March 12, 2025 • 27 mins
Every career path comes with its own set of challenges—you just have to choose your hard. Leading product at a startup, finding product-market fit, and scaling a company is tough, but so is staying stuck in a feature factory. In this episode, host Hannah Clark sits down with Benjamin Berry, CPO of EvolutionIQ, to discuss how he navigated these challenges to help grow his company to a $730 million valuation.
Benjamin shares the leadership strategies that enabled sustainable scaling, drove 350% growth in two years, and helped EvolutionIQ thrive in the competitive AI market—all without an insurance background. Tune in to learn how to prioritize market opportunities and make the tough calls that lead to success.
Resources from this episode:
- Subscribe to The Product Manager newsletter
- Connect with Benjamin on LinkedIn
- Check out EvolutionIQ
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hannah Clark (00:01):
I heard this great saying recently, "Choose
your hard." The idea behindit is that every decision in
life has a challenging outcome,you just have to decide which
challenge you're up for.
So for example, being a productmanager at a fresh startup
is hard, but so is running incircles at a feature factory.
Finding product-market fit isreally hard, but so is giving up
and having to find another job.
(00:23):
Then scaling that startup, ugh,talk about hard, that is a ride.
But, well, you get it.
So let's say you've decidedto go the path of leading
product at a startup, findingproduct-market fit, and then
being instrumental in scalingthat startup from a 10-person
team to a business with a $730million valuation in five years.
(00:44):
Then you might be my guesttoday, Benjamin Berry, the
CPO of EvolutionIQ, whichis a company that offers
AI-powered solutions forthe insurance industry.
You're about to hear theleadership decisions Benjamin
deployed to find product-marketfit, enable the business to
scale sustainably, and thengo on to achieve — wait for it
— 350% growth over the past twoyears, despite the volatility of
(01:06):
the AI product market and havingno insurance background himself.
Toward the end of theconversation, he also imparts
some of the strategies heused to prioritize and pursue
the market opportunitiesthat helped them get there.
Let's jump in.
Welcome back to theProduct Manager Podcast.
I'm here today withBenjamin Berry.
He's the CPO at EvolutionIQ.
Ben, thank you so muchfor joining us today.
Benjamin Berry (01:28):
Hi, it's a pleasure to be
here today, Hannah.
Hannah Clark (01:30):
So we'll start it off the way we always do.
Can you tell us a little bitabout your background and how
you got to where you are today?
Benjamin Berry (01:35):
Sure.
I started computerscience in college.
I was a software engineer in theBoston area for about a decade,
moved down to New York withmy now wife, and stumbled into
product management, which I'vebeen doing for about a decade.
Six different startups inmy career and a couple of,
success stories, includingI'm really proud of what
we've done at EvolutionIQ.
Hannah Clark (01:53):
Yeah, and that's exactly why I was really
excited to have you on today,because we'll be exploring
some leadership strategiesin particular that drive
successful AI companies, whichwe, it's everybody wants to
be in AI company right now,but not everyone can do it.
Let's start off this way.
When you joined EvolutionIQ,there were fewer than 10 people.
And since then, you guyshave gone through some
(02:14):
pretty incredible growth.
Can you walk us through yourapproach to establishing
a product vision in thoseearly days and how that's
looked as things haveprogressed in the company?
Benjamin Berry (02:22):
I would say, as a product leader,
it's a mix of coming inand having a point of view.
I had been at another AIcompany right before working
in kind of a subspace, I thinkit was decision intelligence
using artificial intelligenceto prioritize decisions.
That really allowed me tohit the ground running at
EvolutionIQ with a kind of pointof view on, how this could work,
how this can impact people.
Of course, you've gotto adapt that to, what's
(02:43):
local to your market.
So I didn't know anythingabout insurance, so it was
really important, especiallyin those first three months to
just drink from the fire hose.
Learn everything I couldabout the insurance world.
The beachhead market that wechose, which was disability
insurance all the way from,how do they make money to
the nitty gritty detailsof our users, what their
day is like every day.
(03:03):
And then, synthesize all ofthat into a strategy that
allows you to accomplishthings today, but also, steer
towards a long term goal.
I think when you're thatearly, it's more important
to be strategic than tohave a fixed strategy.
So much can change whenyou're a company that small.
Day to day, week to week thatif you get too tied into a
(03:25):
strategy, you'll make baddecisions because you got to
constantly be updating it.
But you do have to figureout a strategic mindset so
that as things happen, youcan navigate them quickly and
not have to rebuild all yourthought process from scratch.
Hannah Clark (03:38):
Yeah, it makes sense.
Yeah.
You have that flexible, butstrategic sort of mindset.
So you mentioned thatproduct-market fit was really
critical in your early success.
How did you ensure thatthe product stayed deeply
involved in sales anddelivery during this phase?
And what impact didthat process have?
Benjamin Berry (03:52):
I think of product-market fit, it's
a definition I heard firstfrom the intercom guys early
on, but being able to have aproduct that you can sell the
same way, deliver the sameway and get the same results.
I think it's product'sresponsibility to be involved
in making sure the company cansell your product the same way
and deliver it the same way.
And the way that manifested,especially when, there were
(04:12):
fewer than 10 people and,most of them were engineers
means, I was on sales calls.
When you're fewer than10 people, you don't
have a sales engineer.
So I'm the sales engineer.
You don't have a CS team.
So, I'm out there.
With the one of our founderswho was doing the selling, like
he and I, we're the CS team.
We're doing the delivery,bringing in the engineers,
as it's appropriate.
(04:33):
And so bringing that ethos, notjust to the first sale, but over
and over to get to the pointthat you can sell the same way.
That's when product can stepout to get to the point when
you can deliver the same way.
That's when productcan step out.
And if you do that,that means two things.
One, product will be helping,implicitly establish the
strategies of sales anddelivery, but you're also
building trust with thosefunctions so that even
(04:56):
if you step away, they'llcome back and pull you in.
Hey, someone is asking fora slightly different value
than we usually pitch.
What do you think about that?
I see a lot of people strugglewith that all the time.
How do I get sales to bringme into the conversation?
Well, if you are providingvalue to them, they're going to
bring you into the conversation.
So frequently, you'regoing to, you're going
to have to tell them no.
Right.
And so making sure thatyou're providing value, to
(05:18):
those functions in thosefunctions, which I think is
the responsibility, in termsof getting the product-market
fit of, great productmanagement, we'll make sure
that you are influencing andtied into those processes.
Hannah Clark (05:29):
We're going to get into sort of the meat of
the conversation, which isreally focusing on the scaling.
Because this is, I think,such a really interesting
part of your guys trajectory.
You guys have scaled so rapidlyover the last five years.
And I think where a lot ofcompanies, AI or not, really
struggle is transitioning fromthat small team mindset and
those kind of scrappy processesinto something that's going to
really help the organizationto grow sustainably.
(05:51):
So let's talk about that secondphase of bringing on your
first team members and Buildingculture and establishing those
processes that would scale withthe organization as it grew.
