The Exchanges

Q Got you. Ok, what were the bad habits?

A The worst habit I would say is we burnt out so many fucking channels. Um, and what I mean by that is Facebook in the early days, uh, opened up notifications for the first time for developers. Uh, so you could, as a, as a developer, just send literally hundreds of push notifications every day to each user. We did that. I mean, we did that. We spammed the hell out of our users. We didn't have any guardrails set up and we essentially burned that channel out. And not only did we burn that channel out, we made Facebook change their, change their platform. So people like us wouldn't, wouldn't spam it, uh, which was ultimately a really bad thing.

AI assessment note: “The worst habit I would say is we burnt out so many fucking channels.”

Q I just want to make sure, sorry, I understand creation versus connection. What is the difference really between value creation versus value connection when comparing product to growth?

A Well, let me, let me take Reddit as an example. As I mentioned, you know, sending a push notification from a subreddit that you're really into, or something happens in that subreddit. I didn't create that content. I didn't create the subreddit. I am, all I'm doing is connecting that content to the user who cares about it. Value connection. Value creation would be something like, we think that Reddit is really missing real time communication on the platform. And if we add real time communication on the platform, it will attract all sorts of users who will use it for that purpose or get existing users to use it more. And so therefore let's add like a really cool chat component to our subreddits. That would be value creation. Push notifications, getting the content connected to the right person, value connection.

AI assessment note: “chat component to our subreddits. That would be value creation.”

Q Got you. Ok, what were the bad habits?

A The worst habit I would say is we burnt out so many fucking channels. Um, and what I mean by that is Facebook in the early days, uh, opened up notifications for the first time for developers. Uh, so you could, as a, as a developer, just send literally hundreds of push notifications every day to each user. We did that. I mean, we did that. We spammed the hell out of our users. We didn't have any guardrails set up and we essentially burned that channel out. And not only did we burn that channel out, we made Facebook change their, change their platform. So people like us wouldn't, wouldn't spam it, uh, which was ultimately a really bad thing.

AI assessment note: “The worst habit I would say is we burnt out so many fucking channels.”

Q Sorry, let's double down on that, because I think the most important thing with episodes like this is granularity, and so, okay, we should live in their shoes. I'm a founder today listening to this on the metro in New York. What does that mean? Do I go to individual users and ask them for video calls? To understand usage, what does that actually look like in practice?

A Yeah, let me give you an example. So for us, it was Words with Friends, which was the product I've worked at for about four years, my term in Singa, and our users were not me, mostly not me. They were 50 to 60 year old women in the Midwest or somewhere in America, and they were looking, they were looking to use this product because they thought it was Fitbit for their brain. And that was just a massive, massive insight for us. And so in the beginning, when I worked on words and friends, I was just, I was just littered with all of my biases. Right. And I was trying to figure out, I really love sports. Can we do something with sports and, and words with friends? And that's not helpful. What, what worked for us is putting a picture of this person that's called her Mary from Ohio, who is in her fifties and has Grandkids. Putting that picture in your office with, here's what she likes doing. Here's why she uses your product. And every time you're making your decision, think about Mary, right? Would Mary want this? Would Mary like this? And that was such an important exercise that I learned.

AI assessment note: “What worked for us is putting a picture of this person”

Q I'd love to understand how you define growth, given the usage today being so overused. So what does growth really mean to you, and what does it not mean?

A Yeah, and I stole this from our common friend Casey, um, but growth really should be renamed to something like value connection. Uh, and mean, and while value connection isn't exactly a very sexy term, I do think it defines what growth teams do way better than the term growth does. And what I mean by that Is there is value that exists in your product and you need to make sure that that value gets connected to each and every single user so that they may retain, they may engage, they may use the product for a really long time. Uh, so really that's what it's about. It's why tactics like push notifications or tactics like news or onboarding typically sit with growth teams, right? Because what is news or onboarding? You didn't create anything new in the product. There's no new value being created. What you're doing is you're trying to organize your product to better connect it to the user coming in so that they retain, engage, et cetera, et cetera. So it's really about value connection, not about value creation. It's, it's not core product, which is much more about creating new value in the product, which by the way, you have to do to grow a product. There's this common misconception that growth teams are the only teams that really care about traffic growth. That's not true. That it's a value connection team. It's as important as a value creation team. Uh, it's just a different way …

AI assessment note: “growth really should be renamed to something like value connection”

Q I just want to make sure, sorry, I understand creation versus connection. What is the difference really between value creation versus value connection when comparing product to growth?

