Today, LogRocket’s VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, talks to Elizabeth Van Bergen, who leads product experience at Phillips, a global high-end auction house. In this episode we talked about: Creating a product experience for both tech novices and early adopters “One of our big things is always creating parity between experiences. We always want to create the journey for the client, we want to show people what they can do, not force them. We've really been able to also bring that online and offer them the digital space from a product standpoint. Some people just always prefer that personal high touch. But the idea for us is to be able to create an experience where for 80% of the clients it’s not necessary. So the 20% of the market that we're looking towards, the ultra-high net worth individuals, we will always be able to service them. But by being able to solve for the 80%, it gives our team the bandwidth and ability to focus on the ultra-high net worth individuals, whereas our tools help those early adopters." How the traditional auction industry went digital overnight “[The pandemic] was a reckoning for the whole world, but I think for an industry that is so rooted in tradition, like the auction world, it was the catalyst that drove everyone to really be interested in the change. It wasn't that people didn't know that it needed to happen, that we didn't need to change our digital offerings; it just wasn't the core of what we were doing. Changing something within the auction world can sometimes be like trying to move a mountain. You're trying to explain something that is maybe very foreign to what our specialists are used to doing; this is how we've done it for 20, 30 years. So the pandemic was great because it changed everybody's minds and it rerouted how people were thinking about things like 'What can I do for this client or what can I offer them digitally?'” And why the digital experience is as important as the functionality itself “Relationships within our industry are key. So you want people to keep coming back because, whether someone is a consigner or a buyer, both are clients. Either way, the company is making money and it's important to service both of those clients. So you always want people to be coming back. If you have a happy buyer, they come back, let's say maybe five, 10 years later and they sell, you have a happy consigner. So you also develop a brand loyalty and that trust is really key. So even though some of what we do is still, and will always be, in person, that digital aspect of it, if someone's trying to WhatsApp someone after a meeting and now all of a sudden that share option isn't providing the correct metadata that's supposed to be there, that can be really frustrating, and can also not always look as nice, and sometimes it just needs to look nice too." Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethvanbergen/ Chapters 00:00 Intro 00:54 Elizabeth Van Bergen's Background and Career Journey 02:15 The Art of Productizing Taste 03:22 Digital Transformation in the Auction Industry 05:17 Creating Seamless Digital Experiences 12:10 Navigating the Pandemic and Embracing Change 16:29 Leveraging Social Media and Data 21:36 Balancing Functionality and Experience 28:27 Collaborative Efforts and Future Directions 32:09 Outro Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket combines frontend monitoring, product analytics, and session replay to help software teams deliver the ideal product experience. Try LogRocket for free today.Special Guest: Elizabeth Van Bergen.

Today, our guest is Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear, a purpose-built tool for planning and building products. Prior to working at Linear, Nan worked at Mode, Abstract, Everlane, and Bank of America. On today’s episode, Nan talks to LogRocket’s VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, about: Why the only thing that matters is the next category launch — even if it’s held together with duct tape "You can have everything held together with duct tape and it's okay. And I think that's an uncomfortable sort of mindset for people to adopt really. At Everlane, the only thing that was important was the next category launch launch. You can sacrifice everything else. If the next category launch goes well, numbers go up, we raise more money, we get more customers. That's the only thing that matters." Why it’s important to have conviction in making decisions — even if the market slaps you in the face "But at the end of the day, you know, as a leader, you own the decisions that they're making. As a leader saying, 'Here's where we're going to be great and really differentiate and rise above the market.' And I could be wrong, right? I could be aggressively, tragically wrong, and that's fine. That's actually probably better, right? You want to know for sure that you're wrong and that you can switch directions; failing fast is a thing that we want to do. It's not like, 'Oh, well, we're gonna wait and see.' No, have some conviction around something, focus on it, and let the market slap you in the face if it's not correct." Why engineering teams can sometimes suffer from learned helplessness, and why it’s detrimental to product innovation "You see teams where there's a product manager per five or six engineers. And engineers will tend to check out a little bit from understanding how the product actually works, understanding the customer, because, well, we got this PM senior right here. It's not out of laziness necessarily, it's more like, well, this is someone's job description, so it wouldn't feel right for me to do that. And then you start having this learned helplessness. So I think that dynamic is probably way more dangerous than a product manager being overworked. If you end up in a state where your engineering team is like disengaged and they have learned helplessness, good luck trying to unwind that. That is a cultural change that you're not going to observe until it's too late, and it's very difficult to to reverse and it takes a long time." Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thenanyu/ Twitter: https://x.com/thenanyu?lang=en Chapters 00:00 Intro 02:09 Essential Tools for Product Managers 03:19 Career Highlights and Organizational Design 03:49 The Heirloom Tomato Analogy 04:18 Conway's Law and Communication Structures 06:11 Focus and Prioritization in Startups 06:53 Lessons from Everlane 13:23 Challenges in Organizational Design 24:02 The Dangers of Learned Helplessness in Engineering Teams 25:19 High Output Management: Key Principles 27:32 Team Structure and Soft Boundaries 31:07 The Aladdin Principle: Breaking Social Boundaries 31:49 Balancing Core Business and Checkbox Requirements 34:45 Linear's Unique Approach to Project Management 43:42 The Concept of Work Trials at Linear 47:00 Outro Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket combines frontend monitoring, product analytics, and session replay to help software teams deliver the ideal product experience. Try LogRocket for free today.Special Guest: Nan Yu.

