 But for a soft scale answer, you need to train it, such as how I train it. It should be streaming live right now. So we're going to start in one minute. Okay, great. So it's successfully live. We're getting started in one minute. Welcome guys. Let me stop sharing the screen. I'm also parking my phone right here. Welcome, welcome guys. Hey guys, this is Dr. Nancy Lee. I'm so excited to see all of you guys today. Today is our first episode of our insider podcast and I'm very excited to have our guest loop looping. Hi, I'm Nancy Lee. This is Dr. Nancy Lee, your host for your host today regarding product insider podcast. I'm a direct product and featured in Forbes. I am obsessed with all things career growth, product management and nonprofit. I want to help you to create the product you are truly passionate about and create the impact, create the product you can impact millions of people's life together and also make the work like balance that you deserve and maintain the things you fall in passion about in your life as well. And quick introduction myself. I'm an immigrant with $800 in my pocket when I moved to the US and within four years I became a direct product and right now I run my own educational company called product manager accelerator. And my goal is my management career available for everybody. That's why on our product insider podcast we brought lots of industry leaders to share with you guys how they move their career into leadership positions and how they create product that actually impact millions of people's life together. Awesome. So great. I'm very excited to have Luton Lupin campus with us together and she is director of growth and stash. Let me do a proper introduction of her. Hi, Lupin. How are you? I'm good Dr. Nancy. How are you? I'm doing very well. So glad to have you on our podcast. So let's do this. Lupin, so why don't I just let us know regarding the bio, what do you plan to do today and do a proper introduction of Lupin and currently so Lupin is an electric, electric product manager leader and former entrepreneur and above all month of two. She was, she has worked in tech for almost 15 years and playing diverse roles from leading a consulting company to funding an ad tech startup and being a venture partner at VC firm. Lupin has also found focus on helping mission driven companies grow as a growth product manager and leader for the last few years, and she currently helped the 99% and build long term bills by guiding the customer acquisition and subscriber experience as stash and we're not, we're not at work and and she will spend time with playing with her kids in the backyard and high and hiking in the trials of Atlanta or hurting out of country to visit her friends and family. We love to have you today and Lupin why don't we do this today we talk about product growth and also imposter syndromes and also challenges for women working at home, especially during this pandemic and post pandemic hybrid combo So let's get started regarding, do you want to give a quick overview, we I gave a very long bio of who you are do you want to give us a quick overview regarding your career growth, how we get into where you are right now. Yeah, sure. It's been, it's been fun and I, the quick part is going to be hard because it's been, I'm in my 40s now, I'm really, it's the first, it's my first month that I can say that so You look much younger than that. Next time you say I'm in my 30s. Yes, I agree. But I've been. So it's been, it's been, it's been a long path here and it was never straightforward which is I think a commonality within product managers in general. I studied industrial design started working in advertising. And then from there I moved to software with my best friend, because we we wanted to find our final one thing and we wanted to have our own company. And software was what we had in common so doing the same thing that I was doing in industrial as an industrial designer that was understanding problems and building solutions from there. I moved from the physical world to this online world and the computer world. And then, yeah, I've been doing I did that for many years we pivoted that into a startup in the attic space as you mentioned, we, I was the CEO. We like learned a lot about like fundraising and all that. And then unfortunately after like three years we decided to close that company we didn't want to go through like an aqua hire or something we were just tired of a lot of a lot of really hard work that takes racing you're having your company and raising money and all that. One of our investors was like hey, was great working with you. What would you want to do next sounds like I have no idea she's like okay great and you're going to come work with us and we'll figure that out. Together while you have a salary and at that time I was moving from New York to the West Coast to California for my husband's job so I was like okay great because the VC was in California was 500 startups. And then I decided that I couldn't be behind people be like yeah you should like think about this way like that I wanted to do things I missed executing I missed being on top of the product. And so I started my job search I started doing product management, which was what I was doing before but I just didn't know that they go through a lot of working with engineers and like converting problems into solutions and guiding them through the process and I had done like agile courses and all that I am pretty much a product manager just didn't know that. So that's when I exactly product and got really excited about the early life cycle of the users. And my first company that I started as a senior product manager, I was fascinated about that part, I had no mandate on where to work but I knew that a lot of our KRs were easier. If we studied it early in the life cycle. So when I was working there I realized that that was like was really passionate about that that kind of like touch a little bit on my, my advertising and at tech days because there's a lot of like