Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber)

Dec 3, 2023

Ebi Atawodi, Director of Product Management for Creator Experience at YouTube and a seasoned expert from Uber and Netflix, shares her insights on crafting compelling product visions. She discusses the four key elements of a strong vision statement and the importance of storytelling and user engagement. Ebi emphasizes the critical role of company culture in product management and offers actionable tips for structuring strategy sessions. She also highlights YouTube's commitment to empowering creators with innovative tools that put empathy at the forefront.

01:39:46

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Episode guests

Ebi Atawodi

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Quick takeaways

Develop a product vision by empathizing with users, studying competitors, and iterating on user problems.

Evangelize the vision by ensuring team understanding and alignment, involving stakeholders, and communicating beyond the next year.

Update your mental model of customers through user research, product immersion, and intuition, and trust your gut in decision-making.

Product management requires clarity in defining problems and conviction in decision-making, while the company culture shapes product outcomes.

Deep dives

Developing a Vision: The Empathize Step

To develop a vision for your product, start by empathizing with your users. Use your own product and study competitors' products to gain insights. Create a living document that highlights the top 10 problems users face with your product and update it regularly. Use this document to foster discussions with stakeholders and iterate on the problems. This step will help you gain clarity on the problems you're trying to solve and inform your overall vision.

The Four Pillars of a Product Manager

03:31

Lofty yet Realistic Vision

02:14

The Power of Storytelling in Product Management

02:12

Bringing Clarity: Product Management and Communication

01:57

Intro

4min

Crafting a Compelling Product Vision

3min

Crafting Compelling Product Visions

20min

Crafting a Compelling Product Vision

24min

Crafting Effective Product Vision Through Questions and Clarity

4min

Strategic Clarity in Product Management

10min

Cultivating Conviction and Culture in Product Management

21min

Empowering Creators on YouTube

5min

Books and Beyond: Favorites and Recommendations

4min

10.

Personal Responsibility and Creative Passion

5min

Ebi Atawodi is Director of Product Management for the Creator Experience at YouTube, former Head of Product at Uber, and a former Director of Product (Payments and EMEA) at Netflix. Known for crafting a strong, unified vision, Ebi empowers her teams to achieve outsized outcomes. In today’s episode, we go deep into vision and strategy, including:

• The four key elements of a good vision statement

• Three ways to determine your mission

• The four pillars of great product management

• How writing helps you gain clarity

• How culture influences product

• Tips on how to structure a strategy session

• Advice on building team culture and improving work relationships

• What’s coming soon at YouTube

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Brought to you by Sidebar—Accelerate your career by surrounding yourself with extraordinary peers | Jira Product Discovery—Atlassian’s new prioritization and roadmapping tool built for product teams | Wix Studio—The web creation platform built for agencies

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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/crafting-a-compelling-product-vision

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Where to find Ebi Atawodi:

• X: https://twitter.com/ebiatawodi

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ebiatawodi

• YouTube mixes: https://www.youtube.com/@EbiAtawodi/videos

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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/