Today, our guest is Oji Udezue, AI product expert, author, and an innovation-focused, multi-disciplined business leader. Oji has had an extensive and successful career, spanning his time as CPO of Typeform, Head of Product for Creation and Conversation at Twitter, CPO of Calendly, and Head of Product at Atlassian. Key takeaways: The “Zone of Benefit,” which helps assess market disruptiveness and emphasizes the need for a high value to price ratio to drive change in customers The concept of “forest time,” a practice of stepping back to gain strategic perspective Insights on product-led growth (PLG), emphasizing the importance of solving customer problems and adaptive business strategies. Links “Building Rocket Ships”: https://shop.damngravity.com/products/building-rocketships-udezue Writing: https://ojiudezue.substack.com/ Consulting: https://productmind.co Twitter: https://x.com/ojiudezue LinkedIn: https://linkedin/in/ojiudezue Leader Spotlight: Taking advantage of how humans behave, with Oji Udezue: https://tinyurl.com/bdhwkj5t Chapters 00:00 Intro 02:19 The Multifaceted Role of Product Management 04:48 Importance of Frameworks in Product Management 06:36 Adapting Frameworks to Different Companies 11:15 Understanding the Zone of Benefit 17:12 The Unicorn Framework for B2B SaaS 21:30 Building Rocket Ships: A Book for Senior Product Managers 25:32 Calendly's Success Story 30:00 Discovery: Finding Big Problems in Workflow 31:12 Simplifying Solutions with Slack 33:27 The Creators Initiative at Twitter 40:26 Forest Time: Gaining Perspective 46:14 The Importance of Listening to Your Team 48:06 Product-Led Growth (PLG) in Today's Economy 55:14 A/B Testing: When and How to Use It 59:31 Outro Follow LaunchPod on YouTube! Did you know we have a new channel dedicated to LaunchPod? Check it out and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@LaunchPod.byLogRocket What does LogRocket do? LogRocket combines frontend monitoring, product analytics, and session replay to help software teams deliver the ideal product experience. Try LogRocket for free today.Special Guest: Oji Udezue.

Today, our guest is Julie Acosta, Director of eComm and Marketing Analytics at NOBULL, a fast-growing Boston-based footwear and apparel brand. For Julie, curiosity has a funny way of making you change course. As she originally set out to avoid numbers by going to university for marketing, but as she began developing her career, she found that understanding and working with data made her more effective at understanding her customer base. It was at AutoZone, where her path really changed, as Julie went from merchandising to building AutoZone’s first eCommerce Analytics team from the ground up. By bridging the digital and in-store experiences, her team altered the company’s understanding of how the two were linked, including how new product lines can grow existing lines and how online customer behavior influences in-store purchases. Other key takeaways: How to balance data with usability and how analytics can’t always tell you everything How B&M and e-commerce are inextricably linked and by synchronizing the two you can create a cohesive customer journey strategy How to solve perceived customer cannibalization Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-acosta-89846b11/ Spotlight interview: https://shorturl.at/Md6SR Chapters 00:00 Intro 03:31 From AVL Boeing to AutoZone 04:09 Merchandising and Marketing at AutoZone 05:33 Building AutoZone's E-commerce and Analytics Team 07:05 The Importance of Curiosity and Team Building 16:23 Balancing Data and Customer Insights 20:43 Understanding the Human Element in Data 21:02 Hands-On Experience at AutoZone 22:07 Challenges and Innovations in E-Commerce 25:14 Performance Parts and Customer Insights 30:19 Balancing Online and Offline Metrics 35:38 Transition to NOBULL and New Challenges 40:30 Outro Follow LogRocket on TikTok! Love LaunchPod and the rest of LogRocket's great content? Follow us on TikTok for interview clips, UX tutorials, and more! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket combines frontend monitoring, product analytics, and session replay to help software teams deliver the ideal product experience. Try LogRocket for free today.Special Guest: Julie Acosta.

