Nataliia Lys

Too many product teams believe meaningful user research has to involve long interviews, Zoom calls, and endless scheduling and note-taking. But honestly? You can get most of what you need without all that hassle. 🙅‍♂️ I’ve conducted hundreds of live user research conversations in early-stage startups to inform product decisions, and over the years my thinking has evolved on the role of synchronous time. While there’s a place for real-time convos, I’ve found async tools like Loom often uncover sharper insights—faster—when used intentionally. 🚀 Let’s break down the ROI of shifting to async. If you want to interview 5 people for 30 minutes each, that’s 150 minutes of calls—but because two people are on the call (you and the participant), you’re really spending 300 minutes of combined time. Now, let’s say you record a 3-minute Loom with a few focused questions, send it to those same 5 people, and they each take 5 minutes to write their feedback. That’s 8 minutes per person and just 5 minutes once for you. 45 total minutes versus 300. That’s an order-of-magnitude reduction in time to get hyper-focused feedback. 🕒🔍 Just record a quick Loom, pair it with 1-3 specific questions designed to mitigate key risks, and send it to the right people. This async, scrappy approach gathers real feedback throughout the entire product lifecycle (problem validation, solution exploration, or post-launch feedback) without wasting your users' time or yours. Quick example: Imagine your team is torn between an opinionated implementation of a feature vs. a flexible/customizable one. If you walk through both in a quick Loom and ask five target users which they prefer and why, you’ll get a solid read on your overall user base’s mental model. No need for endless scheduling or drawn-out Zoom calls—just actionable feedback in minutes. 🎯 As an added benefit: this approach also allows you to go back to users for more frequent feedback because you're asking for less of their team with each interaction. 🍪 Note that if you haven’t yet established rapport with the users you’re sending the Looms to, it’s a good idea to introduce yourself at the start in a friendly, personal way. Plus, always make sure to express genuine appreciation and gratitude in the video—it goes a long way in building a connection and getting thoughtful responses. 🙏 Now, don’t get me wrong—there’s still a place for synchronous research, especially in early discovery calls when it’s unclear exactly which problem or solution to focus on. Those calls are critical for diving deeper. But once you have a clear hypothesis and need targeted feedback, async tools can drastically reduce the time burden while keeping the signal strong. 💡 Whether it’s problem validation, solution validation, or post-launch feedback, async research tools can get you actionable insights at every stage for a fraction of the time investment.

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Things and thoughts I came along this week. I had much fun reading one of Olga Berezovsky's latest posts about KPIs done right, which had this amazing quote: "'Why PMs should be responsible for revenue metrics'. Umm… what else should they be responsible for? Sorting color stickers in Figma? Nothing to add here. The post also highlights the issue of PMs getting proper revenue data into Amplitude or Mixpanel. Just plugging it in does not work since it needs some proper modeling before the data goes into the tools. Which is a good segue to one project I am working on. For an e-commerce company that runs on subscriptions, I am building a model to get their subscription data, model it correctly, and then use Amplitude Snowflake Native for reporting. This is the first production project with this new Amplitude project type, which has some nice stuff: Seat-based pricing (not event-based) and no sync jobs to take care of. So far, it works well. In another new project, I support a data team in developing their first ActivitySchema setup to answer more questions (that were previously hard to answer). It's the first project where I built it on top of a well-designed and maintained star schema (usually, we do a completely new setup), and I have to say, this is fun because you can move quickly. Barbara Galiza and I conducted the first session of the marketing attribution masterclass. Twenty people attended and were really active in researching attribution myth-busting and understanding a different attribution framework. We used Butter 🧈 for the first time, and it worked really well. We are also developing a new website for more marketing attribution content and learning programs, which will drop next week. And yesterday, I released my first snippet of the biggest content project I have done so far. It will land in December, and it will be huge fun. Have a good weekend.

