Inside Gong: How teams work with design partners, their pod structure, autonomy, trust, and more | Eilon Reshef (co-founder and CPO)
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Lenny Rachitsky
5 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 2 January 2025
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eilon Reshef is the co-founder and chief product officer at Gong, one of the most ubiquitous B2B products in the world. In our conversation, we discuss:
• Gong’s unique approach to working with design partners
• Their unique pod model
• Why Eilon makes big decisions quickly
• Lessons learned from being early in AI
• The power of extreme focus
• His “spiral method” for learning complex topics quickly
• How to maintain quality while optimizing for speed
—
Brought to you by:
• WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs
• Think Fast Talk Smart—Tools and techniques to help you communicate more effectively
• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security
—
Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-gong-eilon-reshef
—
Where to find Eilon Reshef:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eilonreshef
—
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
—
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Eilon’s background
(04:20) The pod model
(06:33) Working with design partners
(09:13) Finding and coordinating design partners
(13:12) Balancing customer feedback and vision
(15:10) Gong's 95% feature adoption
(17:05) The importance of autonomy and trust
(23:30) How to implement this unique way of working
(27:15) Speed and decision-making
(31:47) Early AI adoption and lessons learned
(35:50) Building effective AI teams
(38:16) The spiral method for learning
(41:36) Narrowing down the initial customer profile
(44:24) Failure corner
(46:35) Lightning round
—
Referenced:
• Gong: https://www.gong.io
• Cisco: https://www.cisco.com/
• How Gong builds product: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-gong-builds-product
• What is Montessori education?: https://amshq.org/About-Montessori/What-Is-Montessori
• Isaac Asimov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov
• Amit Bendov on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amitbendov/
• Lessons from scaling Spotify: The science of product, taking risky bets, and how AI is already impacting the future of music | Gustav Söderström (Co-President, CPO, and CTO at Spotify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-scaling-spotify-the
• Nvidia: https://www.nvidia.com
• Figma: https://www.figma.com
• The Spiral Method: https://www.gong.io/blog/using-the-spiral-method/
• Webex: https://www.webex.com/
• L’Oréal: https://www.lorealparisusa.com/
• American Express: https://www.americanexpress.com/
• Slow Horses on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/slow-horses/umc.cmc.2szz3fdt71tl1ulnbp8utgq5o
• Dishwasher basket: https://www.amazon.com/Munchkin-High-Capacity-Dishwasher-Basket/dp/B07ZPMYKKS/
• What most people miss about marketing | Rory Sutherland (Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK, author): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/what-most-people-miss-about-marketing
• Occam’s razor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
• Hanlon’s razor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
• Sabich: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabich#Ingredients_and_description
• Careers at Gong: https://www.gong.io/careers
—
Recommended books:
• Marty Cagan’s books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marty-Cagan/author/B00J21JTNM
• “The Machine That Won the War”: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18402398-the-machine-that-won-the-war
• Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers: https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-3rd-Disruptive-Mainstream/dp/0062292986
• The Ideal Executive: https://www.amazon.com/Ideal-Executive-Ichak-Kalderon-Adizes/dp/0937120030/
• Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when Stakes Are High: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Tools-Talking-Stakes/dp/1260474186/
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].
—
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 | I want to start with talking about your pod model, which is a really unique way of building and organizing your product teams. |
| 0:06.0 | That was probably 2016. We're trying to figure out how does the operating model look like for product and engineering. |
| 0:11.8 | The first bunch of people we had was essentially a pod. It was one product manager, a user experience designer, back and engineers, a couple of front and engineers. |
| 0:19.1 | But at some stage, we're starting to |
| 0:20.9 | scale. We're kind of contemplating. Do we go like the traditional, the old school of front and |
| 0:24.8 | engineers, back and engineers? And then we said, let's try to replicate what we have. Let's talk |
| 0:28.5 | about how these pods work with design partners. From what I've heard, it's very unlike how any other |
| 0:33.3 | company works. We just took the pod concept to an extreme where every pod is working with |
| 0:38.2 | sometimes a dozen design partners, sometimes two dozen design partners. This feels like a cheap |
| 0:42.4 | code of how to build new product lines. What are the like the percentage of success rate you |
| 0:47.8 | have with new product? I would say very close to 100% of the features we build and are being |
| 0:52.4 | used by a significant number of people. Does it feel crazy for companies not to operate this way? |
| 0:56.6 | I wouldn't go back. I hate terms such as risk because that's a very ambiguous term, but just |
| 1:01.2 | a risk of building something, you're not going to know if it's going to get used. |
| 1:03.8 | So when I ask people like Gong, what to ask you, the most often term that came up as autonomy |
| 1:08.9 | and trust. It's a very selfish thing. It's a very personal thing. I just think... |
| 1:12.6 | Today, my guest is Alon Reshef. |
| 1:18.4 | Alon is co-founder and chief product officer at Gong. He was also the longtime chief technology officer at |
| 1:24.1 | Gong. As I share at the top of our conversation, it feels like basically |
| 1:27.8 | every company that has a sales team uses Gong. And it's really rare to build a product that is so |
| 1:33.4 | ubiquitous and so loved across the tech ecosystem. In our conversation, Alon shares some of the |
| 1:39.0 | secrets of what makes Gong so consistently successful, including how their product teams work with 6 to 12 |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Lenny Rachitsky, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Lenny Rachitsky and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.