Transcript: Product Discovery Done Right: Lean Product, Zume Pizza's $420M Failure, and a Live Runkeeper Teardown

Eyal David: [00:00] Hi, this is Eyal. Welcome to Product Builder, the place for the most interesting product conversations. I'm the owner of Userflowzz, and among other things the host of this podcast, and my goal here is for us to improve our product skills together. If this is your first time here, I hope you enjoy it. And if you've already dared and gotten value, I'd really love it if you'd share the podcast with a friend. So come on, let's begin! Hey Yaniv, how's it going? Excellent, how are things? A pleasure, glad you came. Fun times. So with us is Yaniv Yaakobovich, who is actually a founder at Verve PM. Yaniv, go ahead, tell us a few words about yourself.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [00:43] Gladly. So I'm Yaniv, I'm a product management consultant for startups. I grew up in Israel, I was a programmer, a graduate of Mamram. Then I moved to Silicon Valley, I was there almost 14 years. In roles at Google and PayPal and startups. And 4 years ago I came back to Israel. Since then I both work at startups and advise startups, on all the stages of growth and traction.

Eyal David: [01:12] And my passion, which is what we're talking about today, is customers. Mm-hmm. So let's really dive into it. So we wanted to talk about discovery and how to do it right.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [01:21] Let's actually go to a bad example. Why do discovery at all? Great. It's such a bad example that it strengthened my passion for why I love dealing with customers. An example of 420 million dollars. That almost went down the drain. About 6 years ago I joined a startup called Zume Pizza. That's Z-U-M-E. I call it the wrong Zoom. It's a startup that developed robots and almost-autonomous trucks in which you can bake pizza. And on that basis they went and raised a lot of money. 420 million dollars. 370 million. And they built a system to improve the entire food supply chain. Now think how complicated that is. You know how to make pizza. Now go handle the entire food supply chain. Everything from batteries for the cars, all the way to delivery. And there was one small problem. Or big. That we didn't talk to customers. What would often happen at Zume. Or, Zume Pizza started after a few pivots. Or just Zume. It's that a CEO would come with some email saying: we just closed a new deal. And we're going to add milkshakes too. In the trucks. Now we're going to add another pizza competitor. And the product manager. Me. My teammates. We would ask. Okay, so what do we need to build? And he says you'll know soon. In a week there's a call with the account manager. Who talks with the account manager of the milkshake. Or of the pizza. So we'll build. The result was. Like you describe. Not great. Because we didn't really talk to customers. We didn't know what they need. What we need to build. On top of that we actually built B2B. Probably. I say probably because. None of these projects took off enough. In time to transfer. so that we could know what we're really building. So we built a machine. Or connected to a milkshake machine. that could be in the trucks. But. Maybe it never saw a single customer. So wait, sort me out. All this SoftBank. I see another bad investment. Who am I to say, but. I like to say that when I joined. It was. I joined a SoftBank company. When they closed it was. Yeah, I was in a SoftBank company. Quietly like that. And basically the model was like this. You say B2B. Because actually the truck would drive. The pizza was on it. So the truck would position itself. And basically open the pizza shop. Of Palo Alto. Of Mountain View. Of Herzliya. Of Ra'anana. Wherever you put it that day. If it works, great. If it doesn't work. You can, the day after tomorrow or in a month. open a new branch. Instead of in Herzliya. In Petah Tikva. Instead of in Palo Alto. In San Francisco. And you say B2B. So who actually was the customer? So when we started. Or when Zume Pizza started. It was B2C. who need the truck. And the availability of the platform. And our ability. To do delivery. And e-commerce. And everything. Only we didn't connect it well enough. There were a lot of open questions.

Eyal David: [04:42] on each of the projects. So just give us. Some challenge. Some failure. That was there. Actually an example of pizza.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [04:49] So A, we were still burning the pizza. Which sounds funny. But really. When your competition. is Domino's and Pizza Hut and Papa John's. And you're a more expensive pizza. No one cares that you're robots. We didn't know how to do coupons. In the app. Everyone has coupons. We didn't know how to do it. Or it took us a long time. All kinds of things like that. That are supposedly small. We did a lot of things that are almost. Or, in the next version it'll work. And when you do it at scale. That's a serious mistake.

