

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

Jul 3, 2019 • 34min
Hedging Your Bets – Lucie McLean on the Product Experience
Lucie McLean started on mobile products before the launch of the iPhone – she once held a phone for an illustration in a BBC article, and as a result, has some of the most famous hands on the internet. She joined us to talk about some of the things she’s learned from her long career at [...] Read more »The post Hedging Your Bets – Lucie McLean 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.

Jun 26, 2019 • 46min
The Aha Moment – Abdelrahman Wahba on The Product Experience
Egyptian-born Abdelrahman (Abdo) Wahba co-founded popular Arabic audiobook site Iqraaly – but it wouldn’t have seen its current success unless Abdo had taken the time to analyse deeply what made customers stay loyal. To do that, he had to get to his “Aha moment”. Now based in Berlin as the Head of Product for the [...] Read more »The post The Aha Moment – Abdelrahman Wahba 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.

Jun 19, 2019 • 50min
Crazy Busy Product People – Rian van der Merwe on The Product Experience
The Head of Product at Wildbit, Rian van der Merwe has spent his career being crazy busy – and he’s had enough of it. He joined us to talk about slowing down to speed up, making sure your team(s) are productive, and managing yourself to provide the most value to everyone around you. Quote of the [...] Read more »The post Crazy Busy Product People – Rian van der Merwe 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.

Jun 12, 2019 • 54min
Beyond the Hype on AI – Ashwini Asokan on The Product Experience
Ashwini Asokan, CEO and co-founder of intelligent retail automation platform VUE.ai, is working to evolve the world of retail, making shopping more of an entertainment experience. She’s spent a lot of time thinking about artificial intelligence and she sat down with us to go beyond the hype – and give us some practical advice about [...] Read more »The post Beyond the Hype on AI – Ashwini Asokan 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.

Jun 5, 2019 • 39min
Killing Zombies – Lisa Long on The Product Experience
Ash Williams (Evil Dead); Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita and Little Rock (Zombieland); Shaun (Shaun of the Dead); Alice (Resident Evil); Lisa Long (ProductTank). All have killed zombies, and entertained us as they did so… but only Lisa did so on stage at London’s ProductTank, giving us practical advice on how to kill off zombie features and [...] Read more »The post Killing Zombies – Lisa Long 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.

May 29, 2019 • 46min
Discover Everything – Teresa Torres on The Product Experience
In 2017, Teresa Torres gave one of our favourite talks on the Mind the Product stage, introducing the concept of Opportunity Solution Trees. Simple, powerful, and immediately useful, it’s been a critical part of our toolkits ever since. When we started this podcast, Teresa was one of the people we simply had to talk to [...] Read more »The post Discover Everything – Teresa Torres 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.

May 22, 2019 • 41min
How to Innovate – Ryan Jacoby on The Product Experience
Ryan Jacoby is an expert on innovation, but not, perhaps, on optimising book titles for SEO – his book, Making Progress, is a guide on how to ensure that your team is open to and successful at innovation. Ryan has been working in the field since his undergraduate days, when he became the first person [...] Read more »The post How to Innovate – Ryan Jacoby 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.

May 15, 2019 • 24min
World Product Day special – Martin Eriksson & Emily Tate on The Product Experience
From humble beginnings with 25 people in the back room of a pub in London in May 2010 looking for a group therapy session, the ProductTank meetups have grown to over 180 cities with hundreds of thousands of people signed up. We grabbed co-founder Martin Eriksson and Dallas organiser Emily Tate (now also US General [...] Read more »The post World Product Day special – Martin Eriksson & Emily Tate 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.

May 8, 2019 • 49min
The ABCs of Product – Melissa Perri on The Product Experience
Melissa Perri is the product manager’s product manager—she’s able to do the job, explain it, and teach you how to do it better. So when we got her on this week’s podcast, we covered everything…including Japanese deployment strategies, Marmite and peanut butter, product leadership and team organisation, how companies scale, how to pick the right [...] Read more »The post The ABCs of Product – Melissa Perri 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.

May 1, 2019 • 50min
Tell Better Stories – Donna Lichaw on The Product Experience
Over the course of her career, Donna Lichaw has moved from Design and UX to Product – consulting with teams, giving keynotes and working with leadership groups – but what she’s always focused on is storytelling. Now an executive coach – “I just won’t help people build products, I help them build themselves,” she says [...] Read more »The post Tell Better Stories – Donna Lichaw 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.