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Leah Tharin

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PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership113: Vincent Pierri - How to deal with Stage Fright before important talksVincent Pierri, Public speaking coach and LinkedIn’s "PowerPoint ninja" with 25K+ followers, dismantles stage fright myths and reveals how to craft unforgettable talks. He shares practical frameworks like the "3Ps" (Pain Point-Problem-Promise) and the "ingredient spectrum" for engaging content.Perfect for founders and leaders tired of boring presentations, this episode is full with actionable tweaks.Timestamped Segments00:02:54 - 00:05:10"The Pastor’s Secret: Non-Tech Origins"Vince reveals his background as a full-time pastor—weekly sermons forged his speaking chops and frameworks.00:08:00 - 00:09:16"Stage...
2025-07-2150 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership107: Andres Glusman: Why Your A/B Tests Are Lying (and How to Fix Them)Andres Glusman, experimentation expert and former Meetup product leader, unpacks why 89% of experiments fail - and why that’s a good thing. From redesign pitfalls to balancing data with intuition, he shares hard-earned lessons on turning failure into explosive growth.It’s not about running more tests, but smarter ones.Timestamps & Segments00:01:02 – 00:10:00The Experimentation ConundrumAndres breaks down why most experiments fail, the "VC mindset" for testing, and why a 65% loss rate is better than industry standards.00:10:05 – 00:20:00Low Traffic, Big Swin...
2025-05-2049 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership106: Evie Brockwell - Burnout, Boundaries & Breaking the Hustle CycleEvie Brockwell unpacks why 92% of PMs are crispy-fried – and why "just meditate more" isn't the answer. We dissect toxic sprint culture, ADHD-friendly boundary hacks, and why treating burnout like a product churn problem might save your sanity (and your career).🕒 Timestamps00:02:28 - The Burnout RecipeHigh-driven PMs + chaotic orgs = guaranteed burnout. It’s not your fault – it’s the cult of "ASAP" as a personality trait.00:11:38 - Boundaries Aren’t B.S.Why "I’ll just answer this Slack at 10 PM" destroys teams...
2025-05-1153 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership104: John Cutler - How to Turn Team Chaos into StrategyForget corporate utopias—John Cutler spills the real tea on why work sucks and why we are messy. On "organized anarchies," why 50% of your team is checked out, and how to turn chaos into strategy. Perfect for you if you are tired of performative frameworks.Timestamps & Key Moments00:00 - Intro to the ChaosJohn’s AI-generated roast sets the tone: “Product management’s most unhinged mind” dissects why companies are glorified dumpster fires.01:56 - Why Work SucksThe “garbage can theory” of organizations...
2025-04-2753 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership100: Matt Le May - The Product Manager’s Guide to Driving Business ImpactWhat’s up with the disconnect between product teams and business goals? Why vibes won't pay the bills, and how product teams can avoid the "elephant graveyard" of low-impact work. If you've ever wondered how to align your work with business outcomes - or why your CEO might be the "support worker of the board" - this one's for you.Chapters with Timestamps00:00–04:30The Vibes Economy: Why founders sell visions to investors but fail to communicate existential realities to their teams.The dangers of "pitch deck culture" infiltrating internal strategy.Matt...
2025-03-3053 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership96: Lidia Oshlyansky - 3 Skills That Outlast Any Tech ShiftLidia Oshlyansk reflects on navigating decades of tech evolution - from webmaster days to AI - and shares tactical advice for product operatives. Drawing parallels between today’s AI boom and past shifts (web/mobile revolutions), we talk about transferable skills (negotiation, systems thinking) over fleeting tools, debunks "future-proofing," and advocates curiosity-driven adaptability.Key Timestamps01:58 - Lidia’s unconventional path: From "business architect" to CPO roles at Spotify/Google04:07 - Case Study: How "information architects" evolved into modern UX strategists08:51 - Reality Check: "GPT-5 won’...
2025-02-2458 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership95: Tal Raviv - AI for PMs: Stop Overthinking, Start TinkeringFrom streamlining user research to improving cross-functional alignment, Tal Raviv shares practical tips for PMs to embrace AI without fear. The key? Start small, experiment often, and use AI as a thought partner - not a replacement. Whether it’s summarizing transcripts, building custom assistants, or leveraging tools like ChatGPT and Notion AI, the future of PM work isn’t about avoiding AI - it’s about mastering it.Key TakeawaysAI Won’t Replace PMs, But It Will Change the Job: AI is a tool, not a threat. PMs who learn to use i...
2025-02-1748 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership94: Julia Chatain - Misconceptions and How to Crush Them like a ScientistSenior Scientist Julia Chantin unpacks how cognitive biases and flawed feedback loops sabotage learning—and why SaaS leaders need to care. From debunking misconceptions (like why “proving” someone wrong often backfires) to the power of embodied learning, Julia reveals how diverse perspectives and physical interaction drive breakthroughs. Learn actionable strategies to challenge assumptions, build resilient teams, and design products that align with how humans actually learn - not just how we think they do."We need to reward effort, not just success."01:20 - 07:30Why Feedback Loops Fail (And How to Fix Them)Ju...
2025-02-0953 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership90: Harini Gokul - How to keep things "simple" at scaleThe evolution of sales models, the critical role of customer success in driving revenue, and the responsibilities of C-level executives in fostering cross-functional collaboration with Harini Gokul, CCO @ Entrust, from a first principle perspective.The challenges of implementing product-led sales strategies and the importance of simplifying metrics for effective decision-making. Why traditional customer metrics don’t work that well anymore and why it’s all about two things in business, no matter the scale:Securing and growing customers.TakeawaysC-level roles require a focus on company-wide outcomes, not just departmental inte...
2025-01-1257 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership89: David Yockelson - Revolutionizing Sales with Interactive DemosWe explore the rising significance of interactive demos in B2B SaaS. How these demos serve as a bridge between potential buyers and products, improving all relevant pipeline numbers.The evolution of demo technology, the role of Gen.AI in enhancing demo creation, and the shifting dynamics of the sales process towards a more self-service model.How does the future of marketing in a product-led world look like for Sales?TakeawaysGen.AI will revolutionize demo creation and usage.The market for interactive demos is expanding rapidly.Buyers prefer to...
2025-01-0851 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership88: Teresa Torres - Under the hood of SolopreneurshipTeresa Torres offers a rare sneak peek behind the curtain of how she runs her business. How can you maximize your chances when you’re reaching out to people like us who have limited attention to go around?What is our pricing strategy for what we do, and how did we come up with it? How does Teresa’s demand generation differ from Marty Cagan's or mine?takeawaysCoaching should be a mutual investment of time and resources.Not all requests for help are equal; specificity matters.Sound Bites"I...