related with like Facebook ads and all that I was doing in my company before. And then so my following company was like hey we're looking for a director in the product growth and was like, listen, I've been increasing these numbers and the onboarding flow increasing these numbers of like the activation and whatnot and it sounds like a good match. So I moved there and then since then I've stayed in that area for me. That's awesome. And actually, your story resonate with lots of our audience, because lots of us are not part manager beginning at the beginning of a career which is doing something and which will happen to be that we work with engineers and we work with companies to create certain type of product that's our problem for others. And not until tech industry becomes so popular so prominent now everybody do not want to be a McKenzie consultant and say oh let me become part manager. Now it become a thing that everyone transition into PM and that's why later on we'll talk about imposter syndrome people feel like they are not fully equipped, or they're good enough they feel like they are into the fan level or big tech level or into a direct level as well but I'm glad you show us all the past into PM you have taken to get to where you are right now. So let's talk about this regarding growth PM. I think this is a relatively new area for management space you specialize in girls and also as a director you always manage like other people working under you to grow your team as well. So why don't you give us a quick introduction regarding what is growth management. What do you guys do. I think growth is slightly differently defined in each company but on on the big scheme of things. It's basically the work you do from the moment the user learns about about you to the moment they start paying if you have if you have a subscription product or if you if you have like a e-commerce is the moment they buy something but how to grow that audience how to convert them better down the funnel and how to make sure that they're coming back right so it's it's a little bit. It's a little bit working in the early life cycle of the user. There's like there's also product lead growth which is basically working constantly on creating opportunities for new users and generating this famous product loops. Where you say oh well the product like companies a company that has a product that will ignite the fire of bringing new users so a company where like Pinterest is a big example of that people started like pitting things on their boards and then people will Google certain terms and find out about those boards and they created a Pinterest account and then pin more things on the boards and would not so that's kind of like product lead growth. Which is kind of the ideal scenario on the growth space but there's also the few steps. Prior to that we say okay let's make sure that we have a great product that works and that is useful for our users and that makes them excited about being there and makes them pay for it. And that's that's also product growth so basically how we treat users from the ads all the way to the inside of product experience and how we convert them better and how we generate this trust that's like one of the biggest things in the last six years I want to say I five years I've been owning onboarding processes and trust is the commonality and this is through wellness fintech the kids related fintech or finance investment related fintech always is about trust and about getting that trust from the customer and keeping it and increasing it over time. So that's that's what I've been doing on the growth side basically thinking. What, how does the user feel throughout the flow throughout this onboarding flow through this first time user experience their screens that you as a user only see once. And that's the only opportunity you as a company have to delight them delight them. Yes, and to kind of like help them move forward and help them feel this trust and all that so for me growth is a lot about try generating trust with the user and and provided a user experience that will make them understand the value they are getting right away. So bringing the value early on the user life journey, super important, you don't need to wait for them in my case right now I work as a fintech company. It's about investment it's about building long term wealth like wealth, like even the name of what we do describes that it's really hard to show value right away. Yeah, long term wealth. So, especially you are your company I look up your company actually I earlier when I exploring different startup ideas, I work on one of the idea which is helping women to invest better. And then look around of the existing competition with stash you guys a really good product actually and helping small people like us get started like you don't need to be millionaire. You are intro like 99% like us 1% of people the millionaire, like, and they are 20 financial advisors going after them and you guys will using the software fintech approach for small people who started with 100 200 or maybe 1000 10,000. You can start investing today. So that's your product. Can you tell us more regarding for stash. What's your unique customer acquisition strategy. I thought the question is always hard only also because of the how much you want to tell but I think our customer acquisition strategy is around, given the users a good product and a good service from the first moment. By doing that, basically what you do is you decrease your customer acquisition costs because you're paying these new users to your advertising partners against them actually creating the account so you want to make sure that all of them are creating accounts and that lowers your cost so that's kind of like a virtuous cycle. And also on the other side, we create experiences outside the app that other people can join and share. We have stock stock party that is basically any stash user can sign up to that to stop party and the more people in the pool the bigger the pool