Geoff Charles: How To Hire Product Teams & Increase Product Velocity | E1091

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Geoff Charles is the VP of Product at Ramp, leading the product management, operations, and support teams. Prior to Ramp, Geoff helped spin off Mission Lane and scale credit products to millions of consumers. He started his career advising Fortune 100 financial services companies.
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Timestamps:
(0:00) Intro
(00:39) Introduction to Product Management
(02:48) Prioritizing Time Management Effectively
(05:34) Evaluating and Enhancing Employee Performance
(07:39) Focusing Strategies for Early-Stage Startups
(14:20) Identifying Common Sprint Cycle Mistakes
(20:43) Balancing Feedback with Product Development Speed
(28:44) The Limitations and Misconceptions of OKRs
(36:52) Learning from Post-Mortems in Product Leadership
(42:11) Overcoming Challenges in Product Strategy
(53:37) Quick-Fire Round
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In Today’s Episode with Geoff Charles We Discuss:
1. How to Become a Product Leader:
How did Geoff make his way into the world of product?
What are the single most important skills for product people to learn early?
What are the biggest mistakes that product people make early in their career?
2. When and Who to Hire for the First Product Team:
When is the right time to hire your first product people outside of founding team?
Why are the best product teams in the early days professional services teams?
What is more important; the person has stage or sector experience, when joining?
Should you hire senior product people or junior product people as the first hires?
3. How to Increase Velocity Using Sprints:
How does Geoff and Ramp use two-week sprints to have insane product velocity?
How are they structured? How are goals set? Who is included?
What makes a good vs a bad sprint? How is accountability tied to sprints?
When do two-week sprints no longer become possible? What happens then?
4. Going Multi-Product, Will Incumbents Kill You and Product Re-Usability:
When is the right time to add a second product?
What are the biggest mistakes companies make when going multi-product?
Why is it unlikely that an incumbent is the one to kill you? What competitor should worry you?
What does Geoff mean when he speaks of “product re-usability”? Why is it crucial to velocity?
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[@afiiiiiii]

I sometimes think about Geff to get to "intense" mode. Geoff seems more intense than elon. Best of luck to you 🤞

[@user-kg1od9es5d]

you seriously compared Geoff to Elon?LOL dont disrespect elon.

[@user-kg1od9es5d]

"strategy is e-commerce and strategy is cashflow conversion" - you're joking right? That is not in essence what a strategy is. OKRs are a way to create a directional and measurable path towards which a real product&business strategy can be realised. That's all they are. You seem to have a misunderstanding of what OKR's truly are. "target of X revenue" is not a proper OKR either.