2024-12-1538 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership87: Francesca Cortesi - From Market fit to IPOWhy is it so difficult for most companies to shift gears after reaching product market fit? Why can’t we just keep doing what made us successful?Francesca Cortesi shares with me insights on the difficult journey from finding product market fit to getting to an IPO. We particularly explore the details of Hemnet, a Swedish B2B2C SaaS marketplace and how they dealt with this challenge.takeawaysDefending existing revenue becomes a priority as companies scale.Diluting your value proposition can occur when scaling too quickly.Sustainable growth should be pr...
2024-12-0847 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership86: Joan Palmiter Bajorek: Layoff Anxiety in Tech and Career Optionality The pervasive issue of layoff anxiety in the tech industry, particularly in the wake of COVID-19, overvaluation and the rise of AI. Dr. Joan Palmiter explores with me the importance of networking and personal branding as essential tools for job security and career advancement.Are multiple income streams and optionality realistic to mitigate the fear of job loss? How does personal career development overlap with product management? The significance of networking and communication skills and the evolving field of AI and how to adapt to it.takeaways70% of job seekers find opportunities t...
2024-12-0151 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership85: Wes Kao - Strategies for communicating with leadersThe nuances of executive communication and the importance of building buy-in for ideas with Wes Kao. The role of credibility, understanding bandwidth in conversations, and strategies for framing discussions to enhance clarity and reduce cognitive load.De-risking strategies to avoid surprises and the significance of celebrating good decision-making processes rather than just successful outcomes. TakeawaysWorking autonomously means communicating more, not less.Surprises in the workplace are generally unwelcome.Celebrate the process of good decision-making, not just results.Make your proposals easy for others to present.Communication should be proactive, not reactive.
2024-11-241h 01PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership84: Kristi Faltorusso - Aligning Customer Success and Product ManagementKristi Faltorusso, a CS executive and coach, joins me in this high-energy conversation about customer success-assisted onboarding, alignment, and the dreaded realities of cross-functional working with product & sales.We explore effective onboarding strategies, the importance of aligning customer success with product development, and the necessity of quantifying challenges faced by customer success teams.What’s the importance of defining effective KPIs for customer success, focusing on leading indicators rather than lagging ones? How DO we measure customer happiness? Is the NPS as useless as I believe it is?takeawaysOnboarding st...
2024-11-1747 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership83: Tadas Labudis - Overcoming the fear of founder-led sellingFounder-led sales done well has a lot of power especially in product-led companies. Tadas Labudis shares his experiences with founder-led sales and how it helped him build confidence in the product and himself.How to embrace your vulnerabilities and the importance of leaving a positive impression in sales interactions while getting insights you would never get just by looking at data.How to balance product-led growth with effective sales strategies before its too late.takeawaysSales can be enjoyable once you find your own style.Calculated risks in entrepreneurship are...
2024-11-1054 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership82: Maranda Dziekonski - When selling never ends - CS in 2024 and beyondMaranda Dziekonski on the evolving landscape of customer success, the importance of driving value for customers, and owning revenue outcomes for a function that traditionally never has. Like product.Why the traditional role is shifting to a more integrated approach and how this works when “the sale never ends”We discuss the complexities of customer success, the impact of budget constraints on customer retention, and the importance of understanding customer churn.What it means to build around mission-critical services and having the correct timing to introduce customer success to a company. How does sale...
2024-11-0356 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership81: Kyle Poyar - Rethinking pipeline responsibility and MQLsWhat is driving a company's value in 2024? How do we identify and copy trends that work until they don’t anymore? Why is product-led growth no longer a differentiator but becoming a table stake fast?Why is everyone suddenly providing a pipeline from product, marketing, sales, and customer success while the only way that most companies measure pipeline is through Marketing and their MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads)? Why does this old model not work anymore?takeawaysDemand comes from various sources, but visibility is lacking.MQLs are often an arbitrary measure of le...
2024-10-2754 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership80: Leah Tharin - The Art and Pain of Public Speaking Vincent Pierri interviews me (Leah Tharin) about my journey into public speaking, particularly within the tech industry. How I found a platform, overcame stage fright, and built confidence. How does it feel to speak to different audience sizes?How do you train this muscle? And where do memes fit into our dry tech industry? Why is building a brand such a painful experience due to the needed consistency,Interview conducted by Vincent Pierri 🙏 (Public Speaking Voice Coach), who offered his time to generously donate his time to turn me into a guest for once...
2024-10-201h 02PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership79: Erin Papworth - Transitioning a product upmarket from B2C to B2B Learnings from the transition from B2C to B2B in the fintech space focus on what can be carried over and what not. Forming behavioral habits and the challenges of building a sustainable business model while addressing the social determinants of financial health were just a few topics in this fascinating episode I recorded with Erin Papworth.The complexities of navigating the B2B sales landscape suddenly after selling to individuals.takeaways“The core concept was how can we get people to do something for less than three minutes a day aro...
2024-10-1347 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership78: Radhika Dutt - The Power of Shared VisionThe importance of vision, careful pivots, and the balance between innovation and optimization. Her concept of a vision is, to me, one of the very few that I think is actually cutting through the noise and has an impact aside from the cookie-cutter frameworks we had so far.It’s beyond processes over mere goal-setting in achieving long-term success in startups.takeawaysPivots should be treated as silver bullets, used deliberately.A strong vision can save not just a product line but also sanity.Innovation should not be sacrificed for opt...
2024-10-061h 04PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership77: Amanda Daering - Effective Team Management Strategies, Leaders vs ManagersWe discuss the complexities of change management, the importance of direct communication, and the evolving dynamics of workplace relationships vs in the past. How to build trust within teams, the significance of clarity in roles, and the challenges of hiring in today's market, particularly for executive positions.What’s the difference between really good leaders and bad managers?TakeawaysChange management should simplify processes, not complicate themWorkplace dynamics are influenced by external advice.Hiring should focus on long-term vision and fit.Leadership requires balancing urgency with pragmatism.Sound Bites...
2024-09-2953 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership76: Malte Scholz: Product Management in 2024 and beyondThe dynamics of leadership in product management, the importance of a low-hierarchy organization, the challenges of founder mode, and the balance between control and empowerment.Data in product management, the limitations of traditional tools, and the future of product management with AI. TakeawaysFounders often struggle with letting go of control.Micromanagement can be necessary but should be balanced with empowerment.Traditional product management tools often fall short in meeting modern needs.AI will transform the way product management operates.Unshipping features is essential for product evolution.Sound Bites
2024-09-2343 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership75: Kevan Lee & Shannon Deep - Understanding Brand beyond visualsSummaryThe branding experts Shannon Deep and Kevin Lee dig into exploring the multifaceted nature of brand measurement and strategy.Misconceptions surrounding brands and risks associated with brand decisions, the importance of aligning brand strategy with business goals, and the challenges faced by founder-led brands in maintaining their identity.What does marketing look like in the future? Where does product marketing sit?TakeawaysMany senior leaders conflate brand with just design and visuals.Brand is an additional filtering mechanism for attracting the right customers.Measuring brand...
