The Best of The Product Manager Podcast in 2024

Welcome back to the Product Manager Podcast and happy holidays to those who celebrate a holiday at this time of year. So we're going to be doing something a little bit different today. Today, I'm joined by Becca Banyard, who you guys might not know from the podcast, but she's actually been with us this entire time. She's our producer. She sits in on every episode. She's a good friend of mine. Becca, thank you for stepping out from behind the curtain today. Hello. Hi, Hannah. I know it's great to be in front of the camera with you. I'm really excited for this because we're going to be talking about...

Some of our favorite moments from the last year. And for those who don't know, the last year has been an amazing year for our podcast, for our show. We put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears into making it what it is today. And all thanks to you guys. We just hit 100,000 listens for downloads for the year. So exciting. It's very exciting for us. There might be folks listening here who are like, that's nothing. But for us, it's a big deal. So we're really excited about that. Yeah, Becca, what's it been like for you sitting in on the last year's worth of shows?

I mean, first of all, it's been awesome to get to sit behind the curtain and listen to you grow as a podcast host from the very first day until now. I think you've really stepped into your own and it's been beautiful to see just how much your confidence has grown. And I can hear you getting more and more excited as the conversations go, as you get more confident with it. But overall, it's just been a really great experience. We've seen our listenership grow.

pretty organically and pretty significantly. Like you said, we just hit 100,000 downloads for this year and it's been a wild ride. Yeah, it's been really amazing. I'm so grateful for, first of all, to work with someone. Becca, for those who are just hearing her voice now, is in her own right a great podcaster. She's got a podcast or had been on a podcast for People Managing People and our sister publications for some time. Was killing it there.

She's a producer for multiple podcasts. She's just like a total powerhouse, wonderful person to work with in every capacity. It's been really great working with you. I'm just so excited about all the relationships that we've kind of formed over the past year, all the great moments and like learnings that we've been able to share with folks listening. So we won't linger too much on the emotional hindsight, but we're both very happy with how the year has gone and very grateful for all of our listeners. So thank you so much for tuning in.

I guess we should talk about some of the episodes. Yeah, like you said, we've had some incredible guests. I've been amazed at the people who have said yes to us. It's been such an honor. So yeah, I guess diving back into memory lane over this last year and looking at the different episodes that we've had, let's dive in. What was an episode for you that really paused you in your tracks with respect to an insight or how profound it was?

Okay, so with all of these, there's a caveat that I don't want to play favorites because all of these have had great moments, but some will stand out depending on what you're asking me. And in this case, one that kind of jumps to mind is Koji Pereira. We had Koji on a little while ago. He's a VP of design and research at Sigma Computing. And he had some really interesting insights on design, taking into account the context of people's lives and, you know, just nuances.

cultural nuances when we're designing for a specific demographic of people to really take into account some of the specificities that exist in their day-to-day that may not exist even in the day-to-day that you have and how critical, really good quality research is in order to uncover those insights and be able to speak and resonate with those people. I just kind of found like his insights on design were really profound. I learned a lot from talking to him and I kind of felt like talking to him about that.

area really kind of brings together a lot of the talk that we have around engineering and design and research and how they kind of fit together around a person's experience. That was a really insightful episode for me. What is it called in high school where you give class awards where it's like most this, most that, most likely to? My school called them hyperbole awards or something like that. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, it's been a...

A minute since I've been a high school man. I know. Yeah, we're not giving numbers, but yeah, that rings a bell. I feel like that's kind of what we're doing right now. So moving on to the next episode, what would you say was perhaps the most practical or actionable tip that you received from a guest? Okay, so there's a few here. A bunch could jump out at me. There's two that come to mind right away. One, because it was so recent and because it was so practical. We had Jim Consue from...

Duolingo come on. He's the head of product at Duolingo. Really cool, really smart guy. But I thought that it was really great how he used Duolingo as a case study to talk about monetization. And I know pricing for a lot of product teams is just, it's such a nuanced thing. There's so many factors that go into the decision around how much you should charge and what features should be paid, which ones shouldn't be. So I thought that Jim had really great insights on

Just like thinking about your growth strategy and kind of taking that into account with your pricing and kind of like how those things can be interwoven. I really thought it was great how he talked about experimentation and like how they conduct experiments in order to kind of arrive at the right pricing. I think that's one of the key decisions you end up making, which is should you offer some part of your app for free? Which parts? And I think the underlying variable to meet there is what you offer for free should eventually help you grow.

For Duolingo, when we offer the most valuable part of the app, which is the fact that you can learn a language or learn math music for free, it really helps build an organic flywheel because if you use it and you like it, you tell your friends. If everything is paid, well, most people don't even get access to it and don't tell their friends so the organic flywheel doesn't build. If you build a complete premium product, then you end up having to build a paid marketing machine because the product needs to grow.

