WTF is a Product Manager?

Episode Transcript
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Ernest (00:03):
Hello and welcome to Learn Make Learn where we share
qualitative and quantitativeperspectives on products to help
you make better.
My name is Ernest Kim, and I'mjoined by my friend and co-host
Joachim Groeger.
Hey, Joachim, how's it going?

Joachim (00:19):
I am good.
I've um, I've fired up thebarbecue'cause we're gonna have
a grilling session.
I'm gonna be grilling you, soI'm looking forward to that.

Ernest (00:29):
I love it.
Trash talk.

Joachim (00:31):
Yeah.
But I'm, I'm, uh, I'm in goodspirits.
I'm ready for this.
This is gonna be a greatconversation.
So I'm in, I'm in a good spot.
How about you?
We are recording this unusuallyat the beginning of the week, so
I could ask you, how's your weekstarting off?

Ernest (00:46):
Well, to be honest, it's been a tough couple of weeks on
my end, uh,, a really longcouple of weeks, but I see, uh,,
light at the end of the tunnel,and it's in the shape of a sand
worm because excited that we'regoing to go to watch Dune Two
this Sunday.
Uh,, they're doing this likespec, I think they're calling it

(01:07):
a fan preview'cause um, it, uh,,officially opens, I think March
2nd next Thursday or Friday.
But, they're having these IMAXscreenings on Sunday.
So, I've been irrationallyexuberant about this movie for,
for probably the past year orso.
I, I absolutely cannot wait.
really looking forward to seeingit.
Hopefully it lives up to myprobably too lofty expectations.

Joachim (01:30):
I had completely forgotten that it is upon us, so
I'm also very excited now thatyou've mentioned it.
Yeah, that's a big culturalmoment in the middle of winter
it's gonna be good.
Let's just hope that, yeah, Ithink it's gonna

Ernest (01:42):
I really hope so.
I really hope so.
right, well, this is episodeeight and our topic today is
what the Bleep is a ProductManager?
It's the second and a series ofepisodes in which Joachim and I
interview each other with afocus on our careers for the
benefit of anyone interested inpursuing our respective career

(02:02):
paths.
In our last episode, I youJoachim to find out what an
Applied Micro Economist does,and today as JohE implied, uh,,
he's gonna interview me or grillme about my career as a product
manager.
But before diving into ourinterview, let's start with some
follow ups to our previousepisode.
I actually don't have any, buthow about you, Joachim?

(02:23):
Do you have any follow ups?

Joachim (02:25):
I wanted a.
Discuss very, very briefly thehot hand fallacy.
in our conversation last time, Ididn't, I didn't feel like I
painted a good picture of whatthose couple of papers were that
came out in recent years thatwere revisiting the question of
the hot hand and the hot handfallacy being the behavioral
bias where people foolishlybelieve that there is a hot

(02:48):
hand.
So I just wanted to say that thepaper that I was referencing is,
called Survive by the Hot HandFallacy, A Truth in the Law of
Small Numbers, and it's byMiller and Sandro.
And I just wanted to give acouple sentence summary of what
they figured out.
Basically you're looking atstreaks within the data, that
process of looking for streaksand then measuring what is the

(03:13):
chance that someone is gonna hitanother point after they've hit
a streak.
that measurement approach if youdid it intuitively, is actually
slightly biased and it's alwaysgonna be biased in the wrong
way.
So you are always going toassume there is no hot hand,
even though there might be one.
And that's what they showed,that if you looked at streaks of

(03:33):
length, three or four, whatevernumber comes out of your
computation, of what's thechance that you're gonna make
another shot after a streak,it's always underestimating what
the real probability is.
And so you would call everyonethat believes in the hot hand.
Behaviorally biased.
So what these chaps said, no,no, no.
There's a small bias.
It's very subtle.
And even experts would make amistake when they're doing the

(03:54):
measurements.
And there was a follow up paperto that where someone actually
built out an even more dramaticand technically detailed way of
testing for streakiness in thedata and they were still able to
find streaks in the data.
So, those papers were linked andreferenced in the previous
episode, but I just wanted togive that mini little
description of what Sanjurjo andMiller did because they were the
first people to kick off thepossibility that something was

(04:17):
up with the stats and it wasn'tso obvious.
So I quite like that little bit.

Ernest (04:21):
if you don't mind, I was curious to get your thoughts on
something I, I had meant toactually asked this in our last
episode, um, but didn't, but Iwas curious you, a couple of
episodes back, you had talkedabout the replication crisis
that's happening in thescientific community these days.
And then you just, you know,talked about, the behavioral
economics and, you know, that'sa area that's, you know, hit,

(04:43):
been hit with a pretty big,replication issue around one of
the stars in that space.
I was just curious, what do youthink of behavioral economics?
Do you think it's a, a, realdiscipline?

Joachim (04:56):
At the time when I was coming up through academia,
which was almost 15 years agonow, behavioral economics was
everywhere.
It was very popular and theywere flying too close to the sun
because they would be going fromthese very dinky little
cognitive biases, to thensaying, oh, this is how we need
to change some big policythings.

(05:17):
You know, I'll eat the chocolatecake now as opposed to having
the vegetable first and then achocolate cake and now you're
telling me you need to redo my401k.
For me, that felt always likesuch a big leap.
And the only defense they alwayshad was they said, oh, we've
done these laboratoryexperiments and so that makes it
scientific.
And it was always suspect whenthey were going from laboratory

(05:38):
experiments that had about 20 to30, subjects in them to, okay,
I'm gonna take over your 401kand I'm gonna rewrite the rules
for that for everyone, formillions of people.
To be honest, I I wasn't thatsurprised that these studies
would not replicate, many timesover.
Especially because they startedgetting more and more extreme
and ridiculous.
there is a science paper thatwas published about 10 years

(05:59):
ago.
and in that one they got peopleto visualize eating a donut, and
then they were presented with aplate of donuts and they were
asked to have a donut if theywanted to.
So that was one group.
And in the other group they weretold, just think about whatever,
and then here's a plate ofdonuts.
So it turns out the people thatthought about the donut before

(06:20):
they were presented with a plateof donuts were less likely to
overeat.
And, and there you go.
That's one of those things whereyou go, what is this?
It's, it's a little bitambitious.
And, the discipline then startedbeing removed because it became
a game of what's the craziestkookiest little experiment that
I could come up with as opposedto, is there a way to actually

(06:42):
validate this stuff and verifywhether we're actually making a
good difference to them.
So that was a roundabout way ofsaying I was very skeptical
about the discipline.
And actually we can link to thisin the show notes.
Daniel Kahneman, kinda thefounding father of behavioral
economics, Nobel Prize winner onon this subject, admitted that
they had overstepped it and theyhad been indexing way too much

(07:05):
on underpowered studies andthere was something wrong with
where we are right now.
So even the founding fatherskind of saying something is up.
I'm glad he said that becausetelling everyone that stupid is,
is kind of a sad state ofaffairs.
I kind of said that last time aswell, so here we are.

Ernest (07:20):
No, no, that's great.
It's great to get yourperspective on it.
Alright, well with those followups out of the way, let's get to
our main topic, what the bleepis a product manager and I'll
actually pass to mic back toJoachim to get the conversation
started.

Joachim (07:36):
Thank you, Ernest.
I'm very excited to be able todig around in your philosophy
let's start easy here and buildsome foundations for this
conversation.
What is a product manager andwhat do you do day to day?

Ernest (07:50):
Yeah, the and I wanna emphasize too up front that I'm
gonna be very.
Opinionated in this.
this is not meant to berepresentative of all
perspectives on productmanagement.
I, I intentionally didn't spendtime, you know, kind of looking
at other people's points of viewbecause I just wanted to share
my own, based on my ownexperiences and not try to kind

(08:11):
of represent something that Ihaven't experienced myself.
one other thing kind of in thatvein to touch on too is I, I
think there is a bit of a debateon is there a difference between
product management and productmarketing?
And something I've heard, I.
one definition I've heard isthat product management is kind

(08:32):
of the internal facing aspectsof the job.
And product marketing is theoutward facing or the consumer
facing parts of the job.
And, you know, that's kind of, arational I've seen as to why you
might wanna have both of thoseroles.
In my experience and in myopinion, based on that
experience, I really think thatit's just one job.
Um, Talked about this a littlebit last episode, that there's

(08:54):
this tendency withincorporations to want to just
continue to atomize andspecialize.
And I think that oftentimesthat's not particularly helpful.
so I think it's really importantthat as a product manager or a
product marketer, you.
Handle both of those aspects,the inward facing and the
outward facing.
I just think it'd be incrediblydifficult to do one without

(09:17):
really having a very firm graspon the other as well, to be able
to address the inward internalfacing needs without really
knowing the, you know, consumerneeds and vice versa.
So, all of these things I'mgonna be saying are from the
perspective that I think it'sone role, whether you call it
product management or productmarketing, it's really one role.
as to what, how I define it, tome, a product manager is a

(09:40):
generalist amongst specialistsAs product managers, our job is
to inspire those specialists.
You could also call them domainexperts.
And so our job is to inspirethem to apply their expertise
towards a shared vision for aproduct or service.
And that vision is, is capturedin the form of a brief, which

(10:02):
typically documents in who we'recreating for our customer.
And what need we're addressing.
And you know, there could bedifferent language you use
around that.
Like we've talked about the jobsto be done framework that could
be one, kind of form of languageyou might use around that.
But fundamentally it's to meabout who's the customer, what
need are we trying to addressfor them with this product or

(10:24):
service.
And then I'd say almost asimportant as what we do is what
we don't do, in my opinion,which is that we don't tell our
domain experts how to do whatwe're asking them to do.
think that's something vital forany good product manager to
understand, is that, you know,they're the experts and so, you

(10:47):
know, we really need to haveenough confidence, to.
Let them come up with thoseanswers as to the how.
You know, our job is to givethem the fuel.
and also really importantly,the, the constraints that they
need to make their bestjudgments when it comes to the
how.
you know, whether that's domain,ex domain experts in design or

(11:09):
engineering, you know, whateverthe case may be, you know, give
them that inspiration and thoseconstraints, but then let them
determine the how, becausethat's their expertise.
I'd say that's something thatI'd seen as kind of the, the
most common mistake made byespecially young product
managers is, and I've made thismistake myself, really kind of

(11:31):
trying to move the pencil forthe designer.
and that's, you know, a greatrecipe for no longer being a
product manager.

Joachim (11:38):
Yeah.

Ernest (11:38):
But it's also, how you get to bad product because.
You know, if you were a greatdesigner, you'd be a designer,
right?
So your, your expertise is inthis other area is, is kind of
in this luxury of being ageneralist.
and so really the best thing youcould do is inspire those
experts around you to do theirbest in terms of the ways that

(11:59):
they're able to contribute towhatever project that you might
be, working on.
I'd say if, if there's one areaof expertise that a product
manager should have, it's in thecustomer because.
You as a generalist, you're theone person in the room who has
that luxury to really dedicateyourself to the customer.

(12:22):
You know, let's say if you'retalking about design, they have
all of these other things thatthey need to focus on aside from
the customer.
Just that craft of design.
You know, oftentimes if it's abigger, bigger company, they'll
have an organ designorganization and that
organization will haveimperatives that that designer
needs to deliver against.
So, you know, whether it'sdesign or engineering or any one

(12:45):
of these other.
Expert roles you're tappinginto, they're all gonna have,
you know, many, many otherimperatives that they're, they
need to deliver against.
So you as the product manager,have that this great opportunity
and, responsibility to be thatvoice of the customer, in that
project from start to finish.
You know, like I mentioned inthe beginning, you capture that

(13:06):
in the brief, but you know,that's one moment in time.
So it's playing that role allthe way through, till the
product or service is out in themarketplace.
So, a little bit long-winded,but that's my definition of what
a product manager is.

Joachim (13:21):
So it sounds like you're kind of a signal ingester
for the marketplace and thesignals that you're trying to
pick up on all the customersignals.
How do you go about doing that?
There's so much noise.
How do you filter and then howdo you know that you've tapped
into something real as opposedto the noise?

Ernest (13:39):
That's a great question.
The way you put that is greattoo.
That that part of how do youknow it's real is is the vital
part because.
Now it's easy to get data.
you know, when I started it wasa little more challenging.
Now it's like, you know, it'sincredibly easy to get access to
lots of data.
The challenge is understandingwhat's real.
and honestly from myperspective, I, I wish I could

(14:03):
provide a, an easy kind offormula, easy checklist as to
how to do this.
But it really comes down tojudgment.
And I haven't found one specificapproach or one specific
framework that applies acrossthe board.
And I'd say that that's probablybeen one of the most important
things I've learned over theyears is don't try to fit

(14:24):
everything into the same box.
Different projects are gonnahave different circumstances.
different customers are going tohave, different circumstances
and be in different places.
And so part of your job as aproduct manager is to find ways
to get meaningful insights fromthat audience that you're
focused on for that givenproject.

(14:45):
And if you're gonna, I think ifyou kind of approach it with
that, oh, I'm gonna just applythe same approach that I do
every single time.
I've, my experience has beenthat that's kind of a, a recipe
for failure.
That's why, you know, as much asI'm a fan of jobs to be done, I
don't think it applies to everysingle project.
something that I think could beuseful.
I, you know, there'll be otherframeworks that we talk about in

(15:06):
the future that can be useful asa starting point.
But, I think you really have tobe willing and able to be
flexible in the way you, engagewith your customer to get useful
feedback from them.
And then it's a matter ofjudgment, as to how you come to
understand whether something ismeaningful.

(15:27):
I can remember one example thatcomes to mind for me.
There was a project where wewere really struggling.
we saw this opportunity withthis new kind of customer for a
product that had existed for along time.
but we just couldn't quite crackwhat it was that they were

(15:47):
looking for.
and we had a lot of assumptions.
And so we built some prototypesbased on those assumptions.
And, we were really confidentthat these customers would like
these prototypes.
But once we rolled them out,they said, no, you know, that's
not it.
You know, that's a X Ins insteadof Y, which is what we were

(16:11):
hoping they would say.
And so that was a very helpful,tool, you know, actually having
prototypes, I think.
you know, Steve Jobs oftenderided focus groups and I think
there's a place for them, but Ialso think that, that place is
fairly limited.
So if you're really trying toget meaningful feedback, I think
it's incredibly helpful to haveprototypes that people can

(16:34):
respond to because they're notsitting around thinking about
your topic all day long, right?
Like you are as the, the personmaking the product.
Um, so giving people somethingthat they can react to and
respond to is, is very helpful.
Um, so, you know, having that asa tool was very helpful.
We learned that that wasn't thatthing that they were looking

(16:55):
for.
And so the next set of sessionswe really just focused on, okay,
if it isn't that, what is it?
And we came up with someexercises to specifically
address that question.
Um, so again, you know, I.
Wasn't something I'd ever donebefore, but it was just focused

(17:16):
on the specific question we weretrying to answer.
And we, our, my teambrainstormed around.
Okay, given that question, whatmechanisms can we use to get at
the answer most effectively?
And as is most often the case,the the best way to do it is
often not through language.
You know, just because that samereason people aren't thinking

(17:36):
about these things all the time.
So oftentimes they don't havethe right language for it.
And in fact, that got us on thewrong track.
We kind of fixated on languagethat they were using, and it
turned out that that wasn'tactually what they meant.
It was, that's just the onlywords that they had to express
what they meant.
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
And so through these exercises,we were able to finally unlock.

(17:58):
What they meant when they wereusing these, these other words.
Uh, and, but we validated that.
So then we went back for thenext round and, you know, made a
new set of prototypes based onthat insight.
And it turns out that that wascorrect.
Um, so I, I think if we, we'dgone into it very dogmatically

(18:19):
and said, well, this is how wealways do it.
We wouldn't have landed on that,that effective solution that
ended up being a very successfulproduct in the marketplace.
So I think it's so important tobe flexible and, um, adaptive
and be willing to adapt based onthe circumstances, based on the
question you're trying toanswer.

(18:39):
Uh, I know it's not a satisfyinganswer, but, um, that's, uh,
really the best answer I canprovide based on what I've
experienced.

Joachim (18:48):
in your description, Ernest, you said you started off
with identifying a segment ofthe customer base that you
hadn't addressed in the past.
Was there a chance that youmight have actually ended up in
a situation where you said,actually we were wrong.
There was no customer grouphere.
You mentioned the fact that theywere using incorrect language to
describe what it is that theywere getting at.

(19:09):
So were there moments where youhad concern that this was the
right group?
Does it really exist?
Was it something more nebulousthat you had grabbed onto that,
that maybe isn't the market?
And if that was the case, howdid you navigate that
uncertainty?

Ernest (19:22):
No, absolutely it did.
Yeah.
And so before those sessionsthat I described, we actually
had a series of focus groupswhere we act.
We didn't even get to product.
It was just, does thispopulation even exist?
Is this a real thing or is thisjust something, you know, we're
imagining?
So because that was a very realquestion we had for ourselves,

(19:45):
and we knew that that was goingto be a very real question that
our internal stakeholders wouldhave as well.
Like, is this real?
Is this actually a.
A customer'cause it we hadn'tever seen it before or we never
had language to describe them.
And this was an interesting casetoo, where this customer was
buying the existing products,but once you talked to them, you

(20:10):
would find that they weren'tsatisfied with them.
And so I think that's animportant learning too, is if
you just looked at the salesdata, you'd say, oh look,
everything's great.
You know, they're buying ourproducts.
The problem was because they hadsuch low care.
For the product, they were verylikely to switch.
Our product was interchangeablewith our competitors.

(20:31):
It's just that, product segmenthad happened to be very popular,
so everybody was doing prettywell.
But once you started to actuallytalk to people about, their
experience with these products,it was just very clear that it
was very low consideration and,you know, and that's a very
tenuous position to be in as abrand.
So, to your original question,yes, we absolutely spent, a good
amount of time at the front endvalidating whether or not this

(20:54):
customer actually existed.
And it was a very fortunatesituation.
I had the freedom to come backwith no as the answer.
But it is often the case wherethe answer is presupposed at the
outset.
But in this case, um, it wasnascent enough and unclear
enough that, I was given the,,the freedom to come back with a

(21:15):
null result.
And that would be okay.
Um, you know,, in this casethough these initial groups
found that it was a real,consumer and a real opportunity,
and then that's what led to thenthe subsequent rounds where we
tried to narrow in on Okay.
Then specifically is the productopportunity with this new
population.

Joachim (21:34):
So let's get back to process.
We we're digging a little bitaround and how the process works
out for you.
But you mentioned earlier on.
The brief, and it sounds likethat becomes the anchoring piece
of work that allows you tonavigate all of this complexity.
So can you walk us through thatprocess and, how do you even

(21:55):
start something like that?

Ernest (21:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And um,, that is really the onedeliverable that a product
manager has, at least in myexperience.
designers, it's pretty easy.
They design the thing,engineers, make it work and,
make it makeable.
so these other roles are, it'spretty clear to explain what it
is you do as a product manager.

(22:17):
It's very difficult because noone ever sees your product, your
work product, which is thebrief, because that's always
held very closely.
For me, my favorite.
Touchstone when it comes tobriefing is a quote from David
Ogilvy.
I referenced him I think in our,either the last episode or two
episodes.
the quote about, using data as atrunker, uses a lamppost for
support rather thanillumination.

(22:39):
He's full of great quotes.
David Ogilvy.
He also has a great quote about,briefing and he said, give me
the freedom of a tight brief.
And it was a very intentionally,double entendre.
He's a funny guy, but, it saysso much that little statement
one I.
It speaks to the importance ofconstraints, which is a topic

(22:59):
we've talked about a lot.
You know, he says, give me thefreedom of a tight brief because
that, for a domain expert that'sso important to understand what
is the space I can operate inand be successful.
If that's so too broad, then itjust becomes incredibly
difficult to come up with a ameaningful solution.
another quote that comes to mindin this space is from Duke

(23:22):
Ellington, the jazz musician whosaid, I don't need time.
I need a deadline.
same idea of the importance ofconstraints.
So that's a really big part ofthe role that the brief plays is
to put these guardrails aroundthat question that your domain
experts are trying to answer.
so that's one key part of it.
In terms of how you get started,I think I've been lucky as well

(23:45):
in that I've been in.
Situations where I was given alot of freedom around the form
of the brief.
I think there are places wherethe brief is much more
regimented.
in all the situations I've beenin, we've been given a lot of
freedom to make the briefrelevant to the project and the

(24:08):
team that you're working with.
So for me, I would always startwith that focus on the customer,
understanding who the customeris, and then really building on
that with what is the need thatthey have that we can solve for.

(24:30):
And that's a really importantquestion too.
I didn't touch on that at thefront end.
But in addition to understandingthe need that they have, that's
also how can we uniquely.
Respond to that need, based onour values as a brand, and our
capabilities as an organization.
because if you're just gonnamake a me too product, then

(24:52):
what's the point, right?
So that's another key componentthat's gonna be very important
to your team.
So I'd say those are the threethings I've always really
focused on.
Who's the customer?
What's their need?
How can we uniquely address thatneed?
And something I've also alwaystried to do, and it's not always
possible, but I, I feel likeit's really, really important if

(25:14):
you can do it, is to pull inyour domain expert teammates
before you've got anythingwritten down, so that they can
be part of that process.
It's still your responsibilityas the product manager to
document all of that and toactually put the pieces
together.
But, All of the most successfulprograms I've been part of the,

(25:36):
my teammates, across these otherdomains have been part of that
briefing process.
And I think that's justimportant because there's
nothing like being in the roomwhen you hear that insight come
through for you to reallybelieve it and take it in, and
obviously that's part of yourjob as a product manager as well
to be persuasive in gettingthose insights across.

