answers. Sometimes by just sharing what the problem is, by sharing the load, l- we're all gonna collectively come up with, with a better solution.

   5. LRLenny Rachitsky16:43

      I love that advice. It's so simple and so effective. Reminds me of advice a coach once told me that when you're in a new role, you... Like, you are an imposter (laughs) . You're doing something you've never done before and that's normal, and don't feel-

   6. JZJulie Zhuo16:56

      Mm-hmm.

   7. LRLenny Rachitsky16:56

      ... like that's

4. 16:57 – 20:48

   The challenges Julie faces as she transitions from VP to founder

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky16:57

      unusual. So speaking of being uncomfortable and being vulnerable and doing hard things, you, you now have a startup that you've started and I'm curious what you've experienced. What's kind of different from the experience of being a leader at Meta versus being a founder, especially things that are maybe are surprising, good or bad?

   2. JZJulie Zhuo17:18

      I will say, it is definitely a very humbling experience, but it's also the, exactly the journey that I wanted. And a lot of it is just going back to kind of this, like, base layer. You know, when you're at a large company, a lot is taken care of for you, right? You know, if I have a question about, I don't know, like, finance or how to deal with the people situation, right? There are experts. There's, like, experts in every single field and I just go and, you know, reach out to them and talk to them and, and, you know, they can kind of, uh, uh, handle that and, and help me. You know, when you get back to it, you're just like, okay, it's, it's... In the beginning it was, it was myself and my fo- founder, Chandra. It's, like, just the two of us and it was, like, all sorts of stuff, you know, that we've talked about being an imposter. It's like figuring out taxes or just, like, figuring out how to incorporate or just, you know, random little, a thousand little decisions, right? A thousand little things that were, that were new and different. So there was a huge amount of learning. There's a huge amount of just, like having to do it all yourself and realizing in a lot of ways just, like, how many things you're bad at or don't really like to do or it ended, because you don't like to do them, it's, like, hard to get them done, right? So it's, it's humbling that way of just, like, helping you realize these things about, about who you are. I think the other thing is, you know, for me, it's going back to the idea of, like,... m- being much more focused on doing, working with people who are at different stages in their career. You know, when I was leading design for, let's say, the last five or seven years, right? It was often directly managing senior people, you know, either senior designers or managers or directors and, and so forth. And going back to working with folks at various stages, right? Including new grads, right? Early career, uh, folks. And it was actually both re- me realizing I had, I had to kind of, like, really change a lot of how I manage. So it was, again, also very humbling in that respect. I had to change a lot of, like, what good management looks like in that context, which was different from a lot of the habits that I had built up. But it was also so rewarding, and I (laughs) realized, like, I actually really love working with people, you know, who are in that early phase of their career. It's, it's totally different, right? And, and what they need and how to best support them is really different than what you would do with a director or, you know, a very senior person. But it's also just a whole lot of fun. So that was, you know, something that, that is really new. And then, of course, so much of it is, again, putting, putting that IC hat back on, all right? And it's been years since I've actually sat down and, and designed. And, you know, often as a manager, the thing I, I develop, right, is, you know, I've, I developed my eye but not my hand. So I learned to be a good critiquer of design, but actually, because I stopped practicing design, you know, I'm, I'm definitely ... The, the limits of, like, what I can actually make and what I can produce myself become really evident, right? And so again, back in this, like, new company setting, well, I have to put on a bit of that IC hat. You know, I have to, like, learn how to be a, a kind of an IC PM, learn how to be an IC designer, (laughs) realize that there's so much that, you know, I'm actually really bad at as well. And, and in that way, but develop and, and grow some of my muscles and, and those skills again.

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky20:23

      Uh, the first point you made about having to kinda do everything again, I remember the reverse of that when we sold our startup. I was so happy just to like, okay, here's the one goal we're gonna focus on. We don't have to think about everything in the company all the time.

   4. JZJulie Zhuo20:37

      Mm-hmm.

   5. LRLenny Rachitsky20:38

      I'm just gonna hit this one goal, this one product. It's gonna be so, so much easier.

   6. JZJulie Zhuo20:42

      Yeah.

   7. LRLenny Rachitsky20:42

      So that was really fun for a while, but then, and then it gets itchy and hard again, and you kinda wanna, you wanna have more responsibility and more,

5. 20:48 – 26:00

   What goals Julie was able to achieve through writing

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky20:48

      more challenge. I wanna transition a little bit to talking about your writing, and writing in general. I think I mentioned that your newsletter, Looking Glass, inspired my writing in a big way. I basically modeled your newsletter and focused it on growth and product, and that's like, that was the idea. (laughs) Let me just do what Julie's doing, and I'll do it around a different vertical. And so first of all, I just wanna thank you for writing, all the writing that you've done over the years, because it was really impactful to me. And so, so first of all, thank you for doing that.

   2. JZJulie Zhuo21:18

      Aw. Thank you for sharing that. It's really meaningful for me to hear as well.

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky21:22

      And it's still, like, I still go back to a lot of your writing, even though, you know, I know you've slowed down to focus on, on the startup, which makes a lot of sense. And we'll chat a little bit about that. But I'm curious what got you to kinda start the writing, and broadly, what impact have you seen it have on your career and just anything in life?

