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How to know if you’re interviewing at a product-led company

I’m seeing this sentiment pop up with alarming frequency. Many product people are dealing with career uncertainty — and not just the “will my company make it through the pandemic?” variety. Without the usual distractions of life available, things that were easily overlooked are now front and center.

And what are many of these product people realizing without the distractions of normal life?

They’re set up to fail.

Their work environment and culture is not set up to create strong products. It is distinctly not set up to empower the collaboration of product, design, and engineering to build things that matter.

This has led many to realize it’s time for a job change.

As product people, we want to work in a product-led company. Note: this does not mean that the product org is “in charge,” giving orders and engineering/design have to get on board. It does mean a place that truly values the craft and contribution of product, and that empowers individuals and teams to work to their highest potential. A place that is built around creating amazing products that truly make life better for the people they’re trying to serve.

This is inherently and fundamentally a collaborative process that no single functional org rules by fiat. (The most common counterexample is a sales-led organization.)

We all know it’s possible. It’s what the best product companies are doing. Yet despite many attempts tried, there are many frustrated PMs that can’t seem to get their work environment to change. Why not?

Part of the reason is that transformation is extremely hard, even in the best case.

But the real reason is they joined the wrong company in the first place.

They took a role where good product work occurs in spite of the dominant practices and culture, not because of them.

Jobs like this waste precious years of your career. I’ve made this mistake too, and it hurts. I hope this article helps you avoid it in the future.

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Filed Under: Blog

Michael O’Bryan: The mechanics of our humanity (#36)

Michael O'Bryan
Michael O’Bryan

Michael O’Bryan is on a quest to transform the way organizations understand and support human development, interaction, and performance. An expert in the fields of community development, organizational culture, and human wellbeing, he’s spent more than a decade working directly with resilient yet underserved populations, including veterans, adults in recovery, returning citizens, and families experiencing homelessness. 

Michael lives at the intersection of arts and the social sciences, speaking, teaching, and consulting nationwide in his quest to transform the way organizations understand and support human development, interaction, and performance. 

This conversation explores the science of our humanity, and how understanding those mechanics gives us a chance to create systems that lift up all of us instead of just some of us. I hope it pushes you to think about creating truly humane systems wherever you go, as it did for me.

Enjoy!

And if you have a moment, I’d love it if you could give me a little feedback via this SurveyMonkey link. (It only takes one minute.)

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Filed Under: Podcast

Dianne Frommelt: Building products to help people become their best selves (#35)

Dianne Frommelt

Dianne Frommelt is the Chief Product Officer for 15Five, a company I am a longtime fan of. They’re on a mission to create high performing, highly engaged teams, and to create a product that helps everyone who uses it to be and become their best selves.

In this conversation, we go deep on the types of practices that can infuse your values into your team’s rhythms. We talk about what it looks like to craft a strategy and navigate roadmapping conversations, outcomes thinking, how to approach taking on leadership of an existing team rather than one you get to build from scratch, and much more.

And if nothing else, you’ll walk away from this episode with a great set of practices to try that will help you and those you work with feel much more connected and have deeper, more trusting relationships with each other.

Enjoy!

And if you have a moment, I’d love it if you could give me a little feedback via this SurveyMonkey link. (It only takes one minute.)

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Filed Under: Podcast

Will Toms: The power of creative community (#34)

William Tyrone Toms

William Tyrone Toms is the cofounder of REC Philly, an incubator, community, and resource center aimed at helping independent creatives make a sustainable living. In short, he’s out to challenge the narrative of the starving artist and create an international community of creatives who control their own destinies.

As REC Philly likes to say, “independent doesn’t mean alone”, and this story really embodies what it looks like to build something that matters with intentionality, clarity, and connectedness at its core.

There are a lot of gems packed into this conversation. Among other things we discuss:

  • creative placemaking and how to create the community and space you have always sought
  • how to reverse engineer your business from who you want your customers to become, all the way back to the product offering
  • the power and clarity of having an artistic message as your north star in making decisions
  • how to choose an audience
  • the work required to move from having a vague desire for impact (which we all feel) to a specific and actionable plan to create that impact for a specific kind of person

If you are out to make something that matters, this conversation will help you to get clear on how to do that better.

Enjoy!

And if you have a moment, I’d love it if you could give me a little feedback via this SurveyMonkey link. (It only takes one minute.)

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Filed Under: Podcast

8 Lessons Learned in 2020 (#33)

For the last episode of 2020, I reflect on eight big lessons I learned from guests this year, and share a few questions to ask yourself as we head into 2021.

We’ve shared so many amazing conversations this year, and I couldn’t possibly cover all of them, but I wanted to pull out some that I think are timely to keep in mind as we’re all closing out this year, and navigating into an unknowable future together.

How do we want to show up differently? How do we want to lead differently? How do we want to create differently? This episode shares ten takeaways from the conversations of 2020 to help us navigate into the next year.

I wish you all a peaceful end to this turbulent year. I hope you are finding an opportunity to rest, to reflect, to just take a deep breath with yourself and with the people you’re close with. Here’s to making things that matter in 2021!

