Lenny's PodcastThe happiness and pain of product management | Noam Lovinsky (Grammarly, FB, Thumbtack, YT)
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
140 min read · 27,944 words- 0:00 – 4:18
Noam’s background
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(instrumental music) You've worked at so many great companies. At YouTube, when you joined, my understanding is, YouTube was losing a lot of money?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
There were many times where Google leadership reconsidered the acquisition, and, "Should we, like, sell YouTube?" If you can believe it or not.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
At Thumbtack, it looks like you went from one to negative one, and then back to one.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
I remember in a board meeting, the new model really started to show legs, and one of the board members, Brian Schrier at Sequoia said it was the prettiest smile graph that he had ever seen.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
When you were at Facebook, you built what is called the New Product Experimentation Team, trying to create a startup within a startup.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
You're thinking on a different time horizon. If you're a large organization and you do some performance management process twice a year in your zero to one incubator, you've already killed it. It's the wrong incentive.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
As the chief product officer at Grammarly, I'm curious what word you most often misspell.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs) "The."
- LRLenny Rachitsky
T- you do T-H?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
T-H, yeah, exactly.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Oh, man.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah, yeah. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(instrumental music) Today, my guest is Noam Levinsky. Noam is currently chief product officer at Grammarly. Previously, he was an early PM at YouTube, where he spent five years leading the creator product experience and then the broader YouTube consumer product experience. He then went on to take on the chief product officer role at Thumbtack, which involved helping the company reignite growth after a downturn caused by some changes Google made in SEO. He then went on to Facebook, where he created the New Product Experimentation Team, whose charter was to incubate big new ideas protected from the larger Facebook org. Noam has such a unique set of experiences taking products from zero to one, from negative one to one, from one to 100, and even starting his own companies. He's never really been on a podcast before and he rarely ever tweets or post anything online, which we actually talk about. In our conversation, we walk through the lessons that he's learned through his amazing career at YouTube, Facebook, Thumbtack, and at Grammarly. We talk about when it makes sense to kill your project at a company, when it makes sense to ask to be layered at a company, why you should be keeping a nose out for which products matter most at a business and to find those products, why you need to diversify your growth channels at your business, why you should be finding work that is gonna most stretch you to help you advance in your career, a bunch of advice for creating space for innovation within a large company, and so much more. Noam is such a gem and I'm really excited to share his wisdom with you. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow this podcast in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes, and it helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Noam Levinsky, after a short word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Whimsical, the iterative product workspace. Whimsical helps product managers build clarity and shared understanding faster with tools designed for solving product challenges. With Whimsical, you can easily explore new concepts using drag and drop wireframe and diagram components, create rich product briefs that show and sell your thinking, and keep your team aligned with one source of truth for all of your build requirements. Whimsical also has a library of easy-to-use templates from product leaders, like myself, including a project proposal one-pager and a go-to-market worksheet. Give them a try and see how fast and easy it is to build clarity with Whimsical. Sign up at whimsical.com/lenny for 20% off a Whimsical pro plan. That's whimsical.com/lenny. This episode is brought to you by Vanta. When it comes to ensuring your company has top-notch security practices, things get complicated fast. Now, you can assess risk, secure the trust of your customers, and automate compliance for SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and more with a single platform, Vanta. Vanta's market-leading trust management platform helps you continuously monitor compliance alongside reporting and tracking risks. Plus, you can save hours by completing security questionnaires with Vanta AI. Join thousands of global companies that use Vanta to automate evidence collection, unify risk management, and streamline security reviews. Get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com/lenny. That's V-A-N-T-A.com/lenny.
- 4:18 – 8:06
Noam’s lack of online presence
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Noam, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Thanks for having me, Lenny.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
It's absolutely my pleasure. I've heard so many great things about you for- from so many people. I think you're friends with a lot of guests that have been on this podcast. And something that I find really interesting about you and really respect about you is that you've worked at so many great companies and you've done so many big things in your career, but you barely ever tweet, you don't have a newsletter, I don't see many things on LinkedIn. I don't think you've even been on a podcast before.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I think the only evidence I can find if- that you exist is, uh, you have this YouTube channel that's just, like-
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... you go-karting and kids and people wishing you a happy birthday.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Oh, gosh. I-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Um, yeah.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
I should- I should go- go monitor that. I forgot about that. Um...
- LRLenny Rachitsky
You might wanna... Yeah, you might wanna. (laughs)
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah, yeah. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
People are gonna go find it now.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah, yeah. That's funny. Yeah, you know, it's funny. I- I- I- I think about that a lot, like, am I- am I doing something wrong? Should I be putting more effort in that? I mean, it's funny that you mention newsletter. Like, I- I spend a lot of time with the Substack team. Been a very active advisor there. Uh, the team is fantastic, by the way. And I think about it, am I- am I doing something wrong in my career by not doing that? But just- I mean, just to be honest, it's just not- it's not- doesn't come gen- like, authentically to me. It doesn't come naturally to me. I get really focused on the thing that I am working on and get really deep in the thing that I am working on. And I have a- a hard time kind of-... multitasking a lot out- outside of that, to be totally honest. And the way that I kind of get to know the, the industry and, and, and, um, you know, other teams and what not is just through working with people. I'm not like, um, um, a very big networker. I'm not saying that there's, that there's anything wrong with that. I wish I were better at that. Um, I get to know people by, um, doing work with them, by, by helping them. Um, and it doesn't, doesn't necessarily scale in the same way (laughs) that, that Twitter does, but it's, it's served me well so far and it's more kind of authentic and, uh, it's, it's what comes more natural to me. And so that's, that's how I do it. So like I'm doing a lot of coffees. I'm like, you know, meeting people that way. I'm not doing a lot of, uh, tweeting or, or writing newsletters. May- maybe one day, but that's, that's not me today.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So I think this is an awesome example of you can be incredibly successful as a product manager and as anyone in tech, not investing time, posting online. And I, I, I'm gonna incriminate myself here, but I feel like the advice I would share with people is the best people are not spending time tweeting and talking online, sharing on LinkedIn. They're just doing work. They don't have time for that sort of thing. And I think you're a great example of that. Is there anything along those lines that you share with folks that are just like, "Hey, should I be investing time here?"
- NLNoam Lovinsky
I think everyone can chart their own path and has a way that is sort of authentic to them and leans on their strengths. Uh, what, what I often, uh, coach people is like, do what you like. You're, you're generally gonna be a lot better at the things that like really fill you up, that really get you excited, and like life is short. There's like so many things to be doing out there. We're so lucky, like the number of interesting waves of technology that I've experienced just makes me feel like it's gonna keep happening for a long time. We're very fortunate to be born in the time that we are and have the opportunities that we are. So why, you know, spend your time doing something that doesn't feel good because you think that it might, you know, lead to, you know, some, some success? Where if you lean on what's authentic to you and what is, you know, ma- makes you happy, chances are you're gonna be one of the best people at those things.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I love that advice, and I think it's so important. I think there's a lot of pressure on people too. "I need to do this, I need to do that."
