The Founder's Foyer with Aishwarya Ashok

Building products is so much fun—at the same time, it’s equally exhausting and challenging with so many peers to work with, the market needs to look into, and a lot of processes to go by. While frameworks and techniques can be compelling to share, they are hard to standardize for different software teams and their cultures. So what are some ways to navigate these complexities and build better software?    Allen Holub, an internationally recognized software architect and consultant, and Aishwarya recently chatted about the ways product teams can work on small experiments and ship things iteratively so there's value and impact. We spoke about a range of topics—adopting the 'agile' mindset, why it's misleading to think agile as a methodology, the pitfalls of processes in large orgs, how to operate as pods within large orgs, staying outcome focussed and user obsessed, thoughts against 'commitment' and 'accountability' in a team setup, and more. Tune in!

If there’s one phrase we’ve heard over a thousand times in the last two years it is — remote work. Or say hybrid work. From building and iterating on ideas by pulling out chairs, to virtually looking at each other’s faces on tiles—we’ve done it all. But there’s a whole lot of stuff to think about working with folks across different geographies, time zones, interests. And so many questions to keep us seeking for answers. Marissa Goldberg is the Founder of Remote Work Prep, a platform that provides services to help teams set up an effective remote work experience. Marissa has been working remotely since 2015 and has managed distributed product team members across 20+ countries. Marissa and Aishwarya chat everything about how remote work, the effect of pandemic in shaping hybrid-remote work cultures, the 'physicality' of team-building activities and how to keep up with times, work-forward approach, high performance management, and more. 

Whether it’s meeting a founder friend, a potential hire, investor, customers, or even a bunch of product team leads, there’s one thing that stands out–the ‘narrative’ you want to tell, the story of what you’re building and why you’re building that. Strategic narrative binds all the folks who are directly impacted by your ideas and in turn gives you all the clarity and helps you articulate your vision well. But, how do you frame this narrative? What are the components of a great story?   Andrew Raskin is a Silicon Valley storytelling mastermind. Andy helps C-suite leaders and leadership teams align around a high-level story that powers success—in sales, marketing, fundraising, product development and recruiting—by getting everyone on the same page about strategy and differentiation. His post “The Greatest Sales Deck I’ve Ever Seen” is an internet sensation, with nearly 90+k views on Medium. Andy explains what strategic narrative is, why it's an evolutionary thing, deconstructing the parts to make a good narrative; he discusses about what makes a good pitch and the mistakes founders often make while presenting their pitch; Andy and Aishwarya also chat about the influence of leadership in making a strategic narrative, real-time examples from Andy's advising companies, and the practical tips to get better at product storytelling.

Often as we build our products, we feel stuck and we are on the constant lookout for the next set of action plans. We seek some form of a structure to help us unblock challenges, understand the benchmark of the market we’re building for, as well as pave the way for personal success too. This conversation is all about that mindset to step forward, with so many practical examples to help us understand.  Lisa Kostova is Founder of CareerClimb, a unique network and development platform for mid-career female professionals in technology, to help them ascend to the top of their field. Lisa spent a decade as VP and senior Product leader in Silicon Valley for a number of consumer and enterprise companies. In this episode, Lisa and Aishwarya discuss what it takes to build career plans, stepping into the path of entrepreneurship, actionable growth roadmaps, stepping out of comfort zone, storytelling, and more.

John Koelliker is the Co-Founder and CEO of Leland, a marketplace for ambitious people to access coaching, classes, mentorship, and community, to reach their career and educational goals. From growing in your career ladder, to taking a test, finding the right school—discover a friend and mentor to guide you through. How to start a new company, building communities around the purpose, leading the content game strong, what to look for in the VCs during fundraising—John and Aishwarya touch upon all of these concepts, as they explore the journey of Leland and how John went about getting inspired to build it from a side project idea he earlier worked on.  

Launching the product you build involves massive effort—not just in terms of shipping, but also figuring out the ways in which your audience finds satisfaction with your product. Do they find value? Of course, it’s important to align your product with the market, especially with the right problems to be solved. And this conversation is all around product, market, channels, and how to achieve a fit across all of those. Emily Tate is Managing Director for Mind the Product, world’s largest community of passionate product people. Emily brings nearly 15 years of product experience and is focused on the craft of product management; She loves talking about new ways to make products that people love. Emily and Aishwarya discuss about how the product management and product building landscape has changed in the last 20 years, how founders should think beyond product/market fit, what customer channels could teach us, how to effectively tune in for customer feedback, things you shouldn't do as a new founder, and so much more. Listen now! 

Building and shipping impactful products is definitely the enjoyable part of a product manager’s journey. It’s fun to think about what problems to work on, putting on the founder’s mindset from time to time or working with fellow co-founders on the team. Of course, there are so many challenges to tackle on the way, and as someone doing it on my day job, I can’t agree enough! So, here's a fellow peer to chat about building products, navigating ideas, and understanding all about this journey. Shyvee Shi, Product Manager at LinkedIn Learning, has also co-founded the PM Learning Series wherein she chats with product leaders across the globe to share insights for levelling up the product career. She’s a passionate creator and an educator who also just launched a course on productivity for product managers. We discuss all about product management career foundations and growth, personal productivity, creator skills, and more...

In today’s Foyer Feature, let’s welcome Sonia and Blake from Kernal, the community platform to connect founders, investors and startup ideas. 15,000+ members, 1,500+ startup ideas, they are doing an amazing work in helping creators and builders find success with their project journeys. Sonia, Blake, and Aishwarya sit down to discuss everything around what makes it interesting for creative folks who look out to building amazing stuff—from no-code tools to helpful communities and resources, the internet is full of inspiration and guidance to step forward and get better at our craft. They also talk about the challenges in running a startup, building sustainable communities, and working towards helping founders in their projects. 

As soon as you put your product out in the market, the one major question that gets to you from literally everyone around is - how’s your product growing. “What’s your growth strategy?” “Does your product have network effects” “Did you get more leads or was all the money spent in ads gone to drain?” There’s no end to the list of such discussions we often get pulled into as we’re building our product. But before all of what, what exactly is growth? How do you measure it? What’s the fundamental concept of product, sales, growth, and the way they tie in together to help scale and make revenue. Casey Winters (CPO, Eventbrite | Ex- Growth Lead, Pinterest & GrubHub) and Aishwarya chat all about growth and scaling for products. We specially went into the details of why 'growth' often gets paired with the term 'hacking' and what's the actual route to growing early-stage products. We also discuss about types of growth, why monetization is a part of growth and importantly product/market fit, what mistakes startups usually make, and more...

How to stay consistent with the inputs especially when your interests are versatile? I loved chatting with Grace Gong on this topic, especially because she's been doing some amazing work with her podcast, sharing knowledge about crypto and web 3, as well as authoring two books. A LinkedIn Top Voice for Finance and also an alum of LinkedIn for Creators program, she'd be the right person to share with us about how to get better at creating something. I love her 1% better rule—trying to stay consistent and focusing on moving the needle each day by a little more. We discuss about the creator economy, what it takes to learn consistently, why being curious and doubling down on strengths are important for building your voice; She also covers her author journey, sharing her takeaways from meeting and working with global CEOs and founders.