Strategies for Cohesive Vision Across Product Teams

Join us in this engaging episode of "PM versus PMM," where we explore the nuances of ensuring alignment within product teams. Arjun shares his snowy frustrations, and we dive into strategies for blending individual creativity with team goals. We debate the challenges and methods of aligning marketing and product management, especially in dynamic environments. Plus, don’t miss our take on Apple's contentious App Store policies in our news segment. Tune in for a mix of professional insights and personal anecdotes, all wrapped up in a winter wonderland context!

Transcript

Podcast E43

[00:00:00] 

Aditi: Hello listeners, welcome to the PM versus PMM podcast, where we talk about the four product, four factors of being a great product person, building the right thing for the right users, reducing risks, ensuring alignment, and continuously learning. On this podcast, we dive deeper into product management and marketing one week at a time.

I'm Aditi. 

Arjun: I'm Arjun. Aditi, I'm visiting my mom. It's the last day and yesterday it snowed so much. And I'm so mad because I've been here for so long. I could have been shoveling all this snow that didn't fall. And now on the last day, it's snowed so much. Has this been 

Aditi: going up a couple of days ago on Saturday?

Arjun: Did it snow? 

Aditi: Yeah. It's the same storm that came up north to you guys afterwards. 

Arjun: No, I'm, I'm a little bit too West. I think for it to hit, 

Aditi: I remember there's, it was like a huge storm that was coming from like the Southwest. Coming up to New York and then going up to Canada. 

Arjun: I see. It's like a whole 

Aditi: thing.

Arjun: Well, it's [00:01:00] winter wonderland here. Did it all, did it melt over there? 

Aditi: Well, I, I'm in Jersey City, so it's like right next to the water, so it doesn't like snow at all, regardless. Because you know how it is being near the water, like no matter how cold it is, it usually just rains. 

Arjun: Mm hmm, definitely. Okay, well, here it's like white everywhere.

It did 

Aditi: snow a decent amount in Central Park. based on the pictures that I think we saw. 

Arjun: Oh, cool. I, after this podcast, I have to go out and shovel. So that's why I dedicated this part of the podcast to talk about this. Well, today we're talking about factor number three, ensuring alignment. And we want to talk about strategies for us to have cohesive vision across product teams.

So that means between your product marketing and your product management teams and your project one versus project two. How do you have strategies and visions that? Maximize the potential of each project while also allowing and aligning on a [00:02:00] piece of vision between them as well. So this topic is pretty important because it prevents misalignment and make sure that your company is having synergies across products that you're building.

It's really vital for scaling the, for scaling your growing business. So Diti, I want to ask, how do you

wow, I got stuck. So Diti, to start, just as an individual, how do you align individuals creativity with team goals? 

Aditi: Well, individual creativity usually tends to take a backseat when it comes to team goals and like what, what you're trying to do. So, so it's not, I'm not trying to say this in a negative way at all.

What I'm trying to say is like, as a team, when you're launching a different tier launches, you kind of have an idea of like what you want to do, who you want to reach out to. And there are certain things that have been successful in the past. If this is given that you're on a team, so you're on a [00:03:00] bigger product marketing team, maybe four or five, six people, and there are certain things that have been like going and they've like been proven to be good for the company.

Right. So, in that way you have. You can be creative, but it has to be at a smaller scale and on a bigger scale. You tend to follow the same patterns until they break and then you try something new. Right? And the ideas for these changes tend to come from leadership rather than down up. So, like, an individual contributor will probably not be coming up with those ideas.

Arjun: Yeah, 

Aditi: but the difference here is if you're like a single product marketer, which is mostly the case, so you are like the only, you're probably the first or you're a on a string of like the only product marketer at a company, then you have a lot of a lot more creative control over how you do things. And you're usually at a smaller company.

So they're willing to take risks more easily because they're willing, because they have this attitude of like just trying whatever they can to get the customer in the door. 