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An opinionated take on design: In a meeting with CTO, CMO, and the CSO last month, they mentioned that they are a fairly mature org in design practices, and their product shows it. —If a certain small set of customers are not too happy about a certain experience, this is because those stories are not a priority on the roadmap, and they are in transition from our legacy systems to more modern systems, and they will update the design team *at the right time*. ⏰ —They added that the org has a strong and favorable engineering culture—but they can be design mature org within the engineering culture. 🧫 I agreed to the last part but not on the priority and communication practices—and certainly not the communication model within that priority matrix. They asked me for an open and brutal honest opinion and this is what I wrote👇🏼. --- "In a leadership workshop that I attended many years ago, the presenters asked the audience to raise hands if they were honest in their work. A few hands were raised." "Next, they asked the audience to raise hands if they were dishonest. A few hands raised and there were a set of common participants too who raised hands in both the groups." "When asked, the common participants said that they were slightly dishonest—say two percent, or ten percent, because there is context." "The presenter said that either one is honest of dishonest. For example a crook cannot say that they are honest because they cheated only for one penny." "Design is not as black-and-white but it is close to this example. If design cannot address the concerns of right communication practices in the transition, and regardless of <whatever-centric culture>, you are not a design mature org *yet*. The silver lining is that you aspire to be." ----

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Which type of PM should I hire?  🤔 I've seen the answer shift depending on the current skillsets of your team and the next must-do's for the company. As a leader, you want to achieve balance between those that are great at 0 to 1, especially in the AI Age, and those who know how to scale a product based on customer demand all whilst bringing the company along. One of the simplest frameworks I've seen for thinking through this is from Adam Fishman and Keya Patel at Reforge: https://lnkd.in/gV9Q-bsb They break things down into 4 archetypes: 1️⃣ Core Product Managers: The backbone of any product team, they mostly focus on feature work that directly addresses clearly articulated customer pain points. These PMs are seasoned at cross-functional collaboration and know how to iterate and ship. 2️⃣ Growth Product Managers: Vital for hitting hockey stick growth, they're the maestros of user acquisition, activation, and conversion. Their relentless focus on metrics-driven experimentation and optimization drives sustainable growth. Prior marketers make excellent Growth PMs. Check that these individuals know how to knock on doors to build relationships across multiple teams so that they can get their experiments out the door. Though they will have to step on some toes. 3️⃣ Platform Product Managers: The architects of internal growth, they scale essential platforms and services to automate the operating systems and lifeblood of the org. For AI companies, these individuals are key to helping you build scalable data labeling and training tooling. 4️⃣ Innovation Product Managers: These are the individuals that love a blank page. Founders thrive in this role because they get to play the disruptor, pushing boundaries, driving new R&D efforts, and forcing stable companies to rethink the status quo. I've seen these individuals thrive when it comes to introducing new product lines or taking on a product-led growth motion for the first time. Naturally, because the world isn't black and white you'll like find that team members represent 2-3 of these archetypes. Still, I always think about what I'm optimizing for most of all. What do you think? BS or worth trying? (and yes, I'm hiring — innovation + growth pm's reach out)

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Hot Take: Your PM can't replace your PMM. Just because someone is good at building a product doesn't mean they can market it effectively too. PMs and PMMs bring distinct, specialized skills to the table. Let's not ask the fish to climb the tree. That's it, that's the post. #sanjeetscribbles #productmarketing #productmanagement

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That’s what I keep saying Migrating your site from old school platforms to Webflow saves much more time & money especially the engineering resources. If your site is on Webflow, - The updates are as easy as editing a doc - It is safer without endless fixes - You can launch new marketing campaigns faster - Create new landing pages within a few hours And that’s why I made this decision 5 years ago to be webflow exclusive agency.

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Turning an Idea into a Product: Lessons from Manager Flota An idea is easy. Turning it into a product? That’s where the real challenge begins. When I started working on ManagerFlota, I thought I had everything figured out: a clear problem to solve and a vision for the solution. But between the idea and the final product, there’s a long road full of decisions, feedback, and iterations. Here are a few lessons I learned: 1. The Idea Isn’t Enough At first, I thought my idea would sell itself. I quickly realized that what I had in my mind didn’t always match what users needed. For example, my initial version of ManagerFlota focused too much on tracking vehicle maintenance. It turned out that most fleet managers cared more about driver accountability and fuel efficiency. I had to pivot and adjust to their priorities. 2. Build Small, Iterate Fast My first instinct was to build a fully-featured platform. But that was overwhelming—for me and for users. Instead, I shifted to creating an MVP (minimum viable product) that solved one core problem: keeping fleet data organized. From there, I added features one by one based on user feedback. 3. Feedback is Gold (Even When It Hurts) I had moments when I thought I’d nailed it, only for a user to point out something I missed entirely. For example, a client once told me that my reports were “nice, but useless” because they didn’t include a feature to export them. Tough to hear, but that feedback became one of the key improvements in the product. 4. It’s Never Finished Even today, ManagerFlota is evolving. Technology changes, user needs shift, and the product must adapt. The journey from idea to product doesn’t really end—it just moves into new phases. Turning an idea into a product isn’t about perfection. It’s about persistence, listening, and the willingness to improve over time. For those building their own ideas: What’s been your biggest challenge in going from concept to reality?