What did that look foryou at EvolutionIQ?
Benjamin Berry (06:03):
I can't say enough about the co founders of
EvolutionIQ, but one of them,I would say, very disciplined
on the business side.
And so we were always verydisciplined in hiring.
Which was, great for our cashflows, but at times meant
that like we were hiringpeople sort of just in time,
maybe a little later thanyou might have wanted them.
So the first person, Iwas really bringing in
to help me cover, I said,I'm helping in sales, I'm
(06:24):
helping in deliveries,I'm, also defining, what an
excellent product looks like.
I have a lot of,responsibilities, to the
engineering team whenthat became, 120 percent
of my day, it's Oh, no.
I need anotherperson to help here.
I think a lot of our scalingwas like that was driven by need
rather than projecting ahead,which I think is good business.
But that often meant that Ididn't sit down and develop
(06:45):
a 12 week detail week byweek scaffolding program.
And so it meant the biggestpart was in the hiring,
trying to find people who'dbeen in a startup culture,
you bring in someone who'snot in a startup culture and
they're like, Hey, where'sthe onboarding materials?
Right?
It's no.
I need you to get on thiscustomer call right now and,
bring in people who haveworked in B2B before as well.
(07:09):
B2B is so much more focused.
What I love about it, Ifeel like you're so much
closer to the users and thecustomers than B2C, which
is almost counterintuitive.
But B2C, you've got somany users, you could just
sit back and A/B test yourway to success almost.
So finding people who had that,finding people who are going to
be comfortable with data and AI,you talked about AI being the
hot thing right now, and it'svery different from building
(07:33):
software where I think you canjust If I understand the data
types, I'm going to have a form.
It's got some, some smallfields, some big text fields.
It's, I need a date here.
An AI, if you don't understandthe kind of content, very
particularly, people are goingto put in that form and then
verify that's going to work.
You're not going to deliverproducts that succeed.
They're going to look good,in the lab, but when the
users are using them day today, it's not going to work.
So finding people who have thatin the details, in the data
(07:58):
mindset, and then bringing themin and really just loading them
up with the responsibility.
Seeing what they could do andthen, To be totally transparent,
I think led sometimes alittle bit of trial and error.
We bring in people who Ithink were really excellent
product managers and didn'tthrive in that context,
but brought in some greatfolks who really did thrive.
And then you can, you can, thesky's the limit for them, right?
Because from day one thatyou can give them a lot
(08:19):
of ambiguity and you justneed to give them goals and
coaching and they can succeed.
Hannah Clark (08:24):
I want to talk about some of the more unique
challenges around scalingAI businesses, and this is
really interesting since wedidn't come from an insurance
background before and reallyhad to learn this market from
scratch and still managedto succeed in this space.
So in general, I think it'spretty clear that enterprise
focus, like you said,B2B, but especially AI B2B
companies, they're facingunique scaling challenges
(08:45):
compared to the B2C landscape.
So given all the research thatyou had to do, all of these
kinds of decisions that youhad to make, how did you tailor
your product organization andapproach specifically for this
insurance market that you'reserving in the midst of having
to learn about it as you go?
Benjamin Berry (09:00):
Sure.
So everyone who joinsthe team, there's an
expectation that you'regoing to be client facing.
That's not a fit for every I'vemet product managers who say,
I want to be with the engineer.
I want to be in the data, butI'm not really, I don't want
to be out there in the field.
And so everyone's got to beclient facing, especially we're
mostly hiring people who don'thave an insurance background.
And so being client facing meansthat's how you're shoulder to
(09:21):
shoulder, understanding thechallenges and opportunities
for our users and our customers.
And even AI is fantastic, butthe basics of product management
are still all about deliveringvalue to those people.
And most of those peopletoday don't really care if it
has AI in it or not, right?
So you still have to understandwhat are their challenges
and your opportunities toimprove for them and with them.
(09:44):
So I think step one is, makingsure that everyone in the
product org understands thatwe're putting the customer
first, the user first, thatwe're giving them the exposure
to the customers and userswhere when they're in a room
internally and we're debatingsomething, they're not just
saying, I think this is better.
They're saying, I justtalked to Sarah, over at
XYZ insurance carrier.
And this problemis crushing her.
(10:05):
If we fix this for her, it'sgoing to change her day.
Right.
And being able to bring that in.
And then we talked aboutit a little bit, but it's
not just data fluency.
It's not about, can you getinto the SQL and look at it all?
But it's really anurge to both understand
the data in aggregate.
Okay, we're seeing these bigpatterns in the data and being
able to ask great questions.
(10:25):
Because you can always findan engineer or data scientist.
We've got a ton of them who canhelp you answer the questions.
But can you ask theright questions?
And then look at when you startto build those answers, can
you look at specific examplesand confirm that's working?
It's very easy, I thinkof when you're building
a machine learning model,what you're training on kind
of very precisely definesthe answers that you get.
(10:48):
And if you think about justlike going from idea down
like a funnel to value, it'sreally easy to lose value.
In this implementation funnel,if you build Buildy is still
building a great model.
I can't tell you thenumber of times I've had,
engineering build a model.
And it's look at theprecision and recall on this.
It's fantastic.
Look, this is the bestmodel we've built.
And then you look at thedetails, and it doesn't actually
(11:09):
solve the customer problem.
And you start to untangle why.
I'll give you agreat example here.
One of our products indisability, unfortunately,
some people end up beingdisabled for a long time.
And the great news isthey've got insurance.
But every year there's someof those folks Who actually
recover enough or circumstanceschange in the market enough
where they could return to work.
And so one of our productshelps uncover which of those
(11:31):
folks, there's the mostopportunity to return to work.
And so you end up training thaton claims historically that have
resolved where the resolutionof the claim means it closes.
And you could just takeall the claim closures
and train your model.
And what you'll inadvertentlydo is now you've got all
the people who return towork, but all the people who
passed away as well, right?
(11:52):
And if you're reallysick and disabled, that
might be more likely.
And identifying thosepeople doesn't help.
If your business challengehere is let's find the
people who have the bestopportunity to return to work
and help them return to work.
Finding the people who areactually the sickest and
might pass away doesn't help.
You might build a fantasticmodel at identifying,
that total set.
But unless you understandwhat are all the closures and
which ones match the businessproblem and which ones don't and
(12:14):
making sure you're only usinga positive class that matches
your business problem, if youdon't do that work, you just
end up losing all the valueas you're building your AI.
So Those are the two thingsI, I've really focused on
setting the expectation aroundcapabilities and growth and
culture as we scaled the productmanagement team so that everyone
could work on, we can movepeople, again, dynamic, fast
(12:36):
moving company, we need to movepeople around and say, Hey, can
you fill in on this product?
It's growing faster thanwe thought, everyone needs
a kind of pretty broadand flexible skill set.
Hannah Clark (12:43):
It's a very sad, but very succinct example
of exactly how that works.
I'm glad that you mentioned thechanging of roles and stuff.
So as you expanded beyond justoversight of product management
and you had to pull in thingslike design and marketing,
what are some of the leadershipchallenges involved with that?
As the role expands and youhave more oversight, what was
that like and how did your roleevolve during that transition?
Benjamin Berry (13:03):
Our product organization includes product
management, product design,and product marketing.
So I think, a couple of things.
One, it's always, I think,a challenge for any leader
once you start to leadpeople with a job that you
didn't personally do, andthat can create, I think,
a few different challenges.
I think with product managers,the great news is you've got a
natural skill set to think aboutone of the kinds of challenges.
Think of these new people asyour customer, what's important
(13:26):
to designers, what will help,them thrive understand it in
the context of your company.
And then designers havedifferent relationships to
their stakeholders and differentcross functional stakeholders.
So make sure you map thatout too and understand what
those people need and helpyour team understand it.
I can't help them necessarily,be a better designer, but
I can help them understandwhat their stakeholders
(13:48):
are expecting from them.
What engineering isexpecting from them.
We did a small company,so sometimes we're
helping marketing now.
So let me help you understandwhat marketing is expecting.
That also then speaks toeither don't enter it thinking
I've got to be the bestproduct designer to help them.
You're a leader and youhave that expertise,
but don't overstep yourexpertise in their domain.
So, I always try to be,when I'm giving feedback to
designers, I always try tothink, Hey, I was hoping the
(14:10):
product would feel like thisor create this reaction, right?
Cause I can be an experton that and then leave
it to them to figure out.
Great.
Here's the revision.
It's not that Idon't have any ideas.
Maybe there should be a radiobutton instead of a dropdown.
It's just that, they don'tneed me to do that as
we grew the design team.
It's important then to bringin someone who can lead the
team in that way and is anexpert, in, in that domain
(14:32):
and can lead and grow people.
But as you hire the firstperson, I think you want
to set them up for success.
Again, think about helping.
Map out their customers,help them understand that,
and then figure out howyou can coach them without
trying to push knowledge ofthat domain on top of them.
The other thing that's importantis to understand why does
it make sense to have thesepeople in your team, right?
(14:55):
Of course, it's alwaysflattering to grow your team.
And so I think product designis maybe a little bit more
obvious, but product marketing,the fewer customers you
have, right, naturally meansthose customers are going
to be higher values, right?
Higher ACVs.
That also means longer salescycles, a lot more time
past the awareness stageof the funnel and into the
(15:16):
stages of the funnel where,they're considering your
product and you're makingsure they understand.
And that means your marketingaggregate is going to lean a
lot more on product expertiseand the ability to, inform
the market that you deeplyunderstand their problems and
that you have a product thathelps, with their problems, also
dealing with more stakeholders.
This just ends up being moretranslation of your value
(15:37):
propositions to different folks.
And so that leans a lot moreto, Hey, instead of having
product marketing really tiedin, they're going to bridge
this regardless, but youknow, the dial could turn way
towards our product marketingis really focused on our brand.
So it's really focusedon our product expertise.
And yeah, I think the closeryou go to smaller customer
base in this bigger enterprisedeals, the more you're
(15:58):
leaning on product expertise.
And so that means better tohave them in the tents with
the product managers workingon the value propositions and
deal with kind of the frictionbetween them and marketing.
Then the other way around, Ithink it was a B2C company,
I would say, Hey, don't putproduct marketing, in here
with product management.
Like they should be reallyfocused on the brand and
how that's the awarenessstages of the funnel.
(16:18):
And we can teach them aboutthe products, we owe them
that, but like that's where,most of their work's gonna
be, having a point of view.
What belongs in your organd why, and that's going
to be local to your company.
It doesn't work thesame everywhere.
And then we talked a bitabout coaching and setting
up teams that aren't, fromyour background for success.
Hannah Clark (16:35):
I would really like to dive in into that
developing leaders thing.
You touched on a little bitabout developing people into
leadership positions, becauseyou really need that in order to
grow and scale effectively, nomatter what business you're in.
So what's been your experiencefinding and developing leaders
within the organization orexternal to the organization?
And how did you figure outwho could take ownership of
(16:55):
different product functionsand what was the best
development path to put them on?
Benjamin Berry (16:59):
I think every leader is so shaped
by their environment.
And I think for me, justcoming up, I'd seen so many
times where people reallygrew within an organization.
And then, the organization,it can be hard to see
that, I think, right?
Because it's easy to thinkabout people the day you
hire them and forget they'vegrown, three, four years.
And then now you bring insomeone over them because
we need more leadership.
(17:19):
And then that person leavesand you end up with a
leader who's maybe shaky.
They're, they might be great,but they're new to this context.
Right.
And will that work out andyou've lost, your best people,
and so I always try to reallythink about, can I grow someone
internally into a leader?
Again, that's probably just thereaction to my environment, but
in terms of how do you do that,I am a very, I would say I'm a
(17:41):
pretty hands off leader, right?
So I try to, I tell people I'malways willing to spend all
day talking to you, coachingyou, working through a problem
with you, but I'm not goingto come knock on your door
and be like, Hey, walk methrough, every step of all the
details of what you're doing.
I'm happy to do that, butI'm not going to micromanage
what you're doing.
And so, that makes it actually,in some ways really easy to
figure out, who can grow, right?
(18:01):
Because you give themsome responsibility
and they crush it.
And so people might strugglewith that ambiguity.
And then you givethem, something bigger
and something bigger.
There's a gentleman that,on my team, Matt Gillespie,
we just promoted him to VP.
And he joined assenior, technical
product manager, right?
And he's climbing the ladderquickly as the company has grown
and it's been, every step ofthe way, as we've given him a
little more opportunity, he'sknocked that out of the park
(18:22):
and it's great, let's give himthe next stage of opportunity.
And that always helps me becausethen every time I'm doing
that, I'm taking somethingoff my plate and letting me,
focus on, one other thing.
And so that's I knowthat was pretty broad.
So feel free to ask me for morespecifics, but that's my answer.
Hannah Clark (18:38):
I mean, broad is good because we, not everyone's
going to be in this niche.
It's it's always great to beable to transpose what your
leadership advice is anddevelopment advice to what
our individual situation is.
So broad is good.
I'd like to actually switchgears just a little bit and
talk a little bit about productstrategy and market selection.
So how has your approach toidentifying and prioritizing
market opportunitiescontributed to the growth of
(18:59):
EvolutionIQ over the years?
Benjamin Berry (19:01):
Think about it maybe at two levels.
So we, when the company wasfounded, the focus was bringing
AI to insurance, talked to,this was a little bit before
I joined, but I know that theytalked to a lot of different
people and found, a first idealcustomer within disability
insurance and then followed theplaybook that, if you crossing
the castle, if you read thatbook, right, hey, obviously,
(19:22):
vision wise, Tam wise goingto pitch to a VC, let's talk
about the impact AI can haveabout claims handling and
insurance, trillions of dollarsin the U.S. alone, right, and
we get to a pretty big timepretty quick, but you can't,
actually function that way.
