Oct 9, 2020 · 33m · we-live-to-build
The $300 Membership Model That Replaced 5 Conferences
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of the 'We Live to Build' podcast, host Sean Weisbrot interviews James Mays, co-founder of Mind the Product, to discuss building remote-first organizations, ethical founder governance, and the strategic pivot from in-person conferences to a recurring membership model. Mays shares actionable lessons on data-driven product development, radical leadership transparency, and sustaining founder well-being.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Sean holds 33.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Sean as informed peer 4.1 Guest teaching 3.1 Guest disagreement 1.6 Sean pushing back 1.9
speaking balance: gold is Sean, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 12:42 Contrarian take on AI job displacement
James directly rejects the conventional narrative that automation will cause mass unemployment, using Victorian leisure patterns and low-code developer adoption as counterproof.
Hardest push from Sean ▶ 13:22 Sean insists on structural job lossSean pushes back against James's optimistic outlook, insisting that widespread jobs will genuinely disappear rather than simply change formats.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 8:49 Output metrics versus hourly monitoringJames articulates the fundamental distinction between measuring raw hours and evaluating customer outcomes, using call-center dynamics to educate on healthy remote management.
Sean holds their own ▶ 16:00 Watson medical AI case studySean demonstrates strong subject-matter knowledge by detailing how IBM Watson augments clinical research synthesis while leaving diagnosis choices to human physicians.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Sean as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Sean pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Welcome to the We Live to Build Podcast | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Sean asks James about his journey starting TweetJobs and moving away from recruitment into startups. James candidly reflects on how little he knew initially, keeping the tone light and friendly. | |
| Balancing Founder Decision-Making and Structured Operational Governance | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Sean reflects on sharing decision-making power with his COO, and James offers gentle reframing that slower consensus leads to stronger long-term business resilience. | |
| Evaluating Workplace Outcomes Versus Invasive Remote Employee Surveillance | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | James brings up the rise of invasive worker surveillance software during lockdowns, prompting Sean to share his own output-focused remote management practices. | |
| The Future of Work and Accelerating Technological Disruption | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Sean raises concerns about AI automation destroying jobs, but James counters with historical perspective and low-code trends, arguing roles will evolve rather than disappear. | |
| Mitigating Artificial Intelligence Bias Through Diverse Product Teams | 5 | 4 | 2 | 2 | The conversation shifts to algorithmic bias, with Sean bringing up IBM Watson examples and James outlining the essential role diverse product teams play in stress-testing algorithms. | |
| Pivoting from Conferences to a High-Value Membership Model | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | James delivers an extended breakdown of how Mind the Product survived the sudden collapse of in-person events by rapidly pivoting to virtual events and high-ticket membership tiers. | |
| Rebuilding Value Through Virtual Workshops and Hybrid Events | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | James outlines the future of hybrid workshops and premium event experiences, explaining his transition from relying purely on gut instinct to embracing data-driven decision-making. | |
| Practicing Radical Transparency and Financial Honesty with Teams | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Both host and guest bond over the necessity of radical financial transparency during downturns, sharing specific anecdotes of salary adjustments, equity grants, and open-book management. |
Statements from this episode (15)
Mayes: Startup founders benefit from realizing early how little they know
“It set me on a journey by demonstrating just exactly how little I knew, which is probably a good thing for most startup founders to get, get a grip on fairly early on in the journey.”
Mayes: Enterprise committees spend three months debating three weeks of work
“I'd also had enough of being in that environment where decision is made by committee. You spend the best part of three months discussing something that can be implemented in three weeks.”
Mays: Involving More Executives Slows Decisions but Strengthens Companies
“The balance to that is that it takes more time to get it done because you have to involve more people in the discussion. So there's kind of that trade off takes longer, but you should grow stronger as a result.”
Mays: Remote worker surveillance software sales grew 4x to 5x in 2020
“There was an interview earlier this week with a couple of companies who are saying they've seen their sales grow four and five fold over the course of 2020.”
Mays: Relationship outcomes drive business value over employee hours worked
“Whether she made 40 hours or 20 hours, that doesn't affect my bottom line. What affects my bottom line is, did she build the right relationships with the right companies and make them super happy so they come back and keep working with us in future?”
Mays: Low-Code Tools Won't Destroy Engineering Jobs, Just Evolve Them
“Do you think that's going to result in engineers and designers the world over going out of work? Of course not. They'll just be working on more and more complex problems and taking those platforms forward. So I don't think you'll see jobs necessarily disappear…”
Mays: Virtual conferences do not require fewer staff than in-person events
“It's quite possible to move a conference online and do a cool thing in the virtual world, but it doesn't necessarily take any less people to do it because the sheer amount of moving parts involved, most of which are human. Your sponsors, your speakers, your de…”
Weisbrot: AI will handle analytical thinking while humans make final decisions
“I think what will happen is a lot of the thinking will be offloaded to artificial intelligence. But then the final decision will be made by a human.”
Mays: Diverse product teams are essential for robust AI algorithms
“The value of having diversity, particularly in product teams, because you have people who've come up in different educational backgrounds, different philosophical backgrounds, different religious backgrounds. They've experienced different pressures through the…”
Mayes: Mind the Product lost all revenue overnight in March 2020
“We were in a position end of February where we had 20 people on the payroll, a year's worth of conferences and workshops panned out. And then March hit. The UK went into lockdown. It became pretty clear that this was going to stretch for a while, at which poin…”
Mayes: $300-$800 PM memberships work because salaries and employers cover them
“In the Western world, product management salaries are pretty damn decent. You can easily be talking 6080, a hundred grand a year, those kinds of numbers. So if we can put a membership model together, there's maybe 300 bucks a year for a mid-level person and 80…”
Mays: Mind the Product's virtual workshops get better feedback than in-person training
“The way that we've reformatted the workshops to deliver that training to customers is actually getting better feedback than it did as physical classroom based workshops.”
Mays: Humans will never be entirely eliminated from recruiting
“It's the reason why you fundamentally won't ever eliminate humans from the recruiting chain entirely. They'll always be in there somewhere.”
Weisbrot: Cut salaries and granted equity compensation during April 2020 downturn
“We broke out the ledger and we told them this is how much we have. This is how much we're spending. This is how much runway we have. We had to fire a few people and we had to cut everyone's salaries. We made promises to them. Of at what point we raise funds, w…”