Product Champs
Product Champs
Product Champs
Product Champs with Ahmad Ismail, Avi Swerdlow, Dacheng Zhao and Samir Pradhan. Four guys who bonded while building products at Google riff on Product, Careers and Life. Come listen to us hang out, tear down products, analyze career decisions and have a great time.
Episode #8: What do Product Managers think of Buying a House?
1:45 Motivation for this week 03:29 Pod analytics 04:53 Avi’s experience 06:35 DZ’s experience 09:55 One-way doors 10:30 Incremental success 11:50 Enjoyable pain? 14:40 Ahmad’s experience 17:05 Bidding and pricing 21:20 Samir’s experience 24:20 The “bundle” 30:50 Competition hurts 34:15 Maybe you shouldn’t buy a house 37:20 There’s no product here 39:30 Cutting out the agent? 40:00 Jobs to be done 42:45 Virtual homes 44:10 Unbundling 49:10 Lower friction of moving 53:15 Too much has changed 54:08 Ahmad’s idea 56:25 Avi’s idea 57:25 Samir’s idea 1:00:55 DZ’s idea 1:07:40 Carve-outs
Sep 27, 2021
1 hr 17 min
Episode #7: What do Product Managers think of Bitcoin?
1:19 Recap of Episode #6 5:35 Samir’s experience 7:30 DZ’s experience 8:58 Avi’s experience 12:15 Ahmad’s experience 15:30 Bear arguments 17:00 Jokes, use-cases and platforms 21:20 Bull arguments 22:00 Has Bitcoin become less useful but more valuable? 23:25 Store of value 29:00 Broad vs. shallow 39:00 Environmental concerns 44:40 Carve-outs
Sep 9, 2021
49 min
Episode #6: How do Product Managers get sh*t done?
3:31 Recap of Episode #5 05:40 Communication at scale 09:10 Strategy != List of Problems 11:13 Talking about Uncertainty 12:53 Inside your team vs. outside your team 15:30 Repetition 17:32 Predictability 19:00 Share the “scorecard” proactively 21:19 Feel the feels 23:50 3 narratives about meaning 26:18 Catchy headlines 28:25 Incentives 30:13 Easy No 32:38 Relationships 35:00 Trustworthiness 36:50 Recognizing not-controllable vs. controllable 38:50 Decision Quality 41:00 When does data help? 45:15 A decision > no decision 46:45 Moving forward 48:20 Carve-out - Apple’s gaffe 52:30 Carve-out - Balance 53:40 Carve-out - Apple’s privacy stance 55:40 Carve-out - Great conversations
Aug 16, 2021
57 min
Episode #5: Why do Products fail?
With Ahmad Ismail, Avi Swerdlow, Dacheng Zhao and Samir Pradhan 0:40 Recap of Episode #4 4:28 What do we mean by failure? 5:19 Finding a solution that’s looking for a problem 6:50 When nobody cares 8:50 You only fail when you don’t learn anything 9:36 Dacheng’s failure 14:24 Users that don’t exist 21:05 Not aligning with “Worldviews” 26:04 Avi’s failure 32:04 Lack of access 36:05 Segway vs. Bird 39:00 Neglecting Go-to-market 42:20 Good copy vs. bad copy 46:05 Ahmad’s failure 49:44 Wrong company 53:02 Existential threats 57:51 Samir’s failure 1:01:49 Historical baggage 1:05:23 When the team gives up 1:12:38 Single points of failure 1:14:55 Carveouts
Aug 9, 2021
1 hr 21 min
Episode #4: How to become a Product Manager?
With Ahmad Ismail, Avi Swerdlow, Dacheng Zhao and Samir Pradhan 1:35 Super Fans 6:17 How Samir became a Product Manager 10:10 Target rich environments 11:30 How Ahmad became a Product Manager 16:23 Building relationships 17:28 How Avi became a Product Manager 23:48 Nearest Neighbor Roles 25:14 How Dacheng became a Product Manager 32:15 Telling a product story 33:30 Doing the work 36:20 Talking about impact 38:18 Permissionless 40:40 Get a ‘Product’ title 43:40 Get good at interviews 44:41 Find a sponsor 45:40 The 3 steps … 1. Do the work 2. Get to the interview 3. Nail the interview 52:55 What would you be doing if you weren’t a PM? 59:23 Carveouts
Aug 2, 2021
1 hr 8 min
Episode 3: More problems, more money
Episode #3: Mo Money, Mo Problems With Ahmad Ismail, Avi Swerdlow, Dacheng Zhao and Samir Pradhan We go deep on a single question … what are good problems and how do you find them?
Jul 23, 2021
57 min
Episode 2: Grandmaster
Episode #2: What is Product Management?  When you have to, how do you prioritize between Product, Team and Yourself? With Ahmad Ismail, Avi Swerdlow, Dacheng Zhao and Samir Pradhan 2:30 = Recap of Episode #1 3:00 = What is Product Management?  What do Product Managers do? 23:11 = How do you prioritize between Product, Team and Self? 42:03 = Carve-outs and top of mind
Jul 17, 2021
56 min
Episode 1: Anyone out there?
Why we’re doing this, what it means to get “inherited” vs. “hired”, and how we think WFH will play out.
Jul 12, 2021
53 min