So we drill down into disabilityinsurance and, that was our
focus until it became clear wewere going to be the dominant
players with, AI claims guidanceand disability insurance, and
(19:42):
then set the horizon bigger.
In terms of how do you pick thenthe next horizon, we looked at
a lot of different, adjacencies.
You could take AI to otherparts of the insurance.
Are we focused on claims,but there's selling
insurance underwriting.
So that's one degree away.
I'm still selling to the sameperson or same organization,
but into a different function.
Or you could take whatwe're doing in disability.
(20:04):
What drives thoseclaims is bodily injury.
Okay, let's takeAI bodily injury.
Are there otherclaims like that?
Yeah, there are over in workerscompensation insurance, right?
And so those are just twodifferent degrees of freedom.
So we mapped out a ton ofdifferent opportunities, and
then we looked at everythingthat was one degree of freedom
away, thought about whatare the pros and cons of
making that switch, right?
(20:24):
Staying within the sameorder, great, I get to use
the same MSA for contracting,but now I've got a whole
different set of logos I'mpotentially competing against.
I'm walking into a problemset that I don't know
anything about, right.
And these are,deeply, expert, users.
So that's pros and cons.
And then we looked at what werethe sizes of those, and then
you just spreadsheet out somemath and you're like, Oh, we
think these are the best ones,but the proof is in the pudding.
(20:44):
You've got to then go out andstart having those conversations
and validate that, all ofyour assumptions are right.
And that the hypotheses did.
So that's like the macro ofkind of market selection.
I think in the micro, we tryingto map out all the challenges
and opportunities we thinkexist for our users and then
build, for insurance claimscome in and they go through
(21:05):
almost a funnel, like there arefewer claims over time and they
go through these stages anddifferent things are happening.
So making a just an abstractmap of those stages and
understanding how much valuethere is and claims tend to
cost more over time as well.
So how much of thatdevelopment happens in this
stage versus that stage?
And then thinking about mysolutions and how do they
map onto that helps yousize what you think all your
(21:26):
solutions are and then justpicking the highest value
ones, which isn't always, thenyou've got to go back to your
customers and validate thatyou can sell that to them.
It's interesting because if youjust go to them first and you're
like, Oh, I'm being customerdriven, the challenges that
are top of mind are often notthe most valuable challenges.
But then when you come backto them and you're trying
to pitch them, these aremost valuable challenges.
Sometimes you might haveto give them a little
bit of what they want.
Okay, I know these, thisbroccoli is the most valuable
(21:48):
for you, but I got a littlecheddar cheese on top of it
to get you to eat it, andso that's at a more tactical
level, how I think aboutgrowing within a market.
Hannah Clark (21:55):
As a toddler mom, I appreciate the
broccoli and cheddar cheese.
Just to wrap things up here,cause I know that it's a kind
of a broad question to talkabout the most successful
leadership decisions thatyou've made, but I think that
it would be really good todrill down if you could really
think about some of the mostimportant leadership decisions
that have differentiated thegrowth journey that you guys
(22:16):
have had at EvolutionIQ overothers when so many AI companies
are really struggling to scalesuccessfully and sustainably.
What would you credit asbeing your most important
decisions As you thinkback at the last few years?
Benjamin Berry (22:28):
One, even though AI is exciting, it's
always, keep the customerfirst and understand the
market and react to that.
I mean, that's the basicsof product management.
And that'll always be true.
On the AI side, understandingthat, this is a paradigm
shift and it's not just,Hey, are there new AI tools?
I can use ChatPRD or chat, allthese exciting things that,
that I might use, but thinkabout how developing AI products
(22:52):
is going to be different.
Like what that changesabout what your product
managers need to do andyour engineers need to do.
And that's what thehandoffs are between them.
The same thing for design.
I'm asking my designersto build something
that's not deterministic.
Now it's stochasticand the expectations
of users are different.
So I need to make sureI'm bringing in designers
that can do that.
The thing is, because it'sso new, because of this
paradigm shift, there reallyaren't a great set of tools
(23:13):
where I, if you're in 2015and you're building a SaaS,
workflow product, there's15 years of great templates
and tools, and you can goby the numbers a little bit.
And here, there's a brand newspace and you've got to be
willing to think about that andmap that out to drive success.
And then the last thingin all these decisions is
let the context of yourbusiness come to you.
(23:36):
I would say, I, you asked me alot of questions about scaling
and I talked a lot about productemphasis and, giving people
a lot of freedom as a result.
On an abstract level,I would love for the
standard to be higher.
But when I play back, you knowwhy it isn't, it's because when
I brought people in, my focus,with them was be in front of the
user, help sales, help delivery.
That's a lot to puton someone's plate.
(23:57):
And then also be sure, whyaren't your PRDs perfect?
I'm not spending 40 hoursa week on them, right?
That person teaches thenext person and on, right?
And so now that we are at scale,we can go back and kind of
work on these things and makeeverything be really polished.
But it would have been, I think,a mistake to go back three years
ago and say, we got to dropeverything and make sure all
these PRDs are our top shelf.
(24:17):
Nothing didn't have anychallenges, but you know, I,
instead of doing that, we weredoing things that were helping
us grow the business every day.
And that was important forour business, but that'd
be different for anotherbusiness with a different
customer base, even withinenterprise B2B, you could be
selling to franchises, right?
And you've got tens ofthousands of potential
customers and what you'redoing is just very different.
(24:40):
And so making sure that youdon't just apply, the lessons
you learned at the last placeor you learned at the last
conference, but you really thinkabout which of those lessons
are appropriate for the contextthat I'm in here, the company
I have, the talent that I have,the market that I'm in, that
I think is the biggest thingand it's, what I love about
EvolutionIQ is it's not just me.
I think all of the leadership,in engineering, in sales,
(25:02):
I think we've all beenreally flexible in that way.
And that's been the biggestdriver to succeeding
quickly is, always adaptingto, I like sports, right?
So if you think about you'replaying basketball, I like
LeBron James and he just, he'sa fantastic player and he just
had Luka Dončić joined his team.
He changed how he played.
And I think that's what makeshim really great, right?
Is he could have just said,Luka, you've got to fit into
(25:23):
my system, but he said, no.
For me to get the most outof Luka, I've got to fit in.
I'm going to change mygame to work around him.
And now the Lakersare doing amazing.
There's a lot of things,very complicated, a lot
more into it than that.
But you know, LeBron's abilityto adapt to what the situation
is, I think is what's made himbe an all time great, with an
incredibly successful 20 yearcareer that will allow you to
be successful in any context.
Hannah Clark (25:45):
Thank you.
That was a verybeautiful example.
I was a little nervous whenyou switched from sports from
broccoli cheese because I'm muchmore familiar with the broccoli
cheese situation, but the LeBronJames story is definitely that's
a really cool way of putting it.
Thank you so much forjoining us, Benjamin.
Where can peopleconnect with you online?
Benjamin Berry (26:00):
You can find me on LinkedIn.
It's probably thebest way to find me.
It's just Benjamin Berry.
I will respond tomessages there.