   4. JZJulie Zhuo21:40

      What actually started me on this writing journey was a piece of feedback I got during a performance review cycle. And I remember I was talking to my manager, and, you know, he shared that, "Hey, one of the pieces of something you should work on in the area of growth is that, you know, you have a lot of really great ideas and you're always really engaged whenever discussions happen in a small forum, right? One-on-one or there's, like, two or three people in the room. But whenever there's a large room, you know, we're talking about, like, 7 people, 10 people, 15 people, no one ever hears from you, all right? You're just sort of quiet, you know, and you're not really telling your perspective. You're not really contributing to these larger conversations, and that's something for you to think about and work on." And it was really good feedback because, you know, I absolutely felt it. I definitely felt that barrier of speaking up in a large room. I think the fear could be summarized as, "I don't wanna look stupid in front of a lot of people." (laughs) And, and so I had all these, like, barriers. I was like, okay, am I sure that what I'm gonna say, what comes out of my mouth is absolutely brilliant? And that was really, you know, just this motion, right, that was, that was getting in the way. And I was like, okay, I really wanna work on this. Like, I wanna figure out how to get that to be (laughs) less and less of, of a friction for me. And so it was around, I think, the January timeframe, right? So when the new year came, I was like, "Okay, here's an idea. What if I just did something that, at the time, seemed really scary to me, which was put my opinion out there on the internet, um, and just, just do it, just do it for a year, okay? Just my goal was post one thing every single week." And it seemed terrifying, right? Like, I, you know, I'm not sure what people are gonna say. Again, maybe all my ideas are stupid, but I just wanna get better at doing that, and hopefully through that year, get more comfortable with that. So that's how this whole writing thing began. It came with this kind of, you know, New Year's resolution of just 52 times I was gonna click publish on something, some opinion piece. And I was like, you know, it doesn't have to even be, like, uh, it doesn't even matter what the opinion is, right? Just, like, put something out there and just, you know, expose yourself a little bit in that manner. So that's what I did, and I tried to s- you know, I, I tried to not have any goals around, like, well, I don't, you know, maybe people will read it. Maybe it'll be considered high quality, not right. Those are all just, again, additional barriers that I was putting that would make it a h- be even harder for me, right? The only goal was to hit the publish button. And so I ... The first couple of weeks were actually quite excruciating. I remember I would just spend, like, hours on this piece, and I just kept editing it. And I was like, "You know, I don't know if this is any good. Like, should I actually publish it?" But eventually, I, I did it, right? And, and again, little by little, it started (laughs) to just become easier as anything does when, when you just do it a lot. So by week 10, by week 15, I had gotten into a bit of a cadence, and I realized something that, that was having an impact on my work. I realized that...It became much more clarifying for me to have that space to be able to write, and it almost became a kind of self-therapy because, you know, through the week, I would have all these thoughts running around my head, you know, things I wanted to get better at, pieces of product that I was mulling on, and the act of writing allowed me some quiet time to just sit down and try and organize those different threads of thoughts, right? And I always approached my writing then, and I still do now, as letters to myself. You know, this is the framework, this is the advice that (laughs) I need to give myself that I need to go and, and really, you know, do better, and, and that is what my writing became for me. And it, it was hugely helpful for clarifying my train of thought. It was hugely helpful for me to then be able to do a better job of expressing myself. And by the end of that year, I saw a huge difference in my ability then in large meetings to speak up and to become more comfortable. But even after that year, because I had seen all of these advantages and, and what it did for my clarity of thinking, I just decided to continue, and I just decided to continue, and it became also a really, I think, a wonderful side effect that other people started to resonate with the writing. You know, they were like, "Oh, this is actually helpful for me," or, "I was feeling the same thing." Or, you know, "This, this gave me a little bit of a additional

6. 26:00 – 29:56

   What did she do to build a habit of writing?

   1. JZJulie Zhuo26:00

      structure to think about the problem," right? And that was also extremely motivating. But I will say that what I, I think helped me continue the writing habit is like I always did it for me. You know, I always did it because I felt that there was a lot that I had to gain from it, and it's been obviously a wonderful experience to connect with readers and, and other people in the community about it. It definitely made me feel less alone. It definitely confirmed a lot of, you know, the, the, uh, the ideas that I had about, you know, is this the right way to think about something? It led to a lot of really rich discussions e- with my colleagues and, and with people, you know, who just emailed or, or responded about the, about the writing. So, that was a wonderful side benefit as well. But, but yeah, I, I really credit my ability to think better through the process and the practice of writing.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky26:49

      That's such a, such a cool story. I love that it was kind of driven by a manager but kinda led to so many externalities. One thing I wanted to ask you is how did you find time to do the writing? You know, people always want to write and very few people do, or find time to. How did you actually make the time and keep that up?

   3. JZJulie Zhuo27:06

      I actually had this practice of writing even before I did this, you know, more publicly with a blog, and it was 'cause I, I had this h- I harbored this dream back when I was a teenager and, and well into my, my college years of, of one day writing the next great American novel (laughs) . And, uh, so I wrote a lot of fiction, and I wrote a lot of, you know, I have like kind of four unpublished novels just like collecting dust. They're not very good. I can say that now-

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky27:29

      Oh, wow.

   5. JZJulie Zhuo27:29

      ... you know, with, with a lot more u- objectivity. Uh, but I did that, and, uh, I would participate in this program called NaNoWriMo every year, which later I was fortunate to, to kind of be on the board of for a number of years. But what NaNoWriMo was is this idea of like, it, it stands for National Novel Writing Month in November. So, it's exactly what it sounds like. In the month of November, the goal is to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, and the whole purpose and the whole point of NaNoWriMo, and again, I did it for a number of years in my early 20s, is that it's all about just getting the words out, right? It's not about like, "Hey, are you..." you know, does every paragraph, is every sentence pristine or do you have like the right beginning, middle, end? It was like, no. It was like, you're gonna write a novel. Every single day, you need to write 1,667 words, and you just do that over 30 days. You'll have 50,000 words. And the whole premise was like, yeah, no, those 50,000 words, they're definitely gonna be junk. They're not gonna be really good. But at the end, you'll have something that you can then edit and then you can shape and you refine, right? And the hardest part is just getting started, you know? It's just getting past like the blank screen and the first page. And so because I'd gone through that experience, I had really internalized that writing for me is just get the words out, right? It is just about the sit your butt in the seat and just do it. Get the word count goal out or get like a time goal. I actually like word count goal even better than time goal because sometimes you can spend 30 minutes and then still just produce a sentence. And so that was always how I approached my writing. I was like, "All right, I'm gonna sit my butt down. You know, I'm gonna write for 30 or 45 minutes, but it's gonna be whatever, like, f- 250 words. It's gonna be 500 words. It's gonna be this number of words." And that just gave me the discipline to just get it out and then think about revising, think about quality, think about all that later. And when I got into writing my book, that was exactly how I approached the first draft. I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna divide up... It needs to be, you know, 67 thou- or 60,000 or 70,000 words. I have like, you know, a year. I'm gonna divide it up into like the number of days and weeks." And I think what it came down to for me was like five nights a week, I needed to write f- 500 words each, each day. And I eventually got that down till it was like 30 or 45 minutes, right? I mean, some days a little longer, other days a little shorter, but it was about that, and I just kept that weekly goal up until the book was written.

