YouSaid · the spoken record

Ebi Atawodi

lines on the record: 107
first: 2023-12-03
most recent: 2023-12-03
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Is this an FYI? Are you saying there's a problem? Do you want me to, you know, help? So just even just something as simple as that. I'm just giving, right? Because PMs, it's like we're constantly influencing, right? By bringing clarity. So the clarity, all the stuff we just talked about, coming up with a list of problems, you know, greedy, trying to understand what customers care about, all you're doing is bringing clarity so that when you're in a room and someone is going off and doing, you know, actually we don't need that research. I feel like we all know that that's a problem. Like we don't need that research. Instead of doing foundational research or doing, let's do UX fabrication where the time comes. That's the kind of clarity you can break that saves cycles. So that's the clarity piece. And if you think about what you think about what clarity is, you define clarity. It's this transparency. It's the simplicity of understanding.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I use, I sort of say clarity and conviction. And that's what product management is. It's like and you have conviction, right? And so you find a lot of time, we've just talked about a number of things, all of those things, what they're doing is bringing clarity. And that clarity especially is to the problem. So, you know, even when I'll just give you a little tactical thing, I noticed there's some PMs who will send an email and I read the email, I'm like, what do you want me to do?”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it went with an infrastructure piece. I know it's a nugget on the side, but infrastructure is the product. Period. Like people like, oh, tech debt. I'm like, yes, the product debt. I cannot build a skyscraper on a shaky foundation. So it is your problem too. It's not for the engineer to be barging on the door about this problem. So that's the other one I'll just call out. That in itself is a problem as well.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You were to solve this problem, what it looks like, just start there, right? Just start there. And then if you can at least convince yourself, I don't so much care about the deck. The deck helps absolutely or the pictures and the box. If you can tell the story of like, this is a problem and this is the world I see. Imagine a world that enough, that in itself is already you evangelizing the vision.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know top 10 things you should know, but you don't even start with to 10. I start with 10 and actually I always end up with top three. So in every deck, I'll have three things, like three numbers or four numbers. We just got a new chief product officer at YouTube, right? Because we all know Henry, I'm not the CEO. When I did my presentation to her, the opening sign is four things you should know. These four numbers and four, like four insights. And so it's like she walks away with that information now. So it's like, that is probably the most, like, it needs to be visceral and crisp and clear. And then from that, just for yourself, have fun with it. Take out a posted note and sketch.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll give a 1.5. I think it's number one. It baffles me and it begs, you know, I'm somebody who came into product. I don't have a sort of product management career. I came into product. And I've done that now at Uber and Netflix and Google. And it still baffles me the number of people where when I say, tell me the top problems that keep you up at night. And then I rambling. I'm like, what are we talking about? Like, why are we rambling? This is literally the thing that you come to work. This is the thing that should excite you. So like, I cannot overemphasize this importance of like”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All have a variation of a vision that's a three year thing. Now, when they're going into like a sort of micro vision, so that's kind of what a macro vision, where maybe they're solving a small problem, right? Then they'll just do a mock of what that thing looks like next year. And then in that mock, they'll present like, this is the mock of what we think it should look like. That is a vision. It's a micro vision, but it is a vision. So do that. And that's the thing they used to say, hey, leadership, this is the problem statement. Here's what we think. How might we solve this big problem? And here's what we think it looks like when we ship it. That's a mini vision. So that's what I'm talking about is this macro vision, but you absolutely can have the micro ones along the way.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think if you have to repeat the vision every year, you have not created a good, haven't done the work. So, you know, I'll give you an example of the one at Uber. What we kept doing was we would bring more fidelity to actually parts of the vision, right? So we had a low fidelity mock that we'll add a higher. Then at one point we did a sizzle reel and actually had like if this thing is live. But we're not creating multiple visions. Remember all the things you read a desk on every table. It's not like every year it's changing or going to Mars. It's not every year. It's something that you literally rinse and repeat. So the vision is something that is evergreen and in my mind at least three years. However, at the sort of, and I'm talking about PMs from L4 all the way to L7 and my team, which is kind of like from a junior PM senior PM all the way to GPN in my org.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Opened it first with our team mission, and it was like we have these short links that Google sent Google Studio Vision. And people just get excited just seeing it. So it's really this evergreen thing that is we're talking four, five years. It's not the next six months, right? It's the next six months do the tweet.