I'm sure I'm on othersocials, but that's where
I spend the most time.
Hannah Clark (26:11):
Sounds great.
Well, thank you so muchfor making time today.
Benjamin Berry (26:13):
Thanks, Hannah.
Have a great weekend.
Hannah Clark (26:18):
Thanks for listening in.
For more great insights, how-toguides, and tool reviews,
subscribe to our newsletter attheproductmanager.com/subscribe.
You can hear more conversationslike this by subscribing to
The Product Manager whereveryou get your podcasts.
I heard this great saying recently, "Choose
your hard." The idea behindit is that every decision in
life has a challenging outcome,you just have to decide which
challenge you're up for.
So for example, being a productmanager at a fresh startup
is hard, but so is running incircles at a feature factory.
Finding product-market fit isreally hard, but so is giving up
and having to find another job.
(00:23):
Then scaling that startup, ugh,talk about hard, that is a ride.
But, well, you get it.
So let's say you've decidedto go the path of leading
product at a startup, findingproduct-market fit, and then
being instrumental in scalingthat startup from a 10-person
team to a business with a $730million valuation in five years.
(00:44):
Then you might be my guesttoday, Benjamin Berry, the
CPO of EvolutionIQ, whichis a company that offers
AI-powered solutions forthe insurance industry.
You're about to hear theleadership decisions Benjamin
deployed to find product-marketfit, enable the business to
scale sustainably, and thengo on to achieve — wait for it
— 350% growth over the past twoyears, despite the volatility of
(01:06):
the AI product market and havingno insurance background himself.
Toward the end of theconversation, he also imparts
some of the strategies heused to prioritize and pursue
the market opportunitiesthat helped them get there.
Let's jump in.
Welcome back to theProduct Manager Podcast.
I'm here today withBenjamin Berry.
He's the CPO at EvolutionIQ.
Ben, thank you so muchfor joining us today.
Benjamin Berry (01:28):
Hi, it's a pleasure to be
here today, Hannah.
Hannah Clark (01:30):
So we'll start it off the way we always do.
Can you tell us a little bitabout your background and how
you got to where you are today?
Benjamin Berry (01:35):
Sure.
I started computerscience in college.
I was a software engineer in theBoston area for about a decade,
moved down to New York withmy now wife, and stumbled into
product management, which I'vebeen doing for about a decade.
Six different startups inmy career and a couple of,
success stories, includingI'm really proud of what
we've done at EvolutionIQ.
Hannah Clark (01:53):
Yeah, and that's exactly why I was really
excited to have you on today,because we'll be exploring
some leadership strategiesin particular that drive
successful AI companies, whichwe, it's everybody wants to
be in AI company right now,but not everyone can do it.
Let's start off this way.
When you joined EvolutionIQ,there were fewer than 10 people.
And since then, you guyshave gone through some
(02:14):
pretty incredible growth.
Can you walk us through yourapproach to establishing
a product vision in thoseearly days and how that's
looked as things haveprogressed in the company?
Benjamin Berry (02:22):
I would say, as a product leader,
it's a mix of coming inand having a point of view.
I had been at another AIcompany right before working
in kind of a subspace, I thinkit was decision intelligence
using artificial intelligenceto prioritize decisions.
That really allowed me tohit the ground running at
EvolutionIQ with a kind of pointof view on, how this could work,
how this can impact people.
Of course, you've gotto adapt that to, what's
(02:43):
local to your market.
So I didn't know anythingabout insurance, so it was
really important, especiallyin those first three months to
just drink from the fire hose.
Learn everything I couldabout the insurance world.
The beachhead market that wechose, which was disability
insurance all the way from,how do they make money to
the nitty gritty detailsof our users, what their
day is like every day.
(03:03):
And then, synthesize all ofthat into a strategy that
allows you to accomplishthings today, but also, steer
towards a long term goal.
I think when you're thatearly, it's more important
to be strategic than tohave a fixed strategy.
So much can change whenyou're a company that small.
Day to day, week to week thatif you get too tied into a
(03:25):
strategy, you'll make baddecisions because you got to
constantly be updating it.
But you do have to figureout a strategic mindset so
that as things happen, youcan navigate them quickly and
not have to rebuild all yourthought process from scratch.
Hannah Clark (03:38):
Yeah, it makes sense.
Yeah.
You have that flexible, butstrategic sort of mindset.
So you mentioned thatproduct-market fit was really
critical in your early success.
How did you ensure thatthe product stayed deeply
involved in sales anddelivery during this phase?
And what impact didthat process have?
Benjamin Berry (03:52):
I think of product-market fit, it's
a definition I heard firstfrom the intercom guys early
on, but being able to have aproduct that you can sell the
same way, deliver the sameway and get the same results.
I think it's product'sresponsibility to be involved
in making sure the company cansell your product the same way
and deliver it the same way.
And the way that manifested,especially when, there were
(04:12):
fewer than 10 people and,most of them were engineers
means, I was on sales calls.
When you're fewer than10 people, you don't
have a sales engineer.
So I'm the sales engineer.
You don't have a CS team.
So, I'm out there.
With the one of our founderswho was doing the selling, like
he and I, we're the CS team.
We're doing the delivery,bringing in the engineers,
as it's appropriate.
(04:33):
And so bringing that ethos, notjust to the first sale, but over
and over to get to the pointthat you can sell the same way.
That's when product can stepout to get to the point when
you can deliver the same way.
That's when productcan step out.
And if you do that,that means two things.
One, product will be helping,implicitly establish the
strategies of sales anddelivery, but you're also
building trust with thosefunctions so that even
(04:56):
if you step away, they'llcome back and pull you in.
Hey, someone is asking fora slightly different value
than we usually pitch.
What do you think about that?
I see a lot of people strugglewith that all the time.
How do I get sales to bringme into the conversation?
Well, if you are providingvalue to them, they're going to
bring you into the conversation.
So frequently, you'regoing to, you're going
to have to tell them no.
Right.
And so making sure thatyou're providing value, to
(05:18):
those functions in thosefunctions, which I think is
the responsibility, in termsof getting the product-market
fit of, great productmanagement, we'll make sure
that you are influencing andtied into those processes.
Hannah Clark (05:29):
We're going to get into sort of the meat of
the conversation, which isreally focusing on the scaling.
Because this is, I think,such a really interesting
part of your guys trajectory.
You guys have scaled so rapidlyover the last five years.
And I think where a lot ofcompanies, AI or not, really
struggle is transitioning fromthat small team mindset and
those kind of scrappy processesinto something that's going to
really help the organizationto grow sustainably.
(05:51):
So let's talk about that secondphase of bringing on your
first team members and Buildingculture and establishing those
processes that would scale withthe organization as it grew.
What did that look foryou at EvolutionIQ?
Benjamin Berry (06:03):
I can't say enough about the co founders of
EvolutionIQ, but one of them,I would say, very disciplined
on the business side.
And so we were always verydisciplined in hiring.
Which was, great for our cashflows, but at times meant
that like we were hiringpeople sort of just in time,
maybe a little later thanyou might have wanted them.
