LaunchPod | Product Management Podcast

Hosted by LogRocket

Business Management Careers

Website RSS feed

Episodes

120

Latest episode

May 2026

Language

EN-US

About the show

LaunchPod is a product management podcast hosted by LogRocket's CEO, Matt Arbesfeld, and VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, where they talk to product leaders about the issues they faced in their careers, how they found solutions to those issues, and how you can apply these solutions in your own day-to-day product role.

Listen to episodes

60 recent

June 16, 202628 min

From Hostile to Rewired: How Descript's CEO Drives AI Adoption | Laura Burkhauser

Our guest today is Laura Burkhauser, CEO of Descript, the video editor that’s been AI-native long before “AI-native” was something you put in a pitch deck. Laura's route to the CEO seat started as a customer. She loved the product enough to knock on founder Andrew Mason's door and ask to work on it. She joined to lead product, but only three years later she's succeeded the well-known founder and is running the company. Today, Laura is here to talk about both sides of that journey: finding peers and mentors when you're suddenly the most senior person in any room, and driving AI adoption across an org already known for AI in its product. In this episode, Laura shares: Her "tech acceptance framework" — the 4 stages from outright hostility to "rewired" — and how to figure out where YOUR team actually sits Why telling IC PMs that AI means 2x productivity just sounds like they’re doing twice the work — and her “find the dream” reframe that actually gets real buy-in How Laura built Descript's AI philosophy around one principle: "Struggle with your art, not with your tools" and why she doesn't want anyone one-shotting their videos Plus the trap most companies are falling into right now: AI systems that walk out the door when the person who built them leaves, and how to make progress durable across your org Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/burkhauser/ Descript: https://www.descript.com/ Resources What Got You Here Won't Get You There: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/what-got-you-here-wont-get-you-there-marshall-goldsmith/1112274786 Chapters 00:00 Intro 01:07: Laura's career journey: From fashion startups to finding her path to product 03:26: The "what got you here won't get you there" moment 4:05: Finding peers and mentors when you're the most senior person in the room 12:06: "Struggle with your art, not with your tools" — Descript's AI philosophy 15:04: AI as a derivative technology and the democratization of creativity 17:59: The tech acceptance framework: From hostile to rewired 18:50: Running AI hackathons and reimagining company systems 22:40: Pitfalls of AI adoption: Cost, durability, and automating broken systems 24:42: The two-by-two framework for getting your team AI-pilled 27:49: Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Laura Burkhauser.

May 12, 202625 min

How AI Helped Me Ship 9 Months of Product in 5 Days | Sriram Iyer, SVP of Product (ex-Salesforce)

A program manager told Sriram Iyer it would take 6 to 9 months to ship the first slice of their new product. Sriram challenged the team to do it in just five days. At first, they laughed. Then he rolled his sleeves up, dug in with the team, and they did it. 5 days, from Monday to Friday. Sriram has spent his career walking into companies like Salesforce, Adobe, and Freshworks, and pulling timelines apart. He calls himself the simplifier in chief, and the secret isn't the AI tooling. It's everything underneath the AI tooling that most leaders won't actually do. That's what make teams trust, and follow, him. In this episode, Sriram breaks down exactly how that five-day sprint worked, including: The "thinnest slice of pizza" principle that kills scope creep before it starts Why AI made it possible — but isn't really the point How to find the team members in any org who are actually ready to just make stuff happen — and why mindset matters more than tooling And why none of this works without trust, prioritization, taste, and an executive willing to get in the weeds and take personal responsibility for the outcome Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sriramviyer/ Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Sriram Iyer.