On today’s episode of LaunchPod, Jeff Wharton talks to Lauren Creedon, VP of Product at Goldcast, who formerly led product at Drift and Hudl. In this episode, we talked about: How to be a PM who thinks like a GM Her 1-5-50 product launch process, going from friendly alpha to open beta And the real-life lesson of what happens when you launch a product no one’s ready to sell—or buy Chapters 00:00 Intro: Meet Lauren Creedham 01:29 Lauren's Career Journey and Insights 02:50 The Importance of AI in Product Management 04:20 Revenue-Driven Product Management 14:06 The 1-5-50 Product Launch Process 17:26 PM Lessons from the Field 21:28 Building the Right Operating Culture 24:20 Measuring Success and Future-Proofing Your Career 32:25 Outro Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurencreedon/ Follow LogRocket on TikTok! Love LaunchPod and the rest of LogRocket's great content? Follow us on TikTok for interview clips, UX tutorials, and more! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket combines frontend monitoring, product analytics, and session replay to help software teams deliver the ideal product experience. Try LogRocket for free today.Special Guest: Lauren Creedon.

On today’s episode of LaunchPod, Jeff Wharton talks to Arman Javaherian, CEO & Co-Founder at Homa, about how he went from leading product at Shortcut, Zillow, and Crunchbase to then pivoting to a founder role at Homa AI. In this episode, we cover: Why product people should always be selling Why he says investors should only invest in founders that are product people Where AI can help product people today - and where it’s a dangerous distraction And A framework to avoid falling into a world of bad product decisions Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/armanjavaherian/ Homa AI: https://www.tryhoma.com/ Leadership Spotlight: https://blog.logrocket.com/product-management/leader-spotlight-arman-javaherian/ Follow LogRocket on TikTok! Love LaunchPod and the rest of LogRocket's great content? Follow us on TikTok for interview clips, UX tutorials, and more! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket combines frontend monitoring, product analytics, and session replay to help software teams deliver the ideal product experience. Try LogRocket for free today.

On today’s episode of LaunchPod, Jeff Wharton talks with Prabhath Nanisetty, Global Head of Industry for Retail Data, Technology, and Quick Commerce at Snowflake, about how his career started from working as an engineer at Proctor and Gamble where he transitioned into product and worked his way up to leadership at P&G, InfoScout/Numerator, and Snowflake. We got Prabhath’s take on: Why it’s not the model, it’s the inputs you use to get the model that’s important why you have to dig into the core details of the most important inputs How to look beyond just ROI to what really drives the business The packaging lesson every product manager should know Why honing his product skills at P&G, where PM was invented, set him up for his whole career Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prabhathnanisetty/ Leadership Spotlight: Bottling the benefits of failure, with Prabhath Nanisetty: https://blog.logrocket.com/product-management/leader-spotlight-prabhath-nanisetty/ References Run product like sales runs sales with Justin Anovick: https://youtu.be/QIF0qpr1G_8 Follow LogRocket on TikTok! Love LaunchPod and the rest of LogRocket's great content? Follow us on TikTok for interview clips, UX tutorials, and more! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket combines frontend monitoring, product analytics, and session replay to help software teams deliver the ideal product experience. Try LogRocket for free today.

Today, we’re talking with Caroline Albanese, Product Director of Data Products and Capabilities at Dow Jones. In this episode, we cover: Breaking down stakeholder groups into editorial, reader, and advertiser segments and how that drove her award-winning innovations in digital advertising products Why she asked Slate’s editorial team to break down where their paychecks come from and how it transformed the team’s understanding of advertising Her big “reality check“ moment when an ambitious project early on at Wall Street Journal didn’t go as planned Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinealbanese/ Twitter: https://x.com/calbanese Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Caroline Albanese 01:06 Caroline's Journey from Journalism to Product Management 05:43 Transition to Ziff Davis 09:11 The Importance of Cross-Functional Collaboration 15:06 Navigating Office Dynamics and Remote Work 24:04 Balancing Stakeholders at Slate 24:56 Revamping Slate's Website and Advertising Strategy 26:19 Understanding the Value of Advertising 31:21 Innovative User Research and Analytics 36:28 Joining Dow Jones and Achievements 44:20 Conclusion Follow LogRocket on TikTok! Love LaunchPod and the rest of LogRocket's great content? Follow us on TikTok for interview clips, UX tutorials, and more! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket combines frontend monitoring, product analytics, and session replay to help software teams deliver the ideal product experience. Try LogRocket for free today.

