Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Unorthodox frameworks for growing your product, career, and impact | Bangaly Kaba (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Instacart)
Episode guests
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- Choose where to work based on a vision aligned with your values and impact factor.
- Strategically use 'understand work' to de-risk projects and drive impactful decisions.
- Elevate thinking levels by applying Bloom's Taxonomy to make informed managerial decisions.
- Empower product managers by treating them like logical adults and fostering role players.
- Implement flywheels in multi-sided marketplaces by understanding user motivations and optimizing user experiences.
Deep dives
Understanding the Framework of Change: Vision, Skills, Incentives, Resources, and Action Plan
To drive change effectively, Bengali Kaaba discusses a framework comprising vision, skills, incentives, resources, and action plans. Each component is crucial for successful transformation within a team.
The Concept of 'Understand Work' to Improve Product Efficiency
The importance of 'understand work' is highlighted as a strategic tool to enhance product efficiency. By focusing on understanding problems before execution, teams can de-risk projects, increase clarity, and drive impactful decisions.
Improving Team Culture through Education Principles
Drawing parallels between education and product management, Bengali underscores the importance of communication, influential skills, and molding team behavior to align with shared goals. He utilizes educational frameworks like Bloom's Taxonomy to identify and address gaps within teams.
Empowering Managers to Elevate Thinking Levels
Bengali emphasizes the need for managers to elevate their thinking levels using Bloom's Taxonomy as a guide. It's essential for managers to grasp core knowledge, comprehend, apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information to make informed decisions and guide their teams effectively.
Managing Influence and Empowering Teams in Product Management
Empowering product managers involves treating them like logical adults, akin to influencing a group of seven-year-olds. Managing these skills is crucial, akin to coaching a team in a sports game. Recognizing the importance of fostering role players and building a strong leadership tree are key aspects of successful product leadership.
Utilizing Flywheels for Growth in Product Strategies
Implementing flywheels, especially in multi-sided marketplaces like YouTube, involves understanding user motivations and interactions to drive growth. Examples include adjusting search algorithms based on user history and enabling creators in content monetization. Connecting the dots in growth loops and optimizing user experiences are essential for sustainable growth strategies.
Addressing Account Access Churn for Improved Product Experience
Addressing account access challenges, such as difficulty in logging out and back in, can significantly impact user retention. Simplifying the login process, providing proactive notifications, and facilitating account management options can enhance user experience and drive retention rates.
Valuing Human Connections and Understanding Systems in Team Dynamics
Engaging with team members on a personal level and understanding their stories can foster stronger connections and collaboration within a team. Recognizing that teams often reflect the effectiveness of their systems emphasizes the importance of building and nurturing supportive structures for success.
Cultivating Diversity in Voices for Product Innovation and Global Impact
Embracing a diverse range of voices and perspectives is crucial for developing inclusive products that resonate on a global scale. Learning from varied experiences and viewpoints can enrich product development processes and drive innovation towards solutions that resonate with diverse audiences.
Reflecting on Life Lessons from School Dean Experience and Human Relations
The experience as a school dean in a boarding school highlighted the significance of understanding individual stories and building connections with people from diverse backgrounds. Learning from human challenges and embracing universal values of empathy and inclusivity resonates in professional and personal interactions, shaping a holistic approach to leadership and team dynamics.
Bangaly Kaba was an early growth PM at Facebook, head of growth at Instagram, and VP of Product at Instacart and is currently Director of Product at YouTube overseeing a global team working on creator monetization. Bangaly has also been a growth advisor to dozens of companies, including Twitter, on the board of multiple companies, and is an active angel investor. In our conversation, we discuss:
• A simple framework for choosing where to work and what to work on
• The importance of “understand work”
• The “adjacent users” theory and how it can help you drive growth
• Advice for coaching product managers
• Invaluable lessons from his time at Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube
• Much more
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Find the transcript and references at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/frameworks-for-growing-your-career-bangaly-kaba
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Where to find Bangaly Kaba:
• X: https://twitter.com/iambangaly
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iambangaly/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iambangaly/
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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) Bangaly’s background
(06:31) Choosing where to work and what to work on
(08:39) The impact factor
(10:53) Evaluating the environment
(15:53) The manager component
(18:27) The skills part of the equation
(23:49) Advice on finding a mentor
(25:42) The power of “understand work”
(31:17) Operationalizing understand work
(37:55) Balancing understand work
(41:25) Managing complex change
(45:26) Effective management of product managers
(51:35) The role of product managers as coaches and team leaders
(54:52) Driving growth through flywheels and value proposition
(01:03:14) Understanding adjacent users
(01:08:41) The role of partnerships and SEO in Instagram’s early growth
(01:16:08) The secret behind Instagram’s growth
(01:25:37) Lessons from Facebook
(01:29:15) Failure corner
(01:31:58) Lightning round
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Referenced:
• Impact = Environment x Skills: How to Make Career Decisions: https://www.reforge.com/blog/how-to-make-career-decisions
• Thinking beyond frameworks | Casey Winters (Pinterest, Eventbrite, Airbnb, Tinder, Canva, Reddit, Grubhub): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/thinking-beyond-frameworks-casey
• Casey Winters’s blog: https://caseyaccidental.com/
• Ben Thompson’s newsletter: https://stratechery.com/about/
• 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: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/elena-verna-on-why-every-company
• George Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geolee/
• Bangaly Kaba: The Path to 1 Billion: Lessons Learned from Growing Instagram—CXL LIVE 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9ZHlb6kj_E
• What Is ‘Dogfooding’?: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/business/dogfooding.html
• Bloom’s taxonomy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy
• Kevin Systrom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinsystrom/
• Mike Krieger on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikekrieger/
• LeBron James: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeBron_James
• Kobe Bryant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_Bryant
• Mike Krzyzewski: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Krzyzewski
• John Calipari: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calipari
• Stripe: https://stripe.com/
• Chief: https://chief.com/
• Jobs to be done framework: https://jobs-to-be-done.com/jobs-to-be-done-a-framework-for-customer-needs-c883cbf61c90
• The Adjacent User: https://brianbalfour.com/quick-takes/the-adjacent-user
• How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-the-biggest-consumer-apps-got
• Alex Zhu on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keepsilence/
• From Brush to Canvas with Alex Zhu of Musical.ly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey15v81pwII
• Selena Gomez on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/selenagomez/
• Kim Kardashian on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimkardashian/
• Rob Andrews on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robby-andrews-64669720/
• Instagram’s growth speeds up as it hits 700 million users: https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/instagram-700-million-users/
• Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World: https://www.amazon.com/Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized-World/dp/0735214484
• Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/1455586692
• Start at the End: How to Build Products That Create Change: https://www.amazon.com/Start-End-Products-Create-Change/dp/0525534423
• Flighty app: https://www.flightyapp.com/
• Adam Grant on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamgrant/
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
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