(26:00):
But, um, if you can, gettingthat team together to encounter
those insights together, it canbe incredibly powerful.
Getting to your question againabout how do you find what's
real.
I guess that's a big part of itis just this sort of pattern
matching, like, do you start tosee things come up more than
once?
A few times then, you know, youget the sense that, okay, this

(26:21):
isn't just a, a pure edge case,you know,, there is something to
this.
And then I think what'simportant too is making the
effort to go that one stepfurther, to not just understand
what that thing might be at asurface level, but to understand
as much as you can, what'sdriving that, the why behind
that thing you're seeing.

(26:41):
I know I'm being somewhat vague,but I guess maybe that example
of, that Polar bowl thing we didat We Kennedy, something I could
talk about publicly where, as Imentioned, we saw this behavior
of, co-viewing or people viewingthings and also being online at
the same time.
And at that time that was a, afairly new behavior.

(27:04):
but as we dug into it, we sawthat.
Okay.
It's not just a super nichething, even though it's somewhat
new, the adoption is quicklyspreading.
and getting into the why behindit, there was this desire to
have a sense of connection.
Even back then, 2011 I think itwas.

(27:24):
Even back then.
People were consuming media, ina distributed fashion, but they
still wanted that sense of beingaround the campfire.
And so they were replicatingthat through digital tools.
And then we understood thatokay, then that does, connect
really well with what our clientCoke is trying to achieve around
this big, social event of theSuper Bowl.

(27:47):
So that does feel like ameaningful opportunity, not just
something on the surface, that,might be exciting and shiny
right now, but isn't gonna belasting.
It's all very touchy feely, Iguess, but that's, always how
I've done it.
it's just kind a, a, process oftaking in a lot of data.

(28:09):
So that you can start to do thatpattern matching and then where
you see gaps coming up withexperiments, essentially to try
to answer those specificquestions, fill those specific
gaps, distilling that down, asruthlessly as you can because I
think that's one of the hardestthings, at least for me.

(28:32):
'cause you get so enmeshed inthis question and there's so
many interesting facets to it.
and you want to document it all,but you have to then.
Take the time to apply judgmentand say, okay, of these 12
things that are reallyinteresting, can I get it down

(28:55):
to three that are the mostcompelling, are the most
relevant to our task at hand, sothat I can enable our, my domain
expert teammates to focus theirefforts in a way that's gonna,
maximize their likelihood ofsuccess.
And that is really a big part ofthe product manager's job.

(29:16):
'cause you can bring thoseteammates with you on these
sessions and that's awesome.
But then ultimately, in termsof.
Applying that judgment towardswhat's the most important, those
few things that are reallyvital.
I think that's a huge part ofthe product manager's job to, to
distill all that down into thenthat one highly digestible
document, that whole team canrally around over the course of

(29:41):
a project which could last,multiple years.

Joachim (29:45):
Yeah, more time invested in a problem actually
leads to a distillation, as yousaid, and the ability to focus
on the essential pieces asopposed to everything.
Really when you've really doneyour research, you're able to
say, look, this is the, this iseverything, but here's the
distillation and the essence ofit.

(30:05):
The brief and the sequencing ofevents feels, pretty natural,
right?
You start with a customer andyou build out from that.
Have you ever had a situationwhere you actually had one of
your specialists come in andsay, oh, I've got this really
funky cool thing that I figuredout, and we should make
something with this, whateverthat may be.

Ernest (30:27):
Yeah, that's a great observation and I've definitely
seen that and I think that'spretty common.
And I think you see that a lotin, in the digital world as
well, especially from companiesthat are more engineering led.
it might just be, Hey, here'sthis cool thing we could do,
what can we make from this?
And, sometimes that can succeed.

(30:47):
I've found that it's oftenreally a struggle.
And, at that point, I'd say inthose instances, it's just kind
of a crapshoot as to whetherthat ultimate product is going
to be successful or not.
sometimes you might get luckyand you might be able to find an
intersection between that kindof gadget and or genuine

(31:09):
customer need, but it really isa bit of a crapshoot.
I, I've found that yourlikelihood of success is, in my
experience, much greater if youstart from a customer problem.
Although one, offshoot of that,I guess would be, I was involved

(31:29):
in a project where it startedout, focused on.
A cus a customer problem tosolve a customer need.
But the way that the team triedto solve it was by reasoning, by
analogy, uh, sort of, um, hey,this is how we've always tried

(31:51):
to address this need, so let'smake it X percent better.
Like that speeds and feedsapproach that we talked about a
little while back.
which I think is also verycommon.
Okay, let's take this oneattribute and make it X percent
better.
and that led to an ununsuccessful outcome, because it
turned out that actually wasn'ta meaningful attribute.

(32:13):
It's just one that we, clungonto because it's something that
we could change.
we had the levers to affectthat, but one of the folks on
the team had the wisdom afterthat failure.
To step back and say, okay,what,, what are the kind of
first principles here?

(32:35):
There is this genuine need, sowhat are the things that the
customer needs to satisfy thatneed?
taking any of those kind ofprevious solutions out off the
table.
Getting at the core science, inthis case, it was a science
based solution, the sciencebehind it.
And that led us to a reallypowerful solution that uh, ended

(32:57):
up enabling a very successfulproduct.
So,, it was rooted in atechnology, but that technology
was enabled by someone, lookingat the customer problem in a,
what people would call a firstprinciples foundational sort of
way.
I think that's a hybrid examplewhere.
Technology enabled the ultimateoutput, the ultimate product

(33:20):
that was successful, but onlybecause it was rooted in, a
fundamental need.
And then also that example ofwhere reasoning by analogy got
us to a unsuccessful outcome aswell.

Joachim (33:32):
Mm-Hmm.
Yeah.
So how do you, we've talkedabout the brief being the thing,
and at the front end youdescribed a little bit more,
almost like cheerleader rolethat you're trying to rally
everyone into the same terrain.
How does that play out?
Now, you've done the brief,everyone's excited, and then it

(33:54):
gets difficult.
Now the work starts and you,it's the grind.
And you said some of theseprojects will stretch over many
years.
How do you stay connected tothat process and how do you keep
everyone happy and excited aboutwhat it is that you're doing?

Ernest (34:06):
Right.
That's a another great questionand that this topic is why I,
um, recommended that, uh,, Thegreatest Night in Pop Netflix
documentary, a couple ofepisodes ago.
'cause it really encapsulatedthat aspect of the product
manager role of kind of.
Keeping people excited andengaged, those experts you're

(34:27):
dealing with.
it, there's a great, example inthat documentary where, you
know, in, in that case it wasvery, distilled because they had
one night to record the song.
And, this room full of thevests, pop artists in the world.
But, a few hours in, I think itwas Stevie Wonders said, I think
we should have some Swahili inthe song, Swahili lyrics because

(34:50):
it's about the world and we're,it's about supporting, kids in
Africa who are starving.
I think it was in Ethiopia.
The project was on a precipice.
they could have really gone offthe rails there where they
would've had to write newlyrics.
And someone observed thatactually they don't speak
Swahili

Joachim (35:09):
Yeah.

