Velocity over everything: How Ramp became the fastest-growing SaaS startup ever | Geoff Charles

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

August 6, 2023

Duration

1h 16m

Channel

Lenny's Podcast

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Geoff Charles is VP of Product at Ramp—the fastest-growing SaaS startup of all time, Fast Company’s #1 Most Innovative Company in North America, and a company I believe we should all study for how they operate, execute, and hire. At Ramp, Geoff has led the product team from the early days, including the development and release of 60+ products and features in the past year alone. He has been building financial services for over a decade, and his interview in Lenny’s Newsletter quickly became one of the most widely read newsletter issues of all time. In today’s podcast, we will discuss:

• How velocity is at the heart of Ramp’s culture and success
• How writing can unlock clarity, creativity, and rapid problem-solving
• How to empower your product team through context sharing
• How to practically approach problems from first principles
• How Ramp approaches hiring in a unique way
• Suggestions for breaking into the world of product management

— Brought to you by Ezra—The leading full-body cancer screening company: http://www.ezra.com/lenny | Coda—Meet the evolution of docs: https://coda.io/lenny | Attio—The powerful, flexible CRM for fast-growing startups: https://attio.com/lenny?utm_source=lennyrachitsky&utm_medium=sponsorship&utm_campaign=lenny-20230625 Find the full transcript at: ⁠https://www.lennyspodcast.com/velocity-over-everything-how-ramp-became-the-fastest-growing-saas-startup-of-all-time-geoff-charl/#transcript⁠ Where to find Geoff Charles:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/geoffintech
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffrey-charles/

Where to find Lenny:

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

In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Geoff’s background (04:49) An overview of Ramp (06:20) The importance of velocity at Ramp (08:50) Single-threaded goals and how to keep teams away from distractions (13:20) Setting lofty goals (15:17) How Ramp empowers teams (17:37) How Geoff’s management style has evolved at Ramp (19:55) The product design process at Ramp (21:19) Ramp’s system for sharing feedback (23:07) How Ramp handles bug fixes (24:15) Advice for PMs who want to move faster (29:29) Why velocity and impact can help protect against burnout (32:33) Planning vs. doing (37:54) Ramp’s strategy documents (40:55) Finding your unique positioning (42:46) OKRs (44:53) The importance of first-principle thinking (48:53) How to use writing to think through problems (51:46) How Geoff carves out time for deep work (54:05) How Geoff manages tasks and stays organized (57:15) Why other roles share the PM load at Ramp (1:00:30) PM responsibilities at Ramp (1:01:46) Identifying A+ talent (1:06:02) The skills Ramp looks for when hiring (1:07:33) Advice for people wanting to break into product management (1:10:37) Lightning round Referenced:

• How Ramp builds product: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-ramp-builds-product
• Bill: https://www.bill.com/
• Expensify: https://www.expensify.com/
• Concur: https://www.concur.com/
• Coupa: https://www.coupa.com/
• Nicole Forsgren on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-measure-and-improve-developer-productivity-nicole-forsgren-microsoft-research-github-goo/
• Sheryl Sandberg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheryl-sandberg-5126652/
• Getting Things Done: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0143126563
• When Breath Becomes Air: https://www.amazon.com/When-Breath-Becomes-Paul-Kalanithi/dp/081298840X
• The Bear on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/the-bear-05eb6a8e-90ed-4947-8c0b-e6536cbddd5f
• Whoop: https://www.whoop.com/

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

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Geoff Charles

  guest

• Lenny Rachitsky

  host

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, featuring Geoff Charles and Lenny Rachitsky, Velocity over everything: How Ramp became the fastest-growing SaaS startup ever | Geoff Charles explores inside Ramp’s playbook: tiny empowered teams, extreme velocity, huge impact Ramp’s VP of Product, Geoff Charles, explains how Ramp became the fastest-growing SaaS and fintech company by aggressively prioritizing velocity, small empowered teams, and A+ talent. The company repeatedly built competitive products to incumbents like Amex, Expensify, and Bill.com in months with very lean teams, by focusing on single-threaded ownership, first-principles thinking, and minimal process. Strategy at Ramp centers on clear goals, strong financial targets, and a roadmap ‘contract’, while product teams are given wide autonomy and context instead of top-down control. Geoff also digs into how they avoid burnout, structure planning, organize support under product, hire and evaluate PMs, and why writing and deep work are core to good decision-making.

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