Product Innovation Series with Aram Melkoumov

What’s it like to run a team from Seattle that’s largely based all the way in India? And how can you develop your product using an evolutionary perspective? Get answers on today’s show - because today’s guest does both of those things.About Carmen WilliamsCarmen Williams is the Head of Product Marketing at Zuper; but, she’s also a Chief Evolution Officer. Her zone of genius is in leveraging evolutionary science to help companies grow. Carmen holds a Unicist Masters in Science of Evolution. Alongside her work at Zuper, she is a fractional CMO at DayEDigital.com and a board member at AdvisoryCloud.  SHOW NOTES:00:00 | Who is Carmen Williams?01:03 | What is an Evolution Officer and what does Zuper do? 02:48 | Building a team based in India04:05 | What does a product marketer do at Zuper? 08:14 | How to run an India-based R&D team09:33 | What metrics does a product marketer care about?10:41 | Which features should you build?14:30 | Failed website launch: what went wrong? 17:49 | What product marketers miss19:19 | Biggest product marketing insight20:27 | Fireside: hiring, thought leadership, working for free, evolution theory with reading, growth mindset QUOTES:(23:00) “Once you’re thinking about your next career move, pick learning. Pick knowledge and the pay will come.” (24:13) “If you do have that capacity for empathy then constantly be working on your growth mindset - that ability to put yourself in other people’s shoes, to self-reflect, to evaluate, to adapt, to get rid of fear. That is the number one obstacle to growth, your fear of change.” Follow Carmen Williamshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/carmenlwilliams/ Work with Crowdlinker: https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

How do you make sure you’re building product processes that scale? Can a new product manager easily pick up where you left off? Find out why hiring her first associate PM shook our guest today. About Rachel FolzRachel Folz is the Director of Product at Cerkl. In fact, she was team member #3 there - right after the two co-founders. They started working together after Rachel took great interest in the product as an active and invested user. Being a pioneer at Cerkl, she helped form the product team and all the processes that come with the territory.  In a previous life, Rachel was a journalist for over five years. Links we mentioned: Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug: https://www.amazon.ca/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758 INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan: https://www.amazon.ca/INSPIRED-Create-Tech-Products-Customers-ebook/dp/B077NRB36N Radical Candor: Fully Revised & Updated Edition: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott: https://www.amazon.ca/Radical-Candor-Revised-Kick-Ass-Humanity/dp/1250235375 Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday: https://www.amazon.ca/Ego-Enemy-Ryan-Holiday/dp/1591847818 SHOW NOTES:00:00 | Who is Rachel Folz00:28 | What’s exciting about product management?02:18 | What is Cerkl? 04:19 | First things a new project manager must do07:29 | Product growth tipping point08:40 | How to have a great relationship with your principal designer  10:31 | The secret to managing roles between designers and developers11:46 | User testing process at Cerkl15:46 | How to filter out bad advice17:39 | Bad product advice on Reddit 18:19 | Hiring the first associate product manager (wake up moment)21:28 | Don’t let great get in the way of good 22:24 | Passionless products23:13 | Fireside: practice, rephrasing, listening, execution vs. strategy, it’s not always funQUOTES:(06:56) “My favourite question in user testing is: if you could wave a magic wand and change three things about your work inside [product] every day, what would you change?”(10:02) “A designer is more than just a person who can move the pixels around for you. What they are is another creative partner who has a different kind of mind than you do - that can help you see around corners.” (23:51) “You don’t want a product full of buttons, toggles, and switches - you want one that makes an impact.” Follow Rachel Folzhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelfolz/ Work with Crowdlinker: https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

About AhmadAhmad Kadhim is a software product leader who’s been in tech for close to 10 years now, mostly in hybrid roles at early-stage startups. He has also been a veteran of three other marketplace startups like AquaMobile, #paid and 500px.Being cross-disciplinary played to his strengths as a zoom-in-zoom-out thinker. SHOW NOTES[01:10] Intro[01:30] Being A Product Leader Working Closely With Sales Teams[02:50] Collaborating[03:25] Digital Transformation[04:00] Product Leader Next Steps[06:50] First Customer Success[10:15] Overcoming Pitfalls[13:20] Rushing To Build Something[14:14] Wake Up Call Moments[17:35] Saying No To Feature Requests[18:37] Spending Your Gifted 5 Hours[19:35] Controversial Views[21:09] Community Manager vs Product Marketer[22:05] Personal Questions[24:57] OutroQUOTES:“Am I in the right direction at all or is this not landing?”  “Eventually, we started creating some systems, we started kind of teaching each other as much as we could about our disciplines so we could collaborate more effectively that way.” “Be patient with us, give us feedback.”“All the successful products I think we’ve worked on are ones where the product leaders spend most of their time talking and listening to the customers.” Connect with AhmadWebsite: https://ahmadkadhim.comLinkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/ahmadkadhimInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ahmadkadhim/OTHER LINKS FROM THIS PODCAST:https://aquamobileswim.comhttps://hashtagpaid.comhttps://500px.comShow note editor: www.fiverr.com/mickperryWork with Crowdlinker: https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

About Jeffrey GreeneJeffrey Greene is the Director of Product and Design at NinePatch. He has been working in the design space since 2006 and held roles such as Senior User Experience Designer at Quantros and Director Of Product Design at Stella Technology. He holds a Master’s degree in architecture from Harvard but didn’t work in architecture. Outside the office, Jeffrey enjoys reading books that expose people’s diverse life experiences from notable activists such as bell hooks, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin. Links We Mentioned: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't https://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/0066620996 In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing https://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-Elegance-Ideas-Something-Missing/dp/0385526504 SHOW NOTES:00:00 | Who is Jeffrey Greene00:31 | How to get leadership to hear you out03:54 | Being heard as a designer 08:35 | How to translate a pitch deck into reality14:55 | When things don’t go as planned (technical debt)19:01 | Why push design work to the end 22:56 | Mental models are so underrated  24:35 | Complex problems need simple solutions26:47 | Method acting for product managers: why it works 28:45 | Saying no to yourself31:22 | The joy of prototyping32:29 | Personal fireside questions: street food pub, leaving architecture, not having a “real job”...QUOTES:[02:17] “You have to try and get on leadership’s radar somehow. And hopefully, if you have good ideas, you just try and figure out a way to get those heard in any venue possible. Hopefully, there's at least one executive out there who's open to hearing things.”[25:08] “The more complex the problem, the simpler the solution has to be. You can't chase complexity with complexity so the more complicated something is, you have to really try and distill it down.” Follow Jeffrey Greene: https://www.linkedin.com/in/archisonic/ Work with Crowdlinker: https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

There’s too much focus on trendy concepts like being agile. There’s too much distortion because of ego and pride. How do you stay authentic, skip the trends, and have better judgment in your work as a product manager?  About Edoardo Ferrara-BardileEdoardo Ferrara-Bardile is a Senior Product Manager at N26. He started his career as an HR professional and transitioned into the product space as a self-taught individual. Being curious about technology, he eventually became a SAP consultant. Eventually, he held several product management roles. In another life, he would have become a carpenter. Links We Mentioned: Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/ Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products by Marty Kagan: https://www.amazon.com/EMPOWERED-Ordinary-Extraordinary-Products-Silicon/dp/111969129X SHOW NOTES:00:00 | Who is Edoardo Ferrara-Bardile00:52 | Not having a product background 06:36 | 2 issues with data 10:37 | How to remove bias from decision making 12:54 | Fake agile companies OR How to actually become agile16:48 | Discovery taking too long? OR Balancing discovery with delivery20:34 | Useful product management tools 22:43 | Who knows more than you?24:38 | Fireside: open-ended questions, going faster, negotiation, dataQUOTES:[08:21] “Data has two main issues. First, it doesn't give you everything. You may have tons of data but it won't give you everything. Second, it’s highly interpretable so it's how you will interpret data. It doesn't mean that data is telling you something -  it means that you are understanding something from the data. You have your biases, your previous experience,  your previous knowledge that will make you think of data in the way you do.”Follow Edoardo Ferrara-Bardile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edoardo-ferrara-bardile/ Work with Crowdlinker: https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

Being the first product person in a company is similar to being a detective. You have to expose, articulate, prioritize and map out the founder’s vision. Sometimes you’re met with skepticism and other times you’re misunderstood. Tune in for this PM’s story of being the first product person in his company. About Usama Khan Downloading the founder’s vision onto a product roadmap was Usama Khan’s job when he first started out at Stage 10 where he is Head of Product. He was the first product person there. Today, he leads a whole product team there. Usama has been working in the product space since 2013. He believes that one of the most valuable skills a product manager should hone is their ability to communicate and articulate the reasoning behind the decisions they make. SHOW NOTES:00:00 | Who is Usama Khan?00:37 | Being the first product person joining a company03:18 | Framework for uncovering the founder’s vision 09:22 | The hardest part of running a product department alone 13:39 | Building a product team from scratch 14:20 | Marginal improvements vs. shipping fast18:58 | Differentiating your product from clones/copycats 25:50 | 3 expectations every product manager has to juggle 33:27 | Fireside questions (researching your questions, understanding user behavior, prioritization, why data metrics aren’t enough, why product managers are misunderstood)QUOTES:[04:54] “When you have access to the founder you can try and understand, from his or her perspective, where they want to take the company, what’s the intention, and what their board thinks about it.” [33:54] “If you’ve thoroughly researched what you want to know from your users and stakeholders, you usually get better answers.”Follow Usama Khan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/usamashahidkhan/ Work with Crowdlinker: https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

About Aram Aram Melkoumov is the CEO of Crowdlinker. Crowdlinker is an end-to-end digital product studio based in Toronto and Barcelona. Crowdlinker turns 10 in the fall of 2022. He works with startups like Freshbooks and enterprises like Unilever. Follow Aram Melkoumov https://www.linkedin.com/in/melkoumov/?originalSubdomain=caWork with Crowdlinker: https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

Creating products that help people achieve their life goals requires a sober view of growth. Focus needs to always be purposeful, and distractions minimal. About Abhishek Abhishek Bhasin is Head of Product at Uplinq. He is a subject matter expert when it comes to credit. He is a product manager that has dedicated his career to financial inclusion. His other roles include being a Product Leader at TransUnion, a Senior Manager at RBC, and a Director at Equifax. Abhishek believes that the best decisions are made based on merit backed by data rather than democracy. His best investment is a piano he bought for his daughter. Links We Mentioned: Art of Happiness by The Dalai Lama: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Happiness-10th-Anniversary-Handbook/dp/1594488894 SHOW NOTES:00:05 | Who is Abhishek Bhasin? 00:54 | How to identify your purpose as a product manager (and stay focused on it)03:36 | What’s wrong with product-market fit (and what to watch out for)06:14 | Solutions vs. wishful thinking 08:38 | Managing multiple persona types when validating a product (customer segmentation)13:25 | Measuring traction before rushing to scale17:50 | Should product managers prioritize sales?21:01 | Sales-driven vs. product-led growth23:35 | Being a spokesperson for your customer OR How truly believing your idea makes a huge difference26:22 | Fire round questions (questioning assumptions, talking to people, democratic thinking)  QUOTES:[03:35] “The big problem with the word product-market fit is that the product comes first. I wish it was market-product but that doesn’t sound right”[17:35] “Product ARR is your key metric or gauge to see whether you’re gaining traction or falling behind.” [23:21] “if you are sales driven, then you’re always most likely playing a price game”Follow Abhishek Bhasinhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/abhishekbhasin Work with Crowdlinker: https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

About Mahdi FarraMahdi Farra began his fascination with products when he was just 14. Today, he is a Director of Product Design at Ronday. He held many various roles including Lead Product Designer at Airtime and Senior UX Designer at Rakuten Ready. Mahdi has many interesting ideas about common practices that, in his view, are nothing but expensive distractions. SummaryMahdi Farra joins Sergey to discuss a plethora of things he saw going wrong in his project management career. He tells the story of an expensive and time-consuming mistake he made in one of his posts at a startup and shares all the nuggets of insights he gained along the way. They then discuss other common practices that Mahdi believes should not take place. SHOW NOTES:00:05 | Who is Mahdi Farra? 00:37 | The worst product Mahdi worked on (an expensive lesson)04:48 | Building your own software vs. using an existing product09:30 | How to make sure your quality assurance is on point  13:25 | Why you shouldn’t invest in creating a design system 18:40 | Why you should ask your team to work on specific goals rather than high-level goals 24:11 | Having unrealistic expectations from your team (reality realignment)QUOTES:[08:06] “If you have a well-designed solution for a problem that nobody cares about, people are just going to look at it and say “Okay, this looks nice but I’m not going to use it”.”[14:25] “I don’t think you should invest in building your design system or building a design system in general. I think you should try to focus on the build speed in other ways. Do not complicate things by trying to make sure that everything is standardised.” Follow Mahdi Farrahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/mahdif/ Website: https://mahdif.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/mahdif Work with Crowdlinker: https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

About Filippo Di Trapani Filippo Di Trapani is a Director of Product Design at a Web 3 company called remx.xyz. Previously, he was a design lead at Automattic and Partner Operations Manager at Shopify. Creative work makes his heart happy. He wishes others would push him the way he pushes himself. SummaryFilippo and Aram have a conversation about web 3 and product management. Filippo compares his experience working with web 2 companies like Shopify and his experience working with web 3 companies like remx.xyz. In their conversation, they also discuss how to make remote work seamless and effective, how to avoid ambiguity when working remotely, the difference between SaaS products and web 3 products, what it would take for web 3 to become mainstream, and what the internet will look like when it is. Links We Mentioned Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela: https://www.amazon.com/Long-Walk-Freedom-Autobiography-Mandela/dp/0316548189 Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? By Seth Godin: https://www.amazon.com/Linchpin-Are-Indispensable-Seth-Godin/dp/1591844096 SHOW NOTES:00:10 | Who is Filippo Di Trapani and what is remx.xyz?01:02 | Jumping into Web 3.0 wearables at an early stage 02:55 | The difference between web 1, web 2, and web 3. 05:44 | How is creating a web 3 product different? 08:01 | The difference between web 3 products and SaaS products. 10:34 | How can web 3 technologies become more mainstream?13:26 | The biggest lessons Filippo learned at Shopify17:02 | Filippo’s experience working at a remote companies  19:01 | The secret formula to effective remote work 22:04 | Remote work epic fails 24:12 | The pitfall of sharing your product too late (it’s never too early)27:10 | Money can’t buy thorough processes 28:12 | The disadvantages of having people agree with you 29:40 | Fireside questions: distracting features, creative work, objectivity, and creating space for experimentation and play QUOTES:[26:10] “In the web 3 world, what we’ve embraced on our end is getting stuff out a lot earlier and maybe in states that we’re not 100% comfortable with. But, it’s always paid off to get something out to an audience and get their input versus keeping it inside and just building that extra feature or adding that polish. At the end of the day that stuff matters but at the same time I think it matters more to get things out in front of people.” Follow Filippo Di Trapanihttps://www.linkedin.com/in/filippoditrapani/ Work with Crowdlinker: https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact