The Product Science Podcast

Holly Hester-Reilly
  • 4.9 (17)
  • BUSINESS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY
The Product Science Podcast

The Product Science Podcast is for startup founders and product leaders building high-growth products, teams, and companies. Listen in on real conversations with the people who have tried it and aren’t afraid to share the lessons they’ve learned (and the mistakes they’ve made) along the way.

  1. 6D AGO

    The Hubert Palan Hypothesis: Customer-Centricity and Effective Segmentation are Key to Building a Successful Product Company

    Product management is a complex and multifaceted role that requires a delicate balance of strategy, organization, and communication. In order to effectively manage products from ideation to launch and beyond, product managers need the right tools at their disposal. This is where product management tools come into play.   Hubert Palan, the founder and CEO of Productboard, is a key figure in the evolution of product management tools, drawing from his extensive background as an engineer turned product manager. He recognized the pressing need for a dedicated platform that addresses the unique challenges faced by product managers, emphasizing customer-centricity and segmentation, a perspective shaped by his studies under Steve Blank at UC Berkeley.   Traditional tools like Jira and Asana, according to Palan, often fall short in catering to the nuanced needs of product management, prompting the creation of Productboard to fill this gap, which now serves over 6,000 clients including major players like Zoom and JPMorgan Chase. By leveraging visual communication tools and focusing on customer segmentation, Palan believes product managers can better understand and cater to their target audience, ultimately driving product success and organizational growth.    Resource Links  Follow Hubert Palan on LinkedIn  Follow Hubert Palan on X (formerly Twitter)  Explore Productboard  Learn about Steve Blank’s Lean Startup philosophy  Follow Holly on LinkedIn  Visit the Product Science Group website  Explore Product Science Workshops        Quotes from Hubert Palan:  “Because at the end of the day you have to make a decision. Do I add another use case? Do I satisfy a new need, Do I expand the set of capabilities that my product has or do I double down on what the use case that I already have, but make them better or improve the usability? And that's every day.” Hubert Palan (18:06)  “Frequently Personas are more like a design user Personas as opposed to Persona representing the business market segments that product managers need to think about. Because at the end of the day it needs to be a viable business, not just a product that satisfies needs of a specific user.” - Hubert Palan (21:16)  “It's challenging and there's no shortcut, unfortunately. I mean, you have to do the workshops, you have to communicate frequently. You need to do the AMA sessions, you need to have the big 10-page document and then a summary of it. And it's constant communication, constant coordination.” - Hubert Palan (31:54)    Lab Notes  Lab Note 603.1: Roadmaps are a conversation, not a one-way document.    Lab Note 603.2: Tools like roadmaps, customer interview snapshots, ideal customer profiles, competitive landscapes, and journey maps help leaders share context and set direction.    Lab Note 603.3: For more valuable personas, enrich them with data and an understanding of both behavior and business opportunities.    Lab Note 603.4: Find simple questions to identify who is best suited to get value from your product.    Ready to elevate your product leadership game? Dive deep into practical solutions for real-world product challenges. Register now: productsciencegroup.com/services  View the transcript and the ⁠full episode description on the Product Science Podcast website here.⁠

    46 min

  2. MAR 11

    The Inessa Lurye Hypothesis: Successful Product Launches Require Systematically Building and Testing Solutions to Market Opportunities