May 5, 202627 min

AI Agents Fail for 2 Reasons. Crowdsourcing Solved Both. | Julia Dalton, SVP Product (Capacity)

Long before “AI Agent” was the buzzword in every product discussion, Julia Dalton was already deep into solving the problems of coordinating thousands of worker agents, creating clear instruction prompts, and evaluating output quality. Julia is SVP of Product at the AI-support automation platform, Capacity. Previously, she helped scale workflow orchestration at OneSpace, formerly known as Crowdsource, where thousands of freelancers executed microtasks for major retailers. As it turns out, managing humans at scale and managing AI agents have a lot more in common than most people realize. In this episode, Julia shares: The two failure modes that kill every AI agent before the model ever runs Why running a crowdsourced work platform gave her incredible insights into building effective agentic AI products How Julia and her team built an AI system to triage and prioritize product feedback, automating low-complexity builds and helping make better decisions on high-stakes tradeoffs Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliadalton/ Capacity: https://capacity.com/ Chapters 00:00 Intro 00:52 Julia's startup roots at OneSpace 02:00 Transitioning from the human API to AI agents 02:47 Microtasking workflow chains 06:54 Routing rules and AI orchestration 11:55 Validating prompts with simulations 15:08 Recursive prompting in practice 17:46 Data and knowledge orchestration 20:57 PRP triage app for product requests 26:56 Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.

April 28, 202636 min

April Dunford’s 1 Killer Question to Expose Weak AI Product Positioning [Repeat]

In this week's repeat episode, we’re joined by the undisputed queen of B2B positioning: April Dunford. April is the best-selling author of the seminal book "Obviously Awesome" and the new hit "Sales Pitch." She has spent 25 years as a startup executive and consultant, helping companies stop guessing and start winning. If you have ever struggled to explain exactly why customers should pick you over the other guy, this episode is a masterclass. In this episode, April talks about: Why Positioning is a Product Problem: How undefined positioning leads to wasted roadmaps, "not good enough" feedback from Sales, and engineering teams burning out on features that don't win deals. The "AI Washing" Trap: Why saying "We have AI" is no longer a strategy—and how to articulate the specific value your tech unlocks that the competition can’t. Why she loves when competitors lie: How to ethically trap competitors who over-promise features (and the one question sales should tell your prospects to ask them). And finally, Vision vs. Reality: How to sell the "glorious future" without losing the deal you need to close today. Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprildunford/ April's website: https://www.aprildunford.com/ April's books: https://www.aprildunford.com/books Resources (Ethically) cheat your way to $250M+ | Mikal Lewis, Product Exec. (Whole Foods, Nordstrom): https://youtu.be/5txeT2U_YQo Chapters 00:00: Introduction 01:45: April's journey from engineering to marketing to product positioning expert 05:00: The shifting lansscape: Position from COVID to the AI era 10:45: Moving beyond "AI washing" to find differentiated value 15:30: Defining your true competitive landscape 20:30: How to be worth your customers' migration risk 23:45: Why April likes when competitors "lie" about their capabilities and features 32:00: Why positioning is critical for product and engineering alignment 35:00: April's new book details Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: April Dunford.

April 15, 202629 min

AI Isn't Breaking PM Teams. Overload is. Explained by Stanford PhD & CPO Jen Wang (Framework)

Our guest today, Jen Wang, holds a PhD from Stanford in behavior sciences, judgment, and decision-making. She built her product career at ThredUp, and now serves as Chief Product Officer and go-to-market lead at Framework. That combination — behavioral scientist plus operating CPO — gives her a rare lens into the most urgent question in product leadership right now: how do you lead and build when the ground is shifting faster than anyone can follow? In this episode, we talk about: The decision-making behind why Framework scrapped their roadmap Why iteration, not technical proficiency, has been the most important skill to drive AI adoption in teams There’s actually a scientific reason why everyone’s so overwhelmed, and it’s called the “Zone of Absorption” Links Jen's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wangjennifer/ Framework: https://frame.work/ Resources ThredUp: https://www.thredup.com/ Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/ Leadership Without Easy Answers by Ronald A. Heifetz: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674518582 The engineer's ring: https://www.nspe.org/career-growth/pe-magazine/july-2009/called-order Chapters 00:00 Introduction 03:50: Why everyone thinks they’re behind on AI 06:29: “The zone of absorption”: The science behind AI overwhelm 10:10: Why Framework scrapped their 2026 roadmap in February 12:31: Choosing your AI toolset: When to experiment vs. When to commit 14:25: Rethinking engineering resourcing to make room for “process debt” 15:43: The A/B testing parallel: Is AI history repeating itself? 18:27: AI prototyping: Productive or underbaked ideas? 25:08: The learning possibilities that AI opens up 26:56: Should product leaders take a Hippocratic oath? 28:21: Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Jen Wang.