7. 29:56 – 38:16

   Why Julie decided to write a book

   1. JZJulie Zhuo29:56

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky29:56

      Speaking of the book, I definitely wanted to chat about that briefly. Did you always know you wanted to write a book or is this the kind of thing that emerged from people just asking you the same questions again and again? And then similarly, what impact have you seen from, from that book, which I own many copies and have gifted many copies.

   3. JZJulie Zhuo30:12

      Thank you. It, you know, it really, I mean, I, I still, I had this dream that I would write the great American novel. I still wanna do that someday. You know, one day I'll, I really do wanna sit down and, and hopefully write a fiction book. So, I always had that on my mind. I don't think I ever thought that I would write like a non-fiction book. I never thought I would write like a business book, right? That really came about organically and it came about because I was writing this blog, you know, I was, I was publishing these letters to myself, right, that I was, again, putting on the internet. And then even- occasionally I would have, you know, publishers or various folks reach out and say, "Oh, you know, like, this was a really great article. Have you ever thought about developing that into a book?" And my answer for the longest time was always like, "No" (laughs) because I don't think I have the stamina to like, you know, be-... make this one topic into, like, this huge thing. I'm not- I don't think about myself as kind of, like, a, a career writer and, you know, I, I honestly just ... There wasn't necessarily anything that I felt was, uh, that differentiated or maybe a unique angle, right? And, and often, you know, I, I also felt that most books that I read, there was always, like, a huge amount of research that went into it. And I was like, I've just- I'm actually, like ... I know this about myself, I don't love research. I'm not great at it. You know, I don't wanna, like, sit there and, and compile a bunch of stats and, and whatnot to make an argument. But one day, a publisher reached out and they were like, "You know, we had some ideas about, about the fact that, you know, your, your writing really ... Especially the, the, the part about for new managers, right? Your advice for new managers or for people new to leadership. Like, it, it really seems like it strikes a chord for that particular audience, and we have some ideas. Like, why don't, you know, we get on the phone to discuss?" And I took that call and it actually really was ... That call just did change my perspective because it gave me a particular angle on something that I felt was missing in the market, right? You know, again, most of the stuff that I'm writing, again, they're, they're letters of ... They're advice to myself. But I, I was brought back to when I first became a manager and I went back. You know, I went to the bookstore one day, I was looking for resources on what it means to manage and, you know, just stuff that would help me become a better manager. And not a lot of it spoke to me because i- it seemed like most management books were written by CEOs who had been, you know, leading their company for (laughs) years and years, or it was by management consultants who didn't really seem like they'd, you know, been in this situation of just like, "Hey, I was a IC on the team and now next week I have four reports that I'm going to be working with." There just wasn't that much for, like, the completely new manager who w- didn't have an MBA, wasn't on some sort of ladder and just, like, one day got dropped in and asked to, to kind of go and, and support, you know, a couple of people who were starting next week. And I was brought back to that moment in time and realizing, you know, there really isn't that much that is great out there f- as particularly geared for new managers and I felt that I had to really learn and make a lot of these mistakes on my own. And even very fundamentally, I don't think that, you know, people ever really explained to me, like, what is a manager? Like, what does it mean to do a good job, uh, uh, you know, again as a, as a manager of a handful of people, right? And so it- it sparked this idea that, like, this was something that was somewhat missing in the market, that there was an opportunity to just, you know, really write something that could speak to people like me and people, you know, again, similar to me who maybe weren't on this, like, ladder for 10 or 12 years. Especially in tech, right? I knew many people who had gone through that and I realized, like ... Here, the second thing for me is I realized that I would likely also become a better manager through this process because it would force (laughs) me to think about management a lot every single day. It would force me to reflect on my frameworks for management and whenever you think about something all the time in the back of your head, you just, you know, it, it's just more top of mind, right? I, I was looking to become a better manager myself at that point and, and that was the, that was the additional boost that I needed to kind of commit to the project.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky34:13

      Has that last piece bitten you in the butt at all when you maybe make a mistake as a manager and people are like, "Julie, you wrote this book on management."

   5. JZJulie Zhuo34:19

      (laughs)

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky34:20

      "What, what the hell's going on?"

   7. JZJulie Zhuo34:21

      I always tell people, I tell my own reports as well, I was like, "I- you might come in and you might have read my book and you might think that somehow I am, you know, a really great manager and an expert in management," and I (laughs) always try to like, you know, like, "Wanna lower your expectations." I'm still learning. There's a lotta things that, you know, I'm, I'm still working on, right? That, that I know I'm not, uh, perfect at, but that's, that's what I think it is, right? I think so much about, for me at least, learning to be a better manager, and I know I'll probably be on this journey for the rest of my life, is that you can know oftentimes the theory because, like, the theory is ... It makes sense, right? It's like, okay, we all, you know, been in that situation. We can feel ... It is so hard to just actually put it in practice. You know, it's so hard to do some of these things every single day because they're sort of counterintuitive, and it is so hard to apply it to the appropriate context, right? Just even the example I gave earlier. You know, managing early career, right, new grads is just completely different than managing really senior people and, and, you know, being able to tailor to each individual person or each specific group of people, which is, you know, again, 'cause humans are, are ... Like, we're all different, we're all unique, right? We're, you know, there's no, no two people are the same, no groups of people are the same. So it is, it's, you know, an art as anything else and, and a lot of it too is about learning about who I am, right? What am I good at, what am I not good at? How can I be more honest and more authentic to, to my own strengths and weaknesses and then be able to, you know, pair that up with the person that I'm talking to or the group of people that I'm working with? So yeah, so definitely (laughs) you know, not by any means today still consider myself great or an expert or whatnot. I think like everyone else I'm, I'm still, I'm still trying to get better.

   8. LRLenny Rachitsky36:05

      That's a little bit how I feel where people think that I've got it all figured out, I'd be like the most amazing product manager they've ever worked with, and I feel like I could never get a regular job again 'cause of the high-

   9. JZJulie Zhuo36:16

      (laughs)

   10. LRLenny Rachitsky36:16

       ... The bar of expectations would be (laughs) way too high. People forget that I have time to, like, think, research, process, write and that kind of thing, and so I could never get a PM job again. That's basically the problem that I've-

   11. JZJulie Zhuo36:28

       I think you'd be-

   12. LRLenny Rachitsky36:28

       ... created for myself.

