Tell Me About a Time You Led a Product From Start to Finish

Tell me about a time you led a product from start to finish, from user research through development and launch. >> As you were talking, the one that came to mind is I led the pricing project at um a company I was at. And it encompassed all parts of the business. And so I will oh go through all the bits and pieces of that, but I led it, which means I was hands-on throughout, and yeah, it was very very exciting and interesting time. For anybody who's worked on pricing, I've a feeling they they probably understand what

I'm saying. But the piece was um the company I was at was I would say a a 10-year-old startup. It had been founded by three people, and when I joined, all the founders were there. And so even though the company had been around for quite some time, it was still pretty small. It was about 100 people, and then the pandemic hit, and you know, things went kind of crazy, I think for everybody. And so they saw a spike during um COVID, where a lot of people were starting to interact more with digital technology, because, you

know, they weren't at work, they were at home, and all of those bits and pieces that we encountered during that part of time. And so the company grew dramatically during COVID. And so I joined during that time, during that growth period. And setting the stage, because as soon as I joined, the CEO, who is one of the founders, stepped down. And then I was reporting to the CPO. He also left, and went on paternity leave, never came back. So going from a company that I joined, which had three founders, to one founder, was kind of

interesting, and definitely a change in regards to how the culture, the structure of the company, um just how we approached everything definitely evolved. A new CEO was brought in. The individual was very focused on financial metrics, whereas the founding, you know, three individuals had been very focused on customer satisfaction. Their belief was if you treat customers well, money will follow. And that had proved them, you know, they'd been proved right. And customers, you know, were the biggest champions of the product. But times change, you know, new new leadership, etc. And so the individual who came

in was very very focused on let's, you know, hockey stick revenue as fast as we can to be able to determine, you know, should we you know, take the company public, should we, you know, be bought, should we, you know, go a different way. So the thought being if we could gain more revenue quite quickly, we would have these other paths that we could take beyond just the steady growth that the company had been seeking. And so pricing was considered a key factor. And the reason for that was there was no differentiation for a middle

type of user. And so what I mean is that on the pricing page you had basically a starter pack and then an advanced pack. And if you felt you were somewhere in between, sorry, you got to jump to the advanced pack. And so the hypothesis was that we were missing opportunities to be able to have a middle offering that could be a really great great bridge for individuals who had outgrown the starter pack, but didn't need like all the enterprise capabilities yet. And by introducing that middle pack, we could shift some of the, you know,

lower tier features that were too much for starter individuals into this middle space. And so by having three distinct tiers, we would be available, open, more attractive to a wider range of customers. And so we did some research to be able to determine what features, capabilities would go in each of the specific tiers. We engaged a third-party, Simon Kucher, which is one of the leading, you know, pricing experts. If you listen to Lenny's podcast, you've heard a couple people from Simon Kucher on there. Yeah, so they're they're very, very good. And so they gave us

a really nice grounding in regards to what we thought versus what they had seen work in practice. And so the beginning of the project as I'm describing was very strategic. You know, what are the capabilities, where could we put them, what are some of the carrots that would nudge people to a higher tier? What are the capabilities where if, you know, someone had to, you know, spend more money, you know, they'd be okay with versus if they had to spend more money, yeah, they probably wouldn't. And so trying to make those distinctions so we could

come up with, you know, small, medium, and large or, you know, starter, intermediate, advanced, you know, that type of approach so that we could appeal to a wider audience. >> Nice, could we camp out there for a minute? Could if uh could you talk about one or several of those features that you decided would, you know, would be helpful to nudge uh audience from starter to this middle tier and, you know, how how did you arrive at the, you know, the decision that, okay, this is going to be a feature that we're we're going to

put in the middle tier cuz it's going to be a carrot, like you said. >> Yeah, and so part of it was through just our own customer research, customer, you know, outputs in regards to if you had to create a package, um, what would you put into what tier? And so did some of that type of analysis that was very user research centric with Simon Kucher. We all >> Like you asked the customer like um, like uh I forget the name but where you give them the option uh like >> almost like card sorting. Yeah,

you can you can put different capabilities into different buckets and and see how they would do it. And then be able to dive deeper into the why or, you know, what led to that type of structure. And so able just to have those really direct conversations which was great. We had that initial foundation, you know, when we brought in Simon Kucher. And Simon Kucher then, you know, put in a lot of, you know, pricing analytics around, you know, how much would you pay and, you know, what are those levers that would, you know, really cause