April 7, 202631 min

The Analytics Gap Most eCom Teams Don’t Know They Have | Raul Parquet, Dir. eCom (Princess Cruises)

Raul Parquet is the Director of Ecommerce at Princess Cruises, where he’s helping to lead them into a more digital future where visa requirements, multi-destination itineraries, and endless customization options are something customers can actually complete online. In this episode, Raul shares: The unglamorous but vital elements of a complete eCommerce analytics stack, and the table-stakes things teams often skip Why an Analytics team embedded inside product is a requirement, and the deployment discipline that brings with it And how Princess Cruises is using AI behind the scenes to help their team work smarter — and why, when it comes to customers, simplicity will always matter more than technology Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raul-parquet/ Princess Cruises: https://www.princess.com/ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 02:00 Why cruises are one of the hardest ecommerce problems to solve 6:00 Embedding analytics teams into product 8:00 The analytics stack: What "table stakes" actually looks like 13:30 How AI is already helping analytics teams work smarter 15:00 The gaps most teams don't know they have 19:00 Simplifying complex bookings: The Tesla analogy 21:00 100% of Princess Cruisers have been on the website 25:00 Where AI actually fits in the customer journey 29:00 Outro Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Raul Parquet.

March 24, 202630 min

How to Avoid AI FOMO like Patagonia | Angela Clark, VP Digital

I keep meeting teams across the country that are facing intense pressure to shoehorn AI into every feature, often without a coherent thesis on the problem it’ll solve. But what if the smartest move in the AI gold rush is to actually slow down? Angela Clark, VP of Digital at Patagonia, is doing exactly that. At a brand known for its fierce commitment to the planet, Angela is applying that same intentionality to their digital experience. Instead of blowing budgets on every new AI tool, she’s taking a thoughtful approach to building a personalized customer journey across an audience that spans both elite pro athletes and weekend warriors. In this episode, Angela shares: How her team is designing a customer journey that caters to the buyer on a 1:1 level, including Product Detail Pages that can speak effortlessly to either extreme of their customer base Her playbook for managing AI-related “shiny object syndrome" and keeping your roadmap focused on the customer. And why Patagonia flipped the definition of “customer lifetime value” to align with their conservation-driven mission — even happily downselling you to a refurbished item instead of a newer, more expensive version. Links Angela's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angclrk/ Patagonia: https://www.patagonia.com/home/ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:43 Angela's career journey 03:30: The PDP problem: Serving elite athletes & urban buyers on the same page 07:00: Building personalization through behavioral signals 09:30: Personalization: it's not a tech problem, it's a customer journey problem 00:15:30 How Angela built the foundation of digital at Patagonia 20:30: How to navigate slow-moving organizations 23:00: Redefining customer lifetime value around Patagonia's mission 26:30: AI FOMO — and why you're not actually falling behind 31:30: Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Angela Clark.