gets, and everyone gets stock for free. So you are encouraged to sharing it with a family so a lot about like referrals and sharing it. So you get more people to use stash and then these parties get bigger and then you get more stuff on it. So it's kind of like trying to incentivize people, but I think ultimately, it's also a lot for stash about education and getting people that never thought that we're going to be able to to have like a retirement account to have savings to have and to start investing with their own money being like hey, let us educate you and you can learn how to do this with your day to day money and maybe you skip that Starbucks coffee and put this in your future and maybe you skip this position and you put that in your future. So I think that's a lot about we grow by getting, giving people back the power on their money, and that is contagious. This is amazing. Did I hear a key words called you give free stocks, as people join. We have stocks and stock party we have free stocks when you sign when you create your account for the first time and we also have a stock back card so instead of getting points on your on your debit card or whatever you on your credit card on on your stash card you get stock back so you get 36 cents today and that money is going to grow when you you just keep it there and that's money for free so we want to get people to understand the value of compound investment the value of yeah in long term but as a growth manager. His brother manager is really hard to consolidate that we need to show you value right away right it's like exactly the value is like have a great experience and while you have that great experience in our app. You are building you're building your future at the same time so that's kind of like the fascinating like this part that I'm really excited about. This is awesome oh by the way we're going to link the free stock links in the show notes everybody make sure to download and get your free stock as well. Okay we're going to get a link at the podcast just discover something you awesome. Now, let me ask you this sounds like your company is product led growth strategy, you have amazing product design different kind of free stock incentive by them educational plan and then drive users continue to product instead of spending lots of money on ads and direct marketing am I right. Yeah, that's the intention is to have a healthy balance. No company can throw money to the problem all the time and especially on these times that we're living in so that that was a big change across the board from all the people I've been talking to you, where it's like a few years back during coffee companies like most online products were having a feast right they were like throwing money and people were locked in their houses, just taking it, clicking on any add and downloaded anything felt that could give them some like whatever opportunity or having fun opportunity to save more money to do this like it was like kind of like a party going on for people that were advertising online online products because competition died like people saving to go on and people saving to take the kids to Disney like all the money kind of like needed to be allocated somewhere. The tables turn right the market kind of went when everywhere. People started going out more and traveling more money and other things and dinners and this and that. So companies had to be much more efficient on their, their spend and then and those are the companies that that have been doing well and have been surviving these down market. You're like, you, you're not throwing money through the problem you're making sure that every money, every dollar that you put in there is giving you a fair return and if not you're not spending it you're like spending somewhere else so it's the good thing about being more like product like growth is like okay we're going giving it with product, we are finding other ways to bring people in that is not paying them. Basically accelerating the growth. Of course you always do paid advertising. Because it's also like branding and we're not like you need to be out there, but it would be much slower the growth of the company and the overall like, yeah growth of the product if it's only, it's only based on pay. Given that let me ask a deeper question. I'd love to ask those kind of questions so given as this, the S band return investment S band Stephanie's like lower than before so you need to introduce new strategy to grow. As well as the strategies you have some sites mainly having customers to get free stock use a product am I right so what does let's say top five or top three growth strategies outside the current S band right now. Yeah, there's a lot. I would say there's a lot going on about promotions. No deny me this is not like that exclusive but for what I'm seeing. Promotions. So referrals to referrals is a big one it's kind of like a really cheap way to acquire good customers because yeah, you have a good customer that customers going to bring in average good customers. So referrals is a good. It's really used and and also people are familiarized with referrals enough that you're kind of expecting the companies to have a link you can share so we like I get 20 and you get 20 and you can 30 and 30. Yeah. I think that's I think that's the most popular well known one and then and then it's more about network effect so if you and this is not like for stash particularly right if you bring more people to certain product your experience with the product is better. So you want to bring more people in. What else. It's not ready for this one. Yeah, trying to grow like trying to improve the experience and get better ranked in both SEO in up store searches and all that to of course so if you if you care about the users you have then the return increases for you to so. It's awesome. Thank you for sharing us the insider secret. So as I said when I might go when we start the podcast and one of the Joe Rogan said podcast we really want to bring in any