One Knight in Product

Defeating Bias, Prejudice and Bullying in the Workplace (with Kim Scott, author "Radical Candor" & "Just Work")

An interview with Kim Scott, author of "Radical Candor" and "Just Work". Kim was a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter, and other tech companies. She was a member of the faculty at Apple University and before that led AdSense, YouTube, and DoubleClick teams at Google. Earlier in her career Kim managed a pediatric clinic in Kosovo and started a diamond-cutting factory in Moscow.
We speak about a lot, including:
How she's already getting feedback on the book, not just complements, but people taking action based on it
Whether she's got any negative feedback from the types of people who complain about political correctness
How she knew she was onto something when her dad's friends had a lightbulb moment discussing the book
How she felt revisiting painful experiences from her past, and whether this was a positive or negative experience for her
Whether strategic swearing in books is a positive or negative when trying to land a message
How she got feedback from a black female executive that being radically candid doesn't work for everyone, and how this spurred her to write her new book
Whether she felt she was an imperfect messenger for the themes in this book given that she is herself privileged
How we all used biased language, how words matter and why it's important that we all work on it
How to point out people's biased, prejudiced and bullying behaviour without getting their defences up and shutting you down
How to be an upstander not a bystander, and building this into the culture of your company
What to do when the problems in your company are systemic, from the CEO downwards, and the importance of checks and balances
Buy Kim's books
"We―all of us―consistently exclude, underestimate, and underutilize huge numbers of people in the workforce even as we include, overestimate, and promote others, often beyond their level of competence. Not only is this immoral and unjust, it's bad for business. Just Work is the solution."Just Work
 
"Radical Candor is about caring personally and challenging directly, about soliciting criticism to improve your leadership and also providing guidance that helps others grow. It focuses on praise but doesn't shy away from criticism ― to help you love your work *and* the people you work with."Radical Candor
 
Get in touch with Kim
You can check out Kim's work on the Just Work website, or follow her on Twitter.

Sustainable Entrepreneurship & Escaping Hustle Culture (with Polina Marchenko, Founder @ SIDE PRJCT)

An interview with Polina Marchenko. Polina is a self-described geekette, product leader and multiple startup founder. Polina saw the dark side of startup life in Berlin, suffering burnout due to the intense hustle culture. She has since moved to the US, and is now focusing her efforts on her new startup whilst ensuring that she does it in a sustainable manner.
We talk about a lot, including:
How she developed a passion for entrepreneurship from an early age and through higher education
What it was like being a junior PM at a startup and whether it helped her build her hard skills
Her struggles with hustle culture, unrealistic expectations and inevitable burn out
How she used the lessons from her first startup to make sure she didn't make the same mistakes again
How she accidentally moved to Silicon Valley and ended up in a hacker house with 14 other hustling entrepreneurs
The problems with hustle culture and why she's actively trying to get her friends to step out of it
How a passion for community building and desire to connect led her to create 3 new startups in a pandemic
How she used her past startup experience to decide it was time to park a couple of startup ideas and concentrate on one
How she's helping people unleash their potential, fight imposter syndrome, and how important this is to her values
Try SIDE PRJCT
"Resumes are overrated, show me what you've built"
Check out the SIDE PRJCT website.
Contact Polina
You can reach out to Polina on LinkedIn.

Plan your Product Journey via Strategy, Roadmaps and OKRs (with Nacho Bassino, CPO @ Best Day Travel & author "Product Direction")

About the Episode
An interview with Nacho Bassino. Nacho is CPO for Best Day Travel Group and the author of new book "Product Direction", which is a practical playbook for product strategy. Nacho is a passionate supporter of the Latin American product community, and host of a Spanish-language product podcast.
We speak about a lot, including:
How writing a book is a great way to really learn about the topic you're writing about
Transitioning from project-led to product-led, how to do it at scale and manage complicated dependencies without SAFe
What it's like interviewing holidaymakers, and how you can always get a captive focus group when you need one
Gathering insights to help define product strategy, reducing them and synthesising them into the iniatives that matter
The importance for product teams of building for the future and not concentrating on short term thinking
Important principles for building an effective roadmap to support the product vision
Driving alignment with multiple stakeholders and avoiding an information gap
How to avoid OKRs becoming just a big "to do" list via peer review and collaboration
The importance of investing in and providing local language content for the Latin American product community
Buy Nacho's Book
Nacho's book, "Product Direction" is available in all the usual places. Check it out!
Product Direction website.
Conversaciones de Producto
If you speak Spanish, why not try Nacho's podcast Conversaciones de Producto.
Contact Nacho
You can reach out to Nacho on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Surviving a Lack of Product Thinking & Riding the Product Maturity Curve (with Nis Frome, Co-founder & VP Product @ Feedback Loop)

An interview with Nis Frome. Nis is the co-founder and VP of Product at Feedback Loop, an agile research platform. Nis took over as VP of Product after wearing many other hats. He's also a mentor and podcaster, with a keen interest in sharing with the community and helping to inspire other product managers with thought leadership.
We talk about a lot, including:
What made him go into entrepreneurship straight out of college
Why he took over the product function and whether it was a classic case of executive swoop in
How real world product management can differ so much from what's in the books
How to avoid getting depressed if everything's not like the books on day one
How to land the message about good product management practices with execs who haven't read said books
Whether a product manager on the ground can fix a poorly performing organisation on their own
The importance of connecting the dots and understanding how a product manager's decisions drive outcomes
How different people and teams in a company can be on different parts of the product maturity curve and whether this matters
Effectively segmenting your customers and working out how to prioritise when their needs are different
And much more!
Listen to Nis's podcast
It's ok, we can have an open relationship. Check out Nis's podcast This is Product Management.
Contact Nis
You can reach out to Nis on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Treating your Career as a Product & Making a Wicked Impact as a Product Leader (with Gibson Biddle, former VP Product @ Netflix)