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We go back to the four parts of the vision. We said lofty. A vision, if a vision is something that's coming next year, write a newsletter. Write the newsletter, the headline article version or do the mock, like when you're really getting into a vision, you're talking about something that almost feels attainable but realistic. So it's a long-term thing, right? And so you do the work and you take that time because you know that the rewards when you get everyone rowing in the same direction will mean a lot more velocity. And the ripple, I talked about evangelizing within the company. It's everything. When I start talking to a candidate, I say, hey, my team's mission as expression meets connection. Our vision is this. Then their eyes are like, you can see the twinkle, right? And so the ripple effect of this thing is just broad and big. My engage partner was just hiring for role. And in the job description.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wallet that can be used for all of them, and we had Mox and what that looked like. So go as big as possible. Go big. Let people tell you to pull back. Let your manager use a lasso and pull you back. Like go as much as possible. So they go to leadership and then I have leadership and amplifying that story as much as possible. So those are the three concentric circles. Core team, the people who will actually build this thing, stakeholders, the people that need to be bought in for this thing to be successful because they play a part. and adjacent teams because as we're building this thing, it might mean that we tell you no for one of your requests or something, right? And then find it in leadership. That's how I would do it.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Go to them and sort of get them brought into the vision as well. They'll also bring perspectives. You're missing this piece. We have a lot of engineering. Support tickets will blow up if you do this thing, right? What does that look like? You guys haven't solved the thing we need to do today. You're talking about something five years out. You're going to get all the variations of feedback. That's okay. The cores that people have bought into that story and it's okay to hamle their. And then finally, you know, once you've got the feedback from stakeholders, you then go to leadership. And leadership really, as high as possible. So when I was at Uber and I was like an L5 L6 and visions going all the way, I mean, I had a fantastic leader. He put me on stage at an all hands to present the vision. And we were like, one wallet, all Uber experiences. And then we had this vision of a world where, you know, Uber eats. It could be trains. It could be whatever. And you have this one.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Each of the product teams and just presented it out. And I had multiple, we had the first one, then I had one in my PM weekly, presented it again, then hey folks, still any questions because people are still, it's like percolating. It's like the tea bag. It's like, it's oozing out. They're trying to understand it and they're trying to stress test it. And what I also do is I'm right the output of the workshop. So I'll always write an output. Like these are the insights we came out with. Here's the once upon a time framework. Here's the strategy. Here are the big rocks and a vision is coming, right? And then we'll do the vision and say, but this is the vision of where we're going through all these things. And that will be a living document, comments, open for comments, right? No edit.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Terms of the evangelizing, I think about three concentric circles, right? So the core of your vision is your team. And I want to make sure my team understands the vision because I'm basically saying, get on this boat. We're sailing to the vision of the Bermuda or some island. And I described this beautiful island. They have to be bought in and have conviction, but they want to get there to actually sail on that boat together. And so the team is the biggest part and it's the whole team. It's not like just the PMs that are the vision or just the designers know the vision. I will literally first start with the, you know, each of the folks that were in the room, we will basically bring our teams together and present it out. So, for example, the one we did last year, we presented to what we call studio leads, which are essentially the triads for each of the product teams, PM engineering and design.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The leaders of the team, the leaders of the team, and depending on the org, I'll bring in data science if it's because at Google we have more shared data science resource. So I usually invite them as one of the partners, right? Come tell the 10 things you should know. So they'll say, you know, we need to do more instrumentation or whatever, but you hit on a fantastic point, which I was going to connect later, which is when you get to the evangelized stage, humans love to know you hurt them. So imagine it's like You did all the work of bringing them together to say, hey, tell me 10 things. You've asked the questions. You've come back and said, here's the strategy that we're going to focus on. And here's the vision, right? And that last stage where you evangelize becomes so much easier. Because it's like, how did you arrive at this vision? That goes away. Or like, but you guys didn't solve in that. It's like we hurt you. And then we parse them into these 10. And everybody agreed with these 10. And therefore, that's why we came up with this.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I always have four folks. So it would be, depending on the level of the strategy, it would you be product by engineering partner, my design partner, and research.