So the first person, Iwas really bringing in
to help me cover, I said,I'm helping in sales, I'm
(06:24):
helping in deliveries,I'm, also defining, what an
excellent product looks like.
I have a lot of,responsibilities, to the
engineering team whenthat became, 120 percent
of my day, it's Oh, no.
I need anotherperson to help here.
I think a lot of our scalingwas like that was driven by need
rather than projecting ahead,which I think is good business.
But that often meant that Ididn't sit down and develop
(06:45):
a 12 week detail week byweek scaffolding program.
And so it meant the biggestpart was in the hiring,
trying to find people who'dbeen in a startup culture,
you bring in someone who'snot in a startup culture and
they're like, Hey, where'sthe onboarding materials?
Right?
It's no.
I need you to get on thiscustomer call right now and,
bring in people who haveworked in B2B before as well.
(07:09):
B2B is so much more focused.
What I love about it, Ifeel like you're so much
closer to the users and thecustomers than B2C, which
is almost counterintuitive.
But B2C, you've got somany users, you could just
sit back and A/B test yourway to success almost.
So finding people who had that,finding people who are going to
be comfortable with data and AI,you talked about AI being the
hot thing right now, and it'svery different from building
(07:33):
software where I think you canjust If I understand the data
types, I'm going to have a form.
It's got some, some smallfields, some big text fields.
It's, I need a date here.
An AI, if you don't understandthe kind of content, very
particularly, people are goingto put in that form and then
verify that's going to work.
You're not going to deliverproducts that succeed.
They're going to look good,in the lab, but when the
users are using them day today, it's not going to work.
So finding people who have thatin the details, in the data
(07:58):
mindset, and then bringing themin and really just loading them
up with the responsibility.
Seeing what they could do andthen, To be totally transparent,
I think led sometimes alittle bit of trial and error.
We bring in people who Ithink were really excellent
product managers and didn'tthrive in that context,
but brought in some greatfolks who really did thrive.
And then you can, you can, thesky's the limit for them, right?
Because from day one thatyou can give them a lot
(08:19):
of ambiguity and you justneed to give them goals and
coaching and they can succeed.
Hannah Clark (08:24):
I want to talk about some of the more unique
challenges around scalingAI businesses, and this is
really interesting since wedidn't come from an insurance
background before and reallyhad to learn this market from
scratch and still managedto succeed in this space.
So in general, I think it'spretty clear that enterprise
focus, like you said,B2B, but especially AI B2B
companies, they're facingunique scaling challenges
(08:45):
compared to the B2C landscape.
So given all the research thatyou had to do, all of these
kinds of decisions that youhad to make, how did you tailor
your product organization andapproach specifically for this
insurance market that you'reserving in the midst of having
to learn about it as you go?
Benjamin Berry (09:00):
Sure.
So everyone who joinsthe team, there's an
expectation that you'regoing to be client facing.
That's not a fit for every I'vemet product managers who say,
I want to be with the engineer.
I want to be in the data, butI'm not really, I don't want
to be out there in the field.
And so everyone's got to beclient facing, especially we're
mostly hiring people who don'thave an insurance background.
And so being client facing meansthat's how you're shoulder to
(09:21):
shoulder, understanding thechallenges and opportunities
for our users and our customers.
And even AI is fantastic, butthe basics of product management
are still all about deliveringvalue to those people.
And most of those peopletoday don't really care if it
has AI in it or not, right?
So you still have to understandwhat are their challenges
and your opportunities toimprove for them and with them.
(09:44):
So I think step one is, makingsure that everyone in the
product org understands thatwe're putting the customer
first, the user first, thatwe're giving them the exposure
to the customers and userswhere when they're in a room
internally and we're debatingsomething, they're not just
saying, I think this is better.
They're saying, I justtalked to Sarah, over at
XYZ insurance carrier.
And this problemis crushing her.
(10:05):
If we fix this for her, it'sgoing to change her day.
Right.
And being able to bring that in.
And then we talked aboutit a little bit, but it's
not just data fluency.
It's not about, can you getinto the SQL and look at it all?
But it's really anurge to both understand
the data in aggregate.
Okay, we're seeing these bigpatterns in the data and being
able to ask great questions.
(10:25):
Because you can always findan engineer or data scientist.
We've got a ton of them who canhelp you answer the questions.
But can you ask theright questions?
And then look at when you startto build those answers, can
you look at specific examplesand confirm that's working?
It's very easy, I thinkof when you're building
a machine learning model,what you're training on kind
of very precisely definesthe answers that you get.
(10:48):
And if you think about justlike going from idea down
like a funnel to value, it'sreally easy to lose value.
In this implementation funnel,if you build Buildy is still
building a great model.
I can't tell you thenumber of times I've had,
engineering build a model.
And it's look at theprecision and recall on this.
It's fantastic.
Look, this is the bestmodel we've built.
And then you look at thedetails, and it doesn't actually
(11:09):
solve the customer problem.
And you start to untangle why.
I'll give you agreat example here.
One of our products indisability, unfortunately,
some people end up beingdisabled for a long time.
And the great news isthey've got insurance.
But every year there's someof those folks Who actually
recover enough or circumstanceschange in the market enough
where they could return to work.
And so one of our productshelps uncover which of those
(11:31):
folks, there's the mostopportunity to return to work.
And so you end up training thaton claims historically that have
resolved where the resolutionof the claim means it closes.
And you could just takeall the claim closures
and train your model.
And what you'll inadvertentlydo is now you've got all
the people who return towork, but all the people who
passed away as well, right?
(11:52):
And if you're reallysick and disabled, that
might be more likely.
And identifying thosepeople doesn't help.
If your business challengehere is let's find the
people who have the bestopportunity to return to work
and help them return to work.
Finding the people who areactually the sickest and
might pass away doesn't help.
You might build a fantasticmodel at identifying,
that total set.
But unless you understandwhat are all the closures and
which ones match the businessproblem and which ones don't and
(12:14):
making sure you're only usinga positive class that matches
your business problem, if youdon't do that work, you just
end up losing all the valueas you're building your AI.
So Those are the two thingsI, I've really focused on
setting the expectation aroundcapabilities and growth and
culture as we scaled the productmanagement team so that everyone
could work on, we can movepeople, again, dynamic, fast
(12:36):
moving company, we need to movepeople around and say, Hey, can
you fill in on this product?
It's growing faster thanwe thought, everyone needs
a kind of pretty broadand flexible skill set.
Hannah Clark (12:43):
It's a very sad, but very succinct example
of exactly how that works.
I'm glad that you mentioned thechanging of roles and stuff.
So as you expanded beyond justoversight of product management
and you had to pull in thingslike design and marketing,
what are some of the leadershipchallenges involved with that?
As the role expands and youhave more oversight, what was
that like and how did your roleevolve during that transition?
Benjamin Berry (13:03):
Our product organization includes product
management, product design,and product marketing.
So I think, a couple of things.