And you end up having to spend a lot in marketing to grow, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's an entirely different business model. So yeah, I thought that was really practical and very applicable to a lot of the products that we see developed now, especially if you're going for more of like a subscription model. I also really liked the insights from Mohalaba because it was practical as well as reassuring. A lot of what he was saying in his episode was really about, you can't really expect people who aren't data scientists to pull insights that are at the quality of a data scientist.

And so it's just important to be able to develop analytics dashboards that make sense to everybody who needs to utilize that information. He put it better than I do. But what I really liked about Mo's episode, and by the way, he's the founder of DataWisp, which is an analytics platform. He was really good at making what are really technical ideas, really practical and digestible for people who are not.

really analytics minded. And I think there's a lot of pressure in this very data driven culture to be this like data focused, like genius. And that's just not realistic for people who are really effective in the role in other capacities. So I thought his episode was really great. I would really recommend checking that out if you're, you know, you feel that pressure to be a data driven product manager when you're really more of the soft skills product manager. Totally. His episode, I think really resonated with our audience. We've seen great numbers on that one. So I think...

There's definitely something to that, especially like you said, of breaking it down for people who aren't necessarily specialized in data, but are expected to dig into the numbers. And the great thing with the gems episode is because everybody pretty much arguably knows Duolingo. It provides like a clear case study that people can actually resonate with. And even like, because it's free, you can hop on and see what they're offering. That one was fantastic. Yeah, I really enjoyed great conversation and such great examples.

Yeah, it's helpful when we get those clear examples. I think those are some of the best takeaways. Now we did have one episode that I already have in mind. I'm sure you're going to say the same thing. Who was the guest who gave the hottest take? Oh, Victoria Koo. My girl, Victoria Koo. Yeah, we hopped on. We really broke the mold with one episode that we did a little while ago. I'm sure that people who are regular listeners were like, what is going on with this one? But it was a lot of fun.

Basically, we just kind of jammed on the state of the tech industry, the state of SaaS, the state of product. And we kind of, you know, dovetailed into talking about some more almost like existential questions about, you know, like, where are we in this late stage capitalism situation and talking about AI and what it means for the future and how are we going to adapt as a culture as, you know, it becomes more integrated into our day to day. So yeah, I'd say there were a lot of hot takes in there.

On her end and on my end, I would definitely say it was our most unhinged episode. But in the best way, I had a lot of fun with it. I felt like it, we kind of ran the gamut emotionally. I mean, I cried. I don't know. I feel like maybe both of us cried. It was definitely a different episode where we really were kind of letting our true selves shine. And so if that's your thing, that might be interesting. And if it's not, well, skip it. No, it was definitely a joy to sit in on that episode and hear you two just like...

unravel and unleash all of your opinions and thoughts. It felt like sitting at the bar after a really hard sprint and just like cheersing some beers and just letting loose. It was quite a time. I would argue you two had some of the best chemistry as well in terms of guests to host. Yeah, we had a meeting at one point and I think Victoria was like, I feel like if we lived in the same city, we'd be best friends. And I was like, I totally agree.

No shade to other guests. I, everybody, I loved talking to everybody. We kind of found common ground on everything, but yeah, every now and then you kind of meet someone. You're like, this is my buddy. Okay. So I looked it up. The word I was looking for was superlative. Yeah. Yeah. That's like the most likely to anyways, carrying on with this superlative vibe. We have had some pretty funny guests on our show as well. Funny as in humorous. Like I'd love to hear some of the funniest moments for you on the show.

Well, first of all, I have to say that there was a strong trend of user researchers on the show being what I found to be the funniest people. But I think it's my sense of humor. I just find that the UXRs, I don't know what you guys have going on. What's in the water with the UXRs? But I just vibe with the UXR folks so much. I thought that all of the user researchers that came onto the show made me laugh in some capacity. The moment that I think about is Jared Spool.

He's the CEO of Center Center, by the way, and just such a cool guy. I just thought he was so, so smart. And yet everything that he said just really, I don't want to say caught me off guard. It wasn't like I was shocked, but it was just like, I think I actually got cut out of the episode. But when we first jumped on the call, we both had video on and he was sitting in front of kind of like a gallery picture wall in I guess his office. And I asked him, we always ask, like, tell me a little bit about your background and how you got to where you are today.

