#142 The Question Product Leaders Aren't Asking That Can Boost Retention; Film Industry Insights for Innovation; And Building a Top Productivity App w/ Steven Puri, Founder of "The Sukha Company"

Hey Listener!

Today's guest is Steven Puri, CEO of The Sukha Company, which develops one of the most popular productivity and focus apps, Sukha.

Connect with Steven on Linkedin.

Listen now on Apple and Spotify.

Steven has a diverse background in both the film and tech industries.

As a former senior executive at major motion picture studios and a tech entrepreneur who has raised venture capital for startups, Steven brings a unique perspective on creativity and leadership.

Here’s his IMDB page; he’s worked on films like Independence Day, Godzilla, and Braveheart.

He shares some pretty awesome behind-the-scenes stories with directors like Roland Emmerich. He's a fantastic storyteller. I was hooked every time he told a story, and they were hilarious and entertaining.

During our conversation, we discussed:

✅ The parallels between launching films and tech products and the challenges of scaling creative projects.

✅ The application of remote and hybrid work models from film production to today's tech environments.

✅ The impact of flow states on personal efficiency and keeping your team productive.

Important Time Stamps:

- 03:15 - Steven’s transition from film to tech

- 12:30 - Adapting film production strategies to tech

- 25:45 - Cultivating flow states for better productivity with Sukha

Actionable Takeaways

Break Down Big Tasks: Flow Gets Unlocked by Tackling a Manageable Chunk of Work

Steven emphasizes the power of tackling big tasks by breaking them down into smaller, manageable steps. This provides your brain with a way to begin forming connections to the broader picture.

"And if you do put something crazy on there, like, I have to write this week's episode, it suggests like the estimate on that is probably 16 hours. You're probably not gonna do it before your brain blows up. What if, instead of writing the episode, you did an act one outline?"

- Steven Puri

Takeaway: My favorite thing to do before writing a PRD, or when I was designing, was to focus on creating a wireframe or writing an outline to get to a v0 of a work output deliverable. That v0 work informs the gaps in my thinking, which provides different paths forward to make progress.

Steven's approach here is influenced by decades of experience in the film industry, where phases are broken up into different levels of fidelity: storyboard, script, and logistical documents. The whole concept of pre-production is to break up the work into manageable chunks so that, if followed, you don't have to have as much thrashing in the production phase of a movie or TV show.

The film industry has been using remote and hybrid work for decades

Steven highlights the effectiveness of hybrid work, blending remote and in-person collaboration, as a way to adapt to current work environments.

We've long recognized the necessary balance of structured planning and creative freedom in filmmaking, from remote idea nurturing and production intensity to remote post-production work.Hollywood has been doing remote for a very long time. You're writing a script at your house. You're creating storyboards and logistical documents on your iPad in a café.

Hybrid work is when you're in the studio pitching a script or in the writer's room, roughing out final details.

And production is when you're in the office. You're showing up to work every day. Sometimes 12+ hours a day. The beautiful thing about Hollywood production is that it respects all the different work locations and styles, encouraging creative results.

"Belonging to a community enhances performance and motivation… Balancing remote and in-office work helps unlock creativity."

- Steven Puri

Takeaway: A hybrid model can maximize both focused independent work and team efforts. I'm a big fan of working from home to complete my IC tasks and collaborating on Zoom or Google Meet. However, those work trips, where we travel to a co-working space or fly out to an office, have been crucial in my experience for making those big strategic decisions.

Balance your work schedule to harness the strengths of both approaches.

Leverage Downtime for Creativity

Steven encourages using downtime or even multiple projects to access creative insights that might otherwise remain untapped.

He calls it the "other thing", and when managing teams, he tries to give writers, engineers, or designers another thing to work on so that if they're blocked in one area, they could go work on something else.

"The great ideas happen when you're thinking about something else."

- Steven Puri

Takeaway: Embrace moments of mental wandering during routine tasks. These breaks can lead to innovative solutions and fresh ideas.

I hope these takeaways provide you with actionable insights to enhance your productivity and creativity. Listen to the full episode to hear behind-the-scenes stories of films like Independence Day, Godzilla (the one with Matthew Broderick), and much more in the whole episode.

Listen now on Apple and Spotify.

Cheers,

Caden Damiano

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wayofproduct.com