Somehow I Manage Product Teams Numberlock Labs

I’m joined by Diana Stepner who is the Chief Product Officer at Chan-Zuckerberg initiative and has held product leadership roles at SimplePractice, Pearson, Kayak, Razorfish and Monster.com in the past. Diana also runs a cohort -based course on Maven called Product First Leadership - topic that talk about on this episode.



We talk about :



1) What's unique about product leadership role

2) Tactical advice for things a newly minted group product manager : how to organize the team, conduct 1:1s, handle the hard conversations and manage your personal career as a product leader

3) Anti-patterns of product leader





[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:44] Diana's product journey

[00:04:16] Diana's role as CPO at Chan and Zuckerberg Initiative

[00:07:16] What's unique about product leadership?

[00:09:50] Archectypes of Product Managers

[00:12:56] Advice for getting started as a newly minted Group Product Manager

[00:16:53] How to structure 1:1s?

[00:21:06] How to create an environment that Product Managers on the team can thrive

[00:24:45] Starting career planning for Product Managers on the team

[00:28:28] Having the tough conversations with career progression

[00:31:32] Anti-Patterns of product leadership

[00:35:09] Managing personal growth as a product leader

[00:37:25] Rapid Fire





Where to find Naveen

- Linkedin : https://linkedin.com/in/naveenpitchandi

- Website : https://numberlock.me



Where to find Diana

- Website : https://www.dianastepner.com/

- Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianas/

- Maven Course - https://maven.com/diana-stepner/product-leadership





👉Episode page : https://Productleaders.fm/11

Sanchan was most recently VP of Product at Coinbase. Before Coinbase, Sanchan was Head of Product and GM at Airbnb, founder and Head of Product of Instagram Shopping, Director of Product Management at Yahoo, and Lead PM at Microsoft.



In this episode we talk about :



1️⃣ Story behind Instagram Shopping - Hypothesis, Pitch and Execution, Decision making frameworks



2️⃣ How Sanchan built the Product Org at Airbnb - scaling from 40 PMs to over 200



3️⃣ Airbnb COVID-19 war story and leadership lessons from the experience.



This episode is absolute :fire. @sanchan's one of the best story tellers I know.





[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:02:18] Sanchan's Product Journey

[00:07:00] Story of Instagram Shopping

[00:11:09] PM Qualities to look for in Zero to One projects

[00:15:20] How do you track execution effectively?

[00:17:12] How do you impart clarity to your teams?

[00:22:04] Difference between Strategy and Innovation

[00:24:28] Managing stakeholders as Head of Product

[00:28:44] Anti-patterns to cross-functional alignment

[00:33:15] RAPID - Decision Making framework used at Coinbase

[00:35:12] How Sanchan scaled Product Org at Airbnb

[00:41:17] What to look for in hiring Product Leaders?

[00:45:32] COVID-19 Airbnb War story

[00:53:05] Rapid Fire Questions





Where to find Naveen

- Linkedin : https://linkedin.com/in/naveenpitchandi

- Website : https://numberlock.me



Where to find Sanchan

- YouTube channel - https://youtube.com/@therealsanchan

- Instagram -https://www.instagram.com/therealsanchan/

- Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/therealsanchan

- TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@therealsanchan



References



- How decisions are made at Coinbase : https://www.coinbase.com/blog/how-we-make-decisions-at-coinbase

Cassidy was the Senior Director of Product at Pendo and Vimeo and has spent the last decade on product, particularly in B2B. More interestingly worked all remote (we’ll talk a little bit about it in the end) . Cassidy also teached for Mind the Product in her spare time, and occasionally coach PMs early in their career.



In this episode we talk about :

1. Myth behind building B2B products

2. How Cassidy built products at Pendo

3. Cassidy’s ReadMe doc and how she’s successfully managed her career and grown in the last decade all working remotely



[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:30] Cassidy's Product Journey

[00:05:15] What makes B2B PMs different from B2C?

[00:16:39] How did Cassidy build Platform Product at Pendo?

[00:22:13] Sharing leadership style using README doc

[00:28:04] How to use the README document to management teams?

