Velocity over everything: How Ramp became the fastest-growing SaaS startup of all time | Geoff Charles (VP of Product)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Lenny Rachitsky

Business, Technology, Entrepreneurship

5.0 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2023

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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Geoff Charles is VP of Product at Ramp—the fastest-growing SaaS startup of all time, Fast Company’s #1 Most Innovative Company in North America, and a company I believe we should all study for how they operate, execute, and hire. At Ramp, Geoff has led the product team from the early days, including the development and release of 60+ products and features in the past year alone. He has been building financial services for over a decade, and his interview in Lenny’s Newsletter quickly became one of the most widely read newsletter issues of all time. In today’s podcast, we will discuss:

• How velocity is at the heart of Ramp’s culture and success

• How writing can unlock clarity, creativity, and rapid problem-solving

• How to empower your product team through context sharing

• How to practically approach problems from first principles

• How Ramp approaches hiring in a unique way

• Suggestions for breaking into the world of product management

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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/velocity-over-everything-how-ramp-became-the-fastest-growing-saas-startup-of-all-time-geoff-charl/#transcript

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Where to find Geoff Charles:

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

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffrey-charles/

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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) Geoff’s background

(04:49) An overview of Ramp

(06:20) The importance of velocity at Ramp

(08:50) Single-threaded goals and how to keep teams away from distractions

(13:20) Setting lofty goals

(15:17) How Ramp empowers teams

(17:37) How Geoff’s management style has evolved at Ramp

(19:55) The product design process at Ramp

(21:19) Ramp’s system for sharing feedback

(23:07) How Ramp handles bug fixes

(24:15) Advice for PMs who want to move faster

(29:29) Why velocity and impact can help protect against burnout

(32:33) Planning vs. doing

(37:54) Ramp’s strategy documents

(40:55) Finding your unique positioning

(42:46) OKRs

(44:53) The importance of first-principle thinking

(48:53) How to use writing to think through problems

(51:46) How Geoff carves out time for deep work

(54:05) How Geoff manages tasks and stays organized

(57:15) Why other roles share the PM load at Ramp

(1:00:30) PM responsibilities at Ramp

(1:01:46) Identifying A+ talent

(1:06:02) The skills Ramp looks for when hiring

(1:07:33) Advice for people wanting to break into product management

(1:10:37) Lightning round

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Referenced:

• How Ramp builds product: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-ramp-builds-product

• Bill: https://www.bill.com/

• Expensify: https://www.expensify.com/

• Concur: https://www.concur.com/

• Coupa: https://www.coupa.com/

• Nicole Forsgren on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-measure-and-improve-developer-productivity-nicole-forsgren-microsoft-research-github-goo/

• Sheryl Sandberg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheryl-sandberg-5126652/

• Getting Things Done: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0143126563

• When Breath Becomes Air: https://www.amazon.com/When-Breath-Becomes-Paul-Kalanithi/dp/081298840X

• The Bear on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/the-bear-05eb6a8e-90ed-4947-8c0b-e6536cbddd5f

• Whoop: https://www.whoop.com/

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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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	So when I joined we were about 10-ish folks, about 8 engineers.
0:03.4	And in three months we built a competitor to MX.
0:05.8	Six months after that, we built a competitor to
0:07.8	expensify both publicly traded companies.
0:10.6	We hit 100 million in annual revenue.
0:12.4	I think we were under at that 50 total in the
0:15.2	R&D department less than 40 engineers and 3 p.m. and then we started expanding into
0:19.5	a Cal's payable. It was three engineers, one designer, one p.m. three months and they hit it out of the park and that product is moving in billions of dollars a year.
0:27.5	And I think the recipe for all this is...
0:31.5	Welcome to Lenny's podcast where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts
0:36.7	to learn from their hard-wound experiences building and growing today's most successful
0:40.1	products.
0:41.1	Today my guest is Jeff Charles, who is VPR product at RAM. This episode is a unique glimpse into a startup and an approach to product that optimizes for moving quickly, thinking from first principles, and empowering individual team members.
0:54.0	If you're not familiar with the ramp, they are the fastest growing SAS business in history.
0:58.9	Getting to over $100 million in annual run rate in two years which is just wild and as you'll hear
1:05.2	in this episode they did this with 50 people in our conversation Jeff shares how
1:09.2	they operationalize a culture of velocity how they do a lot with few people, how they organize
1:15.2	planning, how they define strategy, how they interview product managers and keep a
1:19.4	very high bar for talent, plus also avoid burnout in a very fast-moving culture, and so much more, my
1:25.9	advice is to seriously study how RAMP operates because there's a lot to learn from their
1:30.8	success and their approach to product.
1:33.0	Enjoy this episode with Jeff Charles after a short word from our sponsors.
	...

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