Product Leaders Podcast

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience.
In this episode, Tolik is joined by Yasmin Kothari, Director of Product at Bumble, an online platform for connecting with people. Yasmin talks about the demand growth for online friendships and sheds light on making products that build consumer trust and make connecting a seamless process. She also shares her insight on how she fosters professional growth in her team.
Topics we discuss:

• Yasmin’s professional journey till now
• The need for building products to connect people
• The art and science of designing products that connect people
• How to foster the growth of your teams

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:Why is it Important to Build Products that Connect People?Three clear trends post the pandemic drive the need for these products. The first is WFH, which provides flexibility and convenience on the one hand but leads to a sense of isolation due to a lack of face-to-face interactions. Next is the need for socializing, and here, millennials and Gen Z lead the demand as the loneliest generation. Lastly, how we seek to be a part of a community is shifting to making online friends.“It’s critical right now to build products that help connect people”The Art and Science of Building Products that Connect People Yasmin highlights three critical areas while building any customer-facing product. The first is setting the right norms to deliver a consistent experience. Next, creating a suite of robust security features in your products is essential to build trust and provide security when the consumer uses your product. Next is to make interactions as seamless as possible.“There are three important aspects to designing a customer-facing product in the B2C space”Fostering and Mentoring Growth in Product TeamsYasmin follows a three-point action plan when mentoring and catering to the growth of her team members. She likens professional development to climbing a wall where you sometimes need to move sideways before moving up. Yasmin asks the “how” questions to determine what motivates the person. Next, she analyzes the person's current skillset and what they need to add to their toolkit to function at the next level and provides a training map to upskill the person. As a last step, she looks for internal opportunities to help the person grow.“ This process can be scaled up over months and years, or it can also be scaled down to like a fifteen-minute thought exercise to figure out what you're gonna do this week”
Guest at a Glance:Yasmin is a Harvard Business School graduate, and she describes herself as a driven product leader, public speaker, product leadership coach, and angel investor. I am passionate about building high-functioning teams and products that people love. I love coaching PMs for increased impact on their products, companies, and themselves. Yasmin Kothari on LinkedInBumble WebsiteHosts at a Glance:Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian. Connect with Dima on LinkedInFireart Studio WebsiteTolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage. Connect with Tolik on LinkedInFireart Studio WebsiteProduct Leaders Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience.
In this episode, Dima is joined by Sylvain Grande, CPO at PayFit France, a software platform for digitizing all aspects of HR management. Sylvain walks us through his twenty-plus years in product development and management and shares how the essence of successful product development lies in being close to the customer in both B2C and B2B domains. He also shares valuable tips for young and upcoming product leaders and discusses type one and type two decisions PMs take.
Topics we discuss:

• Role of design in product development
• Product leaders need to get close to their customers
• Learning from failures
• Advice to upcoming product leaders

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:The Role of Design in Product DevelopmentSylvain is a product leader with a passion for design. He recalls his days at Nokia, where he developed Here Maps, the precursor to Google Maps. He was actively involved in UI design, which sparked his passion for design. He believes that the best products have minimalist designs, thereby making the product user-friendly. Sylvain believes that design is an integral part of the product development process.“We had to really think about key design elements like offering one search field or two while minimizing any trade-offs”.Customer Centricity and Product Development Go Hand in HandCustomer centricity for a product leader has two aspects: how close you are to your team and an ongoing interaction and feedback loop from potential customers. While the latter is easier to do in the B2C domain, more B2B companies should include product leaders in client meetings. Listen to the podcast as Sylvain explains how customer empathy ties into product development.“All feedback has its inherent biases, and as a product leader, you need to be able to sift that out when actioning the feedback”.Treat Success and Failures as two ImpostersSuccess and failure go hand in hand for all product leaders and must be treated differently. The euphoria of successfully launching a product is often short-lived because something bigger and better will come along. On the other hand, failure is a time of introspection and learning because you learn something new every time you fail. Product leaders need to look at success and failure as two imposters and treat them as such.“I think it’s important to take positives and learnings from both success and failure when looking at their overall impact”. A Veteran’s Advice to Upcoming Product LeadersSylvain advises product leaders and team members to spend more time defining the project's scope and clarifying the priorities. Spending some more time at the start can prevent delays down the line. Next, explicitly communicate all trade-offs and their short- and long-term implications. Categorize all decisions as categories one and two, where one refers to revolving door decisions that can be changed down the line, and category two decisions are pivots that can’t be retracted. Listen in as Sylvain explains how product managers are multi-specialists and why they need to develop anchor skills.“PMs, in a way, are multi-specialists, and while you can’t be a specialist at everything, you need to develop anchors in relevant fields”.Guest at a Glance:Sylvain Grande is an expert in digital advertising and subscription revenue models with strong experience in general management, revenue development, and product management. Over a twenty-year career in product development, he has managed P&Ls from scratch and up to $350m.Sylvain Grande on LinkedInPayFit France WebsiteHosts at a Glance:Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian. Connect with Dima on LinkedInFireart Studio WebsiteTolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage. Connect with Tolik on LinkedInFireart Studio WebsiteProduct Leaders Podcast is handcrafted by our friends ov...

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience.
In this episode, Tolik is joined by Andrea Ho, Senior Growth Product manager at Atlassian. Andrea unpacks the critical skills for product professionals and explains the difference between a product manager and a growth product manager's role. Tolik and Andrea discuss topics, including using A/B testing for decision-making. Andrea touches on advice for professionals coming to product management from a different business stream.
Topics we discuss:

• Does a product manager need tech skills to collaborate with engineers?
• The imposter syndrome in product management
• Difference between product management and growth product management
• Advice for professionals starting out in product management

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:A Product Manager Only Needs Surface Level Tech and Statistic Skills A product manager needs to collaborate with teams across different functions, from design to engineering. The two critical skills are at least a surface-level knowledge of what the team in a given function is trying to achieve and the ability to communicate in the language they understand. Within the product team, the product manager needs to be familiar with the concept of A/B testing for decision-making and to keep a sharp focus on the deliverability of the product without getting distracted by the noise. As a product leader, you either need to have these skills or quickly develop them by interacting and learning from different teams. “When collaborating across functions, it’s important to speak their language and understand why they are doing something instead of exactly what they’re doing”.Tackling the Imposter Syndrome in Product ManagementAndrea shares how every product manager she’s spoken to carries varying degrees of insecurity because they only have surface-level knowledge on multiple topics without being a specialist in any. A jack of all trades but a master of none.Her response in these situations is to reassure the manager by telling them that product management is a generalist role where the leader needs to have functional knowledge across multiple verticals but a holistic vision that ties the functions together and delivers the final product. “You definitely don’t need to learn how to code or be an expert at UI/UX to be a successful product manager”.Product Management vs Growth Product ManagementA traditional product manager is focused on developing a new product that meets a particular user need. It’s a product-focused approach where the core objective is to deliver a product with predefined attributes in a given timeframe and budget.On the other hand, growth product management is revenue-centric, focusing on maximizing the revenue pipeline for a company's existing products. Revenue product management has a commercial bias, and the core objective here is to continually grow the user base for different products.“In growth product management, we’re not building new products for new customer value; instead, we’re focused on taking the existing product to new customers”. Advice for Professionals Starting Out in Product ManagementAndrea has a unique take here. Her advice to those starting out in product management is to start by reimagining themselves as a product. Start by understanding your goals and the milestones you need to achieve. Build the ability to pivot on these as you learn more about the role. Seek a mentor who can guide you and help you acquire the requisite skills.A critical part of your learning process is your ability to create your professional network by connecting with the community. Make it a habit to attend product meetups and project management conferences. You will learn a lot by interacting with peers across different industries and make an effort to meet different companies at these conferences; they could be your future employers. “I tell young aspiring product managers to think of themselves as a product to build the skills required for product management”.Guest at a Glance:Andrea describes herself as someone who started out as a fashion designer before transitioning to product management with a passion for teaching and mentoring.In her current role as Growth Product Manager at Atlassian, Andrea is responsible for creating growth strategies for Atlassian products through cross-flow expansion.Andrea Ho on