Nickey Skarstad (Airbnb, Etsy, Shopify, Duolingo) on translating vision into goals, operationalizing product quality, second-order decisions, brainstorming, influence, and much more

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Lenny Rachitsky

Technology, Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2022

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nickey Skarstad is a Director of Product Management at Duolingo, where she is leading a stealth 0 → 1 product. Prior to Duolingo, she was VP of Product at The Wing, Product Lead at Airbnb, where she led much of the Experiences product team, Product Lead at Shopify, and Director of Product Management at Etsy.

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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:

• Mixpanel: https://mixpanel.com/startups

• Dovetail: https://dovetailapp.com/lenny

• Unit: https://unit.co/lenny

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In this episode:

[3:32] An overview of Nickey’s career

[7:39] What she learned from building product at Airbnb

[8:42] How to maintain and operationalize product quality

[9:44] Metrics that help you maintain quality

[20:08] Which company has most informed her product development approach

[21:57] How to structure your product org

[24:47] Should you go GM vs. functional

[27:18] How you set vision, translate that into goals, and then execute on it

[32:30] Brainstorming advice

[35:04] How to use OKRs effectively

[37:57] How to get better at influence as a PM

[41:23] How to know if a decision is a one-way or two-way door

[42:29] Second-order decisions, and second-order thinking

[46:35] Operationalizing principles

[47:17] Getting your team on board with your strategy

[49:39] Designing a product review meeting

[54:08] Tips for working remotely as a PM

[56:44] Lightning round

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Where to find Nickey:

• Newsletter: https://nickey.substack.com/

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nickeyskarstad

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

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

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Referenced:

• Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows

• Anne Helen Petersen

• Superhuman

• Loom

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	When I asked to my newsletter Slack community, who I should have on the podcast who is a bit under the radar but amazing.
0:10.0	Nicki Scarstad was the first name that I heard and I was not surprised.
0:14.3	I actually overlap with Nicky at her B&B where she had a legendary reputation
0:19.0	as a p.m. who everyone loved but got shit done.
0:21.8	Before her being Nicky worked at Etsy for over seven years. everyone loved but got shit done.
0:22.5	Before Airbnb, Nicky worked at ETSI for over seven years,
0:25.3	where she went from being a forum moderator
0:27.3	to director of product management.
0:29.2	Then she went on to work at Airbnb for a couple years.
0:31.8	After leaving, she went on to be VP a product at the wing and is currently a director of product management at Duolingo.
0:38.0	In our conversation, we cover how to set vision, translate that into goals and then
0:42.6	how to execute on it, making your strategy actionable,
0:45.8	and keeping your teams aligned and focused,
0:48.1	designing your product review sessions,
0:50.3	how to maintain product quality,
0:52.1	and what skills have most contributed to her success in her career.
0:55.6	I hope that you enjoy this conversation with Nicki Scarstead.
0:59.2	This episode is brought to you by Mix Panel, offering powerful self-served product analytics.
1:08.0	Something we talk a lot about on the show is how startups can build successful and amazing products and relying on
1:14.7	gut feeling is a really expensive way to find out if you're heading in the right direction,
1:19.2	especially when you're raising money because VCs don't want to pay the price for these kinds of mistakes.
1:24.3	That's why Mix Panel will give you $50,000 in credits when you join their startup program.
	...

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