   13. JZJulie Zhuo36:28

       ... a pretty great PM, Lenny. (laughs)

   14. LRLenny Rachitsky36:30

       It's a, it's all an illusion.

   15. JZJulie Zhuo36:32

       (laughs)

   16. LRLenny Rachitsky36:33

       But I appreciate it. This episode is brought to you by Sprig. If you've been a member of my community for a while, you know I'm a user, fan and investor in Sprig. Sprig is a user research platform that makes getting user insights from your product as easy and fast as getting analytics. The best product and research teams at companies like Loom, Opendoor and Dropbox use Sprig's in-product surveys to target specific users, start collecting insights, and identify issues and opportunities related to activation, onboarding, engagement and more. Talk about a platform that pays for itself. But...I'm perhaps most excited about Sprig's newest launch which extends the power of the platform pre-launch and makes it possible to test mock-ups and prototypes with your own users in minutes. The testing interface is super slick and doesn't require any of the typical plug-ins that make testing with your own users unappealing. And with unlimited seats, you're able to invite anyone from your company to view and use insights generated by Sprig. If you wanna get started, head over to sprig.com/lenny and mention that I sent you. The other piece is that, you pointed this out that like a lot of people don't realize when folks like us write, it's like us figuring it out. It's not like we have the answer and we're just like, "Okay here, I'm just gonna write down the answer I already have in my head." It's a... The process of writing is how we learn a lot about these sorts of things and a lot of people don't realize that.

   17. JZJulie Zhuo37:59

       Yeah, yeah. I, I, I absolutely agree. Like I said, it's, it's about reminding ourselves, right? For (laughs) like We're... You know, I always often say I'm like the number one audience for my own writing because I'm the person who needs to really hear it the most.

   18. LRLenny Rachitsky38:11

       That's exactly how I feel a lot of times when I go back to my own pieces like, "Oh, yeah. Okay. That's, that's what

8. 38:16 – 40:50

   Tweeting vs blogging

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky38:16

      I, that's what I wanted to remember." On the, on the writing, something I wanted to ask about is you've, you've kind of slowed down for good reason. You have a startup to run and you started doing more tweeting than, uh, newslettering and blogging. How do you think about that? Just, like is that intentional? How do you think about, I don't know, Twitter versus newsletters and other things?

   2. JZJulie Zhuo38:34

      Yeah. I- it was very much, you know, this is a- another New Year's resolution that came up later, right? And one of the things that, you know, I recognize myself, about myself is like I kind of have a tendency to ramble. You know, and I've gotten this feedback as well in 360s where I'm not always the clearest communicator. I can be a pretty good storyteller and I am clear in writing often that I am in person but this was another area that I wanted to get better at, right? I wanted to get better at in the moment communicating more clearly and being just a little bit sharper, a little bit crisper in the points that I had to make. And I remember, you know, I worked with a number of colleagues which are so good at this, right? There will be some really complex topic, this big product thing that we're trying to figure out and in the moment, you know, they would go and they would say, "Okay, I see. This is what the problem is. The problem is one, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Two, blah, blah, blah. Three..." Like, right? And everybody would be like, "Yeah, you know, that's amazing." Like, you know, "That's so crystal clear." Like this huge thing we're all talking past each other now became boiled to something so sharp and so beautiful, right? And I always had so much respect and admiration for the people who could do that and that wasn't me. But I was like, okay, well as, as anything, if I have a, have a thing I like and want and admire and respect, I could at least get better at it, right? Maybe I'll never be at that level but I can work towards it. And one of the ways I saw of working towards that is, well, let's just change it up. You know, I'd been doing long form, right? Which again, works really well for these stories and this kind of like, you know, more meandering prose but what if I just push myself to communicate in a much shorter form which is gonna force me to really strip away all that ornamentation and focus on the core idea? And I was like, "I'm just gonna go and publish threads on Twitter for a year." Again, same thing, right? Once, once a week a little thread, just take whatever is that, you know, the, the advice I needed to give myself and then boil that down to a tweet form. So it's also, it has helped me, it has helped me to get better at enumerating things, right? I think more naturally now sometimes it's like one, two, three and that has, you know, helped me as well in just again, the, the, the day job and the way that I communicate. Still a long ways to go but that was... You know, I think Twitter is really great at that. It's really great at trying to boil it down to the essence of what it is that one wants

9. 40:50 – 43:48

   How to become a successful online writer (and what to avoid)

   1. JZJulie Zhuo40:50

      to communicate.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky40:51

      I love that they use... That you use these tools to help work on a very specific skill that you're hoping to develop. Is that... So you said that worked, is that something you'd recommend to folks that are working on something like this and have a challenge there too?

   3. JZJulie Zhuo41:04

      I do. You know, I talk to a lot of people who want to write more because they, they feel like there is a lot of benefits or maybe it's 'cause, you know, writers often talk about like all of the benefits but, you know, a lot of people do f- help to, to maybe find it, as you were saying earlier, hard to get started, right? And my number one advice is like try and find an angle that's going to work for you because if you find yourself writing for your audience, you know, if you find yourself writing because you want likes or you want a certain number of views, that actually is a really hard barrier to overcome 'cause you c- you don't have control over all of that, right? But if you write because you're trying to work on a particular key skill, you know, whether it is clarity of thinking, whether it's, you know, again, helping you work through some stuff that's complicated in your mind, whether it's just, again, you know, working on being more comfortable putting your voice out there, then make it a goal but make it a action goal, right? Make it like a word count goal. You know, if you're gonna go... I, I really... I saw this on Twitter, I think it was last year, the idea of like, I forget who, but it was like this 30 days of just, you know, writing a thing every day or tweeting a thing every day, right? And you see this in design too. There's like a Inktober which is like you just draw a thing every single day in the month of October and I love those types of, you know, kind of structures and programs. I think that they're a way to go and get into the habit of that and, you know, everyone can... Feels like they can do anything for 30 days, right? You can do anything, you know, for, for like three months if you just commit to doing it once a week. It doesn't have to be forever. Doesn't have to be some sort of like five-year thing and a commitment that's like a huge milestone. Just kind of have to do it for a little bit and then reflect on it. Is it really helping you, right? Is it actually helping you get closer to that goal and that's usually the easiest way I found to get started.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky42:45

      I love that. Just creating a little bit of structure for yourself so you don't have to think about it. You just do it and I don't care what I do on that day but I'm doing it and maybe one time something will come out really great. And that, that reminds me of something I wanted to plus one. The point that, especially on Twitter, I find whenever you're trying to like go viral, it just comes across often as just like, okay, they're just trying to go viral. So like lame. This person just wants a lot of likes. Versus like I just want to share a thing that's interesting to me quickly or-... here's how I wanna think about it, or here's just, like, a thing I wanna remember in the future. I find those end up being a lot more successful.

