Unorthodox frameworks for growing your product, career, and impact | Bangaly Kaba (YT, IG, FB)

Bangaly Kaba was an early growth PM at Facebook, head of growth at Instagram, and VP of Product at Instacart and is currently Director of Product at KZbin overseeing a global team working on creator monetization. Bangaly has also been a growth advisor to dozens of companies, including Twitter, on the board of multiple companies, and is an active angel investor. In our conversation, we discuss:
• A simple framework for choosing where to work and what to work on
• The importance of “understand work”
• The “adjacent users” theory and how it can help you drive growth
• Advice for coaching product managers
• Invaluable lessons from his time at Instagram, Facebook, and KZbin
• Much more
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Find the transcript and references at: www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/fr...
Where to find Bangaly Kaba:
• X: / iambangaly
• LinkedIn: / iambangaly
• Instagram: / iambangaly
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: / lennysan
• LinkedIn: / lennyrachitsky
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Bangaly’s background
(06:31) Choosing where to work and what to work on
(08:39) The impact factor
(10:53) Evaluating the environment
(15:53) The manager component
(18:27) The skills part of the equation
(23:49) Advice on finding a mentor
(25:42) The power of “understand work”
(31:17) Operationalizing understand work
(37:55) Balancing understand work
(41:25) Managing complex change
(45:26) Effective management of product managers
(51:35) The role of product managers as coaches and team leaders
(54:52) Driving growth through flywheels and value proposition
(01:03:14) Understanding adjacent users
(01:08:41) The role of partnerships and SEO in Instagram’s early growth
(01:16:08) The secret behind Instagram’s growth
(01:25:37) Lessons from Facebook
(01:29:15) Failure corner
(01:31:58) Lightning round
Production and marketing by penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [e-mail].
Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

[@Veedalala]

This was an incredibly informative interview with Mr. Kaba. So many jewels were dropped! I will download the books he recommended, but those frameworks were gold! I will be subscribing to your channel..keep interviews like these coming!

[@tracyhuber3290]

Great info, Bangaly! I will be listening to this again and again as a resource. Thank you.

[@work_surf_love]

Thank you, Lenny! I’m sure I am not the only one, who saved this episode in “favourites”and will watch it again and again. Special thanks for the summaries that you provide together with videos!

[@audoze]

I generally love all your guest and interviews, but this has been the best one yet. Thanks Lenny!

[@dheenadayalan5873]

"Understand, Identify, and Execute" - three simple words that completely transformed my perspective on Product Management. I had fallen into the trap of "Identify, Justify, and Execute," but this podcast helped me recognize common pitfalls and strike a better balance. As always, thank you, Lenny, for yet another amazing podcast!

[@ChadBarendse]

Awesome podcast, Bangaly is really insightful!

[@mhauzeur]

One of the best interviews Lenny!!! I don´t know which framework I should start implementing first, all are amazing.

[@nakuljayatsen5869]

Watching parts of it for the fourth time. Love it. Thanks Lenny.

[@insights983]

i watched almost every videos of yours ,it's worth time spending on youtube , your video reach is little low but it has immense amount of knowledge and wisdom .keep it up....

[@h1r9s]

Great podcast. Thank you, Lenny.

[@benny6481]

This was so insightful! Thank you Lenny !

[@sonallagad284]

Loved all the useful action packed convo.

[@annfender]

Awesome video Lenny! Could you please make a video about requirement gathering? (Or if there are any good resources you recommend?) What sort of questions you ask your stakeholder when they request for a feature? And how do you say no to requests that might be un-impactful?

[@abhishek-kumar100]

Insightful

[@jesset55]

What's the difference between "understand work" and "discovery"? Is it the same thing?

[@iambangaly]

Discovery can be a form of understand work and is usually filled with many work streams. For example, if your current product stalls and your team has tried to optimize it with little success, there could be discovery work to (for example): - run surveys and hold in-person customer conversations to identify the biggest pain points not being served - define and prioritize the jobs to be done based on the customer conversations - brainstorm what product solutions you could build based on customer and problem hypotheses - create med-low fidelity mocks of 1-2 ideas and get customer feedback via UXR - building out the case for roadmap investment and building out the MVP Hope this helps!

[@sanjnah1996]

I loved this interview, where can I find the blog post by Bangaly?

[@LennysPodcast]

Here you go www.reforge.com/blog/how-to-make-career-decisions