CRAFTED‪.‬ Modern Product Minds

“So if you take any great startup and look backwards, you'll see that 90 percent of their growth came from like 10 percent of the stuff that they tried. So how do you find that 10 percent as quickly as possible?”

Matt Lerner has advised hundreds of startups on how to grow. Now, the CEO of SYSTM has written a book called Growth Levers and How to Find Them where he shares his approach. This episode of CRAFTED. is full of actionable advice on how you can grow your products and companies. Matt will tell us about the mindset shift founders need to make from thinking about their products to thinking about their customers needs. We'll talk about jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) style interviewing and why it's such a powerful approach, but also why at first Matt was put off by some of the overly academic language that often goes with jobs. And we'll talk about how you can get new customers to that aha moment as quickly as possible, so they stick with your product. Plus, lots of real talk about founders and the mistakes they make. 

Welcome to CRAFTED., a show about great products and the people who make them. CRAFTED. brings you stories of founders, makers, and innovators that reveal how they've built game changing products and how you can too.
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Key Moments:
[0:00] Intro[2:20] 90 percent of growth comes 10 percent of the stuff you try[3:53] Over-thinkers, under-thinkers, and delegators: the 3 types of founders and the mistakes they make[7:40] Why the pace of learning is so important[9:51] Great examples of companies that learn quickly[10:52] The “locksmith moment” and why you need to find yours[12:45] Jobs-to-be-Done style interviewing and why it’s so effective[14:07] How to do a JTBD interview[16:05] The mindset shift founders need to make from thinking about their product to thinking about the customers’ needs – and why it’s so hard for them to do so[21:24] Growth Sprints and how to set them up for success[25:07] Retention and customer activation: still (!) overlooked by most and why it’s so critical[29:00] Matt writes a blog post on the spot about how working at an oil refinery taught him about startups[31:36] Writing a book is not an agile process! And the fantastic reception for Growth Levers—
CRAFTED. is produced by Modern Product Minds, where host Dan Blumberg also advises companies on product discovery, growth, and experimentation. Learn more and sign up for the CRAFTED. newsletter at modernproductminds.com 
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CRAFTED. is sponsored by Artium, a next generation software development consultancy that combines elite human craftsmanship and artificial intelligence. See how Artium can help you build your future at artium.ai

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More on Matt Lerner:
His company: SYSTMThe book: Growth Levers and How to Find Them

On April 1st, 2013, ProdPad promised something revolutionary: “We now take your backlog of ideas, and with highly advanced big data crunching algorithm technology, automagically render a complete and accurate product roadmap. [...] The Auto-Roadmap Tool not only builds itself, but also covers for the hardest part of the Product Manager’s job: Getting complete buy-in from your team.”

Amazing! And product managers wrote in with unbridled excitement itching to get their hands on this incredible tool.
Except… this was obviously an April Fool’s joke, right!? 

Well, fast forward to today and it ain’t a joke! ProdPad is building these automagical abilities right now. Thanks to Generative AI, this absurdist joke has become reality (though not yet the part about magically getting buy-in from your fussy stakeholders... that's in the 2.0 version :) 

On this episode of CRAFTED., Janna Bastow, the founder and CEO of ProdPad, founder of Mind The Product, inventor of the now-next-later roadmap, and an April Fool's prankster you need to keep your eye on describes what a great roadmap is, how AI is freeing up product people to do more meaningful work, and what the future of product management will entail (getting out of the building more!). 

Welcome to CRAFTED., a show about great products and the people who make them. 

Sign up for the CRAFTED. newsletter and explore past episodes at modernproductminds.com

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CRAFTED. is sponsored by Artium, a next generation software development consultancy that combines elite human craftsmanship and artificial intelligence. See how Artium can help you build your future at artium.ai. 

Enjoy this bonus, happy hour edition of CRAFTED., recorded live during SXSW. It’s a very unCRAFTED. CRAFTED. Featuring four innovators on a rooftop in Austin talking about what struck them at this year’s SXSW. Kick back and unwind with Christie Nicholson (Founder of the Studio for Communicating Complexity), Kwaku Aning (Director, Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Thinking (CIET) at San Diego Jewish Academy and Founder, Retro Futurism Consulting), James Burdine (Founder and Principal at Bishop Linville Consulting), and CRAFTED. host Dan Blumberg.
Topics and tangents include: the use of AI in education and government, the data we unwittingly give platforms (e.g. Apple Vision Pro could detect when we have a great idea bc our eyes dilate when we do), the deconstruction and redistribution of SXSW, explore/exploit and the need to be bored, and much more random stuff.

CRAFTED. is produced by Modern Product Minds. 

Sign up for the CRAFTED. newsletter and explore past episodes at modernproductminds.com
***CRAFTED. is sponsored by Artium, a next generation software development consultancy that combines elite human craftsmanship and artificial intelligence. See how Artium can help you build your future at artium. ai.

Career trajectories used to be like steamships: full steam ahead. And then they became more like sailboats: lots of tacking. But now… we’re swirling in whitewater. And, as the Chief Product and Innovation Officer at BetterUp, Dr. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman helps people build the skill they need to flourish:
“When you're kayaking in the whitewater. It's hard to get a sense of what could be around the bend, but if you know if what's coming up is a sudden cascade or versus another, you know, set of gentle bumps, or maybe it's a calmer space in the river, it can give you a great advantage.”
On this episode of Crafted, we focus on the five key skill groups that can help you be more successful: Prospection, Resilience, Innovation and creativity, Social support by way of rapid rapport, and Mattering and meaning.
And, good news! These skills can be trained!
Gabriella writes about these skills in Tomorrowmind, which she co-authored with Martin Seligman. And, at BetterUp she builds products that help companies — and their people — build these skills at scale. On an upcoming episode of Crafted, we’ll explore how BetterUp does this using human coaching, backed by artificial intelligence systems. 
Welcome to Crafted, a show about great products and the people who make them. 
Crafted is produced by Modern Product Minds. 
Sign up for the Crafted newsletter and explore past episodes at modernproductminds.com
—Key Moments:
[00:00 - 01:01] Introduction[02:16 - 06:40] From psychiatry to tech[06:40 - 09:53] Key skill needed for a "tomorrowmind"[09:53 - 13:51] Developing Resilience Skills[16:55 - 18:53] Enhancing Perspective and Creativity[18:53 - 22:35] Planning and Dynamic Adaptation[22:35 - 26:05] The Role of Coaching in Skill Development[26:05 - 27:35] Outro and What's Coming in Part Two—
Here’s the book:
Tomorrowmind —
Crafted is sponsored by Artium, a next generation software development consultancy that combines elite human craftsmanship and artificial intelligence. See how Artium can help you build your future at artium.ai

“You have to invest into change. You cannot invest into stasis.Daniel Kimerling has a keen eye for the trends, technologies, and cultural shifts that are going to be big. A decade ago, he took an insight – that developers needed powerful tool so they could embed banking services into their apps – and launched Standard Treasury, the very first banking-as-a-service (BaaS) startup. Today BaaS and "embedded finance" are huge. 
Now, as a VC and the founder of Deciens Capital, Dan is again looking for change:
“From an ego perspective, I love being right. From a financial perspective, I love being right at the right time."The right team:
"You have to be willing to embrace a level of physical, emotional, financial, psychological, spiritual pain and keep going. Just keep fucking going."And business models that actually make sense:
"It's not that, like, Generative AI is not cool. As a Dweeb, it's f*****g cool as hell. I got it. But then the question is: 'How the f**k are you gonna make a dime?'"This is a fun episode! Listen in for a masterclass in disruption. Also f-bombs. Lots of f-bombs. More on Crafted than ever before. Yet also mixed  with grace and humility. Dan is a mensch. :)
Key Moments:
[0:00] Introduction
[2:07] How Dan got started in tech, as the very first employee at TechCrunch
[4:58] Founding Standard Treasury, the very first banking-as-a-service (BaaS) company after meeting the founders of Twilio and Stripe and seeing the API’s and “embedding” were going to be huge
[7:25] “What you kind of come to see is that to some degree everything is a financial plumbing problem.”
[9:12] “You have to invest into change. You cannot invest into stasis.”
[11:37] Founding Deciens Capital
[12:23] The “industrial logic” of most VC firms and how Deciens aims to stay small and serve early stage founders
[15:07] What Dan looks for when making an investment, including grit, variant perspective, and a MacGyver-like adaptability
[18:36] Generative AI: Why VC’s are rushing in, but he’s skeptical about business models. Will all the spoils just go to the open source community + NVIDIA? 
[22:36] What Dan is excited about: the future of VC and building financial service products that people actually love
[24:24] Personalization: “[Big banks] really serve a very median audience. And we have a number of companies [...] that are far outside of that middle lane. And thankfully, because of the power of the internet, the search and distribution costs for those opportunities is way lower than it would have been in a analog era.”
[25:11] How Dan goes out of his way to help people – and how you can learn from his system
[28:50] Outro
[29:27] An F-bomb laced Easter Egg parting gift
Books mentioned:
"A Brief History of Financial Euphoria" by John Kenneth Galbraith"Power Law" by Sebastian WallabyAbout Crafted
Crafted is a show about great products and the people who make them. Hosted by Dan Blumberg, an entrepreneur, product leader, and public radio host with deep experience not only delivering major software releases, but also as the producer of the best known, and most listened-to, public radio shows. Dan has founded startups and led product releases and growth initiatives at LinkedIn, The New York Times, and as a consultant to fintechs and big banks. Before getting into tech, Dan led the team behind Morning Edition on WNYC, the most listened-to show on the nation’s largest NPR station. Dan produced, edited, reported for, and hosted this and other marquee news shows at WNYC and WBEZ and also frequently reported on national news events for NPR. Crafted is produced by Modern Product Minds. 
Sponsored By
Crafted is sponsored by Artium, a next generation software development consultancy that combines elite human craftsmanship and artificial intelligence. See how Artium can help you build your future at artium.ai.

A highlight reel that will will help you find great episodes in the Crafted show archive, featuring some of the incredible founders and product builders we featured in 2023. You'll hear voices belonging to the founders of Gusto, Lattice, Monte Carlo, Moov, Wevr, PS, as well as from senior leaders at AWS, Redesign Health, Betterment, Flatiron Health, Predibase, and Bauplan, and more! 
And we want to hear from you! We're planning big things this year and want to learn more about what you want to hear. Please take two minutes to take this short survey: https://www.tinyurl.com/craftedsurvey 
---Crafted is sponsored by Artium, a next generation software development consultancy that combines elite human craftsmanship and artificial intelligence. See how Artium can you build your future at artium.ai