   5. JZJulie Zhuo43:21

      That's right, yeah. Uh, that's totally right. I, I think it's what, what really gets you interested in it is likely the s- the, the thread that you wanna unroll and, uh, continue to explore, right? If you're just trying, like, you know, say what you think people wanna hear, it just comes across not that genuine and, personally, not that interesting.

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky43:38

      Yeah, like, the thing I've kind of learned is if I find something interesting, other people will find it interesting. And so I'll just share that in some form and often ends up being really helpful to a lot of people.

10. 43:48 – 48:35

    Three tried-and-true steps to develop product sense

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky43:48

       Speaking of Twitter, one of your, one of the threads I've liked best that you've written about, and I think you've done this a couple times, is around product thinking and product sense and how to build that muscle. And so I'd love to just hear your advice for folks that are thinking about, "How do I get better at product sense and product thinking?" What are ways that people can get better at these things?

    2. JZJulie Zhuo44:08

       The number one advice that I always have for people when talking about product sense or product thinking is, it's just really about observation and it's about curiosity, right? And you can start by first observing yourself, you know? Like, every time you're gonna go and use something, right? Every time you're gonna have a new experience, you download an app, you try something new, it's like, take the moment to, you know, reflect on, on kind of your emotion or your, your assumption at every step, right? Like, what was the new user experience like? At what moment did it become clear to you what was going on? When were you confused? What did you do? How many times did you tap something and then had to, like, exit 'cause you, like, went down a wrong pathway, right? And even before that, it's like, what even led you to trying this service in the first place, to downloading the app, you know? What was... Was it word of mouth? Did a friend... Did you see something on the internet? Did somebody that you respect pitch it, right? But these are all ways in which we're learning about how things work, how products work. Uh, and it always starts by just if you first observe yourself, then you'll make a lot of progress, right? And oftentimes, you know, i- i- i- it's hard to do that, right? It's 'cause sometimes we're just, we're going through the motions or we're not necessarily sitting down and, and analyzing every step of it. But the first step, I think, is just to get, you know, really good, comfortable, familiar, habitual with just that first, that personal observation. Uh, the second step is then, okay, cool, you do that for yourself. Well, that's not enough 'cause you're not the world, right? You don't necessarily represent everyone. But now it's to just sort of con- to build on those circles. So the next thing you do is, like, you go and actually observe and, and share those observations with somebody else, right? And so how that often looks is, like, discussions about products. And so it's like, "Oh, you downloaded this. Why did you download this?" You know? Like, "What made you decide that this was a great app? Do you think it's a great app? You know, what was compelling about it?" And, and to just really, you know, find the curiosity of thinking through which decisions did the builders or the creators of something make and what was the impact of it on, you know, us users, us customers and so forth, right? So often, it goes into then the next step, which is spending a lot of time sharing those observations and critiquing, right? I mean, a rule of thumb is like, you know, if you really wanna get better, how often are you having a conversation with somebody about products? Uh, you know, dissecting something, right? And, and really, you know, you know, sharing, yeah, like, what did you think was good or bad about it and, and engaging that. Because if you aren't, it's gonna be harder for you to actually learn about, you know, all of those different micro decisions and, and what its impact is. And then you can go a little broader than that, right? Like, there's lots of really great resources. There's amazing folks on the internet, right, who, who will go down and really dissect something, you know. Like, I love Eugene Wei's writing. I love, like, Kevin KwoK, you know? Like I, I always learn something because they take these apps like Figma or TikTok or whatever it is and then they really go very, very deep with their own observations, like what works, what doesn't, what patterns do we see across different apps that are successful and that aren't, right? And this is all helping us to understand what are these, again, the key decisions and what impact does it lead to that helps us become better at then making those intentional decisions in the product. So, that's a huge part of it. I think another thing then of- is of course you have to try and validate, right? So one thing we can do is of course we look at opinions, we look at reactions. That's data, right? That's the qualitative side. I think the other side is, is quantitative, so. So often, you know, if you are building products and you have the opportunity to run experiments, to do A/B tests, or if you, you know, again, you're working on one team but lots of other people in, uh, lots of other teams are also doing A/B tests, it's so interesting to then be able to, like, I don't know, ask people, right? Like ask the product manager on the other team about what they're learning about their products and to really be able to, uh, look at, you know, specific decisions and what causally happened as a result. That's what I love about A/B tests. And I think being really deep in the data and really going back to like, you know, can we infer some sort of causal relationship because we're... Or, you know, cor- correlation or causation but with causation with A/B tests. Can we actually pick up some of these learnings? Can we look at patterns and can we take some insights away? You know, that helps validate and confirm a lot of the hypotheses that, that we had about product and just ingesting as much of that as you can also helps develop your instinct for what works and what doesn't, right? People

11. 48:35 – 54:28

    When to choose intuition over data

    1. JZJulie Zhuo48:35

       often have this like, oh, you know design and user experience is on the other side of the coin. You know, it's like it's a totally different industry and they're at odds with each other, right? Being data informed and being quantitative versus like being very designer-y and, um, and, and subjective and, you know, caring about those abs- aesthetics and... I just think that's totally wrong. Like I think that one helps confirm the assumptions for the other, right? Now it is true that, you know, looking at a bunch of numbers isn't often gonna tell you exactly the leaps of faith that you need to make to start something new butThey surely can help you validate (laughs) whether a number of your assumptions about how people work or, or the way the world works are, are true or not, right? And so I know of a lot of really brilliant product thinkers who got that way not necessarily because they came through the route of, like, subjective, um, observation, but because they, they went and they were so, you know, uh, disciplined about always studying what happened, right? What was the impact and the numbers and people and so forth? And then eventually you marry that, of course, with, you know, "Well, why might that be the case," you know? And you get into the qualitative side and the observation, but these two are, are both support each other in helping to build a really great product sense.

