Reasonable Product

In this episode, I had the chance to discuss with Alexandra Vera about being a Product Manager in different countries and cultures. Alexandra Vera is Head of Product at Carfax, and was previously VP of Product at Autotrader Canada.  She has been living and working in Product functions in 4 different countries and 3 different continents. Also, she's been working in product and with remote and international teams for the past 20 years. As such, she has first-hand experience with what it takes to work through different cultures, and what are the common traits of great product managers.Alexandra believes that there are still a lot of opportunities for product managers, even in the current job market. There will be plenty of opportunities for those who are adaptable. We covered in detail a number of topics, includingThe current tech and product job market, and what is changing for product  peopleWhy some tech companies overinvested during COVID, and what will stay after the pandemic-driven digital boomHow AI will make Product managers' life easier... Why soft skills are the number 1 trait of great product managers, and why it is going to be even more the case in the futureHow "non traditionally tech" companies will over time become larger product manager employersThe differences (and commonalities) between product management practices in Barcelona and Canada, And how the future of work will involve product managers and product leaders being more skilled at managing teams through different culturesSome practical tips to be successful in a product management interviewYou can contact Alexandra through Linkedin, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexaveragurdiel/To stay up-to-date with original Product content and thoughts:- Follow me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvatorebocchetti/- Bookmark our website: https://reasonableproduct.com

2023 seems to be a special year for the Tech job market. Layoffs made the headlines already in January, and several companies have followed this trend since. But is it really so? Is the tech market stuck? What does it take in 2023 to be a great Product leader, and to be noticed by recruiters? In this Podcast, I spoke with Doug Bates, director at Intelligent People, a boutique recruitment agency specializing in Product leadership positions.Doug is optimistic about the current job market for product people, and he sees the same or higher number of job offers for the top candidates. Yet, product professionals have to know how to "sell themselves", with a recruiter receiving hundreds of CVs per day. We spoke about candidate employability, selling yourself as a product, and how negotiating your next salary.Doug has plenty of great advice for hiring managers as well, to make the right hiring choices, and to business leaders and CEOs about the right moment to hire a CPO. We also discussed what is turning off the best product people in the market and how a solid product organization that reports to… product leaders is key to attracting talent.You can find all the material that Doug mentioned in the Podcast here https://www.intelligentpeople.co.uk/And you can contact Doug via email at DougBates@intelligentpeople.co.ukTo stay up-to-date with original Product content and thoughts:- Follow me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvatorebocchetti/- Bookmark our website: https://reasonableproduct.com

In this Reasonable Product Interview, I had the pleasure of having Cliff des Ligneris talk about 2 sided marketplace.Cliff is Product Lead at GetYourGuide and has been running product at several marketplaces in the past including at Doodle, Car4You, and now at Get your Guide.We spoke about two-sided Marketplaces and why they are hard to build, (the “cold start problem) - but also why they’re a great business once you’re in. As Cliff said, there is not really you can do to make it easier, besides the fact that “sometimes you have to cheat. You have to find the chat code to create one so that the other side. Because you can’t do both at the same time, it’s just impossible”. Cliff also shared some concrete tips and experience doing this kind of “cheating” to bootstrap a marketplace against an established incumbent.We went on discussing how to create the right team setup for a marketplace business, and why this will have to change over time anyway. Finally, we spoke about being a PM in Europe vs in the US. In Europe, there are just fewer people to look at in terms of best practices, which requires PMs and aspiring PMs to be even more proactive in grabbing the skills and way of thinking that you need to be a great PM.Cliff shared with us what he gives as “PM tools” to his new hires, and what he expects from them to get “up to speed”. The most important piece of advice from Cliff to become a PM?  “think twice before you you actually decide you want to be a PM, it’s hard!”To stay up-to-date with original Product content and thoughts:- Follow me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvatorebocchetti/- Bookmark our website: https://reasonableproduct.com

Netflix has been historically very tolerant of a practice called “accounts sharing” practices, aka paying customers sharing their usernames and password with other users. Good times are now over, and Netflix believes it’s now time that each user starts to pay his own subscriptions. This change has been recently communicated by the company and has been largely relayed by the press.What is the impact of this move on the product, on the user experience, and on the economics? Does it actually make as sense as it may look at a first glance? Was this change really thought off, or just rushed? Time will tell. In this podcast, we will see why this is much more than "enforcing" a legit usage question. And why it comes with huge implications on prices, "free to paid" conversion journey, customer segmentation, and UX.In this podcast, I will try to go through the different implications of this move, based on my experience in the subscription businesses. To be clear, I do respect and share Netflix's willingness to monetize its users a lot. At the same time, I will argue that the path they’re taking seems somehow inspired by the rush and could have unexpected consequences on their own product positioning.As a final note to product management practitioners: there is still too much attention spent on frameworks, delivery, and agile topics. Pricing is a core element of product that too often gets neglected. To stay up-to-date with original Product content and thoughts:- Follow me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvatorebocchetti/- Bookmark our website: https://reasonableproduct.com

Whether setting up OKR, monitoring your “product health” or just running experiments, there are countless reasons why, as a product professional, you should measure what you do and set goals. In this Podcast, we go through the 4 most dangerous mistakes product managers and other business leaders do while creating measures and KPIs: Relying on “relative changes” measures instead of absolute valuesHaving too complex measuresCreating “Frankenstein or fake metrics”Forgetting to set up ownership and ritualsWe discuss how these errors can have a cascading effect on the decision-making process, and what are some simple ways to set up sound and consistent metrics.To stay up-to-date with original Product content and thoughts:- Follow me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvatorebocchetti/- Bookmark our website: https://reasonableproduct.com

Hi and welcome to Reasonable Product. I know, Doing product can be hard. But it shouldn't necessarily be so! My name is Salva Bocchetti. I have been working in the Tech industry for the past 20 years serving different product leadership roles. I've felt this pain myself and that's why I preach a reasonable approach to doing product. An approach that goes beyond frameworks and trends, that brings concrete value to the organizations, and that lets product people enjoy their work. That’s why in this podcast series I talk about technology, organization, and product management, in a way that resonates with product and with business leaders. Every couple of weeks I bring a fresh perspective to make your journey in Product Management easier and more rewarding. This podcast consists of two different kinds of content:In the Reasonable Interviews, I interview product thought leaders and executives. The leaders that share their perspectives here have strong opinions and points of view, which I am sure will help you get your own opinion and help you look beyond the buzzwords and blur. Each Reasonable Deep-Dive provides an in-depth perspective on a key aspect of product management. If you’re interested in getting a deeper understanding of what it means to be “product-led”, to run a modern product organization or just to get some actionable advice to make your product management life easier, Deep Dives are for you!Some of the Deep Dives are also available as written content on reasonableproduct.com, so that you can have them always handy and use them almost like a guide in your modern product management journey. And if you’re like most of us, busy and trying to fit the maximum in your days, this podcast will come with you in the car, during your commute, while working out, or during a lunch break. So just click on “follow this podcast” now on whatever streaming platform you’re using.And see you soon!To stay up-to-date with original Product content and thoughts:- Follow me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvatorebocchetti/- Bookmark our website: https://reasonableproduct.com

Low Hanging Fruits is an expression we all hear too often. Let me say it straight: I have a big issue with this expression. This is the enemy of every Product Manager, or at least of every Product Manager worth his salt. In this podcast, I am putting together a set of thoughts and real-life examples I collected on this topic over the years. I have witnessed too many ill-fated decisions in good part taken due to a broken prioritization that builds on the myth of low-hanging fruits. For many people working in product management, this is just daily business. The consequence is simple: bad business decisions, negative impact on the product and frustrated teams.Listen to this podcast to understand why working by the pressure of Low Hanging Fruits is a lose-lose game, why you they usually end up being neither "low hanging" nor "tasty", and some concrete tips to avoid this trap.To stay up-to-date with original Product content and thoughts:- Follow me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvatorebocchetti/- Bookmark our website: https://reasonableproduct.com

I see more and more people talking about  “Technical Debt”.  While this is nothing new,  it is indeed interesting to see Tech Debt becoming a subject even outside of the “usual circles” of techies. In this Podcast we will go through the concept of Tech Debt in a way that is understandable to Business and Product Leaders. More importantly, we will discuss why Product Debt is the real enemy and what you can do to avoid it. To stay up-to-date with original Product content and thoughts:- Follow me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvatorebocchetti/- Bookmark our website: https://reasonableproduct.com