A Well, let me, let me take Reddit as an example. As I mentioned, you know, sending a push notification from a subreddit that you're really into, or something happens in that subreddit. I didn't create that content. I didn't create the subreddit. I am, all I'm doing is connecting that content to the user who cares about it. Value connection. Value creation would be something like, we think that Reddit is really missing real time communication on the platform. And if we add real time communication on the platform, it will attract all sorts of users who will use it for that purpose or get existing users to use it more. And so therefore let's add like a really cool chat component to our subreddits. That would be value creation. Push notifications, getting the content connected to the right person, value connection.

AI assessment note: “all I'm doing is connecting that content to the user who cares about it.”

Q Okay, there's the bare minimum there. In terms of, like, the first month, what are the biggest red flags and also green lights when looking at candidates? What would you be like, holy shit, V did this? Amazing. And ooh, V did this? That's bad.

A In the first month, the red flags have got to be people who are doing a lot of talking and a lot of listening and not a lot of action. The right candidate just wants to get going. And I mean, get going as in they want to launch something their second week there, or even their first week there. They should just be itching to execute and launching things. That is the right candidate. The one of the worst answers that I hear in interviews sometimes, like when I ask, what are your first 60 days? Like a lot of like listening and learning and talking to people and forming relationships. No, you should have the drive to get going now. So in the first month for someone who's a really senior hire, they should have looked at your data. They should have formed some sort of strategy. It doesn't need to be a 10 page thing. But even just a one pager. And they should have actually started to work with engineers to get chip going. That's, that's super, super key.

AI assessment note: “In the first month, the red flags have got to be people who are doing”

Q What is the biggest mistake that founders make when hiring growth teams?

A Look, there are lots of smart people out there. Um, there are lots of people who would be great for a job. You need to find people who are right for what you need exactly. Right. And what I mean by that is I am probably not a great head of growth for a B to B company. I just never worked in the space. I don't get it. That's not where my expertise is. I wouldn't know what to do with it at all. Um, So you need to find not just smart people, but like the, the, the kind of person that you need for this exact job. And it's not just about, um, the industry you're in and the, the, the kind of company you're, you're at. It's also about the stage, um, the, the personality of the, of the person, whether you need someone to come in and actually You form a strategy and that's really hard and you're struggling with it, or you just need, you know what to do. The pieces are there and you just need someone to execute all sorts of different slices. But like the number one mistake is just not going through that process and just being like, oh, this person was the head of growth at X, Y, and Z. Yeah. They will know what to do. Let's just hire them. No, it's very different. Every single situation, every single company is very different. You just have to be deliberate about who's right for this particular job.

AI assessment note: “the number one mistake is just not going through that process and just being like”

Q How, how do you test this? Do you say, V, who are the three people that you're bringing with you right now? Here's my laptop. Show me that LinkedIn's.

A I would, I would do a lot of backchanneling there. So, um, I've done this for people where, you know, a lot of times when you back do backchanneling, you only talk to folks who were their previous managers. But I think it's actually equally important to talk to people who are on their team. And you ask them, like, would you, would you follow them? Would you work with them again? Uh, and people lie to you. People will, you know, uh, embellish, but you got to kind of read between the lines and figure that out. Uh, so for me, it's, it's, it comes down to back channeling and, and people who've worked for them, not just who they've worked for.

AI assessment note: “I would, I would do a lot of backchanneling there.”

Q this, I've looked at the data, and let's go, execute, and wait a minute, the head of products going, what the fuck? The head of customer success is going, V, what? And everyone else is going, who is this guy? Like, I get you are not, like, talking and building relationships and, you know, But if you just come in aggressive, you're going to not, you're going to lose friends.