Ernest (35:10):
in country.
but it wasn't just that, it wasalso okay, what is it that you
were trying to do, Stevie?
Like, what is it, what's outcomethat you want to get to?
And is there another way that wecan satisfy that?
So I just thought that was sucha great example of what you have
to do as a product manager overthe course of a a project.
These sorts of things are gonnacome up where something happens.

(35:31):
Maybe it's just something withinthe organization, within the
marketplace.
So.
You always have to be open tothese new inputs and be aware of
how they might impact theproject.
Um, and continue to kind of beopen-minded in your
interpretation of, okay, are westill, is this still the right
question to solve?

(35:52):
Uh, are these still the rightconstraints to be working
around?
Um, and at the same time, likeyou're saying, you really do
have to be a cheerleader, makepeople continue to feel that
this thing that they're workingon is meaningful, that they're
working against the right set ofquestions.
Um, and, continuing to checkthat as new information comes

(36:17):
in.
Um, and I'm just trying to thinkif there's anything, you know,
specific advice I could givearound this.

Joachim (36:25):
Yeah.
Do you have any hacks?
Do you do very cheerleaderthings like get some music
going, get a movie going and getvibes happening?
Or is it very much just, Heyguys, let's, let's remind
ourselves about the, theessentials and remember the
brief and take it from there.

Ernest (36:40):
I think it is really important to all, for me, at
least in my experience, it'salways been vital to be honest
with your team.
I've seen instances where, youknow, some other product
managers have been, you know,manufactured, things to get
their team going in thedirection that they felt they
needed to go in.

(37:01):
But

Joachim (37:01):
mm-Hmm.

Ernest (37:02):
I just think that that's never a good thing.
I mean, um, so I think alwaysbeing honest is vital.
And then I guess you have toshow that you believe in these
things you're saying, whichsound, you know, patently
obvious, but, um, I can think ofsome examples where I was really

(37:27):
performative in illustratingthat I believed.
These things that, um, I haddocumented in the brief and that
I had continued to share withthe team in a way that, um, put
me at risk.
There were times where kind oflike a movie type situation, I
said basically, you know,, it's,it's this or nothing you know,

(37:50):
and, and, um, you know,, fire meif you want to, but it's got,
this is what our customer'stelling us.
So we're not gonna pretendthat's not the case because it's
gonna be more convenient forwhatever the corporate narrative
is at that moment.
I think that that, you know, isrisky, right?
You know,, you could get fired.

(38:11):
That's always possibility, butit also shows your team that you
genuinely believe in thesethings that you're talking
about.
'cause if you don't believe it,then why should they believe it?
Right?
So showing them that it's, thisis not just words on a page.
But it's something that youreally believe in.
And I, I do think thatsometimes, especially in the

(38:34):
context of a bigger company,sometimes you do kind of have to
go over the top with that alittle bit to, make a point.
Because it can be very easy tolose that momentum, just like in
that greatest night and pop, youknow, that's, I think your, one
of your biggest enemies islosing momentum, losing belief,

(38:55):
uh, around that idea.
Because like we talked aboutlast week with, uh, the quote
from Creativity Inc.
With, uh, Ed Catmull talkingabout how fragile ideas are, uh,
are, you know, like.
It's, it's, it's not, you know,especially in the early stages,
it's just words that you've saidto each other.
You know, at that point when youdon't have anything concrete,
um, you really have to marshalyour energy towards keeping

(39:20):
people engaged, keeping thembelieving that this is worth
working on.
Um, uh, so that they're willingto invest their very valuable
time and energy and expertiseagainst that problem.
So, um, I, you know, there is abit of cheerleading in that and,
um, showing that you have skinin the game and you genuinely

(39:41):
believe these things that you'resaying.
I can think of an example whereI had to work on a project where
it was just a, a mandate fromthe CEO and I didn't believe in
it, and it showed, and theproject was unsuccessful.
And I, I often think about that.
I feel I, I still feel guiltyabout that,

Joachim (40:00):
Yeah.

Ernest (40:00):
I could have done a better job because.
If I took the time to dig intoit, there was something
authentic in that, in the CEO'sinsight.
Um, the process wasn't great,you know, to have the CEO just
dictate that, Hey, you, you'vegotta do this, but I should have
responded in a more adult way, Iguess.

(40:23):
uh, just say, Hey, is theresomething to this?
And then recognize that therewas, and then built a brief
around that genuine thingversus, Hey, the CEO says we
have to do this, so we have todo this.
'cause no you know, no one'sgonna get excited about that.

Joachim (40:42):
that's a really interesting example actually
because it's another form ofconstraint, right?
You can take it as.
An order, or you can take it asthis is the sandbox that I want
you guys to operate in and now.
It's your job to find thatessence.
because also then linking backto what you were saying, when
you find that essence that youbelieve in, then it's easy to

(41:04):
build everything around that, asyou were describing.
And cheerleading becomes naturalbecause you've found that
essential question.
So that's a really importantlesson in general, right?
To, to flip something that feelslike an order, because it is, it
is an order.
Like, you know that, but in yourmind you have to play it as
well, okay, here's this specifickind of crappy sandbox you've

(41:24):
given me.
but I'll try my best to dosomething with that.
And in that, the constraint andinnovation can sometimes emerge.
So actually following on.
From this conversation about acheerleader and a, a signal
inges, you were right.
Ernest, you, you said it, you'rea generalist.
You're covering a lot of things.
Doesn't this lead to manymisunderstandings about what

(41:46):
your role actually is?
So are there some things thatpeople get wrong commonly about
what you do in, in thecorporation?

Ernest (41:54):
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think, um, I've,no one in my family understands
what I do to this day.
You kind of impossible toexplain it.
I think too, that.
When people hear marketing as inproduct marketing, automatically
they think advertising.
And, that is one expression ofmarketing.
But I think, people don'trecognize that there's so many,

(42:16):
uh, different kinds ofmarketing.
there's the advertising, whichis the bit that we see, but then
there's product marketing, whichis marketing towards the
creation of products.
Um, that, you know, at a companylike Nike, there's sports
marketing, so there's a, directmarketing, blah, blah, blah.
There's a gazillion differenttypes of marketing.
So that's another, I think,common error is just when you
hear someone say they're aproduct manager or product

(42:38):
marketer, you think that they doadvertising, a challenge across.
Industries pretty broadly isthat this role isn't
particularly well defined.
It because can be quitedifferent at different
companies.
Uh, like as I've heard, aproduct manager at Proctor and
Gamble is very different than aproduct manager at say, Nike.

(43:00):
which is also then verydifferent from a product manager
at say Google.
so unlike say, you know, theindustrial design where you can,
Pretty well plug and play acrosscompanies in that role for
product marketing slash productmanagement, I think, um, there's
a little bit more specificity,um, at the very least to

(43:22):
industry, if not, um, beyondthat.
So I'd say that's a, achallenge.
Someone at a different companymight have a very different set
of expectations around what aproduct manager is, and that's
just because that's how productmanagers, that role was defined
within that company.
So that's, maybe amisunderstanding, but also a
misunderstanding based in fact,uh, that that's pretty common.

