One Knight in Product One Knight in Product

About the Episode
And now for something a little different. I recently purchased a ChatGPT pro license and got access to ChatGPT 4, the groundbreaking new model from OpenAI. Social media is on fire at the moment, with people talking about all the cool stuff it can do. So, I thought "who better to speak to about AI Product Management"? A few hours later, and here's the result; the full One Knight in Product experience, a wide-ranging discussion with some terrible jokes from both sides thrown in for good measure.

A message from this episode's sponsor - Skiplevel
This episode is sponsored by Skiplevel. Do you struggle with communicating with dev teams and understanding technical terminology and concepts? On episode 98, I hosted Irene Yu, founder of Skiplevel, an on-demand training program that helps professionals and teams become more technical in just 5 weeks... All without learning to code. Learn the knowledge and skills you need to better communicate with devs and become more confident in your day-to-day role with the Skiplevel program. You can use referral code OKIP to support this podcast!

Episode highlights:
 
1. It's natural to be concerned about AI taking over the world
We've all seen the movies, the books and the horror stories. But there's also an incredible opportunity to change the world for the better. We need to be vigilant, and confront the concerns head-on.
2. Product Managers can benefit from putting AI in their products
But don't just go in blindly - you need to assess that adding AI capabilities to your product actually solves a real problem and isn't just cool tech. In short, you need to be a product manager!
3. You don't need to be a data scientist to be an "AI Product Manager"
Having technical skills and being capable of understanding AI on a high level is helpful, but only to help you have good conversations with your colleagues. As a PM, your job remains to manage the product!
4. It can be hard to persuade traditional industries to use AI solutions
Not everyone is cutting edge and there can be barriers to adoption. There are multiple ways to prove the solution and integrate gradually to show the benefits and remove the fear of change.
5. Explainability of AI is crucial
AI is often seen as a black box, but there are ways to help explain what it's doing and justify its decisions. This is especially important when considering the impact of bias, and ensuring an ethical solution.
Check out ChatGPT
You can chat to ChatGPT on the ChatGPT website or visit the Open AI website.

Luke Hohmann is a startup founder, consultant, SAFe framework contributor and co-author of the upcoming book "Software Value Streams". Luke wants to help agile teams connect their own value delivery with profit, the value that the leadership team really cares about, and set up whole organisations for success. We chatted about some themes from the book, with a gentle detour into Scaled Agile territory for good measure.

A message from this episode's sponsor - Skiplevel
This episode is sponsored by Skiplevel. Do you struggle with communicating with dev teams and understanding technical terminology and concepts? On episode 98, I hosted Irene Yu, founder of Skiplevel, an on-demand training program that helps professionals and teams become more technical in just 5 weeks... All without learning to code. Learn the knowledge and skills you need to better communicate with devs and become more confident in your day-to-day role with the Skiplevel program. You can use referral code OKIP to support this podcast!

Episode highlights:
1. A software profit stream is the necessary evolution of a value stream
Agile folk talk about value all the time but how does that map to company priorities? There are structures & systems we need to use to turn "value" into profit & meet the company’s financial goals.
2. Most books about pricing & licensing are old school and written for boomers - few of them cover software
Pricing is not a number, it’s a system, and it's a team sport. Your software solution's pricing & packaging should evolve over the product lifecycle.
3. Value is a set of relationships between nodes that impact each other
Value doesn’t occur in isolation; consider the system. if you’re building a solution to improve thing A in a positive way, but it negatively impacts thing B then the solution is intrinsically less valuable
4. Customers don’t care about your profits...
... but they do care about your ability to sustainably serve them a solution they need. But, beware! It’s possible to build too much quality and provide more than your customers are prepared to pay for.
5. Product management is an infinite game
We play games for leisure until they’re boring. At work, we serve our customers until it’s boring to the business. If we play the game well we don’t win the game, we simply win the right to play again.
Coming soon! Buy "Software Profit Streams"
"Profit is your key to survival. Without profit, you cannot maintain or grow your business. Without profit, you cannot serve your customers or provide benefits to your employees. Without profit, investors have no reason to invest. Without profit, the goals of the business are unattainable. In Software Profit Streams, serial entrepreneurs Jason Tanner and Luke Hohmann unveil the essential tools and processes for creating profitable software-enabled solutions that have long-term impact."
Book link coming soon!
Check out Luke's article on startup SAFe
Not convinced by SAFe in startups? Luke wants you to think again. Check the article out here.
Contact Luke
You can catch up with Luke on his website. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn.