March 17, 202626 min

The Anti-Headcount Billion-Dollar eCom Playbook | David Cost, CDO (Rainbow Shops)

How many engineers does it take to run the ecommerce site for a retail company that does over a billion dollars in revenue per year? Well, if you’re Rainbow Shops, the answer is just 2. Most ecommerce teams assume scale requires more engineers, more tools, more complexity. Chief Digital Officer David Cost has built something many people in ecommerce would say isn't possible — a lean, fast-moving digital operation that runs on vendor partnerships instead of a massive internal team. Two engineers, hundreds of programmers' worth of output, and none of the overhead that comes with scaling the traditional way. In this episode, David shares: A detailed, under-the-hood look at the specific vendors they use to stay so lean His playbook for using strategic partnerships with vendors as an external dev team How being a testbed for new tech gives them a competitive edge And why their choice of ecommerce platform was vital in enabling Rainbow’s digital strategy Links David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidcost/ Rainbow Shops: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rainbow-apparel-co/ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:42 David’s product journey 02:36 How Rainbow runs with only two engineers 03:07 Rainbow's decision to migrate from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify 07:14 How Rainbow uses AI to support a lean team 11:34 Rainbow's partnership with Lica for AI-generated product images 17:25 The future of personalization in ecommerce 23:01 Shop Pay and Rainbow's checkout features 26:15 Conclusion Resoures Lica: https://lica.world/ Fuego: https://fuego.io/ Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: David Cost.

March 10, 202624 min

The World’s Safest Driver Isn’t Human. Can Waymo Stop Traffic Deaths? | Chinmay Jain, Dir. Product

40,000 people a year die from traffic accidents in the US. Our guest today is Chinmay Jain, Director of Product Management on Waymo's Driving Behavior team, who is working to make that number 90% smaller. In this episode, Chinmay shares: How he thought through leaving YouTube at its peak to join a moonshot company that could have civilization-level impact Waymo’s actual AI eval process, using massive simulations based on millions of real-world driving miles to maximize edge cases, ultimately turning trust into their real product And the misleading, but common, metrics Chinmay and his team learned to spot that could have seriously derailed Waymo’s progress Links Chinmay's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chinmayjain/ Waymo: https://waymo.com/ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:40 Chinmay’s decision to leave YouTube for Waymo 04:12 How does Waymo test its AI in the physical world? 06:09 Waymo’s layered evaluation system 09:53 Simulations and ML gains at Waymo 16:48 Waymo’s metrics for safety 21:33 What driving choices make training AI drivers the hardest? 24:00 Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Chinmay Jain.

March 3, 202632 min

The Cortisol UI: How We Fix FinServ’s Empathy Problem | Melissa Douros, CPO (Green Dot)

Most financial products are optimized for transactions, not human emotion. For many people, this transforms an already fraught topic into pure anxiety. Our guest today is building banking for what she calls the Cortisol UI. Melissa Douros has spent over 26 years in financial services, starting in debt collection and now serving as the Chief Product Officer at Green Dot. Early on, she learned firsthand that shame is a terrible retention mechanism. That lesson now shapes how she builds financial products for millions of users — for whom the time spent simply navigating their finances can be the most stressful of the day. In this episode, Melissa shares: How finserv companies can design for the “Cortisol UI“ by building trust and experiences that reduce anxiety before the transaction An experiment she ran for Discover’s 5% cashback program where test users collapsed under decision paralysis — proving that more choice can actually increase financial stress How she flipped Great Wolf Lodge’s booking model from 70% call center to 90% digital while enhancing the human experience And how Green Dot is navigating AI and agentic commerce without breaking the one thing banks can’t afford to lose: trust Links Melissa's: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissadouros/ Green Dot Corporation: https://www.greendot.com/ Resources LaunchPod - Nan Yu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27rGB-6XQJg LaunchPod - Ben McAllister: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-6Cs3RJeZw Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:00 Melissa's finserv background and how she landed in product 05:10 How Green Dot builds trust as a financial services product 07:29 Building for the "Cortisol UI" to lessen user stress, especially in finance 9:55 Quietly fixing customer issues while not inundanting them with feature releases 14:35 Green Dot moving compliance from the backend to a key part of the product team 16:20 Launching AI features in a high-risk industry 18:36 Decision paralysis and Discover's failed attempt at a 5% cashback reward program 24:57 How Melissa digitized Great Wolf Lodge's customer experience 30:51 Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Melissa Douros.