    Key aspects of product development, such as recognizing a true market opportunity, structuring teams for new market pursuits, and proving ROI when launching a new product are unpacked in this episode with Inessa Lurye as Holly Hester-Reilly's guest.   Inessa Lurye, as the Senior Director of Product and head of Women's Health at Hinge Health, identified a substantial market gap and shares her journey of developing a virtual program that has now served over 30,000 women. She has held product leadership roles at venture-funded startups, government agencies, and large corporations, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MPP from the Kennedy School, and a BA from Swarthmore.   During product development, Inessa and her team focused on fostering empathy and understanding among team members through direct customer interactions. This episode emphasizes the significance of collaboration, innovation, and customer-centric approaches in product management and development. The conversation also touches on strategies for dealing with difficult stakeholders and addressing their concerns proactively.     Resource Links  Follow Inessa on LinkedIn  Visit the Hinge Health website  Celebrate Inessa’s 2023 Product Management Leader of the Year Award  Follow Holly on Twitter  Follow Holly on LinkedIn  Visit the Product Science Group website  Explore Product Science Workshops and Courses    Quotes from Inessa: "So initially we had a really focused, dedicated tiger team before any engineering was staffed... We were speaking [to] members or potential members, like really doing in-depth research to understand this space."   "We integrated the measurement of baseline data around pain and symptoms and specific patient reported outcomes... into our initial application to get a baseline and then into our app experience."   "We had our pelvic floor physical therapists and Hinge Health... a group of clinical specialists who are PTs that work with the product team to develop new products."   Lab Notes  Lab Note 602.1: Great product leaders use all of the product science principles to succeed  (29:16)  Lab Note 602.2: Include a subject matter expert on your cross-functional team for a tighter feedback loop (30:50)  Lab Note 602.3: Evidence comes from customers, forums, and subject matter experts  (33:11)  Lab Note 602.4: When your buyers aren’t your users, make it easy for buyers to see the outcome (34:11)  Lab Note 602.5: Simple tools can incentivize customer touchpoints for an outsized impact (36:57)  Lab Note: 602.6: Spend the most time on your biggest naysayers  (39:11)  View the transcript and the full episode description on the Product Science Podcast website here. Ready to elevate your product leadership game? Dive deep into practical solutions for real-world product challenges. Register now: https://www.productsciencegroup.com/services

    40 min

  3. MAR 4

    The Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles Hypothesis: Product Operations Provide Infrastructure for High-Quality Product Decision-Making

    Meet Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles, the dynamic duo behind the groundbreaking book “Product Operations: How Successful Companies Build Better Products at Scale.” Melissa's expertise spans from founding Produx Labs, a product management training and consulting company, to spearheading product strategies at esteemed companies like Insight Partners, Capital One, Vanguard, and Walmart/Sam’s Club. Meanwhile, Denise brings over a decade of product leadership experience at Condé Nast, Cision, and Understood.org to the table. Together, they have driven meaningful outcomes for various businesses through their targeted support in product operations, design, and coaching.   Dive deeper into Melissa and Denise’s book as we explore the three principles of product operations, the responsibilities and values that come with a great product leader, and how effective product operations lead to more impactful product outcomes.    Resource Links  Check out Melissa and Denise’s book,  Product Operations  Check out Melissa’s book,  Escaping the Build Trap  Visit the Produx Labs website  Learn more about Melissa on her website  Follow Melissa on LinkedIn  Learn more about Denise on her website  Follow Denise on LinkedIn  Follow Holly on Twitter  Follow Holly on LinkedIn  Visit the Product Science Group website  Explore Product Science Workshops and Courses  Quotes from Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles:  “I see this connection between continuous discovery and a team's capacity for creativity... If you have the time available to you and space has been made to think deeply about what's actually valuable to the people that you're creating things for, I think that puts you in a creative space.” - Denise Tilles  “Try to show people what you can do as quickly as possible so they realize the value. The more that you can achieve value for people and help them realize it, the more buy-in you're going to get.” - Melissa Perri  “The customer and market insights is really about aggregating all the feedback that we're hearing from our customers, from all different parts of the organization... Where do those live? And how do we make sure that people can read those studies, understand what has been asked of customers, use it to identify problems and put back into their work, and then also, where do they go to help contact customers?” - Melissa Perri    Lab Notes  Lab Note 601.1: Product ops ties into each of the Product Science Principles. - Holly Hester-Reilly (31:25)   Lab Note 601.2: Centralizing product operations is worth it. - Holly Hester-Reilly (35:34)  Lab Note 601.3: The work of product operations has been around longer than the name. - Holly Hester-Reilly (36:23)  Lab Note 601.4: On a small, growing team, hire product ops before research ops.  - Holly Hester-Reilly (38:07)  Lab Note 601.5: Organization of your insights goes a long way toward driving evidence-based product decisions.  -Dina Levitan (40:05)  Lab Note 601.6: Product Operations may be an opportunity to systematically bring design in earlier in the product discovery and strategy process. - Mark Enache (43:06)  View the Transcript and the full episode description on the Product Science Podcast website Ready to elevate your product leadership game? Dive deep into practical solutions for real-world product challenges. Register now: productsciencegroup.com/services