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky49:50

       That's awesome. There's so much, there's so much material there that we could go on and on. Uh, on that last point, I wanted to kind of double click on it a little bit. So say, say your founder, and you're like, "Man, I have all these really clear vision and ideas of where I wanna go with my product," and, you know, their team's like, "Oh, I don't know if this is right. What if we do a little more user research or run some experiments?" Do you have any advice to the founder of just like when to rely on their gut and experience and just go with that versus doing more research, getting more data?

    3. JZJulie Zhuo50:23

       That is a really great question because, you know, I think one of the most common pieces of advice for founders, right, and I actually also had to, like, remind myself constantly of this one, is, like, you just... The more you know your customers, the more you can really, like, close your eyes and just, like, imagine everything (laughs) about their life and what they're doing on almost, like, a minute-to-minute basis, probably the better you're gonna g- do in terms of coming up with something that's going to meaningfully solve a problem for them, right? And so that comes from a couple of, of different places. You know, the first is, like, look, if you're the, you're the person you're building for and you're the target audience, awesome. You know, you probably do have a lot of stuff that is instinctively, you know, known to you, right? And, and maybe in those cases, you know, your team doesn't have that experience and they, they maybe can't feel the same level of conviction you do, and they might, you know, be asking you, "Hey, well, can we validate on all of that?" Right? It's not... It's always good advice, but sometimes, you know, you just actually... You're so deep in it and you're this person or you know this person or you did this job that, that it, you know, you probably can trust your instincts and, and your gut quite a bit, right? And I remember early days at Facebook, right? That was us. Like, everybody who worked at the company was either a college dropout or a recent college grad, and we were building a product for college students. I mean, we were the perfect... You know, it was like for us, by us, right? We understood exactly what this audience wanted. If we didn't, we would call up some friends. I mean, this was just, you know, pure target d- demographic for what we were building. But eventually, if that's not true and this was, you know... It evolved at Facebook, right? And it evolves for, for companies, you know? You might start out that way, but eventually, you know, we started to open up to the world. We started to add people in different countries. Like, the percentage of people that were, like, college grads who were like us, who were using the products started to shrink, became a smaller and smaller percentage of, of, of actually, you know, all core Facebook users. So therefore, our intuitions started to become less and less reliable, right? And I remember in spectacular fashion, I think this was like in 2000 and, uh, eight or nine, we had, like, a string of failures, you know, big kind of launches that were, that were failures, and I think it was 'cause we reached the end of our, (laughs) our, our intuition for the user base at that particular moment, right? And that's true for founders as well. Like, sometimes, you know, you're building a product in a domain where you're, you weren't the target audience, right? And I, I feel this right now for myself. You know, I'm building an analytics product. I was never a data analyst. I understand, you know, from the outside, the value of data, but I never did the job. And, and therefore, what I really (laughs) needed to do was just spend a lot of time, you know, with data scientists immersing myself, actually just trying to do the job myself, you know, because the better that I understand what it is and what it's like and what the company context is. And, and I think for SaaS companies in particular, you might have done the job at one company, but you probably didn't do it at, like, you know, 20 or 50 companies, and you're probably selling to, like, a lot of companies. So it's just way more critical for you to spend a lot of time interviewing customers, because your intuition is likely not gonna carry you nearly as far as if you're building, again, a very consumer product for a very consumer audience of which you yourself are a part of, right? So I do think that, yeah, you know, it doesn't matter that you need to really understand your customers. Do you have to go out and do the work, have the conversations, you know, teach yourself the, the things that they do? Yeah, uh, uh, uh, it depends a bit on the context, depends on where you are, but it's never bad advice. The better you understand your customers, I think the better you're gonna be able to build a product.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky53:52

       I really like that advice of just, like, this model of the more time the founder spends with their customers, the more you can trust that they're gonna have the right sorts of instincts, and the less they start to spend time there, maybe start running more experiments and doing more user research as a team around the founder.

    5. JZJulie Zhuo54:08

       Or the larger your-

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky54:09

       It's interesting.

    7. JZJulie Zhuo54:10

       ... the larger your user base becomes, the less reliable any one or 10 or even 100 people are in terms of understanding the whole, right? It's just, the, the numbers get too big.

    8. LRLenny Rachitsky54:22

       And luckily, in theory, you have a lot more data at that point, and so you can actually run experiments and start relying on data.

12. 54:28 – 1:02:33

    The secret to facilitating great product/design review meetings

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky54:28

    2. JZJulie Zhuo54:28

       That's right, yeah.

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky54:29

       Something I also wanted to get your advice on, it's something that a lot of founders especially, and even PMs have come to me around, is product review meetings and design review meetings, and I know you've run many. And so I wanted to get your thoughts of just how should companies structure product review meetings or design review meetings? Who should be in the room? How should they be set up? Any advice for folks that are trying to figure that out?

