Productwise

Hosted by Alexandra Paiser

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Latest episode

Jul 2024

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About the show

Join the executive Headhunter Alexandra Paiser in Productwise Podcast as she and her guests unpack the secrets of what it takes to build and grow a successful products users love, build diverse teams, and the journey of becoming a C-level executive.

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27 recent

July 9, 202418 min

Journey from VP Product to product focused Co-Founder with Lauren Treasure, Founder of Higa

It's my pleasure to invite Lauren Treasure, a Co-Founder of Higa to speak today and give her perspective on leading the product in start-up or scale-up vs leading product in your own venture. Lauren has a wealth of experience in B2C space and shared some amazing learnings around: 1. The differences in founding a company vs. leading a product team, 2. Building a product zero to one at an existing company vs. building a company zero to one, 3. How it takes a smaller team than it ever has to start a company Product people who are eyeing the path of the Co-Founder (which I am seeing an increase in!), this episode is a must listen for you! Check out Higa and connect with Lauren on Linkedin!

April 2, 202413 min

Improving customer centricity as your product scales with Francis Brero, C0-Founder and CPO at MadKudu

Francis Brero is the Founder and Product leader in MadKudu, a data heavy product allowing companies to manipulate and use first party data to customise the buying experience for b2b buyers. Our question of the day: how do we improve customer centricity as your product scales? Francis shares that 1 big change was to introduce Gong, a call recording tool, to bring the voice of customer into the front of the decision making. Francis uses snippets of the recordings through the process of adjustment and improvement of the product on ongoing basis. "You get an amazing pulse from the customer and the way they are reacting". Team also includes relevant snippets with feedback on product roadmap and product experience on board memos. This tool alone allowed MadKudu team to implement multiple improvements in the product, such as better match the customer journey and deepen partnership strategy, and significantly reduce bias in collecting feedback. Connect with Francis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francisbrero/ Check out MadKudu: https://www.madkudu.com/

March 6, 202411 min

Carving out time to stay in close contact with your user, with Matheus Beltrami, Co-Founder of deX Labs

Love interviewing first time founders and CPOs on the podcast. Why? Because they both help us all go back to the essence of product management and recap on some of the bias we are all prone to. If you are a first time or repeat product lead, scale up product person or a founder working out the solution - these learnings are for you. Few weeks ago I sat down for a chat with Matheus Beltrami, Co-Founder and CPO of deX Labs to talk about his journey to product from functional field of data and analytics. deX Labs⁠ is a vertically focused state of the art platform designed to seamlessly integrate every aspect of data handling. Matheus talks about 3 main learning areas along building deX Labs⁠: - developing a deep understanding of the problem you are tackling by keeping focus on your user group and problem you are solving for them. He outlines the need to separate yourself from your perception of the problem (and your opinion) and what customers are saying and experiencing. This is easier said than done! - collecting and prompting information. Digging (really) deep into the problems. Being attentive and allowing ample time to truly understand the day to day of your user in order to gain a better insight into the problem. These days product leads are inundated with many meetings causing them to get lost in details sometimes and put the big picture questions on the back burner. Create "thinking" time pockets to counteract that. This point was also brought up by Millie Zah from DAZN on ProductCon few weeks back and is a talking pain point for product leaders I am talking to. - accept that you'll have to compromise. Group and cluster ideas, put those into backlog and prioritise. Rigourously. Best of luck to Matheus Beltrami⁠ and the deX Labs⁠ team on growing the product further!

February 13, 202416 min

Platformizing the product to enable horizontal growth with Dylan Casey, Co-Founder of WeDu

Dig into the story of development of WeDu, a community of endurance athletes united around the belief that the true path forward is forged by breakthroughs of body and mind. WeDu naturally grew with its community and expanded horizontally to become a platform, brining together creators, brands, and fans, scaling operations with the help of AI, offering highly curated experience for their niche customer base. Dylan Casey also talks about the "flow of the dollar", tackling the cost implications of scaling the b2c business, and keeping the focus narrow and being one thing to a specific group of people.