(43:45):
And I think a, a challengeassociated with that is that
oftentimes there isn'tnecessarily, um, a clear career
path for a product managereither in that, what does that
lead up into?
I guess, you know, in, in a lotof these domain expertise type
functions, there's a, you know,fairly clear path.

(44:06):
You start out as a junior, youknow, mid-level, then senior and
et cetera, and then you maybemanage a group.
Um, but in the productmanagement world, it's, it's a
little bit less clearly defined.
Um, at least in my experience,although I think that's starting
to change.
I think, um, you know, when Istarted at Nike, uh, as a
product manager, I mean, thefunny thing is when I started in

(44:26):
that role, I'd never even heardof it.
I didn't know that that role Um,and as to the best of my
knowledge, there were no.
You know, university programsteaching product management.
But now there are, um, I know atthe University, university of
Oregon, they have a, a prettywell known program around
product management.
So, you know, it's starting tobecome better.

(44:48):
Understood.
A little bit more, um, definedand codified for good and for
ill, I think.
Um, but that I think continuesto be a little bit of a
challenge as well, just that,uh, different companies have
defined the role in differentways based on their need.

Joachim (45:06):
Yeah.
Well now that you've touched ona little bit on education and
career path and the fact thatyou didn't know that this role
even existed, how did you getinto all of this in the first
place?
And then maybe along the way,pepper in some advice that you
might, wanna throw in thereabout what to avoid or what to
do and, how you would approachthat career path.

Ernest (45:28):
Yeah, I, and I, I think we touched on this some episodes
back at some point as well whereI mentioned, I got my start
doing web design, but our, yeah,I co-founded this company called
37 Signals, and our approach toweb design was looking back now,
treating websites as products.
And, you know, that led to thetype of clients that we wanted

(45:49):
to work with, but also the, theway we expressed design was very
functional.
So I guess it was somethingthat, um,, an approach that I
always had in that the reason wehad that functional approach to
design is that we were veryinterested in solving problems,
solving our clients' problems.
And it just so happened that ourvehicle for that was design and
web design.
What led me into that role atNike was that, I had this

(46:13):
affinity for sneakers, and Istarted this website called
Kicksology.net, where I reviewedbasketball shoes.
And what I came to learn came tounderstand later is that being a
product reviewer is very,adjacent to being a product
manager.
It's, it's just at a differentstage.
You know, you talked about thetool they used at Amazon of, the

(46:35):
press release, PR FAQ.
Right.
so you can imagine as a productmanager, you can almost think
about the fact, the idea thatyou're writing the review for
the product before it's actuallybeen made.
So what, what would you want areviewer to say about it?
So, you know, it turned out thatthat experience of doing product
reviews was very, very helpful.

(46:55):
In, becoming a, a productmanager, it gave me a lot of the
tools I needed in terms ofthinking about the customer,
thinking about their needs andhow they might perceive a
product.
I, I, I was lucky in that Ireally backed into it.
In terms of, advice I wouldgive.
Now there are programs, so youcould look at schools that have

(47:19):
programs in product marketing,product management.
Um, There are some adjacentroles as well.
Sociology would be one role interms of the product marketing,
the insight gathering aspect ofit, that would be really useful
to have that grounding.
I mean there's a lot of waysinto it as well.
Like even say data sciencebecoming much more relevant now
being, comfortable working withbig data sets and mining those

(47:41):
to get insights.
That could be a way into it aswell, especially for, more of a
tech driven company.
But I think the, the main thingis do you have a love of product
that's really at the core of itand.
And I think you, you'll knowfairly early on whether you have

(48:03):
the capacity to be a domainexpert.
You know, I recognized prettyearly on that I, I'm not a
designer.
I did web design, but even whenI was doing it, I knew that this
wasn't what I, what I reallywanted to do.
I wanted to solve problems.
You know, knowing those things,I came to realize that this role
really is the perfect role forme.
That being that generalist, thatis that point of intersection

(48:25):
for these experts and enablingthem to successfully apply their
expertise towards solving aproblem.
I feel so fortunate that thatrole exists, but now having done
it for some time, I can see whyit's so vital, because these
other roles have so many otherresponsibilities.
They need that, that person,that can be that voice of the

(48:48):
customer, and and advocate forthem over the course of, a
project.
So I'd say, you know, askyourself that.
Do you love product?
and then one other thing I guessI'd say is in terms of finding
opportunities in industry, I.
one thing that was very helpfulfor me was having a vehicle to

(49:10):
show, show my work essentially,you know, designers have
portfolios.
As a programmer you can haveexamples of code.
and for me it was Kicksology,that website that, that showed
that I had this productAffinity.
I didn't make the site with theintention of getting a job as a
product manager.

(49:30):
Like I said, I didn't even knowwhat it was, but it just was a
way to show that I had thisaffinity for product, product
and had, I guess the capacity todraw insight out of.
A deep investigation of product,uh, and, you know, whatever form
that takes for you, I think thatis really important.

(49:52):
'cause you know, if you thinkfor a second about the person
who's on the other end andhiring you for that position,
they're getting dozens, if nothundreds or even thousands of
resumes.
How can you show that youactually, that those things that
are on your resume are true?
That you know, what you aretalking about when it comes to

(50:13):
product, that you have anability to, pull insights out
of, lots of data, lots ofinformation.
So having some mechanism to showthat I think is, is even more
important now than it was when Istarted back in the day.

Joachim (50:29):
That's interesting.
I guess that would also include,the video review, the, the
YouTube channel, and all ofthese media that you can use now
to highlight your expertise, Ifsomeone sees your website or the
presence that your channel hashad and it, you have been
consistently working on this itlends a lot of weight and
strength to your case

Ernest (50:49):
yeah, and I'm certainly not the only example of that.
I think there's some greatexamples in the tech world,
like, I forget his last name,but there was a guy who started
a website called Anand Tech,where he analyzed microprocessor
architectures and just did sucha great job of it.
He was, eventually hired byApple and he still, I believe he
still works at Apple, in theirprocessor design group.

(51:10):
And then, uh,, another exampleis, um, I think his name is
Dieter Bohn.
He was, at the Verge, thewebsite that is about technology
and I think he focused a lot onproduct reviews.
And he was hired by Google as a,I believe, as a product manager.
So, you know, there's a reallygood history of this.
That never would've happenedwere it not for, having some,

(51:32):
them having some vehicle to kindof show their work.

Joachim (51:36):
Yeah.
Actually to, not to continuallyadd to this list, but there are,
it is a long list, but I'veseen, a YouTube channel by Dummy
Lee, who is an architect, reallytake off, I think she has over a
million subscribers.
And she just talks aboutarchitecture, response to
architecture that's emerging indesigns and has a strong

(51:59):
perspective on those things.
I think as a result of thatchannel, she got financial
independence and was able tostart her own architecture
practice.
So again, think there's stillvalue in showing that you care
about this, about yourprofession.
About, in your case, you weretalking about caring about
product.