And if you have a moment, I’d love it if you could give me a little feedback via this SurveyMonkey link. (It only takes one minute.)

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Filed Under: Podcast

Alex Hillman: How to play the long game of business (#32)

Alex Hillman

Alex Hillman is a pioneer who has made it his mission to help independent creatives build sustainable careers. He’s the author of the recent bite-sized hit, The Tiny MBA, which is an insightful collection of short lessons about the long game of business.

Alex cofounded Indy Hall, Philadelphia’s first coworking space, and helped launch what became the coworking boom. He also built Stacking the Bricks with Amy Hoy, where they teach creative professionals how to bootstrap their own businesses.

As I believe you’ll hear, Alex is a very caring and generous person with his knowledge and experience and loves nothing more than to hear about how these ideas are helping people level up, so please reach out to him via email at Alex [at] tiny.mba and let him know what resonated with you.

Among many other things in this conversation, we talk about…

  • What does it look like to bring intentionality to our careers, to be able to connect the dots between starting where we are with what we have, and the long term aspirations and impact we want to create?
  • mindsets that will help you to have balance and equanimity in the face of uncertainty and having no control
  • the application of Buddhist teachings to a business career

This was a really fun conversation that will help you cultivate continuity in your efforts and invest in the long game of business, to benefit yourself and everyone around you.

Please enjoy learning with Alex Hillman.

And if you have a moment, I’d love it if you could give me a little feedback via this SurveyMonkey link. (It only takes one minute.)

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Filed Under: Podcast

Marty Cagan: Empowering product teams to do the best work of their lives (#31)

Marty Cagan

My guest in this conversation is Marty Cagan. If you aren’t familiar with his work, Marty is a very influential person in the world of technology — he’s basically the godfather of modern tech product management.

Before he founded the Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) to help others create successful products, Marty was an executive responsible for defining and building products for some of the most successful companies in the world, including Hewlett Packard, Netscape, and eBay.

As part of his work with SVPG, Marty is an invited speaker at major conferences and top companies across the globe. He’s a highly sought after coach to the best product organizations out there, and has had a significant impact on the teams that make most of the tech products you love.

His first book, INSPIRED, is the seminal book out there for how product people should approach their work. Now he’s done it again with EMPOWERED, which he coauthored with his partner at SVPG, Chris Jones.

Please join me in learning about how to create empowered teams and the kind of environment where people can do the best work of their lives, with the one and only, Marty Cagan.

And if you have a moment, I’d love it if you could give me a little feedback via this SurveyMonkey link. (It only takes one minute.)

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Filed Under: Podcast

Natalie Nagele: Building a people-first company at Wildbit (#30)

Natalie Nagele, Wildbit CEO

My guest in this conversation is Natalie Nagele, the cofounder and CEO of Wildbit. Wildbit is a bootstrapped, independent, people-first software company that is celebrating a very special milestone: 20 years in business! Now entering their “third act,” Wildbit is starting to expand its focus to new arenas, starting off with the new job board called People-First Jobs.

I’m catching Natalie at a very special moment – right at Wildbit’s 20-year anniversary, a milestone that most businesses never reach, and one that’s even more rare in the fast-paced world of software. As such, this conversation is a bit more reflective and goes deep into the mindsets and worldview that have enabled Wildbit to evolve as it has.

Wildbit is one of the best examples I’ve come across yet of the kind of company I want to see the world be full of. They are a terrific example of building an ethos and approaching a company as a vehicle within which everyone can continually evolve and do fulfilling work that makes a net positive contribution to all people affected.

For anyone who either runs a company or aspires to build one, this conversation will inspire and guide you to make impact and enjoy the journey.

I hope you enjoy going deep into Natalie’s world as much as I did. With that, I give you Natalie Nagele.

And if you have a moment, I’d love it if you could give me a little feedback via this SurveyMonkey link. (It only takes one minute.)

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Filed Under: Podcast

One year of the podcast! And a new show name. (#29)

Wow, it’s been a year of the podcast! So much has happened. I wanted to acknowledge the anniversary ep — which happens to release on election day in the USA — and announcing an upcoming name change for the show.

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Filed Under: Podcast

Rob Walling: Build a great business and let that be enough (#28)

Rob Walling, founder of TinySeed

Do you want to build a small giant startup? Where do you begin, and what and when is enough? Learn the reasons and mindsets needed to build non-venture track startups. In this episode, I talk with Rob Walling, a serial entrepreneur. Currently, Rob runs TinySeed, the first startup accelerator for SaaS bootstrappers and MicroConf, a conference and community for non-venture track company founders. Rob is also host of Startups for the Rest of Us, a popular podcast for bootstrapping entrepreneurs.

If you’ve ever been interested in starting your own business and thought there must be a 3rd option between a small side project and a billion dollar Silicon Valley VC-fueled unicorn, then you need to hear this.

Please enjoy learning from the master of “startups for the rest of us,” Rob Walling.

And if you have a moment, I’d love it if you could give me a little feedback via this SurveyMonkey link. (It only takes one minute.)

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Filed Under: Podcast

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Andrew Skotzko (@askotzko) is a product leader, podcaster, and entrepreneur living in Los Angeles, CA.
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