Head of Product, Sue Anderson, discusses how Trade Me keeps customers at the heart of product delivery. They explore the importance of spending time in the problem space, cross-functional challenges, and building a story with senior leadership. Focusing on customer problems has motivated TradeMe teams to release products quickly and foster a customer-centric mindset.
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Quick takeaways
Trade Me's customer-centric ethos aims to win customers' hearts and differentiate from competitors by embracing love and compassion as their indigenous values.
Trade Me improved their product practice by adopting a more unified approach, focusing on customer segmentation, learning-focused experimentation, cross-functional collaboration, and considering non-technical solutions through marketing and sales.
Deep dives
Customer Centric Ethos and Value Proposition of Trade Me
Trade Me is New Zealand's largest online marketplace and classifieds website, connecting millions of buyers and sellers across various verticals. Their customer-centric ethos, rooted in their indigenous values of love and compassion, aims to win customers' hearts and differentiate themselves from competitors. With over 7 million items available for browsing, Trade Me offers a wide range of products and services, including cars, properties, jobs, and clothing.
Uncovering and Addressing Fragmentation in Product Practice
Trade Me's journey to improve their product practice began by pausing and understanding their starting point. They identified the need to address fragmentation and lack of consistency in product roadmaps and approaches across teams. By leveraging a product practice maturity framework and conducting a broad but shallow assessment, they discovered opportunities for improvement. Key focus areas included being more precise in customer segmentation, adopting a learning-focused approach to experimentation, enhancing cross-functional collaboration, and considering non-technical solutions through marketing and sales. By creating a more unified approach, Trade Me aimed to drive customer value and improve efficiency.
Bringing Customer-Facing Teams into Product Discovery and Delivery
Trade Me recognized the importance of including customer-facing teams, such as marketing and sales, in the product discovery and delivery process. Collaborating closely with these teams helped to bring in diverse perspectives and better understand customer pain points. By involving them in the initial stages, Trade Me fostered empathy and ensured that customer needs were considered throughout the design and development of solutions. This approach led to improved decision-making, faster delivery, and a more outcome-focused mindset. Examples include collaborating on onboarding journeys and involving sales teams in breaking down feature releases into smaller increments for faster learning and feedback.
Precision in understanding the customer, shift in experimentation, cross-functional challenges, involving marketing and sales, and strategic communication
Customer-centricity is essential for successful product delivery. Head of Product, Sue Anderson shares how Trade Me keeps its customers at the heart of the product delivery process, and how the renowned New Zealand website constantly strives to do better. This episode is a must-listen for product or business leaders looking to embrace a more customer-led mindset across their organization and teams.
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