Rocketship.fm

Melissa Perri is the CEO of Produx Labs and the creator of the online product management school ProductInstitute.com. Her mission is to help make Product Managers and their organizations awesome. She talked to us today about how she manages both the CEO relationship and her relationships with the rest of the team to create clear communication across all disciplines, an essential skill for product managers. She also shares lessons she’s learned as a PM consultant from working with companies large and small. There are common mistakes and pitfalls that we would all like to avoid and Melissa shares a few of them with us today. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.    Since you're listening to Rocketship, we'd like to sugge

Brent Tworetzky is the Executive Vice President at the XO Group (The Know, The Bump) where he leads XO Group's 50 person product group (product mgmt, design, user research). Today we talk with Brent about User Science. User Science includes the vast fields of User Research and Analytics. Product User Research encompasses a range of tools to directly learn from users: hands off observation, direct inquiry, putting products in users hands, and the many forms in between. Product Analytics ranges from A/B testing to exploratory analysis (searching for patterns) to predictive analysis. Most product manager skills can be found in many fields–Strategic Thinking, Sufficient Technicals, Collaboration, Communication, and Detail Orientation. User science is a special domain-specific skill that great product managers needs to learn. According to Brent, “user science has been the difference between product failure and a massive user hit.” *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distr

There is no substitute for the real thing. Today on the show we welcome back Bob Moesta who spent hours with us recording real interviews with Industry attendees and unpacking the conversations to answer the question - what Job does Product Collective's Industry do for it’s attendees. Adding Jobs To Be Done to your bag of tricks gives you a leg up in the product world. We breakdown Bob Moesta’s exclusive interviews with actual customers of Industry conference. The best way to learn is by unpacking real decisions that consumers have actually made and this is a rare opportunity to learn from the master himself. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.    Since you're listening to Rocketship, we'd like to suggest you also tr

Dan Olsen is an entrepreneur, consultant, author, speaker, and expert in product management and Lean Startup. At Olsen Solutions, he works with CEOs and product leaders to help them build great products and strong product teams, often as interim VP of Product. Dan has worked with a range of businesses, from small, early-stage startups to large public companies, on a wide variety of web and mobile products. His clients include Facebook, Box, Microsoft, YouSendIt (now HighTail), Epocrates, Medallia, XING, Financial Engines, and One Medical Group. Prior to consulting, Dan worked at Intuit, where he led the Quicken product team to record sales and profit. He also led product management at social networking pioneer Friendster, and was the cofounder and CEO of YourVersion, a TechCrunch award-winning personalized news startup. Dan began his career designing nuclear-powered submarines. Dan wrote the bestseller The Lean Product Playbook, published by Wiley. He lives in Silicon Valley, where he hosts the monthly Lean P

Today we talk with Noah Kagan, the founder and CEO of Sumo. Noah has a long a long career working in startups and he shares some of his mistakes, and how he quickly turned things around.  In late 2005, Kagan joined Facebook as employee #30 where he served as product manager for eight months. After being fired from Facebook, he then joined Mint as the director of marketing. At Mint, Kagan developed the initial marketing strategy for the launch of the website. Noah was with Mint.com for 10 months and left the company prior to the product's launch in September 2007 at TechCrunch. After Mint, in June 2007, Kagan founded KickFlip, a payment company for social games. In March 2010 Kagan founded AppSumo, a daily deals website and later launched Sumo, which makes tools for growing an online business. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our show

It seems like all we hear about today is disruption, disruption, disruption. Everybody is disrupting something -- from Transportation to Hospitality -- all anyone wants to do is blow everything up. So what is the difference between Disruption and Innovation? Well, Disruptors are innovators, but not all innovators are disruptors. Disruption and Innovation are often different sides of the same coin. Today we explore how companies are approaching innovation and disruption in the Healthcare industry. We talk with Joshua Landry of Figure1 and Sasha Bhatia, the Director of Women’s College Hospital Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care in Toronto. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.    Since you're listenin