A To be, to be clear, going back to what I said earlier, that stuff is important. I'm not saying don't talk, don't listen, don't build relationships. That stuff is important. But is it the only thing you do? Should it be the only thing you do? Absolutely not. Right. You should be looking to get into action, but obviously in a, in a smart way. Uh, and you need to get, take people along for the ride. Again, going back to what I said, the mistake I made was I didn't do that, right? I didn't walk people through, here's what I want to do, here's how I want to do it, and give me input, right? Let's, let's sit down and talk about it. That stuff is important, even if it makes you go a little bit slower.

AI assessment note: “the mistake I made was I didn't do that, right? I didn't walk people through”

Q I'd love to understand how you define growth, given the usage today being so overused. So what does growth really mean to you, and what does it not mean?

A Yeah, and I stole this from our common friend Casey, um, but growth really should be renamed to something like value connection. Uh, and mean, and while value connection isn't exactly a very sexy term, I do think it defines what growth teams do way better than the term growth does. And what I mean by that Is there is value that exists in your product and you need to make sure that that value gets connected to each and every single user so that they may retain, they may engage, they may use the product for a really long time. Uh, so really that's what it's about. It's why tactics like push notifications or tactics like news or onboarding typically sit with growth teams, right? Because what is news or onboarding? You didn't create anything new in the product. There's no new value being created. What you're doing is you're trying to organize your product to better connect it to the user coming in so that they retain, engage, et cetera, et cetera. So it's really about value connection, not about value creation. It's, it's not core product, which is much more about creating new value in the product, which by the way, you have to do to grow a product. There's this common misconception that growth teams are the only teams that really care about traffic growth. That's not true. That it's a value connection team. It's as important as a value creation team. Uh, it's just a different way …

AI assessment note: “growth really should be renamed to something like value connection”

Q creation versus connection. I agree with you. Creation gets you the product market fit fundamentally, and then the connection is super valuable, but I agree, I understand post. Once it is post then, do I get growth reps and put them in isolation? Do I get ahead of growth and put them under a CPO? Talk to me about the profile that's right, and where it sits in the org.

A It needs to first and foremost be a product leader. Ahead of growth is, is really a title that has shown up in the last few years, but really all it is, is a director of product or VP of a product who works on value connection or growth, right? So you need to look for, for someone who is a really great product leader and has an eye for, for value connection as, as we talked about. Who should you hire? You asked me earlier about, should it be like, you know, some young person or should it be like a really experienced person? I would strongly recommend, of course, this is, this is going to be about your budget to hire someone really senior, really experienced. I think that's, that's super important because think about what that person needs to do upfront in the beginning. You need someone who can analyze your data. You need someone who can form a really quick strategy while they are actually writing specs and operating. They also need to start hiring, building a team. Uh, scaling, uh, and, and doing all sorts of, wearing all sorts of hats. Not something that I think a junior person really could be able to do. Uh, but of course, you know.

AI assessment note: “It needs to first and foremost be a product leader.”

Q If we're drilling deeper V, how did you know what Mary, what you're, you're like respectfully, you're a dude in SF. How did you know What Mary wanted in Ohio. Did you call her up? Did you video call her? Did it come through on support tickets? How can founders know the words to use, the customer personas to build around?

A Yeah, I mean, in the, in the beginning, it was just like, you know, this cookie cutter research that we did, and we found, here's our personas, here's the type of people who use the products, but, but then I personally knew a lot of Mary's, and I found them In the product, and I would talk to them every day, and I would ask them questions about their lives, about how they started to get to know words with friends, why they use it, why do they still use it after years and years. Um, so it was, it was really, like, deep, and making friendships, and talking to these people every single day. That, that actually gave me insight into it. That's so important.

AI assessment note: “I found them In the product, and I would talk to them every day”

Q Wow. I mean, well, then let's dive into this. Like, what are the biggest mistakes you made in building your team?