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Totally.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
"I need to tweet. I need to share content to be successful." This comes up a lot on this podcast, that the more you could just stick close to what gives you energy and what you enjoy doing, oftentimes that leads to things you wouldn't expect and a lot
- 8:06 – 14:31
Lessons from YouTube: advocating for what’s best for yourself and the team
- LRLenny Rachitsky
of success. Speaking of that, looking at your career arc, I noticed a really interesting pattern and a really diverse set of experiences. So just kinda talking through places you've been. At Facebook, you worked on zero to one stuff. At YouTube, the way I see it is you almost went from z- from negative one to one.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
At Thumbtack, it looks like you went from one to negative one and then back to one, so it's like a really unique turnaround story. And then with Grammarly, it feels like it's like, I don't know, one or, I don't know, five to 100 or wherever you end up taking it. So I thought it'd be fun to talk through each of these experiences 'cause they're such unique approaches or such unique experiences and see what lessons and wisdom we can extract from your journey. How about that?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Sounds great. Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Okay. Sweet. So I'm thinking reverse chronologically, we start with YouTube, which the way I see it is it's kind of negative one to one. When you joined, my understanding is YouTube was losing a lot of money. When you left, they were not losing money. And I was actually just looking, they're valued apparently at $200 billion today, YouTube as a business. So I know you haven't been there for a while, but great, great work. What, um, lessons did you take away from that journey? What stories come to mind from that part of your career that might be helpful to people?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Maybe first to start with kind of like why I h- hop around these, these experiences. I, I always tell people I feel like I'm an IC trapped in a manager's body sometimes. Like, like fundamentally, I, I like to build. That's why I, I do this. I like to, I like to make things. And so sometimes the, the more fun way to make things is to start something. And sometimes the, the better way to, to make things in the situation that I'm in is to try to, you know, um, uh, support teams and, and lead through teams. Um, and so, uh, you know, I joined YouTube through, through an acquisition of a company I started and, um, in, in the, in the beginning what I was doing there is just, you know, rebuilding that product, um, on, on Google, on Google infrastructure and for, for YouTube, YouTube customers. And maybe the, the, the first lesson was actually to look around at what the, the rest of the team was doing and be really, like, honest and open about the priority, the relative priority of the thing that you're working on, even if, you know, it might lead to, you know, your project getting canceled. So one of the things that I remember (laughs) doing really on is actually like talking to the leadership team and being like, "I don't think we should be putting 50 engineers on this project." Like, looking at the rest of the roadmap and the rest of the priority, um, or the rest of the priorities, excuse me, I, I, I think th- this team would, would likely be better served elsewhere. Even though that was likely negotiating my way out of a job in like month three, I don't know, I just, I kind of felt like that was the, the right thing for, for the team and, and, and for the business. And, and then that started a very (laughs) interesting journey, um, because, uh, you know, from there, basically, you know, the leadership was like, "You're right. (laughs) You know, we're gonna wind that down and, and, and, uh, build some of those features into the existing product. And now you, you come and lead this, this focus area we're calling the creator focus area." So I went from basically rebuilding the product that our startup had built to, um, leading one of the three focus areas at YouTube. There was the viewer team, the creator team, and the advertiser team. And Hunter Walk, who's amazing, was leading the viewer team, and Shishir Mehrotra, who's also very amazing, was leading the, uh, advertising team. And-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
What a, what an online community.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
And then (laughs) there, there was me. And I was like, um, you know, I, I'm, I was sort of like, you know-... 29-year-old startupy guy. (laughs) We're working with these guys who were, were awesome and, and YouTube in general was, was an in- and continues to be an incredible team. Um, and so that, I think that was like a first, like really good lesson that in, in the right organizations, even in, in large organizations, advocate for like what's best for the team. Advocate for what's best for the organization, even if that means that it puts you at a, you know, particular, you know, difficult moment. If it is a healthy team that, uh, rewards those sorts of decisions and actions, like thing- good things will happen. If it's not, it's as good to know too. (laughs) You know? And that's good to know, like know, know early. Um, so that's, that's one, one thing that, that comes to mind. Maybe, maybe one other I would say like atypical, um, you know, uh, career choice that I, that I made, uh, shortly thereafter is then when I was, when I was put in that, in that, um, uh, in that, uh, role, um, you know, I really struggled in that role. I was reporting to the CEO at the time, a guy named Salar Kamangar, who's also awesome, Google's sixth employee. And, um, just learned a ton from him, like an incredible strategic thinker. But he was asking me questions that I ha- I, I felt like they were from a different planet. Like how (laughs) I was like, I, I, I didn't know what, what, what they meant and he just thought in a different, in a different way, a different level, on different scale. And that's still something that I was learning. Eventually I f- I figured it out. But I was, I was really struggling in that moment and I had a really good relationship, uh, with both Hunter and Shishir and they really helped me through that. And eventually I, I, I went to Salar and said, you know, "Hey, I think I should actually report to Hunter. Like I think this would work better if, you know, we kind of combined the organizations this way and then we, we, we, um, you know, divided and conquered this way." And again, like very atypical (laughs) . No one has ever come to me in my career and said, "I would like you to layer me, you know, in this, in this, in this other, in this other person." But, you know, in that moment, I was just like, "This is how I will do better work. This is how I will get better support. I will be kind of like happier and more productive and it will be better for the team." And you know what? Like I, for me anyway, I was right and we, we made that change and Hunter was a fantastic manager and support at YouTube. I like learned a ton, uh, grew a lot, and then eventually when, uh, when he moved on, you know, Shishir took over the, the organization and then I moved into the, into the viewer part of the organization, which is where I spent, you know, uh, the, the rest of my time there, which was leading and supporting the, the viewer, um, PM team at
- 14:31 – 19:37
Prioritizing what’s best for the business
- NLNoam Lovinsky
YouTube.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
These stories are amazing. It connects to your point that you're kind of a IC, in- inner child IC-
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... where you keep trying to kill your, kill your career by accident. Like now I'll kill this project I'm working on. I'm gonna demote myself a little bit. But clearly it's worked out. Is there anything that you saw that gave you that confidence that this is actually gonna be okay? Because again, people don't normally think this is how you get ahead in your career is you kill your team and you layer yourself. (laughs)