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I am inclined to agree. I've never understood the implicit value of NPS in many contexts. I will say from it has been interesting to see just how much $ is deployed to measure, coach, and generally industrialize what NPS is, what it means, how to track it and how to improve it. There are careers and what I assume are lucrative businesses and consultancies built up and fortified all around this. But some of Leah's points resonate with thoughts I've had for a long while.

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The best companies find a way to grow very fast. When an org has terrific PMF today they can get to $100M in ARR very quickly. We've seen a number of examples of this over the last few years. Ramp, Deel, Wiz, Slack. They basically combined PMF with some form of a PLG motion. That created this idea that the way to grow quickly was to develop a PLG motion. But it doesn't work for most companies because they don't have strong PMF. Winning by design introduced this concept in their recent paper called AILG. Or AI led Growth. Will it help the best companies with PMF - sure. Will it be a silver bullet for everyone - unlikely. It'll probably just create more problems than it solves. When you're trying to figure out positioning, targeting etc you probably want a human in the mix. Once this is dialed maybe then AI helps you to scale exponentially.

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Over the years, I've built numerous #digitalengagement strategies to help deliver value for companies. The funny thing about it is that every single time I have to remind myself -- you can't just jump to the end. I know it inherently and it now takes me about 5 seconds to remember :) Each model changes and requires a different lens or action -- there is no one size fits all. The disruptive thought beyond this is that it ISN'T purely a #services or #customersuccess play.. It's a #product and #engineering play in partnership along with #marketing!! Obviously, to get there I've had some amazing team members, so tagging some of them here :) Anna Lazarski, Crystal January, Colin Speidel, Oren Rosenthal, Raveen Sharma, Katie Silguero, Hannah Hammond, Hannah Thomas, Macaully Shumate, CCMP™, Alex Romich, John Dowden, Dan Craig, and many others. Thank you all for #makingsuccess possible!

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When working on larger projects and / or those with high outcome uncertainty, many org cultures (surprisingly pervasive even in many startups) tend to prioritize tackling low-hanging fruit or default to taking a consensus path ironically termed "the path of least resistance". This approach of solving easy sub-problems ("known unknowns" as Donald Rumsfeld fmr. US Sect of state, would have termed it) builds in sunk costs & illusions of progress, creating inertia to course correct. Most modern project or program operations turn out to be successful if we view them as a portfolio of risks (sorted by highest impact, high uncertainty to lowest impact, high uncertainty). Tackle the ones at the top first. Prove or disprove your hypotheses. Source of image: First round review #product #bets #operating #principles

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What if I told you that obsessing over user engagement might be killing your product? More than you'd think. Just wrote about: - When bad metrics might be good news - Finding clarity in unexpected places - Rethinking what engagement means For product teams looking beyond the numbers: https://lnkd.in/gqPcKXD8 #StartupLessons #ProductStrategy