    46 min

  4. 12/14/2023 · BONUS

    Season 6 Announcement & Company Update

    In this mini-episode of the podcast, Holly introduces team members Dina Levitan and Mark Enache, who share some stories about working with Product Science Group clients. Holly also tells us about changes coming for Season 6 of the Product Science Podcast - video, shorter episodes, and a new Lab Notes section.Subscribe for the full episode on Apple, Google Play, Spotify, YouTube, and more. Love what you hear? Leave us a review, it means a lot. Fill out our course interest survey and get notified about upcoming courses on Maven here: www.productsciencegroup.com/maven And check out our new homes on the web: https://www.productsciencegroup.com https://www.instagram.com/productsciencegroup/ https://www.tiktok.com/@productsciencegroup https://www.linkedin.com/company/product-science-group https://www.youtube.com/@productsciencegroup

    4 min

  5. 06/13/2023

    Season 5 Highlights: The Product Discovery Loop

    Holly Hester-Reilly is the Founder and CEO of H2R Product Science, a product management coaching and consulting firm that teaches the principles and practices of high-growth product development, and the host of the Product Science Podcast. Holly is a former Columbia University research scientist and has spent over 15 years leading product initiatives at startups, high-growth companies, and enterprises like FalconX, MediaMath, Shutterstock, The Lean Startup Co, Unilever, Capital One, and Weight Watchers. Holly also teaches at NYU Stern School of Business as well as public and private workshops and has spoken about building high-growth products for events such as Lean Startup Summit Europe, the Women in Product Annual Conference, ITX Product + Design Conf, Parsons School of Design, and INDUSTRY: The Product Conference. In this episode of the Product Science Podcast, we share Season 5 excerpts as we cover the product discovery loop, a tool to break down the components of achieving product market fit. Read the show notes to learn more: www.h2rproductscience.com/post/season-5-highlights-the-product-discovery-loop

    20 min

  6. 05/30/2023

    The Jeff Patton Hypothesis: Successful Teams Focus on the Who Before the What

    Jeff Patton helps companies adopt a way of working that’s focused on building great products, not just building stuff faster. Jeff blends a mixture of Agile thinking, Lean and Lean Startup Thinking, and UX Design and Design Thinking to end up with a holistic product-centric way of working. Jeff is author of the bestselling O’Reilly book User Story Mapping which describes a simple holistic approach to using stories in Agile development without losing sight of the big picture. In this episode of the Product Science Podcast, we cover common challenges to product discovery, what tools and techniques Jeff teaches, which ones he’s changed over the years, and why. Read the show notes to learn more: URL: www.h2rproductscience.com/post/the-jeff-patton-hypothesis-successful-teams-focus-on-the-who-before-the-what

    40 min

  7. 05/09/2023

    The Christian Idiodi Hypothesis: Great Product Management Starts With Admitting “I Don’t Know”

    Christian is a partner at Silicon Valley Product Group. Christian has been a product leader for over 15 years, building teams and developing enterprise and consumer products that have shaped companies such as CareerBuilder and Merrill Corporation as well as clients such as Microsoft, Starbucks, and Squarespace. Christian teaches product management and innovation at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. He also gives back to his local product community each year by supporting and advising two student-led startups from conceptualization to product delivery. In this episode of the Product Science Podcast, we cover the importance of humility in product management, the benefits of diverse thinking, and how a contest kick-started Christian’s career in product management. Read the show notes to learn more: URL: www.h2rproductscience.com/post/the-christian-idiodi-hypothesis-great-product-management-starts-with-admitting-i-dont-know

    48 min

  8. 05/02/2023

    The Peter Voss Hypothesis: We Will Soon Need to Embrace AI to Be Effective in the World

    Peter Voss is a Pioneer in AI who coined the term ‘Artificial General Intelligence’ and the CEO and Chief Scientist at Aigo.ai. For the past 15 years, Voss and his team at Aigo have been perfecting an industry disruptive, highly intelligent and hyper-personalized Chatbot, with a brain, for large enterprise customers. In this episode of the Product Science Podcast, we cover career opportunities in AI development, the potential of AI to be personal and an assistant, and how embracing a future with AI means focusing on critical thinking skills. Read the show notes to learn more: URL: www.h2rproductscience.com/post/the-peter-voss-hypothesis-we-will-soon-need-to-embrace-ai-to-be-effective-in-the-world

    37 min
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4.9
out of 5
17 Ratings

About

The Product Science Podcast is for startup founders and product leaders building high-growth products, teams, and companies. Listen in on real conversations with the people who have tried it and aren’t afraid to share the lessons they’ve learned (and the mistakes they’ve made) along the way.

Information

  • Creator
    Holly Hester-Reilly
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2025
  • Episodes
    119
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Holly Hester-Reilly
  • Show Website
    The Product Science Podcast

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