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs) Yeah, I mean, I think having a broader view of the company's strategy, having an instinct for like what we should be doing and why, and how I might prioritize all of these investments, um, if I were given the opportunity to do that. I think like internalizing that and understanding that and then trying to align whatever is under your influence, you know, kind of towards that, um, that, that, that overall goal is very helpful. Uh, and, and made me feel like I'm pretty confident this is going to be okay because it will lead to better results for the organization given what we're trying to do. And so as long as I'm trying to push decisions or actions that actually lead to better results, if it's a healthy culture and organization, I should be okay. And I think that the, the other thing is just, just over the years I, you know, I got extremely lucky. The, the first job that I got out of school was an incredible group of people and it gave me a nose for talent. It gave me a nose for like what like great feels like and, and what like a high functioning team feels like. And it's hard to like kind of like know that without like experiencing that. And so in, in the, in the moments like... And YouTube was also one of those teams, like Grammarly's one of those teams, Thumbtack was one of those teams. Being able to sniff that out when you're trying to kind of choose the, the next, the next team is, is, uh, uh, is, is very important. But I think that's another thing that gave me confidence. Like I, I learned, you know, these people well enough, um, you know, Hunter, Shishir, et cetera, to have that kind of the instinct that the right thing will happen. Like this will, this will be, um, you know, better for, for me and the, and the broader team.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Got it. So the key there is just you have to trust that the team around you is, is good enough, that you're not gonna be pushed off into a corner. I think you made a really profound point here that a lot of people don't get about the job of a product leader and a product manager that a big part of your job is to think about what is best from the, for the business and work backwards from that. Not necessarily what's the best thing for the user is the highest priority, not necessarily what's the best thing for my team and how do I hit the goals that I'm obsessed with? It's what is gonna be best for the business broadly and then make decisions there. Is there anything more you can say there about just how powerful that is as a way of thinking about prioritization and decisions as a product manager?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah, it's a, it's a great question. I mean, I th- I think ideally, you know, things that are best for the customer als- there's high overlap with that, with things that are best for the business, but not, not always. Right? Um, uh, and I think like figuring out some, some principles, um, that help kind of guide those sorts of conflicts can be really... really helpful. Like, at Thumbtack, we had principles about which sides of the marketplace we wanted to serve in, in which order, uh, and kind of when we served Thumbtack, right? So it was customers first, pros second, and then Thumbtack last. And that's, uh, that's actually the first two. S- saying Thumbtack last is, like, the easy thing to say. Actually doing it in action, I think, is, is a very different thing. But that, that first one of, like, should we... You know, especially when you're, uh, you're starting a marketplace, as you know well, Lenny, like supply is so critical. Like, many marketplaces live and die by the quality and liquidity and s- and s- and supply. And so why would you, you know, focus on customers first in the Thumbtack perspective? And, and supply is... Are the pros, the people that, that you hire, um, well, you know, we, we always just felt that what the pros need from us is more customers. What the pros need from us is, like, high-quality customers. Um, and so if we really try to, you know, make a great customer experience that attracts more customers, helps them find the right pros, provides the highest-quality customers, then that will therefore be better for the pros. And so that's how we should, we should prioritize. And so it's, that's... And, and if we do those things right, then the business will benefit, right? And so doing things like, um, raising prices because we think it's good for the business even though it causes liquidity issues in the marketplace might be a little, you know, a little bit of a local maxima, right? Uh, locally optimizing rather than the... Rather than globally optimizing. So I think sometimes in these, in these sorts of questions, trying to establish some set of guiding principles, um, that, that help navigate some of these more, you know, ambiguous or, or thorny, thorny questions can be
- 19:37 – 21:47
Knowing when it’s time to kill a project
- NLNoam Lovinsky
really helpful.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I wanna circle back to this first point you made and the experience you had convincing people that your first project-
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... shouldn't be something you work on. How long do you stick with something that isn't going well and then decide, okay, let's convince people this is something I should move on from, versus, like, you don't want to give up on a project i- quickly, right? You wanna give it a shot.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
I mean, look, I, I don't know that it's a, that it's a perfect answer, but I think the reality is, is that what kills most projects, most early companies is, is stamina. And I think that you, you know, um, uh, we all need to work on, you know, kind of being more resilient about kind of like... Uh, I remember at Thumbtack, Marco, the CEO, u- we used to say that it feels like we're running uphill and chewing glass, um, and you're kind of like, "That's right." Like, (laughs) "We, we wanna do that. Um, that's good, that's good for us. We'll take, take our medicine." Um, so you wanna, you wanna practice that sort of resiliency. But ultimately, I think that what, what starts to happen is you, you start to lose the stamina and you're just not bringing your best self to the, uh, to the, to the situation. And so many of these things are, like, so high ambiguity where you, you don't know exactly what to build or you don't know exactly... You're not getting the signal you need or the feedback you need to be able to hone it in and know that you're, that you're, um, uh, doing something well. They require, like, just a, an, an ungodly level of faith and stamina. Uh, and so I... That's, that's sort of, like, what, what I look to. When you see, like, a team that is motivated, that is building something, like, they- they're really excited about, I mean, just like the inertia, the, the quality, like, just everything. It's just... It's like a whole different game. Or when you see a team that's sort of, like, down and out and they've, you know, they, they've, they've really, they've been hitting their head against the wall for a long time, sometimes they just need, like, a change of scene, a change, change of pace, um, and they get to, like, a much better situation. So my, my honest answer is, is yeah. It's, it's the when do you run out of steam is usually the question, and I think that happens usually before you, you know, like in a startup case, a lot of times before you run out of money or, you know, these other things.
- 21:47 – 26:24
Lessons from Thumbtack: diversifying growth channels and overcoming challenges
- NLNoam Lovinsky
- LRLenny Rachitsky
We've talked about Thumbtack a couple times now, so let's talk about that. I love this (laughs) description of running uphill and chewing glass. Uh, my understanding is when you joined, things were going well, and then things started to go much less well, and then you helped turn things around. Talk about that part of your journey and what you learned from that time.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah, sure. Um, again, really fantastic team and, and, and really strong founders. Um, you know, that, that company was just on the, on the bleeding edge of things like SEO and, and, and growing by SEO, and it was, like, one of the, one of the best, uh, organizations at driving growth through, through that channel. But I think the thing that I learned, uh, really early, which, Lenny, I... You know, with your background, you probably (laughs) know as well, SEO is a sort of like live by the sword, die by the sword, you know, channel of, of growth. Um, and I think that a one-channel growth company is, like, always a no-no. Um, and so that, that's a little bit of kind of what we, what we had at, at Thumbtack. So, um, it was funny 'cause I remember when I joined and, you know, Marco and I had a, had an agreement where it's like, "Okay, I'm gonna take, you know, do my, you know, several, three months of, like, onboarding, listening to our new, new leader inheriting the team." You know, I've always gotten advice, like, that's, that's, that's what you should do. And (laughs) you know, Marco being a, a an entrepreneur and, and a, a hard-running founder is like, "Yeah, yeah, sure, sure." And then, like, a month in, it's like, "All right. We gotta run, like, 2024 planning. Go." Right? (laughs) Or, uh, not 2024. Sorry. At the time it was... And, and yeah. Like, in, in that, in the, uh, early days, like, when I was there, Thumbtack was seeing triple-digit growth. Um, then we had, um, some, uh, you know, a f- a couple SEO hits that got us down to double-digit growth. And then, like, you know, not, not too long after that, we were actually for the first time, uh, in the company's history seeing negative y- year over year growth, and Google was just, like, really coming down on our category, um, as we were, by the way, trying to rebuild the whole product and, and, uh, change, you know, the monetization model and, and everything in between. So it was a really, uh, uh...... tough, tough moment of, you know, uh, how much do we kind of spend to reinforce the, the old model while we're sort of building the new model. Kind of changing the, you know, the, the engine while the, while the plane, um, is flying. And, eh, I think in, I remember in a board meeting, once we kind of like turned, turned that around and over time and, and also the new model really started to show legs and, and really started to work, um, one of the board members, Brian Schrier at Sequoia said it was the prettiest smile graph that he had ever, ever seen. And, and it was a really, you know, obviously a really proud, proud moment there. But I think that the, the thing that I, I took away from that, um, which I, I tell PMs, um, quite a bit, um, is, you