How I Grew This

As product leaders, you might be looking at road maps for 1-3 years from now, but our next guest is someone who seeks a challenge that takes a decade to solve. Loni Stark is the Senior Director of Strategy and Product at Adobe; fittingly, she works for Adobe; she is both a technical product leader and a creative artist with hobbies like a painting. She was inspired by her mother, who was the only woman in her job and pursued engineering, eventually landing at Stanford, where she focused on product management. At Stanford and in her early work, she learned how many critical components there are to a product's success, like the right partners, vendors, timing, and market need. She discusses the bittersweet challenge of solving long term problems, and she dives into how switching to the cloud was one of those challenges for Adobe and how they came out successfully. More on Loni's story, including how she made fake product one-pagers to get advice from other product managers, how she's trying to make enterprise onboarding as easy as consumer products, and more on this episode of How I Grew This. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and more.

Grant Ingersoll, Chief Technology Officer of Wikimedia, joined us on the podcast this week to discuss his experience navigating his own career through identity and knowledge equity. He shares the path that led him to his current role and why he chose to take a bet on himself and start his own company. More on Grant’s story, including his beliefs that people’s views of themselves can be blockers for their own personal growth, why he is constantly reinventing himself as a founder, and Wikimedia’s roadmap to make their knowledge base reflect the global community, are shared in this episode of How I Grew This. Listen now on Apple Podcasts Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more.

Today’s guest is Stuart Jones, the Head of Product at ITV Hub, an on demand streaming service in the UK. Stuart discusses how the pandemic has affected the television industry in many ways, specifically in the lack of available content along with the call for changes to their subscription model. More on Stuart’s story, including his early start as an airplane engineer apprentice, how his experience in various sectors brought him to TV, and his take on changing viewer habits in light of the pandemic are shared on this episode of How I Grew This. Listen now on Apple Podcasts Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more.

Martijn Lancee is the Senior Manager for Mobile Growth and Business Strategy on LinkedIn, where he has grown as a product leader over the past three years. Before LinkedIn, Martijn spent eight years at Google, where he was responsible for developing and implementing Google's app distribution strategy focused on preloads and pre-installs. Working on mobile growth preloads as a strategy, Martijn advises developers to launch a test with Digital Turbine and ironSource to understand how preloads could work for them. The challenging part is that you have to build that trust in time. Converting desktop and web users to start using your app offers more engagement and monetization. To convert users, you should constantly make effective app banners and let your users know about the benefits of using the app. You need to drive member value when launching a new feature or app. LinkedIn puts a lot of effort into ensuring that the platform is valuable to everyone with a job or looking for a job.

Tech professionals, especially those who work in product, are not necessarily the folks who first come to mind when discussing the topic of creativity. However, there is a shifting viewpoint that argues a healthy level of creativity and optimism is essential to these functions due to the responsibility of bringing technological advancements and game-changing content to a global audience. Michael Sippey, Chief Product Officer at Medium, joins the podcast to discuss his ideas regarding the inherent optimism required when creating something to share with the world, whether it’s a new app, a blog article and beyond. More on Michael’s story including his early experience running product at Twitter, the mistake he’s repeatedly made in his career that finally changed his perspective, and why he says product managers should never write an unordered list, are featured on this episode of How I Grew This. Listen now on Apple Podcasts Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more.

When it comes to your career, taking the road less traveled will often serve you well. Knowing exactly what you’re passionate about, what you’re naturally good at and what you want to accomplish on your career path are essential components needed to live a life of intent. Today’s guest is Ana Guillen, the Senior Director of Marketing at TuneIn. She has been intentional about growing her career ever since her first job working at a local music store at 13 years old and utilizes this intent in all aspects of both her personal and professional life. Take a listen to hear more about Ana’s experience working for one of the industry’s leading record labels, her strategy for crafting intentional marketing campaigns that engage valuable lifetime users, and how she finally learned to trust her instincts. Hear all these stories and more on this episode of How I Grew This. Listen now on Apple Podcasts Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more.

