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Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Brandon Chu on building product at Shopify, how writing changed the trajectory of his career, the habits that make you a great PM, pros and cons of being a platform PM, how Shopify got through Covid

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Lenny Rachitsky

Technology, Business, Entrepreneurship

51.5K Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2022

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Brandon Chu is VP of Product at Shopify, where he leads the app platform ecosystem, new initiatives group, and M&A investments. Brandon helped scale Shopify’s PM team from five to hundreds, and worked his way up from an IC Senior PM. Prior to Shopify, he was a Director of PM at FreshBooks and, before that, a founder. Brandon might be best known for his writing on the art and science of product management as part of a collection on Medium he calls “The Black Box of Product Management.”

Thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible:

• Stytch: https://stytch.com/

• Persona: https://withpersona.com/lenny

• PostHog: https://posthog.com/lenny

In this episode, we cover:

1) Brandon’s path to VP of Product at Shopify.

2) What has Brandon found to be the most important skill set for super-successful PMs?

3) What is it like to build product at Shopify?

4) How did Shopify adjust after the shock to e-commerce during Covid?

5) How did Shopify build a one-click team offsite flight/hotel/activity booking platform?

6) How did Brandon motivate himself to start, and keep, writing?

7) As a PM, why is writing one of the highest-ROI uses of your time?

8) What’s Brandon’s favorite piece of writing?

9) What are the biggest surprises, pros, and cons about being a platform PM?

Where to find Brandon:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/brandonmchu

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonmchu/

• Brandon’s writing: https://blackboxofpm.com/

Making Good Decisions as a Product Manager: https://blackboxofpm.com/making-good-decisions-as-a-product-manager-c66ddacc9e2b



Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

If you're a product manager, you've almost certainly come across one of Brandon Chu's medium posts.

0:08.0

His writing about all aspects of the job is some of the best writing out there on the skills of being a PM and has informed a lot of my thinking on both product management and writing.

0:18.0

Brandon is currently a VP of product at Shopify, where he's been for seven years and in our conversation we talk about

0:24.7

what it's like to build product at Shopify what Shopify has learned about being

0:28.6

effective working remotely having done it from day one the impact of writing on one's career and how to get

0:34.0

started, the benefits of becoming a platform PM, the manager track versus the Icy track,

0:39.0

and a bunch of other stuff.

0:41.0

Brandon is a wealth of knowledge on the art of product management, and I'm really

0:44.6

excited to bring this episode to you.

0:47.0

Do you want to reduce friction in your onboarding flow?

0:52.0

Then let me tell you about Stitch. Do you want to reduce friction in your onboarding flow?

0:52.6

Then let me tell you about Stitch.

0:54.6

And that's Stitch with a Y.

0:56.1

Stitch is on a mission to eliminate friction

0:58.3

from the internet.

0:59.4

They're starting by making user authentication

1:01.8

and onboarding more seamless and more secure.

1:04.3

They offer super flexible out-of-the-box authentication solutions for companies of all sizes,

1:09.6

from email Magic Links to SMS pass codes, one-tap, Stitch is your all-in-one platform

1:17.1

for authentication.

1:18.6

Stitch customers have been able to increase conversion by over 60% after spending just one day integrating.

1:24.6

And with their API and S.DKs, you can improve user conversion and retention and security

...

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