A Geek Leader Podcast - inspiring technical and creative leaders around the world AGL 443: Product Driven with Matt Watson
About Matt
Matt Watson learned the power of product-driven development the hard way.
In 2003, at just 22 years old, he founded VinSolutions with exceptional technical talent but little product focus. The team built flawless features—yet few customers wanted to use them. Everything changed when the company shifted its mindset from “coders” to true product owners. By transforming its development culture, VinSolutions cut cycle times in half, dramatically increased feature adoption, and scaled to $35M in recurring revenue before being acquired by AutoTrader for $150M in 2011.
He carried those lessons to Stackify, where a product-first culture was embedded from the very beginning. Developers weren’t just writing code—they were innovating by deeply understanding user problems. That approach fueled another success story, leading to Stackify’s acquisition by Netreo in 2021.
Today, as founder of Full Scale, Matt helps other technical leaders make the same transformation. With a team of more than 300 developers serving 60+ clients worldwide, Full Scale demonstrates that a product-first approach works across time zones and geographies.
This isn’t theory—it’s battle-tested experience from building and scaling multiple successful software companies.
Today We Talked About
- Background
- Coding
- Product Driven
- Empathy
- Purpose
- Leadership
- Field Trips
- Feedback loops
- Product Managers could become the bottle neck
- Getting engineering involved in product
- Learn to say NO
- What if we “don’t do it”
- One way Door, or Two way Door Decisions
- Don’t stress about 2 way door decisions
- How you communicate every day
- Courage
- Thank and reward people for sharing
- Delegate
- Hire people you trust
- learn to let go
- don’t be the bottle neck
- Create Personal Relationships to build Trust
- Know the Why?
Connect with Matt
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