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I usually have strategy sessions of three days. I have tried to do it in two days. That is the absolute limit because I think you need to create white space for just the magic to happen. But I usually use a framework that it's literally what I call the narrative structure. So when we get into the conviction part, right, the clarity has the problem to solve, the conviction is the narrative, the framing of that conviction is insights, strategy, big rocks. So the insights day is just focused on understand work, these five problems, actually using the app, doing teardowns of other apps. It's just like a day of understanding. So, you know, in the Google Design sprint, I'll say ask the experts in a way and given the experts a template, that's what I'm doing, basically. And then the second day is where we now go into like the strategy of all the problems we've seen, the 10, which are the ones we want to focus on in which order, right?”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“God, all the text we have. Maybe we should use images or a video or whatever. So bringing this sort of multifaceted view of the problems and then you do the work of like sandpapering down to the core thing. And then you have the final 10. So that would be the tactical, like you want to take it to a more strategic lens. That's how I'd run at the first day of my strategy session is usually insights. I would three days insights strategy, then big rocks, and the insights pieces this where we go like deep into the problems. And I use this template of 10 things you should know. And then we come out with 10 things, a final list of 10 things you should know, like a consolidated list.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And as you, when you start getting to the strategic lens, so you have a set of problems, what I sometimes will do is, especially if you're, for example, platform PM, but PMs generally have lots of stakeholders. There'll be a marketing team that's asking for something or an operations team that's like, our market needs this. I'll sometimes bring them in at the beginning of the strategy session and give them a template, 10 things you should know. So you use my framework to give me 10 problems. Because if you say come present, they'll do like 50 slides. It's like, no, that's just 10 things you should know and stack rank them. So I put the work on you now to give me some color. I hear from marketing calm support, right, research, content strategy actually had that in my last strategy session where like it was the most mind-blowing 10 things you should know one of them was like the average reading age of an american is 11 years old right and so you start to think of oh my”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think this is where when you think about the qualities of a product manager, I think there are four pillars. Product sense, leadership, execution prowess, and technical ability, right? And it's not a product, you know, logic. It's product sense. It's a feeling, right? It's a sense of what is right. And the exposure to products and the curiosity will refine that sense over time. And I think that's the thing that people undervalue a lot. It's like you start program managing and just like spitting out what engineering said we can't do and UX said they could do and like you become this that's not the job the job is clarity and bringing this kind of context really to the set of problems that are being solved and you're curing them together right that's the key there it's like you're curating those problems together”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If I could put all the research into BARD or ChatGPT and it could spit out a PRD, then you haven't done your job. So basically, I maybe panicked my team. I came in and I'm like, JI, everybody's like talking about all the stuff we could do with creating content. But what I want you to think about is like, what is the value and you bring that an AI, I call just put into an AI right now and say, tell me the big thing based on this research that exists. So I've never heard that quote from Patrick Carlson, but”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They should all have the same answer. Center my job, right? Because then we all know the problems. You can debate them, you can discuss them, you can have sessions where you revise them, review them, but we do that and then we go into a room and, for example, at Uber and literally printed them on cards and I put them on tables, scattered the groups and had people kind of vote, discuss and vote the ones that are the most painful, right? Because then you see the whole thing. So that's the empathize bit. I'm spending a lot of time on this because I can't tell you how many times the clarity of the problem, going back to clarity and conviction, is missing. And that problem is kind of like the North Star. Everything's going on, but there's a North Star that doesn't move.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you kind of fall in love for the problems. So you keep that dot going. And so I first started this at Uber on the money team and I called it money problems more money, more problems because I do fundamentally believe we should bring joy to everything we try to do, you know, so have fun with it. So more money, more problems. And essentially it was in partnership with my data scientist partners that he, you know, he had a team of product analysts and data scientists and they would pair up with my PRMs and we would have the UX team, the UXR team, the data team, and the product marriages and engineering get together and actually look at their problems. So that living document means that for me, if I go around at least my minus one, not just for me, but my engineering partner's minus ones and my design partners minus ones. And we chap them and say, what are the top five problems for studio?”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like 10 problems you should know. And he reminds that every quarter you update it and they're stabrant, right? So it's like a living set of problems. And they could be qualitative. They could be quantitative, right? They could be tech debt. They should be tech debt in there.