Ernest (52:14):
I get one last thing I'd say too is to be honest, which
again might sound obvious, butthat was really vital to me
getting my job at Nike was thatI was willing, in my interview,
I was being, I was willing to behonest, in my answers to the
questions that were asked abouttheir product.

(52:37):
I was critical because that wasmy honest experience and I was
fortunate in that the person whohired me was looking for someone
who'd bring an honest outsider'sperspective to his team.
If that person didn't wanthonesty, then I don't think
you'd wanna work in that sort ofenvironment where, your boss
wants you to be dishonest.

(52:59):
So I don't think that there's adownside to being honest.
in my own experience, have foundconsistently that for your
benefit and then to increaseyour likelihood of success,
it's, it's just really a goodthing to be honest with yourself
and, with your colleagues.

Joachim (53:19):
I like that.
That's a very nice piece of,advice I was gonna ask.
If you could go back in time,what would you say to yourself,
but it feels like that's whatyou would say to yourself, or is
that not true?
Would you say something else toyour younger version?

Ernest (53:32):
Well.
I guess I'm, I'm lucky in thatthat was something I always did.
so that was kind of baked in.
Um, the one thing I would say tomy, my younger self in the way
of advice is, um, I know I'mgonna sound like a Steve Chops
groupie, and I guess maybe I am,but it's, it's something he
said, uh, I again, back in hisnext days, kind of in his time

(53:56):
in the wilderness, but, I'mgonna maybe paraphrase it a
little bit, but he saidsomething along, along the lines
of everything around you thatyou call life was made by people
that were no smarter than you.
And you can change it, you caninfluence it, you can build your
own things that other people canuse.

(54:18):
And the minute you understandthat, that you can poke life and
actually something's gonna popout of the other side, that you
can change it and mold it.
once you've learned that.
You'll wanna change life andmake it better.
And the reason I would sharethat is I think I spent a lot of
my life, being too willing todefer to authority and, you

(54:39):
know, assume that others weresmarter.
And so they must, you know, knowthe answers.
But, you know, with some timeand perspective, I've come to
realize that this observation onSteve Jobs part is very true.
And everything around us hasbeen made by people who are, you
know, maybe smarter in certaindomains than, than you might be,

(55:02):
but overall, you know, are assmart as you are or you're as
smart as them.
So, you know, if you see, youfeel like something's not quite
right about something.
That's good.
You know, act on that.
don't just be willing to takethings at face value.

(55:23):
I, I, you know, I do that now,but I, I, I do wish I had
started that earlier.

Joachim (55:28):
That's a great way to end this conversation.
Thank you so much, Ernest.

Ernest (55:31):
My pleasure.
Thanks so much for the grilling.
It was, really fun conversation.
But, now that you know what aproduct manager is, hopefully,
we wanna hear from you.
Do you have any follow upquestions that you'd like me to
address?
are you a product manager and doyou disagree with any of of my
perspectives?
We genuinely wanna know.
So please share your thoughts atLearnMakeLearn@gmail.com.

(55:56):
Now let's move on to ourrecommendations of the week.
Joachim, what has you excitedthis week?
I.

Joachim (56:02):
I am lucky enough that I can build off the last thing
that you talked about, which wasthat quotation that, life is
made up of things by people thatwere no smarter than you.
That has struck a chord with me.
connected to an old documentaryseries from the BBC called
Connections Hosted by JamesBurke.
it's available on YouTube.

(56:23):
We'll put that in the shownotes.
I'm working my way through itvery slowly, because it's a
really deep, deep TV show.
but the key idea in it isexactly that notion that the way
things happen in this world,happen because people are able
to build on what everyone elsehas built before them.
So his argument at the end ofhis first episode he says, I

(56:46):
think it's very likely that anyone of us had we been in the
same position, the same place inthe same time, we would've
probably also stumbled on thesame solutions that others have
come on.
So connections as a documentarysays that really tries to go
through history and instead ofcreating a.
Big human being story, Asingular person that fixes

(57:09):
everything.
He's trying to show that aperson exists in a context and
that context feeds them and thenthey can innovate from that.
I think that show really justcaptures so much of the things
we've been talking about ingeneral in this show, but also
the philosophy of collaborationand humility in the face of the
fact that, you know, we are ableto do things now because we're

(57:29):
standing on everyone else'scontributions, and therefore
we'll be able to make the nextleap.
So that's my recommendation.
I'm gonna be on the same journeyas everyone else.
If you start watching.
I'm still on episode three.
They cover everything.
He jumps through time and allkinds of stuff, but it's very,
very enjoyable.

Ernest (57:46):
Oh, that's fantastic that it's on YouTube.

Joachim (57:50):
Thankfully, I think it's because it's so old.
No one cares.
But actually in other news, Irecently saw that the BBC will
be making a new version of theshow.
So James Burke will be returningto create an updated version of
connections.
Not that it really needs theupdate, but I think there's a
lot of stuff that's happenedsince the seventies, obviously,
in terms of technology.
He thinks the time is ripe torevisit this question of how do

(58:12):
we get to the complexity of themodern world.

Ernest (58:15):
Is this the show where there's that incredible opening
sequence where the presenterwalks into frame and he's in
front of this kind of naturescene, but it turns out it's
like Cape Canaveral and thenthe, the rocket launches as he's
talking.

Joachim (58:31):
Yeah, that's the

Ernest (58:31):
amazing.
I can't wait it out.
This is a bit of a sidebar, but,I think in the US we tend to
think of presenters as being apretty low skill role.
But I had a chance at a PR eventin London.
It was hosted by a professionalpresenter, who worked for one of

(58:51):
the big networks, in the uk.
And it was so impressive to seehow.
Skilled, they were at that jobof being a presenter.
It really gave me a newappreciation for, what a, a
talent.
But the great thing, it wasn'tjust about talent.
It was clear that they had spenta huge amount of time preparing,

(59:14):
but enough time that when itcame time for the event, it just
seemed effortless.
So that was really cool to see.
I think there's so much of aculture of that in the, in the
uk that there isn't, um, in theus

Joachim (59:28):
it is the benefit.
I'm gonna sound like a littlesocialist here, but it's the
benefit of having a healthypublic broadcasting service.
maybe it's not as healthy as itused to be, but it definitely
was founded with these ideals inmind that you give people the
resources and the time and theycan educate and entertain at the

(59:48):
same time.

Ernest (59:49):
That's awesome.
I'll definitely check that oneout.
on my end I'm gonna cheat alittle bit.
I actually have two.
the first is directly related toour topic.
I, it's something I come back toconstantly.
Again, it's a Steve Jobsexample, but it's this
incredible video internal.
It was meant to be internal tonext only video from 1991, I

(01:00:11):
believe.
And we'll provide a link in theshow notes.
There's a version of it onYouTube where Steve Jobs is
taking.
I think it's meant for nextSalesforce across the country,
is why they prerecorded it.
He's taking them through theplan for next, you know, he.
He starts with an overview oftheir target market, who their

(01:00:32):
customers and pers prospectivecustomers are.
He gives an indication of thesize of that customer
opportunity, and then he goesinto a discussion of what their
needs are.
and then finally talks about hownext is uniquely positioned to
deliver on those needs in a waythat the other competitors in
their market, you know, wouldn'tbe able to.