know, growth masks all problems. Like you don't really have an, I think, true understanding of like what is working well and what is not working well when you have like incredible growth. YouTube was a great example of that. And Thumbtack, it had incredible growth for quite some time, but it was essentially burning through a lot of demand. It was just dropping a lot of demand on the floor 'cause there wasn't sufficient liquidity on the supply side to really meet that demand. And the team knew and was trying to like work on that, on that problem, but you know, it wasn't as like urgent or high priority 'cause you're having like s- triple digit growth. Like what's w- what's wrong? Like everything's going great. Right? And then (clears throat) the moment growth starts to slow or, or certainly when growth starts to be negative, all of a sudden the tenor in the organization really changes and you start like looking at things very differently and trying to understand like what's actually going on. And so I think it's actually a very healthy thing for businesses to go through, you know, as they kind of turn into long-term sustainable businesses to have those sorts of moments. Because I think otherwise it's just really challenging to identify where the true issues are. And I think as a PM, you know, if you've only ever worked on things that grow and you've never like felt the other side of that and how to kind of help turn that around with your team, I think you're, you, you lose a lot in your career if you don't experience that. You know? Um, I'm like kind of naturally paranoid and, and as I, especially as I manage growth, I often look at things and ask myself like, "Okay, what do I do right now if it went negative?" You know, "How would I prioritize things (laughs) if it went negative?" Like having gone through that experience, I just look at things at a, in a different way of urgency, I look at things at, uh, you know, different, different levels of priority given, um, you know, having, having gone through that, um, that,
- 26:24 – 31:44
How Thumbtack turned growth around
- NLNoam Lovinsky
that experience.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
With this Thumbtack story, I think it's rare that a business gets the smile graph that you described, this prettiest smile graph that this board member's ever seen. I think that is rarely the case. Usually it doesn't come back up. Can you share what you did to help Thumbtack turn things around? I know it's like very particular to Thumbtack and the business, but just anything there that would be useful to people.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Sure. First of all, eh, you know, this, this is, this is very much the team. It's, it's not, it's not, uh, just, just things that, that, that I did. But, um, so I mean first was, you know, turning on multiple channels of growth. Um, you know, up, up until then, um, Thumbtack had kind of tried and, and stopped paid channels, um, you know, other organic channels like, you know, re- referrals, um, you know, all of, all of the, all of the typical things. And so we just went back to first principles on a lot of that and also just kind of reformed, um, a team, uh, around that, um, uh, and, and, and got basically got an amazing, uh, team together. One of them, um, Whitney Steele is, is running marketing at Descript now, another one, David Shine is, um, running, uh, product at- at Hims. But basically we- went back to first principles on some of those growth channels and experiment our way to much, much better, um, results. And, um, you know, uh, I think that one of the things that we were doing incorrectly at Thumbtack is Thumbtack is actually a marketplace that is actually made up of thousands of marketplaces, right? Like DJs in Philadelphia is one marketplace. You know, DJs in, you know, uh, Atlanta is another marketplace. Contractors in Sonoma is another marketplace. And then Thumbtack is, is obviously the container, uh, of all of those marketplaces. And I think we were just, um, bifurcating our targeting and our, our, our growth efforts a little too narrowly, assuming we had to sort of, you know, grow in that way market by market rather than, you know, targeting more broadly, uh, providing sort of, uh, the, the more aggregate data to, to Google and others. And then, you know, optimizing from, from there. The fact that we already had, you know, really good showing in SEO and really good page rank in SEO helped to, you know, bolster things like SEM, um, and then eventually Facebook as well. But I think that the, the, the core issue, those, those were kind of the, the, the growth, the growth levers, but the, the core issue with the Thumbtack product was that, um, it was just a very high friction customer experience that really like left customers waiting. So the way that Thumbtack worked basically was a customer would find them through, through a search query. Um, you know, they would come in and they would answer a number of questions about the job they needed done and then Thumbtack would say, "Okay, great. We'll get back to you in 24 hours." And this is, you know, like a modern day experience, right? (laughs) Um, uh, and then what Thumbtack would do is they would, they would take that job and they would federate it out to as many of the pros that might kind of like match the criteria and then the pros would pay to quote to show up as a potential, um, you know, provider for, for that job. Now I don't wanna take anything away from that team because that worked phenomenally well for, for a really long time and it's a, actually it's a perfect case study in like just do the scrappy thing that works to grow and, and they, and they did that, did that very well. But the, the stage and size of the business when I joined it had kind of like outgrown that and, and the, and the team knew that. That's obviously a very high friction experience, right? Like the idea that the customer, they're super excited, they wanna hire someone and then at that moment you'd be like, "Cool. Talk to you soon." Not (laughs) the best, the best experience. And the fact that you're asking your supply to put up money to even show up...... to customers in the first place. Where what the customers wanna see is the supply. Like tell me, tell me who I can hire. Also like a lot of friction, uh, on, on that side and, and also in some cases, some unfair revenue on that side because if, if folks are, you know, paying to be seen and maybe they're looked at but there's not really like high intent, then you're gonna start, they're not gonna get the customers they want, they're gonna be spending revenue, they're not gonna be getting revenue back and it turns into a little, like just a, just a bad, a bad loop obviously. So the main thing we did is, is to rebuild that whole loop, change the monetization model, build a system where essentially pros could provide instant quotes. Like Lenny, I'm, I'm sure like from Airbnb-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- NLNoam Lovinsky
... this is very familiar, the move from request to book to like ins- instant booking. It was a very similar thing in a, in a different kind of category of, of service and supply obviously. Um, but that shift and doing that shift across those thousands of marketplaces and then finding the right friction point for monetization and when and what to charge people for and all of that, all of that change, that is what really, you know, at its core turned the, the growth engine around Thumbtack and it's, um, just a real testament to those, those founders that they kind of believed that, like saw that and were willing to kind of like, you know, uh, run a pill and shoe glass to get to that point 'cause I think (inaudible 00:02:34) . Like I, I don't know the details of the business anymore and I, and I, if I did I wouldn't speak to it, but from what I hear things are going well. So, um, I think that that, that that served
- 31:44 – 35:28
Building Airbnb’s instant booking feature
- NLNoam Lovinsky
the company well.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah. As you were talking about that, that's exactly, uh, an experience Airbnb went through. I actually led that effort at Airbnb. It took three years of my life-
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Oh my gosh.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... to-
- NLNoam Lovinsky
We should, we should talk about that one day. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I've, I've written about it here and there, but-
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... honestly, very quietly it was one of the biggest transformations Airbnb went through. Shifting from, "I'm gonna go request a book," to basically every booking now on Airbnb is instant, and that was a very difficult and painful journey. But looking back, I don't think Airbnb would have made it if not for that. And unlike Thumbtack, we did it when, before things were starting to fall apart. Like, where like we... And actually, I was gonna say, the lens that we used that I find really helpful here is you should be asking yourself, "If somebody was to come into our space and disrupt us and start now to become the new Airbnb, what would they do?"
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah, totally.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And it was obvious, they'd be, "Make it instant. Just, that's the way it works."
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yep.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
"Welcome to Airbnb disruptor."