[00:33:31] Leading teams remotely

[00:39:04] Rapid Fire





👉Episode page : https://Productleaders.fm/9

Nicole leads the News Corp's mobile application development platform, which is the foundation for 32+ iOS and Android apps for News Corps brands - some familiar names like News York Post, WAllstreet journal, The Times, Sun and many more.





In this episode we talk about :



1️⃣ How Nicole's built her personal brand as Mary Poppins of Product



2️⃣ How the Mary Poppins characterization has evolved over time



3️⃣ How folks listening can build their own version of "about me" that's catchy



[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:02:07] Nicole's Product Journey

[00:06:42] Product Leadership is like Chessboard

[00:08:00] How Nicole became "Mary Poppins of Product"

[00:14:59] How did the branding excercise start and evolve?

[00:18:44] How can others create their own narrative and brand?

[00:25:00] How can Nicole help others create their narrative?

[00:27:45] Impact of a narrative or brand in career

[00:31:29] Rapid Fire



👉Episode page : https://Productleaders.fm/8

Description



I’m joined by Ani Mohan from Google.



Ani leads the product team at Google Labs building three new generative AI products across (1) software development, (2) video, and (3) 3D.



Previously, Ani was co-founder and general manager of GameSnacks, a web gaming platform reaching 35M+ monthly players. GameSnacks was funded by Area 120 and acquired by Google Ads in Jan 2022.



Ani was also featured in Forbes 30 under 30 under the games section during his time leading the GameSnacks products and business.



In this episode



we talk about



1) Ani’s experience building GameSnacks as part of Area120 - Google’s incubator



2) Tips for folks looking to build 0-1 Products



3) Building products for Generative AI



This was recorded weeks before Google I/O and understandably why we couldn’t talk much about what Ani was working on. But goes without saying that Google took the challenge came out dancing and had some impressive announcements.



This has got everything - great success story and actionable advise on the hottest topic right now.





Chapters



[00:00:00] Introduction



[00:02:27] Ani's Product Journey



[00:03:27] Inception of GameSnacks



[00:07:17] Incubating products within a large company vs Building a Startup



[00:10:48] Pivots in GameSnacks to reach Product Market Fit



[00:16:34] Advice on building 0->1 products



[00:20:38] What excites Ani about GenAI



[00:23:24] Building AI products



[00:30:00] Rapid Fire





Where to find Naveen



Twitter : twitter.com/@numberlock11

Linkedin : linkedin.com/in/naveenpitchandi

Instagram : instagram.com/@numberlock11





Where to find Ani



Twitter : twitter.com/ani_c_mohan

Linkedin : linkedin.com/in/anirudhmohan/

Shelly built the product & design team focussed on Partners at Meta. We’ll definitely talk a lot of about how she went about building this team in the episode. Prior to Meta, Shelly spent sometime at American Express in a product leadership position building the consumer mobile app that had over 17M+ monthly active users.

Shelly recently started a 4 part blog series on LinkedIn sharing her thoughts on Product Strategy, Women in tech called You Belong Here. We explore some of those topics in this episode.

We touch on 4 key areas :


Talk a about building a team from scratch, and how Shelly built product and design team at Meta


Product Strategy definition, an example of how Shelly built product at Amex (prior to Meta)


Giving feedback about how you can be strategic. Shelly got feedback during her career about how she’s not strategic enough - without any real guidance on what that means and what the expectation was. This is a great section for managers to listen in.


Finally, talking about growth. contrary to conventional wisdom, Lateral growth is also career growth



[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:08:14] Benefits of Product and Design under one leader

[00:10:00] How Shelly defined Product Strategy at Meta and Amex

[00:12:29] An example of how Shelly shipped product at Amex

[00:18:05] "She is not strategic enough"

[00:22:00] What could leaders be doing better

[00:28:33] Tips for Women in Product to level up

[00:39:10] Preparing context for collaborative strategy excercise

[00:41:25] Lateral growth is also career growth

[00:43:58] Rapid Fire Questions



Where to find Shelly

Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/shellykalish/



Where to find Naveen

Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/naveenpitchandi/

Twitter : https://twitter.com/numberlock11