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Get the Lowdown on Operations and Building Trust in Product
Alastair Preacher
February 05, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 16 minutes
We track Product so you don't have to. Top Podcasts summarised, the latest AI tools, plus research and news in a 5 min digest.
Hey Product fans!
We’re back, and January is but a dim and distant memory. Over 8% of the year done already…!
What’s cooking today? 🥘
📰 Not Boring - This week in tech, Elon Musk's Neuralink installed the 1st human wireless brain chip implantation, hinting at the future of human-computer interaction. Apple's Vision Pro Headsets are now available for purchase (200,000 units pre-ordered). Plus, Google steps up its AI game across the board from Gmail to ads, and Reddit eyes a $5 billion valuation for its IPO. Plus plenty more!
🛠️ Time-Saving Tools & GPTs - From AI-driven customer support to powerful email automation, interview help and beyond, discover the latest tools and apps to streamline your workflow and spark creativity.
🎧 Pod Shots: A Deep Dive with Brian Tolkien - Today we explore the transformative journey of Opendoor, from its inception to becoming a leader in online house buying in the US. Discover how integrating AI and building trust were pivotal in reshaping the industry, all through the insights of Brian Tolkien, Head of Product.
🍔 Blog Bites - Dive into our handpicked selection of compelling reads. From understanding the strategic use of indicators, validations, and notifications to developing cultural values that truly differentiate your company. To when and how to integrate sales into your Product-Led Growth business and a case study on Zapier's path to $230M ARR with minimal funding.
Another absolutely stacked menu today. So let’s dive in! 🚀👇
📰 Not boring
Elon Musk says Neuralink implanted its 1st wireless brain chip
Fave tweet on this by a mile
Apple Sold Approximately 200,000 Vision Pro Headsetsf or pre-order (as of Friday you can buy them)
Loads of video reviews out there - e.g. Casey Neistat
New Minimal Phone launched (with monochrome Blackberry vibes). Definitely seeing increasing numbers of apps and now devices aimed to those seeking simplicity, productivity, security and a way to unplug. Not to mention a big Blackberry keyboard revival - 2 in 2 weeks.
Google is Reportedly Adding an AI Voice Feature for Gmail
Reddit Advised to Target at Least $5 Billion Value in IPO
Browser alternatives Brave, Arc, add new AI integrations
Google released a sizable update to Bard (it now runs on Gemini Pro Google’s 2nd most powerful model & can now generate images from text prompts. Plus maps now has conversational search 👀 )
Google has announced it’s deploying its Gemini model into Google Ads to help create much better ads using conversation
Shopify announces 100 new updates - with a heap of AI thrown in (e.g. enhanced photo editing and manipulation for product pics)
TikTok is testing a feature that could make all videos shippable
ChatGPT users can now invoke GPTs directly in a chat with an @
Vitalik Buterin talks about his thoughts on how AI and crypto can intersect
📰 Time-Saving Tools & GPTs
Another broad church of time-savers this week: from brainstorming faster, helping automate your inbox to interview prep and more 👇️
Ioni: Boost your customer support productivity with ChatGPT-4
Smart chatbot based on the latest AI technology, that talks like a human, and creates CTA for your customers.
Ideamap: Brainstorm better and faster using AI.
Shortwave: Email on steroids - searches your entire email history, writes drafts in your voice & schedules meetings
MultiOn: The bots are coming! This browser extension will perform tasks in the browser you ask it to do 🤯, like order a burger, send an email. Pretty much whatever you ask it. Watch this video. This type of bot/feature will only accelerate. V interesting read across for those designing Product, who are we designing it for bots or people?!
In more Google news, Bard will now summarise YouTube videos for you. So if there’s a Podshot we haven’t yet covered, make it yourself…!
Faltah AI: For those of you interviewing, Faltah supposedly helps you better prepare by asking questions and giving tips
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🎙️ Pod Shots
Today we’re covering a recent episode of the Product Podcast from Product School with Brian Tolkien Head of Product of online estate agent / real estate company Open Door.
Open Door’s goal is to simplify the process of buying and selling homes. Customers can go online, answer a few questions, and receive an all-cash offer to buy their home. The company has been around for 10 years and went public a few years ago. Open Door aims to bring simplicity, certainty, and convenience to an industry that has traditionally lacked these qualities.
🤖 Building trust, integrating AI, and the journey of Opendoor
Journey of OpenDoor
🎙️ Listen to the full episode here
📆 Published: January 18th, 2024
🕒 Estimated Reading Time: 1 minute. Time saved: 32 minutes🔥
⭐️ The Role of a Head of Product
Brian Tolkien holds the position of head of product at Open Door. In this role, he is accountable for the product and design organisations. He leads these teams and ensures that the company's products align with its overall goals and mission. The title of "head of product" can vary across companies, but in this context, it signifies a high level of responsibility and accountability for the product strategy and execution.
💡 Brian's Journey in Product Management
Brian's passion for building and creating things started at a young age. He co-founded a non-profit organisation in middle school and ran a retail store in college. He began his career at Uber, initially on the operations team, but soon transitioned to the product side to have a larger impact. After five years at Uber, Brian joined Open Door, where he initially focused on internal operations and tooling products. Over the years, he has taken on various product roles within the company.
✌️ The Importance of Operations in Product Management
Brian highlights the significance of operations in product management, especially in companies like Uber and Open Door. These companies operate in online-offline marketplaces, where the digital experience is closely tied to the operational aspects of the business. Operations teams play a crucial role in understanding the complexity of the business and ensuring a seamless customer experience. Brian emphasises the need for product managers to stay connected with customers and empathise with their needs, even as they progress in their careers. Having done similar roles in my career this definitely resonates.
🤝 Building Trust in Real Estate
Trust is a fundamental aspect of the real estate industry, and Open Door aims to bring trust to a process that is often uncertain and stressful for customers. Brian draws parallels between Uber and Open Door, highlighting the importance of trust in both platforms. Uber had to overcome the challenge of getting customers to trust strangers as drivers, while Open Door focuses on building trust in a high-stakes financial transaction. By providing simplicity, certainty, and convenience, Open Door aims to instil trust in customers who are transacting in a new and digital way.
🤖 The Power of AI in Real Estate
Open Door has been using machine learning and AI for several years, particularly in its pricing engine. The company is now exploring the use of AI across its entire platform. One example is the introduction of an AI-powered assistant that helps customers with real estate-related questions. This assistant leverages Open Door's proprietary insights and data to provide valuable information to customers early in the selling process. Additionally, AI is being used internally to improve operational efficiency and consistency.
✅ Planning and Strategy at Open Door
Open Door follows a structured planning process to align its goals and strategies. The company conducts annual planning sessions to reflect on the previous year, define objectives for the upcoming year, and identify areas for improvement. These objectives are then broken down into half-yearly and quarterly plans, which guide the company's operations and product development. Regular business reviews and product reviews ensure that the company stays on track and makes necessary adjustments to its strategy.
📈 Career Growth in Product Management
Brian emphasises the importance of career growth and development in product management. He believes that successful product managers are those who can handle increasing levels of complexity and ambiguity. As product managers progress in their careers, they should strive to independently identify and solve more challenging problems. This growth can be achieved through a combination of technical skills, customer empathy, and the ability to synthesise information from various sources.
👷 Recruiting and Building Product Teams
When it comes to recruiting, Open Door focuses on identifying the specific skill sets required for each product role. The company recognises that product management and design are multifaceted disciplines, and different roles may require different archetypes of product managers and designers. Open Door values individuals who can handle complexity, ambiguity, and have a deep understanding of their customers. The company believes in creating diverse teams that can leverage their unique skill sets to deliver exceptional products.
🧠 What can I do with this as a founder or PM?
As a Founder or Product Manager, there are several key takeaways from this podcast episode that you can apply:
Importance of Operations: Recognise the value of operations in product management. Understand the business context, interact with customers, and work closely with operational teams to deliver a seamless customer experience.
Marketplace Dynamics: If you're working in a marketplace, understand the complexity of managing multiple stakeholders and aligning their needs. Collaborate with different teams to optimise the product for each stakeholder group.
Design and Customer Experience: Prioritise design and focus on delivering an elevated customer experience. Collaborate closely with designers, engineers, and operators to ensure a seamless and delightful product experience.
Planning and Strategy: Develop a structured planning process to align company goals and strategies. Reflect on past learnings, set focus areas, and decompose goals into actionable plans. Regularly review progress and make necessary adjustments to the strategy.
Time Management and Priorities: Manage your time effectively by balancing one-on-one meetings, team development, and coaching. Dedicate time to listen to customer feedback, participate in product reviews, and stay connected with the customer's perspective.
Recruiting and Career Growth: When recruiting, identify the specific skill sets required for each product or design role. Understand the different archetypes of product managers and designers and recruit accordingly. Recognise that growth as an individual contributor is just as important as transitioning into a management role.
Defining Strategy: Simplify complexity when defining product strategy. Focus on the kernel of truth and stay intensely focused on what truly matters to the customer and the business. Develop proactive strategies based on a deep understanding of the problem and customer needs.
Future of the Industry: Stay ahead of industry trends and customer demands. Identify opportunities to bring simplicity, certainty, and convenience to your product. Leverage technologies like AI and machine learning to enhance the customer experience and improve operational efficiency.
Want to quickly know more? Just ask the episode below👇️ 🤯
or if you prefer, 🎙️ Listen to the full episode here
⏰ Timestamps:
[00:02:35] Building and creating things.
[00:05:15] Underrated impact of ops.
[00:09:02] Building disruptive marketplaces.
[00:13:28] Aligning goals and company mission.
[00:19:03] Multivariate skill sets for PMs.
[00:22:07] Successful PMs owning strategy.
[00:25:29] Simplicity and certainty in real estate.
[00:29:34] Using AI in real estate.
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🍔 Blog Bites
Indicators, Validations, and Notifications - when you use them?
Status feedback is crucial to the success of any system. Knowing when to use 3 common communication methods is key to supporting users.
In the realm of interaction design, it's crucial for any system—be it an app, website, or hardware device ranging from smartwatches to thermostats—to consistently inform users by offering relevant feedback. This principle, that the system's status should always be evident, is among the top 10 usability guidelines for crafting interfaces. Providing users with updates on the system's condition, including error alerts and notifications about the system's actions, enables users to have a complete grasp of the prevailing situation.
This great article from Kim Salazar helps explain the various use cases of each.
A Framework for Developing Cultural Values
Every startup talks about their cultural values, but very few live them in a way that better allows them to win. Most are too vanilla and therefore forgotten by the team over time. There is a difference between cultural values, where companies say how they intend to operate on a spectrum compared to other companies, and principles that should apply to all companies trying to become great. Assuming good intent of co-workers, for example, is not a cultural value; it is a principle for great teamwork inside a company. It’s a dominant strategy for every company to operate that way. Cultural values should state the way this particular company does things that might be different from others. When cultural values work, they, along with dominant company building principles, should impact who gets hired, fired, and rewarded.
Couldn’t agree more with this opening paragraph from Casey Winters - if you want to find out more the full article is here.
Why, When, and How to add Sales to your Product-Led Growth motion
Sooner or later, most PLG companies will need to enter enterprise sales land.
This happens because to build a predictable, sustainable, and competitively defensible growth model, you need to fire across all growth motions: Product-led and Sales-led. Otherwise, you either miss out on capturing a portion of the enterprise market that is not well served by PLG or open up an opportunity for a competitor to disrupt you from top-down.
There is another unfortunate reason: public markets still don't understand PLG B2B dynamics and they look for those lofty enterprise contracts to assess B2B performance.
So the million (or perhaps billion?) dollar question is… When should you overlay sales on top of your thriving PLG? Most do it too soon and for the wrong reasons, destroying their company from the inside.
Great article from Elena for anyone working in a decent-sized PLG business.
CASE STUDY - How Zapier Grows: Automating Growth
Lessons on scaling to $230M ARR, acquiring 3M users, and reaching a $5B valuation with just $1.3 million in funding. Here
Software integrations have been around for a long time. Since the 70s, in fact.
But, up until 2011, if you wanted to stitch two different products together and create some under-the-hood workflow, you needed development chops.
Zapier (rhymes with happier) is an integration platform and app marketplace that allows anyone to connect the APIs of SaaS applications and build powerful automations.
Notion ⚡ Gmail
Sheets ⚡ Slack
Apollo ⚡ Google Calendar.
Or any of their 6,622+ apps integrated in millions of different ways. All in just a few clicks and without having to write a single line of code.
Please, one last thing - share the love!
ONE: Get one person to sign up and get access to our curated selection of Product GPTs; handpicked from our review of over 15,000 GPTs (and counting)
FIVE: Send this to five people who sign up and get our free Product Maturity Audit
TEN: Get three 1:1 coaching/mentoring sessions with me.
That’s a wrap.
As always, the journey doesn't end here!
Keep exploring, keep questioning, and most importantly, keep growing in your product journey.
Please do share to help us continue to grow and let us know what you would like to see more or less of so we can continue to improve your Product Tapas. 🚀👋
Alastair & the Product Tapas Team 🍽️.
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