Eyal David: [05:23] It's not only hard to reach a solution that way. That's what you're actually saying. Totally. What do you think is the most correct way to actually do it?

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [05:30] The right way is to talk to customers. As frequently as possible. And as deeply as possible. One of the things I learned. Is a method called Lean Product. Two American guys developed it. I had the privilege of learning it when I was at PayPal. And I decided to bring it to Israel. And basically what that entrepreneur was missing.

Eyal David: [05:54] The entrepreneurs from Zume Pizza. Is a question. You're probably very strong on the industry. But you say they didn't talk. So it wasn't enough. Maybe they did talk to customers.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [06:02] But we in product, who do the work. Didn't talk to customers. And then you basically became a kind of technicians. Totally.

Eyal David: [06:09] And now you actually go around. And you deliver this workshop. This lecture. Really, what reactions do you get from product managers when they hear this?

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [06:20] Excellent reactions. I'd say, for us. For several reasons. In very young startups. On one hand. It's reactions of wow. You helped me organize my thoughts. All the market discovery. And who my customers are. And how I. Even how I and my partners speak the same language. In the mature companies. Another example. Recently. I was at Wix in the last few weeks. And there it was, you helped us refresh what we already know. And when you're constantly running. From quarterly planning to quarterly planning to quarterly planning. This ability to take time. And look anew at the customers. At the market. And at how you build experiments. Is very significant. Great. On the other hand. No one likes their cheese being moved.

Eyal David: [07:08] So, no need to mention. Let's look at the big numbers. When you do deliver it. What counter-reactions do you hear? Counter-reactions are.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [07:15] We already know what to build. We already did personas. Or, not sure. That we need this analysis of the business. Or, we already have a running system. And the main reaction is. This won't convince our engineers. To that I usually say. So bring the engineers to the workshop.

Eyal David: [07:40] That's really interesting. They really never bring them. But there's probably also an ego dimension here. I hear it in there. Because we already ran the path. It's not just moving the cheese. It's a matter like that. So okay. Let's go. We'll now try. to boil down this lecture. Into one episode. You can start. Come on. When we say boil down.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [08:02] we're actually looking at boiling down two full days of workshop. Or, in the leaner version. it's a version in which we think about eight blocks. That start at the top level. And I think we'll share a diagram of this with the audience. At the top level we talk about the business. And the foundation. About its problems and the outcomes they expect. And in a moment I'll explain what that means. At the level below is the users and what outcomes they expect. Between the two are the solutions. Because on one hand you have the business and the user. And where they are now with their problems. On the other side, the ideal outcomes. In between you connect a list of solutions. Either ones you already have. Or, if you're a young company, ones you're just thinking of building. And then below. We have three additional blocks. of what hypotheses we have. And what the things are that we must do the fastest. To identify whether these hypotheses are correct or not.

Eyal David: [09:07] Great. So let's even take it. Let's take an example maybe of a company. And project it onto that so it's easier to follow. Great.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [09:13] Do you have an idea? I thought of doing it on Runkeeper. My favorite running or fitness app.

Eyal David: [09:20] Even though I still don't run well enough. You said that earlier too. So give me a little intro. For me and the listeners about Runkeeper.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [09:27] Great. So Runkeeper, as the name implies. It tracks runs. When you go out for a run, that's where they started. Today it's running, cycling, hiking, swimming. You open the app. There's a big button with a map that says start. Now finally, in these stages of war. The map shows your current location and not Lebanon. It still happens but yeah. It happens but much less. My PR, the longest distance is 101 miles. Because the app started in Lebanon, finished in Ra'anana.