And he just physically described the background that he was in front of. He's like, well, it seems to be a beige wall with some photos on it. Like it didn't make it into the final cut because it was audio only, but I almost lost it right there and then. But later on in the conversation, we were kind of focused on the user experience. What makes it good? What makes it bad? What makes it just okay? Like how can we kind of skew things to the more awesome side of things? And he described an okay user experience using the example of his toilet. And he was like, you know, it does.

the job that it's supposed to do. It's not an amazing user experience, but it's okay. He put it way funnier than that, but I just thought it was like, he probably uses that example all the time, but for me, it was really new and it really tickled me. I have a toilet in my house and it works just fine. It does everything I expect it to do. It meets all the needs I have established for it. I don't go around telling people about this thing. Well, I just did. Normally,

I don't go around telling. If it didn't meet my needs, if it didn't meet my expectations, I'd be grumpy about it. But I actually don't give it much thought at all because it does what it's supposed to do. And that's good UX. But at the top of this scale, above good UX, is where we get the opportunity to exceed people's expectations, to do more than what they expected it to do in a way that's meaningful to them. So that doesn't mean we just give them more features that they don't care about.

It has to exceed their expectations. I love that. One thing I've noticed kind of the trend on our show is that we've had some people who are pretty big names in the product management world, and yet they're so down to earth. And I feel like they just let their personalities shine. And yeah, they've been a pleasure to listen to and work with on the show. And yeah, Jared was hilarious. I loved him. Yeah. Shout out Jared. Shout out Laura Klein. She was fantastic as well. Come on.

Steve Portigal, such a great guy, had such a fun time in that conversation as well. I loved how meta I got. He was kind of analyzing my interview style as we were talking about how to do user interviews. That was a lot of fun. I just, yeah, I had such a great time with a lot of these conversations. Michelle Ronson, also a great time. Yeah, we've had some great user research folks on the show. Definitely blessed in that realm. All right, let's talk about your most humbling interview moments. Okay, I have at least one of these every episode.

Because people come on the show. I mean, everybody is so smart. So there's always going to be some kind of moment where I'm like, oh, I never thought about it that way. But the most humbled I was, was Akash Gupta for many obvious reasons. One, because he is such a pro in so many capacities. He's a pro creating content, which is mainly what I do. He's a pro in the product space and is just so on the ball. He speaks about...

very complex topics that only experience can buy you. It's just so natural. And it's like when you kind of walk into a room when everybody's got a PhD and you're just kind of like holding on for dear life, trying to, everyone is just so comfortable with that level of discourse. And you're just like, I'm just trying to learn as I go. But anyway, I really enjoyed the conversation and was very humbled by it. And particularly what kind of caught me off guard with that one is him just kind of talking about

The discussion was focused around how to survive as a product manager in a feature factory and kind of broke the mold that way. Because a lot of the time when we have folks kind of coming on, talking about more of like a cultural issue within an organization, oftentimes the stance that we hear is kind of like, yeah, you can change it from the inside. And I think Akash was the first person to come on who had the courage to be like, you probably can't, honestly, unless you have some kind of level of influence that's just much higher in the organization.

Probably if you're in a feature factory, it is that way for a reason. And that is the job. You're better off just leaning into the Zen of this is the job. And how can I be as effective as possible in this job and use it to enhance my skill set and get just really, really good at being a feature factory PM. And then if you're not happy with that, you can leverage into some other kind of position, but that's the job. And it was like, whoa, I guess that's true. There's no point in posturing about it. Like that's where we're at.

It was a mic drop for sure. Definitely. I loved how honest and just like blunt he was about that. And I say, going back to what you're saying about being in a room full of PhDs and trying to like, just keep your head above water. I would say that's the best place or best position to be in because that's where you're going to grow the most when you're trying to catch up to everybody. That's where you see like accelerated growth and where you're like stretched the most. So I feel like, yeah.

That's the best place to be and to have those moments every show. You're like knowledge of product is just expanding rapidly. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. And that's something I think that coming onto the show for the first time, it was my first time podcasting. It was like a lot of firsts for me. And I'm kind of talking to people who have a very different set of expertise than me. And initially that was very intimidating because when you're brand new to interviewing people.

you kind of get this sense of pressure. Like if I'm not on their level, how are we going to have a good conversation? But actually the whole point of it is that you're not on their level and that you're learning so much by being curious and being willing to kind of engage on topics that you don't know anything about or know very little about or think you know everything about, but you're willing to be, to stand corrected. And that's been the best part of the show is kind of being able to absorb little bits of all these people's just fascinating perspectives. It's been really cool. I really appreciate.

the art of podcasting a lot more having been on the side of the mic. So taking a little bit of a curveball, just to kind of dig into a little bit more of what you're saying, what would you say is kind of your biggest learning as a podcast host and as an editor in the product management publication space? What has it been for you? Oh, that's a really good question, Becca. I could kind of come at this from two perspectives. One of them is like for my personal slash professional growth, like my best biggest takeaway.