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yep.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And so, yeah.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
A- another learning there is, any product you work on that involves like bits and atoms is exponentially harder- (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- NLNoam Lovinsky
... than, than products that just involve bits. Um, but it's amazing how something as, like seemingly simple as make it instant ends up being so incredibly deep and complicated. And especially on an existing business, like kind of making that transition while still growing is just very, very complicated. Like, fantastic learning I'm sure you had as well.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Very difficult to change people's expectations and behavior. This could be its own podcast episode, just changing marketplaces into an instant experience. I wanted to circle back real quick to the first lesson you had there, which is adding, adding new channels. I think there's a really interesting takeaway here. So essentially, Thumbtack was reliant on SEO. Google slashed the sword, as you described, started changing things, so traffic stopped coming. And I think a cool lesson here is just if you're reliant on one growth channel, which I think most companies actually are, I think most companies have one main driver, I think a lesson here is potentially before things start to fall apart, especially if you're SEO-driven, start to explore more proactively paid referrals.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Totally. I mean, I think, um, maybe it's, it's again, it's kind of like living through that. Now any time I, like look at a product or look at a team, it's like one of the first things that pick, perks up the paranoia of just like, "Oh, no." You, you don't want to be in that, in that situation. Let's figure out now how you start to diversify 'cause, um, you just never know, like you say, when, when one of those might dry up.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
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- 35:28 – 38:38
Lessons from Thumbtack: team collaboration and product strategy
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Is there anything else from your time at Thumbtack that stands out as an interesting lesson or takeaway that you bring with you to the work you do now?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
I, I, I would s- I would say this. I think especially, um, especially at the like leadership level, um, you know, in, in the, the, the team that, the team that reports to the CEO, um, that, that group doesn't always have the opportunity to like do a lot of project work together, right? You've got your, like sh- your CFO, you, you've, you've got your head, you've got your head of sales, you, you've got your, your, your product and your engineering and there's just not as, as often a sort of like natural ways for that work- that group to work together. Um, and then when something happens like growth goes negative, um, that group is very important. (laughs) And that group's ability to like...... tackle hard things together is very important. And I think that one, one important lesson from that is no one ha- no one can be a bystander on product strategy. If you've got ... Just because you've got product in your title doesn't mean you're the only one that, that should be thinking about product strategy, certainly at that, at that level. Um, certainly not in engineering, it's like the CFO, the, the Head of People, everyone needs to have a seat at the table when it comes to product strategy, what the company's doing, and what they're going to do to kind of, you know, grow out of the situation that, that they're in. Um, because otherwise, like, in those, in those hard times, if it's kind- it can kind of be like a, you know, what have you done for me lately sort of, sort of a dynamic. And that's just not, not, uh, the, the right dynamic to, uh, to have on, on that, on that team. And I'm not saying that at Thumbtack we had the right dynamic, but I think it was a really important learning in that moment of how that team, you know, even if they didn't typically, you know, kind of get as involved in, in things like product strategy and, and what we're building, how everyone had to be like all hands on deck and really thinking about those sorts of problems, because the only way I think you can get a whole, like, you know, company and team, you know, out of those situations is by everyone getting involved and, and doing their part and pulling on the levers that they have in their area in order to do that well. Um, just, just, I don't think it can work in any other way.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So there's a lesson there, build a relationship with the leadership team before things start to go awry.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs) That, y- yes. (laughs) Cer- certainly that. But I think it's also incumbent for, like, you know, people in our roles, in, you know, in, in engineering roles to bring strategy to that discussion, to that group in a way that it is possible for everyone to engage and everyone to, to internalize and understand what it means for their area. And to even, uh, you know, have a, obviously a say in 'cause they're in the leadership team at the end of the day. Like, they should feel like their fingerprint is also on the, on the company strategy. And as soon as it starts to feel like that's their world, that's our world, and I think that's true for, for any of, any of those, an- any of the functions. It's true for, like, what's happening, say, in sales. It's true for what's happening in marketing. You know, as product managers, we naturally need to be that con- the connective tissue, uh, across all of that. But I think the whole leadership team at that level should feel, um, like connective tissue across all of
- 38:38 – 40:43
Lessons from Facebook: building the New Product Experimentation team
- NLNoam Lovinsky
those functions.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Okay. Let's transition to Facebook. And this is, I think, an example of zero to one. So when you were at Facebook, you built what is called the New Product Experimentation team. I act- I actually thought it was called the New Product Experiment, Experience team, but I think it's New Product Experimentation team. And my understanding is the idea there is instead of Facebook having to buy the next Instagram and WhatsApp and all the things, basically incubate startups within Facebook, kind of s- fabled concept. A startup within a startup.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Create all these startups within a startup. And as an outsider, it feels like it, it was really fun for a while, but it hasn't led to any amazing new businesses for Facebook, correct me if I'm wrong.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I'm curious what that experience was like, what you took away from it, how it went, what you think about when you look back at that part of your journey.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
I was one of a few folks that kind of joined that, that team early and helped, help, um, you know, build, build that team. How it ended up and how it closed down, I, I had, I don't, I'm not familiar with 'cause I, I wasn't there. But I think in terms of was it a success or not because it didn't build the next Instagram, I think is a little bit of the wrong, uh, bar to set (laughs) for, (laughs) for, for things like that, um, uh, you know. To s- to some, to some extent, it's like, um, you know, did, did, did the group win the lottery or not and let's judge their, let's judge their success. Obvious, I'm not, I'm not saying that, um, you know, discovering something like Instagram is just like winning the lottery, but you, you, you get what I mean in terms of, like, the, the rare- the rarity, um, of those sorts of discoveries and those sorts of, those sorts of products. Um, I think that that, the, um, that team was very realistic about sort of the, what I would say or be like the champagne level outcomes and/or more like the, you know, kind of, uh, beer, like nice dinner kind of (laughs) like level, level outcome.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
You get wine.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah, the wine, yeah. Thank you. That's a better analogy. Um, um, and, uh, I, I think we, we, you know, we, we, uh, we, we built knowing those, um, uh, you know, those, those sorts of outcomes would also be ben- very beneficial to the organization.
