In 'The Making of a Manager,' Julie Zhuo shares her personal journey and insights from her experience as a manager at Facebook. The book emphasizes that great managers are made, not born, and provides practical advice on key aspects of management such as building and nurturing a strong team, running productive meetings, giving feedback, and developing self-awareness. Zhuo highlights the importance of focusing on purpose, people, and process to achieve better outcomes and create a healthy team culture. The book is filled with everyday examples and transformative insights, making it a valuable resource for new and veteran managers alike.
In 'Obviously Awesome,' April Dunford provides a practical, step-by-step guide on product positioning. Drawing from her extensive experience in tech marketing, Dunford explains how to identify a product's 'secret sauce' and sell it to the right audience. The book covers key topics such as the five components of effective positioning, how to connect an audience to the product's value, choosing the best market, and leveraging market trends. It is punctuated with witty anecdotes and compelling case studies, making it both entertaining and illuminating for entrepreneurs, marketers, and salespeople.
If you ever wanted to distill 3,310 hours of knowledge into 60 minutes, then this episode is for you. For the last 6 months, Lenny’s Podcast has been downloaded more than 2 million times and is now a top 10 technology podcast across both Apple and Spotify. And in this special episode, I’m breaking down the top 10 most downloaded episodes, plus sharing my favorite lessons from each. It's unlike anything I've done before, and I hope you love it. Happy holidays, happy new year, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening, sharing, and for supporting the podcast. I’ll see you in 2023!
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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/countdown-of-the-top-10-episodes-of-the-year/#transcript
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
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• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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The 10 most downloaded episodes of 2022:
* April Dunford on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/april-dunford-on-product-positioning-segmentation-and-optimizing-your-sales-process/
* Crystal Widjaja on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-scrappily-hire-for-measure-and-unlock-growth-crystal-widjaja-gojek-and-kumu/
* Julie Zhuo on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/julie-zhuo-on-accelerating-your-career-impostor-syndrome-writing-building-product-sense-using-intuition-vs-data-hiring-designers-and-moving-into-management/
* Shishir Mehrotra on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-rituals-of-great-teams-shishir-mehrotra-coda-youtube-microsoft/
* Kristen Berman on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/using-behavioral-science-to-improve-your-product-kristen-berman-irrational-labs/
* Elena Verna on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/elena-verna-on-how-b2b-growth-is-changing-product-led-growth-product-led-sales-why-you-should-go-freemium-not-trial-what-features-to-make-free-and-much-more/
* Ethan Smith on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-seo-ethan-smith-graphite/
* Shreyas Doshi on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/shreyas-doshi-on-pre-mortems-the-lno-framework-the-three-levels-of-product-work-why-most-execution-problems-are-strategy-problems-and-roi-vs-opportunity-cost-thinking/
* Marty Cagan on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-nature-of-product-marty-cagan-silicon-valley-product-group/
* Matt Mochary on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-fire-people-with-grace-work-through-fear-and-nurture-innovation-matt-mochary-ceo-coach/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) About this episode
(02:46) April Dunford on positioning your product
(07:16) Crystal Widjaja on why most analytics efforts fail
(11:42) Julie Zhuo on overcoming imposter syndrome
(19:14) Shishir Mehrotra’s favorite interview question
(23:27) Shishir Mehrotra’s PSHE career growth framework
(27:10) Kristen Berman on using behavioral science to improve your product
(33:29) Elena Verna on why retention is so important
(36:31) Elena Verna on what to put into your freemium product
(37:57) Ethan Smith on how people often under-resource SEO
(38:46) Ethan Smith on when it’s time to invest in SEO
(42:41) Shreyas Doshi’s LNO Framework
(50:12) Marty Cagan on why big companies are often bad at product
(51:46) Marty Cagan’s four steps to being a good product manager
(53:48) Matt Mochary on the power of small teams
(57:17) Matt Mochary’s advice for making hard conversations easier
(59:05) Other episodes that left a lasting impact
(59:40) Thank you for joining me (Lenny) on this incredible journey
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