Transcript: Networking as a Career Engine: LinkedIn, Relationships, and Conferences with Itai Horn

Itai Horn: [00:01] I think that throughout my entire journey I've genuinely relied a lot on this skill, on this networking muscle, and I really believe in it.

Eyal David: [00:12] Hey Itai, how's it going? Hey Eyal, thanks for having me. So Itai comes to us from the world of e-commerce, marketplace, leading a lot of initiatives — his current role at Gro, where he manages product managers. Itai, go ahead and explain a bit about your role in a sentence.

Itai Horn: [00:28] So basically I lead the B2B Marketplace product at Gro, and I'm responsible for all the B2B marketplace domains, which essentially serve the group's sites — from Gro, to MyOffer, to Brady's malls.

Eyal David: [00:44] Wow, I didn't know there were so many brands under Gro.

Itai Horn: [00:49] Just close the loop for us — how many such sites are there? How many users pass through these sites? Three sites, hundreds of thousands of users, and a lot more transactions and other things going on inside the organization. Amazing, so why do you actually say B2B — just to close the loop? Basically, the marketplace system is very similar to what Shopify does, Mirakl, and other systems, and we built a system like that from scratch to meet the needs of the B2C sites. Wow, and is it mainly Israeli sites?

Eyal David: [01:18] It's mainly Israeli sites, yes. Amazing, okay, we learned something. Alright, so Itai — let me tell a bit about you, Itai was actually an investment manager at U-Bank, right, that's where you started, you also studied economics, I remember you from your student days. And since then Itai worked at his first job at Retalix as a product manager, after that he worked at Zap, at Gloops — sorry, a startup of Natural Intelligence — and also at Gro. On top of that, Itai is also a lecturer — Itai lectures on product at John Bryce, and he's also a mentor at Product League, right?

Itai Horn: [01:48] Correct.

Eyal David: [01:50] Itai, do you want to tell us a bit about your transition from... banker, investment advisor, investment banker — correct me?

Itai Horn: [01:56] Yes, investment manager. Investment manager, thanks. Before that. How was the transition? Yeah, cool, so really, as an investment manager and analyst in U-Bank's mutual funds, I was heavily involved in analyzing technology companies and technology stocks — both qualitative analysis, understanding their technological products, and business and financial understanding, and while analyzing many companies, I also published a few analyses in some newspapers and publications, and I realized that what really interests me is not just to analyze and write about them and understand whether they create value, but also to actually join those companies, to start having an impact business-wise and technologically, and to genuinely create the impact from within. Do you remember a company that kind of opened your mind? So I think mainly analyses of companies like EMC, VMware, a few such companies that were leaders at the time — I got to analyze them, really dive into their products, and then realize how genuinely interesting they are.

Eyal David: [03:04] Well, of course, you went for the monsters — respect. So basically, your first role, Retalix — how did you get there?

Itai Horn: [03:11] Right. So I think I was really excited about Retalix's product, and mainly — I think we'll talk about this a lot today on the podcast — I see the path to getting into product roles as two things. First, these worlds and this key factor called networking. I really love this thing, I think it's something that can really help anyone who wants to get into the world of product, and specifically to land roles. And the second thing is the world of the knowledge factor — understanding the company in depth. The Retalix story was that I really had a good friend who worked there as a product owner, and I understood they were looking for an entry-level role like that — product junior, product owner. So I talked with her a lot, understood a bit of the essence of the role, what needs to be done to pass the interviews, to get to know the company, what to work on, where to put the focus. I prepared for it, really did the process well, and managed to get in. I think that throughout my whole journey I really relied a lot on this skill, on this networking muscle,

Eyal David: [04:25] and I strongly believe in it. Now let's move to your current role, and tell me what it is — or more accurately, in your view, what is product management in your eyes?