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're a human. Look at the product. Would you use that? Like, you build some intuition from just exposing yourself to really good products. Every time you pick up your phone, what is it about the apps that you love? Do you think about that? Well, I love, I open up my phone. I love Spotify. I also love YouTube music. But I really love Spotify, right? For my music, I've used it for years. And I'm like, okay, what is it? Like, what is it about this new thing they just launched I love? And I try to articulate that. So there's that piece, but then the tactical thing that I almost make every PM on my team do, I call it top 10 things you should know. It's a living document. So in my org right now, you know, I've got quite a number of PMs. And for each of those PMs in this living Google Doc, it's like girls slash studio problems, they literally put 10 things.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely a must. Cat food using your competitors or other people in the landscape's products. So that's one piece. The other piece is obviously research. Research is an interesting one because I think you use research. I think research is rich when it's giving you foundational problems that are a couple of cycles out, obviously, depending on the level of research you're doing. But your researcher, if you think about the product lifecycle, research is like ahead and then UX, right? And then you go into building. It's like in that phase. And so I find too many people lean into and let's go test it. Let's go do some research. It's like, dude.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of my peers at work uses this word. He says, you need to do understand work. And what is understand work? It's crazy to meaning the number of PMs who never go through their products and goes through the onboarding PM, but actually goes through the onboarding flow. Because we're all in this state of using the product, but actually that first step where I don't have the product, like, what does that look like? I have multiple variations of accounts on YouTube. I have multiple accounts on Instagram, you know, where just I have multiple accounts on TikTok where I'm like, just using the product, just like, how does it manifest? What do I like? What's going well? I had to say what Uber had Uber. I had other partner apps. I would look at them in payment. So this is Ampize that would come very easily if you dog food and then cat food. Dog food meaning using your own product.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And only this year, a year and a half later, are we now in a stage where it's actually going into the planning cycle, we've actually finished all the things we're already in progress, we're actually now, you know, funding some of the big rocks that get us there. So there's a bit of patience that comes with it. And I think some people just give up when they get to the stage because you're going to meet a lot of naysayers like, oh, but that one person's like, but, you know, there's no way the engineering is ever going to solve. Like, there's always going to be those people, right? Which is why I said you need to come up with a vision that's in a vacuum of like the technical limitations. Because the limitations of today.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are three pieces, if you think about it. So one is what I call empathize. The second is create. So we spend a lot of time talking about create, the middle piece. And then there's evangelize, right? And so I empathize with the customer, the problem I put myself in those shoes. I really get a visual understanding of what those problems are. I'll talk about in a second the tactical way I have done that across Uber and Netflix and Google in a way that scales, then the create piece where it's okay now if we solve this problem, what does the world look like? That's the vision we've just been talking about. And then finally, evangelize. So I find just especially sort of as you get more senior, the life cycle of a product or a group of products gets wider and wider and wider. And so I set out a vision, for example, at YouTube last year that was called Vision 2026, right?”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that's exactly what I did. I sketched this big once and I gave it to a designer. It was literally post-it notes. And they were like, okay, I see where you're going and it's exciting. I have some cycles. I'll spin it up. They spun up a lo-fi one, loved it. And I'm like, actually, I'm just going to make it pretty. And they made it pretty and we got it. I mean, now I'm a director, so I can I have a bit more agency with resources. But I was like an L4 p.m., like, you know, not even a senior PM when I did my first vision exercise.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The thing though is it's such a, I feel like it's an easy cop-out to be like, oh, but my design design team doesn't have resources. So I'm like, no, that's not an excuse. Start drawing it with your hands in the app store, right? Like still tell the story because the story, you should be able to tell this. Like, I'm obsessed with Steve Jobs. Tell the story without slides, right? So that mocking it up is just so you can actually bring that narrative and tell that story. And so do an app store or, you know, sketch it out or use little rectangles to show fidelity mocks. Like, do not use, I don't have a designer to be the excuse why I don't bring it to life, right?”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We solve all these problems that we've identified. What would be the screenshots? You know when you go on the app store and it has like the make money or express yourself or what are we trying to say and what is like the mock, the hero mock, the marquee mock that we're showing. And again, it forces people to, oh goodness, we can't show everything. So it's got to be three or four things that land, the big rocks that will solve this problem, right? Everyone did theirs and then we talked about it. And what was interesting is you'll find two or three that everyone comes up with if you've done a good job of telling a story around the problems. And it's quickly quite beautiful to see. So that's a very simplistic visualization that's not like a beautiful sketch or a video.