20VC: Why "Founder Insight" is Overrated, Why Big and Bold Product Visions Can Be Dangerous & Why Getting To Product Market Fit by Accident Can Lead to Danger with Hubert Palan, Founder & CEO @ ProductBoard
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2021
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hubert Palan is the Founder & CEO @ ProductBoard, helping product managers understand what customers need, prioritize what to build next, and rally everyone around the roadmap. To date, Hubert has raised over $64m for ProductBoard from the likes of Sequoia, Index, Kleiner Perkins, Bessemer and Credo Ventures to name a few. Prior to founding the company, Hubert was VP Product Management @ GoodData where he played an instrumental role in their scaling from 6 to 300 people.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Hubert made his way from Eastern Europe to SF, made his way into the world of product management and came to found ProductBoard?
2.) Why does Hubert believe that "founder insight" is overrated? What strategies and tactics does Hubert give to founders to be more mentally plastic and flexible? How does one know when to persist when things are not working vs when to give up? What is the decision-making framework?
3.) Why does Hubert believe that "big and bold product vision can be dangerous"? How does Hubert think about when is the right time to release a second product? What are the core elements to tackle when thinking about a second product? Where do many make mistakes here?
4.) Why does Hubert believe that, "if you get to product market fit by accident, you could be in trouble?" What does Hubert advise in terms of studying if and how you got to product market fit? How can one use post-mortem analyses here effectively?
5.) Why does Hubert believe that transparency is so necessary today with the team? Should founders be transparent when it comes to M&A, fundraising etc? Where are the limits? What makes it so hard to instil effectively? What do many founders misunderstand?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode
Hubert’s Favourite Book: Elad Gil's High Growth Handbook
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Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We are back for the 20 minute VC and Founders Friday with me, Harry Stebbings. |
| 0:03.3 | And following from our episode with Alfred Lynn at Sequoia on Wednesday, |
| 0:06.3 | we're joined by an incredible Sequoia founder to stay in the form of Hubert Palin, |
| 0:09.9 | founder and CEO at Product Board, helping product managers understand what customers need, |
| 0:14.6 | prioritise what to build next and rally everyone around the roadmap. |
| 0:18.1 | To date, Hubert has raised over $64 million for product board from some of the best, |
| 0:22.1 | including Sequoia, Index, Kleiner Perkins, Bessemer and Credo Ventures, to name a few. Prior to founding |
| 0:27.7 | the company, Hubert was VP of Product Management at Good Data, where he played an instrumental |
| 0:31.5 | role in their scaling from 6 to 300 people. I'd also want to say a huge thank you to Iliac |
| 0:36.6 | and to Andrew at Sequoia for some amazing questions suggestions today. I'd also want to say a huge thank you to Iliac Kleiner and to Andrew at Sikora for some |
| 0:38.4 | amazing questions suggestions today. I really did so appreciate that. But before we dive into the |
| 0:43.1 | show state, did you know that more than 80% of US public stock is owned by just 10% of Americans? |
| 0:48.5 | This divide is even greater in the private markets. Carter makes it as easy to issue equity to |
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| 1:28.9 | and 20 VC listeners get 10% off at Secureframe.com forward slash 20VC. And finally, I've always been a |
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