Eyal David: [10:01] Okay but this episode is evergreen. So let's stick to a situation where we don't have such situations. Yeah, totally. So Runkeeper lets you track your run.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [10:12] Times. You can choose voices that will encourage you during the run. You can, if you start paying them, make training plans etc. Yeah, they really stretched. Very well, the line between free and paid. Maybe let's also say, who really is their immediate audience? So that's a very good question. I think when they started, their audience was people who keep fit, who train, usually it's runners. Fast forward to 2016, they sold for 85 million dollars to Asics, the Japanese shoe company. When it was, there was a period back then where everyone was buying fitness apps. Adidas bought two, Under Armour bought one, Nike developed their own, and Runkeeper also went to Asics. And that was the first audience, and then they expanded to everything, to hiking, to swimming and so on. And I think part of their challenge is, who really is their audience? Because if we take Nike for a moment, the audience is at least people who run in Nike, and among them, ideally, those who have some swoosh that Nike provides for shoes. In Runkeeper it's everyone, but you know how they say, when you sell to everyone, then you sell to no one, probably. Really, and I also love the example you took for a company,

Eyal David: [11:35] great domain, don't know if it's a great domain now, it was a great domain, so okay, come on, you're now, how do we take this, you're a PM at Runkeeper? I think actually I'm delivering a workshop at Runkeeper. No, yeah, you come from the side,

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [11:48] fresh eyes, cool. Let's think about the framework we talked about, the Lean Product, and how we'd look at it at Runkeeper. If we start thinking about what Runkeeper's business is, and what its main challenge is, it's how do I ensure I have more paying customers, and if I go a level above Runkeeper, it's how do I as Asics justify the 85 million dollars of this acquisition.

Eyal David: [12:11] Right, so how does Asics make money? Let's start with that. So Asics makes money from shoes and additional gear,

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [12:19] and they got to make money from Runkeeper. A capability they have — their figures I know are not public, unlike the example of Strava, which makes 216 million dollars, if I remember correctly, a year. Runkeeper, the revenue stream is from premium accounts. Those accounts that can do additional features. And I think that's the significant challenge. B2C subscription is always a challenge. Totally. And Runkeeper, when we return, for a moment to the framework, the challenge is how do I give enough value in a premium account, so that people actually upgrade, but still not hurt the free experience. I, as Yaniv, was a Runkeeper subscriber for about two months, and then I realized I'm paying for nothing. Because everything I need, tracking and history, exists. And really, it's a very significant challenge. I think if we continue further in the framework, then the outcomes that would be relevant, for Runkeeper's product people, would be the number of users, would be the ability to increase the number of users, and the number of registered users. You know, we're talking for a moment about metrics, so it's also the number of users per type of sport. Since we're talking about Asics, then probably the number of users per sport type that Asics sells gear to. Let's dwell on this for a moment, on something you said earlier.

Eyal David: [13:43] The matter of where the line runs between free and premium. So really, where do they draw the line, what do they charge money for, when you suggested that...

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [13:51] They charge money for training plans, you can get a plan suited for Losing Weight, a plan suited for 0 to 5K, you know, all these plans, and they charge money for features like more detailed history or statistics, and for me, and this is part of the challenge, I have enough history there, I can see each of my workouts, and they're not critical, in 60% I ran faster than the other 40%. So a question, how many such people are there who are critical? And the market numbers show there's enough of such an audience. Strava's audience is made up of many people who do challenges together, and share maps, and compete with each other. One of the things that... isn't in the Runkeeper example, is there's no whole social element.

Eyal David: [14:46] Meaning that already from some competitive analysis, and looking even inside our data, the user base, you could maybe take some bite out of this cake, for that matter.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [14:55] Totally. And we talked earlier really quickly about the opportunity of maybe launching new products, that address the social elements within Runkeeper. Only you need to do them in a non-creepy way. I talked earlier about... show me who in my area also runs. You said, that sounds scary to me. I heard it — maybe you could do some kind of runner dating, of swipe right, swipe left. Less by looks, more by 'he runs too fast for me.' You know what could be interesting? I don't know their numbers, I'm just throwing it out. But if they work on success, it's really hard to build habits in this. Probably whoever uses this already has a habit, but in any case, if I managed during the free tier to get you to build a habit, that you run three times a week, you become, probably, you enter some of the buckets of users who are engaged, maybe I can work with you on a success model. Totally. Pay me by the kilo. Right, and there are apps that help you cultivate habits etc. Duolingo, for example, does a great job on habits. Me and my son, every day, my reason to open his phone, at night, apart from him using it to watch videos, is because dad hasn't done today's Duolingo yet.