One, it's always, I think,a challenge for any leader
once you start to leadpeople with a job that you
didn't personally do, andthat can create, I think,
a few different challenges.
I think with product managers,the great news is you've got a
natural skill set to think aboutone of the kinds of challenges.
Think of these new people asyour customer, what's important
(13:26):
to designers, what will help,them thrive understand it in
the context of your company.
And then designers havedifferent relationships to
their stakeholders and differentcross functional stakeholders.
So make sure you map thatout too and understand what
those people need and helpyour team understand it.
I can't help them necessarily,be a better designer, but
I can help them understandwhat their stakeholders
(13:48):
are expecting from them.
What engineering isexpecting from them.
We did a small company,so sometimes we're
helping marketing now.
So let me help you understandwhat marketing is expecting.
That also then speaks toeither don't enter it thinking
I've got to be the bestproduct designer to help them.
You're a leader and youhave that expertise,
but don't overstep yourexpertise in their domain.
So, I always try to be,when I'm giving feedback to
designers, I always try tothink, Hey, I was hoping the
(14:10):
product would feel like thisor create this reaction, right?
Cause I can be an experton that and then leave
it to them to figure out.
Great.
Here's the revision.
It's not that Idon't have any ideas.
Maybe there should be a radiobutton instead of a dropdown.
It's just that, they don'tneed me to do that as
we grew the design team.
It's important then to bringin someone who can lead the
team in that way and is anexpert, in, in that domain
(14:32):
and can lead and grow people.
But as you hire the firstperson, I think you want
to set them up for success.
Again, think about helping.
Map out their customers,help them understand that,
and then figure out howyou can coach them without
trying to push knowledge ofthat domain on top of them.
The other thing that's importantis to understand why does
it make sense to have thesepeople in your team, right?
(14:55):
Of course, it's alwaysflattering to grow your team.
And so I think product designis maybe a little bit more
obvious, but product marketing,the fewer customers you
have, right, naturally meansthose customers are going
to be higher values, right?
Higher ACVs.
That also means longer salescycles, a lot more time
past the awareness stageof the funnel and into the
(15:16):
stages of the funnel where,they're considering your
product and you're makingsure they understand.
And that means your marketingaggregate is going to lean a
lot more on product expertiseand the ability to, inform
the market that you deeplyunderstand their problems and
that you have a product thathelps, with their problems, also
dealing with more stakeholders.
This just ends up being moretranslation of your value
(15:37):
propositions to different folks.
And so that leans a lot moreto, Hey, instead of having
product marketing really tiedin, they're going to bridge
this regardless, but youknow, the dial could turn way
towards our product marketingis really focused on our brand.
So it's really focusedon our product expertise.
And yeah, I think the closeryou go to smaller customer
base in this bigger enterprisedeals, the more you're
(15:58):
leaning on product expertise.
And so that means better tohave them in the tents with
the product managers workingon the value propositions and
deal with kind of the frictionbetween them and marketing.
Then the other way around, Ithink it was a B2C company,
I would say, Hey, don't putproduct marketing, in here
with product management.
Like they should be reallyfocused on the brand and
how that's the awarenessstages of the funnel.
(16:18):
And we can teach them aboutthe products, we owe them
that, but like that's where,most of their work's gonna
be, having a point of view.
What belongs in your organd why, and that's going
to be local to your company.
It doesn't work thesame everywhere.
And then we talked a bitabout coaching and setting
up teams that aren't, fromyour background for success.
Hannah Clark (16:35):
I would really like to dive in into that
developing leaders thing.
You touched on a little bitabout developing people into
leadership positions, becauseyou really need that in order to
grow and scale effectively, nomatter what business you're in.
So what's been your experiencefinding and developing leaders
within the organization orexternal to the organization?
And how did you figure outwho could take ownership of
(16:55):
different product functionsand what was the best
development path to put them on?
Benjamin Berry (16:59):
I think every leader is so shaped
by their environment.
And I think for me, justcoming up, I'd seen so many
times where people reallygrew within an organization.
And then, the organization,it can be hard to see
that, I think, right?
Because it's easy to thinkabout people the day you
hire them and forget they'vegrown, three, four years.
And then now you bring insomeone over them because
we need more leadership.
(17:19):
And then that person leavesand you end up with a
leader who's maybe shaky.
They're, they might be great,but they're new to this context.
Right.
And will that work out andyou've lost, your best people,
and so I always try to reallythink about, can I grow someone
internally into a leader?
Again, that's probably just thereaction to my environment, but
in terms of how do you do that,I am a very, I would say I'm a
(17:41):
pretty hands off leader, right?
So I try to, I tell people I'malways willing to spend all
day talking to you, coachingyou, working through a problem
with you, but I'm not goingto come knock on your door
and be like, Hey, walk methrough, every step of all the
details of what you're doing.
I'm happy to do that, butI'm not going to micromanage
what you're doing.
And so, that makes it actually,in some ways really easy to
figure out, who can grow, right?
(18:01):
Because you give themsome responsibility
and they crush it.
And so people might strugglewith that ambiguity.
And then you givethem, something bigger
and something bigger.
There's a gentleman that,on my team, Matt Gillespie,
we just promoted him to VP.
And he joined assenior, technical
product manager, right?
And he's climbing the ladderquickly as the company has grown
and it's been, every step ofthe way, as we've given him a
little more opportunity, he'sknocked that out of the park
(18:22):
and it's great, let's give himthe next stage of opportunity.
And that always helps me becausethen every time I'm doing
that, I'm taking somethingoff my plate and letting me,
focus on, one other thing.
And so that's I knowthat was pretty broad.
So feel free to ask me for morespecifics, but that's my answer.
Hannah Clark (18:38):
I mean, broad is good because we, not everyone's
going to be in this niche.
It's it's always great to beable to transpose what your
leadership advice is anddevelopment advice to what
our individual situation is.
So broad is good.
I'd like to actually switchgears just a little bit and
talk a little bit about productstrategy and market selection.
So how has your approach toidentifying and prioritizing
market opportunitiescontributed to the growth of
(18:59):
EvolutionIQ over the years?
Benjamin Berry (19:01):
Think about it maybe at two levels.
So we, when the company wasfounded, the focus was bringing
AI to insurance, talked to,this was a little bit before
I joined, but I know that theytalked to a lot of different
people and found, a first idealcustomer within disability
insurance and then followed theplaybook that, if you crossing
the castle, if you read thatbook, right, hey, obviously,
(19:22):
vision wise, Tam wise goingto pitch to a VC, let's talk
about the impact AI can haveabout claims handling and
insurance, trillions of dollarsin the U.S. alone, right, and
we get to a pretty big timepretty quick, but you can't,
actually function that way.
So we drill down into disabilityinsurance and, that was our
focus until it became clear wewere going to be the dominant
players with, AI claims guidanceand disability insurance, and
(19:42):
then set the horizon bigger.
In terms of how do you pick thenthe next horizon, we looked at
a lot of different, adjacencies.
You could take AI to otherparts of the insurance.