A user persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. Today, we take two of those fictional representations and bring them to life.  Mike Belsito has ventured out to find several real-life personas, interview them and bring you what we've found. How accurate are our personas? What are we often missing from them that would help us build better products?  A persona typically has a name, a picture, relevant characteristics such as age or income group, behavioral traits, common tasks, and a goal that describes the problem the persona wants to see solved or the benefit the character wants to achieve. This information is traditionally based on direct observation, interviews, and other qualitative market research. Personas should help you develop empathy for your users and customers. They encourage you to embrace a user-centered approach: Putting the users first and building a product that truly benefits them. This avoids the fallacy of a solution-centric approach: worrying more about the product and

Oli Gardner has dedicated this Janurary to writing 30 articles in 30 days, all about Product, Product Marketing and Unbounce. We caught with him to see how this all got started, what he was hoping to get out of it and what's next. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.    Since you're listening to Rocketship, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding entrepreneurship, business, and careers like Creative Elements and Freelance to Founder.

You may be tired of writing product stories and pitching product ideas that fall flat. Here we break down how to tell compelling product stories by understanding the basic of storytelling itself.  Jack and beanstalk may not be part of your everyday standups, but its the perfect way to breakdown the essential elements of a story. From screenwriter Michael Jamin to Product Manager and former Technical Director at Pixar, Josh Anon, we show you how you can use basic story writing techniques to better convey product ideas, initiatives and marketing.  *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.    Since you're listening to Rocketship, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding entrepreneurship, business

We sat down with Dennis Crowley of Foursquare to talk about the early days of Foursquare, what really happened after their historic SXSW launch and the sacrifices it takes to achieve greatness.  In 2003, Crowley co-founded Dodgeball with fellow student Alex Rainert while attending New York University. Dodgeball was acquired by Google in 2005. After Google abandoned the Dodgeball project in 2007, Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai co-founded Foursquare in 2009. Foursquare, known for its location intelligence offerings for both enterprises and consumers, is used by more than 50 million people every month. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.    Since you're listening to Rocketship, we'd like to suggest you also try other Pod

Sam Goertler has led product teams at Yammer, Asana and now Kickstarter. She talks with us about what she's learned leading teams through product redesigns and new platforms. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.    Since you're listening to Rocketship, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding entrepreneurship, business, and careers like Creative Elements and Freelance to Founder.

Product Poetry. The subtle art of describing your product in a way that excites everyone around you. This isn’t just for entrepreneurs pitching investors, this is for product managers and product leaders to inspire their teams to push themselves to build the best possible solution. Walk through examples from Figure One, Facebook and Sono’s with us as we attempt to break down what makes a powerful product description and what are the elements you need to improve yours. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.    Since you're listening to Rocketship, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding entrepreneurship, business, and careers like Creative Elements and Freelance to Founder.

We talked with Arlan Hamilton, theFounder & Managing Partner of Backstage Capital. Backstage Capital has invested more than $2M in 50+ companies led by underrepresented founders.  Arlan is a venture capital fund manager, but she got her start publishing the internationally distributed indie magazine INTERLUDE, and toured extensively as a live music production professional, she enters the venture investing world from an unconventional path. Arlan is dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are of color, women, and/or LGBT.  We discuss diversity in tech, her story to becoming an unlikely VC and her advice for founders on how to stay focused and prioritize.  *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, pl

Love isn’t rational. It doesn’t always make sense. But when love is in the air, nothing can come between you and a public tweet.  Today we talk to people who’ve professed their love, publicly, for products they love. We discuss why they love the products they love, and what about these companies and brands gets them so excited. We dove into tech brands like Slack and Intercom as well as roll on deodorant brand Phresh and personal fashion brand Stitch Fix. Huge thanks to our guests today: Lindsey Smith: https://twitter.com/LindseySmithHHC Jordi Romero: https://twitter.com/jordiromero Natalie Gerke: https://twitter.com/Ngerke Alys Gagnon: https://twitter.com/AlysJ *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.    Since you're lis