Itai Horn: [04:35] I think product management breaks down into many layers — you also need to be very much a people person, to have very, very good soft skills, to know how to lead without authority, whether it's development, whether it's other product managers, and of course to know how to communicate really well, both internally and externally — external customers, marketing, sales, and other stakeholders who genuinely want to come and help, and ultimately to deliver. You also need to be a very, very strong deliverer, to be an executor, and to succeed at execution, and to have that spatial vision, to really understand what matters — which you actually touched on earlier, I lecture on this, on prioritization and roadmapping, how you really understand what's important and how you create a roadmap for the short term and also the long term.

Eyal David: [05:25] To work on what matters — that's true, even beyond product. Alright, so let's dive into networking, which is really the skill you chose to focus on,

Itai Horn: [05:35] we prioritize this too. So it's hard, there was... So you wanted to start with LinkedIn. Yes, I think, to give a bit of context here, I think the goal here is really to give tools to all kinds of people who want to get into these worlds of product, and to see how I can help from my knowledge and experience. I think there are a few cases — true also for people already inside product, yes, at every stage of the career, and also the persona looking to break into these worlds, and the persona looking to advance in these worlds of product, or into more senior roles, or into more significant companies — and networking is something very, very significant. I'd divide it into three things, and there are of course many other things. First, there's LinkedIn — a professional network for finding opportunities, and for improving, essentially getting professional leads. The second thing I'm proud of is the world of building relationships at all levels, externally and internally. I'll expand on this shortly. The third thing is essentially our ability to get to conferences, both as a participant and as an attendee, and how to do it better and in a way that gives us value in the end.

Eyal David: [06:50] And I'll challenge you a bit — I don't know if it's challenging, but if we have to prioritize among these three, which would you point to? What's most worth starting with, in terms of what I'll invest versus what I'll get back?

Itai Horn: [07:03] So I think anyone can come and open a LinkedIn profile, read about companies they really love, publish posts, be active, and also create connections. I'd start with LinkedIn and also, in parallel, keep it on top of my mind all the time, building these relationships, both inside a company I end up at and outside the company. You don't know where the next lead will come from — it could be on a flight to Rhodes and it could be at the grocery store. Do you want to expand on the flight to Rhodes? What happened there? Yes, I happened to fly, I think it was a year or two ago, on a family trip. I happened to sit next to Adi, the VP HR of NSO, and during the conversation we discovered that we had also worked together in HR in the past, so it really created for me... let's say, the background and the good connection to come and talk with her. And I think that ability — to come and identify all sorts of situations — you need to be prepared for them. And one of the things is really to always know, and to elevate your pitch — to know what you're going to say and how you're going to say it. And really work on it, work on it throughout the year, both when you're looking for opportunities and when you're not looking for opportunities.

Eyal David: [08:23] Interesting, so basically you're saying you created a kind of pitch, an elevator pitch, centered around Itai, that essentially describes you in thirty seconds for that purpose?

Itai Horn: [08:32] Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Something that's also... it's a pitch that's also very much tailored to whoever I'm talking to. If it's someone more technological, someone more business-oriented, or someone more analytical, I tailor the pitch, and I know very, very quickly how to come and talk about the main things that this person will want to hear.

Eyal David: [08:52] How to actually get what I want to achieve, or how I can help them and provide the value. Interesting, this actually connects a bit to LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great way, maybe to check which topics are interesting or which topics are worth focusing on.

Itai Horn: [09:04] If you want to check, or if you want to see, as mentioned, what can work. And I think, really in the context of LinkedIn — we talked about this earlier — if I really wanted to give a few tips, say, to a person now who wants to get into the world of product and hasn't been there yet. Then I'd recommend that young manager to also dig deep into the content on LinkedIn. Say, for example, someone who wants to get into the world of AI in product — read a lot about Microsoft, about Google, about ChatGPT, about Bard, about other platforms that keep emerging and renewing. And start publishing content, even if you're not really involved in it — but start trying to distill the information and then publish content about it, do the reach-out to people, to leaders in the industry, and I think that can really give them value. Wow, here you touched on something I'm really curious about.