And then my best like actionable, practical advice that I've derived from this experience. If we're talking about actionable, practical advice that I feel has been a big part of how we've been able to grow, I think it's been really leaning on a very predictable and effective format. Like from the beginning, you and I have really focused on how can we really get as much value as possible to people in a fairly short timeframe. So we've really kind of come at that by

synthesizing and kind of looking at also like our drop-off rates and that kind of thing, like understanding, you know, where are people at? What kind of attention span can they give us? What are they really looking to the show to accomplish? And so the whole idea is having a predictable format. And when we have a guest on, we always kind of start with like, what are you passionate about? Like, what can you really offer the audience? And then how do we kind of create sort of this structure of a hypothesis and then kind of talk about this, like kind of tell the story in bits and pieces that kind of lead us.

directly to, you know, what's the value here for the audience. And that's kind of given us a very tight show format that's flexible, adaptable, but also predictable and really focused on like a structure that delivers value and doesn't meander too much. So I think that's really been, I mean, that's why I like the show. I hope that that's what other people have preached about it as well. Personally, though, like as far as like a pro dev, you know, personal development kind of thing, I'd say talking to people who are in a really experienced

level, I think it's really easy to be intimidated by people who are in a higher position seniority-wise or work for a really big company or, you know, all of these kinds of aspirational positions. And what I've learned from talking to people of all stripes is, first of all, everyone's got something valuable to say. We've had an incredibly popular episode, probably the most popular episode ever with a person who'd been a PM for one year, Mariana and Taya.

And then we also have had really great conversations with people who are, you know, all the way up the chain and in executive roles and product. And each of those people have something really valuable to say. And in the same token, so do you. Whoever you are, if you're listening and you're somebody who's in their first year product, or you're somebody who's, you know, kind of mid-senior level, or you're somebody who's kind of reaching an executive or in an executive role, your experience and where you are at this very moment is very valuable to someone.

You can be a first year PM and kind of understand the landscape of what it's like to be in this job market. And that can be something that's very interesting to someone who's at the very highest level for reasons that you may not understand. Yeah, I think it's good to kind of walk into, you know, whether you're in a networking situation at a conference or you're doing a podcast or you're talking to someone for user research purposes, don't be intimidated. Come into that situation and know that you have something to offer. You have a valuable perspective and be curious about what theirs is. Yeah, that's so good.

Everybody has experience to some level. It'll be varying and everybody has a story to tell. One thing I like to think about is when it comes to like educating or like helping somebody else, you only need to be like 10% more advanced in that field or in that craft in order to teach or in order to share your wisdom with somebody. I totally agree. Everyone has something to share. Yeah. And something valuable. No one is inherently better or more important.

we'll have something valuable to offer. Totally. And I think even just kind of going back on what I just said, even people who are more advanced in the field can learn something from people who are just starting out. Maybe they have a different or fresh perspective of the industry or of the job or yeah, I think we have something to learn from each other. Oh yeah. I can speak to having been in people management positions versus more of an IC role in the past. It doesn't take long before you kind of lose touch with

what the IC experience is and like what people are dealing with in the field. And it's really important to kind of check yourself and be aware of kind of like what, because if you're relying on other people to kind of get the job done, you have to know what the job is. We could do a whole other episode on this, but yeah, humility is kind of the point. Yeah, totally. Okay. So as we look towards 2025, what are some of the little nuggets that you've gotten from guests along the way?

in terms of relevant advice that people can use and implement in the new year? Oh, so many. I could honestly say just about everyone. Okay, as far as ones that are hyper relevant, obviously we've done a lot of talking about AI. Everyone wants to know about it. Everyone wants to listen to it. Our episodes on AI generally do really well. I would say if you're going to kind of pick one to start with, Dr. Nessie Lee, friend of the show, lovely lady. We've worked with her a few times now because she's so great.

And she had a really great episode on upskilling, becoming an AI product manager versus a traditional product manager, kind of some of the need to know resources in order to kind of get that skill set up to snuff. She also did a really great episode on doubling your salary as a PM, which everybody should know about. We actually had a few really great salary related episodes. So I'll kind of give all of them their flowers here.

Another really great one that I would love for people to check out if they're interested in increasing their salary in 2025. Who isn't? Josh Doody, who is a salary negotiation coach for high earners. He came on, he did a great episode on exactly how to negotiate your salary at the moment of negotiation. Like you've got to that point, what do I do when they ask me how much I want? And kind of like how that conversation kind of starts earlier and like missteps people do. That one's a must listen for everybody. We also had some really great episodes with...