- 40:43 – 46:07
The importance of starting small and building community density
- NLNoam Lovinsky
So, like, as, as an example, you know, one of them is, um, you know, at face- at Facebook scale, doing things that don't scale or doing things that start out small was just a, a muscle that was, you know, really hard to come by, right? It's, it's like any community product that you build, any kind of s- like social where, like, there's community density that's important, like, early on, any product that you build that way, starting with a million users is really, a really hard way to do that. And at, at places like Facebook and Google, it's like, it's hard to run an experiment with 100 people. It's, it's not hard, it's impossible, right? (laughs) Um, uh, and so this, this idea that, you know, you would, you would, uh, have to, like, get real small, um, that you would have to start very targeted, that you would have to start with things that, like, clearly don't scale and aren't, you know, kind of ha- don't have a chance of being kind of big from, from the get-go is, is really, really hard in an organization like that. And so creating that space for NPE to be able to do that, to be able to help remind the organization what are the mechanisms we need to be able to build and learn that way was very beneficial. Even simple things, you know, like at a, at an organization of Facebook's size, maybe you experienced this at Airbnb, like, it is really hard for product managers, engineers and designers to talk directly with customers. It is, like, basically impossible. You're almost always, like, talking through some third party, some recruiting, you know, eh, agency, you know, s- s- th- like, and, and getting, like, reports and you're not always in the room. And imagine, like... building a startup, like a, a product from day one and not being able to sit right next to your customer and being like, "Show me how you do this," or, "Show me how you do that." Um, you know, it's like, it is in- it's incredible, it's incredibly hard. You're, you're looking for such faint signal. The idea that you would try to get it through, like, layers of indirection and, and games of telephone is, I- is, is crazy. But at that scale, that's what you have to do 'cause there's, (clears throat) there's all of these legal concerns and, and many other realistic concerns about what you can say to who, and who you can talk to, and what you can tell them about what you're doing, and, and all of these things. So creating an environment where those sorts of constraints, um, were lifted and, and were different was very beneficial, I think, to the, the organization and, and kind of started to shed a light on some of the things that were broken that make it hard to kind of build zero to one in, in those, in those sorts of environments. I also think it was a, a really fantastic, (laughs) um, recruiting tool. Um, you know, it, it, it did build a really great, um, group, group of folks, many of which have, have left to go start, um, you know, interesting, um, uh, um, companies. But I, I guess what I'm trying to say is I, I, I think when you're an organizational leader, um, and, and Shrep was the, the, the org leader that was, that was supporting NPE at the time. And, and he's fantastic and really did a good job of, of, um, you know, firewalling, uh, that, that team. I think you're, you're, you're looking at a, a set of objectives and, and a number of ways that you might help the, the company and, and the, and the organization. And even if you, you set that kind of like that, that light on the hill to be like, "Go find the next Instagram," many of the things that you would do along the way to like find the next Instagram end up being very beneficial to the broader organization. We saw a lot of that in NPE.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That's a really interesting perspective. There's a lot of other goals with something like this. It's not just find the next massive business. It's the way I, I think you just, what I'm getting from this is like shine almost a mirror on the organization, like here's things we can't do with the regular business and we have to do something, we have to set this up in order to try something totally new and radical. Recruiting tool I think is interesting. There's actually a team at Airbnb, the way I described it was, uh, I don't know how many people know about Burning Man and how it works, but there's this trash fence around the side.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Sure.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That catches all the trash.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So it doesn't go into the, into the desert.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And I feel like there's teams sometimes that are the trash fence of a company.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
That's funny, yeah. Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Where someone's about to leave and they're like, "No, go work on this cool stuff over here in the fringe."
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Right. Right.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Which is really interesting, but-
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... but it's, and still within the company.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And maybe help with that just keep people that are awesome at Meta slash Facebook.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah. And, and, and there, you're, you're right that, that the, the team didn't kinda discover the, the next Instagram. For what it's worth, um, you know, things like Threads and ideas like Threads were in that team all of the time.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Um, I think that if that team, um, caught the, uh, wave of, uh, generative AI and, and all of the opportunities and sort of like new technologies there, I think things could have also... 'Cause those are certain moments where you, like having small, like really motivated, dedicated teams that aren't thinking about anything mainline can lead to, like faster discoveries. I think, I think that, that can, that can also help. But there were a number of things that basically ended up becoming features in, in other products and they were just easier, faster ways of validating and building, building them because you didn't have the constraints of, like, like the mainline product development organization, right?
- 46:07 – 48:52
Advice for building a startup within a startup
- NLNoam Lovinsky
- LRLenny Rachitsky
For someone that is thinking about trying to create a startup-within-a-startup, something a lot of big companies are trying to do, is there a, a piece of advice or two that you'd share for helping this be effective? Maybe one is just the goal may not be build the next big business, there's these sub-goals also. What comes to mind?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
God, there's, there's so many. Um...
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Uh, and, and, and Shrep did a really fantastic job of removing a lot of these constraints. But, um, uh, so one is I would say think really hard about the incentive system. You know, smart, good people, you know, they, even if they're not, th- they don't, they don't, even if they're not trying to, they end up kind of gaming things towards the incentive system. And so, think long and hard about that. So for instance, if you're a large organization and you do some performance management process like twice a year and that's how you're gonna evaluate and incentivize people in your zero to one incubator, you've already killed it. Um, it's just like, it's the wrong incentive, it's the wrong timeframe, it creates adverse selection problems for the sort of people that you bring in. Um, and so it's just, it's hard in an existing organization to say, "We're gonna take all these company processes around even how we like, level people and pay them and motivate them and we're gonna throw them out the window for, for this group," right? Um, how you build, the infrastructure you use, um, this is something that, that the NPE team did, did really well. Like everyone gotta, kinda, got to do their, their, their own thing from an infrastructure perspective. Just do what is best for the problem you're trying to solve in this moment knowing that you're likely gonna throw away a lot of this code anyway. Like, being able to do that in an organization like Facebook or Google, if you ask anyone that works in those things, is really hard. And, you know, it takes someone like a Shrep to be like, "Nope, like they're gonna get to do this, sorry." Um, uh, and so I think that's, that's really helpful. Um, for what it's worth, one of the, one of the organizations that, that we talked to that I felt like was doing this in one of the best ways was Nike. And Nike has this, uh, you know, incubation lab and they just, they just, it's a completely different operating model. They recruit a completely different type of person, very different incentive system. And essentially, like where they end up plugging them into Nike is, uh, when they have something into the kind of the distribution, marketing, kinda growth, like arms of, of Nike. But for the product discovery process, they're doing their whole, whole different thing. Once they've like find some fit...... then kind of Nike comes in and goes, "Boom, I'm gonna- gonna help you explode, explode your fit." But I think that the number one thing I would think about would be the incentive system and the adverse selection that that can cause.
- 48:52 – 49:34
Having an incentive system
- NLNoam Lovinsky
- LRLenny Rachitsky
To me, the most important element of the incentive system, and maybe I'm reading between the lines, is you're basically competing against them starting their own thing and having upside if things go super well feels really important versus I'm just going to get a cool salary at Meta and work on this thing and... That doesn't lead to the same experience, right, as a startup where, like, everything's on the line.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah, and- and also what time horizons, right?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Like, um, when you're- when you're starting a company, you're not thinking like, "In the next six months I'm gonna get a promo and I'm gonna get a good rating and-"
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
"... you know, things are gonna go well." You're thinking on a different, excuse me, time horizon and you're thinking about an- an outsized, uh, impact or an outsized in- incentive. And so I would- I would think about that if you're starting things internally as well.
