Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Building high-performing teams | Melissa Tan (Webflow, Dropbox, Canva)

Jun 18, 2023

Melissa Tan, a growth expert with a stellar track record at Dropbox, Canva, and Webflow, shares her insights on building high-performing teams. She discusses the importance of first-principles thinking and how it can drive innovation and creativity. Tan also emphasizes effective hiring strategies, including fostering mentorship and clear communication within teams. From her experiences at Dropbox, she reveals key pitfalls companies face in growth strategies and highlights the significance of a strong culture of ownership and collaboration.

01:14:41

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Episode guests

Melissa Tan

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Quick takeaways

Hiring product managers based on critical thinking, communication skills, and a growth mindset.

High-performing teams prioritize clear goals, a strong mission, and a team-first mentality.

Emphasizing the importance of developing talent internally, providing continuous feedback, and building lifelong relationships with team members.

Deep dives

Key Points on Hiring and Developing Talent

When hiring product managers, Melissa looks for critical thinking, communication skills, and a growth mindset. She focuses on first principles thinking and encourages candidates to problem-solve in real-time during the interview process. Melissa believes in setting clear goals, creating a culture of impact and performance, and fostering a team-first mentality. She values ownership and helps individuals take on specific scopes of work. Melissa also emphasizes the importance of caring deeply about the people on her team, giving feedback, and helping them succeed throughout their career.

First Principles Thinking and Critical Thinking

01:24

Common Ingredients of High-Performing Teams: Goals and Mission

00:43

The Fly Formation: A Framework for Working Across Teams

02:57

Leadership: Combining Results Orientation and Caring for Career Growth: Quick Relevant Feedback

02:04

Intro

4min

Transitioning to Advisory: Fostering Growth in Early-Stage Companies

2min

Building High-Performance Teams at Dropbox

8min

Building High-Performing Teams Through Leadership

22min

Balancing Workload and Developing Talent

5min

Interview Insights and Team Growth Strategies

12min

Navigating Growth: Building Effective Teams

13min

Unlocking Innovation through First Principles Thinking

8min

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Melissa Tan is an advisor, investor, and growth expert. She’s worked with fast-growing startups like Dropbox, Canva, Grammarly, and Miro, and for the past 2.5 years has been the Head of Growth at Webflow. There, she led the company's self-service business across Product, Marketing, and Growth, in addition to leading the charge on pricing and packaging. Prior to Webflow, she was Head of Growth for Dropbox’s B2B product, where she played a pivotal role in propelling their growth. In today’s episode, we discuss:

• Attributes of high-performing teams

• Tips for developing talent and seeking a mentor

• How to create a strong culture of ownership

• Frameworks for hiring PM and growth talent

• Common pitfalls companies face when implementing growth strategies

• Lessons from scaling Dropbox

• The DACI framework for increasing team velocity

• How to actually embrace first-principles thinking

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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-high-performing-teams-melissa

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Where to find Melissa Tan: