Product Innovation Series with Aram Melkoumov

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips and DMs.About Pavan SinghPavan Singh is the Vice President Of Product Management at Lynx Software Technologies where he works on enterprise infrastructure. He earned his MBA from the Kellog School of Business at Northwestern. Amongst other previous roles, he had a 6-year career at Cisco performing various leadership roles. If he wasn’t a product person, Pavan would want to be a public speaker. SHOW NOTES:00:00 | Who is Pavan Singh?00:34 | What is enterprise infrastructure? 03:21 | Mission-critical edge: how to make software last for 15 years.06:52 | Enterprise infrastructure vs. product management 09:10 | How to make SaaS products last longer11:25 | Dealing with unexpected requests when building enterprise infrastructure 15:27 | Two ways enterprise infrastructure goes wrong 17:50 | Balancing white-glove offerings with startup growth 20:48 | How many big ideas should you focus on (and 3 ways to validate them)? 26:48 | Using partnerships to tap into easy revenue expansion29:14 | Observing the customer vs. interviewing the customer 32:44 | Rapid fire questions: asking better questions, what to do instead of saying no, speed of innovation, in-person meetups, product innovation. QUOTES:[07:21] “Until a few generations of product back, it was okay that enterprise infrastructure product user experience wasn’t the best.  Now, it is no longer acceptable. Now the user experience of an enterprise infrastructure product really matters. And by user experience, I mean not just the UX but also APIs; the quality of APIs, how easily you integrate it with something else, does it comply with standards that make it easy for other products to be integrated?”[24:31] “We never talk about how internal alignment is as important, if not more, when it comes to innovation. It has to be aligned with the capabilities of the company, the culture, and the operational processes - it has to be aligned with what the new idea is. And more than that, it becomes about people. Does the company have the right people who have done similar things and have the know-how?.”Links We Mentioned:Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/0066620996 Follow Pavan Singh https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavansingh/ Work with Crowdlinker: https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips and DMs.About Manuel Breschi Manuel Breschi is the director of product at Typeform. Typeform is a no-code SaaS platform with tools that help companies grow their businesses by engaging with their audience. He studied at the University of Illinois, where he did his MBA, and has expertise in product engineering, business management, and marketing.SHOW NOTES:00:11 | Episode intro and a quick bio of Manuel Breschi01:32 | Manuel's journey consulting, entrepreneurship, and then product management04:30 | Given an opportunity, where would he invest between Europe and the USA06:43 | How to counter common decision-making biases in product management09:00 | A data-driven bias and how it has affected his product decision-making process13:46 | How to effectively leverage a product’s historical data to make better decisions 15:43 | Other common product biases that can impact a good decision-making process18:47 | How can a product team successfully approach decision thinking20:50 | An exercise he has done to check his PM’s assumption process21:59 | The worst product that Manuel has ever worked with, and why27:20 | Rapid Fire Round31:25 | Guest’s takeaway and end of the showQUOTES:“If you think that you can measure the future performance of a product based on the past history, you will be disappointed.”  [11:34]“It’s better to be data-aware than data-driven because if you derive decisions based on data, that is not enough.” [11:46]“Before creating any product, you should always think of the substitute competitors out there. You don't go to the market to compete with somebody but with substitutes.” [23:48]Connect With Manuel Breschi:Website: https://www.manuelbreschi.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuelbreschi/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manuelbreschireal/Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/drmanuelbreschi

Fear and anxiety can derail excellent products. This episode is all about how not to fall into the anxiety trap or become a prisoner of your fear as a product manager. Our guest, Stephen Grillos, shares how he stays strong even in contentious moments with CEOs.SHOW NOTES:0:00 | Who is Stephen Grillos?01:57 | How martial arts and product management are connected03:40 | Fail fast, NOT ship fast04:39 | How fear can make you build the wrong thing07:21 | Your job as a project manager is entirely based on influence08:58 | How most projects fall apart10:49 | How often should you talk about vision?13:38 | 3 principles for shipping great products every time20:17 | Not letting your ego dictate how you ship your product23:36 | How to get out of a moment of anxiety (when presenting the product to your CEO)26:49 | The #1 reason why frameworks don’t work29:15 | Focusing on why we build more than on how we build31:00 | The easiest way to ask better product questions 31:13 | Stop adding new features31:30 | More snappy fireside questions (personal and professional)32:35 | Book recommendations QUOTES:“People just say fail fast and really mean ship fast and they don’t actually learn from the thing that they’re shipping.”[04:09]“I don’t care if it’s the first line of the spec, if people didn’t know it was in there that’s your fault. You know it is our job to drive clarity. It is our job to drive focus.”  [09:40]“I want to ship products that empower my users to do their job while also delivering value to the company, right? My ego has nothing to do with that, my ego can only mess that up.” [23:12] “Look, we’re all humans here. I want to be seen, heard, and understood. And as a product manager, your job is to see your customer, to understand your customer, and show them that you understand them. Not just tell them oh yeah, I’ll get to your thing in the future and blah blah blah.” [25:33] “The thing about these frameworks though is - they’re frameworks. You have to actually believe them.” [27:52]About Stephen GrillosStephen Grillos is an aspiring rockstar turned product manager. He is the Senior Director of Product at SiteRx and a Krav Maga instructor. Heavily influenced by his martial arts training, you’ll notice that Stephen prioritizes emotional intelligence in his actions when building and presenting a product. He is very cautious about how ego and the progress your make on your product can get entangled and disrupt your flow. He shares 3 principles that empower him to stay sharp and put his ego in its place when it matters most.Resources we mentioned:Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss (FBI negotiator)Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice by Clayton M ChristensenThe Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan HolidayFollow Stephen Grillos:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephengrillos/ 

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips and DMs.About AramAram 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.SHOW NOTES:0:08 | What is staff augmentation and why do we need it? 01:28 | How to execute staff augmentation correctly. 03:13 | Staff augmentation: how to test for team fit to avoid difficulties05:36 | Why do companies choose to do staff augmentation? 09:04 | Staff augmentation for companies scaling past Series A09:50 | How are staff augmentation contracts structured? 12:46 | How much does staff augmentation cost? (squad model vs. time materials model)14:19 | Hiring a product studio vs. hiring a dev agency: what should you do and when?17:30 | How to select the right product studio for staff augmentation. 20:05 | Can you test product studios before hiring them for a big project? QUOTES:“Staff augmentation is a concept where you take, you know, individuals like a product manager, a developer, a designer -  and a company can hire those people and make them part of their team.” [00:27]“Squad model is really great for longer-term kind of projects, a few months long. Whereas time and materials model is good for open-ended shorter-term projects.” [13:55] “This is an onboarding period with any type of new project and like a honeymoon phase, right? So, you know you typically get to know pretty quickly whether or not the product studio that you hire is good or not based on how prepped and how ready they are coming into say the kickoff meeting or what are some of the questions they ask even during the sales process.” [19:05] Follow Aram Melkoumovhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/melkoumov/?originalSubdomain=caWork with Crowdlinker:https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips and DMs.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. SHOW NOTES:00:17 | What is product discovery? 01:25 | Who is normally involved in the product discovery process?03:21 | How long does the product discovery process take? 06:57 | How to have a more effective discovery process 09:39 | Top 3 questions clients ask about product discovery 12:01 | What your competitors CANNOT replicate15:10 | When you shouldn’t work with a product studio for product discovery17:45 | When you should work with a product studio for product discovery19:29 | Fluency in technology20:36 | Aram’s big audacious goal21:24 | Are you building the right thing?21:57 | The right time to spend money on your productQUOTES:“Discoveries can take various shapes and forms. On average, they take about four to six weeks. In situations when they could take less time, like 2-3 weeks, is dependent on the level of preparation that the client has put to date around that idea.” [03:39]“80-90% of the time, every product idea that you already have has already been done. And so, why try to go and reinvent the wheel as well when you could go and study the competitors. You could look at the market, you could do a tear down of like user flows or existing competitor solutions to see how they did it.” [07:43]“The more, kind of like, engagement you have with your users at the very beginning all the way through to launch and then post-launch via these communities is something that a competitor cannot go and replicate. That becomes, in many ways, your IP.” [13:01] Follow Aram Melkoumov https://www.linkedin.com/in/melkoumov/?originalSubdomain=caWork with Crowdlinker: https://www.crowdlinker.com/contact 

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips and DMs.As product managers, how much should we rely on data? How much does data tell us about our nuanced realities? Can user interviews be manipulated to confirm bias? Tune in as we explore these questions.About BlagojaBlagoja Golubovski is Vice President of Product Management at Visit.org. Among other roles, he previously was the Vice President of Product Management at Simpplr and the Director of Product Management at Vindicia. In any room, Blagoja is likely the least controversial; he brings people together into the center. Books mentioned:Originals by Adam Grant: https://www.amazon.com/Originals-audiobook/dp/B01A7Q61LI/  Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom: https://www.amazon.com/Tuesdays-Morrie-Greatest-Lesson-Anniversary/dp/076790592X/ The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho: https://www.amazon.com/Alchemist-Paulo-Coelho/dp/0062315005/ SHOW NOTES:00:00 | Who is Blagoja Golubovski?00:28 | Why you shouldn’t use data as your bible01:21 | When are data indicators not useful?02:41 | Common b2b problem: having a much lower adoption rate than expected 06:44 | Main misconception about product management 08:04 | What’s a great product? 10:23 | Sales-driven approach vs. a product-led approach: can they co-exist? 13:15 | Biases in decision making: putting too much emphasis on user interviews16:56 | Not taking scale seriously19:03 | 3 True and tested principles of product management 21:09 | What no amount of money can fix (a lot of products have this problem)22:59 | Working towards arbitrary launch dates: do or don’t?24:22 | How to ask better questions in your user interviews24:47 | Getting comfortable saying no 25:36 | Working for only two hours per week: is it possible? 26:56 | The talent of being uncontroversial 27:48 | Most worthwhile investment of Blagoja’s life: one hour that changed everything29:12 | 3 book recommendationsQUOTES:“As a PM you should use data as a signal, as one signal, but you also have a lot of other forces that are at play.” [01:04]“A great product is innovative, it solves a problem, it’s easy to use, and it has emotional value.” [09:02]“I know people say the product sells itself. The product never sells itself. It’s the users that use it that sell it for you and that’s a very kind of subtle difference but when we’re building a product we make it easy for people to tell their friends. And we make it intuitive enough and emotional enough that they’re actually gonna go and be champions for you. So that’s the case where the product actually is taking a lead and you’re fueling growth by making your product great.” [12:32]“Money can buy you a lot of things but it will not get you a clear sense of purpose. I thought about this and no amount of money can, really in the world, can solve for you not having a clear purpose. Unfortunately, a lot of products kind of fall into this category.” [21:16]Follow Blagoja Golubovski:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/golubovski/

Follow Aram Melkoumov on Linkedin for highlight clips and DMs.When you think of design, you probably think of beauty and delight. But, that’s not really what design is about. That’s just the most overrated aspect of design. What’s the most underrated?About Sean DekkersSean Dekkers is the Head of Product Design at Digits. Throughout his career, he held many important roles including Senior Interaction Designer at Google, Senior Designer at IDEO, Associate Design Director at Mckinsey, and Principal Designer at Visa. For him, the definition of great design is talking to people, understanding their problems, and then trying to solve them. SHOW NOTES:0:00 | Who is Sean Dekkers?02:23 | Focusing on worthy problems before brilliant ideas03:57 | How to collect ideas using the double diamond design approach05:28 | Having a transformational experience working at IDEO 10:38 | The design story behind Ferrari keys and creating resale revenue for Ferrari19:48 | How many people do you need to interview to find a pattern?21:14 | Having visions that make sense in theory but not in practice26:58 | Being scrappy and handy when you test29:54 | Why do companies keep making the same bad design decisions year after year?32:08 | The discomfort big companies have around talking to customers 34:59 | The misconception about what designers do36:59 | Product design vs. product management: what’s the difference?38:48 | How important is the visual component of design? QUOTES:“I think I’d love it if people would kind of shift from focusing on ideas and solutions to going back to the problem and just want to make sure it’s a really good problem. And it’s an important problem and has an impact. And then, once you’ve all that due diligence - then you can start thinking about ideas.”  [03:11]“Unless it’s solving like a real problem, just keep it simple.” [31:36]“Obviously beauty and delight are very important, but for me, I’d say it’s the most overrated element.” [39:37] Follow Sean Dekkers:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-dekkers-a450815/ 

Do you think of your product as part of a larger ecosystem or are you tunnel-visioned? Tune in to this episode to find out why your product’s ecosystem shouldn’t be an afterthought. In fact, by relying on strategic partnerships you can save money and strengthen your community.About KabirKabir Mathur is the Head of Product Partnerships at Typeform. He believes that positions focused on partnerships and ecosystems will be the norm in the next few years, especially as web 3.0’s influence on web 2.0 grows. Kabir earned his Bachelor’s degree in business at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a founding member of the Forbes Business Development Council, an Advisor at Exchange Labs and Lypho, and a Member of Partnership Leaders. SHOW NOTES:0:00 | Who is Kabir Mathur?01:05  | Using notion and slack connect to ship better products 01:40 | You can throw money at any of your product problems. 02:20 | When you should and when you shouldn’t seek customer feedback.03:11 | Blurring lines between customers and owners with Web 3.0. 04:09 | Being bold and Kabir’s personal goal.04:59 | How web 3.0 will influence product design in the near future. OR What trends from web 3.0 will make their way into web 2.0 soon? 06:45 | Companies that will be quickly impacted by web 3.0 07:58 | How Typeform invests in their community 11:26 | What do people misunderstand about partnerships?19:01 | The basics of establishing strategic partnerships. OR How to begin establishing strategic partnerships OR What to consider when establishing strategic partnerships22:58 | How to derisk big bets through partnerships25:10 | Should product people be hunters or farmers? 28:23 | The overlaps between Chief Ecosystem Officers and Chief Product Officers OR Is this the decade of ecosystem? OR Stop making ecosystem an afterthought. QUOTES:“When you’re trying to build more visionary products, asking users isn’t always necessarily the best way to do it.” [03:04] “Some customers are so invested in your product that they’re willing to organically help you. But, I think, fostering that motion early on can very easily then help you then invest in making a full-blown thing later on.” [10:57]“At the end of the day you’re trying to delight your customer and I think if you have a really deep understanding of your ecosystem and how your product interacts with other products you have a much better chance of delighting your customer.”  [15:58]“We’re seeing a few, very few, companies invest in a Chief Ecosystem Officer and I think people like this will have a very strong overlap with Chief Product Officers. I think this will become the reality. I’ve heard people call this the decade of ecosystem.”  [28:58] Key Links: Crossbeam (partner ecosystem platform): https://www.crossbeam.com/ Notion: https://www.notion.so/ Slack Connect: https://slack.com/connect Follow Kabir Mathur:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathurkabir/ Typeform: https://www.typeform.com/ 

Product-led growth is not for every company. Yet, lots of people have jumped on the product-led growth bandwagon inexplicably and have ended up disappointed or frustrated. Tune in to discover why most people get product led-growth wrong and what to do to get it right.About MerajMeraj Imani is the Director of Product Management at Fiix by Rockwell Automation. Previously, he was Group Product Manager at Checkout 51 and Director of Product Management at BioConnect among other product management roles. He stumbled into product management while he was at the beginning of his career as an engineer. SHOW NOTES:0:00 | Who is Meraj Imani?06:45 | Bringing B2C experimentation and mindset to B2B09:24 | What is a painted door experiment? 10:26 | Why do so many people get product-led growth wrong? OR 4 main reasons why most people get product-led growth wrong14:18 | Who should the product marketing officer report to? 15:42 | The challenges that come with product-led growth18:03 | Metrics that can accelerate growth for product directors and product managers.22:25 | Should Product Managers act like CEOs? 25:32 | How documenting questions and assumptions can future-proof your product29:30 | Thought experiment to ship better products30:18 | Never outsource THIS part of your product development process32:04 | Gauging customer expectations33:13 | How to get rid of distractions in your product development process 33:58 | Streamlining user experience is not always right.35:38 | Should you have fun at work?QUOTES:“A painted door experiment is when you don’t have something built. You’re sort of wondering if it’s going to impact a particular behavioral outcome and so you just put a link to it or a button to it or a call to action to it. What that does is it introduces the user to “hey we have this” or  “can we talk to you about this” or “is that something that you’re interested in”. It’s important to have tracking for it.” [09:28]“People get attached to the solution that they’re thinking about and you kind of lose sight of the problem that you’re solving. So be attached to the problem, not the solution.” [22:06]“The most successful product managers in a long period of time that I know have always been collaborative, extremely humble, good storytellers, and have empathy.” [24:00] Follow Meraj Imani:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merajimani/ Fiix by Rockwell Automation: https://www.fiixsoftware.com/ 

Embracing product bias. Navigating conflicts with design teams. Directing clients that don’t have clear goals. Everything is on the table as behind-the-scenes anecdotes of client meetings and discussions are revealed.Idoh’s main frustration with B2B SaaS companies is that they don’t talk to end-users enough. In fact, he tells the story of his time consulting for a company that has never before spoken to its end users. Tune in to find out what he discovers when he becomes the first person there to speak to an end-user - and lots of other tales from his product management escapades with many different clients.About IdohIdoh Gersten is a Product Manager at Circle CI. Previously, he was Senior Product Manager at Dynamic Signal and Director of Product Management at ROBLOX among other roles. He is a law school graduate from the University of Iowa. Idoh believes that there is a universal consciousness that we collectively tap into. Also, if it were up to him all websites would be designed like Craigslist.SHOW NOTES:0:00 | Who is Idoh Gersten?03:17 | Why having product bias is POSITIVE. OR Why you should have product bias.08:54 | Should you release products that aren’t fully polished?11:46 | Having conflicting design philosophies 15:37 | Most difficult features to work on as a product manager21:52 | How to convince clients to prioritize workflows.23:32 | Important product data that B2B SaaS companies skip over.34:12 | The golden rule of shipping better products.34:29 | The right question to ask customers (instead of asking them what they want).35:22 | Only throw money at your product problems after achieving this. 36:46 | Is there a universal consciousness?37:34 | Idoh’s personal goals and note to self.QUOTES:“One way of thinking about bias is what tradeoffs you’re making. Where on the tradeoff spectrum do you just kind of land?”  [07:25]“I think there’s a huge amount of uncertainty around plans and I think having a very high-level vision makes a lot of sense but having an extremely detailed plan that stretches out for 6 months…once things go out into the real world and hit customers, plans always change.” [08:13]Follow Idoh:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idohgersten/