February 7, 202411 min

Creating empowered yet self guided product teams, with Malte Scholz - Founder, CEO and CPO at airfocus

Love when product people build the product for product people! Focused on assisting large and complex product teams to improve on collaboration, communication and results, airfocus recently successfully closed a $7.5M fundraising round, led by Newion with the participation of XAnge, Nauta, Riverside Acceleration Capital, and Picea Capital. In this session we break down the components of building successful products and double click on one of them - building empowered and self guided product teams. Tune in to hear key learnings from the Co-Founder, CEO and CPO of airfocus, Malte Scholz!

January 31, 202422 min

Stage appropriate hiring with Natalie Ledbetter, People Ops leader

As a talent professional and in my conversations with the founders and CEOs, stage appropriate hiring comes up 100% of the time. That is why I am so glad that we are covering this very topic as the first episode of the new 10 minute series. We had been running longer here, as the subject in question is so vast that myself and Natalie can hold a 2 day conference on this. Natalie had been working as an early stage PeopleOps leader for over a decade and had been shaping the organisations of many startups across Boldstart VC portfolio and outside of it. Her straightforward approach, clear focus on her niche and experience make her one of the top people seed and Series A ventures need to have onboard. Join me as we summarise this massive theme into a 22 minute discussion on who to hire and, most importantly, when. Connect with Natalie Ledbetter over Linkedin, follow her latest talks, and don't forget to check out her article for Fast Company.

January 31, 20240 min

Introducing the 10 minute podcast series

Making the new "10 minute podcast" series available for everyone to enjoy. Each episode in these series is focused on 1 prominent question for the tech community today. I'll be interviewing Founders, CEOs and Product & Engineering leaders, sharing their latest learnings.

January 22, 202423 min

Women in Leadership Building Industry-leading products in the Age of AI: event summary with Roxy Stimpson, VP Engineering at F5

Join the "Thought Leaders: An In-person Roundtable Series" to broaden your knowledge, exchange ideas, and engage with accomplished professionals and experts in their respective fields. This event in Seattle focused on the theme of "Women in Leadership Building Industry-leading products in the Age of AI" and was hosted by F5 and Productwise Talent. This recording is a recap of 2.5h of active discussions with leaders from the field.

October 30, 202334 min

Reaching first product success with a vital support of a Fractional Head of Product - Amanda Kozlowski Stanley, Fractional HoP

Joining us today is Amanda Kozlowski Stanley, a fractional head of product and co-founder of Sound Products NW. She partners with founders and business leaders to build and test product ideas that are deeply rooted in customer needs. Amanda returned to the West Coast after a decade in Washington, DC and Hong Kong. She's led strategy and innovation projects for private- and public-sector organizations on five continents, including a former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, the CEO of one of Germany’s largest conglomerates, and Starbucks. Professional and experienced product mind is needed in the organization from the moment you have an idea, yet many pre-seed and seed stage startups cannot afford to hire a full time experienced resource. The market found a solution to this challenge with a Fractional Head of Product leaders who are stepping in to help the founders and first time product CEOs realise their potential, reach initial PMF and set the critical foundation for product organisation. Who doesn't love 0-1 journeys! In this episode we cover common pitfalls, learnings and, of course, the ways to identify, screen and engage a fractional product leader.

September 21, 202336 min

Diversity and inclusive culture as a solution to building better products, with Roxy Stimpson - Head of Innovation, VP of Engineering @F5

Our guest today is Roxy Stimpson, Head of Innovation, Vice President of Engineering in the Office of the CTO at F5, who leads a charter to accelerate the pace and impact of innovation at F5. Before F5, Roxy was the CTO of IoT World Labs leading global teams to create, build, and launch an innovative digital data transformation SaaS platform serving various industries, including transportation, manufacturing, and supply chain. Her mission is to inspire and empower individuals to become more effective communicators and leaders. She advocates leveraging technology, lean-agile processes, and machine and human connections to deliver tangible positive impacts. This awesome episode is filled with golden nuggets on how to crate a culture of inclusion and support, where asking questions is welcomed. In this episode we talk about: The importance of mentorship Diversity as a solution to building better products The ripple effect of good and bad leadership Importance of the right set up when getting higher in your career Train the trainer model Creating the muscle - calling out things that are not right. The “Yes and” tactic Being the first anchor: if you in minority - does not mean you do not belong. Means you can create the tribe. Soak in the learnings and approach to leadership from Roxy! Lucky enough to be in Washington state? Check out Women's Leadership Academy in University of Washington