

The Product Experience
Mind the Product
The Product Experience features conversations with the product people of the world, focusing on real insights of how to improve your product practice. Part of the Mind the Product network, hosts Lily Smith (ProductTank organiser and Product Consultant) & Randy Silver (Head of Product and product management trainer) “go deep” with the best speakers from ProductTank meetups all over the globe, Mind the Product conferences, and the wider product community.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 21, 2022 • 33min
Product-led Growth - Noa Ganot on The Product Experience
What are the most important factors when a organisation decides to adopt a product-led growth approach? On this weeks' podcast episode, we spoke with Executive Product Coach, Noa Ganot all about how to do this the right way and pitfalls to avoid. Featured Links: Follow Noa on LinkedIn and her website | Noa's Infinity Product Leadership Academy on LinkedIn | Noa's 'Deep Product' blog | Product-led Certification Course by Pendo and Mind the ProductOur HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

Sep 14, 2022 • 41min
Rerun: Building communities that work - Emily Webber on The Product Experience
It can be tough, even at the best of times, to remain engaged at work – to find a community of people to share with and learn from. Emily Webber’s seen this in action and has started (and nurtured) successful communities both at work and at home. In this rerun podcast episode, she joined Lily and Randy to go deeper into how to build great communities with remote teams.Featured Links: Follow Emily on LinkedIn and Twitter | Emily's Blog | Tacit | Read Emily's book 'Building Successful Communities of Practise: Discover How Connecting People Makes Better Organisations' | In The Ether has all the details on how to run a great virtual lean coffee | The Diversity Charter | Sharon Bowman's book 'Training From The Back Of The Room!' | Robin Dunbar's Social Circles feature in The Guardian | Emily and Robin's joint research paper 'The Fractal Study of Communities of Practise: Implications for Business Organisation'Our HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

Sep 7, 2022 • 37min
I bet you think this product is about you - Tony Poon on The Product Experience
It's a common saying that 'ego is the biggest product killer'. In this weeks' podcast episode, CPO at R-Zero, Tony Poon, delves into a discussion with Lily and Randy about how to ensure that your ego doesn't get in the way of discovering and managing the best products. Featured Links: Follow Tony on LinkedIn and Twitter | R-Zero | Understanding the Id, Ego, and Superego in PsychologyOur HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

33 snips
Aug 31, 2022 • 36min
A deep dive into product discovery - Lily and Randy on The Product Experience
This week on The Product Experience the topic of choice was product discovery. However, with both of our hosts having worked extensively in this subject area before, they decided to hijack this episode and take on the topic all to themselves...For this special episode, Randy Silver and Lily Smith share their best tips on customer interaction and product discovery from their combined product knowledge, years of working in discovery, and being involved in over 170 episodes interviewing product experts around the globe.Featured Links: Follow Randy on LinkedIn and Twitter | Out of Owls | Follow Lily on LinkedIn and Twitter | Bower Collective | Product Discovery page at Mind The ProductOur HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

Aug 24, 2022 • 40min
Rerun: Putting OKRs at the Centre - Natalija Hellesoe on The Product Experience
We all know what OKRs are. Most of us use them or have tried to at some point. But it’s a much smaller group that have used OKRs well, and for their intended purpose. Natalija Hellesoe, co-author of OKRs at the Center, joins us on the podcast to chat about taking your practice to the [...] Read more »Follow Natalija on LinkedIn and Twitter | OKRs at the Centre website | Natalija's virtual meet up group for OKR practitioners | 'What is an OKR? Definition and examples' What Matters featureThe post Putting OKRs at the Centre – Natalija Hellesoe on The Product Experience appeared first on Mind the Product.Our HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

Aug 17, 2022 • 40min
Launching new products inside Shopify - Ben Sehl on The Product Experience
It seems like everyone on the product scene is about launching brand new products in large organisations, however, we speak with Ben Sehl, Senior Product Lead from Shopify to find out key things to do this in the most effective way. Featured Links: Follow Ben on LinkedIn and Twitter | Shopify CEO Toby Lutke on Twitter | Hydrogen | Hydrogen - StackBlitz | 'Transparency, participation and collaboration: the distinguishing principles of open source' feature | Shopify's GSD FrameworkOur HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

Aug 10, 2022 • 31min
Evidence-based product decisions (Part 2 of 2) - Itamar Gilad on The Product Experience
We jump right back into where we left on in part two of this series with experience product coach Itamar Gilad. We carry on discussing evidence-based decisions, and how this approach can enable teams to achieve key product goals.Featured Links: Follow Itamar on LinkedIn and Twitter | Itamar's website | 'Idea Prioritization with ICE and the Confidence Meter' piece | Sign up for Itamar's newsletter Our HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

Aug 3, 2022 • 29min
Evidence-based product decisions - Itamar Gilad on The Product Experience
In part one of two of this podcast series, we spoke with experienced product expert Itamar Gilad to find out more about evidence-based decisions, ideas, and key product goals. Featured Links: Follow Itamar on LinkedIn and Twitter | Itamar's website | 'Idea Prioritization with ICE and the Confidence Meter' piece | Sign up for Itamar's newsletterOur HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

Jul 27, 2022 • 38min
Inclusive Design - Saielle DaSilva on The Product Experience
We all know what product design is but what does inclusive design, and why does it need to be a priority for product managers? On this week's podcast, we were joined by Saielle DaSilver, Director of User Experience at Cazoo to talk all about designing products for people who might face limitations when using your product. Featured Links: Follow Saielle on LinkedIn and Twitter | Saielle's website Blossom | Kat Holmes' talk 'Design for 7 Billion. Design for One' | Kat Holmes' Inclusive Toolkit | Kat Holmes' book 'Mismatch' | 'What is Inclusive Design? Principles and Examples' by Justin Morales | Help Saielle with Gender TransitionOur HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

Jul 20, 2022 • 28min
Launching new products inside big organisations - Hannah Gibson on The Product Experience
What's it like launching new products within a big organisation like Ocado? In this weeks' podcast Lily and Randy sat down with Hannah Gibson, Chief Product Officer at Ocado Technology to discuss her experiences in product management over the past 10 years at her organisation, and the key lessons learned from launching a new product inside a much bigger establishment. Featured Links: Follow Hannah on LinkedIn and Twitter | Work with Hannah! | OcadoOur HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.