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(Disclaimer: I know this does not apply to everyone). As a Product Manager, don’t forget to invest in developing your craft. As a leader in Product Management, don’t forget to add craft development to your organization’s list of priorities. UX (design, research, etc…) and software engineering are some of the common roles in tech that put a lot of emphasis on the craft and in ensuring that those in these roles continually invest in acquiring and improving the skillsets of the trade. This makes sense because often with these roles the craft itself is closer to the actual output of the role. You compare this to roles like product management where our craft is more just the means to deliver our output. PM craft typically includes things like data analysis, AB test design, prioritization frameworks, PRD writing etc… And, we embrace these things because they aid us in what can ultimately (and yes, this is an over simplification) be described as simply executing an idea. This craft however is not something we are paid to produce as outputs, but rather skillsets we need to hone in order to deliver what we are actually paid for: value delivered through a product. I commonly see, and have been guilty of myself, neglecting the continuous development of our skill sets. We study and finally get the job, are assigned our first team and or product, and get to work. We studied hard to get our first product management job (what % of us have read that one book? And, it is pretty telling that I don’t need to mention the name of that book), but after that, I commonly see that we as a role tend to pull back on that original effort, only to depend on the naturally occurring on-the-job training we benefit from while going through our day-to-day job. We may bring up the usage or learning of frameworks, or we may suggest improvements to processes reactively when something goes wrong. How often though do we actually put in effort to improve in our skillsets? The tech world continues to change, we have more tools available, teams operate differently, different factors are being considered when looking at trade-offs or balancing our roadmap. As the industry changes, we need to as well. Not to steal from a great book, but “what got us here won’t get us there”. Don’t let it be too late to realize that you are failing to get where you need to be due to depending strictly on the craft from your past successes. Here are a few of the investment areas I am once again looking into and brining up with the PMs around me. - Prioritization frameworks - PRD writing that focuses on the Why and What (not the How) - Storytelling - Project management - Data analysis (not to be confused with data reporting) - P&L of a product - AB test design (and when to actually do an AB test vs not) - Market analysis - Understanding full-stack development - Foundations of UX - UI design trends - Finance and billing protocols in common B2B industries #product #productmanagement #PM

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The insecure product onboarding trap: Getting new signups to stick around is HARD. And companies are scared to lose out on potential leads. So they try WOW their users by showing them everything their product's can do. The funny thing is, this approach usually scares people away. Trying to "over impress" users by showing them everything their product can do in hopes of something catching their attention ❌ Now, I'm not saying there isn't a time and place to show off your product's superpowers. But that's not why they signed up. They have a specific problem and right now all they want to know is if your product can help them solve it ✅ When you give them a positive first impression, their likeliness to activate and explore more of your product increases exponentially. --- Try this simple exercise with your team: Look for ways to break down core features into simple, manageable steps. Strategically expose them to the basics and avoid pushing advanced capabilities too quickly. This helps users reach smaller value moments consistently and keeps them engaged. Consistent smaller wins > overwhelming one-time wow moments.

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Ok here we go, an all-time great #UXRConf, blasted from the past. This time, it's #UXRConf 2020! 👀 As we all know, 2020 was... different. This was our first time doing an all-remote event, and I have no doubt these incredible speakers made it *the* event of the year. What did we cover? Well, first off some of my all-time favourite talks 👇 1. Amber Westerholm- Smyth and Carolina Pizatto helped us reimagine building personas 👥 2. Molly Stevens reminded us that it's up to use to choose the path forward for #uxresearch 🚀 3. Patti Carlson showed us that even researchers need marketing plans to make sure their insights are heard 📣 But that only scratches the surface. We also learned about doing research with niche communities like when... 🟢 Atikh Bana taught us about doing research with developers 🟢 Pacha (Shin-Jui) Chen unpacked how to do research with expert users, like cybersecurity professionals 🟢 Nicholas DePaul and Kira Klaas taught us how to rebrand with research We worked on personal growth, when... 🟣 Noam Segal helped us fight off imposter syndrome 🟣 Sarah Wittman told us about why we should care about the replication crisis 🟣 Sekai Farai challenged us to rethink what empathy means (or if it even matters) in the context of our work 🟣 Eran Ben-Ari shared key context with us about what happens at the exec table 🟣 Behzod Sirjani reminded us we're more than a research report We learned about applying new methods and adding to our practice like when... 🔵 Yoanna Dosouto shared a case study on design ethnography 🔵 Alba Villamil shared her ethical researcher's checklist 🔵 Kathryn Brookshier and Kira C. taught us about doing blueprint fidelity testing 🔵 Beth Wendt and Andrea Sutyak showed us *the Shakespeare Method* 🔵 Colette Kolenda talked to us about triangulation in research 🔵 Jennifer Siedjak showed us how to test copy 🔵 Lara Vujović, Ph.D. shared how to do research on emotions And covered topics tailored to UXR teams-of-one, like when... 🔴 Snigdha Diehl told us about her 30-60-90 day play for UXR teams of one 🔴 Monal Chokshi shared how to think about structuring your future UXR team To check out all these talks and more: 📺 Watch them on Youtube: https://lnkd.in/gF2Gzkt4 🍎 Listen to them on Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/gEC-eZ7U 🎧 Or on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gXUDfPSp What was your favourite from the year we'll never forget? 🤔 Catch you at the next release! 👋 👋 👋