2024-09-1552 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership74: Ami Vora - Unconventional Lessons in Senior LeadershipAmi Vora, CPO at Faire, brilliantly lays out a lot of concepts about how she views senior leadership:How to build a strong bench of performers, balancing authenticity and urgency. How do you make yourself care about boring topics and find joy in work?Why feedback loops and building team connections become more important as an organization scales. How do we deal with weak performers, skip-level meetings, and when to invest in strong performers?Why growing others is always paying dividends and make you more secure.TakeawaysBalancing...
2024-09-0852 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership73: Austin Hay - BS Marketing, Dogfooding and the future of CRMsCringe Marketing, Dogfooding, and the limitations of Hubspot and Salesforce with Austin Hay, the Co-Founder of Clarify (CRM).I talked with Austin on the rise of superficial marketing tactics and what they do to the importance of building a strong brand.We discuss why Product Managers cannot ignore Marketing anymore and the value of good dogfooding in product development when everyone tells you to “listen to your customer”.How to transition from being your own ideal customer to targeting a different market segment.TakeawaysMarketing is moving from a de...
2024-09-031h 03PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership72: Rand Fishkin - Why paid advertising sucks in 2024If you spend money on paid ads, chances are that you’re being taken advantage of. The biggest providers do it to you because they can and they optimize their systems more and more towards it.Rand Fishkin and me discuss the challenges and limitations of paid advertising, the role of AI in marketing, the importance of organic initiatives and why you can’t skip good quality audience research.TakeawaysMany marketers spend money on ads that are shown to people who would have converted anyway.The best marketing channels are often the...
2024-08-2547 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership71: John Cutler - How to structure a product organizationJohn Cutler on the challenges of scaling and operating a collaborative product organization. We discuss different mental models for how different functions work together as teams and why it’s important to clarify and document the operating model, especially during times of growth, turnover, or changing strategies.John talks about the concept of scaffolding is introduced as a way to navigate the process of change and improvement and why most crossfunctional initiatives fail.TakeawaysDefine in an operating model team sizes, roles, and responsibilitiesReduce single points of failure and promote sha...
2024-08-181h 18PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership70: Pedro Goés - Building for enterprise customers in an oversaturated marketSummaryPedro Góes, the founder and CEO of InEvent, discusses with me the challenges and strategies of selling to enterprise clients in the event tech industry.Why in-person interactions and relationship-building can’t be beat by pure self-serve. The value of certifications and how they contribute to higher retention rates.He shares insights on the event tech market, the role of AI in their product, and the differences between doing business in the US and Europe.TakeawaysIn-person interactions and relationship-building are important for establishing tru...
2024-08-1142 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership69: Janna Bastow - The challenges and opportunities AI brings to Product Management.What is the role of product managers in the age of AI and the potential impact of AI on roadmapping and expectation management?Janna Bastow, CEO & Co-Founder ProdPad / Co-Founder of Mind the Product, shares her perspective on how AI is just another tool that can help product managers synthesize feedback and speed up certain aspects of their job.Why AI should not replace the human element of product management, such as getting alignment from stakeholders and gathering feedback from real users and how we can think about evaluating roadmaps when they all look the same.
2024-08-0451 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership68: Vijay Iyengar: Unbundling PLG and why BI tools are not good for analysisWhen is PLG just a fad? Vijay Iyengar, Senior Director of Product at Mixpanel discusses with me about the misconceptions around PLG and the role of analytics in driving business growth and why first principles is in our field the only thing we have.Do PM’s really need to have a basic understanding of data and how it is stored and analyzed with LLMs being the norm? Why business intelligence (BI) tools are not the answer. Which key metrics and questions are correct to start with if you’re trying to get your data under...
2024-07-2853 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership67: Laura Schaffer: Layering self-serve into a Sales-led gig at AmplitudeLaura Schaffer, VP Product Growth @ Amplitude shares her experience of launching a self-serve paid plan and a free plan at Amplitude, a sales-led organization.We discuss the changing landscape of selling, the power of self-serve product experiences, and the expectations of users. The conversation also delves into the tensions between sales and self-serve motions, the importance of buy-in and clear decision-making frameworks, and the structure and purpose of trials and freemium offerings.We also talk about the disappearance of classical websites, questioning the need for a separate website and sign-up flow. What’s the role of...
2024-07-2158 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership66: Henrique Cruz - AHA! How to define and reach User activationSummaryActivation and aha moments in product growth with Henrique Cruz, Head of Growth at Rows.com. How to find the right activation metric that predicts retention and how to iterate on the onboarding flow to improve activation.Examples of activation metrics and the challenges of tracking and improving activation. The importance of branding, the land and expand strategy, and positioning a brand against larger competitors.Benefits of dropping the homepage and allowing users to immediately access the product. TakeawaysImporting a CSV file has...
2024-07-1447 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership65: Guillaume "G" Cabane - The Future of Marketing in an AI-Dominated LandscapeSummaryGuillaume Cabane and I discuss the future of marketing and the role of humans in a landscape dominated by AI and automation.  We’re talking about what does drive marketing and sales teams, and how their future will look like.The conversation touches on topics such as product-led growth, market penetration, and the role of content marketing in engaging target audiences.The conversation touches on the use of automation and human interaction in customer reactivation, as well as the ethical considerations of growth marketing. They conclude with insights on understanding chu...
2024-07-0757 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership64: Kristen Berman - Behavioral science and product growthSummaryKristen Berman, the Co-Founder of Irrational Labs discusses with me the psychology behind decision-making, the importance of understanding human behavior in product design, and the limitations of traditional research methods.We are exploring the challenges of balancing friction and value in user experiences, the role of context in shaping behavior, and the need to focus on the first day of user onboarding. The concept of getting customers out of their status quo and the various strategies to achieve this, such as offering immediate benefits or making the onboarding process easier.
2024-06-3054 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership63: Kyle Pursell - Paths into Growth with the Head of Growth Optimization at ShopifySummaryKyle Pursell, the Head of Growth Optimization at Shopify, talks about impactful business strategies for growth.What is the challenge of moving upmarket, and the role of product-led growth in driving this success. And why cross-functional collaboration in growth initiatives is often undervalued.We also talk about the different paths to getting into growth roles and share their favorite podcasts and books.TakeawaysBuilding alignment and getting feedback before important meetings is never optional.Cross-functional collaboration is essential for effective growth initiativesFocus on maximizing user...
2024-06-221h 10PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership62: Kieran Flanagan: The state of AI in 2024 in TechSummaryIn the second conversation with Kieran Flanagan, SVP Marketing at Hubspot we talk about how we see AI really being used in tech and not just being a flashy thing you use once. From Sales, to Marketing to Product. Where are we today and where is all of this going?The conversation explores the role of AI in strategy, the potential for AI-driven social networks, the impact of AI on user interfaces and customer service, the importance of data in AI tools, and the need for iterative refinement when using AI.
2024-06-161h 01PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership61: Dennis R. Mortensen - How to win with building for productivityDennis R. Mortensen is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of LaunchBrightly, which makes money by automating the most annoying things in our work lives (through AI).We talk about why it’s important to own your own data set for competitive advantage and the misconception that successful entrepreneurs should become investors. Dennis refuses to do anything else other than focussing on his startups. No boards, no investing, just focus.We conclude with a discussion on the future of user interfaces and the potential for voice-first products.Takeaways
2024-06-0951 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership60: Andrew Ettinger - Community-led growth in enterprise salesSummaryI talked with the amazing Andrew Ettinger from Appen about community-led growth in enterprise sales, the importance of cross-functional understanding, and the transformation of content and community in the sales process. We are also diving into the impact of AI on the industry and the need for cross-functional understanding and collaboration.TakeawaysCross-functional understanding and collaboration between CROs, CPOs, and other leaders is crucial for successful sales strategies.The evolving role of lead scoring and product usage in salesThe changing nature of sales and product management in t...
2024-06-0253 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership59: Dani Grant - In-person Community building in a PLG product at Jam.DevSummaryJam.dev created a tool called Jam that helps product managers and engineers communicate and debug bugs more effectively. The company has grown to over 100,000 users and has fixed more than 2 million bugs.They have adopted a unique approach to marketing, prioritizing community building and sharing their journey as builders. The company uses an R&D framework to evaluate and measure the success of their marketing initiatives.I’m talking with Dany Grant about why it’s not just optional to be close to users in a product-led growth startup and...
2024-05-2647 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership58: Andy Johns - Stop. Burnout within High PerformersSummaryBurnout and the pursuit of external validation in tech. The pressure to constantly achieve and the belief that success will bring happiness and fulfillment is driving some of us into ruin. It almost did with Andy Johns, he was never more successful and unhappier in his life until he his body hit the reset switch.Top companies, top jobs, top titles. Achieve, achieve, achieve. And yet it’s never enough… A lot of us are chasing external validation so we don’t have to deal with and accept ourselves.Ta...
2024-05-191h 03PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership57: Erik Allebest - From 0 to 150 million ARR - The Chess.com storySummaryChess.com has grown from being a simple chess service to a thriving 150 million ARR business. The company has focused on making chess accessible to everyone through services around a product that hasn’t changed in centuries.We touch on the challenges of scaling a company and the role of titles and leadership in an organization and how many times Erik wanted to give up in the process.Erik talks about the need for passion and love for the product, and the importance of hiring people who align with th...
2024-05-121h 12PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership56: Jason Fried - Motivation, forming habits and calendarsMotivation, forming habits, managing time, and why it’s important to know how much you enjoy solving problems with Jason Fried.Jason is really special to me and a 2nd time guest. Whenever we go at it, there are two worlds clashing in the best way possible. We are both never content with traditions and challenge the status quo; we just often disagree on how to challenge them while we agree on the first principles behind it all.Our fight about calendars and time management is one of my favorite moments in the entire history of...
2024-05-0559 minEveryone Hates Marketers | No-BS Marketing & Brand Strategy Podcast
Everyone Hates Marketers | No-BS Marketing & Brand Strategy Podcast25 Years of (Product-Led) Growth: Actionable B2B Lessons From Leah TharinI’m so f*cking happy to announce that ​my book, Stand The F*ck Out, is officially available for PURCHASE​! To buy the book—and more!—DIRECTLY from us and support our small business, go to: book.stfo.ioFree Shipping Worldwide • Ripped Apart by 70+ Marketers • Money-Back Guarantee • Secure Online Payment*** Leah Tharin, a B2B growth veteran with 25 years of experience, rips apart the bullshit and delivers actionable insights you can actually use. No jargon. No fluff. She breaks down what PLG (Product-Led Growth) really means and how to make it work f...
2024-04-301h 04PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership55: Mike Weir - Churn & Sales compensation to fight churnSummaryThe conversation with Mike Weir, former CRO of G2, focused on reducing churn and driving expansion revenue.At G2, they used a churn model with 14 highly correlated variables to identify at-risk customers and prioritize actions for the customer success team. We also discussed the importance of product and marketing in customer education and engagement and how to align sales, customer success, product, and marketing in a product-led growth (PLG) organization.The discussion also touches on the role of compensation plans in driving the right behaviors and the importance of measuring...
2024-04-271h 01PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership54: Anthony Pierri - Positioning your B2B Startup through your HomepageAnthony Pierry, partner at FletchPMM, focuses on messaging for early-stage B2B SaaS startups, and he brought a lot of actionable knowledge on how to do it right to the ProducTea.SummaryI talk with Anthony about how to focus and narrow down your target audience and how to communicate it through your value proposition. How do we cross the chasm between the early-stage value proposition and the bigger market we want to reach?How do we use qualitative feedback in these high-risk and low-data decisions to figure out whether we should...
2024-04-1458 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership53: Adam Robinson - The power of LinkedIn for B2B from zero to oneAdam Robinson, CEO of Retention.com & RB2B, is the CEO who builds in public on LinkedIn and is crushing it by discovering the power of product-led growth as he is doing it. He’s very specific about what works and what doesn’t and how he got started.He explains the power of organic reach through LinkedIn and building a personal brand through social media, particularly LinkedIn, and how important it is to not be too rigid in your assumptions. Adam shares his experience with video content and its impact on building trust and affinity with his...
2024-04-0748 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership52: Casey Hill - Organic Demand with Email, Newsletters and PodcastsCasey Hill is a Senior Growth Manager at ActiveCampaign, Institutional Consultant, and Founder. More importantly, he’s incredibly actionable and smart on LinkedIn around B2B Email channels, and that’s why I wanted to have him on the podcast.SummaryWe talk about how to approach Email, how to use it from the ground up to drive meaningful business and how to measure it. How to balance different channels, such as influencers, podcasts, and newsletters.What IS good content and should you repurpose it? What is the difference between a Shor...
2024-03-3147 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership51: Julie Zhuo - Authentic LeadershipJulie Zhuo, Co-Founder @ Sundial, Author of THE MAKING OF A MANAGER, ex-VP Design @ FBSummaryIntuition and hiring is an uncomfortable topic. We should be rational, have reasons for why we choose to work with someone or not. When should we trust our gut feeling? When is it time to step back and say, no. I go with the hard facts?In the end it’s all about building an honest relationship as a leader with our peers and what kind of person you want to be. Afterall, we spend a huge ti...
2024-03-2440 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership50: Jamie Gier - The good side of B2B MarketingSummaryJamie Gier, - CMO at DexCare and former Director of Product Marketing at Microsoft - and I talk about the importance of understanding the customer and the challenges of marketing in regulated industries. We also touch on the process of learning marketing, the concept of account-based marketing in B2B, and how to connect it to revenue through ROI cases for our customers. The conversation concludes with a focus on relevant outreach and communication concepts with the aid of AI.TakeawaysGood Marketing plays a strategic role in...
2024-02-1152 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership49: Peter Walker - Startup funding in 2024, the year of layoffs or recovery?SummaryPeter Walker, Head of Data Insights at Carta discusses with me various aspects of startup funding and investment. We explore the value of small angel investments, the obscurity of startup funding letters, the selectivity of startup advisors, and the potential of angel investments as marketing assets.We also touch on the excitement for the future of startups, the impact of accelerators and venture studios, and the importance of distribution and growth and whether a downround really is such a bad thing.TakeawaysThere is a growing trend of...
2024-02-0451 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership48: Eytan Bensoussan - How to get critical things doneWhy is ruthless focus the most important skill in B2B, and why is it so hard to get right? As the CEO of a banking service that focuses on the impact of cashflow mismanagement on small businesses, he knows what it means when people only focus on what’s fun to them in a business and the price they pay for that.We talked about the decision to seek VC funding and how he built resilience and dealt with negative emotions in tough times. What it means to him to deliver more value than jus...
2024-01-071h 02PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership47: Jeff Gothelf - OKRs, Humility, and the Real Value of Innovation in BusinessJeff Gothelf, one of the most critical voices around OKRs and being outcome-driven, sat down with me for an hour-long amazing conversation:We touch on why using OKRS is useless if you can’t admit when you are wrong and be open to feedback from your teams.How do you set outcome-driven goals for exploratory research and the role of humility in organizational success? Why shipping something does not mean you’re adding value.Finally, we discuss common failure points in organizations and the future of impactful startups.TakeawaysExecutives shou...
2023-12-2646 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership46: Melissa Kwan - Bootstrap vs VC, Mastering the startup gameSummaryMelissa Kwan, CEO of eWebinar and serial bootstrapper, discusses the challenges and benefits of bootstrapping a business versus seeking venture capital funding. She is the poster child for urging founders to focus on real customer feedback and paying customers without loading up on VC problems. We discuss the importance of understanding the customer, personal goals and ambitions, the challenges of building and scaling a product, defining success and financial goals, the desire for financial independence, determining the financial number to sleep well, and the value of personal branding and trust.
2023-12-161h 01PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership45: Chris Tottman & Richard Blundell - focussing your business to success while dreaming bigChris Tottman and Richard Blundell joined me for a fantastic conversation about how they think from their own operators’ perspective when it comes to investing in successful businesses and their people.Why you should not talk to investors who never went through the personal pain of failing and why it most of the time comes down to the basics of running a successful business:Being obsessed with customers in a narrow marketProduct Market Fit is not just having a great product in a great market but also communicating it where your customers areTimestamps:...
2023-12-101h 08PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership44: Casey Winters - Thinking about your career like a long term investor.A Journey I’m in the middle of as well: How to transition from senior leadership to taking care of yourself to the moment where you enter again.Casey Winters, ex-CPO Eventbrite, walks through the entire journey and how he thinks about our current markets; our technology is drastically changing while the new distribution channels have not developed yet.Why he is waiting before making high-conviction bets for his career in 2023Timestamps:08:10 Why Casey is stressed out and scared of misalignment13:40 When the company heads in a direction wh...
2023-11-201h 08PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership43: John Cutler - Everything wrong with everything in a businessJohn Cutler is the best systems thinker I know. Whenever we talk, there’s a beautiful meta-analysis around systems happening. Why do we work the way we do? Why can we not figure out how to run businesses efficiently if we do it so often?Why do inexperienced, brilliant people constantly get into trouble, and how do they get out of it?Individual vs. team habitsHow much of our decisions is gut vs. objectivityLeadership porn and its connected biasesTimestamps:6:50 How people throw words like “efficiency” and “productivity” around and do not understand them13:25...
2023-11-1257 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership42: Jason Fried - Finding yourself in businessJason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals (Basecamp with a valuation of 100 billion, no really ;D), is one of the most positive, successful, forward-looking people that I got to know. He doesn’t care about retros and dwelling on the past and constantly pulls forward without looking too much at what others might think.This amazing episode ended up being a look into the mind of a successful contrarian who appreciates the beauty of simplicity in business.* Don’t overcomplicate decisions in business* Being confidently wrong about reality is easy when there is no r...
2023-11-0453 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership41: Adam Fishman - How to get the yearly planning frustration under controlAdam Fishman and I elaborate on how we look at the inevitable yearly planning exercises from an operative and leadership perspective.How to do a rolling planning instead of doing the depressing exercise of wasting everyone’s time for a month at the end of each year:Managing risks and the human component in planningThe typical mistakes you should avoidWhat to do if you don’t agree with a company's directionTimestamps:04:20 Leah’s take: The operator’s perspective of yearly planning, fuzzy road mapping07:30 Adam’s take: Conceptual thinking a...
2023-10-2948 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership40: Andrew Davies - Monetization, Pricing & Growth straight from the CMO at PaddleAndrew Davies, CMO at Paddle, on the latest learnings on monetization and pricing. A topic that is still underserved because almost no one has good, conclusive data about it. Paddle does, and Andrew is sharing a lot of actionable advice on:- Willingness to pay- Changing monetization often- How to not incentivize anyone the wrong wayOne of my favorite episodes to date!Timestamps:06:20 Insights from the latest pricing report, analyzing outliers that “make it”09:00 Having access to one of the biggest data stacks abou...
2023-10-241h 03PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership39: Brian Donohue - How to handle the untameable beast of AI products at IntercomThis episode gave me a lot of peace of mind. Intercom is dealing with the exact same problems that we all have when building around and with AI.Estimations are impossible and things that are feeling impossible are possible the day after. Brian sat together with me to talk about it all including Intercom’s coming-of-age story and how they look at customer service through this new distorting lense of AI and Machine learning that is rocking our boat.It’s a great learning piece on anything product and leadership.Season 3 of the Prod...
2023-09-3057 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership38: Mike Pilawski - Overcoming your doubts through first principle thinkingSeason 3 of the ProducTea: We spill the tea on how to Go to Market through Product-led Sales and Product-led Growth in B2B and the realities of senior leadership.Mike used to be my manager and quickly became one of my most important mentors through the years. In this very personal episode with a lot of inside stories, we talk about it all. From experiences at Smallpdf where rapid scaling pains set in and how we experienced them from the perspective of the CPO - him, and me - the core product.Also...
2023-09-241h 16PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership37: Carilu Dietrich - How to think in hypergrowth environmentsSeason 3 of the ProducTea: We spill the tea on how to Go to Market through Product-led Sales and Product-led Growth in B2B and the realities of senior leadership.Carilu’s wheelhouse starts where mine usually begins to end. She’s an accomplished advisor to big-scale hypergrowth companies and has a way with words. How do we think of problems at different stages? How do we set ourselves up so we have a chance of experiencing different stages if nobody hires us for them? Why is storytelling so important regardless of the function you work in?
2023-09-1752 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership36: David Yockelson - How to get plg RIGHT in B2BSeason 3 of the ProducTea: We spill the tea on how to Go to Market through Product-led Sales and Product-led Growth in B2B and the realities of senior leadership.I followed David’s succinct learnings as a Gartner Analyst around PLG for quite some time and you’ll get to know why. He has a way with words. Talking about PLG in a B2B context usually lacks nuance and tactical tips.Not with David, we touched on so many different topics from interactive demos to the most common misconceptions when thinking about PLG...
2023-09-0946 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership35: Lloyed Lobo - From Grassroots to (Growth) GreatnessSeason 3 of the ProducTea: We spill the tea on how to Go to Market through Product-led Sales and Product-led Growth in B2B and the realities of senior leadership.This episode is very difficult to summarize, we touch on highly tactical methods on how to combine offline and online methods to drive communities. Why they are key to breaking into difficult markets and how Lobo did it in detail.The first half of the podcast is an inspiring origin story from Lobo from the slums he came from to the incredibly successful community...
2023-08-311h 08PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership34: Benjamin Lamson - Selling things through a product lens and Jobs-to-be-done.Season 3 of the ProducTea: We spill the tea on how to Go to Market through Product-led Sales and Product-led Growth in B2B and the realities of senior leadership.Benjamin Lamson had a great exit and no more sleep due to having a baby at home. His insecurities with rising success, how he manages to deal with it day by day, and how Jobs-to-be-done can be brought into an early-stage company.A great conversation with a sales leader turned product-led growth lover!Timestamps:05:00 Are you only a...
2023-08-181h 07PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership33: Alexa Grabell - VC backed accidental Product-led realitiesSeason 3 of the ProducTea: We spill the tea on Product-led Sales and Product-led Growth in B2B and the realities of senior leadership.Alexa Grabell shares honest perspectives on why she recommends every senior leader to have a product coach and how she accidentally ended up being a founder of a VC-backed gig to drive efficiency in go-to-market.Timestamps:2:40 What do people get wrong about Alexa? Confusing being cheery with not being serious5:50 You lead a team, not a family11:20 The future of GTM is data-driven and...
2023-08-1346 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership32: Shanee Ben-Zur, Lessons from senior growth leadershipSeason 2 of the ProducTea! Today with the growth wonder Shanee Ben-Zur, her unconventional career path into senior leadership at top brands like DropBox, NVIDIA, Crunchbase, and Salesforce, and her honest account for what happened to make her what she is today.A compassionate C-level that says things as they are. We talk about how an IPO feels. Equity, reality, and the perception of senior leadership don’t always line up. And the fastest way how to mess things up when you start to lead people.Timestamps:03:20 What do people get wrong about Sh...
2023-08-0555 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership31: Dave Kellogg, deconstructing Conventional Wisdom in Marketing & Sales with a legendSeason 2 of the ProducTea! I’m joined by a silicon valley legend: Dave Kellogg, EIR at Balderton Capital, independent consultant/advisor, and author of Kellblog.We delve into the pitfalls of building a product strategy on shaky foundations and highlight anyone’s job of designing effective experiments to facilitate learning.We speak about an inherent fear of executives missing out constantly and distinguishing between strategic and opportunistic revenue.Why a company is not a democracy where every customer gets an equal say, and how to be cautious about the bad behaviors that can come...
2023-07-271h 00PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership30: Gaurav Vohra, Growth Leader, Startup Advisor, FoundingTeam "Superhuman"  Season 2 of the ProducTea! In this episode, we’re looking at how awful or delightful it is to work with your sibling.There's a deep dive into Superhuman and Leah's disdain for email, along with the importance of creating defensible moats in product development. We elaborate on what it means to be "exceptional" and give a glimpse into Superhuman’s unique "Delight" team and its unusual structure emphasizing an oversized customer success component.We reflect on how to attract investors for a product reliant on another product's survival. The conversation then shifts towards security vs con...
2023-07-2149 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership29: Elena Verna: Growth Solopreneur - How to growth advisingSeason 2 of the ProducTea! Elena Verna joins me to openly gossip about our diverse income streams: Advisory, consulting, and everything else in that word salad. We both dive into our different modes of engagement with an emphasis on what the ideal duration and conditions are for each of them.If you ever wanted to have an inside look into how growth advising happens, this is your episode.Timestamps:03:00 What Elena has been up to in the last 6 months03:50 What does being a growth advisor/consultant or solopreneur mean?09:50 Is career...
2023-07-051h 01PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership28: Kieran Flanagan: CMO@Zapier | ex SVP Marketing Hubspot | Sequoia Scout | AdvisorSeason 2 of the ProducTea! Kieran Flanagan is one of the most valuable things I read every day on LinkedIn, his incredible ability to connect the dots when it comes to AI and Business is the reason why it will stay that way for quite some time. He delves into the 'Content Paradox' explaining how AI is transforming content creation and curation and shares intriguing insights into Hubspot's origin story and the potential role of AI as a retention tool, not just an acquisition one.Timestamps:01:00 Kieran’s Introduction and Background06:35 What people get wr...
2023-06-2947 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership27: Teresa Torres & Hope Gurion: How to support orgs from output to outcome through discoverySeason 2 of the ProducTea! For the first time, I’m joined by 2 guests and it’s none other than Teresa Torres and Hope GurionWe discuss the importance of leadership tied to people management and highlight the value of working from a unified knowledge base from C-level to operational teams. The conversation navigates through the realities of crises such as the 2008 financial recession and connected layoffs and how frameworks cannot replace effort or “putting in the work”. We also grapple with the dilemma of impostor syndrome versus the pressure of always being correct in business. Timest...
2023-06-191h 08PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership26: Ravi Mehta, Co-Founder Outpace, Ex-EIR Reforge, CPO@Tinder, Product@Facebook, Tripadvisor, XboxSeason 2 of the ProducTea! Seasoned tech leader Ravi shares his insights on founding a business amidst AI disruption, the evolving capabilities of AI in empathy, and the challenges we faced of leadership post our careers at Microsoft. We also explore the concept of dual career ladders, some crazy pivots we both experienced as product leaders. Ravi also addresses dealing with insecurities after achieving significant career success and balancing opportunity cost with efficient time use.Timestamps:02:00 Ravi’s introduction07:25 Ravi’s Origins & Gossip about Microsoft10:30 Founding a business in a domain that is g...
2023-06-1456 minThe Revenue Formula
The Revenue FormulaSpecial: Leah Tharin on Modelling PLGProduct led growth is still all the rave. But is PLG right for you? How do you build the business case and how do you think about modeling it out? We're not experts in PLG. Fortunately we brought on Leah Tharin who is to discuss it.Here's what we covered:First: Is PLG right for you? (07:54)2 stages where you can implement PLG (09:54)PLG is not about acquisition (11:08)Can you easily explain your offering? (17:44)Modelling PLG (21:02)Product Qualified Accounts (30:57)Operating cadence for PLG/PLS (40:04)You can check out Leah here:www.leahtharin.c...
2023-06-0844 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership25: Sam Crowell, Head of Growth ngrok, Self-serve and PLG LeaderSeason 2 of the ProducTea! We discuss key distinctions in B2B contexts, notably between buyers and users, and individual versus team metrics. The importance of KPI design in product-led companies and why you can’t skip on this secret weapon, the critique of being in large tech corporations right now, and we explore the benefits of API-first companies in terms of retention.Timestamps:01:00 Sam’s Introduction06:50 Sam’s best growth experiences to move her forward12:00 Differentiate between buyers and users in B2B14:45 Individual vs Team metrics19:13 Companies quitting product-led growth...
2023-06-0347 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership24: Patrick Campbell, CSO Paddle, Founder ProfitwellSeason 2 of the ProducTea! Patrick is the real deal, he ships more than a shipyard, is vulnerable and open with what most likely makes him successful. His unbending will to build something that lasts and how it all connects together with the last step of a buyer's journey: monetization.His personal framework on how to stay on top regardless of what the market throws at him in his day to day.Timestamps:01:00 Patricks Introduction04:00 The origin of Patrick’s pricing and content05:55 Help sells09:40 How the perspective of what you sa...
2023-05-251h 08PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership23: Adam Fishman, Interim Executive, Reforge EIR, ex-PatreonSeason 2 of the ProducTea! Adam is funny, a friend, and a dad from San Francisco, and does not get any kickback for not recommending JIRA. He’s also an incredibly accomplished brain when it comes to anything Growth and Growth Leadership.We have both a united love for actionable metrics and we talk about those that we (almost) never touch because they are not:NPS / CAC / Burndown points and MQLs.Timestamps:0:00 Adam’s Introduction03:45 The tire fire that JIRA is, Stockholm Syndrome as a Service07:05 Notion is like...
2023-05-1141 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership22: Tanja Lau, Founder Product Academy, Business AngelSeason 2 of the ProducTea! Tanja is the founder of Product Academy, a Mom, an Angel Investor, and someone that wrestled control over her calendar through years of experience, burnout, and other incredible lifehacks.Her family runs on OKRs and we both dive deep into how our understanding of behavior is driving everything.Timestamps:0:00 Tanja’s introduction08:20 Saying no to people, being intentional about your time10:12 Burnout13:46 OKR planning for your family and yourself17:50 Incentivization is the main predictor of how a company is run19:32 Tanja’s most...
2023-05-0150 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership21: Gagan Biyani, The future of learning and AISeason 2 of the ProducTea! Gagan is a serial entrepreneur who cannot get enough when it comes to enabling efficient learning. He co-founded Udemy and Maven, both huge learning platforms.We’re talking about the importance and future of learning and why it’s becoming more relevant than ever and the entire AI craziness around it.Timestamps:0:00 Gagan’s introduction02:00 The perpetual wheel of serial entrepreneurship pain and why we still do it05:15 Efficiency by way of experience in running companies08:55 The ideal person to learn someth...
2023-04-2451 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership20: Petra Wille, How to grow Strong Product PeopleSeason 2 of the ProducTea! Petra is an expert in coaching and wrote one of the most popular books on the topic “Strong Product People” which is a fantastic operative, down-to-earth guide to growing future leaders.Timestamps:0:00 Petra’s Introduction04:40 The issues with conferences09:20 What do people get wrong about Petra?13:30 The time is right to be in Product Management17:40 Academia-led education is losing its importance & Petra’s most valuable source of knowledge20:05 Who are Petra’s favorite product people to help out?22:50 Ho...
2023-04-1747 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership19: Elena Verna, the product-led growth dimension of Leah & Elena (remastered episode) Part 2*This is a remastered, recut episode recorded earlier in the year with better audio and listening quality* Elena and I talk about everything product-led growth and particularly dive into product-led sales and what product-qualified accounts are all about when we combine sales and product.Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube
2023-04-1115 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership18: Elena Verna, the personal side of Leah & Elena (remastered episode) Part 1*This is a remastered, recut episode recorded earlier in the year with better audio and listening quality* We're discussing what people may not see from the outside and our favorite topic: Impostor syndrome in a professional environment. If you want to hear a very personal perspective.In part 2 Remastered we talk specifically about product-led growth which will be released as a separate episode shortly after this episode.Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube
2023-04-0626 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership17: April Dunford, Positioning in growing tech companiesSeason 2 of the Productea, product-led growth! April is an expert in positioning and she graced me with her presence to talk about it. Turns out we are quite fun together and spilling the tea with her was incredibly fun. She even managed to interrupt me at times.“Creating a safety net for me messing up unlocked me”What an incredible time and learnings she shared in her typical direct way.Timestamps:0:00 April’s Introduction02:30 What do people get wrong about you April?04:15 April’s path to...
2023-03-3149 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership16: Yuriy Timen, Ex-Growth Grammarly, Advisor Airtable, Canva etc.Season 2 of the Productea, product-led growth! Yuriy the advising legend. The man that crashes your browser memory because he has so many companies listed. He helped bring Grammarly to its legendary status and is an advisor to lots of prestigious companies like Airtable, Canva, Oyster, Whimsical, Flo, and many more.Timestamps:0:00 Yuriys Introduction12:10 Leah’s garbage CV16:18 How does Yuriy position himself?21:00 Interesting advising clients…. Airtable24:00 Canva and how Yuriy landed it as an advising gig27:35 Talking about what we do expands our know...
2023-03-2355 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership15: Blake Bartlett, Partner @ Openview, Product-led VCTimestamps:0:00 Blake’s Introduction03:15 What do people get wrong about Blake?05:58 The effect of VCs suddenly knowing your domain really well.08:15 When VCs tell businesses to focus09:48 The effects of AI and how it changes the entire market11:45 Market dynamics explained on the example of being a musician.16:30 The difference between consumer vs business20:15 The biggest B2C businesses have a B2B model. Meta, Facebook, google22:00 Misconceptions about “product-led growth”24:52 Hacks vs. sustainable growth to capture VCs’ i...
2023-03-1859 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership14: Ben Williams, The Product-Led Geek, PLG AdvisorSeason 2 is all about product-led growth! Ben Williams is a friend and an amazingly structured advisor in the product-led growth space. If you have ever wondered specifically how we structure our work, either as someone that looks into advising themselves or as a company that wonders how this episode is for you. Timestamps:0:00 Ben’s introduction and relevance to Leah02:20 What do people get wrong about Ben?03:20 Ben’s model as a consultant in the product-led growth space04:50 Going full-time as an advisor, how to make...
2023-03-1039 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership13: Kyle Poyar, Operating Partner @ OpenviewKyle Poyar joined me on the ProductTea to talk about anything that makes businesses and VCs tick.I love this conversation for the simplicity of how Investors make decisions and what the future of our industry might very well look like. You should leave this podcast once you listened to it with some great insights into what makes product-led growth companies run differently than their competitors. 00:00 Kyle and Leah’s introduction04:00 Using LinkedIn to validate concepts and Ideas07:20 The balancing act of what we say and what we mean in...
2023-02-1853 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership12: Wes Bush, CEO of ProductledWes Bush joined me to talk about everything product-led. Wes specialized in advising companies on product-led growth through his courses and successful book. He’s a fun, authentic person to be around and I loved every minute we spent together.His no-bullshit approach to product-led growth is exactly why I started following him closer 5 months ago and have not regretted it in the slightest. There are a ton of very specific learnings in this talk condensed to one hour.00:00 Wes and Leah's introductions04:00 On the fundamentals of Product-led Growth and how its fu...
2023-02-1157 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership11: Dave Boyce, Investor, Advisor and PLG AdvocateDave Boyce started to talk to me about meatloaf. The logical follow-up to this topic is of course that he is a board member at Forrester. And a great human to be and spend time with. He advocated for PLG through Winning by Design, an amazing gig that gets the numbers right about PLG. Their visualizations are legendary and the reason for this is the people behind them, David is one of them.0:00 Dave and Leah introductions05:30 What do people get wrong about Dave Boyce08:40 How Dave sees his...
2023-02-051h 04PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership10: Elena Verna, Growth Hobbyist - Head of Growth@AmplitudeSeason 2 is all about product-led growth! And we kick it off with a banger!Elena Verna and I are talking about the insecurity side of content production in a broader scope and package everything inside of "Product-led Growth". Plus memes and trends in the industry :DIt turned out to be an episode that I treasure very much  🌸 . Many great moments:0:00 Elena’s relevance to Leah and how I perceive her LinkedIn content03:30 How Elena treats her LinkedIn as a freemium model08:55 How LinkedIn acquisition is a great fit for ou...
2023-02-0143 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership9: David Pereira, Product Coach, Thought Provoker, "Untrapping Product Teams"David Pereira on when product management goes wrong and it's better to be called bullshit management.When things get overcomplicated practical advice is needed and egos are hurt. In the end, it's about delivering value for the users.David has a talent of getting to the level where agile is a framework that belongs to the past. He talks about Strategy, decision making and how to deal with prioritization.Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube
2023-01-2048 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership8: Tim Geisenheimer, CEO & Founder Correlated, PLSI talk with Tim Geisenheimer about everything related to product-led sales.What's easier? To transform a product-led growth distribution to product-led sales or to pivot an existing sales organization to product-led sales?Specifics on what PQA's / PQL's can do for you and how to qualify your accounts the right way.If you are working in product, are interested in product-led growth or toy with the idea to bring in Product-led Sales to your company. This episode is for you.Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube
2022-12-2256 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership7: Scott Brinker, VP Platform Ecosystems, Editor chiefmartec.comThe passionate and unparalleled Scott Brinker talks about his love for Martech. He is an insights factory, second to none and we talk about all things marketing at scale, market ops and why MQLs suck.What trends are going to amplify and why AI is going to take over the world but not quite.Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube
2022-11-191h 08PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership6: Jennifer Montague, VP Growth OnomondoJennifer talks about her gig at Onomondo a company built for IoT connectivity. From finding your scooter to having vaccine shipments at the correct temperature at all times.Why MQLs suck and how Marketing & Sales have to shape up to be ready for the future. Experimentation and the evolution for learning with the customer instead of creating more silos.Whether she ghosts or replies to everyone all the time.Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube
2022-11-181h 03PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership5: Matthew Skelton, Author of Team TopologiesMatthew shaped his book into a critical part of my and many other product people's understanding of modern organizational building in tech.We talk about it in detail about what makes an organization great and what to look out for.How the industry changed from when we shipped everything on CD-ROMs to modern tech development as we know it today with organizations that need to be able to ship multiple releases a day.How did the requirements change for pretty much any leader in the space as a result when we moved from coordinating to alignment?
2022-11-1546 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership4: Adam Fishman, Reforge Partner, Advisor, BoardmemberAdam and I are talking about lovely annual planning sessions, difficulties in advisory roles, and why loops are the thing.What to do when you only have partial buy-in for a pivot that might require the entire C-Level to pull?The misunderstanding of "Growth" and the recent news of Reforge laying off people.Also hear live how Adam manages to lose sight of his dog.Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube
2022-11-111h 04PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership3: Laura Erdem, Account Executive, Dreamdata.ioI talk with the wonderful Laura about revenue attribution in B2B and when it's worth considering it. When is an account too early when too late?And how do we deal with the painful faces of reps when we suggest measuring outcomes in happy customers instead of MQLs?Can we get rid of marketing or sales?Is sales still the testosterone-filled environment it used to be like a decade ago?Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube
2022-11-0956 minPRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership2: Matt Greenberg, CTO Reforge, ex-VPE Credit Karma I talk with Matt Greenberg about people leadership, reforge, it's roadmap, how stuff just breaks down every day and career advice to founders who end up in C-Level positions without having too much relevant experience.At the end of this episode you also know why Matt thinks my 30% success rate with experiments is atrocious.Connect with Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/matt_muffinMy Twitter: https://twitter.com/LeahTharSend us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube
2022-10-251h 00PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership
PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership1: John Cutler, Product Evangelist and Coach, AmplitudeJoin me as I talk with John Cutler about some low effort takes on why it's not that simple to say that Slack overtook Teams just by looking at the usage numbers, the effect of the techcrash on the industry and what John is excited about in the industry.00:00 Introduction of John and me02:37 Slack vs Teams08:33 Tech crash and the effects on Amplitude / the industry20:10 Trends that we enjoy and are excited about33:30 Imperfections and Meltdowns internallySend us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube
2022-09-0337 min