Are we focused on claims,but there's selling
insurance underwriting.
So that's one degree away.
I'm still selling to the sameperson or same organization,
but into a different function.
Or you could take whatwe're doing in disability.
(20:04):
What drives thoseclaims is bodily injury.
Okay, let's takeAI bodily injury.
Are there otherclaims like that?
Yeah, there are over in workerscompensation insurance, right?
And so those are just twodifferent degrees of freedom.
So we mapped out a ton ofdifferent opportunities, and
then we looked at everythingthat was one degree of freedom
away, thought about whatare the pros and cons of
making that switch, right?
(20:24):
Staying within the sameorder, great, I get to use
the same MSA for contracting,but now I've got a whole
different set of logos I'mpotentially competing against.
I'm walking into a problemset that I don't know
anything about, right.
And these are,deeply, expert, users.
So that's pros and cons.
And then we looked at what werethe sizes of those, and then
you just spreadsheet out somemath and you're like, Oh, we
think these are the best ones,but the proof is in the pudding.
(20:44):
You've got to then go out andstart having those conversations
and validate that, all ofyour assumptions are right.
And that the hypotheses did.
So that's like the macro ofkind of market selection.
I think in the micro, we tryingto map out all the challenges
and opportunities we thinkexist for our users and then
build, for insurance claimscome in and they go through
(21:05):
almost a funnel, like there arefewer claims over time and they
go through these stages anddifferent things are happening.
So making a just an abstractmap of those stages and
understanding how much valuethere is and claims tend to
cost more over time as well.
So how much of thatdevelopment happens in this
stage versus that stage?
And then thinking about mysolutions and how do they
map onto that helps yousize what you think all your
(21:26):
solutions are and then justpicking the highest value
ones, which isn't always, thenyou've got to go back to your
customers and validate thatyou can sell that to them.
It's interesting because if youjust go to them first and you're
like, Oh, I'm being customerdriven, the challenges that
are top of mind are often notthe most valuable challenges.
But then when you come backto them and you're trying
to pitch them, these aremost valuable challenges.
Sometimes you might haveto give them a little
bit of what they want.
Okay, I know these, thisbroccoli is the most valuable
(21:48):
for you, but I got a littlecheddar cheese on top of it
to get you to eat it, andso that's at a more tactical
level, how I think aboutgrowing within a market.
Hannah Clark (21:55):
As a toddler mom, I appreciate the
broccoli and cheddar cheese.
Just to wrap things up here,cause I know that it's a kind
of a broad question to talkabout the most successful
leadership decisions thatyou've made, but I think that
it would be really good todrill down if you could really
think about some of the mostimportant leadership decisions
that have differentiated thegrowth journey that you guys
(22:16):
have had at EvolutionIQ overothers when so many AI companies
are really struggling to scalesuccessfully and sustainably.
What would you credit asbeing your most important
decisions As you thinkback at the last few years?
Benjamin Berry (22:28):
One, even though AI is exciting, it's
always, keep the customerfirst and understand the
market and react to that.
I mean, that's the basicsof product management.
And that'll always be true.
On the AI side, understandingthat, this is a paradigm
shift and it's not just,Hey, are there new AI tools?
I can use ChatPRD or chat, allthese exciting things that,
that I might use, but thinkabout how developing AI products
(22:52):
is going to be different.
Like what that changesabout what your product
managers need to do andyour engineers need to do.
And that's what thehandoffs are between them.
The same thing for design.
I'm asking my designersto build something
that's not deterministic.
Now it's stochasticand the expectations
of users are different.
So I need to make sureI'm bringing in designers
that can do that.
The thing is, because it'sso new, because of this
paradigm shift, there reallyaren't a great set of tools
(23:13):
where I, if you're in 2015and you're building a SaaS,
workflow product, there's15 years of great templates
and tools, and you can goby the numbers a little bit.
And here, there's a brand newspace and you've got to be
willing to think about that andmap that out to drive success.
And then the last thingin all these decisions is
let the context of yourbusiness come to you.
(23:36):
I would say, I, you asked me alot of questions about scaling
and I talked a lot about productemphasis and, giving people
a lot of freedom as a result.
On an abstract level,I would love for the
standard to be higher.
But when I play back, you knowwhy it isn't, it's because when
I brought people in, my focus,with them was be in front of the
user, help sales, help delivery.
That's a lot to puton someone's plate.
(23:57):
And then also be sure, whyaren't your PRDs perfect?
I'm not spending 40 hoursa week on them, right?
That person teaches thenext person and on, right?
And so now that we are at scale,we can go back and kind of
work on these things and makeeverything be really polished.
But it would have been, I think,a mistake to go back three years
ago and say, we got to dropeverything and make sure all
these PRDs are our top shelf.
(24:17):
Nothing didn't have anychallenges, but you know, I,
instead of doing that, we weredoing things that were helping
us grow the business every day.
And that was important forour business, but that'd
be different for anotherbusiness with a different
customer base, even withinenterprise B2B, you could be
selling to franchises, right?
And you've got tens ofthousands of potential
customers and what you'redoing is just very different.
(24:40):
And so making sure that youdon't just apply, the lessons
you learned at the last placeor you learned at the last
conference, but you really thinkabout which of those lessons
are appropriate for the contextthat I'm in here, the company
I have, the talent that I have,the market that I'm in, that
I think is the biggest thingand it's, what I love about
EvolutionIQ is it's not just me.
I think all of the leadership,in engineering, in sales,
(25:02):
I think we've all beenreally flexible in that way.
And that's been the biggestdriver to succeeding
quickly is, always adaptingto, I like sports, right?
So if you think about you'replaying basketball, I like
LeBron James and he just, he'sa fantastic player and he just
had Luka Dončić joined his team.
He changed how he played.
And I think that's what makeshim really great, right?
Is he could have just said,Luka, you've got to fit into
(25:23):
my system, but he said, no.
For me to get the most outof Luka, I've got to fit in.
I'm going to change mygame to work around him.
And now the Lakersare doing amazing.
There's a lot of things,very complicated, a lot
more into it than that.
But you know, LeBron's abilityto adapt to what the situation
is, I think is what's made himbe an all time great, with an
incredibly successful 20 yearcareer that will allow you to
be successful in any context.
Hannah Clark (25:45):
Thank you.
That was a verybeautiful example.
I was a little nervous whenyou switched from sports from
broccoli cheese because I'm muchmore familiar with the broccoli
cheese situation, but the LeBronJames story is definitely that's
a really cool way of putting it.
Thank you so much forjoining us, Benjamin.
Where can peopleconnect with you online?
Benjamin Berry (26:00):
You can find me on LinkedIn.
It's probably thebest way to find me.
It's just Benjamin Berry.
I will respond tomessages there.
I'm sure I'm on othersocials, but that's where
I spend the most time.
Hannah Clark (26:11):
Sounds great.
Well, thank you so muchfor making time today.
Benjamin Berry (26:13):
Thanks, Hannah.
Have a great weekend.
Hannah Clark (26:18):
Thanks for listening in.
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