deeper follow up questions that's why we just hit on different questions. Awesome. Okay, so let's do this. Thank you for sharing all that insider secret because this is a very exciting pass of having amazing product that helps to grow because you have amazing part nobody use it. It's kind of hurting the feeding support manager so that's why your role is extremely important for the company. Now let's switch to gear a little bit. So let's talk about the unique challenges for women facing at work and also how imposter syndrome is preventing women from advancing their career. When I will actually be talked about this many times when we have offline discussion I personally felt like I imposter, so my own career and only until like last week. I started to admit to other people that I was very very poor and actually I send like two paychecks on my first internship money back to China and that time it's only $10,000 but that $10,000 is like. And throughout my entire career also I always said I don't deserve it. I came I came from very poor background and my English was broken and always felt like someone else is better than me out there and even if when I got director position I always feel oh I'm too young to be a director managing someone I mean this is just like sounds crazy never felt good enough. I think lots of women out there felt the same way. Can you touch up on more regarding the challenges women are facing at work and any advice and keep them. Sure, so a lot of the last one back there but I feel I have yet to meet a woman that's like. No, I have serial imposter syndrome and 24 seven I feel that I'm the right person for this job like there's some there I don't I don't I haven't met them personally. I feel there's also men that have that but it's more pronounced on women. I think that brings the challenge of not putting yourself out there, not not asking like the famous I get a seat on the table. Yeah, was like it's the common expectation is that you're going to be like walking around and someone's going to be like hey, this is your seat on the table and then I come like just walking by pull the seat and see on the table right it's like yeah it's. That's at least that's how it feels from outside like the confidence is different when it comes to those things. At some point in my career what happened to me was that I started getting closer relationships with women more senior much more senior than I was. And I started hearing their struggles, and I started hearing their, like, why am I being here, questioning themselves I was like, Oh, so this never stops you just you don't grow out of it you just like learn to you live with it. I was like, so you have to kind of like fake it till you make it but you're never quite making it for yourself you're making it this, like, I remember talking with this person it's like she was a senior VP at company she had a math team whatever. Wow. He will still be like, I don't even know I'm in the executive team like one of my things here I'm like, Are you kidding me you're like my hero and you don't know why you're there. Wow. So I was like, Okay, so if this badass super experience, why woman feels that myself as this tiny Latino, not bad as one thing. I'm always gonna feel that way so I better just deal with it and keep pushing it away and every time it comes because it comes like people's in right just suddenly you're like, Oh, they're going to notice. Oh, they're going to notice. This is the day they're going to write the amount of times I think I've been fired. It's a week. You will you don't want to know like I'm like, every time someone is not smiling at me, I'm assuming I'm going to get fired. And maybe that something else like I'm like just like one day I was in New York. I was based out of a plant as you said beginning. I can course on New York. And I went there for three days to do kind of like a planning session for the following quarter with my manager or not. And we first meeting. He was quiet and he said well. So, let's talk about I was like, Oh my God. And he said why I was like nothing. He's kind of like, he starts telling me what he was telling me I'm not getting fired. And then I'm like, I told him like, do you think I will make you come all the way to New York to fire. I don't know. I decided I had to be honest of all those things that he knows he knows I'm super secure and he's like younger than I am like, I would not like he like his experience and you're like, you know what you like, you have a lot going on. I feel like feel bad, but I have that feeling all the time because I'm also really hard on myself. And that's in a lot of us was like, if I do something that I don't feel it might have not been the right decision. I'm like, okay, you deserve to leave and I know you. I was actually not like I had that last week was like that was actually not about decision, because you were lacking part of the context now you have the full context, and we really find decision and it's fine. I was like, sure. Sure. I'm still like, still getting that paycheck at the end of the month. Yeah, it's all in our in our head right and actually she was right that you are flying from Atlanta to New York to fire you know, because you're doing good job of having a strategic discussion of the company. Yeah, the majority of the imposter senior is all in our head is I think it was sharing the story with us being vulnerable. I think lots of women heard this and that's about Oh, even if she fell this way, it's okay sometimes I felt the same way. And how much I will have a lot hearing a director or whatever role higher than mine, say that when I was a PM like a senior piano like I, I was never enough for myself I am never enough for myself, but hearing. Okay, that's why I share it was like, you know what, maybe you're thinking the same. At the same time, you are thinking that I'm great. So now now you see now you see what's happening right it's like oh I was thinking that was great and she was feeling that imposter senior for herself. So now I'm