Jessica Smith. And she is a, she's at Savant Recruiting. She's a recruiter in the tech space. That woman is real. I loved that she got real. I love that she did not mince words. We had two episodes with her and one of them was directed at leadership that was a little bit real talkish. Listen to it if you're a leader and you don't mind hearing tough love. But the other one that I think is a little bit more applicable to your question here, Becca, is she has some advice for how to rise to the top.

in the PM job market space and had a really practical advice for how do you navigate this like crap job market as a PM, especially a new PM or someone who's looking to, you know, level up to a more senior role. So that one is also a must listen for folks in that predicament. And then I also want to call out Laura Lynn McHugh. She's got a fascinating story. She is the lead product manager at Superhuman, which is an email client. And she used to be a,

helicopter pilot for the military. And she somehow managed to make flying around a base. I might be misquoting her here, but like flying around an enemy base with a helicopter sound boring and an email client sound fascinating. It was like the most insane dissonance I think I've experienced in an episode, but she had some really, really great takeaways also on AI and upscaling and kind of like what you can do to get better at

using AI in your day-to-day. So I really liked that episode too. And she was just such a cool person. There's something about using AI in your daily life that is, that just, I don't know, it gives you this knowledge, this understanding of what's possible. A new feature comes out. Okay, give it a try. A new technology is available. A new model is available. Another company comes out. Like, okay, give it a try. Yeah, she is very cool. Very passionate about product management.

Okay, Becca, well, I feel like we should probably wrap it up. But I'm going to turn the same question on you that you just asked me not too long ago. What has been your biggest learning as a producer sitting in on all of these conversations and making tedious notes about all the times I um and uh? That's a great question. I think one of my takeaways has probably been just how like passionate everybody has been in the product management space and how your passion can take you a long way.

just like step by step. I think of Danny Grant and just how passionate she was or is for product management and how that's led her to become a founder. And yeah, I feel like I'm new to the product space. I'm not new to the podcasting world, but I'm new to the product space. And I feel like just listening to everybody on the show, hearing their passion and hearing their stories of how they've...

come in with maybe an idea that's a little bit different than somebody else's, or they've seen a problem and they've been able to think of a solution. It's just been really inspiring. I feel like it makes me want to think differently just day to day in my own work, in my own job and in the future. Yeah. Oh, okay. Dani Grant. Yeah. I'm glad you brought her up because I should have given her a shout out at some point in this episode too.

Her episode on becoming a founder from being a PM was so great. Such a positive human being. And it just felt like every word out of her mouth was so inspiring. I loved how humble she was and how she just used so many examples from how frustrating it was to kind of go through that transition. And she just fully admitted some of the things that missteps that she did because she knew that they were going to be useful for people. And like just seeing how Jam has, it's just made this meteoric rise.

I just have so much respect for her. She's such a great leader. Before we go, let's talk about 2025. Yes. Yeah. What is coming down the pipe for the product manager podcast in 2025? Well, the biggest thing is that we will no longer be the product manager podcast. We are rebranding in 2025. It'll be a little bit of a slow transition, but we are going to become the CPO club.

And we're going to be focusing a little bit more on the experiences, challenges, barriers, successes of folks in the chief product officer role. So this is a lot of exciting opportunities for us because a lot of those topics will speak to folks who are specifically at that higher rung of leadership. And a lot of them will be applicable to folks of any experience level in the product space. We kind of want to establish a dialogue between kind of like these high tiers of leadership.

all the way down to the absolute newest ICs and kind of create new content and sort of give a platform to folks who have thoughts that are valuable for every level of leadership. So for those who are listeners of the Product Manager podcast, but don't know that we're also a publication, you can also read our content on theproductmanager.com. We'll soon have a newer URL. We'll talk about that once that has launched in a future show. But keep an eye out for that.

So if you see suddenly on your subscriptions list that we are gone and something called the CPO Club podcast is there, that's us. Still the same team, still the same folks, still the same formula for fun episodes, but we are going to be just tweaking our approach just a little bit. And if you are a CPO or if you're a product executive or leader and would like to be on the show, you think you've got something valuable to share with folks, please get in touch with us. We're always interested in new perspectives.

we will include a link to get in touch with us in the show notes. You can also hit me up on LinkedIn, Hannah Clark, which should show up as the executive editor and podcast host of the product manager. And yeah, we'd love to have you on. Love to talk to you. And with that, thank you all for being part of our show, for being a listener. We really appreciate having you more than you know. We're wishing you the happiest of holidays. Happy New Year. So excited to have you back with us in 2025.