Building high-performing teams | Melissa Tan (Webflow, Dropbox, Canva)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Lenny Rachitsky

Technology, Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2023

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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Melissa Tan is an advisor, investor, and growth expert. She’s worked with fast-growing startups like Dropbox, Canva, Grammarly, and Miro, and for the past 2.5 years has been the Head of Growth at Webflow. There, she led the company's self-service business across Product, Marketing, and Growth, in addition to leading the charge on pricing and packaging. Prior to Webflow, she was Head of Growth for Dropbox’s B2B product, where she played a pivotal role in propelling their growth. In today’s episode, we discuss:

• Attributes of high-performing teams

• Tips for developing talent and seeking a mentor

• How to create a strong culture of ownership

• Frameworks for hiring PM and growth talent

• Common pitfalls companies face when implementing growth strategies

• Lessons from scaling Dropbox

• The DACI framework for increasing team velocity

• How to actually embrace first-principles thinking

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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/building-high-performing-teams-melissa-tan-webflow-dropbox-canva/#transcript

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Where to find Melissa Tan:

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

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

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

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

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

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Melissa’s background

(04:12) What’s next for Melissa

(06:45) Lessons learned from Dropbox

(11:49) When to add sales to product-led products and vice versa

(14:28) Managing people with a people-focused and results-oriented approach

(17:14) An example of people-focused leadership

(20:26) The importance of talent development and why Melissa invests in it

(22:26) Tips for finding a mentor

(24:58) Specific questions to ask when you are interviewing for a role

(27:49) Companies Melissa has worked with

(28:33) Attributes of high-performing teams

(31:38) Creating a sense of ownership among team members

(34:36) Building a team-first culture

(36:54) Avoiding burnout by knowing your limits

(39:24) Developing talent and unlocking potential within your organization

(42:45) Melissa’s hiring practices and what she looks for in a product manager

(44:40) The exact interview sequence Melissa utilizes

(49:58) Common pitfalls when creating growth teams

(53:43) “Flying formation” and the DACI framework

(56:48) Who should own revenue

(58:19) When to invest in growth

(1:01:06) What to look for in your first growth hire

(1:04:35) When it’s appropriate to hire an advisor

(1:06:19) First-principles thinking

(1:09:50) Lightning round

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Referenced:

• Jiaona Zhang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jiaona/

• Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Women-Work-Will-Lead/dp/0385349947

• Tim Ferriss: How to Find a Great Mentor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVo1aZCyfO4

• Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Revised-Kick-Ass-Humanity/dp/1250235375/

• How to Monetize a Freemium Business: https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/how-to-monetize-a-freemium-business

• DACI framework: https://www.productplan.com/glossary/daci/

• Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't: https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/1591848016/r

• The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself: https://www.amazon.com/Untethered-Soul-Journey-Beyond-Yourself/dp/1572245379/

• The Four Agreements: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Agreements-Practical-Personal-Freedom/dp/1878424319

• Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/winning-time-the-rise-of-the-lakers-dynasty

• ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/

• Webflow: https://webflow.com/

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

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	My aha moment of the value of first principles thinking was when I was at Dropbox.
0:04.6	We would hire a ton of like really smart people that had never done sales and had them do sales.
0:08.9	There are a lot of disadvantages to that, but I do think it led to a ton of innovation. That's how we got our
0:14.4	very innovative go-to-market motions because a lot of those people then moved into
0:18.1	different functions at the company. They had all this context on who the user was. They
0:22.3	had talked to so many different users at that point.
0:24.3	If you take people that are just super smart, they've never done it before. One advantage of that is they can
0:30.7	like innovate because they are also, I think they come in with I don't know anything let me just like figure this out
0:38.1	Welcome to Lenny's podcast where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard-wined experiences
0:44.3	building and growing today's most successful products.
0:46.9	Today my guest is Melissa Tan.
0:48.8	Melissa was the long time head of growth for Dropbox's B2B business. She's also their first growth
0:54.1	product manager. Then she went on to do full-time advising for companies like
0:57.9	Canva, Gramerley, Meiro and Row, helping them with their growth strategy and
1:02.1	helping them build their growth teams.
1:03.8	For the past two and a half years,
1:04.9	she's been leading growth at WebFlow.
1:07.1	But hot off the presses, as Melissa shares
1:09.2	at the top of this podcast,
1:10.5	she's going back to full-time advising life. So if you're looking for help with go-to-market plans, growth strategy,
1:16.0	building a growth team, aligning your sales, marketing and growth efforts,
1:20.0	she's about to become available, so definitely reach out.
	...

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