Automating PRDs and Beyond with AI | Roman Gun, VP of Prod. (Zeta Global) | LaunchPod AI

June 24th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  29 mins 45 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

We're excited to kick off a new show focusing on the real-world AI applications that product teams are using to become faster, more efficient, and smarter.

Jeff has been traveling across the country meeting product leaders, and he keeps having the same conversation: every product person wants to know how their peers are using AI in their teams and their workflows.

So we’re bringing you those conversations about how your peers are using AI in their day-to-day to move faster and more efficiently than ever before.

In our first episode, we’re welcoming back Roman Gun, VP of Product at Zeta Global. In this episode, we talk about:

• The prompting and workflow orchestrations Roman created to automate writing PRDs, one of the most disliked tasks of product managers, and how he has made them into living, breathing documents that initiate collaboration
• The AI communities and platforms he uses, including Reddit and Discord, to stay ahead, learn new tricks, and gain early access to the best new tools
• And Magic...not actual magic, but we have a little fun with Roman’s side-project centered around Magic: The Gathering, and how he built tools to prototype new decks and beat players with far more experience

How To Modernize Million-User Products | Kamal Srinivasan, SVP of Product (Alludo) | LaunchPod

June 17th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  40 mins 49 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

Today on the pod, we’re talking with Kamal Srinivasan, SVP of Product Development at Alludo.

Kickstarter's Comeback | Mahesh Guruswamy, CPTO (Kickstarter)

June 10th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  35 mins 16 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

Today, we’re talking with Mahesh Guruswamy, CPTO at Kickstarter.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How daily reflection on hard moments helped him grow as a leader—and led to his widely praised book How to Deliver Bad News and Get Away with It.
• How Kickstarter went from “printing money” and experiencing “insane” PMF to plateauing - and how they created urgency and competition to quickly turn it around
• The actual process Kickstarter used to activate its creator and backer communities to shape a better UX, build real loyalty, and re-ignite growth

Inside MailChimp's PLG Engine | Lauren Schuman, VP of Prod. Growth (Bitly) | LaunchPod

June 3rd, 2025  |  Season 1  |  35 mins 3 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

On today’s episode, our guest is Lauren Schuman, VP of Product Growth at Bitly & former Sr. Dir. of Product Growth at MailChimp.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Lauren created PLG as a discipline at MailChimp and turned it into a systematic growth engine
• The turnaround story behind a failed product launch, and how it led to a 183% spike in adoption overnight
• Why lagging engagement pushed her to lead a ground-up rebuild of MailChimp’s core email editor to improve growth

How to compete with Apple — and win | Steve Chazin, CEO & Founder (Skytech.io) | LaunchPod (Repeat)

May 27th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  30 mins 30 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

On today’s repeat episode, our guest is Steve Chazin, CEO & Founder of Skytech.io and formerly VP of Products at Alarm.com.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Steve’s experience working at Apple, competing with Final Cut Pro, and his current role at alarm.com
• The time he said no to Steve Jobs — and how that pushed his career forward
• The importance of user-centered product design and the impact of AI in home security

The AI Velocity Engine for Product | Jeremy Pollock VP of Product (WP Engine) | LaunchPod

May 20th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  41 mins 20 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

Build product impact with LLMs and data normalization | Rajitha Chaparala VP of Product (Procore) | LaunchPod

May 13th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  38 mins 22 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

On today’s episode, we’re talking with Rajitha Chaparala, VP of Product at Procore, a construction management solution and one of the most successful examples of vertical SaaS out there today.

How to category carve in B2B commerce | Jake Hookom, EVP of Product (Perforce) | LaunchPod

May 6th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  38 mins 32 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

Today, we’re talking with Jake Hookom, EVP of Product at Perforce.

In this episode, we’ll explore:

• How Jake’s focus on "category carving" at Four51 helped them soar above the sea of headless commerce tools and into a successful exit
• Why most PMs are wrong to measure success on features shipped - it’s about solving user problems throughout the entire customer journey
• And, how Sitecore’s enormous practitioner community provided market awareness and a means to drive product adoption beyond anything they could do alone disrupts the world

Building Consumer Trust for Mainstream Adoption | Sean McLeary, VP, Prod. Exp. (InTapp) | LaunchPod

April 29th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  38 mins 53 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

Today, we’re talking with Sean McLeary, VP of Product Experience at Intapp.