you to shift. Because we saw, you know, people would say X, Y, and Z, but they may not actually do it. And so Simon Kucher, you know, had much more scientific backing in their analysis to be able to get more clarity around, you know, what were those features that would nudge someone to another tier versus what was the pricing that would, you know, be be okay, but be high enough so that we could gain the revenue we needed but wouldn't push people away. And so they did a lot of the analysis. >> Are you able

to give a concrete example of like uh feature where people would say we want it but their behavior would not line up? >> I'll I'll give an a different one. Um, >> Okay. >> we had a capability where individuals could sync calendars. And we thought that that was something that people would pay for. So, we put it into a middle tier that we thought it would be a carrot that would nudge people to that middle tier. Simon Kucher's research validated it. Our, you know, conversations with customers highlighted it was extremely important. And so, between, you

know, our research and Simon Kucher's research, we felt it should go in the middle tier. This ability to sync calendars. When we actually rolled out the project, people were up in arms. It was something that they truly appreciated and valued, but so much so they sho- thought it should be available in every single tier. And so, to be blunt, customers were very upset that it was not in the lower-priced tier, that we had nudged it to the middle. They thought that made the lower-priced tier not viable in any way, shape, or form. And so, >>

How did you learn How did you learn this? >> [laughter] >> That they were upset. >> Through um through customer calls, customer complaints, uh feedback in communities, Facebook, LinkedIn. >> [laughter] >> Unfortunately, you name it, it was there. >> Okay, got it. Um and what uh just hypothetically, just like imagine for a moment you could do it again, is there is there anything you could have done that would have told you that that would have helped you catch this ahead of time, hey, sync calendars is part of the core value prop, we need that in

every tier. >> Yeah, we did customer research bef- you know, as we started to devise, you know, the three different offerings. And then, you know, Simon Kucher did more, I mean to say pricing, you know, analytical optimization. We didn't go back to the customers before we actually launched the three packages. We used our initial research, Simon Kucher's analysis, and took a leap. We should have identified a small group of customers to do an extra set of validation before going live, and we didn't do that. >> Great answer, yeah. Definitely. >> There was a There was

a reason for it. Um we thought that by asking customers, they would just tell us it's too expensive. Or they would say they were upset with, you know, X feature not being there. And to be blunt, you know, given the driver was for revenue, there was certain feelings that they're going to be upset because we're changing the pricing, we're changing the packaging, they're going to be upset. So, why do we need to talk to individuals who are just going to be upset? >> Yeah. And sort of um you know, naive question, did did you consider

like um like an AB test, like launching the new package or pricing with 10% of customers and seeing how it goes, or launching it in a specific geo first? >> Yeah, so we did a variation of that. The catch is is that with a lot of companies, and ours included, pricing touches everything. And so, it's very hard to AB test basically your whole entire tech stack. And so, to be blunt, we couldn't do it. What we could do is launch in a rolling basis to individuals as their packages, their existing packages came up for renewal.

And so, we did a rolling because we already had that. You You didn't pay again until your, you know, your current package was, you know, ready for renewal. And so, we were able to try it with a certain number of customers as their packages came up for renewal within the window of a month. And so that gave us, you know, some of the hot water around the capabilities, but we couldn't do a, you know, a a typical AB test just because how ingrained pricing was in everything that, you know, was part of the platform, product,

etc. >> Yeah, um that makes sense. And uh that that's really cool. Did you how did you come up with this like rolling approach? Was uh >> We were >> was there more behind that? >> Yeah, we wanted to ensure that we could support customers in their transition because they were going to have to move from their existing tier to a new one. And we wanted to give customers the ability to choose. And so they would feel that they had some involvement in the decision as opposed to just rolling them and saying, "Tough." So in

order to do that, we needed to have capacity in customer support to be able to handle any calls that came in. And so we came up with the rolling structure to be able to ensure that if calls came in, we had the the volume of people to be able to answer them. And if we had launched everybody at once, it wouldn't have been possible. So we had to do something in a rolling basis, um brainstorming, etc. The logical item that came up is we already roll people based on their, you know, their renewal date. Let's

use what we already have. >> Nice. Yeah, that makes sense. >> Yeah. So it was um it was an interesting experience. Um as I said, this one capability just upset everyone. >> Mhm. >> The um and I would say like with pricing, with something that touches every part of a product, there will be things you miss. Just there will be. Um, you know, again, I said the company had been around for 10 years. That means there's some code people don't know because it was built, you know, 10 years ago and is still lurking in the

depths. And so we had a couple of gotchas. Things that we just didn't test because we didn't know about them. Some of them were such extreme edge cases, we just didn't think they would arise. And so there were a couple of issues that we really had to scramble to try to figure out in a couple of instances because no one had come across across the code before. And in other instances because we were migrating everybody over time, the edge cases did arise. And so how do we navigate the edge cases? In a couple >> Yeah.

>> Sorry, on the on the edge cases, is there one that comes to mind that you could, you know, talk through? Like, "Hey, we we didn't think anyone would would do this and then it turned out, oh, someone did and and so we had to do this." >> Yeah, there were We never thought that people would jump a tier. Um, what I mean is we thought people that were in the, you know, the lower tier originally would move to medium. That people would move from, you know, the bigger one down to the medium. We never

thought people would jump two tiers. And so how do you take away all of these capabilities is a lot of unraveling. And so there were a couple of instances where people did that because of pricing. They just thought it was too high and so they said, "Sorry." You know, we had to unravel a lot of their capabilities, which then caused some of the features to almost be, um, I'm going to say a cul-de-sac. You would start down them, but the rest of it wasn't there. And so it was a little bit funky around how they

could navigate out when they the feature actually shouldn't have been there. But because we didn't take away all of the elements cuz we never thought someone would make those two hops, it was a little confusing. And so we had to do a couple of design changes just to remove features when people jumped from one tier down to two others. So that that was >> in in the UI like a cul-de-sac or do you mean like overall product? I don't know. I'm syncing my calendar to yours and now suddenly I'm stuck and can't sync calendars to

anyone or something. >> Yeah, more in the UI. A capability that was in your your original tier, but you were going you know, you were in a higher the highest tier, you were going the lower tier. That capability should have been removed entirely. But because you you had it today because we thought you would have stayed in that tier, we didn't have as much of we didn't have a full picture around how to remove all the elements. And so we needed to do some rapid unraveling of capabilities. >> Yeah. Cool. So backing up a little,

it sounded like one of the you know, the your hypothesis you called out which I loved was that there's this middle pack um group and you thought hey, we can we can draw some people and get more people from who are in the starter pack to to move up to this uh place that's you know, not as expensive as the advanced tier. Um I I so I want to explore that that hypothesis a little more. Um I'm really curious, you know, did you how did you validate that before launch? And then, you know, did you

track it it after launch? Did it go as you expected? >> Yeah, so we had initial hypotheses based on the user research we'd done, as well as the the analysis that Simon Kucher did. And so, we thought it would be viable. We thought it would work. We thought we would make, you know, a certain amount of revenue based on this change in pattern or this change of behavior. There was also a hypothesis from we didn't do it directly because we didn't want people to know it was us, but we had usertesting.com do outreach to our,

you know, our ideal customers to see, would you switch if this type of offering was available? Um so, that gave us some indication that individuals who didn't use our product today, based on the new, you know, pricing tiers, would be enticed enough to join or to sign up. And so, you know, we we did our due diligence. What we didn't expect is customers who used the product today or at that time um to leave. And that was a higher rate than we expected. People were upset about the price of the higher tier. They felt it

was too targeted towards larger enterprises, which had not been our core offering. Our core offering had always been to solos or small businesses. And so, these small businesses were pushed into a higher tier um that, you know, to be honest, really was for enterprises, and they didn't need all the capabilities, but the capabilities that they used, that they liked, were only available in that higher tier. And so, they they left. They were pretty annoyed. Um the other thing that we found out is even though we were perceived as a a premium offering in comparison to

our competitors, we had a better user experience, we had better customer support. We thought again that would be enough to entice people to stay. It wasn't. They were um they said, "You know, we'll take you know an experience that's not as great, customer support that puts us on hold for a couple of minutes because the amount you're charging us is too much." And so we had more attrition than we expected. And that wasn't factored in. >> Did you expect any, you know, any attrition? And do you remember like like um you compa- how much did

you expect and how how did that compare to how much you you actually got? >> Yeah, I don't I don't remember the exact numbers that we used. I think it was around like 10 to 12%. We estimated we thought that would be really high. It I think it ended up about 25 to 30%. So it was really high. Um but we didn't we didn't think it was going to be that much. Um and so that that led to some scrambling as well. Um we did a couple of changes moving capabilities across tiers. As soon as

we saw this trend start to appear, we we did shift some capabilities around. Um and that, you know, that helped, but it still was after, you know, customers had said something, you know, out on social. So in a sense a little bit of the damage had already been done. And so that that was hard. Um But yeah, I mean it the other thing you always hard and you guesstimate is like how will your competitors react? And a couple of our competitors were were pretty savvy in regards to, you know, come to us because, you know,

X Y Z just happened. So, they picked up on the messaging and, you know, the social channels and and turned it around as a campaign to a take away customers, too. >> So, and did you, I'm curious if you had any conversation with the customer or just hypothetically if if a customer had come to you and said like, "Hey, I'm looking at this competitor. They're They're saying they offer like uh all the features that I love, but it's I'm going to get it at a, you know, much lower price than having to go with this

advanced tier. Um you like what would you say to to that customer? Uh >> Yeah, the the piece that was a little bit ironic, it's a similar conversation we would have had, you know, even if the price didn't change. Um you know, talking about user experience, talking about, you know, the capabilities that were there, talking about, you know, how the road map was going to evolve, talking about, you know, how they had, you know, a certain type of rapport with the customer success team, talking about the training we provided. So, it it was similar to

that all package, you know, offering that we did originally when our conversations with someone would mention it. Now, it just had a a little bit more people mentioning it, but also a little bit more on the line. So, yeah, we worked on a whole FAQ with customer success. They had scripts. They had everything set up to be able to manage calls like that. >> No. Oh, nice. So, you you helped with that FAQ or you you authored it? >> Yeah, cuz product, you know, product knew what the capabilities were. Um so, we could talk about

how you could, you know, navigate a capability. The um the pieces that we also talked about is like, you know, the I would say the the the marketing phrasing, you know, working with product marketing, you know, the words that, you know, you should use to be more positive and upbeat, you know, around how this change, you know, the cause for the change, you know, the positive benefits that it was going to bring, you know, as your you know, as your company grows, these are the advantages you're going to get. So, all of those bits and

pieces are coming from a product perspective. Customer success is amazing in regards to, you know, handling the customer, but sometimes they just need a different wording to highlight the advantages. >> Oh, for sure. Um and so, like, yeah, walk me through that or do you remember specific word or words, you know, messaging uh that you arrived on like with the with the marketing team and said like, "Hey, this is going to resonate really well in the market?" >> Yeah, I don't remember exact phrasing, but the themes we were going after was like flexibility and optimization

and, you know, support for growth. All of those things that highlight, you know, we're here with you for, you know, throughout the hall. Um and so, when you join with us, you know, as a small business or a solopreneur, we're with you there. Now we have a path for you through growth. And so, whereas before you might have had to, you know, change companies or change products or, you know, do a lot of hacking behind the scenes on your own to be able to support your growing business, we're giving you a runway that you don't

need to worry about. It's just there. It's natural for you to be able to upgrade and all the capabilities that you need as your business grows are there for you at a click of a button. >> Nice. And how did how did you arrive on on that, um you know, sentiment as being, "Okay, this is going to resonate in in the market, resonate with our target audience. >> Yeah, in with the pandemic, we saw a lot of growth across a variety of industries. Um, the company I worked at was in healthcare. And so, healthcare saw

a dramatic growth due to telehealth. People that, you know, didn't have time to go to the doctor, you know, visit a nurse, etc. because of work can now just do telehealth. And so, there was a rise in the number of individuals who, you know, were seeking medical attention or seeking therapists or, you know, some other type of, um, physician to be able to work with them. And so, we knew there was growth. And the thought being that after the pandemic, individuals would want would not want to go back to the standard behavior. They would want

to continue to use telehealth and be able to, you know, maintain their health and that relationship with their physician, their therapist, etc. that they had developed during the pandemic. And so, we had a theory that, you know, things were going to continue to evolve in that way. So, that was one lever in regards to where the market was going. You know, we looked and saw, you know, telehealth, etc. was growing over the pandemic. We believe it won't stay as high, but it'll, you know, be higher than it was before. So, that was one. The other

thing that we saw in the market was that smaller practices were having a hard time supporting themselves because they didn't know how to run a business. The pandemic gave them a great opportunity to try, but not many, you know, therapists, physicians, etc. have a background in accounting. And so, they were having a hard time managing, you know, the the reporting, managing the, you know, insurance, managing all the billing, all of those bits and pieces that, again, they hadn't had training in. And so, what was happening is small practices were merging. And when you merge, you

have a little bit more overhead because you can combine some of the, you know, back-end administrative capabilities into an individual. And so, we knew the smaller practices were going to start what we expected the smaller practices to start to merge, which would mean that they would move up the tiers and be able to then have an administrator who could do some of the back-end capabilities that we had in the higher tiers. And so, those were Those were some of the market trends and analysis that we did and foresaw that, um, yeah, actually turned out to

be right, which is interesting. But, yeah. It was It was what we felt was, um, a good indication of where the business was going to go. >> Yeah, that That makes sense. Um, I I taking one, uh, step backward, you talked about making the FAQ um, and scripts for customer success, which I It's just awesome. Was there any other internal enablement or, uh, you know, internal messaging you had to do around this pricing change? >> As soon as customers started to get pretty upset, um, there was internal messaging we had to do to calm the

business down. And similar to customers, um, we had people who had been at the company for 10 years, you know, with the original founders. And so, depending on how long you'd been with the business, you had a different view around how the pricing should have been approached. And as soon as the communication around the unhappiness started to be quite visible, again, there were differences around how people thought we should have reacted. And you know, I'm I'm summarizing, [clears throat] aggregating, etc. But at a high level, it fell pretty closely to how long you'd been at

the organization. And so >> that make Yeah, that that that's totally, you know, logical. And did uh were you involved with this with like coming up with this internal messaging, you know, customers are getting upset. Hey, here's how we're going to message that internally to our, you know, loyal employees who are, you know, understandably also frazzled by this. >> Yeah, I mean, I was responsible for calming price head for calming product down. >> [laughter] >> Uh we had a lot of people who'd been with the the company for quite some time. They'd come from customer

success, for example, and you know, really really were passionate about our customers. And you know, there would be sometimes, you know, where I didn't side with, you know, the CPO or didn't side with the CEO because I agreed there were changes that we should make. Um just given the I would say just given the, you know, the the urgency, the um yeah, the way that we were being viewed. And so that is probably one of the hardest things as, you know, a leader that you do is, you know, decide where you're going to fall in

regards to some of the internal conversations. And so there were definitely times I didn't side, you know, with with folks um in my team, but there were times that I did. And the key point is always context. You know, explain to people why you're making that decision or that recommendation, help them gain more clarity because we're a business. Um we're, you know, we want to have our customers, you know, stay with us, etc., but we're not best friends with our customers. It's a strange kind of situation where you know, a business that used to be

all about its customers and probably would have thought they were best friends, now is more of a a business and was putting revenue before all else. How do you change that in a way that doesn't disrupt the culture that actually had, you know, been there through the journey? And so it was it was a lot of conversations, a lot of blunt conversations. Um we did AMAs, you know, we did just anything anything to help people feel heard because if we shut people down internally, it was how they felt we were doing to customers. And we

we didn't want to have that cause a ripple effect across the organization. >> Love it. Love it. Well, we we're just about uh up on time. Uh I want to just ask, you know, it in the final minute, you know, we've we've sort of run through everything I feel like sort of start start to finish. Feel like I have a really good sense. If I want to know from your perspective, if there's was just one thing that you could turn back the clock and you know, do this one thing differently or or make this, you

know, have this one um change or one goal. Is there something that jumps out as like this would have been really this would be a really effective thing to to do differently um you know, if I could do it again? >> Yeah, I think the thing I said before I'd probably stay with. That, you know, to identify a small batch of customers where we actually would have taken them through the the actual, you know, packaging before they they were launched. And so, to be able to, you know, to hear the blunt feedback um before we

went live as opposed to we knew it wasn't going to be positive. Why, you know, why do it? So. >> Yeah. Yeah, I I imagine that would uh I imagine that would really help uh in in a situation like this. >> Totally. And especially as a user experience researcher, it would have made me feel better, too. >> [laughter] >> Oh, I bet. Oh, I bet. Cool. Thank you so much, Deanna. Um we're just around the 35-minute mark. Um and yeah, I really enjoyed this conversation. Uh thanks again for your time. >> Thank you so much.

Great speaking with you, as well. >> You know, you've you've asked this problem a bunch of times out in the wild. What do you think are the most important parts when somebody's answering this? Yeah, uh the things I look for are what I consider to be the most important uh skills of a product manager, which are the the empathy, strategy, and communication. Um now, this is my personal opinion, but I I think in an interview you're allowed to put in, you know, some of your own uh mindset cuz you're hiring someone that you're going to

work with and who's going to, you know, contribute, be a shareholder at your company. Um so, you know, uh empathy, meaning can they demonstrate user empathy? Can they get behind the eyes of their user, of their customer, um and really understand the problems that person is dealing with and the blockers? And then stakeholder empathy, engineering, design, the different people internally, and what they have to deal with cuz a product manager has to get things done within in organization. Um and then can they use that empathy in the rest of their their questions. Uh, so then

strategy is is the next big bucket. That's really the meatiest one, you know, that that's everything from like, how do they do like market strategy and market research, uh, goal setting. Uh, can they set, uh, you know, reasonable goals, appropriate goals, a north star for the project. Um, like metrics and measurement. How do they measure those goals and follow up after launch? Um, and then prioritization, which we didn't get into so much this time, but is a really fun subject and sort of thinking, you know, when you have competing priorities, how do you weigh the

cost, the value, uh, make tradeoffs. Um, and uh, there's, you know, there's a lot of areas you could look under strategy. Uh, go-to-market is is maybe the the final one, uh, where I really like to tease. And finally, just communication, you know, are they communicating clearly with me? And do I get a sense that they communicate clearly with, you know, the customers and and stakeholders, you know, can't measure that so much, but you can get a a little sense. So, I think it's really important to demonstrate those things, you know, >> Mhm. >> throughout your

past experience. >> Cool. Um, common mistakes. What are the, you know, rabbit holes, garden paths, you know, what areas are to be avoided by candidates that a lot of them unfortunately get into? >> Yeah. >> Yeah, I mean, most common I've seen by far is losing sight of the user value. Um, I've had so many times where I go through the the the whole interview and I'm like, you know, what they said makes sense, but they could they it doesn't sound like they ever thought about how is this going to be, you know, valuable to

the user or how did that like, how does that, um, inform their decision-making? Um and more broadly like losing, you know, not demonstrating that user empathy, um that's something that most PMs are going to look for in an interview is you to demonstrate that. Um I've also seen, you know, people uh who just sort of come up say they just came up with the solution on their own and just sort of launched it um and that that's a that's a red flag, you know, there's more to that and the >> Why is that a red

flag? I I I have I have ownership over the work stream. I'm I'm I'm getting things done on my own. Why Why is that a red flag? >> Yeah, I mean, because um uh you know, by and large the ideas that you just come up with in your head are not going to be right the first time. Kind of need to iterate. You need to research. You need to get feedback. Um someone else might have a better idea than you. They In my experience, they that's usually true. Um and, you know, I think I a

big thing that you you saw in this story was like they had they they even had this great idea that they had all, you know, all these experts had workshopped together, um but that final piece of like, "Hey, let's just get get some feedback on it from the end users." Uh that could have been really valuable here. Um and and so yeah, getting getting to the discovering the right solution as, you know, Marty Cagan puts it, uh is more than just thinking up a great idea in your head. So yeah, those are some of the

biggest pitfalls. There's you know, there's others that are predictable like unclear communication or, you know, work speaking really poorly about their teammates, kind of working bad with others. Um you know, but but those are pretty rare. >> Right. So it's kind of like there's kind of like two sides to the same coin. It's like just choosing the solution on your own or just letting someone else just say, "Oh yeah, we let engineering take care of that." I think >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> be another red flag for you? >> Yeah. >> yeah, absolutely. Good

good call out. Yeah, some I have had candidates who say, you know, you get the sense that they're more they're they're very involved in the like communication, but less involved on, you know, guiding their their team along or being involved with like these tradeoffs and involved with the design. You know, a product manager to be successful needs to be involved with pretty much all of it. Not doing the work, but, you know, be there at every step of the way. So, yeah, if I hear, you know, oh, just engineering just came up what, you know,

design made a design and engineering built it and, you know, that's the end of the story, that that also can can be a red flag. Um, with this sort of question. >> Nice. What what what, if anything, comes to mind for like red flags for like how they communicate with stakeholders? >> Yeah, I mean, I think if if I hear them saying like that they launched this in a bubble. If I go to ask like, okay, you know, go to market, how'd you work with PMM or the marketing team? And if they said, well, I

just did launch blog, you know, on my own and we just sort of sort of did it or, you know, price pricing if they sort of came up with it all on their own or abdicated responsibility completely, you know, it's like you said, two sides of the same coin. That's where that's where it's going to be hard. It's also going to be hard if they, you know, if they're just saying like, oh, this other team blocked us and they can't um, expl- you know, they can't elaborate on why and what they tried to do to

to work with that team and get around that blocker. Like, it's totally fine to be blocked. It's happened to me all the time, but if it's something valuable, I'd try to work through it and I'd share that in interviews. Um so, you know, share being able That's something that some interviewers will I I've had when I'm interviewing really hound on, "Okay, well, why couldn't you convince that person?" Um you know, help me understand why they're why they're not letting you make that change. >> This is This is an interesting round because you're talking about one

project for 35 plus minutes. Like, how do you how do you just think about time and your answer? Like >> Yeah. >> You know? >> Um >> If you if you have >> That That is hard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it would be great to hear, you know, Diana's perspective on this too having just gone through it, but uh I think a lot of times it's going to be on that's going to fall on the interviewer's shoulders if they have all these boxes they're trying to check, like I was, uh to move things along. As

the candidate, I think just listening and trying to know like, "Okay, they're They're goal is to get start to finish and to check off all these pieces." Hopefully, you have a story prepared and you know how to sort of guide it through to check off the top four or five boxes that that you want to show. Um that that's going to really help you fit in the time. Diana, any thoughts on, you know, the timing of the answer? >> Overall overall overall overall overall as well, Diana. Like, anything any any any thoughts on answering this

question, common mistakes, your experience? I would say just dive in for whatever you would like. You don't you don't have to start with this prompt, but for anything about the the round you just did. I would, yeah, love to hear. >> I would tend to to side more on almost keep talking. Um >> Mhm. >> And have, like Luke did, there are times when, you know, I would I would pause and he would ask it a question and so that would allow me to pivot. Um in interviews I find silence can sometimes be quite awkward.

So I will you know I will pause but I'll get ready to start again if I don't see him you know starting to say something. Because you don't want necessarily dead air and in an interview. And so to to breathe so that creates the pause but also be prepared to continue you know explaining the situation if there there isn't a question that comes forward. The um the other thing that's helpful is knowing you know having the opportunity to ask you know some type of framing questions around you know oh I'm happy you know to dive

into this scenario is this the only scenario you want me to explore? Would you like me to balance between two? So to get a little bit of context about you know the expectation because that then enables you to to better manage your own time. >> It's a great point. >> That's a good one too. >> Yeah. How how do you um how do you decide this is a question for either of you? Let's say I'm in an interview and somebody asks me this question. I have a wealth of projects. You're both senior PMs you have

million projects you could choose from. How how do you decide how do you decide on the one flagship project to talk about here? >> Yeah I'll I'll typically lean into the one that's most relevant to the organization. >> Uh-huh. >> And so you know depending on the stage of the organization depending on the job description you know research I've done into the company etc. There you know that helps to frame up the one that you know I think is going to be most relevant. Um also you know typically questions like this don't come up with

the recruiter screen and so during the recruiter screen you can get a bit of understanding around you know what do you think you know some of the top areas are going to be that I'm going to be asked about? And then that can inform the, you know, the types of scenarios that you want to bring up during the subsequent interviews. >> Nice. >> Yeah. >> Nice. 100% and it's going to really help if you can be if you can prepare and have like a top story in mind already it with, you know, to at least

two backups in case they want to pivot or frame it in a certain way. Um and it's usually not going to be a pretty story because if it's a pretty story then it would it can come off a little a little boring and wrap things up a little too quick. So, like you heard with Diana's and then in my experience it's it's often going to be something where a story where something went wrong and where you had to really dig in deep and and get your hands dirty. >> Cool. Cool. Uh kind of kind of

kind of more generally uh Diana, you're coaching product all the time. What what is your what's a favorite tip that you have for these kinds of interviews where you're talking about past projects? What whether it has to do with this question or just in general? Yeah. >> Yeah, one one bit of advice that I give to people is, you know, building on what you just said, you know, have a couple of scenarios that you want to talk through. And preface the the response with, you know, I have I've, you know, have X number [clears throat]

of years of experience or I've, you know, worked in this field, you know, for quite some time. There are a number of scenarios I can describe. I'm going to start with one, but please let me know if there others that you want me to discuss as well because that kind of gives you a little bit more free range because if that one doesn't hit you've already said, I've got others that I can tell you about. You know, it's a little bit of a guessing game by the interviewee, you know, to assume what one is going

to resonate. So, by leaving that door open, you can get additional questions, hopefully. >> That's so smart. Um >> That's a really good tip. I actually the other month failed an interview because I was so set on my one story that I didn't let the interviewer, you know, I didn't ask and give the interviewer a chance to to say that story is not relevant here. >> Right. >> Right. Right. And this this one's so open-ended. If you wouldn't I mean this project, right? Tell me about a project Tell me about a project you've led from

start to finish. So open-ended. Would would you mind sharing, Luke, how What was that question that you answered? >> Yeah, it it was with a technical person. It was the same sort of question, um but the goal wasn't to assess product thinking. It was to assess my technical abilities. And so I picked one that was a UI project just cuz that's where I felt like I had dug in the deepest and worked the hardest with the tradeoffs and sort of understood everything the most and could present my best self. It turned out that this person,

you know, didn't want to talk about UI. They actually wanted to talk about um data data platforms. And so yeah, that I got a call from a recruiter saying, "Hey, we're going to have to redo that one because uh which I I sort of felt by the end of it, you know, you feel interview's not going according to plan, but so that here they were like, "Yeah, it wasn't it it wasn't the fitting example." And I just sort of dove into it cuz I had prepared so much and thought I was, you know, I didn't

ask this specific person what they wanted to know. >> Cool. Cool. Um any other thoughts about this specific question? Like any other things that either of you wanted to mention? I think maybe maybe actually before we go there, Diana, you didn't know what question that you were going to get asked, right? Okay. Okay. So great. So that right. So, it seemed like it seemed like you knew where you wanted Luke to ask follow-up questions about, and you would lead him in that direction. >> Oh. >> Does that track? Does that Does that track to what

you're doing or no? >> Um I have a sto- I mean, I lived it. So, I have you know, I have the story in my head. And so, I think from that perspective, you know, trying to to move it forward. >> Yeah. >> Because, you know, with any product interview, you know, I wanted to get to customer success. I wanted to be able to talk about, you know, you know, some things that went well, some things that didn't. So, in a sense, I guess I had a mental checklist of like all the bits and pieces

I wanted to try to get to. And so, moving in that direction. >> Cool. Yeah, and that came off really strong to to me. So, I think that's an effect of just really good preparation, you know, knowing what you want to hit and having that mentally prepared. Nice. So, now >> Yeah, one other thing I say to people is like, what's awesome about having interviews now virtually is anything could be behind your screen. No one knows what's behind your screen. And so, I always advise people put up sticky notes. Like, you know, you I may

have forgot that you know, the scenario I wanted to talk about cuz I'm nervous. And so, put a sticky note with like, you know, a couple scenarios. Um put up you know, you want to answer in like a smart context. Don't remember what smart is cuz I'm nervous. You know, write anything down because no one has any idea what's behind that, you know, what they can see. And so, that just helps sometimes ground people and then, yeah, they can go off and run. >> Cool. Last chance, any other things that you would want to have

said about this specific problem or approaching this problem, either of you? >> So, I mean, thing I wasn't sure about is how much context to give about the company. >> Mhm. >> Um cuz sometimes, you know, especially in certain situations, people will nudge a little bit around information that maybe shouldn't be public. And so, I leaned a little bit more cautious. And so, that's also something to to judge is like, is this information that could be found anywhere? In which case, go for it. But if it's something that was internal to the company only, you

need to be a little bit cautious about what you're actually sharing. >> Right. Yeah. I would try to have that again just prepared in your mind ahead of time. These are things I'm I'm going to go for. These are things I'm not going to go for. I had like a graph What I've seen done all the time is people will use graphs, materials from their company, but just take out the numbers. You can still show the shape, but that's that's great, you know, especially if it's you're talking something that's a few quarters old, a year

old by now. Just take out the specific numbers and no one's going to have a problem with that. >> So smart. I don't think enough people are screen sharing during interviews, let alone sharing that stuff in a safe way that's anonymous with the company. Awesome. Okay. Um great. Luke, if this is a real interview, you would have had a hiring decision. Strong hire, strong no hire, lean hire, strong no lean no hire. What is your decision and why? >> Yeah, I mean, if if I'm First, I want to talk about level. I think there's there's

clearly a a level discrepancy here. I'm someone as a senior PM with 10 years. Diana's appears to have more experience and, you know, I have already had that leadership uh experience. Um so, I'm asking a question that's appropriate for senior PM, staff PM. Um but I do, you know, do get asked um to interview candidates more senior than myself, but I still keep that that question. I still assess them at at my level. Um, you know, I don't I don't change my question for like a group PM, director of PM. Um, just I I still

just assess them for for where I'm at and what I know. So, for senior or staff level, definitely giving Diana a higher, um, you know, very clearly has the product experience and the battle scars to go with it. Um, you know, the the the ex and and really good job just sort of thinking through like yeah, not only like what she did, but what she could have done differently and and would she do it differently and why. Um, checked, you know, a lot so many of the boxes that I wanted to get through. So, yeah,

higher higher from me. >> Awesome. Thank you.