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This is spot on. In my experience, design can be a game-changer when it’s treated as a strategic partner, not just a service. At RealizedCare, I’ve seen firsthand how elevating design to a peer level with Product, Clinical, Marketing, and Engineering drives real, lasting impact. It’s not just about aesthetics; it’s about reshaping how we solve problems and create strategies that fuel growth. That shift in mindset, especially at the leadership level, is what unlocks design’s true potential to transform business outcomes.

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🚨 What happens when the marketing roadmap and product roadmap are not in sync? It creates a situation that, if not tackled in time, can be disastrous! 😬 I remember a time when I was right at the epicenter of this exact chaos. As a PMM reporting to the Product Org, I found myself navigating through some challenging yet insightful experiences. (While reporting to Product has its own advantages, which is a massive topic for another day! 😉) The 1st gap I noticed: the Marketing Roadmap had little or almost no exposure to the Product Roadmap. Internally, I managed to position features well across Sales, CSM, and other teams (with specific end goals in focus), but our external communication was either missing or not strong enough. 📉 So how did I take baby steps to bridge the gap? 1️⃣ Identified Feature Launches & Releases I began by aligning with the CPO and VP of Product on the quarterly roadmap. I understood that while communication about every product release is important, not all releases need a full-scale launch. 🔹 Full-Scale (or 'Big Bang') Launch: A grand affair, reserved for pivotal products, creating buzz and driving marketing communication through blogs, channels, PR, newsletters, and more. 🔹 MVP & 'Business as Usual' Launches: Showcasing core functionalities while gathering user feedback for essential improvements. 🔹 Soft Launch & Closed Beta: Unveiling products to select audiences, allowing last-minute refinements and building anticipation through early reviews. 2️⃣ Marketing Plan Execution For Full-Scale Launches, I developed a detailed marketing plan: Blog posts, Channel distribution, PR outreach, Customer newsletters & Product update communications Additionally, I organized enablement sessions for the CSM and Sales teams to ensure they understood the messaging, with a clear focus on end goals. 🎯 3️⃣ Pinpointing the Right Time This gave me clarity on exactly when (down to the specific week of the month!) I needed to make an impact through different marketing channels like social media, partner distribution, or PR. 4️⃣ Understanding the Marketing Calendar Next, I got hold of the overall marketing calendar: Social media calendar, PR calendar & Website publishing plan While I owned the customer newsletter, I had to roll up my sleeves and dive into the other areas too. 5️⃣ Collaborating with the Marketing Team I scheduled regular calls with the marketing team to emphasize the importance of timely impact—a key area where we were consistently falling short. 💡 It took some time to gain confidence, but involving the ELT members helped move the needle faster. ⏩ 6️⃣ Transitioning from Product to Marketing Eventually, this journey led me to transition from the Product Org to the Marketing Org as a Product Marketer. But more on that move in the coming days! Would love to hear from fellow PMMs. Have you experienced similar challenges? How did you handle them, or are you still navigating these waters? 🎧 Sachin Jha Kushal Khandelwal

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I think product teams should head back into the office. 🌶️ It's not just because I think we're all lonely and isolated. Last week at Marty Cagan’s Transformed workshop, one idea really stuck with me: the best products come from friction. Healthy debate. Clashing ideas. Iterating together until you polish the diamond. Pre-pandemic, friction happened naturally. We also moved through it quicker. It led to quicker collaboration and innovation. Today? Remote friction is fragile, slow, and often avoided altogether. And with that, product innovation takes a hit. If you have any influence, find ways to prioritize in-person time—especially during product discovery. More thoughts - https://lnkd.in/g8uSUe59

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