Surendra Bashani, Senior Director of Product Management at Best Buy, joins us in the next episode of How I Grew This podcast. Surendra describes his role at Best Buy, where he focuses on various programs to see how customers behave and improve their customer experience. To measure the success of the programs, the team checks the metrics from adoption to increase engagement. They also measure customer feedback through CSAT surveys, customer satisfaction surveys, NPS, and store associates’ feedback and experiences. Growing a business depends on the company, the product's life cycle, and the problems you can solve. There are two parts to grow, marketing and creating value for customers. Furthermore, Surendra talks about the impact of mobile technology on business growth. Three main elements drive the adoption of AR and VR. Firstly, the speed and power of hardware and AI on smartphones. Secondly, faster data. Thirdly, customers' interest in the metaverse and emerging gaming experience. Finally, Surendra gives valuable advice for people who want to become successful product managers and leaders. If you also want to become a top product leader, listen to this episode of How I Grew This podcast.

Jean-Sebastien Laverge, the Chief Growth Officer at Tilting Point, joins us in the next episode of How I Grew This podcast. As a CGO, JS oversees more than forty game titles. Before Tilting Point, he worked for twelve years at Gameloft, where he helped generate significant annual revenues by developing retention and monetization strategies. Tilting Point is a leading award-winning free-to-play games publisher that empowers independent developers to accelerate their growth. It started as a premium game publisher then shifted to the freemium model. The team has now built a new model called progressive publishing. Some of the company's most successful games include Star Trek Timelines, Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest, and SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off. Tilting Point approaches growth in three directions. Firstly, paid growth, which is about user acquisition. Secondly, organic growth includes ASO, distribution platform optimization, IP integration, and marketing buzz. And lastly, monetization growth improves the user's LTV. Some of the most impactful paid channels remain Facebook and Google. When you synchronize the three axes you can unlock maximum growth for your game. According to JS, to engage and bring people back into the game, you can advertise specific offers or push notifications and emails. If you want to start in the gaming industry, you need to be passionate about it, be analytical, and understand data and statistics. If you are a leader in the gaming industry, be transparent and find good talent to help and support you.

Diego Dzodan, the co-founder and CEO of Facily, joins us in the next episode of How I Grew This podcast. Before starting Facily, Diego worked for Facebook and Instagram as the VP of Latam. He spent ten years at SAP, where he focused on driving growth across countries by strengthening relationships with customers while working with them to innovate and deliver business value. Facily is the leading social commerce marketplace in Brazil. It operates in nine Brazilian cities and has over 12,000 pick-up points. Faci.ly focuses on lower-income segments of the market and tries to offer the best possible prices to its consumers. To achieve that, Facily connects the consumer and the producer and helps with logistics. Facily also asks their customers to form groups to buy at better prices. One of the main priorities Faci.ly has is getting the operations on track to continue to scale and increase the efficiency under which it can deliver orders. The company wants to expand in all major cities across Brazil and test in Mexico and Colombia. Working in the corporate world results in gaining many valuable insights and lessons when starting a business. You encounter all the positive and negative aspects of the business world. It becomes easier to think big when you have seen big companies perform well and you learn how to plan for the long-term. But one of the main lessons that exceed the corporate world is learning to stay close to details and build something different from what the market offers. Leaving a good job and starting a business requires you to be prepared from many angles. First, take your finances into account. Second, having your family's support is crucial. Third, you need to be emotionally ready to take that step.

The pandemic has certainly brought about many changes to the world - one of them being how companies do business. Since the onset, marketers from various industries have been working to figure out how to stay relevant and continue to appeal to consumers when priorities and advertising systems are constantly evolving. Today’s guest is Jason Wilson, Overstock.com’s Director of Marketing. He shares how he’s led his digital marketing team to success in a time when consumer spending habits have been drastically altered. More on Jason’s story, including how he effectively grew a campaign 44% without having to increase his budget, his take on the four new pillars of digital marketing, and how Overstock.com was uniquely positioned to survive the economic downturn of the pandemic, are featured on this episode of How I Grew This. Listen now on Apple Podcasts Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more.