Eyal David: [16:12] You're surely very nice. The question is, where do Runkeeper need to do it, because after all, learning Spanish and a few sentences, is not the same as lacing up shoes and going out for a run, and I'm hot and I'm cold and I'm already on the couch. But for example, a personal coach, yes, to raise engagement.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [16:27] Right. The moment I get addicted to it, then I'll keep it. And then you already enter marketplace dynamics, where you need to bring enough personal coaches who are... Or you bring in AI. Or you bring in AI. That's what Duolingo did. Totally. So okay, let's continue up the model. Great. So the next stage is to think about who the users are. So among the users we've now identified probably also coaches, surely trainees, and trainees have a variety of types, there are the buckets of sporadic trainees of the past, when I run, I want something that will do it for me, there are those who are more regular, there are those who train for a specific goal, here there are a lot of these, and then there are the outcomes they want to reach. The sporadic trainees just want me to have the option to do tracking, that's the outcome relevant to me as that type, I want that every time I run someone saves it for me, and that it's at least as good as my Apple Watch, or like the Google, if there are still those who buy a Google Watch, for users who train for a goal, then I want to know, to set my goal, I want to know that I reached it or didn't reach it, the goal can be to run the marathon, or in the case of the half marathon in San Francisco, by the way highly recommended, and there are those who just want there to be some cadence,

Eyal David: [17:53] make sure I train three times a week. What you're actually saying is, one, I can look at the data, I can look quantitatively, and start grouping the users who are the most engaged, best is engaged and also paying, but we can see the path to payment, actually, of a certain audience, and then create such buckets, and the second thing you say is start creating segmentation, maybe I start asking what your goal is, collect this data and actually create some new groups for me, that I can actually convert eventually into a paying user.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [18:23] Totally. And not only convert them to a paying user, if we jump for a moment into the next bucket which is the solutions, then also to additional features. For example, the conversion funnel of someone who trains for a goal will probably be different, or will certainly be different, from the flow of someone who wants a cadence of three times. Ah, unequivocally, simply my goal, we said,

Eyal David: [18:46] the KPI is to turn them into payers, so I'll do features, I'll do things that led me toward as many paying users as possible. Exactly.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [18:53] Ah, and then if we continue further in the framework, then when we think about solution, there's the solution of the business, those that convert me into a payer, and like I fear Runkeeper does less well, they give enough solutions that help only the users, but not the business. This — do you know the saying that good enough is good.

Eyal David: [19:17] So it does tracking good enough for my half marathon, without paying. How do you crack this of 'let's build something that makes me pay'?

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [19:28] For example, reach goal X, get a shoe voucher, just saying. Totally. And connect it to the physical. So there's a variety of solutions you can do for each of the buckets, and then the significant challenge is, given all this variety of ideas, and this is something I see with a lot of startups, at different stages, how do I start? What am I going to test first? It can be, what even is my market? Am I even in the right buckets, if we're in the Runkeeper example? And here enters the part in the framework that talks about hypotheses and the things to test.

Eyal David: [20:07] One sec, I'll just say that the Runkeeper example is relatively easy, because I have an audience, I have users, there's money flowing; if I'm a starting startup of course it's much harder. In this case too, of the division into buckets, I really can suddenly start asking this audience questions, learn about this audience, about their world.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [20:22] It's much smaller, it's much easier. Right, I'll say that for the small startup, the set of questions will be different, it won't be the segments, it'll be a set of questions like, who am I going to talk to to check if there's pain? Who really is my immediate audience. Exactly. And then I think let's split the discussion for a moment into the Runkeepers of the world, that already have an audience, and the startups that are just starting. Those that already have an audience like Runkeeper, my immediate hypotheses would be, if I do A, like a better feature for goal tracking, then I'll be able to convert the people. And then how am I going to test it? What will be the thing, and this is the seventh box, the immediate thing I need to measure, is that I know how to convert people with a goal. To develop this, it could be something simple like just changing the flow, or I need some AI algorithm. Yeah, look, it could be that we even identify that after three days, just, you train in a streak, there's a 90% probability you become a paying user. It could be much easier things. Right, and then actually what's called for,

Eyal David: [21:29] is to put all these hypotheses, what I put and what you put, and define what's most important for us to test. Is it the streak? Is it even reaching the goal? Is there a difference between the different segments?