Today, our guest is Julie Acosta, Director of eComm and Marketing Analytics at NOBULL, a fast-growing Boston-based footwear and apparel brand. For Julie, curiosity has a funny way of making you change course. As she originally set out to avoid numbers by going to university for marketing, but as she began developing her career, she found that understanding and working with data made her more effective at understanding her customer base. It was at AutoZone, where her path really changed, as Julie went from merchandising to building AutoZone’s first eCommerce Analytics team from the ground up. By bridging the digital and in-store experiences, her team altered the company’s understanding of how the two were linked, including how new product lines can grow existing lines and how online customer behavior influences in-store purchases. Other key takeaways: How to balance data with usability and how analytics can’t always tell you everything “I have always had really smart people on my team, like data scientists that were just phenomenal at modeling and just doing some more advanced analytics. That team would be more focused on transactions and the other half of my team was more focused on behavior. And that was leveraging things like Adobe Analytics to go and understand what's going on from a customer journey standpoint. And so there was a lot of reading between the lines and mix of like art and science.” *** How B&M and e-commerce are inextricably linked and by synchronizing the two you can create a cohesive customer journey strategy** “Online was supplemental to our overall business; our true core business was brick and mortar. AutoZone has been very successful at that. Online is, a crucial part because you can't ignore it, but also knowing that from a conversion standpoint, we know a lot of customers are going online and then they're buying in-store.” “You need to cut through all the bullsh*t to get them to their end goal. And the only way to do that is going back to that consumer behavior, really understanding what was their intent of their journey. Do you really understand that as an owner of the website, whether you're a product owner, analytics, or a a merchant, do you understand why your customer is engaging with that product or engaging with that part of your site? If you do, great, make sure you've got a good vision on how to make it the best experience possible.” How to solve perceived customer cannibalization “At the end of the day, what it did show is that there really wasn't cannibalization happening. We were able to show through the numbers, through this additional offering, something that nobody thought something as simple as a lead time would draw up that much business. And it was significant.” Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-acosta-89846b11/ Spotlight interview: https://shorturl.at/Md6SR Chapters 00:00 Intro 01:28 From merchandising to marketing analytics 05:30 Building AutoZone’s e-commerce and analytics team 09:08 Balancing data and leadership 11:30 Understanding customer behavior through data 21:38 Bridging the online and offline customer experience 24:57 Leveraging new product lines to sell legacy products 35:35 Transition to NOBULL 40:35 Outro Follow LogRocket on TikTok! Love LaunchPod and the rest of LogRocket's great content? Follow us on TikTok for interview clips, UX tutorials, and more! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket combines frontend monitoring, product analytics, and session replay to help software teams deliver the ideal product experience. Try LogRocket for free today.Special Guest: Julie Acosta.

Today, we're re-running one of our favorite episodes with Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear, a purpose-built tool for planning and building products. Prior to working at Linear, Nan worked at Mode, Abstract, Everlane, and Bank of America. On today’s episode, Nan talks to LogRocket’s VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, about being intentional with organizational design, prioritizing tasks that make product special while minimizing unnecessary complexity, and what is so important about heirloom tomatoes. Links and references https://www.linkedin.com/in/thenanyu/ https://x.com/thenanyu Chapters 00:00 Intro 01:25 Essential tools for product managers 02:07 Career highlights and organizational design 05:27 Everlane's growth strategy 08:03 Focus and prioritization in startups 11:10 Challenges in organizational setup 15:23 Team dynamics and management 20:30 The importance of hiring based on need 20:52 High output management principles 22:46 Team structure and communication 26:31 Balancing core and non-core tasks 29:13 The Linear approach to project management 33:48 Challenges with legacy project management tools 35:45 The philosophy behind Linear's design 37:40 Work trials at Linear 40:44 Outro What does LogRocket do? LogRocket provides AI-first session replay and analytics that surfaces UX and technical issues impacting user experiences. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Nan Yu.