(01:00:54):
and so it just beautifullyencapsulates what a product
manager does, in I think theclearest way I've ever seen, you
know, that was actually publiclyavailable.
And it, it speaks to, I think,something that I've observed as
well in that.

(01:01:15):
The founder at a small startupis typically a product manager.
You know, oftentimes if it'sproduct based startup, that
founder is somebody who'spassionate about that product or
service that they're trying tocreate, becomes very well versed
in the customer, their needs, etcetera.
And, you know, Steve Jobs isvery much playing that role.
He was at that point CEO ofnext, and he was just the

(01:01:36):
world's best product marketer,product manager.
Uh, he really understood theneeds of their customers, and it
comes through there.
I think as you get bigger, um,you know, you then find that you
maybe need this distinct rolecalled product manager, but at
a, you know, kind of start aphase that.
Founders often playing that roleof product managers.

(01:01:56):
So that's the first one.
The next one I thought, youknow, in these last few episodes
I've recommended like movies andother things, and I thought, you
know, given our focus, I shouldprobably recommend the product.
Um, so I'm gonna recommend akind of an esoteric product.
It's a, a speaker, a wirelessspeaker from a company called

(01:02:20):
Name NAIM and we'll provide alink in the show notes to this
stuff.
It's the name muso two and, uh,I wanted to highlight it because
it is such an opinionatedproduct.
Um, it, it really.
Shouldn't exist probably, uh,you terms of like, you know, if

(01:02:43):
you're trying to create aproduct that was successful, it
would not be this.
Uh, and so I love that it existsand that it expresses such a
distinct point of view.
Um, and I, I almost feel like itwas made for me.
I, I, I'm like, I can't imagine,are there enough people like me
that would be willing to buythis thing, that it's, it's

(01:03:03):
viable.
But, uh, fortunately it seemsthat there are.
Um, but it's, uh, technicallyit's a stereo speaker, but it's
in one box and the speakers are,you know, so close that, you
know, practically speaking, it'sa single speaker, uh, even
though it's made up of multipleindividual speaker units.

(01:03:25):
Um, and yet it costs, it, itoriginally cost$1,800 us, it's
now come down to about 1300 to$1,400, depending on the
configuration.
Um.
And if you look at the specs,you might again say, why does
this thing exist?
But if you look at the reviews,what you'll see, and we'll

(01:03:45):
provide a link to a great reviewby a guy named Andrew Robinson.
What you'll hear consistently isthat it just is a joyful
product.
It makes it fun to listen tomusic again.
Um, and I've absolutely foundthat to be the case.
I'm not an audio file, um, butI, I love music and I have a, a

(01:04:08):
stereo pair of the original homepods, which are, are pretty
good.
Uh, and I've listened to thesame track side by side between
them.
And I've had that sameexperience where out of the
name, the music just soundsmore.
Joyful more.
something there that is missingin the home pod version of it.

(01:04:32):
It's, it's really, reallyinteresting.
I can't, I don't have languageto describe it, I thought it was
a great example.
One'cause it's a beautifulproduct, but also, I think not
every product has to appeal tobillions of people.
I think, especially for youngerfolks and particularly in the
digital space, there's very mucha bias towards scale.

(01:04:53):
You know, like, Oh, I wanna workon things that are gonna reach
billions of people.
And, you know, hey that's, I canunderstand why that is, but
there can be, I think, greatvalue in these, uh, more
intimate products as well.
this Naim Muso might not reachbillions of people, but for the
people who it does reach, itcreates this very special

(01:05:13):
connection.
Um, and I really think.
There's a lot of opportunity forproducts like that more and
more.
Um, and so that was why I wantedto highlight that one as well.
It's, I think, just a reallyspecial product.
Um, and, uh, I hope that we willsee more products like that, um,
in the future.

Joachim (01:05:34):
I like that it also is connected to next, in some ways
in my mind because, everyone'sobsessed with scale.
Next was considered to besomewhat a low point for Steve
Jobs, but when you actually lookat the machine, it's a fantastic
machine.
The design of it, the case, thelogo for next is fantastic.

(01:05:56):
The packaging, all of thesehallmarks of Apple are already
in there, and it is a, a reallyspecial machine.
I actually saw one in thescience museum in London just
recently, and I was just struckby how utilitarian yet beautiful
the machine looked.
We'll put a link to the Wikipage that you can see one of
these machines, but they're,they're so stripped down and

(01:06:16):
focused on being thisprofessional workstation, and
then that was the target group.
And because it didn't sell asmany as a plastic colorful iMac,
people think, well, that wasSteve Jobs low point, his
nadir..
Next was always kind of, yeah,no one cared about those things,
but Tim Berners Lee cared, hadhe built the internet on the
thing, you know, the, world wideweb comes from that.
It doesn't need to have the fullscale to be still something

(01:06:40):
special.
It's not meant for everyone, andnot to be elitist, but it's only
gonna appeal to so many peopleand that's important and it
should exist, so, That's cool.
I love these recommendations.
They're great Alice you forsharing.

Ernest (01:06:51):
No, no, not at all.
What you said about the nextcube reminds me a bit too of
something else.
When jobs was back at Apple, he,I think he was, introducing the
IG four Cube, or some otherproduct, and he showed the
bottom of it and he said, thebottom of arts is better looking
than the front of theirs.
And I, I felt the same about thename Musso too.

(01:07:13):
The back has this justincredibly beautiful heat sink
that runs all along the back ofit, and so much so that I
actually.
For a minute thought, is there away that I could put this
backside out?

Joachim (01:07:28):
backside,

Ernest (01:07:29):
sense for a speaker, but it's it's so, it communicates
something that these people werewilling to put so much effort
into the back of this thing.
You know, it's, it just speaksto you across time and space in
a way that I think the onlyother thing that does that is
art.
I know, you know, maybe soundskind of highfalutin, but um,

(01:07:50):
man, there is something specialin that.
well, alright, I think that doesit for us.
Uh, thank you so much forjoining us here at Learn Make
Learn.
As I mentioned, we want to hearfrom you, so please send any
questions or feedback to learn,make learn@gmail.com and tell
your friends about us.
For our next episode, we'regoing to tackle a topic

(01:08:10):
suggested by Kieran, a friendand colleague.
He asked us to discuss thetension between traditional
in-car user experience platformsversus third party platforms
like Apple's CarPlay or Google'sAndroid Auto that Subsume built
in systems with their owninterfaces.
This topic feels particularlytimely given that Rivian, which

(01:08:31):
may be the most importantcompetitor to Tesla in the EV
category, is on the verge ofrevealing a new, smaller model
called to R two that many expectto be priced to reach a mass
audience.
Now Tesla and Rivian may notagree on much, but neither of
these EV pioneers supportseither CarPlay or Android Auto.
And if you spend much time inonline car forms like you'll,

(01:08:52):
him and I both do,, you'll,you'll see that this is a
subject of fierce debate.
So is this a shortsighted movethat ultimately hurts these
brands as they seek broaderadoption?
Or is this insistence on owningtheir relationship with their
customers, including throughtheir infotainment platforms, a
wise decision that will paydividends in the long run?

(01:09:14):
We'll dive into this fray andshare our own perspectives on
this topic.
On the next Learn, make, learn.

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