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [21:44] And then prepare a test plan. We talk a lot in the field about A/B testing, or multivariate testing, but sometimes it's just simple testing, of just check if you know how to develop this. Do you have the capability in the team, it could be in the team, or just put up a survey of 'How likely are you?' And then how you really test it.

Eyal David: [22:08] I want to stop with you and open a parenthesis for a moment, yeah? Again we return to that small startup, that has no traffic, okay? Or has really little traffic? They want to start doing a test plan; running tests is really complicated, because there's no traffic, and it'll take a lot of time to get significance. How would you approach it? So in the very small startup,

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [22:28] I would define that I want to look for the trends, and I want to back them up with a lot of qualitative tests. And here enters the idea of the things I'm going to test, they're not only the number things, they're also the things the customers tell me, and the behavior that shows a trend. For example, if I won't reach statistical significance even in another year, but I see that 50% or 60% don't do the action I expected, then it's worth stopping for a moment and considering whether I continue this test. That's it. Another thing I think is really benchmarking to the previous period, that's what you're saying. Second thing, I also like in these situations to hide noise, and then put focus on the thing you want to test, just hide things from the screen. Totally. Forcefully, but aggressively, you'll get results pretty fast. Yeah, and I'll say that such an experiment of hiding is much simpler and fits the method very well, more than 'let's now open a better flow.' Let's just narrow it down, like those blinders you put on a horse from both sides so it sees where to go. As few choices as possible, in the secret of psychology, right?

Eyal David: [23:36] Okay, alright. So we return for a moment to Runkeeper? Great. So we talked about Runkeeper, about some

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [23:43] hypotheses they set, and then how you go to test these hypotheses. And here enters the discussion, we talked, it's relevant very much also to a startup. What's the thing I must prove whether it's true or not? Is it — I'll give, at Runkeeper it's that I know how to convert people to payment. Or if I'm Asics, then that I know how to convert at least the Asics customers into payers. Because it's important to me, I want to know I invested my money in the right place, I want to know that... I'm not giving a free app to the whole world. Which is interesting, they have a great distribution channel for Asics, because it sells shoes and it puts the QR or whatever, it probably has, with pretty high probability, a new user; if it gives now, it has premium, why not use it, right? So actually, there's a really good connection to the audience here, now let's crack it. Yeah, the challenge now for this audience is that once they've already bought, how do you get them to really convert from the shoes? Because after all, if they bought, came to buy the Asics shoes, there's a chance they really run. It's not me who buys the... is there a wow there, or isn't there a wow, only that I know? In some there is, but you don't have to have the wow, it's enough that you have better statistics for the shoe, you can enter the shoe model, by the way. But that's another action the user needs to take, if it was only the wow, then I would know it. Totally, and then it's enough that there's on the... like we say in our scenario, that there's a QR code on the box. But that's not enough, because this QR code will open for me the flow, say the Runkeeper signup flow, but there's a challenge of, what if I'm already on Strava, one of the competitors, or... if you managed to bring someone from Strava to scan this QR, kudos, totally. But okay. Or I let them scan it from within Strava. Okay. And then, we cracked that great. If not, and we'll return for a moment to... only those who are already open. How do I use, how do I convert them, so here I need to think very well about what the values I... or what the added value I give them for the payment. Currently, they're not good enough. I tried... every now and then, look, my love for this app — every now and then I try, and always it's... oh, come on, really, it can't be that I'm improving this. And then it could be things like... you know, it's sometimes the carrot and the stick. Today, it's 'upgrade to get some features,' but what if we do an experiment? I don't necessarily recommend it, but at least at the thought level of, until you pay, you won't get part of what you're already used to. For example, until you pay, only running and basketball are open for you. Everything else doesn't exist. What would you do? I, one sec, I have to interrupt.

Eyal David: [26:27] Users like you who have, I don't know how many years of data there. 14, not pleasant to say. And they'd tell you, well, you have two weeks, before this data is retired into the peace wall. Would that affect you? There are probably more users like you coming. Totally. I'm sure so.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [26:44] I hope they'd do it, and you know, here there are all the tricks of how you sunset products. I hope they let me export it. I don't know if I would export it. And that's it, what would you do with it, with this XML? Nothing. Just the knowledge that it's my data. But I think then I would pay. Because there's something nice, actually, in this experience of knowing how much I ran and how much it... It could be there are additional elements, and today there's almost none of this in Runkeeper, of giving people features to taste from the premium. Today it's either you run for free, or you upgrade. If you look at almost every app, there are excellent experiences of free trial. And here it's rare that you see it. Let's say even if there is, they don't promote it in any way in the app. And we're talking about something I would know, because I use it every day. They do use notifications nicely, but it's mainly 'here comes the holiday season, come run.'

Eyal David: [27:47] More marketing-y, you say. There's no 'take seven days and try this feature.' There's no things like a year-in-review

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [27:55] like Spotify, or like Duolingo. Duolingo made a great year-in-review experience. We keep coming back to here, because I probably really love them. And at Runkeeper there's nothing. What did your year look like? There was once, truthfully, a few years ago they sent me a year-in-review email, I keep it to this day in my Outlook.

Eyal David: [28:17] It's so old that it's still in Outlook. It's really interesting what you say, because really I don't know their data, but probably users, the more they're invested in the app in terms of time, that's also a thing you don't want to lose. A bit like a streak, right?

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [28:30] And Duolingo, same idea. That's probably the game you can play here, that's one direction. The second thing that's also interesting, is that in the end someone will pay them, in my opinion — it's users who are very engaged, who run a lot or whatever. It could be you can identify some fraction where you can actually start, say you just ran, don't know what, eight kilometers, features suddenly open up for you, for the remaining time you have left. And then you get this taste, and if you pay, you'll get it actually for all your run. If I did something different than usual, then encourage me. If I usually run not eight kilometers, but three, and today I ran four, tell me, celebrate with me. Really, this coach we talked about, right?

Eyal David: [29:14] So we say this without knowing the product's numbers, the product's audience well enough, really interesting. Maybe, by the way,

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [29:22] really, if I had such a plan... like you said, there's actually the year-in-review, I'd want to share it, because I want to show off the thing. Totally. So what comes out is that even their share is crooked. They have a share today, that's been running for a few years, it's the same share, they didn't change it, where you can, in every activity you do, add a photo. So I add all kinds of photos, and even give some cute text relevant to me, like the name of the podcast I listened to or such, and then when you press share, it shows you the photo with the figure of how much you ran, with a link full of letters, to the run. so that whoever sees the share — run, walk, also when I walk with the family in the park, I do a share with a cute photo like that — and then it leads you to the flow of, the first thing you see is, 'Yaniv blocked the activity for privacy reason.' What, like, there are so many better ways to persuade people, to make it engaging, without the privacy — thanks, don't reveal to everyone, in proportion, but tell me, hey, you too can do Runkeeper. That's it, route sharing, it's really an interesting thing. Okay, so

Eyal David: [30:30] we don't have a ton of hypotheses here, what would you do at the next stage, actually — would you start running them, would you start getting some data, also qualitative you say, actually...

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [30:38] So at the next stage I'd define which hypothesis is most important to me. I think the most important hypothesis for me is that there's an opportunity in customers who already paid me once, like me. And who still use the app. And the second hypothesis, or the second thing that's most important to me, is that I know how to convert people without them being offended at all by the app. And the third is that people who use the app more are more likely to convert. And then I'd try to see what's the most minimal thing I can do to test it. And here it's off the cuff, it's use... A, it's true for every test you do, use resources you already have. You already have notifications, just change the microcopy. You already use notifications with good microcopy, make sure when they move to the right link within the app; if they moved to the right link within the app, make sure there's the right microcopy there. How many times have you experienced that the team of the microcopy of the notification didn't talk with the team of the microcopy in the app, and you start over. Really, really. And there's another matter here, I think totally. Naturally, to know it came from there, and there wasn't suddenly some marathon that everyone ran in. Totally. I assume a company this size knows how to measure, for the startup companies I'll say, measure as much as you can, put in logs, let the logs explode sometimes, but let them be meaningful enough to measure, and sometimes the things aren't even development things, sometimes the tests, maybe not in Runkeeper's case, but in other cases your checks can be simply 'talk with more customers.' And very important, if we're talking about customers, and we talked earlier about Zume Pizza etc., very important that all these checks etc. be focused on users, not on how good the PM is, but on how relevant it really is to what the users, from boxes 4 and 5, sorry, 3 and 4, want to achieve. Because whoever puts something that only serves the business, and importantly, somehow hurts the user — the example we gave about 'let's delete all his data.' So that's very tactical, that's the parenthesis. Because we want to actually create sustainable products here. Totally. Sustainable, that customers love. Bullseye. That's probably what makes them sustainable, really.