A Yeah, I made so many mistakes. Uh, there's so much I would do differently. I think there, there are three main things. One is I just didn't hire fast enough. Um, I, I just wasn't, I didn't spend as much of my time hiring as I should have. Probably 30 to 40% of my time in those early years should have just been about hiring. And what happened because I didn't hire fast enough, I was the one who had to fill the gap, which makes the situation even harder. Right. Uh, you kind of go into this, into this spiral because I'm the one writing the specs, doing the analysis. I don't have time for hiring and therefore you can't scale and really have the big impact that you're there for. So that was, that was one. We also didn't fire or move, move people off fast enough. Um, we wanted to move at a breakneck speed, and there are only certain types of people who are okay with that, and who are willing to do that, and get motivated by that. Um, and in the beginning, we, we didn't really have that.

AI assessment note: “One is I just didn't hire fast enough.”

Q Ok, so you didn't hire fast enough, naughty. You didn't let go fast enough, even naughtier. What's the third one?

A The third one, I, I just didn't really care as much to harmonize with the rest of the company, right? I was coming into an existing organization and existing culture. And I just, from day one, Harry, I just went guns blazing, right? This is the kind of team I want. This is the kind of culture I want to build. This is how we want to run product. Go, go, go. Um, and I was, I was very, very aggressive with it. Um, and what I didn't do is Sit down with people from across the table, make a former relationship with them. I didn't do any of that. And what that led to is a lot of stress and strife and a lot of us versus them that built up over the first year. Um, and that's, that's not great for anyone. And ultimately in the longterm, it's going to hurt you.

AI assessment note: “The third one, I, I just didn't really care as much to harmonize”

Q No, I was just going to ask, do I need to have extremely clean structured data for them to come in ready on day one? Or, you know how startups are. It's all over the place. Can I just say V, here's login access, you go. Or do I need to actually be a little bit more disciplined around my data structure and discipline?

A Yes. It would be very good to be, uh, disciplined around it because you, what you want is you don't want this person to be your head of data and to actually fix whatever's happening with your data. That is not their job. What you want is for them to be able to actually get the data, analyze it and form a strategy really quickly. So as much as you can make that part easy for them so that they have the tools that they need to actually do their jobs. If you're relying on them, To be your head of data, you're not setting them up to succeed and that's not great. Um, so yes, you want someone who's a self-starter who can, who can be scrappy, but you do need to do a bare minimum to, to make sure they're set up to succeed.

AI assessment note: “It would be very good to be, uh, disciplined around it”

Q Tell me, you mentioned kind of the growth and then the floundering. How do you maintain morale in an organization and a functional unit when you're floundering respectfully and it's not going well? How do you maintain morale?

A Yeah, I think on Words of Friends I came back down to culture, and we built a really great culture, and it was a culture where everyone felt Ownership of what they were doing and not in a way that, oh, I have equity in the company. In a way that we're floundering and this is my job as much as it is the person sitting next to me or the GM or the VP of product or whatever. It is our job to get us out of this. And I think that is so key because my morale wasn't down as, as the general manager, right? I was just trying to figure out how do we, how do we find the right idea to get us out of it? So imagine if every single person in your organization is thinking like that instead of like, oh sucks. Like we were growing, we're not growing anymore. Like I wish person X would like think of some idea, whatever, instead of every single person was thinking, how do we get out of this? How do I figure out how to get out of this? Morale isn't even a question, right? So on, on word with friends for, for us, it was about that. It was about building a culture where everyone felt ownership and everyone had a voice and everyone had power to be able to come up with the idea that could, that could take, take us out of it. And that's exactly what happened. Uh, the idea that took us out of the mess was actually from an individual contributor. It was not for me. It was not for product manager. It was fr…

AI assessment note: “building a culture where everyone felt ownership and everyone had a voice”

Q Okay, there's the bare minimum there. In terms of, like, the first month, what are the biggest red flags and also green lights when looking at candidates? What would you be like, holy shit, V did this? Amazing. And ooh, V did this? That's bad.

