Better Product

Twitter recently announced their rebrand, but don't worry the bird lives on. What can we learn from this iconic product?  In The Minute, Christian invites Meghan Pfeifer Senior Brand Designer and Product Marketer of Innovatemap to discuss the Twitter rebranding strategy. You’ll hear how to think about product rebrands and how to apply it.

The most likely outcome when launching a startup is failure. How do you know when to try anyway? For Dennis Mortensen, CEO and Founder of x.ai, it’s not the data. It’s not the idea. It’s the pain you’re solving for that will allow you to propel forward,  even when the statistics are stacked against you. As the How to Use Data series continues, he provides the Better Product community with a word of caution to anyone building a data-driven startup. 

Rarely will a person have experienced almost every role in the product life cycle, but this isn’t the case for this featured guest.  In this episode of The Minute, Anna and Christian revisit one of their most unique conversations with entrepreneur and investor Ade Olonoh. When it comes to product, Ade has seen it all from building, overseeing, and is now investing. Hear how ideas come to fruition, and how Ade built Formstack, his first company, in just four weeks.

Often we approach ideas and products without a full understanding of the users. How do we focus on the users first instead of the product?  “You can validate bad ideas done well, but you can't really tell whether the idea itself was good without research.” Christain Beck In the conversation with Marieke McCloskey, Lead UX Researcher at Humu, we break down the misconceptions many founders have about research while sharing ways to maximize its impact earlier in the process.

In this episode, Anna and Christian revisit one of their first episodes with Kyle Lacy, now Chief Marketing Officer for Lessonly. At the time of this recording, he was the VP of Marketing, and he shared how Lessonly’s now pervasive brand came to be.  In today’s The Minute episode, you’ll hear their conversation discussing the role brand played in Lessonly’s ability to differentiate from other software companies.

On this episode of Better Product, Christian and Anna are joined by Kat Kennedy, Chief Experience Officer at Degreed, a learning experience platform that provides a better, smarter, faster way to develop and share your team's skills. As the conversation unfolds, Kat explains why you have to be intentional about what you’re trying to solve and how looking at numbers is never enough. Along the way, you’ll learn how you can use data to create a competitive advantage. To connect with other product professionals and gain exclusive access to additional resources head over to betterproduct.community.

If you’re in the product world, the name Marty Cagan is most likely one you’re familiar with. He’s a pioneer, a leader, and author of INSPIRED. We had him on the show in 2019 and he had a lot to say about product culture, which left Anna and Christian with a lot to talk about right after his interview.  In this Minute episode you’ll hear their conversation discussing what it means to be a real product manager, what it looks like to have a product culture in your organization and how all that translates to impact your company, no matter its size.

Today’s episode is a little different because instead of revisiting the past, we want to highlight something coming up that our listeners might want to know more about.  Today, Tina Hafer of Innovatemap joins Better Product to talk about the upcoming webinar she’s hosting on January 26. The topic is a foundational aspect of product marketing: product hierarchies. Whether you’re thinking about positioning, presentation decks, or even onboarding, product hierarchies can give you a common language and framework to refer to as you figure out how to market and sell your product.  Interested in attending? Go to innovatemap.com/events to sign up.

What we’ve set out to discuss in our newest series is the real power of data. The issue in today’s world isn’t access to data - rather -  it’s this feeling of “more is more.” Yet, the power of data doesn’t come from more. It comes from being able to tell a story with it.  The reality of data is that most people collect it but don’t know what to do with it. What you’ll learn in this series has little to do with collecting data, instead, it’s taking a look at maximizing it and being able to act on it as a result.  Interviews will highlight organizations and people who are doing industry-leading work with data and using it not just to build databases, but to build valuable products. Joining the series is Kat Kennedy from Degreed, Marieke McCloskey from Humu, Dennis Mortenson with x.ai, and Kendra Clarke, Sparks and Honey.  To never miss an episode and gain exclusive access to additional resources head over to betterproduct.community.

What if Masterclass and TikTok had a B2B baby? The result would be Guide, a video-based learning platform focused on bite-sized video content.  In this episode of Better Product LAUNCH, Christian sits down with Tim Salau, CEO and Co-Founder of Guide, for a conversation about why work matters, and the importance of exercising more control over our career. Tim and his team founded Guide as a life-skills training platform for highschool students. Then COVID happened. As the conversation unfolds, you’ll hear how Guide pivoted into an enterprise-focused B2B learning and talent development app.