In this episode, we’ll explore:

• How Sean turned Macys.com and Macy’s brick-and-mortar into one cohesive experience, increasing revenue across both sources
• How the team at DocuSign improved the UX to go from tech darling to mainstream product
• The current landscape of AI adoption, addressing "empty box syndrome," and how AI’s parallels to the early stages of the internet help us understand how user behavior might evolve

Build Product Like Typeform | Aleks Bass, CPO (TypeForm) | LaunchPod (Pt.2)

April 22nd, 2025  |  Season 1  |  30 mins 26 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

Today, we’re getting into Part 2 of our masterclass on user research and product strategy from Aleks Bass, CPO at Typeform.

In part two of this episode, Aleks talks about:

• How she successfully launched Typeform for Growth in only six months, which quickly became Typeform's fastest-growing product ever
• How she restructured the entire Typeform product development lifecycle, adding continuous usability testing as a crucial part of that process
• And how you can cultivate strong partnerships between R&D and GTM to drive similar success

Build Product Like Typeform | Aleks Bass, CPO (TypeForm) | LaunchPod (Pt.1)

April 15th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  43 mins 21 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

Today, we’re talking with Aleks Bass, CPO at Typeform.

In part one of this two-part episode, Aleks talks about:

• The exact methodologies for user research that she used to develop a complete product strategy in just 45 days
• Their discovery of “feature constellations” - sets of features that are worth 10x more when combined than just the sum of the parts
• How to break the rules of user research for even faster results

How To Say "Not Yet" To Enterprise | Deepti Mendiratta, VP Of Products (HungerRush) | LaunchPod

April 8th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  35 mins 34 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

Today, we’re talking with Deepti Mendiratta, VP of Product at HungerRush, an all-in-one POS system for restaurants.

In this episode, Deepti talks about:

• Why you have to just “make the pizza” - meaning experience the day-to-day of your users, not just your buyers, to build software that solves key issues for the business
• getting her biggest UX wins from fixing the paper cuts that users run into all the time, not just the sporadic gaping wounds
• And, how to say “not yet” to the allure of going upmarket to Enterprise too soon...because, as she says, once you catch that elephant, you have to feed it

How to unlock $50 million in revenue in one year | Vaarrun Bimbhat, Head of Product (Jiffy.com) | LaunchPod

April 1st, 2025  |  Season 1  |  37 mins 42 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

Today, we’re talking with Vaarrun Bimbhat, Head of Product at Jiffy.com, an online retailer of customizable clothing.

In this episode, Vaarrun talks about:

• Humanizing the sale of high-commit items, like furniture, at Wayfair - which led to $50m in additional sales
• How he built a repeatable process to expand into new countries at Shopify - adding almost 100k new merchants and $50m in additional revenue in India in the first year alone
• And why developing a billing experimentation platform drove over $26m in gross profit annually at Shopify

Vertical shift: How to navigate new product markets | Dan McCarthy, VP of Product (Cyvl) | LaunchPod

March 25th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  33 mins 3 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

Today, we’re talking with Dan McCarthy, VP of Product at Cyvl, an AI-powered mapping tool for transportation infrastructure.

In this episode, Dan talks about:

• Using lessons from building digital products to improve the physical world around us
• Dan’s repeatable playbook for launching into new industries—and the pitfalls to avoid.
• How a drop in data ingestion costs allowed Cyvl to open up a new, digitally enhanced way of looking at the world
• Why nailing the entire go-to-market strategy is just as critical as the product itself

A PM’s guide to mergers and acquisitions | Sowmya Sundararagavan, Sr. Dir. Product (Freshworks)

March 18th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  39 mins 14 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

Today, we’re talking with Sowmya Sundararagavan, Senior Director of Product at Freshworks, an AI customer service, IT, and CRM software platform.

This episode with Sowmya was a master class in product leadership after an acquisition. She explains:

• The worst thing you can do as a product leader post-acquisition
• Her process to successfully integrate separate product visions
• How to bridge the gap between old and new teams during M&As

How to tell your CEO they’re wrong about product centricity | Steve Nash, Dir. of Product (GumGum) | LaunchPod

March 11th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  31 mins 50 secs

business, digital experience, product management, technology

Today, we’re talking with Steve Nash, Director of Product for GumGum, an ad-tech platform that matches brands and consumers through AI-powered data and media solutions.

In this episode, Steve talks about:

• How to tell your CEO that they’re wrong — and not lose your career
• The story behind Playground’s transition to a product-centric culture, and the pace of innovation it unlocked for the team
• Why unifying behind Playground’s mission of being “the attention company” led to their successful exit and acquisition by GumGum