Eyal David: [09:56] As mentioned, adding people to my network is very easy, right, but there are people who will come and say, well, publishing content now... First, maybe I'm shy; second, maybe I'm completely new to product, maybe I'm not in product, I want to get into product — so what would I publish? I feel uncomfortable. And maybe there are even people who want to change jobs, suddenly they want to start investing in their network, and then it'll look like they're...

Itai Horn: [10:20] thinking about themselves. So there are these aspects — how do you relate to that? So I think I really know these risks and people's perspective, what you're touching on. There's a time... this connects to my previous tip, that you need to be involved in these networking worlds all the time, and also not to be afraid and to go ahead and publish, even if, let's say, the post doesn't succeed the way you wanted and doesn't go viral, you still got exposure, you still tried it out, you still see the... you basically came and researched a topic, and focused on a topic, and really every...

Eyal David: [10:57] in every place you publish, with every piece of research you do, every idea, the work is another layer and another thing that can help you move forward. There's also the point that even if you want to be in product and you're already in the industry, then you probably have things you can publish that touch on your content area — if I'm a developer, right, Itai? Maybe you have something to expand on this.

Itai Horn: [11:16] Absolutely, definitely. There's a lot of movement between R&D people — many times R&D people become product and are very successful, coming from the R&D world too, who can give a lot of value in this context, of explaining from the technical side and often understanding things that are very, very important to the world of product. And in general, even people from outside the industry who want to get into the industry — it can help them understand what product actually is.

Eyal David: [11:42] How you can get into it and what you need to do to get into these worlds. And if we take Itai for a second, who was at U-Bank, and now put him in a time machine, and suddenly there's LinkedIn, and LinkedIn also works, then I probably also would use LinkedIn...

Itai Horn: [11:56] What would you recommend I do now, Itai — Itai the investment banker? Yes, so I think really, if you want to advance in a certain field and it's with the help of LinkedIn, then really... one of the tips is to make contact with the market leaders in that segment. The second tip is to come and read a lot of content, both on LinkedIn and on all sorts of other platforms, and to dig deep into the content. And the third tip is to know how to come and try to distill the information and publish it, basically make a post about it, comment on all sorts of posts — and I think that's very, very valuable. And I'd also be happy to give a few tips regarding conferences, because I think that's also...

Eyal David: [12:33] Conferences connect to these worlds. My... a product conference can really help from them. So let's touch on conferences, let's give them their own block. Let's get into it. So if we just think about Itai — I'm just anchoring this because it seems like a good example. Itai can do case studies on companies he analyzed, from the perspective of a banker who looks at the financial aspect of the thing, right, and also the business aspect of it.

Itai Horn: [12:54] Looking maybe at a company, really among companies he'd want to reach. That's probably good content. Absolutely — I also see a lot of folks from the world of tech and product, and from the world of investments, who now in recent years are getting into LinkedIn and creating a lot of content. Tons of analyses, both fundamental analyses and macro and micro analyses. I think that can really help all the industries. It's really interesting that in recent years,

Eyal David: [13:21] at least in Israel, a lot more industries have entered these worlds of LinkedIn and really started taking part. So basically what you're saying about the personas you defined earlier is simply: publish, no matter where you come from and no matter, what you talk about — basically, just go and do a bit of research beforehand, find something that interests you, publish, and start growing your network.

Itai Horn: [13:43] Excellent. Wow, I see you reached eleven thousand followers or connections. I think that's with a lot of work, both publishing content and all sorts of things I did around going to conferences related to product and LinkedIn stuff, really years of work on how I truly grow my network, and I think today I really, I try both to add and to reach people who are relevant to me, and I also get a lot of leads from it — people who are genuinely relevant to my worlds.

Eyal David: [14:21] Alright, Itai, you just talked about a panel and about how you grew your network on LinkedIn. Now really try to break down how a person can, over the course of 24 hours, take this thing and soar with it to the skies like you did.