like oh I'm authorized to feel that but I can push through it. So if I tell myself like I hopefully one person hearing this is like, you know what, she's right. This is going to be here I need to live with it. I need to fight it. Because this is the last battle is going to be there it's annoying it's going to crippling in weird situations, each one of us have different triggers for me everything that is a trigger party, but also I have moments when I'm like, boss bitch like I know what I'm doing I have this super clear someone comes to me and I'm like answer answer answer great. And they look at me and I, I am I know a lot of stuff like I'm a smart person. Exactly. And then this like little devil here comes and it's like, No, you're not. No, you're not. Didn't you notice in that meeting how someone rolled their eyes. And maybe their husband wasn't the behind the computer you know like making me. Yeah, you don't, you don't know. Exactly. And also have a secret want to tell you. We had a line meeting when we scheduled the talk right when I talked to say this woman is so badass. I felt that way you know you you have really good impression and also inspired people to push through this woman so badass but it being vulnerable is a key to connect with the audience. And today when badass woman says, Oh, I feel like people don't laugh at me. Oh, I don't don't laugh. Don't smile at me some fires that wow people fail the same way even if she's a badass to me. Yeah, it's, it's crazy that happens. Even if you're senior. It's happens in all levels. Oh, it happens everywhere. It happens I, I'm getting more and more comfortable asking advice to more like senior people. And I keep hearing like, yeah, you're not crazy like you have this that you can, like, it's just stop listening to that tiny voice that is bringing the voice that is bringing you down and listen to all the other voices that are telling you you're actually doing like you're doing a good job. If you get praise in in a message or in a channel or in all kinds of something like I, I'm like, always try to kind of like you know, that's not, it's actually not true. You know, it's like, I'm not that that's that awesome but someone says something that is not great about me. Oh, I'm going to cling on that I'm going to make that big and I'm going to believe that and that's like, it's a lot of mental work to learn to let go of the things that you don't like, and not overthink them, because they're most most times not something that's actually true. And then do everything the good things because those give you that fuel that you need to keep pushing against the bad, the bad things like the bad ideas and the tiny devil. Exactly. So in summary, what do you think the top three things we can do when there's little devils coming up? I think, I think you have to somehow be friended and be like, let me challenge you like, let's not the, I don't think fighting it is a solution is either you ignore it, or you you be friendly in a way where you're like, you know what, I'm going to prove you wrong in a friendly way. You know, and that kind of gives you that fuel for pushing harder. Talking, I think talking to people and I think you mentioned before like one of your questions like challenges women have in the workforce, and most of us like product managers tech, the tech workforce is knowing for being highly male and high white represented, especially leadership levels. So I think community is a big challenge sometimes. So I encourage anyone like if there's only one other woman in the entire company, be her best friend because you need the best friend inside you need someone. Yeah, that's going to support you in those like big meetings it's going to you know someone that is going to help you decompress that understands where things are coming from. And all that. I think that's one thing representation is another is another problem that I see when I when you look up in your career and there's nobody looks like you. Exactly. And you and I was like, as an immigrant as a woman and what else like a person of color, what else do I have. I'm super proud, one of the most. One of the things that I love about stash and I love many things about stash but one of the things I love about stash is the representation. I think right now, starting a couple of months ago, I think or a month ago, we have a female CEO, which is cool in fintech. When they announced it we were like, what, and she's been in our board for a long time so she knows like she's like we know her she's great. We like all of us were like, finally, that's what we were looking for like more representation, we have our executive team, they announced it today because happy women history month. We have 5050 representation female male in our executive team, we have over 40%, 40%, I think roles over director are women. So it's a really diverse company, there's a lot of people of color, there's a lot of women there's a lot of like, a lot of representation, and that makes you feel safer in many aspects. So it's a really challenging challenge when you're reporting to the white guy that is reporting to a white guy that is reporting to a white guy. It gets gets really hard to see yourself growing anywhere and it's really hard to see to feel protected. That's what that's when the village comes in and my last my job before that I have these like white guy to white guy with to a guy. Yeah, or, and I had a woman, a friend from another area she's an engineer and she was a staff engineer, and she was a meeting in a meeting that all the directors in my area were but me, the only woman. I invited, and she is the meeting started and she was like, where's Lupin. She should be here. She's the most like the director has been here for the longest time we're going to make decisions around the area that she's responsible for. Mm hmm. Why she not here. And she's on slack she's like hey there's this meeting going on and you should be here. So I reach out to my manager is like hey way I'm not here she's like I'm not sure