About the show

LaunchPod is a product management podcast hosted by LogRocket's CEO, Matt Arbesfeld, and VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, where they talk to product leaders about the issues they faced in their careers, how they found solutions to those issues, and how you can apply these solutions in your own day-to-day product role.

LaunchPod on social media

Episodes

  • No BS eComm Analytics | Julie Acosta, Dir. of eComm & Analytics (NOBULL, AutoZone) [Repeat]

    December 17th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  38 mins 56 secs
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    Today, our guest is Julie Acosta, Director of eComm and Marketing Analytics at NOBULL, a fast-growing Boston-based footwear and apparel brand.

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    Playbook: PM like a GM | Lauren Creedon, VP of Product (Goldcast, Drift, Hudl)

    December 10th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  31 mins 38 secs
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    On today’s episode of LaunchPod, Jeff Wharton talks to Lauren Creedon, VP of Product at Goldcast, who formerly led product at Drift and Hudl.

  • From product leader to founder | Arman Javaherian, CEO & Co-Founder (Home AI, Shortcut, Crunchbase)

    December 3rd, 2024  |  Season 1  |  39 mins 34 secs
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    On today’s episode of LaunchPod, Jeff Wharton talks to Arman Javaherian, CEO & Co-Founder at Homa, about how he went from leading product at Shortcut, Zillow, and Crunchbase to then pivoting to a founder role at Homa AI.

  • Manage product like P&G | Prabhath Nanisetty, Global Head of Industry for Retail Data, Technology, and Quick Commerce (Snowflake)

    November 26th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  39 mins 30 secs
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    On today’s episode of LaunchPod, Jeff Wharton talks with Prabhath Nanisetty, Global Head of Industry for Retail Data, Technology, and Quick Commerce at Snowflake, about how his career started from working as an engineer at Proctor and Gamble where he transitioned into product and worked his way up to leadership at P&G, InfoScout/Numerator, and Snowflake.

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    Building an award-winning ad experience at WSJ | Caroline Albanese, Product Director, Data Products & Capabilities (Dow Jones)

    November 19th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  37 mins 1 sec
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    Today, we’re talking with Caroline Albanese, Product Director of Data Products and Capabilities at Dow Jones.

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    Bridging in-store and digital with analytics | Julie Acosta, Dir. of eComm & Analytics (NOBULL, AutoZone)

    November 12th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  38 mins 56 secs
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    Today, our guest is Julie Acosta, Director of eComm and Marketing Analytics at NOBULL, a fast-growing Boston-based footwear and apparel brand.

    For Julie, curiosity has a funny way of making you change course. As she originally set out to avoid numbers by going to university for marketing, but as she began developing her career, she found that understanding and working with data made her more effective at understanding her customer base.

    It was at AutoZone, where her path really changed, as Julie went from merchandising to building AutoZone’s first eCommerce Analytics team from the ground up.

    By bridging the digital and in-store experiences, her team altered the company’s understanding of how the two were linked, including how new product lines can grow existing lines and how online customer behavior influences in-store purchases.

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    How to build product at Linear with Nan Yu (Repeat)

    November 5th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  39 mins 36 secs
    business, digital experience, product management, technology

    Today, we're re-running one of our favorite episodes with Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear, a purpose-built tool for planning and building products. Prior to working at Linear, Nan worked at Mode, Abstract, Everlane, and Bank of America.

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    The business of re-branding poop | Isabel Petty, Head of Digital Product at TUSHY (Pattern, GritWell, Walmart)

    October 29th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  34 mins 45 secs
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    Today, our guest is Isabel Petty, Head of Digital Product at TUSHY, a modern and sustainable bidet company.

    Isabel received her Masters of Technology Management degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, after which she became a category manager at Walmart and then joined Gritwell, a virtual health clinic, in growth and product development. Before her current role at TUSHY, she served as a senior product manager at Pattern Brands.

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    Scaling zero to $25M product growth lessons | Michael Park, Product Coach & Advisor (BombBomb, Rendi)

    October 22nd, 2024  |  Season 1  |  43 mins 53 secs
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    Today, our guest is Michael Park, Product Coach and Advisor who previously served as CPO of BombBomb, a video messaging software company.

    Michael began his career in product design at Havoc, where he transitioned into product management and eventually became VP of product. Michael then served in leadership roles at Danielson Designs and Rendi, a customizable frames and signs company. Most recently, he spent nearly nine years at BombBomb, where he oversaw the product life cycle, managed a 20-person product team, and expanded the customer base from SMB to enterprise.

    On today's episode, LogRocket's VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, talks to Michael about his six lessons from scaling product from zero to $25M ARR; the nuance that comes with the “founder mode” discussion in relation to best leadership practices; and what a self-imposed sabbatical taught Michael about product leadership.

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    Survive & thrive in the product growth revolution | Aakash Gupta, CPO, Product Growth (Apollo.io, threadUp, Epic Games)

    October 15th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  41 mins 36 secs
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    Today, our guest is Aakash Gupta, CPO of Product Growth, the world's largest newsletter on product growth, with over 110K subscribers.

    Aakash has held an extensive array of product leader roles, spanning from Director of Growth at threadUp, Lead Product Manager at Epic Games, Head of Product Growth at Affirm, to most recently serving as VP of Product at Apollo.io before launching Product Growth.

    Today, our guest is Aakash Gupta, the author of Product Growth, the world's largest newsletter on product growth, with over 140K subscribers.

