The Product Experience
The Product Experience features conversations with the product people of the world, focusing on real insights of how to improve your product practice. Part of the Mind the Product network, hosts Lily Smith (ProductTank organiser and Product Consultant) & Randy Silver (Head of Product and product management trainer) “go deep” with the best speakers from ProductTank meetups all over the globe, Mind the Product conferences, and the wider product community.
Episodes
In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily and Randy speak with Dan Dalton (Director of Product Management at Sage) about the current state of product management, and how the role must evolve in today’s climate.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction: product management at a crossroads
1:00 Dan Dalton’s background and path into product
3:00 The evolution of product management: 2010 to today
8:15 Framework‐fundamen...
You can’t build great products on gut instinct, and yet, according to IBM’s global study of 1,000 enterprises, 77% of organisations using generative AI aren’t seeing any financial benefit. In this episode on The Product Experience podcast, Lily Smith sits down with Matthew Certner, Digital Product Engineering and Design Partner at IBM, to unpack the four key traits that drive ROI in AI-powered product teams: flexibility, incrementa...
Christian Idiodi, Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group, and Co-author of the valuable product book Transformed, dismantles some of the most persistent myths in product leadership.
Drawing from his global perspective and work across Africa’s fast-emerging tech ecosystem, Christian makes the case for a new kind of leadership, one grounded in clarity, context, and radical trust.
Chapters
00:00 — The environment, not the people
In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily Smith speaks with Sahil Jain, co-founder and CEO of Samepage.ai, about one of product management’s hardest challenges: keeping teams aligned.
From his early career at Yahoo and AOL to founding multiple startups, Sahil shares lessons on building products that tackle “unsolvable” problems like communication and alignment. He explains why shared understanding matters more than speed, how...
In this episode of The Product Experience, hosts Lily Smith and Randy Silver speak with Damilola Adelekan, Lead Product Manager at Remedial Health, who discusses building pragmatic, people-centred solutions in Africa’s fragmented and under-resourced healthcare system.
Chapters
05:30 – Early Lessons from Volunteering and Nonprofits
07:00 – Why Digitising a Broken System Isn’t Enough
10:00 – Tackling Trust, Fun...
In this episode of The Product Experience, Patrick Ndjientcheu, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Irembo, shares how his team transitioned from delivering projects for government to building a portfolio of scalable products.
Patrick talks about shifting mindsets from execution to strategy, spinning out payments and identity into independent products, and the challenges of balancing internal bias with customer needs.
He also r...
In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily Smith speaks with Sally Foote, a seasoned product leader whose journey from product roles to C-suite commercial leadership spans Carwow, Go Compare, and The Guardian. They unpack the increasingly vital intersection between product, marketing, and sales.
Sally explains why growth is a shared responsibility, how product managers can become commercially fluent, and why understan...
Product decisions built on daily-active metrics fall apart when your customers show up once a year, or once a decade. In this episode, Randy Silver talks to Vivek Kumar about building and growing low-frequency products, from property and tax to jobs and dating.
Chapters
04:25 — What makes a product “infrequent”? Episodic use and recall decay
07:05 — Rethinking PMF: penetration and market share over retention curve...
In this episode of The Product Experience, Randy Silver and Lily Smith sit down with Katja Forbes, Executive Director at Standard Chartered Bank, design leader, and lecturer, to explore the fast-approaching world of machine customers.
Katja shares why businesses must prepare for a future where AI agents, autonomous vehicles, and procurement bots act as customers, and what this means for product managers, designers, and organisations...
In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily Smith and Randy Silver are joined by Kirsten Mann, former CPO at Prospection and now startup founder and board member, to discuss how product leaders can play a vital role on company boards.
Drawing from her own board experience and a research series interviewing founders and directors, Kirsten explains why product, culture, and customer insight must be central to boardroom ...
In this episode of The Product Experience, Randy Silver speaks with Dariusz Dziuk, Product Lead for Music Expression at Spotify, about the origins and evolution of Canvas, the looping visuals that accompany music tracks. From early assumptions and first principles thinking to scaling and measuring marketplace success, he shares how a bold experiment turned into one of Spotify’s most engaging features.
Key Takeaways
— B...
In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily and Randy dive into the nuanced world of team collaboration with Jenny Wanger, product ops consultant. Jenny challenges the overuse of RACI matrices in product teams, arguing they often obscure deeper organisational issues rather than solve them. They discuss better alternatives, the root causes behind requests for RACI, and the value of prioritising human relationships over rigid fra...
We revisit our conversation with Frances Ibe, Chief Experience Officer at Tide. Frances shares invaluable insights on her journey from developer to product leadership and how to avoid common pitfalls during the discovery process.
Chapters
01:07 – Meet Frances Ibe
02:05 – Common Discovery Pitfalls
03:34 – Embedding Continuous Discovery
04:51 – The Myth of Talking to 20 Customers
06:38 – What is a Data Prototype?
Erica Wass, Principal Product Consultant at Brainmates, joins the Product Experience podcast to share pragmatic tools for building strategic foresight into your roadmap. From horizon scanning to backcasting, this episode explores how product teams can harness future-focused techniques—bolstered by generative AI—to improve decision-making, resilience, and impact.
Chapters:
0:00 – Why foresight matters in product
1:0...
Featured Links: Follow Brigitte on LinkedIn | DrDoctor | European Commission Public Health 'Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare' feature
We want to hear from you!
Help make The Product Experience podcast even better. Share your feedback in a quick form: Share your thoughts here!
It takes 2 minutes, and your input will help shape future episodes. 🙏
Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product mana...
In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily Smith and Randy Silver speak with Dee Miller, Director of Product Strategy and Insights for Product Equity at Adobe. Dee shares her personal journey into inclusive design, and discusses how Adobe is moving beyond accessibility compliance to build genuinely usable, inclusive, and emotionally accessible products.
Featured Links: Follow Dee on LinkedIn | The Adobe Accessibility Checker |...
In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily and Randy speak with Faith Forster about the art of aligning product work with commercial outcomes. From redefining velocity as a function of customer value to implementing impact models that quantify ROI, Faith outlines practical frameworks to help product teams think commercially without compromising user value.
She also explores the evolving role of AI in product developm...
In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily and Randy sit down with Moshe Mikanovsky—product coach, educator, and host of the Product for Product podcast—to explore what makes an effective product management toolkit. From identifying the real problems in your workflow to choosing and implementing tools that stick, Moshe outlines a pragmatic, user-centric approach to tool selection.
Chapters:
2:59 – From Engineerin...
Transformations are hard, and too often, they fail to deliver on their promise. In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily and Randy speak with Jen Swanson, CEO of Tuckpoint Advisory Group, to unpack why transformation initiatives falter and what it truly takes to succeed.
Key Takeaways
— Transformation requires intentionality: Real transformation isn't accidental or surface-level; it must be deliberate, comp...
What does it mean to build world-class products in the age of AI? In this episode, Randy Silver talks to Ezinne and Oji Udezue, co-authors of Building Rocketships, a playbook for building high-growth companies in today’s fast-evolving tech landscape. Together, they unpack what product looks like now, how AI changes collaboration, and why ambition, clarity, and disciplined execution matter more than ever.
Key takeaways
...
Popular Podcasts
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.