Itai Horn: [14:34] I think it's very much connected to consistency, being consistent in what you do. I really love these worlds of networking and LinkedIn in particular, and I've basically been, for about the last ten years, very consistent with these worlds. What does that mean? I want to make this really concrete for a second — so what does it mean to be consistent? What do you recommend now, I get on LinkedIn, how often do I publish, what do I publish, how does it work? It means, both on the side of publishing content — and how often — at least if you want to be there and be present and grow your network, at first at least you need to publish more, that's once a week, content that's meaningful, in-depth content, after you've done the research. And also to work on it — to do, yes, do a lot, send connections to certain people, to people you want. Literally get up in the morning and tap-tap-tap, manage it, send these connections. I think also over time, as you grow your network and also succeed more with your posts, you'll also get a lot of connection requests from leading people, and it'll also be easier for you. You'll grow your network faster, and that's how your network will grow. Amazing. And tell me, from your experience — first of all, there are tons of AI tools you can work with today, do you have any recommendations you'd like to share? So I think the usual tools, from ChatGPT to Copilot to Bard — whoever also prefers not to work in English, well, you've got Bard in Hebrew too, indeed. Absolutely. That's a very, very important point. I think you must publish in English, of course for whoever wants to reach the global and tech companies, but also often, I think I found value in publishing both in Hebrew and in English. It depends where you're aiming, which target audience, and how you want to... often how you want to improve your English, and I think you need to do a lot of A/B tests in these worlds.

Eyal David: [16:39] So let's touch on this. So how did you actually start writing content, how do you actually know that's the direction you're going in, what's your strategy, how does it work?

Itai Horn: [16:48] So my strategy — I'll give you an example from the conferences I go to and how I publish the content about the conferences. I usually tend to come, take a few topics that were at the conference that are very, very interesting, and distill the insights from those conferences, prepare a post with those insights, tag the people who lectured, the companies that were at those conferences, and then basically promote it both within LinkedIn and outside LinkedIn. And it's quite interesting, because you basically touch on all sorts of topics — you're basically like an archaeologist starting to dig, there's a topic that brought you more engagement, so you basically create more content around it, that's basically how it is. Absolutely, absolutely. And also, you know, it's a kind of A/B testing on posts. You know, you tried all sorts of posts that did work and did give you lots of shares, lots of likes, and posts that worked less, and you can also dig deep and understand when it's best for you to publish. You can also research in depth — there are all sorts of studies on when it's best to publish content. Whether it's a lot of text, which images, more... it's really worlds of optimization, how you want to come and publish,

Eyal David: [17:51] content that will be viral and give you value. So it's like you're saying, if it's at the beginning, just look at what you can produce with AI, and on LinkedIn too you can see a lot of others' content and we can basically take from there. Absolutely, others' content too — people who are influencers, of course, your AI to publish,

Itai Horn: [18:10] that you take any post you want and refine it with the AI, but always add your own human touch, because in the end there's a person looking at your posts or at the content you upload.

Eyal David: [18:20] Absolutely. Yeah, alright, so let's touch on conferences. Conferences, as mentioned... So if we talked about the LinkedIn skill, which is of course probably easier to execute, then let's now talk about conferences, which is probably mainly your forte, no? Yes, absolutely. Conferences — first of all, let's take a second and focus this on the world of product management here in Israel, and in general.

Itai Horn: [18:40] Abroad, there are a few very significant conferences in Israel. The big conferences are Product X and PM Live by Berg Danin. I've already been a few times at these conferences, and it gave — the way I saw it — a lot of value, both in terms of networking and in terms of knowledge about companies, and understanding what they do and where they want to be, and I think there are also these big conferences that can be very, very effective, and also a lot of smaller meetups. You find them a lot in Facebook groups, on WhatsApp, Telegram, and other groups you can reach. Let's give an example of a meetup I really love going to — there's a meetup called Secret Product Club, a meetup by alumni of Gong and the like, and basically at this meetup there's a certain group of senior product people in the industry who, within the meetup, do a round table of a few

Eyal David: [19:40] product people, and talk about topics in depth. So let me ask you — you seem like a very organized guy, you prepare — say you go to a big conference like that, not talking about meetups, do you prepare for it?