A In the first month, the red flags have got to be people who are doing a lot of talking and a lot of listening and not a lot of action. The right candidate just wants to get going. And I mean, get going as in they want to launch something their second week there, or even their first week there. They should just be itching to execute and launching things. That is the right candidate. The one of the worst answers that I hear in interviews sometimes, like when I ask, what are your first 60 days? Like a lot of like listening and learning and talking to people and forming relationships. No, you should have the drive to get going now. So in the first month for someone who's a really senior hire, they should have looked at your data. They should have formed some sort of strategy. It doesn't need to be a 10 page thing. But even just a one pager. And they should have actually started to work with engineers to get chip going. That's, that's super, super key.

AI assessment note: “In the first month, the red flags have got to be people who are doing”

Q their very high roles that actually they're not used to doing everything and being that jack of all trades for a head of growth like you and Casey is like, what the fuck? Like, Really? I'm, I'm starting again like this? Is it not, sorry, I'm just intrigued. I thought the young jack of all trades would be like, oh, getting their hands dirty, fine, versus a more seasoned person.

A I think you at least want someone who's been along for the ride. So, uh, yeah, it might be really difficult to get someone like Casey to join your startup and go back into an operator role and start from scratch, but it would be good to get someone who's, who did it early on in Casey's team. Right. And, and who kind of wants to take that next step. So yeah, there's some money ball in there and you need to find the diamonds and the roughs. Uh, but you do need someone, I think, who, who is senior enough, may not be like all the way senior, and who has some experience wearing all those different hats, because it is pretty challenging.

AI assessment note: “it might be really difficult to get someone like Casey to join your startup”

Q How, how do you test this? Do you say, V, who are the three people that you're bringing with you right now? Here's my laptop. Show me that LinkedIn's.

A I would, I would do a lot of backchanneling there. So, um, I've done this for people where, you know, a lot of times when you back do backchanneling, you only talk to folks who were their previous managers. But I think it's actually equally important to talk to people who are on their team. And you ask them, like, would you, would you follow them? Would you work with them again? Uh, and people lie to you. People will, you know, uh, embellish, but you got to kind of read between the lines and figure that out. Uh, so for me, it's, it's, it comes down to back channeling and, and people who've worked for them, not just who they've worked for.

AI assessment note: “I would, I would do a lot of backchanneling there.”

Q this, I've looked at the data, and let's go, execute, and wait a minute, the head of products going, what the fuck? The head of customer success is going, V, what? And everyone else is going, who is this guy? Like, I get you are not, like, talking and building relationships and, you know, But if you just come in aggressive, you're going to not, you're going to lose friends.

A To be, to be clear, going back to what I said earlier, that stuff is important. I'm not saying don't talk, don't listen, don't build relationships. That stuff is important. But is it the only thing you do? Should it be the only thing you do? Absolutely not. Right. You should be looking to get into action, but obviously in a, in a smart way. Uh, and you need to get, take people along for the ride. Again, going back to what I said, the mistake I made was I didn't do that, right? I didn't walk people through, here's what I want to do, here's how I want to do it, and give me input, right? Let's, let's sit down and talk about it. That stuff is important, even if it makes you go a little bit slower.

AI assessment note: “To be, to be clear, going back to what I said earlier, that stuff is important.”

Q What is the biggest mistake that founders make when hiring growth teams?

A Look, there are lots of smart people out there. Um, there are lots of people who would be great for a job. You need to find people who are right for what you need exactly. Right. And what I mean by that is I am probably not a great head of growth for a B to B company. I just never worked in the space. I don't get it. That's not where my expertise is. I wouldn't know what to do with it at all. Um, So you need to find not just smart people, but like the, the, the kind of person that you need for this exact job. And it's not just about, um, the industry you're in and the, the, the kind of company you're, you're at. It's also about the stage, um, the, the personality of the, of the person, whether you need someone to come in and actually You form a strategy and that's really hard and you're struggling with it, or you just need, you know what to do. The pieces are there and you just need someone to execute all sorts of different slices. But like the number one mistake is just not going through that process and just being like, oh, this person was the head of growth at X, Y, and Z. Yeah. They will know what to do. Let's just hire them. No, it's very different. Every single situation, every single company is very different. You just have to be deliberate about who's right for this particular job.