About the Episode
An interview with Gibson Biddle. Gib is the former VP of Product Management at Netflix, and former CPO of Chegg. Nowadays, he's a coach and teacher who gave 140 talks over the last year. He's also recently started a mailing list, "Ask Gib" where he answers some of the top voted questions every week.
We understandably speak about a lot, including:
His new newsletter "Ask Gib", and why you should subscribe to it
Whether he's gotten any difficult questions he couldn't answer
How he manages to do 140 events and how he optimises the format
How to make an impact in your first 90 days as a product leader
The importance of moving quickly to make an impact, and striking whilst the iron is hot
What to do if you aren't passionate about the company you work for, and when to leave
How to handle M&A as part of your product strategy & why not to worry about the valuation
The pros & cons of using different frameworks to teach product leadership practices
Treating yourself as a product, and experimenting with your career choices to help build your intuition and business maturity
The importance of taking risks, both for mature businesses as well as in your career
Whether Gib could have saved Blockbuster, why he thinks they ultimately failed, and how the Innovator's Dilemma loomed large
And much more!
Sign up to Ask Gib
Gib answers the most upvoted questions once a week on his newsletter, Ask Gib. Sign up here and never be bereft of content again.
Please rate Gib's interview
Gib loves NPS and uses it to optimise his content and make sure he can continue to improve it and excite his audience.
Please take a second to rate his interview!
Contact Gib
You can contact Gib on Twitter, LinkedIn or gibsonbiddle.com.

Growth Marketing & Reshaping the World of eCommerce (with Nichole DeMeré, CMO @ Reeview)

An interview with Nichole DeMeré. Nichole is CMO at Reeview, a new eCommerce video review platform, as well as Taggg, a calendar scheduling solution. Nichole is a passionate growth marketer, consultant, community builder and mentor.
We talk about a lot, including:
The story behind Reeview, how they're looking to revolutionise eCommerce, and some of the early traction they're getting
Why Nichole prefers working with early stage start ups and getting in on the ground floor, and thriving in chaos
The difference between growth hacking techniques & general marketing, and which strategies & tactics to use
How businesses seeking growth need to get ready to experiment and test their most important hypotheses
The importance of having both qualitative and quantitative data, and their preference for having conversations with people
Why it's important to focus your growth strategy and not try to hit too many channels at once
Whether Nichole is up with all the new trends in tech or their own worst nightmare when it comes to marketing
The importance of mentorship and paying it forward and their advice for the next generation of SaaS marketers
How someone starts out in a one horse town and takes over the world of B2B Marketing
More about Reeview
You can find out about Reeview on Reeview's website or Reeview @ Product Hunt.
Contact Nichole
You can find Nichole everywhere. A few places included Product Hunt, LinkedIn, Twitter or their own website nicholeelizabethdemere.com

Cleaning Up After Professional Services & Becoming Truly Product Led (with Paul Ortchanian, Founder @ Bain Public)

An interview with Paul Ortchanian. Paul worked for many years in Silicon Valley before moving back to Montreal. He got bored of working for a services firm there and decided to take his SV experience into his own startup, Bain Public, aiming to foster Product Hygiene in Canadian firms and beyond.
We talk about a lot, including:
How a lack of product thinking in Montreal and experience in Silicon Valley led him to create a consultancy to fix it
How his great experience in Silicon Valley and imbibing the product culture there was an advantage
The challenge of "Moses syndrome" from CEOs who think they're the second coming because they have secured funding
The trouble with traditional startup mentors not coming from digital backgrounds
How and why they invented the SOAP methodology to help Product Managers understand what they should be working on and when
Some of the troubles that mixed mode product / service companies have
How to arm yourself against short term thinking and sales-led feature development
The importance of using data to justify your product decisions
The importance of being able to handle rejection and people saying no
How to take control of the discussion with sales & marketing and not just blame them
And much more!
Bain Public
If you want to find out more about Paul's company, you can check out the Bain Public website and find out more about the SOAP methodology.
Contact Paul
You can connect with Paul on LinkedIn.

Building Data Driven Products & Dodging Unsolicited Advice (with Emily Reid, Product Manager @ FCT)

An interview with Emily Reid. Emily is a Product Manager for FCT, a Canadian insurance company, as well as consulting for AgeRate, a healthtech startup. Emily is passionate about demystifying data and is leading FCT's charge towards being a data-driven, API-enabled company.
We talk about a lot, including:
The most important question - is it "this data" or "these data"?
The pros & cons of working for a big, established firm and the imperative to move to a more agile mindset
Why she moved from banking into product management, and the misogynistic attitudes she was trying to get away from
How she skilled up in product management hard skills, as well as data science fundamentals
The importance of embracing not being the smartest person in the room
How a background in biotech at uni helped her really explain complicated concepts
The importance of picking good product metrics & why you need stats knowledge to be an effective PM
How data science isn't the be all and end all, how to factor failure into the process, and why we might see a new breed of data science specialist product managers
Why unsolicited internet advice is never welcome and people should just stop
How she has been judged and patronised as a young, up and coming, blonde woman in technology
And much more!