Bethan Vincent is an experienced marketer who has worked with a variety of firms in B2B SaaS and B2B Services and has now started marketing agency Open Velocity. Bethan believes in good competitor analysis and how we might get ahead of our competition by going out and finding out what's going on. We spoke about the joys of fractional marketing leadership, and some of the ways to get competitive analysis done.

A message from this episode's sponsor - Skiplevel
This episode is sponsored by Skiplevel. Do you struggle with communicating with dev teams and understanding technical terminology and concepts? On episode 98, I hosted Irene Yu, founder of Skiplevel, an on-demand training program that helps professionals and teams become more technical in just 5 weeks... All without learning to code. Learn the knowledge and skills you need to better communicate with devs and become more confident in your day-to-day role with the Skiplevel program. You can use referral code OKIP to support this podcast!

Episode highlights:
1. Competitor Analysis is a simple concept, but doing it is hard
Your competitors are out there and, in many cases, there'll be interesting stuff on their websites but you need to use a variety of techniques to really get to the bottom of what they're doing.
2. You need to know your own target market & positioning before evaluating others
It may be Marketing 101, but it's important to understand the space you're playing in, the audience you're going after & who your direct & indirect competitors are before doing competitor research
3. It's important to have a hypothesis you want to test for your competitors
There are many tools and approaches you can use, but you need to know what question you're trying to answer. Just finding interesting "stuff" is... interesting, but maybe not particularly useful.
4. Just because a competitor is doing something doesn't mean they're being rational
Be aware of what competitors are up to, but blindly copying them is not a good strategy. You need to be in charge of your own destiny, be a leader and do things others can't replicate.
5. Product management should be considered a subset of marketing 🔥
"Product" is one of the many "Ps" in marketing. Product managers should care about packaging, positioning, pricing, promotions and all the rest. It's not just about what you build or how you build it.
Contact Bethan
You can catch up with Bethan on LinkedIn or Twitter as well as apparently TikTok if you're into that sort of thing. Make sure to check out Open Velocity too.

Eisha Armstrong is a company founder, digital transformation consultant and author of 2021's "Productize", a book that aims to help service-based companies move away from scaling via people and embrace repeatable product revenue. We spoke about some themes from the book, as well as the fear that stops companies from transforming.

A message from this episode's sponsor - Skiplevel
This episode is sponsored by Skiplevel. Do you struggle with communicating with dev teams and understanding technical terminology and concepts? On episode 98, I hosted Irene Yu, founder of Skiplevel, an on-demand training program that helps professionals and teams become more technical in just 5 weeks... All without learning to code. Learn the knowledge and skills you need to better communicate with devs and become more confident in your day-to-day role with the Skiplevel program. You can use referral code OKIP to support this podcast!

Episode highlights:
1. Digital transformation gets you away from "arms and legs"
There's nothing wrong with being a service company, but there are very attractive reasons to productise. Growth, higher margins, higher exit value and getting away from having to add headcount.
2. The three biggest barriers to transformation are fear, fear and fear
It's natural for leaders and employees to feel fear of the unknown or of change. But fear is the enemy of growth. Yes, things could go wrong, but think of what could go right!
3. Transformation should be a full-time job
Productisation has to be done right... it can't be an afterthought. The company needs to devote people and financial support to the effort otherwise it will inevitably fail and you might as well not start.
4. "The more narrow the niche is, the greater the riches"
Service companies can make good money selling to all comers, but product companies necessarily need to niche down. The company likely doesn't have a strong history in ICPs & segmentation but it needs to develop those skills.
5. Productisation is awesome, but life is in the grey
Plenty of companies offer a product/services mix and there is nothing wrong with this. What matters is that you productise thoughtfully & disrupt yourself before getting disrupted by someone else. You need to want to change.
Buy "Productize"
"More and more traditional professional services firms are turning to "productization" as a strategy to grow, improve valuations, and to fend off new digital-first competitors. However, many of them will fail and waste a lot of money in the process. Productize first outlines the "Seven Deadly Productization Mistakes" made when pursuing a product strategy, then provides the blueprint for overcoming each of these missteps. It is designed to be a practical playbook for any leader of a professional services business who wants to successfully accelerate growth."
Check it out on Amazon. You can also check out the book website
Contact Eisha
You can catch up with Eisha on LinkedIn.

