Lenny Rachitsky: prediction

Transcript context

…Our next story is from JZ, who is a colleague of mine at Airbnb, head of product at Webflow when we recorded this episode, and this is her sharing the story of one of the biggest product misses at Airbnb. You've seen a lot of new PMs, and you've seen these PMs succeed, you've seen some fail. What are the most common mistakes that you find new PMs make in this experience of helping new PMs get into the field? Jiaona Zhang (JZ) I think something that is really hard to untrain, but I think every human does it, is you jump to solutions. And so one of the biggest things I see, not just in my course, but also just as a PM and some of the mistakes that you make as a PM is the idea of you get really attached to a solution, a way of implementing something, something that you can see in your head that you want to build. And so that's the first thing I really want to like unteach in our course. And so a lot of people will literally come in, they'll be like, "I want to build X startup," or, "I want to do this thing," or, "I am in blank school, and I've been doing a lot of research on this particular area." And so untraining that and being like, "Hey, we're going to go out there. We are not going to think at all about the thing that you want to build, but instead we're going to be focused on users and people in the real world and their problems. And the first step is to understand their problems and then understand if there's an opportunity here as opposed to, hey, you want to build X thing for Y person." So that's the biggest mistake that you really have to unteach and retrain thinking around. So let's go to the other side of this question. We talked about what mistakes new PMs make. I'm curious, what's the biggest product mistake that you've made? Jiaona Zhang (JZ) Wow, that's a good one. It's so interesting. I feel like as product people we're always making mistakes and we're always learning. Maybe I'll give an example from Airbnb since you and I were both there. And this one does stand out to me. So we're working on this concept called Airbnb Plus. If you took a step back, what we're really trying to do is to be like, "Hey, not everyone trusts Airbnb in terms of it's a platform. It's not like it's managed inventory, it's not a hotel. How do you go in and really make sure that we're all the Airbnbs are meeting the quality bar?" But I do think we were very solution first, and I think we're also competitor afraid at the time. So it was during a time where there were managed marketplaces, there were the Saunders out there, and I think that as a company we're very much like, "Oh, look at this. What are we going to do in the world of managed marketplaces?" And so we went really hard down the solution space. We essentially were like, "Let's go inspect our inventory. Let's actually try to manage our inventory more." And really what we should have done is taken a step back and be like, "What's the real problem?" sentially were like, "Let's go inspect our inventory. Let's actually try to manage our inventory more." And really what we should have done is taken a step back and be like, "What's the real problem?" The real problem is people want to know what they're getting themselves into. We need to represent the homes a lot better. And I think the other piece here that's really important is what, as a company, is there strategic strength? And what's in your wheelhouse? So for example, Airbnb, we weren't that strong in operations. We again, we're this platform with this marketplace. And so if you don't have that muscle and then you're asking the company, the teams to essentially build it from the ground up, that's really, really difficult. Not to mention the unit economics. Are the unit economics actually going to work, even as you scale? Yeah, I feel like Airbnb Plus is an untold story that somebody should tell, and that could be its own podcast, I guess. Jiaona Zhang (JZ) You and I can tell it. We could tell it. This could be Airbnb Plus the hidden, the story. As you said, the problem it was trying to solve was people don't really trust, they don't want to even consider Airbnb. Like, "No, I don't want to stay in someone's home. I don't know what it'll be. It's unpredictable." And so as an outsider, it felt like a really clever approach. We're going to get them, we're going to make sure they're awesome. There's a minimum bar. And I guess this is the question is do you think it was just like this is never possible because we'll never make money as a business doing this, because we don't make that much booking and investing time, resources, sending people pillows, all that stuff is ever going to be economical. Or do you think there was a path, and it was just not executed well? Jiaona Zhang (JZ) I think there wasn't really a clear path. I think there was [inaudible 00:42:55]. Exactly. And it was more just like if you understood, again, this is my point around unit economics, there are things where I think you have magical thinking around unit economics. You're like, "Well, when we get to the scale of X, it's all going to work out. We can make these things happen." I think you actually need to really make sure the unit economics work right at the beginning. So that is definitely one lesson. And I think the other thing is, and going back to the spirit of what are you trying to achieve. If you're trying to achieve this idea of really knowing the quality of the place, and for a platform like Airbnb, the right way to go about doing is through our reviews, through our guest reviews, which are essentially free as opposed to literally sending out inspectors. And I think that the other things are if you can get signal on what are the things around quality that people care about? Is it cleaning? Is it the, "Hey, I'm locked out." And I think that there are other solutions besides inspection that then get at that. So for example, it is actually cheaper to go send everyone a lockbox than to deploy an inspector and go look at your property, right? here are other solutions besides inspection that then get at that. So for example, it is actually cheaper to go send everyone a lockbox than to deploy an inspector and go look at your property, right? It is actually cheaper to maybe do a partnership with a bunch of cleaners in different local areas, and then get that as part of the feat as opposed to doing inspection. So again, it's really about what are you really trying to achieve? What is the user problem in each of these areas, and can you target that problem with the particular listing that you're looking at? And so yeah, I personally don't believe the unit economics ever would've really worked out. I think we should have known that, or we should have dug into that more at the very beginning, and then to get very tailored instead of one blunt instrument to solve it all. Hey, we're going to go inspect. It's like, what is the problem for this listing, and what's the best solution to fix that problem? Our second to last story is from Gina Gotthilf, who was an early growth leader at Duolingo. She's currently COO of Latitud, and this is her sharing a wide-ranging and important point about how everyone has both an A side and a B side to their career, and people often only share their A side. So this is Gina sharing her B side.…

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