Product Ops Podcast

On the fifth episode of Season 3 "Listening to our Customers" - we’ll be listening to Alina Miron. Alina is currently a Senior Product Manager at Sumup, a fintech company providing payment solutions for small businesses. She has previously worked as a product manager at startups and scale-ups such as JustPark and Dojo. We discuss product challenges around: 1. Misunderstanding of what Product Management is and as a result, people get into the role with the wrong expectations and attitudes. 2. Lack of a solid business model or strong customer need and over-engineering Product practices without driving meaningful outcomes.  Listen in for some unique insights into product challenges from a passionate and curious Product Manager. This season of POP is brought to you by BTRT ("beetroot"). Sign up to their private beta here.

On the fourth episode of Season 3 "Listening to our Customers" - we’ll be listening to Morgan Sadr-Hashemi. Morgan is currently the Chief Product and Technology Officer at Flashpack, an adventure travel company that brings together solo travellers in their 30s and 40s. He previously worked at Nested where he progressed from Senior Software engineer to Director of Engineering and started his career with a graduate role at BT. Morgan is also the founder of Helm School which provides engineering leadership training for individuals at startups and scale-ups. Listen in for some unique insights into product challenges from a software engineer turned CPTO! Resources mentioned: Will Larson Engineering Blog The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Managing Growth and Change - Camille Fournier Helm School - Training for Engineering Leaders This season of POP is brought to you by BTRT ("beetroot"). Sign up to their private beta here.

On the third episode of Season 3 "Listening to our Customers" - we’ll be listening to Kajal Goel. Kajal was most recently a Senior Product Manager at Legl, a startup providing process automation for modern law firms.  She has previously worked in senior product manager roles at Flutterwave - a scaling African fintech as well as at Worldpay, a more traditional payments giant.  Listen in for some unique insights into product challenges from someone who has worked in product at three very different company stages of size and scale! This season of POP is brought to you by BTRT ("beetroot"). Sign up to their private beta here.

For the second episode of Season 3 "Listening to our Customers" - we’ll be listening to Flora Devlin. Flora is currently a coach for product leaders and a product advisor with Connect Ventures.  She previously worked as a Product Director at Monzo where she managed a team of product managers and led the strategy, vision and direction for about 50 product people. Flora has also worked in both product and data roles at Intercom and Hootsuite. Listen in for some unique insights into product challenges from someone who has led product teams and now coaches product leaders! Flora's top resources to up-skill in product: The making of a manager - Julie Zhou  Universal principles of design - William Lidwell Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Steven Pressfield  The coaching habit - Michael Bungay Stanier Crossing the chasm - Geoffrey Moore Designing your life - Bill Burnett and Dave Evans Insight - Dr Tasha Eurich  This season of POP is brought to you by BTRT ("beetroot"). Sign up to their private beta here.

For the first episode of Season 3 "Listening to our Customers" - we’ll be listening to Daniel Yubi. Daniel is currently the CEO and founder of Payable - a UK startup that is building treasury operations software for tech companies. Prior to starting his own company, Daniel worked in various senior product management roles at scaling fintechs such as Checkout.com and Curve. We discuss challenges around product alignment at scale, PM onboarding and managing product releases. Listen in for some unique insights from a product manager turned Founder/CEO! Resources mentioned on the episode: Working Backwards (Amazon) - Colin Bryar and Bill Carr Amp it Up - Frank Slootman  This season of POP is brought to you by BTRT ("beetroot"). Sign up to their private beta here.

For the last episode of Season 2 of POP, I’m thrilled to be joined by one of the pioneers of Product Ops in the industry, Blake Samic (Head of Product Ops @ Stripe), as well as two members of his fantastic product ops team at Stripe: Alexandra Lapinsky Wilson (Product Ops Manager) and Dan Barber (Product Ops Manager). We find out how Stripe’s Product Ops team is set up for success! Building on the learnings Blake had from setting up Product Ops at Uber, we unpack how the team is organised between embedded product ops and more centralised product ops programs. Dan and Alexandra deep dive on why this structure works so well with some great practical examples including: - the Stripe Terminal global launch and - the Tops Asks from Users program. Get ready for non stop insights into how one of the best product ops teams in the industry accelerates Stripe’s ability to deliver more value to more users!

Karen Gutierrez (Product Ops Lead) and Reema Joshi (Product Ops Specialist) from Wise join me for the sixth episode of Season 2 of POP. We find out what it’s like to manage and optimise Quarterly Planning at a global company with about 3000 employees in 17 offices across the world! We deep dive on the following challenges: 1. Quarterly Planning 2. Growing the team initially from 1 to 2 3. Product Ops "owning" products (Wise Mission Roadmap) Listen in for some practical insights into how product ops is helping to improve transparency at a company wide and customer level while keeping a product mindset firmly in place!  

Christine Itwaru (Head of Product Ops), Rick Kadlac (Lead Product Ops Manager) and Adam Siegel (Manager, Technical Writing) from Pendo join me for the fifth episode of Season 2 of POP. We find out how Christine and her experienced team are creating company wide transparency around building, shipping and using products. We deep dive on the following challenges: 1. Focusing on the right things to tackle first 2. Establishing guardrails for your own product usage 3. Building trust in order to drive a collaborative knowledge base initiative Listen in for some practical insights from a leading Product Ops team who "wrote the book" on Product Ops (The Rise of Product Ops)!

Anita Asiedu (Director of Operations) and Yande Nomvete (Senior Product Ops Analyst) from Chipper Cash join me for the fourth episode of Season 2 of POP. We find out what it’s like to grow a product ops team from 1 to many within a year and how the team needed to evolve against the backdrop of rapid scaling. We deep dive on the following challenges: 1. Evolving Responsibilities for the Product Ops team 2. Reducing waste in operations using internal tooling and keeping the user at the centre 3. Hiring externally: how do we find the right talent Listen in for some practical insights into growing a product ops team and how product ops is helping to improve efficiency through internal tooling and keeping the user at the centre of everything!

Kam Dadfar (Director of Product Ops), Virginia Chiarentin (Product Ops Manager) and Charlotte Hayward (Product Ops Manager) from Onfido join me for the third episode of Season 2 of POP.  We find out how harnessing the power of data can unlock both process and product improvements in a fast growing scale-up and deep dive on the following challenges: 1. Using customer insights to improve a trial adoption process 2. Building on data insights to drive longer term product improvements 3. Scaling an NPS system Listen in for some unique insights from a Product Ops team that sits under the Operations org and functions as a neutral party that ultimately puts customer interests first!