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I didn't go off into lit. Somebody else went and did it, but we had already thought about it and bit that into our platform vision of we need to be able to support these different kinds of ways to pay. There's another interesting one that you're going to go to the third one, which is write the story, write the article that someone else will write or visualize it. And the visualize it, two things have actually happened. One, a year and a half ago in a strategy session I was running at YouTube, I actually took a screenshot of the Google Play Store. I mean, I use an iPhone, but I work at Google, so I was trying to be, you know, so I took the Google Play Store and then I, you know, and then I created rounded rectangles, just blank rectangles, four panels. And then I printed that out, and I gave everyone a sheet. And I said, if we realize, we solve these problems.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's two things. So you'll hear me say product management is clarity and conviction. And in writing the headline, you have to focus. Headline is not like, it's not a PRD, right? It's a headline. So when I've done this, like what is the impact of this going to be? What's the feeling I want to leave people with? And it forces you to get to that clarity of, okay, we solve this problem. This is actually going to be this, the painkiller that we're solving. And then we translate that painkiller into They had a headache, they no longer have a headache. Do you know what I mean? So I think it brings clarity. So for me as the PM, I'm like, this is why I'm saying this is important. Then you have the subtitled, so you should have the hicgram and like a sub bit. They've just launched a way to something, something, and you have to write that as well. Like, what is the thing we're launching? And is that realistic? And then using that to kind of socialize the idea to say, this actually could work, right?”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was the article framework. So it was like it was literally the New York Times I even had their logo. And then I had the subtitle. And later on, over time, I wrote the actual article, the whole thing. But I started first with that just to kind of provoke a response.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Built the payments and commerce infrastructure for the team that did, and we were very involved at the beginning when it was getting kicked off of how does this look in the world where you can use your So, yeah, that's a real life example.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Order of magnitude even more stronger, I think, at vision setting, because you have to build the foundations of stuff you don't even know is coming. So I do these exercises with my partner teams to kind of figure out, even if they don't know it, like force a vision out of them just to say, is this where we're going? Because then as somebody building the commerce infrastructure for Uber, I need to know when I need to build if that is a scenario that's actually going to happen. And we were also thinking about this world where you could like tap to pay with your Uber phone. So there were all these crazy ideas. And I wrote a headline of, you know, Uber really wants to replace your, you know, like wants to replace your, I put it as your clipper card in San Francisco because I wanted my San Francisco buddies to kind of relate to what I was saying. So Lubar is now replacing your clipper card. All you need is your phone and the app. And I wrote it out. And we didn't go and build that product.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At Uber, we were talking about cars, then it was like, well, push a button, get a ride. It could be push a button, go anywhere. And so one of the things I started talking about, and this is the beauty of Uber, it allowed you kind of challenge the status quo. I started pushing this idea of if we need to have this more multimodal trip where I could take a, you know, ride a bicycle or a scooter, then I get to the train station by my ticket, scan in, then from there, I go into an Uber maybe that I come out on the other end and I get a scooter, whatever that is, it's this connected single trip. And the reason I was doing that was I was a platform PM and surprise, surprise, I always say platform PMs, you have to be”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Once upon a time, Thing that happened. Then one day, and you could actually put the date in 2026. And because of that, And because of that, and I usually like to end it with, and finally, this was the last thing you left the world with.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then, as a result of the thing that happened. How would you leave people feeling? What did you change in the world? What's the dent in the universe that you made?”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like your top up was successful. We built that product. It did not exactly in that way, but we built that product. Sorry for another day, but like, or maybe for later. But it took four years to build it. But that image got people so excited about, oh, it's possible. I can see.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One that I use, and I show that in a lot of my talks, is I was trying to tell a story when I was at Uber and I was like, you know, okay, words are amazing, but a picture tells a thousand words, right? So I wrote out the thing and I worked with my design partner at the time, and he literally took out a pencil and drew the future. And the vision I was trying to show was this world where you could walk into any store, any bodega, mom and pop shop, wherever you are in the world, and actually top up your Uber balance. So even if you don't have a credit card and you have cash, you can also experience this cashless, seamless, you know, Uber experience. And that can scale all over the world. And he literally drew a bodida look like a kiosk, like the ones in Nigeria, in my country, you have like a side boat. And then he drew that and you had the person with cash and a receipt.