LaunchPod | Product Management Podcast

Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear and seasoned expert in product management, shares her insights on the importance of strategic category launches and decisive leadership. She emphasizes that sometimes products can be held together with 'duct tape' and still succeed if the focus is on the next big launch. Nan also discusses the necessity of conviction in decision-making—advising leaders to embrace risk and learn from failures. With experience at companies like Everlane, she brings valuable perspectives on team dynamics and adaptive strategies in product management.

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.

Today, our guest is Isabel Petty, Head of Digital Product at TUSHY, a modern and sustainable bidet company. Isabel received her Masters of Technology Management degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, after which she became a category manager at Walmart and then joined Gritwell, a virtual health clinic, in growth and product development. Before her current role at TUSHY, she served as a senior product manager at Pattern Brands. On today's episode, LogRocket's VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, talks to Isabel about: How important digital leadership is in product and the problem-solving strategies she’s employed to grow product How TUSHY uses humor as a marketing strategy to tackle and normalize bathroom taboos and solidify customer trust How TUSHY’s poop-tracking app was created to detect early sins of colon cancer and promote gut health as a way to continue to scale TUSHY’s product offerings. Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabelpetty/ TUSHY website: https://hellotushy.com/ Isabel Petty’s LogRocket Spotlight interview: https://blog.logrocket.com/product-management/leader-spotlight-isabel-petty/ Poop Tracking App announcement: https://www.tiktok.com/@hellotushy/video/7355545782986018090 Chapters 00:00 Intro 00:08 What is TUSHY 01:38 Isabel’s role as Head of Digital Product at TUSHY 03:59 Going to school for product management 14:51 User feedback and research in product development at TUSHY 17:32 Challenges in customer research around taboo topics at TUSHY 19:14 Market and consumer product education 21:38 Addressing customer product issues and finding solutions at TUSHY 22:27 Growth strategies and product expansion 27:13 Building a poop tracking app 31:37 Balancing humor and health to reach customers and foster loyalty 33:51 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.