Frameworks for product differentiation, team building, and first principles thinking | Ayo Omojola

Ayo Omojola is Chief Product Officer at Carbon Health, one of the fastest-growing and most innovative health tech companies in the world. Previously, he was a PM leader at Cash App, where he co-created the Cash Card and scaled it to a nine-figure revenue line for Square. He’s also an angel investor in companies like Mercury, Modern Treasury, Faire, and many others. In this episode, we discuss:
• How Cash App broke through the noise and became a consumer app success story
• Why small teams are better than big ones
• Hard-won lessons on team building and hiring
• Why it’s “criminal” not to connect people in your network to things that they need
• Why you sometimes shouldn’t listen to experts
• The importance of first-principles thinking
• Advice for health tech founders
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Find the full transcript at: www.lennyspodcast.com/framewo...
Where to find Ayo Omojola:
• Twitter: / ay_o
• LinkedIn: / omojola
• Blog: kunle.app/
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: / lennysan
• LinkedIn: / lennyrachitsky
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Ayo’s background
(04:13) The story of how Ayo used Quora for discoverability
(06:44) The scale of Cash App
(07:37) What Cash App did well
(10:12) Lessons from building consumer apps
(13:08) Why it’s so important to be different
(14:08) What Ayo learned from how Square/Block operates
(16:36) How to succeed at building a startup within a startup
(19:06) How Ayo transitioned from fintech to health tech
(22:51) Why Ayo loves hiring founders
(28:32) Team-building strategies
(32:12) The importance of going deep and challenging assumptions
(36:58) Why you should always ask questions
(38:45) Lessons in leadership
(41:43) Advice for founders in the health-care space
(44:48) What Carbon Health is
(46:58) Lightning round
Referenced:
• Ayo on Quora: www.quora.com/profile/Ayo-Omo...
• Carbon Health: carbonhealth.com/
• Cash App: cash.app/
• Lob: www.lob.com/
• Mailform: www.mailform.io/
• Venmo: venmo.com/
• PayPal: www.paypal.com/us/home
• Apple Cash: www.apple.com/apple-cash/
• Square: squareup.com/us/en/home/
• Block: block.xyz/
• Pinwheel: www.pinwheelapi.com/
• The Three-Body Problem: www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Pro...
• Children of Time: www.amazon.com/Children-of-Ti...
• Children of Memory: www.amazon.com/Audible-Childr...
• Children of Ruin: www.amazon.com/Children-of-Ru...
• Stormlight Archive: www.amazon.com/Stormlight-Arc...
• Fire in the Deep: www.amazon.com/Fire-Deep-Robe...
• War of the Worlds on Amazon Prime: www.amazon.com/gp/video/detai...
• Succession on HBO Max: play.hbomax.com/player/urn:hb...
• No Context Succession on Twitter: / nocontextroyco
Production and marketing by penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [e-mail].
Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

[@amanik]

Ayo is fun to listen to, and you can easily tell he worked through many challenges to extract this wisdom. Also, love Mailform!

[@stephenakomolafe7223]

True point about the Uber hack. I wish Uber can share the numbers but in Nigeria, a good percentage of Uber rides are used by local small businesses for delivery. Especially e-commerce businesses.

[@MiguelHernandez-pt1kl]

Awesome interview Ayo !! Can we get a list of those books in your background please ?

[@RenatoSilva-hp6yf]

Ayo is really confusing :/

[@TaigeZhang]

I thought Venmo was instant also?

[@amanik]

Not at the time when Cash App launched and scaled to millions. Since then, Venmo and many others have it.