Blade Kotelly is a senior lecturer at MIT and the leader of the advanced concepts lab at Sonos. We talk with Blade about how he defines the problem he solves at Sonos, and how to articulate that at an emotion level using design thinking.  At Sonos he is driving the process to determine what experiences Sonos can and should build next. Researching trends in the technology landscape, customer behavior, music creators, and Sonos partners, and creating and testing advanced concepts. At MIT he teaches students principals of design-thinking, how to articulate designs, critique designs, create emotionally and intellectually compelling presentations, create a point-brand, conduct usability testing and learn to apply design-thinking to all aspects of their lives. Blade also tells us about the audio software he designed that was used by United on 9/11. A fascinating, and heartbreaking look at how design thinking and product management has real life effects and consequences. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate 

Mistakes. We all make them. We all learn from them. From a food delivery startup who's users couldn't find their menu, to Amazon's redesign of Audible and even an emergency support system on 9/11, today we bring you mistakes Product Mangers made, and how, in some cases, they fixed them.  Stories from Melissa Perry, Alison Go Product Manger at Facebook and Blade Kotelly Leader of Experience Strategy at Sonos.  *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.    Since you're listening to Rocketship, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding entrepreneurship, business, and careers like Creative Elements and Freelance to Founder.

We talk with Seth Godin about his view of the 10,000 hour rule, his own concept behind achieving greatness, The Dip, and his personal journey to success.  After leaving Spinnaker in 1986, he used $20,000 in savings to found Seth Godin Productions, primarily a book packaging business, out of a studio apartment in New York City. He then met Mark Hurst and founded Yoyodyne. After a few years, Godin sold the book packaging business to his employees and focused his efforts on Yoyodyne, where he promoted the concept of permission marketing. Yoyodyne, launched in 1995, used contests, online games, and scavenger hunts to market companies to participating users. In August 1996, Flatiron Partners invested $4 million in Yoyodyne in return for a 20% stake. At Yoyodyne, Godin published Permission Marketing: Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers. In 1998, he sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo! for about $30 million and became Yahoo's vice president of direct marketing. In March 2006, Godin launched Squidoo. In July

Ty Ahmad-Taylor is the VP of Product Marketing at Facebook. Ty has worked in product for over 20 years and has two acquisitions under his belt. At THX, he led the media and consumer-electronics company into new sectors. Prior to that, he held roles including vp of Smart TV services at Samsung, founder and CEO of FanFeedr and Senior VP of product development and strategy at Viacom. Ty talks with us about leading large product teams, helping individuals growth under his leadership and how his entrepreneurial journey has shaped his view of product. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.    Since you're listening to Rocketship, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding entrepreneurship, business

Jobs to be done will change the way you think about product. It will change the way you approach user personas and influence your product decision process. It is one of the most important developments in product thinking in our time, so today we're going to dive right in. In this episode we talk with Jeetu Patel of Box, Bob Moesta co-creator of the Jobs to be done framework, Benedikt Lehnert of Wunderlist (now Microsoft) and Eric White. The theory of jobs to be done was developed in part as a complement to the theory of disruptive innovation. But disruption theory doesn’t tell you how to create products and services that customers want to buy. Jobs to be done theory does. It transforms our understanding of customer choice in a way that no amount of data ever could, because it gets at the causal driver behind a purchase. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for mor

Ellen Chisa, a former Product Manager at Microsoft and current CEO of a stealth product focused startup, talks to us about the history of product management, how she learned about the role at Microsoft and what lessons product managers should take away today.  Ellen is one of the few individuals who has worked in product her entire career. It's a unique perspective as most product managers have generally held other positions within an organization. This led Ellen to research the history of Product Management, and how it evolved from the 1930's "Brand Men" into the important role it is today.  *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.    Since you're listening to Rocketship, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomer