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Casey Winters is a longtime and legendary advisor and operator. He’s worked with companies like Airbnb, Faire, Canva, Whatnot, Thumbtack, Tinder, and Reddit and until recently was the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite, where he managed the PM, design, research, and growth marketing teams. Before Eventbrite, he led growth and product teams at Pinterest and Grubhub. In today’s episode, we discuss what Casey calls the “zero interest rate phenomenon” product manager and how to avoid becoming one. He provides valuable insights on thinking outside popular frameworks, shipping products efficiently, and avoiding overreliance on user research. We explore the three types of network effects, how to leverage them, and how to break someone else’s network effect. Finally, Casey shares his contrarian approach to interviewing product managers and his thoughts on the future of PM roles with AI.
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Find the full transcript at: Zhttps://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/thinking-beyond-frameworks-casey
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Where to find Casey Winters:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/onecaseman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseywinters/
• Blog: https://caseyaccidental.com/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Casey’s background
(03:36) What Casey is up to
(05:24) Why the CPO position is frequently short-lived
(07:26) What Casey learned in his role as CPO of Eventbrite
(10:15) The “zero interest rate phenomenon” product manager
(12:17) Advice for thinking outside common frameworks
(18:35) When to bring in research
(21:16) What Whatnot does
(21:59) Casey’s approach to interviewing PMs
(23:29) Red flags in interview responses
(24:27) The future of product management with AI
(27:47) Founder intuition vs. team expertise
(33:33) How to influence founders
(37:17) Adding the delivery driver app at Grubhub
(40:00) Network effects
(43:10) Why Zillow is a sticky product
(44:05) How Grubhub’s network effect got taken over by DoorDash and Uber Eats
(51:47) Don’t underestimate the competition
(54:43) SaaS adding marketplace and vice versa
(01:02:30) Defining marketplaces
(1:03:34) What Substack is nailing
(1:05:43) Tips for B2C subscription startups
(1:13:15) Lightning round
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Referenced:
• Casey Winters on Lenny’s Podcast previously: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-sell-your-ideas-and-rise-within-your-company-casey-winters-eventbrite/
• Whatnot: https://www.whatnot.com/
• The 700-calorie breakfast you should eat if you want to live forever, according to futurist Ray Kurzweil: https://www.businessinsider.com/what-ray-kurzweil-eats-to-live-forever-2016-4
• The Way of the Gun on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/movie/the-way-of-the-gun-0fc9590c-3f85-48ab-96e9-1da1b9695065
• Notion AI: https://www.notion.so/product/ai
• Zapier: https://zapier.com/
• Founder intuition vs. team expertise vs. customer expertise: https://caseyaccidental.com/founder-intuition-team-expertise/
• Erika Warren on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erika-warren/
• Alyssa Ravasio (Hipcamp) on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyssa-ravasio-23114717/
• Marketplace supply strategy: comprehensive, exclusive, or curated: https://a16z.com/2021/03/31/marketplace-supply-strategy/
• Nassim Taleb on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nntaleb
• The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business: https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Change-Business/dp/0062060244
• OpenTable: https://www.opentable.com/
• Booking.com: https://www.booking.com/
• Faire: https://www.faire.com/
• How to increase your retention: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-increase-your-retention-issue
• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement: https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884271951
• Thinking, Fast and Slow: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555/r
• Profit from the Core: A Return to Growth in Turbulent Times: https://www.amazon.com/Profit-Core-Return-Growth-Turbulent/dp/1422131114/
• Party Down on Starz: https://www.starz.com/us/en/series/party-down/2011
• The Last of Us on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/the-last-of-us
• Station Eleven on HBO Max: https://www.hbomax.com/series/urn:hbo:series:GYZWoOQ6F9cLDCAEAAABP
• Kicking and Screaming on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/70052286
• Raven by Kelela on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/06uhdSmIYrWRkdnAPjcRcT
• Optical Delusion by Orbital on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/2jQbFspnSh7erex6RDKQGJ
• Stakes Is High by De La Soul on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3jlC2uhYNrhikZXLviEnpu
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Casey Winters is the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite. Prior to Eventbrite, Casey led the growth product team at Pinterest. Before Pinterest, Casey started the marketing team at Grubhub and scaled Grubhub's demand-side acquisition and retention strategies.
Elena Verna is the Interim Head of Growth at Amplitude. Former exec @ Miro, Netlify, SurveyMonkey. Growth Advisor to companies including Krisp, MongoDB, Ledgy, Builder.io and SimilarWeb.
Kieran Flanagan is SVP Marketing at HubSpot, where he has helped the business grow internationally, move to a product-led business, quadrupled its marketing demand, and built out its media team, including the acquisition of 'The Hustle.'
Andy Johns career started in growth at Facebook when the company scaled from 100M-500M active users. Since he has worked in some of the leading growth orgs at companies like Twitter, Quora and more recently at Wealthfront as Head of Growth and President.
Bangaly Kaba is the Director of Product Management @ Youtube. Prior to Youtube, Bangaly led the product growth and consumer product orgs at Instacart and before Instacart was Head of Growth @ Instagram, helping grow Instagram from 440M to > 1B monthly actives in 2.5yrs.
Ed Baker is a growth advisor to various startups including Lime, Zwift, Whoop, Crimson Education, GoPeer, and Playbook. Ed was the VP of Product and Growth at Uber from 2013-2017. Prior to Uber, Ed was the Head of International Growth at Facebook.
Adam Fishman was the Chief Product and Growth Offer @ Imperfect Foods. Before Imperfect, Adam was VP of Product and Growth @ Patreon, Before Patreon, Adam was the Head of Growth @ Lyft, Adam was the first growth and marketing employee hired and grew the team to 18 people.
In Today's Discussion on When To Hire a Head of Growth:
1.) When is the right time to hear your first growth hire?
2.) Is this hire a senior growth leader or a more junior growth engineer?
3.) What can early-stage startups do to entice senior growth leaders to their early-stage company?
4.) What data infrastructure should be in place prior to hiring your first growth hire?
5.) What does the optimal onboarding process look like for all growth hires?
6.) What can founders and CEOs do to set their growth hires up for success?
The people who rise fastest in product know how to sell their ideas to customers, and also to their coworkers. Casey Winters, the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite (previously at Grubhub, Pinterest, and advisor to dozens of companies) shares what it takes to be successful as you rise in the ranks within product. In this episode we’ll talk about how to land presentations, how to win over executives with strategic communication, the skill sets that are most in demand in product, and new growth trends. Join us.
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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:
• Coda: http://coda.io/lenny
• Mixpanel: https://mixpanel.com/startups
• Whimsical: https://whimsical.com/lenny
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Where to find Casey Winters:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/onecaseman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseywinters/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, learn:
[00:00] What to expect in this episode with Casey Winters
[03:23] An overview of Casey’s career
[06:18] A look into the most-fulfilling and challenging roles Casey has energized
[06:50] Communicating upward
[11:18] How to derisk meetings
[13:53] Are you properly preparing for your meetings?
[19:09] Striving for perceived simplicity
[24:22] Justifying non-sexy product improvements
[27:47] Protecting what you’ve built vs continuously scaling
[31:03] The downfall of functional ops roles
[35:21] The CPO role: what it is and how to get there
[40:44] The spectrum of product people
[45:11] How to level up your skills
[47:01] New growth trends, tactics, and strategies
[50:32] Casey’s two stages of growth: kindle strategies and fire strategies
[51:51] Under appreciated growth strategies
[54:02] Where to find Casey
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Casey Winters is the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite where he leads the PM, product design, research, and growth marketing teams. Prior to Eventbrite, Casey spent close to 3 years at Pinterest where he led the growth product team.
Andy Johns is one of the pre-eminent growth leaders of the last decade. Andy's career started in growth at Facebook when the company scaled from 100M-500M active users. Since he has worked in some of the leading growth orgs at companies like Twitter, Quora and more recently at Wealthfront as Head of Growth and President.
Bangaly Kaba is the Head of Platform Growth @ Popshop Live, a live streaming mobile marketplace that combines commerce, entertainment, and social. Prior to Popshop, Bangaly led the product growth and consumer product orgs at Instacart and before Instacart was Head of Growth @ Instagram, where he built and led the product team that helped grow Instagram from 440M to > 1B monthly actives in 2.5yrs.
Elena Verna is a master when it comes to all things starting and scaling growth organizations. Previously, Elena spent over 7 years as SVP Growth @ SurveyMonkey where she ran product, growth marketing, and data teams. Post SurveyMonkey, Elena worked with the rocket ship that is Miro both as Interim CMO and as an advisor.
Ed Baker is an angel investor and growth advisor to various startups including Lime, Zwift, Whoop, Crimson Education, GoPeer, and Playbook. Ed was the VP of Product and Growth at Uber from 2013-2017. Prior to Uber, Ed was the Head of International Growth at Facebook.
Rob Schutz is Chief Growth Officer and Co-founder at Ro, the healthcare technology company building a patient-centric healthcare system. Under Rob's growth leadership, Ro has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the country. Prior to Ro, Rob was VP of Growth at Bark, the makers of BarkBox, and helped scale revenue from zero to $100 million.
In Today's Episode with Ed Baker You Will Learn:
1.) Casey Winters:
How does Casey define "growth"? How does it differ from product?
How do the best growth leaders decide between art vs science when making growth decisions?
2.) Andy Johns:
What is Andy's biggest advice to founders looking to build their first growth team?
What unexpected choice did Andy decide to make at Twitter that moved the needle for new user acquisition?
3.) Bangaly Kaba:
What were some of Bangaly's biggest takeaways from scaling Instagram from 440M users to 1BN?
What decisions did Bangaly make without data? How did they go? What did he learn?
4.) Ed Baker:
What are Ed's biggest takeaways from facebook around structuring growth teams?
What are Ed's biggest pieces of advice for startyups looking to grow internationally?
What were some of Ed's biggest learnings from working with Travis @ Uber?
5.) Elena Verna:
What is the difference between a good vs great growth model?
When does one need to change or amend their growth model? How does one know when it is working?
6.) Rob Schutz:
Why does Rob believe that startups should not diversify their customer acquisition channels too quickly?
How does Rob assess resouirce allocation and spend on new channels? How did this process look when partnering with the MLB for Ro?
Casey Winters is the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite where he leads the PM, product design, research, and growth marketing teams. Prior to Eventbrite, Casey spent close to 3 years at Pinterest where he led the growth product team. At Pinterest, Casey turned SEO into a scalable acquisition strategy, increasing conversion to signups 5x. Before Pinterest, Casey started the marketing team at Grubhub and scaled Grubhub's demand-side acquisition and retention strategies. Casey played an instrumental role in scaling Grubhub from 3 cities to 1,000+ and from a $1 million series A to an IPO and $7.3 billion exit. If that was not enough, Casey has also advised the likes of Canva, Hipcamp, Reddit, Faire and Career Karma to name a few.
In Today's Episode with Casey Winters You Will Learn:
1.) How Casey made his way into the world of startups and came to lead some of the most powerful growth orgs in the world from Pinterest to Grubhub to Eventbrite?
2.) How does Casey define "growth" and "Head of Growth"? When is the right time to start thinking about implementing a growth team? When should one hire a growth leader? How should founders structure the process of hiring a Head of Growth? What do the stages look like? What signals suggest A* talent? What questions does Casey always ask? What tests does Casey do?
3.) What does the optimal onboarding process look like for growth teams? What tasks should a growth team perform in their first few months? What are clear signs you have an amazing candidate in place? What are some obvious red flags? How do the best growth teams approach post-mortems? How are they structured? Who attends them? How often?
4.) What is the ideal relationship between the Head of Growth and the CEO? How often do they meet? What do the best CEOs expect from their growth teams? How does Casey approach the relationship between growth teams and product teams? How does one know when to have an independent growth team vs within the product or marketing team?
5.) Casey AMA: What has been a decision that Casey made without data to back it up? How did it go? What were Casey's lessons? How does Casey prevent past experiments from impacting his future tactics? How does Casey's management style differ when managing larger vs smaller growth teams? How has angel investing impacted his approach to scaling growth teams?