Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

How to build your product team from scratch, attract top product talent, go multi-product, and more | Rohini Pandhi (Mercury, Square)

Jan 12, 2025

Rohini Pandhi is a product leader at Mercury and co-founder of Transparent Collective. In this discussion, she shares insights on recognizing when to hire product managers and the importance of founders taking on this role initially. Rohini emphasizes the need for high-quality product design, particularly in finance, and explores how to attract top talent. She also discusses the transition to multi-product strategies and the value of fostering a customer-centric culture to align offerings with user needs.

01:19:24

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Rohini Pandhi

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Mercury's transition from relying solely on founders to hiring product managers was crucial for managing product development efficiently as the company grew.

The framework of categorizing product managers into pioneers, town settlers, and city planners helps companies make informed hiring decisions based on their specific needs.

Establishing separate teams for new product initiatives allowed Mercury to innovate without conflicts from established offerings, promoting healthier growth.

Deep dives

The Evolution of Product Management at Mercury

Mercury initially operated without product managers, relying solely on its engineers and founders to handle those duties. As the company grew to about 400 employees, it became apparent that the founders could no longer manage all aspects of product development effectively. The bottlenecks emerged when nearly every decision required their attention, hindering responsiveness and slowing down processes. This forced Mercury to hire product managers to take on essential project management tasks, allowing other teams to focus on their engineering and design responsibilities.

Intro

4min

Simplifying Product Integrations with One Schema

2min

The Growth of Product Management at Mercury

26min

Navigating Talent and Quality in Product Development

11min

Innovating in Unsexy Industries and Expanding Product Lines

4min

Advancements in Business Banking Software

7min

Cultivating a Customer-Centric Approach in Product Development

4min

Navigating Customer Research and Product Strategy

16min

Embracing the Future with Waymo

4min

10.

Engaging with the Mercury Team and Exclusive Banking Opportunity

2min

Rohini Pandhi is a product leader at Mercury, and previously spent over seven years at Square/Block leading product work on Square payments, invoicing, and the Bitkey hardware Bitcoin wallet. She’s also the co-founder of the startup bootcamp Transparent Collective and is an active angel investor. In our conversation, we discuss:

• Key indicators that it’s time to hire PMs

• How to build your early PM team

• Why founders should initially take on the product manager role themselves

• How to attract top PM talent

• What she’s learned about going multi-product

• A case for investing in quality

• More

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Skip the Mercury Personal waitlist: https://mercurytechnologies.typeform.com/lenny

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• Cloudinary—The foundational technology for all images and video on the internet

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• Airtable ProductCentral—Launch to new heights with a unified system for product development

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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-build-your-product-team-from-scratch-rohini-pandhi

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Where to find Rohini Pandhi:

• X: https://x.com/rohinip

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohinipandhi

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Rohini’s background

(05:00) The role of product managers at Mercury

(09:51) Key indicators that it’s time to hire PMs

(13:18) Building the product team at Mercury

(19:53) Why you should avoid hiring PMs too early

(22:26) The different flavors of product management

(26:15) How to attract top talent

(35:59) Advocating for quality in product development

(44:10) Going multi-product

(46:37) Organizational structure for multi-product success

(50:57) Organizational culture for multi-product success

(52:07) Customer obsession and product development

(57:36) More lessons from going multi-product

(01:05:57) Transparent Collective: supporting underrepresented founders

(01:09:54) Lightning round

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Referenced:

• Immad Akhund on X: https://x.com/immad

• Mercury: https://mercury.com

• Square: https://squareup.com

• Pioneers, Settlers, Town Planners [Wardley]: https://orghacking.com/pioneers-settlers-town-planners-wardley-9dcd3709cde7

• Jason Zhang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-zhang-5645a860

• What is ‘Dogfooding’?: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/business/dogfooding.html

• Mercury Bill Pay: https://mercury.com/bill-pay

• Zip: https://zip.co

• Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira

• The art and science of pricing | Madhavan Ramanujam (Monetizing Innovation, Simon-Kucher): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-and-science-of-pricing-madhavan

• Gokul Rajaram on designing your product development process, when and how to hire your first PM, a playbook for hiring leaders, getting ahead in you career, how to get started angel investing, more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/gokul-rajaram-on-designing-your-product

• Gokul Rajaram on X: https://x.com/gokulr

• Transparent Collective: https://www.transparentcollective.com

• 16 Reading Tips from Naval Ravikant: https://alexandbooks.com/archive/16-reading-tips-from-naval-ravikant

• Shrinking on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/shrinking

• Bad Sisters on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/bad-sisters

• Slow Horses on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/slow-horses

• Severance on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/severance

• Presumed Innocent on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/presumed-innocent

• Waymo: https://waymo.com

• Adam Robinson on X: https://x.com/IAmAdamRobinson

• Cyan Banister—From Homeless and Broke to Top Angel Investor (Uber, SpaceX, and 100+ More): https://tim.blog/2024/11/28/cyan-banister

• Bobby Matson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbymatson