The Exchanges

Q It's gonna be great, but I want to start. We look at Chime, we look at Yelp. These are some incredible product orgs. How did you first make your way into the world of product and growth, and what did that entry point look like for you, Eli?

A Yeah, great question. Um, so if you go all the way back, uh, I've got, uh, a couple of degrees in computer science. I did bachelor's, master's in computer science. I was an engineer, engineering manager for a while. I think this used to be a more common path into product right it used to be one of the most common paths these days much less which is like good i think but so i was the engineering path i had a startup of my own for a little while like a big chunk of my product career was at yelp i was at yelp for a little over eight years across a whole bunch of different areas of that product and business one of the cool things about yelp is it's really like 10 different vertical marketplaces combined into a single product which is a fantastic place to sort of like up level and grow up as a product and growth professional because you really see like All the different kinds of dynamics in marketplaces. It's also consumer. It has a big SMB play. It also actually has a pretty big enterprise, uh, play and I worked across all of those things. And so it was a really good kind of like growing up in this space. So I did, I did a whole bunch of different things at Yelp. I tend to be the person that got tapped to do zero to one stuff there a lot. I think organizationally, maybe we didn't have a lot of organizational muscle around doing that. And so I got tapped to do that in a number of di…

AI assessment note: “I did bachelor's, master's in computer science. I was an engineer, engineering manager”

Q What does that look like in reality, aligning the team around offensive and defensive bets?

A Yeah, so again, I think, like, the most common version of this is actually you have, sometimes this is called, like, a core experience org that really owns all of the defense. One of the things that I've seen be really effective is when you have a core experience org that owns every piece Of the defense. All of the defenses within that org and no non-defense is in that org. That really lets them prioritize apples to apples defense against defense. That is much, you're empowering them in a much stronger way. And then you have an org for probably each of your offensive bets. Again, like you should at most have three core offensive bets and an org that is dedicated to each of those things.

AI assessment note: “you have a core experience org that owns every piece Of the defense”

Q In terms of setting up for success, I think failure happens in surprises. What do you want to set up or align on before agreeing to a formal commitment?

A Yeah, that's a great question. I actually think it's more important in the place where we are not going to work together, but I'll also answer your question. When we are not going to work together, I'm really trying to set you up with like core frameworks and approaches To maximize your chances of success without me there. So that, that's sort of what I'm looking for there. Again, this is maybe a difference between your traditional high level five fast advisor and the kind of advising I do. My advising is month to month, week to week. Like the way that I'm doing my engagements is we just work together. And if any given time, either of us feels like we're not getting enough value out of the relationship, we just stop. And there's, you're not, there's no more equity that you're giving me. There's no more cash that's changing hands. Like we can just stop whenever we want. We can pause. I've actually had clients where we worked together for a while. We pause. They go focus on something else and then they come back later and then we work together again. And so I, again, I think that model works much better because you're not, there's no, there's no commitment on either side. You can just start working together and see how it's going. And if you're getting value, you're getting value. And if you're not getting value, you stop.

AI assessment note: “I think that model works much better because you're not, there's no commitment”

Q I totally agree. Ok, so we have that as one reason. Any other reason why it doesn't work out as well?

A Like on the founder side of that, if the founder is not willing to engage and commit to the relationship, then it doesn't work, right? Like at the end of the day, If the, if the founder is not going to engage, not going to show up like this happens sometime, especially with high level advisors, the founder is just too busy, right? Like it's just not going to work. You need to get to that working relationship where you're aligned and working together on driving outcomes for your business. And you're doing that in an engaged period. Again, it's kind of retention. It's kind of activation, right? You got to get the activation for that thing to go so that that founder has a habit of working with this advisor consistently and driving outcomes.

AI assessment note: “if the founder is not willing to engage and commit to the relationship, then it doesn't work”

Q Do you not want to take it one step further though, actually, and actually go down into the functional weeds? Because now you're relying on the CEO to relay everything to the functional leader. I would want you with my marketing team, with my product team to actually relay and teach.

A Yeah, great. This is a great point. This comes up a lot. This is where the teach to fish is really important, right? Because the founder can't rely on me. If they are not able to run the functions of their company, that's going to be a problem. And so it's much higher leverage for me to help them up level in how they execute. This is where, again, at the hands-on level, we work on everything from strategy to then how do I set up my org to execute on this? So we did this last week and here's what we learned. Let's think about that and make new decisions going forward. Because you're there every week, you're, you're sort of like your second brain for that founder all the way through the process and you're helping them up level all the way across. If you tried to embed me in one of your functions, then you're getting too far away from that function. If it's a core offensive leverage growth function for your company, which you shouldn't be. And if you need me to do those things, that's going to be a problem because I'm not going to be there the whole time and I'm only there an hour a week. Right. And so like, you really need to be able to do it and I can help you get better at doing that thing.

AI assessment note: “If you tried to embed me in one of your functions, then you're getting”

Q When you think about company level advising, how does one do that really? Because everyone to an extent is a functional leader. Is that like CEO coaching? Is that like CEO therapist?

A That's a great question. I don't dive more into that, but I think that coaching is a different thing here that I think is also good to lay out in this map, right? You may know, but just for folks, I think CEO coaching is something that has gotten more visibility recently. And so people are more familiar, but coaching is really about personal and professional leadership development, right? Like that is the core of what coaching is about. I think even a sports coach, they're like helping you at the core aspects of being a leader. Some coaches have a functional flavor, right? So you see folks like Ken Norton, who's a leadership coach with the product flavor, right? Um, but at the end of the day, they're a coach. They're helping you up level as a leader. And actually this is where you see a number of folks have coaches who are not in the function that they came from. And that's totally okay because leadership is pretty universal actually, right? Like that's something that works across the board. And so that's actually its own distinct piece here. When I talk about company level advising, Um, and I, and I can dive a little bit also into kind of like my things specifically, but just saying high level for a second. Company level advising, like the reason founders are talking to me is because they want help growing their business. Like that, at the end of the day, that is the purpose o…

AI assessment note: “company level advising is really that... helping you do your job at that highest level”

Q How did that show itself in real life for you?

A I don't know if there was a, I don't know if I have a point in time that I can point to where I was like, had a light bulb over my head. I mean, I definitely think some of the sort of like zero to one GM roles that I had push that home. Like this is maybe, maybe, maybe this is it now that I'm reflecting, which is like when you start out your product career or growth career working on a more mature product, it's easy to not really see the forest for the trees, right? Like you've got a lot going on and there's a lot of things already there. You're sort of a small piece. When you are doing zero to one, holistically, especially when it's a business unit, you have P&L, you have to see the forest. That's how that, that's your, that's your, you now own the forest, right? You own the full set of outcomes. And so I think that, that shift maybe helped me make that, made that mental shift.

AI assessment note: “some of the sort of like zero to one GM roles that I had”

Q Eli, do you ever have it where, and sorry, my voice is going, I sound like a sexy Rod Stewart. Um, weren't expecting that in a podcast. Um, do you ever have an offensive, which actually turns out to be a neither? It could be a new feature, it could be a new product, and it doesn't work. What happens then?

A Offense should not be about the solution. Your offense is not the solution. The offense is the leverage point that you are trying to move. And so that team's goal is to figure out how to move that leverage point, figure out what they need to do to move the metrics in that leverage point and be learning as quickly as possible if that is the wrong bet, right? Like this is, this is the thing is that you, this is another mistake you see a lot, which is like, I did some work to try to determine where that leverage is. I made a bet. And then I didn't question that bet for a long time, right? That happens all the time. Really the thing to know is like, you need to be building confidence over time and you need to Pull forward the key riskiest assumptions in that bet, right? I think this is one of the key things. This is again, something I help founders with all the time, which is how do we identify what the key riskiest assumptions are? And then how do we do things very quickly to essentially learn if we are wrong about one of those key assumptions, that would mean that this is not the bet to be taking. And this, the earlier you can do those things, the better.

AI assessment note: “be learning as quickly as possible if that is the wrong bet”

Q Do you ever find conflicts between offense and defense teams?

A That's a good question. Um, I mean, on a, on a really tactical, you just get deep, a little deep in the weeds on the edge side. There's a, there are pros and cons. Strategy focused orgs tend to have multiple teams hitting the same pieces of the code base, right? This is, I think a lot of companies have gone through this, this shift over the past 10 years, maybe of like, you know, the old style was we have teams that own features, right? Which like is very nice from a, we touch this piece of the code base. Nobody else touches this piece of the code base, but isn't very good for driving business outcomes. Right? And so, like, when you shift into the model of we have teams aligned to business outcomes, and defense is definitely one of those, you're gonna have different teams touching different parts of the codebase, so you have to deal with the coordination overhead and challenges of doing that. It's a pro and con, like, you pay that tax to be able to get that benefit.

AI assessment note: “you have to deal with the coordination overhead and challenges of doing that”

Q Eli, do you ever have it where, and sorry, my voice is going, I sound like a sexy Rod Stewart. Um, weren't expecting that in a podcast. Um, do you ever have an offensive, which actually turns out to be a neither? It could be a new feature, it could be a new product, and it doesn't work. What happens then?

A Offense should not be about the solution. Your offense is not the solution. The offense is the leverage point that you are trying to move. And so that team's goal is to figure out how to move that leverage point, figure out what they need to do to move the metrics in that leverage point and be learning as quickly as possible if that is the wrong bet, right? Like this is, this is the thing is that you, this is another mistake you see a lot, which is like, I did some work to try to determine where that leverage is. I made a bet. And then I didn't question that bet for a long time, right? That happens all the time. Really the thing to know is like, you need to be building confidence over time and you need to Pull forward the key riskiest assumptions in that bet, right? I think this is one of the key things. This is again, something I help founders with all the time, which is how do we identify what the key riskiest assumptions are? And then how do we do things very quickly to essentially learn if we are wrong about one of those key assumptions, that would mean that this is not the bet to be taking. And this, the earlier you can do those things, the better.

AI assessment note: “learning as quickly as possible if that is the wrong bet”

Q How do you advise founders when they get sold? There's a lot of like consultants slash advisors now who come out and say, I did this, I did this. How can founders determine true attribution of who did what?

A I, this is, I think a general problem. I'll tell you my approach And I think more people should maybe do this and maybe more founders should do it, which is like, I don't try to make claims with founders. I just help them. My model is I meet as many founders as I can, and I help them as much as I can for free. And we work together. And if at some point we feel like I have capacity and there's a good fit and I'm bringing a lot of value, then we formalize the relationship. That to me is the way to do it because then nobody has to believe anything, just work with somebody. And then you can see if they're valuable for what you need. And you can see if there's a fit, right? It's both Their experience and their knowledge, but also, like, you're working pretty closely with this person. You gotta be able to work together, right?

AI assessment note: “nobody has to believe anything, just work with somebody.”

Q Eli, what's the best growth decision you've made and what did you learn from it?

A Honestly, the growth things That I have seen that drive the most upside are, are almost always in activation, just to come back to that one, right? Activation is really that place where it makes the difference between you, you've got a bunch of people who could have value from your product to getting them to the point where they have a, have an engaged habit long-term getting value from that product. And again, this is back to the, like retention is king, right? Like retention stacks your business. Retention drives engagement, which drives virality. Like it's just all the things. And so like, if you, you know, there's a whole process you should go through to figure out where your leverage is and focus on the top leverage area. And it is not always activation, but it, that, that one has come to the top the most.

AI assessment note: “growth things That I have seen that drive the most upside are, are almost always in activation”

Q Eli, what's the best growth decision you've made and what did you learn from it?

A Honestly, the growth things That I have seen that drive the most upside are, are almost always in activation, just to come back to that one, right? Activation is really that place where it makes the difference between you, you've got a bunch of people who could have value from your product to getting them to the point where they have a, have an engaged habit long-term getting value from that product. And again, this is back to the, like retention is king, right? Like retention stacks your business. Retention drives engagement, which drives virality. Like it's just all the things. And so like, if you, you know, there's a whole process you should go through to figure out where your leverage is and focus on the top leverage area. And it is not always activation, but it, that, that one has come to the top the most.

AI assessment note: “growth things That I have seen that drive the most upside are, are almost always”

Q So when we think about like timings for different advisory positions, is there a right or a wrong time for different advisory positions within different companies and spaces?

A Yeah, this is a great question. I think I see people, founders struggle with this question quite a bit. Maybe starting with functional advisors, there's, I think there are two things to consider when you think about functional advisors. One mistake I see founders make a lot is trying to delegate the core pieces of their strategy because of their own background. And so I think one, one sort of like piece of advice I give a lot to people is as a founder, you should be owning the strategy for your primary growth lever. If that's product marketing sales, right? Like whatever the primary growth lever for your business is, you should not delegate that thing. I think a lot of founders are like, Hey, I don't have a lot of background in X. Like I need to bring in somebody who's super experienced in X. It is okay to bring somebody in to leverage and help you learn and help you through it. But at the end of the day, you need to own that strategy. You cannot delegate that strategy. And so that I think is something to be careful of in general, both for full-time hires and for functional advisors. Cause I see people do that. Yeah.

AI assessment note: “One mistake I see founders make a lot is trying to delegate the core pieces”

Q Do you ever find conflicts between offense and defense teams?

A That's a good question. Um, I mean, on a, on a really tactical, you just get deep, a little deep in the weeds on the edge side. There's a, there are pros and cons. Strategy focused orgs tend to have multiple teams hitting the same pieces of the code base, right? This is, I think a lot of companies have gone through this, this shift over the past 10 years, maybe of like, you know, the old style was we have teams that own features, right? Which like is very nice from a, we touch this piece of the code base. Nobody else touches this piece of the code base, but isn't very good for driving business outcomes. Right? And so, like, when you shift into the model of we have teams aligned to business outcomes, and defense is definitely one of those, you're gonna have different teams touching different parts of the codebase, so you have to deal with the coordination overhead and challenges of doing that. It's a pro and con, like, you pay that tax to be able to get that benefit.

AI assessment note: “when you shift into the model of we have teams aligned to business outcomes”

Q When I say advisor and advisory roles, what does that mean, Eli?

A Yeah, that's a great question. And I think it's especially appropriate because I think it has, it is changing. I think historically, again, it was a very opaque thing that was maybe applied inconsistently and the word got thrown around and people were doing sort of different levels of things, but nobody, both founders and operators who might be advisors didn't really understand what that looked like or what they should do or how they should do it. We are at sort of the early stages of an evolution of much more targeted kind of like ways to exchange value between founders and People that can help them in much more structured ways. And so I think this is, this is what I've been doing and I love it. I think there's a lot of exciting stuff here.

AI assessment note: “ways to exchange value between founders and People that can help them”