    4. JZJulie Zhuo54:52

       I really believe that it's never a bad thing. It's always a better thing to have more feedback, right? And so often, you know, I think, uh, you don't have to necessarily wanna be like, "Oh, you know, we have, like, the one review meeting, and that's the one in which (laughs) we, like, get everyone's opinions out, and we make all these decisions, and then we're done." I think about...... product and feedback as, as kind of just, you know, the more the better, right? And, and most people, again, everyone, especially with design, like, has an opinion to some degree, right? And so all opinions are valid because they are a true opinion. The question is, how do you then prioritize? How do you figure out what it is that you should do? Because it isn't successful to try and, you know, do things by consensus. You're never gonna get a group of people, uh, smart people to agree about what is absolutely the best design. So one principle is, okay, great, you know, if you're gonna have feedback on the product, more is better. Try and have, let's, you know, like, different sessions, right, with different groups of people. You know, often I would advise a designer, "Hey, go and actually do a critique with a design audience, but go and then, you know, s- show this to the people who are most directly working on the product," right? 'Cause they're gonna have a different set of knowledge. But then go and see if you can find some people outside of your direct team who don't have, uh, you know, as much bias on just knowing exactly how things work and then show them the user experience. And then go and actually see if you can find, like, a group of target customers for, you know, who are actually gonna launch, right? And then run some user research sessions and get feedback, right? Like, they all are gonna be valuable. They all might contradict each other to some degree, but, you know, it's, the right answer isn't like, let's just, uh, because we don't like disagreement, let's just go with, like, one and then ignore the others, right? Everyone is gonna have something to contribute to the product because, you know, everyone has that different perspective. So, again, lots of sessions, lots of user review sessions. Awesome. All right. But then there is a important job, which is the synthesis of, like, all of that feedback and a way of understanding what really matters. And, and the way that I often think about this is like, we have to be absolutely clear on who is that target audience and what is the most important problem that we're trying to solve for them, right? So if you can get every group, you know, to align on this is the value, this is who it is, right? Again, go and paint that very clear picture of the person, the problem, you know, what it is that, that we're trying to help them with. And then what is most important? And what is the job? You know, I, I really love the jobs to be done for you, but, like, what's the job that this particular feature or product is going to fulfill for that person, right? Then it makes it easier for us to then start to categorize different buckets of feedback, right? Because the first thing that, you know, that's most important to address is like, well, is this thing actually valuable (laughs) ? Like, is it i- you know, doing something? Is this solving the problem? Is it doing the job correctly? And, you know, if, if a lot of other stuff below is bad but this is, like, good, then, you know, we can move on to, uh, kind of the next, uh, most important thing. But if, like, all the other stuff is, is, is maybe even, you know, good or interesting but this is not there, then we should just actually disregard all the other stuff until we are quite certain that we've gotten kind of the core value, we understand the user, this, this, you know, in some sense is addressing the, the core pain, right? And then once we do that, then let's focus on the next layer, which I, I will think about as, like, ease of use, right? So okay, cool. You know, we've figured out that, we validated this thing is valuable, it does solve the job. Now is it easy to use? Like, are people confused? Are they getting hung up somewhere, you know? Or is it just, like, really slow so, like, no one can use it 'cause it just takes, like, 10 seconds to load each time, right? Ease of use is just about, like, can people access the value in a really great manner? A- and that's the next most important bucket, right? And then finally, if it is ver- valuable, it's easy to use, and I think we get into, like, is it joyful to use? Is it pleasurable? Does it really exceed expectations, right? And I think that is the bar that we should aim for whenever we are creating products. And, you know, here you might have debates about like, you know, colors or, like, aesthetic properties or animation and delight and all of the other things that just make it that much more enjoyable and, and, and surprising and wonderful for the core audience. But you don't wanna just focus on that and then lose, like, okay, actually this thing wasn't valuable and it, like, loaded in 10 seconds. Like you, you know, who, who cares about, like, how great was the animation when, like, the thing doesn't even load? So, so I think there's, like, a work to do to try and actually help the different pieces of feedback get synthesized so we understand what bucket they are and we, you know, can have the right order of prioritization to make sure we tackle the most important things first.

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky59:31

       And just to be clear, this is a, kind of a ongoing process. This isn't, like, one meeting, right, where-

    6. JZJulie Zhuo59:35

       Yeah. (laughs)

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky59:35

       ... you go through all these four layers, right? Cool. And then is your advice to focus on it in that sequence generally and, like, not focus on, say, the delight until you kind of make it through these other points? Or do you find it's kind of helpful to kind of think about all these things at once?

    8. JZJulie Zhuo59:53

       I usually find that if you're gonna go in and have, run a, you know, a design critique or review session, it's helpful to sort of start up front by saying, "Here is where, where we are in the process. This is the most important set of things we wanna validate," right? We wanna validate whether this actually solves the problem or wanna validate, like, we've validated it solves the problem but, you know, we validate, like, whether it's e- easy to use or, or something along those effects. So, so being more specific about where you are, what matters most for you to, what kind of feedback matters the most at that particular phase for the team is valuable, right? Because and if you don't do that, sometimes you'll just get all sorts of feedback and some of it is, you're not even ready for, right? You're not even thinking, the team's not even thinking about some of these additional level details. They're just thinking about the core stuff. And, you know, usually it follows just from how product development happens, right? Like, the first thing that often teams will, you know, come up with when they build a product is, like, some kind of product brief or some kind of, you know, like, understanding of the user and a very high level picture about how the product is. You know, usually there's not, like, high fidelity mocks or prototypes a- at that stage, right? And so, so that's great, you know, because, you know, we're using a different fidelity, we're looking at documents and words and, you know, values and, and data as a way to understand the opportunity and, and, you know, or, and, and that lends itself well to that kind of feedback. But, but where I find that things get a little confusing is, like, sometimes you will go and just make a prototype, right? And the, again, the, the goal of the prototype is to give a feeling of how it works. It's not that the team had already spent a bunch of time on the exact UI decisions or so forth. And so what that might ha- wha- what happens though is sometimes the audience or the people who are giving feedback, they can't always distinguish that. So then, you know, you, the, the feedback goes immediately towards like, "Oh, I don't like that shade of blue." Or, like, you know, maybe we should, you know, put step two, uh, again before step three and, and that's not actually where the conversation is, right? Because, you know, we haven't actually gone and, and, um, had conviction in just, like, the, the first core piece of, of whether this is even the right thing to build or whether it really is solving an important enough problem. So, so being very clear about like where you are and what is the feedback, uh, that you wanna get is important. Now again, eventually you go and you put stuff in front of customers. It's a little harder for them to just fully, you know, like, be able to distinguish between, like, wait, um, like, what's the difference between, like, the feedback versus e- you know, around value versus ease of use? It gets all blended for them. At that point in time though, so they'll just give whatever feedback. And again, I, I think that's fine, just collect it. But then when you go and do the synthesis, when you go and do the prioritization, make sure that you are, you're getting what you need at that stage.

    9. LRLenny Rachitsky1:02:32

       As a

13. 1:02:33 – 1:05:28

    How to give valuable design feedback

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky1:02:33

       colleague of the designer, say your PM or an engineer...... data scientist or whatever. Do you have any advice for just giving feedback to a designer in the critiques?