Dani Grant is a former product manager turned VC who decided to go back to building products and setting up her own company, Jam. Jam aims to take the pain away from bug reporting, and to deliver Dani's dream of shipping awesome software fast. We spoke about the story behind her company, as well as some hints & tips from her time working with early-stage startups as a VC.

A message from this episode's sponsor - Skiplevel
This episode is sponsored by Skiplevel. Do you struggle with communicating with dev teams and understanding technical terminology and concepts? On episode 98, I hosted Irene Yu, founder of Skiplevel, an on-demand training program that helps professionals and teams become more technical in just 5 weeks... All without learning to code. Learn the knowledge and skills you need to better communicate with devs and become more confident in your day-to-day role with the Skiplevel program. You can use referral code OKIP to support this podcast!

Episode highlights:
Starting a company is a big adventure
Dani went from PM to VC but felt the call of entrepreneurship irresistible. She found a problem that she was passionate about solving and wanted to do something meaningful for herself, her users and her team.
Startups can be force multipliers for people making their own impact in the world
The impact of a startup is felt not only by your users but your users' users. If you can save people time, effort, or both, then you can contribute to changing the world one company at a time.
There's an approach to getting your first funding round
As a founder, you're in the business of delivering a great meeting & making it easy to shine. For early-stage companies, VCs care less about the detail than the team and the vision. They know the execution will change.
"Move fast and break things" is so 10 years ago
First impressions count. If you're building productivity tools, you can't make people's lives harder. You need to ship something that works - moving fast and breaking things was a valid strategy only before people knew better
Every PM & founder's job is to support their teams moving fast & shipping awesome stuff
Devs have a big role here, but the whole company needs to come together around quality, define enough detail up front, and keep the scope small to help deliver a quality product.
Contact Dani
You can catch up with Dani on LinkedIn or on Twitter
You can try out Jam on jam.dev
 
Here's the VC video that Dani recommended: How to Nail Your Startup Pitch Deck - Rebecca Kaden

Pooja Parthasarathy is a product leader who started out her career in the high-pressure, high-volume world of high-frequency trading. She took some time out with me to reflect on her unconventional career journey, what it taught her, and how to make an impact as a product leader.

A message from this episode's sponsor - My Mentor Path
This episode is sponsored by My Mentor Path. I'm a passionate advocate for mentoring and believe it to be one of the highest-leverage activities you can undertake to get ahead in your career. I try to do my part but am but one man, so I helped set up this FREE mentoring community to try to help out at scale. Sign up now as a mentor, a mentee, or both!

Episode highlights:
High-frequency trading is as stressful as you'd imagine, but it has lessons for early-stage product managers
Working with traders teaches you to think on your feet in volatile environments, think three steps ahead & build a thick skin. These are all valuable traits for PMs.
We should all be comfortable asking basic questions
Working in a variety of jobs has helped her get comfortable with first-principles thinking and asking even the most basic questions. It's important to model this behaviour for your team.
Be kind to yourself and the stories you tell yourself
Pooja was hard on herself after her first child and wondered if she could make a success of work after going back. She learned to appreciate the job she was doing and be her own champion.
The job of a product person is to be an investor in good ideas
A PM's job is not to have all the answers or all the best ideas, but to be the Socratic Police Officer and ask good questions to get those around you to bring their own insight to the table for you to tie together
The CEO & CPO relationship is the most important in the company
It's important to create leverage with the CEO, by having the right motivations, setting clear expectations about who owns what for what time horizon, and being comfortable delegating to other leaders.
Contact Pooja
You can catch up with Pooja on LinkedIn, although she's about to have a baby so maybe wait a bit!