Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. This time, Marc and Ben sat down with Melissa Perri, author of Escaping the Build Trap and one of the world’s leading product strategy experts. Melissa shares lessons from advising CEOs, founders, and product leaders on how to build strategy that works, scale from VP to CPO, and navigate the often tricky dynamic between founder-CEOs and product leaders.
They also explore how AI is shifting product management and why the fundamentals still matter more than ever. Whether you’re a founder, product leader, or operator, this conversation is packed with practical advice on how to step up as your company grows.
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In this episode, we covered the following topics:
* Why product strategy often fails and how to fix it
* The mindset shift required to go from VP to CPO
* How founders and product leaders can build better working relationships
* The most common mistakes founders make when hiring product leaders
* Why CPO tenures are so short—and what successful partnerships look like
* How product leaders can proactively level up and scale with their company
* The double-edged sword of AI in product development
* Where AI accelerates product work and where human judgment still matters
* And more!
If you’d like to watch the video of our conversation, you can catch that on YouTube:
Links:
* Melissa Perri Website: https://melissaperri.com/
* Melissa Perri LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissajeanperri/
* The Product Institute: https://productinstitute.com/
* The Product Thinking Podcast: https://www.produxlabs.com/product-thinking
* Melissa’s Book: Escaping The Build Trap
* Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benerez/
* Marc: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbaselga/
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