AI assessment note: “the number one mistake is just not going through that process and just being like”

Q If we're drilling deeper V, how did you know what Mary, what you're, you're like respectfully, you're a dude in SF. How did you know What Mary wanted in Ohio. Did you call her up? Did you video call her? Did it come through on support tickets? How can founders know the words to use, the customer personas to build around?

A Yeah, I mean, in the, in the beginning, it was just like, you know, this cookie cutter research that we did, and we found, here's our personas, here's the type of people who use the products, but, but then I personally knew a lot of Mary's, and I found them In the product, and I would talk to them every day, and I would ask them questions about their lives, about how they started to get to know words with friends, why they use it, why do they still use it after years and years. Um, so it was, it was really, like, deep, and making friendships, and talking to these people every single day. That, that actually gave me insight into it. That's so important.

AI assessment note: “I found them In the product, and I would talk to them every day”

Q creation versus connection. I agree with you. Creation gets you the product market fit fundamentally, and then the connection is super valuable, but I agree, I understand post. Once it is post then, do I get growth reps and put them in isolation? Do I get ahead of growth and put them under a CPO? Talk to me about the profile that's right, and where it sits in the org.

A It needs to first and foremost be a product leader. Ahead of growth is, is really a title that has shown up in the last few years, but really all it is, is a director of product or VP of a product who works on value connection or growth, right? So you need to look for, for someone who is a really great product leader and has an eye for, for value connection as, as we talked about. Who should you hire? You asked me earlier about, should it be like, you know, some young person or should it be like a really experienced person? I would strongly recommend, of course, this is, this is going to be about your budget to hire someone really senior, really experienced. I think that's, that's super important because think about what that person needs to do upfront in the beginning. You need someone who can analyze your data. You need someone who can form a really quick strategy while they are actually writing specs and operating. They also need to start hiring, building a team. Uh, scaling, uh, and, and doing all sorts of, wearing all sorts of hats. Not something that I think a junior person really could be able to do. Uh, but of course, you know.

AI assessment note: “It needs to first and foremost be a product leader.”

Q Wow. I mean, well, then let's dive into this. Like, what are the biggest mistakes you made in building your team?

A Yeah, I made so many mistakes. Uh, there's so much I would do differently. I think there, there are three main things. One is I just didn't hire fast enough. Um, I, I just wasn't, I didn't spend as much of my time hiring as I should have. Probably 30 to 40% of my time in those early years should have just been about hiring. And what happened because I didn't hire fast enough, I was the one who had to fill the gap, which makes the situation even harder. Right. Uh, you kind of go into this, into this spiral because I'm the one writing the specs, doing the analysis. I don't have time for hiring and therefore you can't scale and really have the big impact that you're there for. So that was, that was one. We also didn't fire or move, move people off fast enough. Um, we wanted to move at a breakneck speed, and there are only certain types of people who are okay with that, and who are willing to do that, and get motivated by that. Um, and in the beginning, we, we didn't really have that.

AI assessment note: “One is I just didn't hire fast enough. We also didn't fire”

Q Ok, so you didn't hire fast enough, naughty. You didn't let go fast enough, even naughtier. What's the third one?

A The third one, I, I just didn't really care as much to harmonize with the rest of the company, right? I was coming into an existing organization and existing culture. And I just, from day one, Harry, I just went guns blazing, right? This is the kind of team I want. This is the kind of culture I want to build. This is how we want to run product. Go, go, go. Um, and I was, I was very, very aggressive with it. Um, and what I didn't do is Sit down with people from across the table, make a former relationship with them. I didn't do any of that. And what that led to is a lot of stress and strife and a lot of us versus them that built up over the first year. Um, and that's, that's not great for anyone. And ultimately in the longterm, it's going to hurt you.

AI assessment note: “The third one, I, I just didn't really care as much to harmonize”

Q No, I was just going to ask, do I need to have extremely clean structured data for them to come in ready on day one? Or, you know how startups are. It's all over the place. Can I just say V, here's login access, you go. Or do I need to actually be a little bit more disciplined around my data structure and discipline?

