Aman Khan: evaluation

Transcript context

…I love that. Okay, so let's put AI to the side for a moment, but not totally off to the side. Imagine we're going to touch on it in this next area, and this next area is talking about how to be a really successful IC. You've very consciously decided to stay an individual contributor and not move up the ladder of product management and director and VP and all these things. And there's a specific skill set that it takes to be successful and to thrive as an IC PM. Most people either can't move up the chain and become really successful ICs long-term, or they don't want to, or they don't even think it's an option. So here's my question here. What are some of the biggest habits, mindsets, lessons you've learned about how to be really successful as an IC long-term? When I think about my own career journey here, so much of that comes down to what drives you personally, and I'm just obsessed with solving customers problems. And so to do that, that might mean I have to spend a lot more time trying to get into the weeds and get into the details. So I think that there's really three areas, three things that come back to me of what the hard part about being an IC PM is and how you can break through that. I first want to set the tone a little bit which is, being an IC PM is really hard. I made a point earlier of, it's become easier to break into product management to some degree if you can use these tools, and now you have all these tools at your disposal to go build the next prototype, but I think the bar just got higher for product managers within a company and what the impact needs to be. And by the way, that's always going to compete with being able to jump on a quick call last minute or try to unblock someone, or have some internal stakeholder discussion to figure out what to go do next. And so I think the challenge is, you have a really hard job, there's constant signal, things are constantly changing, how do you really power through that? So I think that there's really three things I think about there, which are energy, waiting versus wandering, and then amplifying the signal to make a decision. So maybe to even just kick off, energy, I really think about this as, this was maybe one of the most important things I realized working with our CEO a little bit over a year ago, which was energy can count a lot when you're not sure which direction to go. If you show up to a meeting and you bring a little bit more of that energy, you'll find that a lot of friction tends to go away, versus if you show up and you're a little bit down or a little bit not as enthused about an idea, people pick up on that. And we're still dealing with people today, and I think that even if you just change that mindset a little bit of bringing a little bit of that extra energy, you'll find that that can actually break down barriers and the conversation feels like it's flowing. It feels like a dinner table conversation versus a hard conversation, even if it might be something about something tough. So I think to me, there's this concept of, you might still be faced with this challenge of I'm not sure what the right decision is, and I'm struggling to really do this analysis and really get something going. I think accepting that that happens to everyone, it sort of feels like a product block as opposed to a writer's block, if that makes sense. Where as a writer, you might be trying to get to that next paragraph, and as a product manager, you're really trying to get to that next idea or that next milestone. So I can give you an example there as well, which is we had this moment a little over a year ago where we were not sure which direction to take a product feature. hat next idea or that next milestone. So I can give you an example there as well, which is we had this moment a little over a year ago where we were not sure which direction to take a product feature. And we were faced with this decision that felt pretty existential, which is how much do we want to invest in LLMs and the new wave of large language model tech versus what our existing customer base was. And it wasn't immediately clear what the decision should be. And so the energy I just brought was, I'm just going to be our outbound salesperson and just start writing LinkedIn messages to people that have the title AI in their LinkedIn profile. So I just went on LinkedIn and literally just started finding ways to get them on a phone call. So I'd write some copy and iterate on it, and I had to sit with our sales team to understand how do you do this? I maxed out my five LinkedIn messages a day, what are you trying to do here? And I think what that really accomplished was sort of two things. One, I did learn a little bit of what goes into this role in terms of how to message our problem and product more in a way that actually got people engaged? But two, it also demonstrated to the team that I was willing to get into the details with them. I was willing to spend time even when I was trying to push on our day job of building a product and keeping it growing. And I think that counts for a lot when the team is already feeling like they're not sure which direction to take something. And so just being that player coach and just having that mentality of showing up, bringing the energy, can move the bar so much higher for the whole team to operate. So that's the example I give of, you're kind of like being LeBron James, you're coaching people, you're drawing up the play, but you're also just trying to be as involved in all of the tough stuff as well. And I see that happen, I think that really comes from leadership from our CEO as well, he'll be tired, I can tell, but it's just when he shows up to a meeting, he just doesn't show it. You just have to kind of bring that energy.…

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