Eyal David: [33:10] Totally. Maybe unlike the postal service. And actually tell me, if now you're a PM at Runkeeper, took now all the things we summarized here, what really is the first thing? Which one would you recommend starting with?

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [33:26] I think a simple system of notifications, that land me in the payment flow,

Eyal David: [33:34] with context of who I am and what they know about me. Interesting, because this is an excellent point, I think about myself as a user of this app, I turn off notifications for almost everything, but for this one I actually wouldn't turn them off, because I'd want them to remind me, so I'd feel bad about myself and go out to run. So probably you also support this, interesting. So okay, in terms of model, when you present this thing to more mature companies, for that matter, how do you, do you stay in touch with them after this? How do you know that they actually used this methodology?

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [34:09] So usually it's also staying in touch with them, and doing with them some accompaniment on the execution of this planning, and there's an additional element of, how do you make it an integral part of the day-to-day. Because it's very easy after such a workshop to go back to the backlog that already existed, and it stays at the level of a post-it on the wall, and here the accompaniment helps a lot. And after some time, after some iterations of this model, or some teams that worked with it, you see that the companies do it independently. It becomes part of the thing, and at least, you know, even if they don't always enter experiment mode, it raises, from almost zero to much closer to one, the attention to customers,

Eyal David: [34:54] which is my real passion. Well, you should have started there, intriguing. Cool. So let's also add to this that actually, you did for us here both the free version versus the two days, so actually from here you continue on to Gong.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [35:09] Want to give a few words on it? Yes, one of the things I love to do is teach more people about product, and expose people to what product management is, and where it sits in the organization. We did a series of meetups, and today's meetup, at the company Gong, talks exactly about customer discovery, and we bring a panel of speakers, from Gong and not from Gong, who talk about how you do customer discovery right, what works, what works less. Great company, Gong. Totally.

Eyal David: [35:38] Well, we'll put a link in the show notes, so you can also produce some — really get the model, I see you put a screenshot here for us, great, and if you have more things you want to add, that we didn't get to talk about, great.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [35:53] What we haven't talked about yet, I think, is that once it works in one department, that you managed to gain a foothold in an organization, then you can actually suddenly scale across the whole organization.

Eyal David: [36:00] Totally.

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [36:03] This connection to more departments, and the ability to think customers, is cross-organizational. Let's start in his department, with the championing of the product, we'll add the UX, we'll also get the buy-in from engineering, the rest will be fine. Yeah, I think buy-in from engineering is super interesting,

Eyal David: [36:21] and really, through product you can percolate it to the rest of the organization. That's a whole other episode. That we did with Yael Shamir, alright, it was a great episode in my view — first of all, it delivered great value, which is what we talked about. I want to ask you, on this optimistic note, where do you see Yaniv in ten years, beyond continuing to run of course,

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [36:42] and collecting data? Running and collecting data is nice. I see myself as a kind of head of a product agency, that teaches how you do product, does product through the product manager, remember, in a variety of organizations, whether young ones like startups, or older ones. There's something in this mission of

Eyal David: [37:05] what product is and how you do it right, that I really connect to. Me too. Tell me, and how does one contact you, whoever wants to?

Yaniv Yaakubovich: [37:13] You can simply find me on LinkedIn, you can also on my website, verv.pm.com

Eyal David: [37:20] Great. Yaniv, what fun that you came. Thank you very much for having me. I had super fun. Me too. Come on. Bye for now. Hey friends, thanks for listening. If you found this podcast valuable, you can subscribe, follow us, of course, for more episodes, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other app. And of course if you didn't find us on some app, I'd love for you to write to us. We'd be very happy for five stars, on any platform, and for you to follow us, so that more listeners can be exposed to us, and find the podcast. You can also find the previous episodes, on any app, or on the YouTube channel, we have links in the description. Until next time, come on, be efficient, and bye bye.