A Yes. It would be very good to be, uh, disciplined around it because you, what you want is you don't want this person to be your head of data and to actually fix whatever's happening with your data. That is not their job. What you want is for them to be able to actually get the data, analyze it and form a strategy really quickly. So as much as you can make that part easy for them so that they have the tools that they need to actually do their jobs. If you're relying on them, To be your head of data, you're not setting them up to succeed and that's not great. Um, so yes, you want someone who's a self-starter who can, who can be scrappy, but you do need to do a bare minimum to, to make sure they're set up to succeed.

AI assessment note: “It would be very good to be, uh, disciplined around it because”

Q Tell me, you mentioned kind of the growth and then the floundering. How do you maintain morale in an organization and a functional unit when you're floundering respectfully and it's not going well? How do you maintain morale?

A Yeah, I think on Words of Friends I came back down to culture, and we built a really great culture, and it was a culture where everyone felt Ownership of what they were doing and not in a way that, oh, I have equity in the company. In a way that we're floundering and this is my job as much as it is the person sitting next to me or the GM or the VP of product or whatever. It is our job to get us out of this. And I think that is so key because my morale wasn't down as, as the general manager, right? I was just trying to figure out how do we, how do we find the right idea to get us out of it? So imagine if every single person in your organization is thinking like that instead of like, oh sucks. Like we were growing, we're not growing anymore. Like I wish person X would like think of some idea, whatever, instead of every single person was thinking, how do we get out of this? How do I figure out how to get out of this? Morale isn't even a question, right? So on, on word with friends for, for us, it was about that. It was about building a culture where everyone felt ownership and everyone had a voice and everyone had power to be able to come up with the idea that could, that could take, take us out of it. And that's exactly what happened. Uh, the idea that took us out of the mess was actually from an individual contributor. It was not for me. It was not for product manager. It was fr…

AI assessment note: “it came back down to culture, and we built a really great culture”

Q Sorry, let's double down on that, because I think the most important thing with episodes like this is granularity, and so, okay, we should live in their shoes. I'm a founder today listening to this on the metro in New York. What does that mean? Do I go to individual users and ask them for video calls? To understand usage, what does that actually look like in practice?

A Yeah, let me give you an example. So for us, it was Words with Friends, which was the product I've worked at for about four years, my term in Singa, and our users were not me, mostly not me. They were 50 to 60 year old women in the Midwest or somewhere in America, and they were looking, they were looking to use this product because they thought it was Fitbit for their brain. And that was just a massive, massive insight for us. And so in the beginning, when I worked on words and friends, I was just, I was just littered with all of my biases. Right. And I was trying to figure out, I really love sports. Can we do something with sports and, and words with friends? And that's not helpful. What, what worked for us is putting a picture of this person that's called her Mary from Ohio, who is in her fifties and has Grandkids. Putting that picture in your office with, here's what she likes doing. Here's why she uses your product. And every time you're making your decision, think about Mary, right? Would Mary want this? Would Mary like this? And that was such an important exercise that I learned.

AI assessment note: “putting a picture of this person that's called her Mary from Ohio”

Q Let's pause there. I, I never went to university. I did, but it was so brief that I didn't really count it. Um, uh, you said that Zynga was like a university. What was your one biggest takeaway from your time at Zynga? And then I have to ask, what's the biggest bad habit you think that you had to shed there?

A Very easy to answer. Um, I'd start with one big takeaway, more than the obvious ones, you know, which was how to think about a big ambiguous problem, how to think about Um, using data in product management. The biggest one that I learned, and I learned this maybe too late, was really get to know your user in an hour. Like, who are they? What are their motivations? Why do they use your product? And I mean, like really get to know them, not just like, oh yeah, it's this person. This is why they use it. I mean, like you should, Be in their shoes and, you know, try to be living in, like, their life somehow. Um, and I found...

AI assessment note: “The biggest one that I learned... was really get to know your user”