Itai Horn: [19:50] So I think I basically try to understand what the agenda is, essentially, yes — yours or the conference's, also from the conference agenda. And I'm already very, very used to it, but if I were giving tips to a young product manager, how to come to these conferences, then yes, I think it's important to come and understand what the agenda is, which people are going to be at this conference, and whether it matches your expectations and what you want to achieve from it. You need to come,

Eyal David: [20:16] very prepared with expectations, why you want to achieve from this conference, both in terms of the network and in terms of the knowledge. Let's bring this down to practice for a second — now you're going to a conference, throw me the name again, I...

Itai Horn: [20:26] So let's take Product X for this purpose. Amazing, how do you prepare, what do you want to get out of the conference, if you're a junior PM? Let's take that. So if you're a junior PM, I think also to gain as much knowledge as possible, about the products and companies that interest you, that present at that conference, and also as many leads as possible from all sorts of existing product people, in order to manage to land a business opportunity, or in order to manage to land some business partnership, or anything else you can get from the conference.

Eyal David: [21:01] Okay, I went to the conference, and now comes the awkward stage, right, that many of us feel. Cool, I planned who I want to approach, I really need to go up and join the conversation — so that's also a muscle,

Itai Horn: [21:14] what do you recommend here, do you have any recommendation? So honestly, just as you're a bit afraid, most people are also afraid the same way — both to come to a conference and be exposed, and to come and do the pitch and talk, and people are afraid to come and speak in front of everyone, so consider that not only are you afraid this way — everyone is afraid. I think just come and jump into the cold water, and come and start doing introductions. Many times you come, and you arrive at conferences, and often, you feel it's not clicking with someone, so you shouldn't give up — be determined and come and try to talk with more people, and listen to more talks, and in the end I think that over time, when you're very, very consistent and determined, it can give you a lot of value over time — it's a numbers game, that's what you're basically saying, yes, and also that, and in the end it's — the moment you actually do it, even if many times beforehand you're afraid, you really feel you jump into the water and you did something here,

Eyal David: [22:12] so basically this also brings us back to the pitch you mentioned earlier — to sharpen, sharpen, sharpen. Do you have any resource or reference you can recommend in this context? I think this pitch of how to actually improve — I'd say a pitch, but also really like you say, it can start now with dominating conferences and creating panels there — or did you specialize in that, how does it work?