    Aakash has held an extensive array of product leader roles, spanning from Director of Growth at threadUp, Lead Product Manager at Epic Games, Head of Product Growth at Affirm, to most recently serving as VP of Product at Apollo.i.

    On today's episode, LogRocket's VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, talks to Aakash about the different archetypes of product leaders and how those leadership types influence the teams around them; what Aakash's three big wake-up calls were throughout his career that drove him to become a better product leader as his career progressed; and how product growth has become an increasingly imperative role within an organization and how to optimize it.

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    Building Product School from boostrapped to 2M members | Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia, Founder & CEO, Product School

    October 8th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  45 mins 51 secs
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    Today, our guest is Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia, Founder and CEO of Product School.

    A seasoned startup founder and CEO, Carlos founded NetDay and Floqq before founding Product School in 2014. Since founding Product School, Carlos has grown his product training community to over 2 million product professionals, produces ProductCon, a multi-city product conference hosted every year, wrote the Amazon best-seller, The Product Book, and hosts the Proddys, an annual awards event honoring the best software products.

    On today's episode, LogRocket's VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, talks to Carlos about how he went from a software engineer to successful founder; the changing dynamics of product roles, including strategies for scaling a business and the future potential of AI in product management; and why community engagement and continuous learning is beneficial to success.

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    Ditch Founder Mode, go Team Mode | David LoPresti, Dir. U-Haul Apps (U-Haul)

    October 1st, 2024  |  Season 1  |  40 mins
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    Today, our guest is David LoPresti, Director of U-Haul Apps at U-Haul.

    With experience in a wide variety of areas, including operations management, customer service, sales, and marketing, David has grown his career at U-Haul over the past two decades. He began his tenure as a service manager before transitioning to web sales and, later, program management. David then became director of Moving Help, a U-Haul service, before taking over the U-Haul Apps program.

    On today's episode, LogRocket's VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, talks to David about balancing operational excellence and innovation to maintain market leadership, why “founder mode” isn't the end-all-be-all of creating the best product or solution, and how he has scaled and innovated multiple U-Haul programs to drive transformation and success as a leader.

    So here it is, our conversation with David Lopresti.

  • Build a company, not a T-Rex | Rich DiTieri, Sr. Dir., EF (Startup Institute, Pintley, Stack Education)

    September 24th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  41 mins 33 secs
    business, digital product, digital product experience, product management, technology

    Today, our guest is Rich DiTieri, Senior Director of Digital Product at Education First.

    Rich has a broad-spanning career from working in tech, founding startups, and managing product. He founded the company Pintley, one of the fastest-growing craft beer communities that was hailed by the New York Times as “the Pandora of Beer.” He continued on to become CEO of the Startup Institute, a professional training and coaching program in Boston, and co-founded Stack Education, a marketplace that promotes more efficient, productive, and speedy clinical trials.

    On today's episode, LogRocket's VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, talks to Rich about the importance of fostering a passionate work culture with the concept of “go slow to go fast”; what he learned founding a successful craft beer startup to address a key market need; and why aligning mission, roles, and teams is critical for career success.

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    Transforming and modernizing brands with Scott Lux, EVP

    September 17th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  38 mins 52 secs
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    Today, our guest is Scott Lux, Vice President of Global E-commerce and Technology at Esprit, a retail apparel and fashion company.

    Scott started his career in financial consulting at Fidelity before transitioning to program and product management at Infospace. From there, Scott moved into product management roles at companies like Chase, VML COMMERCE, L’Oreal, and American Express. Prior to joining Esprit, he led digital marketing and e-commerce initiatives at Diesel, John Varvatos Enterprises, Intermix, VIDEOSHOPS, and Eberjey.

    On today's episode, LogRocket's VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, talks to Scott about the evolution of e-commerce and how it has effected commerce as a whole; how SaaS has both improved e-commerce but has brought with it complexities like site performance and tackling a new user experience; and how to build a cohesive brand in a competitive landscape, underlining the importance of adapting to new customer touchpoints.

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    Less gas, more brakes, ship fast with Ben Newell, Product Executive

    September 10th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  42 mins 7 secs
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    Today, our guest is Ben Newell, A product executive who has launched products into B2B and B2C environments for the last 25 years.

    Ben spent the first 17 years of his career at Sabre, where he started as a software developer and later owned product portfolio strategy. He transitioned to VP product to launch LTK, before moving onto Stitch Fix. His latest role was VP Product at Miovision, a traffic management platform for cities.

    On today's episode, LogRocket's VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, talks to Ben about the importance of psychological safety on product teams, how belief in success creates stronger teams, and how a foundation of solid product management principles is essential before graduating to more complex tactics.

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    The end of MVPs and prioritizing accountability with Jason Penkethman, CPO (Repeat)

    September 3rd, 2024  |  Season 1  |  42 mins 8 secs
    business, digital product experience, product management, technology

    Today, our guest is Jason Penkethman, Chief Product Officer at Simpro Group, business software for trade professionals.

    Prior to working at Simpro group, Jason worked in product management, engineering, and leadership roles through a range of industries, including mobile devices, data services, SaaS, and automotive IoT.

    On today's episode, LogRocket's VP of Marketing, Jeff Wharton, talks to Jason about emphasizing the importance of a go-to-market perspective, customer interaction, the importance of accountability, and leadership challenges like team alignment and data-driven decisions.