- 49:34 – 54:20
Lessons from Grammarly: adapting to changing user needs and building for the masses
- NLNoam Lovinsky
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Awesome. Okay. Let's move to the final bucket, Grammarly, which is where you're at now. And the way I'm thinking about it is this kind of like a one two rocket ship or, I don't know, ten. It's further along (laughs) than one, but that's where you're at now. To me, Grammarly is interesting because it's one of the very few successful B2C subscription businesses. There's almost none. There's like Duolingo, Grammarly, and I know you're doing B2B also, but there's so few. There's so many dead bodies trying to build a business on top of consumer subscription. And so I'm just curious what the current state of Grammarly. How are things going? Uh, what do you think has been the key to it being successful all this time and- and continuing to grow, and what lessons have you learned? I know you're- you just joined relatively recently, but anything you've taken away from that journey so far?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
We don't- we don't- we don't talk about it often, um, but, uh, you know, Grammarly is a much, uh, bigger company from a revenue perspective than I think people realize. Uh, you know, the- the- the company has been around for 15 years and was profitable from day one, um, and continues to be quite profitable. Um, uh, so it's a very, very healthy business that is, um, you know, much larger than- than, um, folks might realize. And that is actually quite intentional because the company was trying not to be noticed for a long (laughs) time, like very intentionally. The fact that, you know, you would have, you know, grammar and spell checking in Google Docs or grammar and spell checking in, uh, you know, Word, people would often write off the company that, like, how is that- how is that a business? How is that a feature? Like, these products already have it. And, you know, the- that was very convenient (laughs) for- for Grammarly, uh, because they could kind of navigate between these giants in tech and grow a very, uh, a very phenomenal business, um, kind of on this- on this use case that people had kind of written off. Now, you know, come the advent of LMS (laughs) and it's no longer a use case that people are- are writing off and sort of the- the dream of the- of the founders that machines can assist us in communication in this way, um, that, you know, they've had for 15 years, I feel like now the whole industry is like, "Well, this is obviously how we're gonna communicate and, you know, machines are gonna do all these things for us." And- and Grammarly's now sort of in the center of that hurricane. And again, I think it's a similar thing where it's like, well, you know, well, there's- there's ChatGPT, there's, you know, Microsoft Copilot. Like what, how is- how is Grammarly, uh, going- going to have a chance? Um, but yet, um, (laughs) you know, things still seem, uh, seem like there's- that the future- the future is bright. Um, and so to your question, I think to, um, what has made it work, um, you know, I- I've- I've only been here for- for 10 months, so please kind of take this with a grain of salt. But- but my instinct is that people really love Grammarly because of how it works and- and where it works. And- and what I mean by how it works is Grammarly is one of the few products where you just install it and it makes you better. Like, you don't have to configure it, you don't have to manipulate it, you don't have to, like, change anything about, like, what you're doing. You carry on and across all of your applications, across all of your tabs, you'll start getting pushed assistance to you in the right moment. You could ignore it if you want, no big deal, but it takes a very, very small amount of effort to tap on one of those things, get some value, and keep going. And I think that a product that is like that easy to use, that easy to extract value from, but then also that prevalent, like how many different text boxes do you write in in a given day? I mean, it's a- y- it is not, uh, less than 10. It is tens or potentially hundreds, right? And so it is- it is everywhere, um, and it is very, very low effort to get real value from it. And then the- the- the where we work is- is- is what I said. You don't have to change anything about your workflow. Um, you know, Grammarly meets you where you are and- and you get- you get value from it. Doing that really well at this level of quality for a user base of this scale, essentially it's like a, you know, uh, a- an- huge AI achievement masquerading as like a u- little UX innovation-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
... right?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs) .
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Um, um, but that, like, experience, that, like, that UX that sort of, like, brings AI to the masses has obviously, you know, served Grammarly really well. Um, and I think those are some of the strengths that we're gonna continue to lean on to now provide, you know, a diff- very different type of assistance and, um, you know, value that we can because of where the technology
- 54:20 – 56:56
The scrappiness and profitability of Grammarly
- NLNoam Lovinsky
has moved.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
The other thing I've heard a lot about Grammarly, and Yuri was on the podcast and who led growth for a long time at Grammarly, is just how scrappy the business has been and the founders have been from the beginning, the fact that they've been profitable from the beginning. That feels like one of the threads through all of the successful consumer subscription companies is super scrappy, not raising money for a long time.Is there anything there you- that you found to be really interesting or helpful for other folks that are maybe building in the space?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
When you're a, a team that kind of like starts out of Ukraine and you're not thinking that there's any, any chance that you're gonna like raise money and, and why would you do that? I mean, it really. You know, back to our previous conversation of what happens when like growth goes negative, you know, really forces you to focus on the important things. And so like many of the early engineers who are still here, because the company has done, done, uh, so well over the years, you know, they, they, they think in like, "How is this work gonna translate into revenue?" Right? Like they, they, they think about sort of like the impact on the business from, you know, even kind of like, you know, very deep, you know, technical work that, that they're doing. Because I think they were kind of brought up in this culture where the business doesn't really invest ahead of its, its profitability, right? And because it was a bootstrap business from, from day one. So that enforces like everyone to think about their projects and their prioritization and how is like what they're doing over the next two months gonna actually turn into more, you know, revenue and keep the company growing and, and sustaining. So I think that that culture is, is prevalent and help, help Grammarly get to, um, you know, where it is. Now, I just wanna be really honest that, you know, in moments that we're like in, in that we're in like today, that can also be detrimental, right? 'Cause like the, the business gets to a certain size, you start getting to kind of like log large numbers. You need to start thinking about, you know, are there other products? Are there other use cases? Are there other channels of growth? You know, uh, how do you kind of invest ahead of, um, some of that, some of that growth and start to, start to diversify. Because, you know, at the scale and size that we are and, and aspire to be, we're gonna have to do many more things and, and service many more different types of customers. And, and as you mentioned, we're gonna have to pull off the motion of B2C2B, kind of get that, that, that product led sales motion, um, going. Um, so all of those things are happening and thankfully the business is, you know, as strong as it is where we can invest ahead now in those things while still maintaining profitability in like
- 56:56 – 59:08
The resilience and motivation of the Grammarly team in Ukraine
- NLNoam Lovinsky
a really strong business.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That's amazing that there's still team members and maybe I think you said engineers from the beginning 12 years later. I think that says a lot about the business. And before we started recording, they're based in Ukraine and you were saying that they're like going to Zooms, they're, there's bombs going off. They have to go into like bomb shelters and then jump on a meeting. It's incredible that team continues to operate and the business continues to do this well in spite of all that.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah. The, the, the team in Ukraine at Grammarly is, um, I mean, it's, it's, it's something else. It's a, it's a really, uh, fantastic team and when you, when you, when you speak to many of them, um, I think actually that the work provides, you know, sometimes a very useful distraction. But, you know, they, they obviously feel a lot of pride in the, in the business. They, they built, they built a lot of this business. There, there, there aren't yet, you know, many businesses of, of this size that, you know, kind of come from, come from Ukraine. And, and yeah, I think that the, uh, you know, that, that team is, uh, is, is incredible and continues to, to deliver a ton of impact to the company even in the circumstances that they're in. And I know for the, for the founders, you know, a lot of like why they want, you know, Grammarly to, uh, succeed and, and be the generational company that it can be is, is for Ukraine. Um, and especially in this moment. And it's, it's awesome to see how, how that motivates them and, you know, 15 years on the same project is, is, you know, not nothing. That's like, that's some serious resilience. (laughs) Um, and so I think even in, in moments like that, using them as a way to motivate (clears throat) and, and, you know, strive for something greater, I think is says a lot about the founders and the team in Ukraine.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Absolutely. Hopefully there's a happy resolution soon there. I dunno if you know this, I was actually born in Ukraine.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Oh wow. Nice.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
In Odessa.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Oh, nice.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I don't wanna talk about that much, but it's true. And I just realized we both have skis in our last name.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs) Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Lvinsky and Richitsky.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
So for what it's worth, my dad was born in Ukraine. He was, he's from Kiev. Um, my mom was from Lithuania, so, um, yeah, also have some, some Ukrainian background here.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
All right. This is our Ukrainian episode.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yes. (laughs)
- 59:08 – 1:01:02
General career advice
- NLNoam Lovinsky
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Let me zoom out a little bit and get to the final couple questions. So thinking about your career broadly, I'm just curious if there's any general advice you share with people to help them have a more successful career. Anything that just generally you find is really important to do well or mistakes they make just, and this is like a big broad question, but anything come to mind of like, here's something you should really try to do more of or less of?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Look, when you're, when you're thinking about like career opportunities, um, and, uh, what job to take, it's really, really hard to sniff out really well in a high degree of certainty like success. I think that like having a good nose for people and the sort of like people that, that you can be successful with is, is something that you can develop. What, what I found is I always try to prioritize putting myself in, uh, positions that are gonna cause a lot of growth and learning. And growth and learning can be very painful. Um, and you kinda like gotta like be okay with that and, and go into that because on the other side of that pain, um, I think is, is, is the promised land. And that's just served me really well is I can't necessarily predict, you know, with high degree of certainty that this thing's gonna hit. Um, you know, but I, I can get a sense of the people around me and I certainly can, um, uh, find situations that are gonna stretch me, uh, that are gonna force me to do things that I haven't done, where I'm gonna grow and learn significantly. And over sort of the arc of my career, I feel like that's, that's served me well. So that's usually what I tell people is, is focus on, focus on that if you can.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I love that advice. I've used this quote a number of times on this podcast, but something I always come back to is this line, "The cave you fear contains the treasure you seek."