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I remember this when we did it for Uber as well. We were talking about the loyalty for drivers. And some would have this framework. And I thought, holy cow, this is it. So that's a very simplistic version. You can go one step up. The one I like to do, and I know that Amazon does this a lot, but is I write Anita? I write a new article. I'll write the headline. Because if the vision has come to pass, right, and it's gone well, someone's going to be writing hopefully some sexy headlight about the thing that you built. So I go to the future and I write the headline I would see. And I write the subtitle, just that. And I'll actually use the, you know, the, I'll mock it into the page of like TechCrunch or Verve or something to so it looks realistic and I'll put that in a deck just to kind of like this is where we want to be. And then if I really want to go deep, then I'll write the rest of the article, right? So that's a very simplistic one. Let's take another version.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Once upon a time, where were we, right? Like, what is the thing that we're trying to solve? So I'll give you a simplistic one. I know the team didn't do this for shorts, but like the shorts team at YouTube, once upon a time, you know, YouTube was fun and people had cat videos and zoo and all of that. And then one day it became this really polished thing and a lot of people were producing really polished very one-hour content. And then because of that, you know, a lot of people felt maybe I couldn't create because I can't tell a one-hour story. And because of that, you know, people decided, okay, I'm just going to watch and consume and not create. And then one day we launch shorts 60 seconds. And because of that, anyone can now express themselves again and bring back the joy and magic of YouTube. So it's like, you know, it's very simplistic. I'm just using that to the teams who built this. I know this is not your jurisdiction or vision. I'm just giving a story.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then write something and then write something. And then one day something happened. And as a result, the state of the world where we're trying to be. It's very simplistic, but in its simplicity as the magic, because you're like, you know, I'm a PM, I'm trying to solve problems.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I have a very simplistic framework. I actually don't know who put it together at Uber, but I see as well one of the most powerful skills of a product manager storytelling, right? Because you look at generation after generation after generation what people pass on as stories. They're not numbers, they're not stats and stories. And actually, when you blend stories So, if you do numbers alone or numbers with stories or stories alone, the gap is so wide in stories alone. So it's not metrics blended with stories. It's a story, just a pure story, right? This doesn't mean don't be analytical. So one of the very simplistic tools that I've used, and I use it as well right now at Google when my team ships a product, they'll put the vision in there to remind what the vision was that they set out to do, right? And it's once upon a time”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Summit Mount Everest, which I will not be doing anytime soon, but just, you know, and we're doing it to prove to ourselves something that we can do it and we're capable. And we will do that by making sure that we look out for each other because you can get to Mount Everest and not have all the people with you, right? That's actually a team bonding challenge that I've done once upon a time. It's actually very, very, very intricate and interesting. So that's your vision and then the mission is like the purpose. and some set of guiding principles as to what will allow you to achieve that vision.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Use an analogy. Let's say we want to go hike. We want to go up to Mount Everest. The vision would be once we're up there, me describing the picture of what we're going to see. We're going to get there, we're going to look around. We'll be the Himalayas, beautiful, you'll be above the clouds, probably out of breath. You know, that's the vision. It's like, I fast forward into the future. I hold time and I'm in that place and I'm describing the picture, right? And so a city without parking, you can see that, right? And we've all watched sci-fi movies. You can see Mars, Red Planet. So that's the vision. And then the mission is the purpose of why we're doing that. Like, we're going to do this to demonstrate that we're able to do it and making sure that we both get there together. It's a very simplistic one, but I'm just giving, that's the purpose. We're doing it because we want to prove to ourselves that we can.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's kind of followed through. So yeah, I mean, the beautiful things about visions is that it helps you decide, is that do I care about this problem? Is it something I want to do? And then you can take it or”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it's not crazy. It's attainable. But now doing that for the whole world, what does that look like? And that's how things like Uber Pull came in, where in a world where the average core has 1.5 people in it, we can maximize that. And then we can get this connected trip where the car is just moving. And then maybe the car is autonomous. So you don't actually have to drive that car. And so it just doesn't need to stop. I guess it needs to charge at some point, but that's it. I think that's a really good vision. I think one of the lofty and I dance between whether it's attainable or not is Elon Musk saying, you know, we're going to get to Mars. He believes it. He believes it so much that sometimes I'm like, I guess we're going to Mars, you know, but then there was the other one of, oh, we want a car that's electric and we want that car to be beautiful so that we will get to a car that's accessible to everyone.”
2023-12-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source