    2. JZJulie Zhuo1:02:41

       Yes. The most important feedback I would say is focus on identifying the problem and making it really clear for the other person, you know, the person you're giving feedback to, what is the problem, right? (laughs) And, uh, the reason it, uh, I always give that is because sometimes, you know, we're all solvers and builders, and so you often can very much get into, like, "Wait a second, I see the problem, but instead of s- talking about the problem, I'm just gonna give you a solution." You know? So you'll, you'll, people will say things like, "Oh, I see this," and they'll be like, "Why don't we make the logo purple?" Or, like, "Why don't we try and add this feature here?" Right? And there's a lot of assumptions that are already in place. Like, you're giving that because you assume the current thing is insufficient in some way, right? And it's, you know, it's, it's maybe not ideal at, at being clear or it is forgetting, like, to, to bring some important value prop, or, you know, maybe, like, yellow just makes this whole thing look like pukey or whatever it is, right? There's like, there's a reason, but instead of actually stating the reason, we go straight to the solution and, like, at that point it's like, I don't know, maybe, maybe, like, the solution is good, maybe it isn't, right? But, but honestly, you know, if you have designers, you have other people who are just focused on coming up with the right solution, you're kind of taking that power away from them by going straight to what you think is, like, the, the right solution, right? Again, I'm not saying it's don't ever propose a solution. It's always good to give a suggestion. But you also have to respect that whoever is actually coming up with the answer or the solution, they're the ones who should be empowered to ultimately, you know, they know the most about the problem, they've thought about it the longest, right? Help them understand what you think the problem is with whatever it is they are proposing. You know, give examples. Show them where you're getting stuck. Why is it unclear to you? Why do you think that this color is, is, uh, you know, not the right color, right? And, and try to paint that, because when everyone is aligned on the problem, then we can all collectively come up with better solutions, and then we can kind of rate and, and critique the solutions against each other. But by going straight to brainstorming ideas, you know, sometimes a lot gets lost and people aren't actually following along on, is this really the problem? Do we agree this is a problem? Is this actually the most important problem?

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky1:04:52

       I imagine PMs are very guilty of this, of just like, "Hm, let's just move this button over here and it'll be, it'll solve all these problems, let's move it higher up." And it's, that, it's kind of ironic 'cause PMs also don't want people coming to them with a solution, and it's funny you kinda forget that and you just give people-

    4. JZJulie Zhuo1:05:06

       Yeah.

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky1:05:06

       ... "Here's what we should just do. Let's move on."

    6. JZJulie Zhuo1:05:08

       Eh, we, we all, uh, we all forget it all the time. I mean, uh, this is, uh, is a hard one, right? Because, you know, if, again, like, it's, it's fun. It's, like, we are all solvers to some degree, right? It's fun to jump in there and do it. But when you don't have extreme clarity on the problem, then, you know, then that's what happens when you just end up talking past each other.

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky1:05:27

       Absolutely. I've,

14. 1:05:28 – 1:09:50

    What can you do to unblock your path to become a manager?

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky1:05:28

       I've been guilty of that myself. Okay, so I've sucked up an hour of your time. I wanna let you go, but I have two more questions I wanna ask in different directions. One is coming back to your book about The Making of a Manager. By the way, we haven't even mentioned the name of the book yet. The Making of a Manager, available at all of local bookstores and Amazon, and every online shop bookshop. So, a lot of people want to become managers, and oftentimes they struggle for whatever reason. They can't make it to manager and nobody wants to promote them, they're just kinda struggling there. Do you have any advice for folks that are just, like, having a hard time getting to that point where they can actually get to be a manager?

    2. JZJulie Zhuo1:06:04

       The first is make sure your manager is aware of those aspirations. Bring them into your hopes and dreams, right? If you, if your manager understands your goals and what you would like to work towards, then it's much easier for you to be like, "Okay, can you help me?" You know? "I really wanna be able to do what you do. I wanna lead a team, I wanna lead a project," et cetera. Like, "Help me figure out how to, how to get there." And the first thing you should ask is, like, "What does it take?" You know, "What, where are the skills that I'm gonna need to get better at in order to, you know, for you to believe that I could be successful in doing so?" And just make sure that you hear that, right? And make sure that you can have an honest conversation where your manager can help you be aware of what are the things that you should work on, and then work together to just make a plan, to be like, "Okay, cool. You know, one of the things that it, it seems, like, you know, that I've gotta improve on is that I, you know, e-e, uh, like, one of the roles and responsibilities of the manager is, like, going, spending a lot of time on recruiting and, like, I haven't done that," right? So, (laughs) let's see, let's work together for a plan where I can start to learn some of those skills. One of the nice things about, uh, at least that I find about, you know, like, what, the path to management is, like, a lot of this stuff you can do even when you're not a manager. Some stuff you can't, right? You probably can't fire someone and learn those skills without actually being a manager and, and being in that role. But a lot of things like hiring, like mentoring, like working on process, you know, like, uh, is, is all things that you can start to contribute and help out with in the capacity of an IC, right? So if that is, you know, if you've identified these different skills, then find opportunities to start to practice and be able to grow those skills. So for example, oftentimes a really great, you know, if you're a part of a company that's growing and has, like, a summer internship program, awesome. Can you go in and sign up and mentor an intern and manage an intern, right? It's a very, you know, sort of small way of, of doing that and getting started. Here's another example. You know, if you're at a growing company and new people are joining and, you know, you might work with your manager and say, "Hey, let me be this person's onboarding buddy." You know, "Let me be responsible for helping them get up to speed over the first one or two weeks." Or if you wanna, if you s- spot an opportunity, right, and let's say there's documentation or there's some process that, we, you know, we have to change the structure of the meeting, like, ask your manager if you can help out with that. If you can volunteer for that, you know, and you help come up with some new process for doing something, right, or a new way of, of running the meeting and, and just take the lead. So a lot of these things you don't need to have the official title to do. You can do a lot of it, you know, in that capacity as an IC, and, and again, it's also great for you to then try out, like, "Do I like doing these things?" You know? "Uh, do these things give me energy?" And as well, your manager can see, you know, whether you can be successful in this respect and then give you more and more responsibility if so. So it's really not binary. It's not all or nothing. I also wanna point, there's one other thing though which is that sometimes...The reason, you know, there, you can't easily become a manager is because your, your company just isn't growing, right? It isn't a need to have a new manager unless the current manager leaves or unless somebody, you know, departs the company and a new role opens up. And that could be ... I mean, you can very well have done all of those right things, have the right skills, but there just isn't the role and opportunity available at your current company. And if that's the case, sometimes that's how it is and, and the way that you can further your goals there is to think about, you know, moving into a different environment.

Episode duration: 1:15:12