Itai Horn: [22:33] So I think really, if you look a bit at the world of conferences, then there's, say, Bizzabo, who are very interesting in these areas, and other interesting tools — you need to come and analyze what you as a user, or what you as a participant... [unintelligible audio] ...advancing to it again... pointless... you, that there are architects in Facebook into the conference... [unintelligible audio] ...so there's a highlight moment, like that :) [unintelligible audio] ...about networking... And I think these conferences and meetups are a really good tool, and I think there are also webinars, which are also good — better for knowledge, whereas the physical conferences give more, more value. What's the thing that, really looking back — we're being very practical here — so what's the thing. you really managed to gain from a conference, if you look back? I think coming and gaining a few leads for business opportunities and for the roles I wanted at the companies I wanted. It's not that I walked out of a conference and walked into a job — it means I created a personal connection, or say a semi-personal connection, with someone valuable at some company, and over time I built that connection through other conferences. Through LinkedIn a bit, and I nurtured that connection, and then it created all sorts of things for me. It's possible it also didn't create anything, but it did create more and more horizons for me. I love this — let's really talk about the next thing, which is really relationships. I think this is of course super relevant for product managers who need to drive other people, but tell us from your personal experience in your career. So I really got to be in startups and in corporates, in small companies with many product managers, also as a product manager. leading, and also leading product people. I think it's very, very important, especially when you lead product or lead product people, to come and know. constantly improve your soft skills — how you approach people, how you read different people, all the different functions within organizations, and how you manage to drive those people. To rally them to the mission. I usually go with the approach — I really, really love personal relationships, so I go with a partner approach that I really love, getting. people who work with me — regardless of whether they report to me or are my subordinates or I work with them as peers — to be my partners. How do you do that, go ahead. It's also the ability to come and talk with them both on a professional level and to show them that there's someone here who comes with value and can help them. And also very, very often it's your turn to make it light and talk on a personal level, eye to eye — eye to eye, of course, eye to eye is very, very important. And along the way, communication is very important — we touched on this earlier. We wanted to touch on it, we didn't quite touch on it, so let's touch on it in this context — really, the moment you build a roadmap. Whether or not you try, whether it's a long thing or a short thing, you have to give a sense and involve your various stakeholders, from marketing to sales, management, and of course R&D. And give them a sense that they're actually a full partner in building the roadmap. And that's later how you really do execution and really meet the execution — sorry — of everyone. So basically what you're saying is that you mainly communicate with them, you give them a right, a right to them. How does that come to expression? I also communicate with them, also listen to them, do active listening. And also involve them during the building of the roadmap and optimization — we touched earlier on RICE, so in practice I really, more on B2C products, prioritize by RICE, basically doing the scoring for each of the elements, for the reach, for the impact. Well, you really have the place to hear the inputs, because that strengthens for you — yes, yes — in the comparison between the features, and also trying to understand the motivation of each business requirement, where it comes from and what it's really supposed to... how it's supposed to serve us and how it's supposed to give us value. It's also very, very important to know and to communicate — many times also to know and say no to different stakeholders, and to explain what the value of other features or other products is. Super interesting. I think maybe we'll touch on this in another course of yours, or do you have some video or content you can share about RICE? I have a video where I lecture in one of the product courses on roadmaps and on prioritization — I'm happy to share it. Okay, send me the link and we'll add it. Amazing. And I think, let's move toward the conclusion — so basically your recommendations, you can of course recommend books, films, podcasts, fun points. So I'll recommend, first, a book called Hooked — it's excellent, also for product people who are in the industry — Hooked by Nir Eyal, a well-known professor from Stanford. It's good both for product people who are in the industry and for people who want to get into the world of product. I even built a whole presentation on it — I lecture on it in the product management course at John Bryce, and basically it talks about how to create products. that are driven by habit — that whole habit loop of trigger, action, reward, of course. I'd be happy to share and expand on it both on my LinkedIn and, again, trying — on a podcast or lecturing in other talks. And I think, in summary, my biggest advice to product people both in the industry and to people who want to get in is really the world of networking — put a very, very strong emphasis on networking, and on the other hand, to stand out and have a broad network.

Eyal David: [28:51] Sounds important and sounds good, and your most practical recommendation is basically to get on LinkedIn and start working there.

Itai Horn: [28:58] My most practical recommendation is to get on LinkedIn, start working there, and in parallel to always do networking — not only when you're looking for roles, but also during work, to dedicate time to it.

Eyal David: [29:09] And I think over time you'll see the fruits from it. And I'm looking here for one more small recommendation — is there someone on LinkedIn worth, of course besides you and me, worth following, to see the content they produce and maybe really look at them as a reference?

Itai Horn: [29:24] So I think in this world of product, the most prominent is Nir Eyal, who wrote both Hooked and Indistractable, and also puts out a lot of content, and he's very, very connected to the tech industry in Israel — very interesting, and worth reading his books too.

Eyal David: [29:38] Amazing. Well, Itai, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much, it was a lot of fun, I'm looking forward to next time. Thanks. Amazing, alright, bye for now.