The essence of product management | Christian Idiodi (SVPG)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Lenny Rachitsky

Technology, Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2023

⏱️ 93 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Christian Idiodi is a partner at Silicon Valley Product Group. After a long product career and founding multiple companies, Christian now spends his time working closely with product leaders at companies big and small to implement and improve their discipline of product management. In today’s episode, we discuss:

• Why there’s often a negative perception of product managers, and how we can fix this

• The four attributes of a product manager’s job: value, usability, viability, and feasibility

• The power of finding reference customers

• How Christian developed a process for high-volume hiring to help companies like McDonald’s and Starbucks

• Tactical tips for coaching, building relationships, and building trust as a leader

—

Brought to you by Jira Product Discovery—Atlassian’s new prioritization and roadmapping tool built for product teams | Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security | Teal—Your personal career growth platform

—

Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-essence-of-product-management-christian-idiodi-svpg/

—

Where to find Christian Idiodi:

• X: https://twitter.com/CIdiodi

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

• Website: https://www.svpg.com/

—

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) Christian’s background

(03:56) The negative perception of product managers

(07:58) How to become a PM people want to work with

(11:30) The definition of a product manager

(14:46) Where new PMs fail

(16:59) Reference customers: what they are and why they are so important

(24:05) A quick summary of how to build a product that people want and love

(26:44) How to determine product-market fit

(29:54) The benefits of this approach

(34:11) Real examples of using reference customers

(40:06) Doing things that don’t scale

(48:40) How to get better at coaching and build trust with leaders

(55:53) The fastest way to build trust

(01:00:01) What to do in the absence of good coaching

(01:02:51) How to get into product management

(01:04:16) The pitfalls of early promotions

(01:11:11) How to train someone for a promotion before giving the promotion

(01:13:30) How to find a good coach

(01:14:40) Christian’s product work in Africa

(01:21:22) The importance of passion and empathy in product work

(01:22:54) Lightning round

—

Referenced:

• Marty Cagan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cagan/

• The nature of product | Marty Cagan, Silicon Valley Product Group: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-nature-of-product-marty-cagan-silicon-valley-product-group/

• Silicon Valley Product Group: https://www.svpg.com/

• Enhanced Product Discovery by SVPG Partner Christian Idiodi at Lean Product Meetup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQKaFEqhiqc

• Geoffrey Moore’s technology adoption curve: https://fourweekmba.com/technology-adoption-curve/

• Stripe: https://stripe.com/

• Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/building-a-culture-of-excellence-david-singleton-cto-of-stripe/

• Building beautiful products with Stripe’s Head of Design | Katie Dill (Stripe, Airbnb, Lyft): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/building-beautiful-products-with-stripes-head-of-design-katie-dill-stripe-airbnb-lyft/

• Rippling: https://www.rippling.com/

• Snagajob: https://www.snagajob.com/

• Howard Schultz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/howardschultz/

• Tesla portable charger: https://shop.tesla.com/product/mobile-connector

• Innovate Africa Foundation: https://www.innovateafrica.io/about/

• Inspire Africa Conference: https://www.inspireafricaconference.com/

• Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love: https://www.svpg.com/books/inspired-how-to-create-tech-products-customers-love-2nd-edition/

• Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products: https://www.svpg.com/books/empowered-ordinary-people-extraordinary-products/

• Transformed: Moving to the Product Operating Model: https://www.svpg.com/books/transformed-moving-to-the-product-operating-model/

• Succession on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/succession

• Billions on Showtime: https://www.sho.com/billions

• Real sports app: https://www.realapp.link/

—

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 try to explain to people that the real essence of this job is that you wake up on behalf of someone else to solve a problem for them.
0:08.2	And you have to do it well enough that they give you something back in return. That's kind of the real essence of it and that's the I always call like a
0:16.1	certificate of appreciation, you know and it can be in the form of revenue, engagement, loyalty, you know,
0:22.0	reference all of those things.
0:23.4	That's the real essence of this job.
0:25.8	You know, if it's not fun, you're probably not doing it right.
0:29.0	If it's not hard, you're probably also not doing it right. Today my guest is Christian Ediodi.
0:37.0	Christian is a partner at Silicon Valley Product Group alongside Marty Kagan, who, when he introduced introduced us called Christian the most interesting man in the world
0:45.6	After meeting him I tend to agree after a long career in product Christian now spends his time working closely with companies big and small, implementing and improving
0:54.6	their discipline of product management.
0:57.0	In our conversation, we discuss why the product management field is so often disliked and
1:01.8	what you can do to avoid becoming a product manager people don't want on their team.
1:06.0	We spend a lot of time on coaching, how to get better at coaching your reports,
1:10.0	how to get better coaching from your manager and some really clever tactics for
1:14.0	building trust with leaders within your company. Also Christian shares his one
1:17.8	favorite go-to method out of all of the discovery methods out there for figuring out what to build.
1:23.7	Also, we spend some time on the great work that he's doing in Africa
1:27.2	to help product builders and founders build great companies.
1:30.4	That and so much more, Christian is awesome.
1:33.0	With that, I bring you Christian Ediodi,
1:35.0	after a short word from our sponsors.
1:38.0	You fell in love with building products for a reason,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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.