Arjun: Yeah, 

Aditi: so [00:04:00] you have an idea, you can be a little more creative and that's usually where you get those unique ideas from where 

Arjun: people as soon as you're on a team.

As soon as you're on 

Aditi: a team, there's like a chain of command, there's certain ideas that have been working and there's just a lot more in a way like like logical baggage that you have to deal with. Which you wouldn't have to if you were like a single product marketer. 

Arjun: Yeah, that makes sense. I, I kind of disagree with you a little in only in the sense that like, I think that individual creativity is really important and that In this hierarchy, it should be like a value for for a team to surface individual contributions, and that can just be done by setting constraints.

So, okay, we have these kind of problems. These are the constraints that we need to the solution to be within go and be creative within them. And that way, like and I think what you're saying [00:05:00] about being an individual product marketer. Then there are no constraints, right? So you can like be really creative, but I think creativity actually like becomes more interesting and more engaging with a good amount of constraints.

And so when it comes to like being on a team of product managers or product marketers. I think it using this like terminology of constraints really helps to give everyone kind of something to do. I've been in APM before where. I wasn't really sure what I should be doing. And I think if I was told, like, okay, these are the things we need to figure out.

These are the constraints. Arjun, go. It would actually, like, really have unlocked me as an APM because I was coming as a coming from being an engineer. And so I felt like a lot of empowerment being a PM, getting to talk to a lot of, you know, Having the reach to talk to a lot of different teams.

But I couldn't really do anything with [00:06:00] that empowerment. And so this constraint model would have like really helped me. What do you think? 

Aditi: I think, I think I agree with you. I agree that individual contributors should be empowered more within teams. I just think that realistically speaking, it's harder to do.

For this, for one reason that I've seen is that leaders and managers tend to be more risk averse. For personal reasons. So, and it's not a bad thing in any way. I'm not like trashing on anyone. It's just like when when someone becomes a manager and they're managing three different people, they are responsible for whatever those three people do.

So if you have an idea that's creative, no matter how many constraints there are, if it screws up, it's not your fault. It's your manager's fault. And it's just going to be taking the heat for it. So they tend to be more risk averse. When you have a bigger team, because there's more responsibility that they have to deal with.

Arjun: Yeah. 

Aditi: More people that they're answering to most of [00:07:00] the time. Like you're not just answering to your boss at that point. You're probably answering to like three different like department leaders who are going to be asking you why something was screwed up. 

Arjun: Yeah. 

Aditi: So they tend to not take those risks, even if they're really small risks.

So I think that's the bigger reason why in teams it's harder to take be creative with your ideas, especially in marketing, because when you go outward facing, the harder it is to convince someone to be able to be like, Oh, we should try something new because there's, because they're more thinking about like, how can we just make sure that this is successful?

Success is more important than like standing out. 

Arjun: Yeah, that makes sense. I think that happens in in product as well, where success is more important than. It's not standing out for product. It's more like testing new ideas and like all of our product principles say to have a hypothesis and go validate [00:08:00] it.

But I think when in this, in this particular team dynamic that you're talking about where it's like high pressure and and I wouldn't say low trust. Can you hear that by the way? This is my mom's like freaking annoying bird clock. Every hour it like has a different bird sound and she's like, I want this clock.

But yeah, what I was saying is I think it's, it's especially for this situation where you have a, a team that is maybe high pressure and possibly lower trust. Yeah. You get the situation where like, okay. No, I don't want to test new ideas. I want ideas that will produce results. 

Aditi: This is why, this is why people say it's harder to innovate in bigger companies.

So it's easier to innovate in a startup that's like 50 people. 

Arjun: Yeah, true. Very true. I wonder how that like cuts down on people's personal goals, right? Because then everyone's personal goals at a bigger [00:09:00] company is reduced because scopes are all reduced. 

Aditi: Well, yeah, I mean, but at a smaller company communication is easier because you're it's so much easier to just.

Like slack someone and be like, can we get on a call compared to in a bigger company where you probably have to go through like five different managers just to get access to someone. So the communication part is so much easier at a smaller company, in my opinion. 

Arjun: At a bigger company or at a smaller company?

At a 

Aditi: smaller. 

Arjun: What, what would you, what strategy would you do for, Aligning marketing and product teams at a smaller company that 

Aditi: so the biggest thing that I would do. Is whether it depends on the etiquette that the company follows. Right. Are you more of like a slack oriented company, which smaller companies tend to be, or are you more of just like a presentation or email oriented one.

I prefer email, but. Not everyone's like that. But what the point is that you just get everyone who [00:10:00] cares. in a room or on a thread, and you just blast it, whatever you're thinking at them. It works, it works incredibly well, in my opinion, it is. Oh, I'm, 

Arjun: I agree with you. I'm laughing at the everyone who cares part of the sentence.

Aditi: You see the thing is like, you have to be really careful about who you communicate it with. Because if you can't communicate it with people who don't care, then you're not going to get the right opinions and the right feedback. But you have to find the people that care, that are, not just the people who are affected by it.

The people who truly care about what you're trying to say. And if you get those people on a thread, you can get real feedback, you can get real input, and you can really actually get somewhere with what you're trying to say. 

Arjun: Does that mean you have two threads, one for all of the stakeholders of the project and one for all the people who care?

Because there's a lot of stakeholders that do not care. 

Aditi: No, a hundred percent. And so usually what happens and what I've seen is you do like a brainstorming session with the people who care. [00:11:00] and you kind of just like talk through what you're thinking. You kind of get feedback and you finalize something and that's when you throw it at everyone who's affected by it or everyone who needs to know about it.

And that's the bigger, yeah. So, and where information, where different work is done with the people who care? 

Arjun: Yeah. Where are the decisions? Are the decisions with all the stakeholders or the decisions with the brain? Brainstorming care people. 

Aditi: I think the decisions should be, the final say should be for the person who's leading the project.

So if I'm leading a marketing strategy project, then I'm the one who has final say, I'm the one who's saying yes and no to the final, like, verdict of what's going to happen. Because I know the most about what I'm trying to do. I kind 

Arjun: of like this because it's very much like a show up. Type mentality, right?

Like security team, if you're not showing up, then we're going to have worse security on this. Yeah. And if you want us to be excellent, then like show up. And if you don't have the resources to be excellent, then, or to show [00:12:00] up, then like executives, we have we're, we're just not going to be able to, like, it's truly the, we're, it's basically execute execution of the saying that, You what's the saying?

You might know it better. Like the you are what you employ or something like that. 

Aditi: Oh, you You build 

Arjun: your, you build your, 

Aditi: you launch your, you launch your oh my God, I know this. You launch your org chart. There we go. The same is, yeah. It's the 

Arjun: execution of you launch your org chart. 

Aditi: Exactly. 

Arjun: Yeah, that's awesome.

I really like that a lot. 

Aditi: So for you, one thing that I've always struggled with is, Okay. Involving technical people. So as a product manager, how do you make sure that technical engineers, designers, and all that's people, all those people that marketing usually doesn't have access to have a say in what we're doing as a company.

Arjun: It's, it's so hard. I think [00:13:00] that I want to try your care method because otherwise it's kind of almost like individual relationships. You have an individual relationship with the with your manager who will tell you things differently than they'll tell things like everybody speaks to you based on your personal relationship with them, right?

So like in the big meeting with everyone the chief product officer is not going to tell it to you straight the way everyone needs to hear it. But in your one on one with that person, you're going to hear. It's straight and the engineers are not going to speak up in that big meeting, but when you like, sit down with them and ask them questions and give them a safe space to talk, then they.

And so, like, I think I, I, I really like your get everyone that cares in a room and, like, help foster relationships between these different teams. But in the past. I've, I've kind of done it being the [00:14:00] super connector. I'm like, that's kind of my personality as well. I'm a super connector. And so I build deep relationships with different people.

And so I did it that way in the past. And I've, I've solved some, I'm proud of myself to say that I've solved some pretty gnarly communication problems using this method, right? Like, okay, the CPO has a vision for this product. And the engineers are very confused as to what's going on because XYZ thing event happened, which led them to assume ABC thing and the chief product officer was like, nah, man, that's not what I'm talking about.

And that's like, what the hell is going on here? It's a complicated 

Aditi: game of like Japanese telephone at that point. 

Arjun: Absolutely. And and I think, and I think that Like, like this podcast topic is about effective strategies, right? 

Aditi: Mm 

Arjun: hmm. I think sometimes what I'm talking about is when all of your strategies go to shit.

Yes. This is like the thing that you need to do. You just need to [00:15:00] do the groundwork of like being able to talk effectively. And have people open up to you and give their heart transparent heart out so that you can solve the issues. That 1 is less of a effective communication strategy and more of a, like, the bare, bare bottom like thing you need to do.

Yeah, but yeah, and, and things change, right? Like, communication is so hard because it's things are constantly changing decisions are being remade and. And stuff like that. And so what do you do when, like, the marketing strategies need to change? Due to like the product vision changing. 

Aditi: Do I have stories about that?

Arjun: Oh, you have stories for this. 

Aditi: Do I have stories for this? So, so one thing that I've seen from top leadership is that they tend to communicate. To maybe like one or two people and then they communicate to [00:16:00] everyone. 

Arjun: So it's like a few people in the inner circle and then yeah, they 

Aditi: like make the decision with like their two friends that they have on the chief stuff, like chief staff.

And then they like, they kind of refine it, but they don't really. And then they just like send them what I seen is like they send a company wide email and then the company just goes haywire and very confused about what's happening. So And then you kind of just have to adapt to it because your CEO is telling you to do something you don't really have a choice.

So at that point, what really happens is that you kind of just, you have to be the one who just like kind of slows things down and kind of has to be like, okay, so if this is what we want to do so say, The CEO is asking for a different project to be front runner on what's being pushed from sales, right?

So say there's been one product, product a was being pushed until now for the last two years. And now the CEO has decided that product B is going to be our front runner. And it's going to be the one that sales pushes the [00:17:00] most. And as a product marketer, There's a lot of things that you have to do. So you have to, you probably have to rebrand the website if you're doing a different major product.

You're probably adjusting the product pages. You're adjusting, you're working with digital marketing to adjust different emails that are going out different flyers. All the different ads that we're running. We have to change focus. It's a very like 180 that you have to take when you're changing like the primary.

Arjun: As a product marketer. As a product 

Aditi: marketer. And you are the one that's running it. No matter what, how many times the CEO will say something about like what shifts do we need to make. It is your job as a product marketer to make sure that that goes as smoothly as possible. You can't, like they say, you ship your org chart.

You have to be as subtle about how bad your org chart is at that point. As possible, right? And especially if you have are the single product marketer, then it's a little easier for you. You can you can maybe cushion the [00:18:00] blow for everyone else on how we're going to go about it. Or you just 

Arjun: simply executing everything 

Aditi: kind of a thing.

You can't execute everything. You, you can't possibly just be like, Oh, we're shifting products and we're going to do it in a month. Like that's impossible. So basically what you do is you kind of, you have to like negotiate where you get started. So what I would say is start at a smaller scale. So maybe Maybe you don't do the website 1st, you do, like, email marketing and you kind of just try to tread the water, try to figure out what kind of messaging works for this new product.

What, what kind of customers you're looking at? Are there, is there certain customers that customer success is where we can really test this thing out with?

Sorry, Siri turned on. Are there certain things that you can like work with customer success for and you can just like test it out with current customers to get like, Feedback about it. So you have to slow it down a lot. And then you build from there. And you think about, [00:19:00] okay, so this has, this is what has worked.

This is what we're seeing from current customers who are using the product that we're trying to shift to. And this is what we're seeing from the customers that are looking to buy the product that we're shifting to, right? You gather all that information and then you build from there. And then you do the biggest changes last.

So, things like the landing page and maybe the biggest ads that you're running are going to be the things that you change at the absolute end of whatever shift that you're doing. 

Arjun: And at that point, you've learned so much from testing with specific customers from the customer success team and testing with email marketing and testing with digital marketing ad buys and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

That those big changes are more smooth, I assume. 

Aditi: Yes, exactly. So you've answered a lot of the questions that you would have earlier and at a smaller scale so that the customer doesn't get affected by the, the craziness that's happening in the background as [00:20:00] much. 

Arjun: Mm hmm. Yeah, it's it. They almost like don't notice the changes.

Aditi: They really, the best way to do it is if the customer doesn't notice them, but obviously that's not possible. So you want them to notice as few of the changes as possible. 

Arjun: Yeah, for sure. Well this was a really awesome conversation, Ithi. We both had, like, some pretty cool stories to tell and I think the overarching message is that Assuring Alignment is pretty tough.

There is a lot of work that goes into it obviously. And whether it's like the raw boots on the ground, like figuring things out, or it's like smart strategies to to do it. It's a lot of work, which I think is, is awesome because I think that's kind of what we like in this industry. We like doing work.

Cool. Are you ready for the news topic, Aditi? 

So for our news topic today, we're talking about Hey. com. They launched an email service a couple years ago and clashed with [00:21:00] Apple big time on Apple's the App Store rules that Apple has. And now Hey has launched a calendar app, and similarly Apple is causing issues for them for launching it.

on the app store because of the same issue. Basically, Apple wants a 30 percent cut of all revenues made from the app. And so the app doesn't want to pay the 30 percent and kind of sidesteps the the, the rule, which is something that a lot of big apps like Netflix and, and other companies do as well.

But for some reason, Apple makes an exception for those companies while not making exception for Hey. com. And so Hey. com's founders, which are who are pretty vocal are kind of drumming up support on, on Twitter or talking about this issue again on Twitter on X, I should say. And it's kind of kind of frustrating for them.

[00:22:00] Aditi, what do you think about Apple's revenue model and and how they're kind of throwing their weight around here? I think, 

Aditi: I think Apple's known for throwing their weight around. They, they have a monopoly and they definitely know it. And they kind of just like, It's kind of the attitude that Elon Musk kind of has about X is like, where are you going to go?

Or like what Mark Zuckerberg had a few years ago of like, if you're not going to advertise on Facebook or Twitter, Instagram, like where are you going to go? Where else are you going to advertise? And all of these big this, This industry so called thing kind of has this collective attitude about it.

Right. Amazon has the same thing. It's a very, it's a very like, I am here and I am the only choice you have, and I know it kind of attitude. And it sucks for smaller retailers. They've been trying to fight it for so long. We saw this. We saw the whole thing go crazy for Amazon right before COVID. If you don't, I don't know if you remember this [00:23:00] when big box retailers started to go off Amazon and focus on their own store fronts.

Nike was the biggest one that did that. I 

Arjun: think I remember this and they all went to Shopify, right? 

Aditi: They all went to Shopify and they started controlling their own websites. So the biggest thing that they were fighting against for Amazon was that what Amazon does is they buy the entire stock that that company's selling.

So they buy the entire stock of like Nike air force ones, and then. I'm right, right? It's the right company. They buy the entire stock of Air Force Ones and then they sell it at a discounted price on Amazon. 

Arjun: So basically, now you don't have any of your warehouse? 

Aditi: Yes. And it's not Nike selling it, so it's not Nike's discounts, it's Amazon's discounts.

And they're usually a lot deeper discounts than what Nike would offer. 

Arjun: Yeah. And 

Aditi: the problem with that is that it's devaluing Nike's brand. 

Arjun: Yeah, that's double whammy. Not only does Nike not have the warehouse now, But the brand is devalued? That's [00:24:00] brutal. So 

Aditi: a lot of brands fought against it by focusing on their own storefronts, which is what you said that like they shifted to Shopify and they started doing e comm themselves rather than using Amazon for that.

And I don't know if that's even possible for Apple because where, where are you going to go other than the Apple store if you want an app on the iPhone? But there are a lot of, like you said, there are big box companies that have been doing the workaround where it's like, you have to go online to create your account and then you come back to the app.

So, 

Arjun: yeah. Well, these developers have the workaround too, right? Like, but Apple is just. Being really annoying and trying to enforce their rules. I guess it's not annoying, it's, it's monopolistic. It's 

Aditi: monopolies. 

Arjun: And the crazy thing is like this, This was a thing a couple years ago and Apple added a change to their rule to say, okay, if you're a certain type of app you're able to, to like sidestep [00:25:00] this because there was a big court case filing about it.

But but yeah, they're kind of back at it, which kind of sucks. So, so, yeah, this is what I wanted to say. So, like hey, the hey, team is arguing that, like, Google calendar and netflix bypass apples in that purchase requirement. And it kind of sucks that apple's not applying its policies uniformly across all the apps. But I think different apps have different models, so like, possibly I think that's 

Aditi: an unfair comparison, in my opinion.

Not Netflix, but Google Calendar is an unfair comparison because it's a freemium model. Google, Google Calendar, Google Mail, all that is available to you free. As long as you're just like an individual. What one time like user, when you become like a part of an org is when you have to pay and it's a ridiculous amount of money that you have to pay, but like the G suite is ridiculously expensive for companies.

Arjun: It's 

Aditi: ridiculous how, but, but like I said, it's a freemium [00:26:00] model. So there is a part of that app and a significant part of that app that you can use for free. And you don't have to pay anything for it. So there is a part of that experience that anyone, everyone can have. I'm not, I, I'm not sure if Netflix still has that experience where you can browse, but you can't watch.

Arjun: Oh, it used 

Aditi: to have this experience where you can browse in Netflix. Inventory, but you can't watch anything unless you pay Hulu has the same thing like maybe 

Arjun: this is why maybe this is why because Apple's rule of like, so apparently Apple is this is what Apple is telling Hey, that like, hey, you can't do anything on this app, unless you pay.

So it's basically like a dummy app. And you can't pay, like, in the app, so it's like a really dumb app, because not only can you not do anything in the app, but you can't pay in the app either. The ones I hate the most is 

Aditi: when, the ones I hate the most are those, the ones where you, like, take a stupid little quiz that lasts like five minutes and then you realize that you have to pay for anything else.

Arjun: [00:27:00] Yeah. Yeah, so 

Aditi: incredibly annoying 

Arjun: You feel like apple's kind of right in protecting their inventory of apps or like ensuring quality This is like a fair argument to ensure quality. 

Aditi: No, I don't I don't agree with apple being like the bully For little apps, I, but I do agree that having to pay for any experience in an app is ridiculous.

It's kind of, at that point you might as well just ask for five bucks to download the app in the first place. Because it's the same thing in my opinion. Because you're not really getting to experience the app before you pay for it. You know, it's, there's a couple of apps that I've downloaded in the past that were like advertised to me on Instagram.

And then I was like, okay, this is cool. Maybe I should try it out and see what it, what it's all about. I download it. I take a little stupid quiz and then at the end of it, they're like, okay, so if you want to see whatever results. are the quiz, you have to pay like 13 a month or something. And we charge yearly.

And I'm just like, this is ridiculous. That's 

Arjun: so ridiculous. [00:28:00] 

Aditi: The way they like charge you too is just like, what the hell? 

Arjun: Yeah. Yeah. It's like they make 

Aditi: you pay for like a whole year. And I'm just like, that's, that's so stupid. But the point is that, yes, I do not agree with that way of like selling your app because you're not giving the user.

Any chance to really understand the experience that they're gonna get before they pay for something And if you're charging yearly then like a couple hundred dollars 

Arjun: Yeah, 

Aditi: you know, 

Arjun: I agree. Great. Yeah, it's kind of a weird a weird thing. I I wonder I mean apple's never gonna change this. 

Aditi: I don't 

Arjun: think it's our job 

Aditi: to change that but I do think that individual action understand that not giving an experience altogether is just hurting their customer base I think a freemium model when it comes to subscriptions that are like 5, 10, 15 dollars a month.

I think there's a certain amount of that experience that should be given for free just so the customer can understand what they will be paying for. Even if you do it for like two weeks. But like not requiring a credit card for the [00:29:00] two week trial is so incredibly important in my opinion. Yeah, 

Arjun: for like brand loyalty.

Yeah. Well I think. Part of the difference here is that these are, this is kind of like Google app suite where like the main service would be on the like browser. And then this is like an app extension for your phone. You can always 

Aditi: just create the little app with the browse extension, right on. You can save the browser.

Page onto your home screen on Apple. You can always just 

Arjun: sometimes you want to like, do like build a proper app, right? Like for your, for your user base. Yeah, but if you're not going to give them an experience at all, 

Aditi: then what's the point? 

Arjun: Yeah, that's true. No both sides are are true, I think. Yeah.

All right we're getting close to the end of our episode. Do you have anything personal anecdotes or something you learned this week? 

Aditi: Not really. It snowed here, like you said, then I stayed inside. I watched the show. It was a really cool show. I don't know if you [00:30:00] like mystery thrillers. 

Arjun: Oh, yeah.

Aditi: It's a, it's called Fool Me Once. Cool 

Arjun: me once. Okay. It's on 

Aditi: Netflix. It's a limited series, eight episodes or something, and I watched it and it was, it was very entertaining. I finished it at one day . 

Arjun: Wow. Wow. That's really good. There's been a very few shows that have gotten me to binge the entire thing in one day.

Aditi: I've been told that the first one or two episodes are a little slow, but it picks up really quickly. 

Arjun: Okay, that's what the last time I binged an entire show in a day was actually The Witcher Season 1. 

Aditi: Oh, I heard that was really good. 

Arjun: Yeah, it was the same way for me where it was like the first two episodes, I was like, whatever.

Aditi: Mm hmm. 

Arjun: And I had time, so I was like, okay, like, I'll watch this third one. And then after I watched the third one, I couldn't put it down. I watched the rest of it. Like I spent probably like 10 hours that day just watching The 

Aditi: Witcher. It's based on the book by a really famous mystery author, Harlan [00:31:00] Coleman.

Arjun: Okay. 

Aditi: I don't know if you've heard of him. My mom 

Arjun: is a huge mystery lady. His books 

Aditi: have been adapted into Netflix series about like four times already. This is the fourth one. And it's, it's so, he's like so famous that even on the title, like the, like the page of the The thing, the show, it says Harlan Coben's Fool Me Once.

Arjun: Oh wow, okay. It's not on Netflix right now 

Aditi: actually. 

Arjun: Okay, damn, wow. I'll have to check it out. 

Aditi: I recommend it to anyone who likes mysteries. 

Arjun: Cool my mom might really like it. The thriller part she might not like though, so I'll have to check it out. 

Aditi: It's not a, it's not as much of a thriller as it is a mystery.

Arjun: Okay, good, good. 

Aditi: Sure. 

Arjun: Well, that wraps up our episode of PM vs. PMM. Remember, there are four factors of being a great product person. One, build the right thing for the right users. Two, reduce risks. Three, ensure alignment. And four, continuously learn. We want to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn if you have any ideas.

We would love to have you [00:32:00] be a part of our show. Thank you so much for diving. Thank you so much for joining our deep dives into product discussions. Until next week, keep innovating and aligning. And don't forget, if it's snowed in where you live, Then be happy because global warming sucks. All right, bye