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Lenny's Podcast / episode intelligence

Nickey Skarstad (Airbnb, Etsy, Shopify, Duolingo) on translating vision into goals, operationalizing product quality, second-order decisions, brainstorming, influence, and much more

18 Jul 2022 15 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Nickey SkarstadLenny Rachitsky

Claim mix

recommendation 6belief 4evaluation 2preference 2commitment 1

Evidence policy

Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.

Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

15 published records

02 / belief

If you have a very small team, you might be very plugged in and these things might not need to happen. But in bigger organizations, especially where leadership isn't always able to be in the room, making sure that you have a clear checking in a few times to make sure that everyone is moving in the right direction and everyone feels good is, I think, a worthwhile exercise.

“If you have a very small team, you might be very plugged in and these things might not need to happen. But in bigger organizations, especially where leadership isn't always able to be in the room, making sure that you have a clear checking in a few times to make sure that everyone is moving in the right direction and everyone feels good is, I think, a worthwhile exercise.”
Speaker
Nickey Skarstad
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

03 / belief

Our head of product was really gungho on OKRs. And I think for a couple years, we were very strict OKR culture.

“Our head of product was really gungho on OKRs. And I think for a couple years, we were very strict OKR culture.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

04 / belief

I would say I think I'm good at this 80% of the time these days, just because I've seen it done wrong in a lot of ways.

“I would say I think I'm good at this 80% of the time these days, just because I've seen it done wrong in a lot of ways.”
Speaker
Nickey Skarstad
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

05 / belief

I honestly, I think before a lot of people were, and that was something at the time that was really interesting and has really stayed with me, it's how to work with community and how to build community around the product that you're building.

“I honestly, I think before a lot of people were, and that was something at the time that was really interesting and has really stayed with me, it's how to work with community and how to build community around the product that you're building.”
Speaker
Nickey Skarstad
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

06 / recommendation

No, and I think that forcing yourself and your team to think in that way is just a really good thinking exercise because it will save you time and it will save you money, a lot of money later, if you don't constantly have to rebuild things when you want to make changes to your system later.

“No, and I think that forcing yourself and your team to think in that way is just a really good thinking exercise because it will save you time and it will save you money, a lot of money later, if you don't constantly have to rebuild things when you want to make changes to your system later.”
Speaker
Nickey Skarstad
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

07 / recommendation

The nice thing I think is just making autonomous teams that feel like it is their goal to bring that quality experience to life can help you avoid some of that.

“The nice thing I think is just making autonomous teams that feel like it is their goal to bring that quality experience to life can help you avoid some of that.”
Speaker
Nickey Skarstad
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

08 / evaluation

" All of those things literally went away overnight. And I think especially the job of a PM, it's hard under normal times because you are doing so much labor to make sure people are informed and give feedback, et cetera.

“" All of those things literally went away overnight. And I think especially the job of a PM, it's hard under normal times because you are doing so much labor to make sure people are informed and give feedback, et cetera.”
Speaker
Nickey Skarstad
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

09 / preference

One of the things I did when I was like, I don't know if I love this is I actually went through my calendar and I changed the colors of all of the meetings on my calendar to red, yellow, and green after I had the meeting.

“One of the things I did when I was like, I don't know if I love this is I actually went through my calendar and I changed the colors of all of the meetings on my calendar to red, yellow, and green after I had the meeting.”
Speaker
Nickey Skarstad
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

10 / evaluation

It's really hard to change that later because it's going to influence all of the listings that you have in your ecosystem. And so I think really thinking through those types of things are important and really setting teams up to be able to pause and spend some time to get it right because it will influence the end product in a very real way.

“It's really hard to change that later because it's going to influence all of the listings that you have in your ecosystem. And so I think really thinking through those types of things are important and really setting teams up to be able to pause and spend some time to get it right because it will influence the end product in a very real way.”
Speaker
Nickey Skarstad
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

11 / commitment

Left as senior product lead, I believe was my title. And forever grateful for that experience because I learned a ton about product market fit and also product quality.

“Left as senior product lead, I believe was my title. And forever grateful for that experience because I learned a ton about product market fit and also product quality.”
Speaker
Nickey Skarstad
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

12 / preference

Because I'm remote now, I would use Miro or FigJam. Duolingo, we use FigJam typically because we are super embedded in Figma.

“Because I'm remote now, I would use Miro or FigJam. Duolingo, we use FigJam typically because we are super embedded in Figma.”
Speaker
Nickey Skarstad
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

13 / recommendation

I mean, I think especially if your business is new, going functional makes sense because you don't necessarily have a lot of organizational complexity.

“I mean, I think especially if your business is new, going functional makes sense because you don't necessarily have a lot of organizational complexity.”
Speaker
Nickey Skarstad
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

14 / recommendation

Yeah. And I will say OKR frameworks might not be the best for every single team, but having some sort of goal framework that is shared across functions is useful no matter the size or the scale of your business.

“Yeah. And I will say OKR frameworks might not be the best for every single team, but having some sort of goal framework that is shared across functions is useful no matter the size or the scale of your business.”
Speaker
Nickey Skarstad
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

15 / recommendation

Mentions personal use of Loom.

“And my process was I used Loom, which is another one of my favorite products. It's just a really easy screen share and video recording tool that you can share with teams.”
Speaker
Nickey Skarstad
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast
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