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Mm. Yeah.
- 1:01:02 – 1:02:58
When to pull back
- NLNoam Lovinsky
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I'm curious if there's something you have found about when that's... When the pain is too much, when that you shouldn't (laughs) pursue that. A lot of people get into these places where they're just... Their mental health gets hit. Their physical health is hit. They're just, like, doing work they should not. That's, like, too much. Is there anything there that you find that's just like, "Okay, maybe this is too much discomfort"?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
I mean, so I th- I think about a couple of things. I think, I think in any situation, you should be able to lean on, like, kinda one or two things that, like, you've r- you're really strong at. That can kind of be the foundation, you know, that, that kind of keeps you going while you learn the other things. So just be, be wary of situations that are, like, too net new. There should be one or two i- m- kind of important things, uh, uh, as part of that job that going into where you're like, "I, I, I got this. I, I, I know how to do this portion of it," right? So, um, like, as an example, if you've kind of never inherited, um, a very, a very large team and you kinda work through, like, how, how that, how that works, but the product area that you're working on is one you're very familiar with, um, the... What's, what's necessary to be good in that product, whether it's, like, really good sense of design or really good sense of, um, you know, analytical thinking, you know, you know, recommendation systems, like, what, what have you, eh, there should be, like, a couple of those things where you're like, "I, I got this. These things are gonna be a stretch, but these things, I feel like I've, I've got a handle on how to do this. I can always get better, but I, I, I feel like they're in my, in my wheelhouse." And I think that tends to allow you to sort of, like, balance the pain (laughs) with the, you know, with the, the, the areas that you already know and kind of, um, you know, manage through in a more, in a more balanced and healthy way.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Reminds me of that chart, I think, from flow of you want it to be challenging but not too challenging, and that's where you end up being, uh, most successful.
- 1:02:58 – 1:03:56
Closing thoughts
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Is there anything else, Noam, you want to share or leave listeners with before we get to our very exciting lightning round?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs) Yeah. I just, I just, I just think that, uh, uh, you know, maybe going back to our... Where we first started, uh, Lenny, like, work on the things that, that make you happy, um, that, that fill you up. Life is short. We're all very lucky to be in this moment, you know. Uh, there's no reason to, to spend time on things that, uh, don't, don't gi- give you energy. There's so much to do out there. I think that's the, the main thing I would, I would focus on.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Amazing. And even though there will be things that ****** that you have to do, I, I think it's important to try to find as much of that as you can. Right? 'Cause there's... Not everyone can just like, "Nah, I'm not gonna do this work thing. I'm just gonna go on a walk." But I think that's such an important point. And we talked about this actually a bunch on a recent podcast, of just doing this energy audit-
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
...where you pay attention to what gives you energy and what doesn't and try to do more and more-
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Totally.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
...energy. Willing to that again.
- 1:03:56 – 1:09:34
Lightning round
- LRLenny Rachitsky
With that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Are you ready?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah, I'm ready.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
First question, what are two or three books that you've recommended most to other people?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
You know, I'm gonna cheat on this one, and I'm only gonna give you one. I'm only gonna give you one because I don't, I don't want, I don't wanna, uh, clatter with any other. I recommend Build, uh, by Tony Faiddel. And, um, other than it being a good book, one of the main reasons I recommend it is that my wife wrote it. Um, so she wrote it together with, uh, with Tony, and I got to, got to see, uh, that experience. Um, and she's a fantastic writer, and Tony has, uh, a lot to learn from. So I, I recommend that book. I think that the, the part of it that was particularly inspiring to me to hear, like, even more of the details that are in the book is just, you know, how many times, uh, he, he met failure before he, you know, made discoveries that are now driving, like, you know, so many of the things that we do. It's just, like, a good reminder to, like, keep at it, um, and do the thing that really gives you that energy 'cause eventually, um, you know, you can make that, that incredible discovery.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Next question. Do you have a favorite recent movie or TV show that you really enjoy?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
I really, I really like For All Mankind. Um, I've seen that on Apple, Apple TV. And then, um, I just finished the, the last season of Fargo, um, and every single season of that, of that series, I think, is fantastic.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Amazing. For All Mankind, though, last season, not as amazing.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That's, uh, consensus that I agree with.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
But worth watching.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Next question. Do you have a favorite interview question that you like to ask candidates?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
You know, I generally like interview questions that allow us to kind of, like, do some work together. So I'm a little bit less on the behavioral tell-me-about-a-time-when sort of stuff and, and more on the let, like, let's work a product problem together. Like, and it could be anything from, like, let's design an alarm clock for children, or, um, you know, lately I've been using one of, like, you know, given, you know, where technology is at, like, if we were to rebuild email, like, how might we do that? I just feel like kinda getting into it and getting into the details and really kind of watching each other par- you know, kind of exercise our craft, um, I think is, is really important. And I have a, I have a whole podcast one time if you're ready about how most people don't know how to do leadership recruiting, and I feel like as I've, you know, uh, uh, advanced in my career, like, the, the interviews for some reason, like, get easier and actually, like, evaluate less about, like, you know, who I am as a, as a product leader and whatnot. Um, uh, but yeah, tho- those are the sorts of inte- interview questions that I, I typically like.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Amazing. Is there a favorite product you've recently discovered that you really love?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Uh, it's not recent. Um, but, um, I was a very early user of Arc, and I really love Arc.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Your, uh, bro- your window right now is inside Arc. I also love Arc. We had Josh on the podcast.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Nice.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Uh, just, just watching the onboarding experience of Arc-
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Totally.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
...alone as a product person is worth my time.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
I, I, love, I love the, the, the animation when you download something. I mean, just, like, all of the, all of the-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
...little things. And, and if Josh is listening, we would like to get Grammarly to work better with Arc. Um, so please, please hit me up because I think there's a few things that the Arc browser is doing that make it hard to get Grammarly to work, either on the client or in the browser.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Two more questions. Do you have a favorite life motto that you often repeat to yourself, share with friends or family, either in work or in life, that you find useful?
- NLNoam Lovinsky
Gosh. For those that know me, this is going to share so much of my personality. I, I think the first thing that comes to mind is, like, we are meant to struggle. I just feel like through struggle is, you know, how we get better, how good things happen, how bonds form, and so I don't, I don't shy away from, from that kind of life experience.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Uh, I'm gonna guess that you're Jewish.
- NLNoam Lovinsky
(laughs)
Episode duration: 1:09:34
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