he was new so he didn't quite new dynamics. I'm not sure like here's link join and I joined the meeting and the person that organized the meeting his face change. Because he was intentionally leaving me out of the meeting I'm like, ah, why, why are people doing that and that's because I'm a woman and I'm now. So if you're saying something that is not in favor for my team, I'm going to speak up in this meeting. He wanted a breeze he wanted a good conversation. Just remove the problem from the meeting I guess. Like, and that's why I'm like if you have a village if you have people that are there rooting for you if you have people that they're supporting you. That's how you avoid those things because they're going to happen, and I be tired career, avoiding. It's impossible those things because I active on where I work and when I work but when your workers start up and startups grow like, I joined my last company when we're 80 and I left when we're 500. So, wow, work culture works. Sorry, startups grow culture changes, and you get in the middle of that. So you're never fully safe from these things happening to you. And but when you have a image when you have representation, you start having a little bit more solid ground to step on. This is amazing how you share when startups or company grow, the leadership needs grow with the company to to have the representation and also politics. Clearly, the party has happened but if you have good friends who sponsors or ally they can bring in the main and this is crazy. This actually happened. What was director will fail same even before I became a director this happens. Yeah, so that's why having the representation being the best friend of other people will help you out that's a key. Thank you for sharing with us. Let's talk about growth PM, and actually lots of our audience are thinking about getting into the profession and growth PM, not the PM like growth PM specialized. So do you have any advice regarding how to become a growth manager. Yeah, I think one good quality of a growth PM is to be data oriented, I like data obsessed, I would say. So understanding knowing how to read data know how to pull data understanding different systems. You don't need to know. I feel like I don't know how to write phrase. I'm starting to learn, look her now because that's the best tool we have at my company, but I'm bad as mixed family human like I can create any report of me smiling and understand any data mixed as long as the data is clear. I think that is one thing that is super important because you need to be able to slice and dice information to better understand what's the experience each type of user is having where when and how. Yeah. And experimentation mindset being completely obsessed about trying new things, testing everything and understanding that data from the tests and make decisions based on that. We have a new chief experience officer and in my first meeting with him yesterday with more people he was like, the tests are going to fail. And that's fine. I'm like, we are talking the same language, my friend, because we're going to try a lot of things. And of those many things that you're going to try a lot are going to fail. But one is going to be great and it's going to justify all the rest of the work. So my experimentation mindset means not only to test frequently. And they diverse diverse parts of the app or not, but it also means understanding that tests are not always going to win. And most of the time I'm not going to win. In my last company we have these presentations with all the tests and this was a winner. This was a winner. This was a loser and this was a loser. And I was like, can we stop calling them losers. Let's call them learning. So it's like, this test was a win. This test was a learning. Like we started. Exactly. Oh, sorry, I didn't realize I had a notification song and something just on. So we started focusing a little bit more on, okay, why did this test didn't win? What's the learning here and try to like bring that up high. Oh, I assume users were going to think these the hypothesis was these that we didn't validate it and this is what these are the hypothesis on why and keep iterating on the same test until we completely understood the reasoning. So I think those are the two main differentiators of growth PMs and also there's, it tends to be a faster environment. There are more so in the startups like you need to test something doesn't work move the next thing just as exactly to the next thing is a test here you mean a testing. Yes, a test experiment. I mean, I mean more like experimentation. So it's a testing but in the sense of we have a hypothesis is not it's you can a test to launch any new feature to understand the impact on what not, but I'm like, I have a hypothesis. Why this is the impact I think we're going to have this is how we're going to. What we're going to implement. This is the a test, and then read the results and iterate over that so that's kind of like that. I see more like a scientist. I love this. And especially talk about the language, actually the language really change people's mindset learning from your experiment so that you can design a better experiment that's next time instead of the loser just sounds really depressing. Think about the engineer that spent three days of his life coding that change that it was a quote unquote like I for those listening I'm doing air quotes and loser. Okay, I just wasted a lot of my time. And when you have a lot of experimentation going on and you have an experimentation program in your in your team or not. Then that's going to happen more than know because this might our CXO said the other day like experiments are going to lose like they're going to not all of them are going to be winners. So the word is important you're changing that mindset I mean like that all that effort brought us a learning that was great let's keep moving and then then we're going to have a learning that's going to be a win and we're going to implement that and keep moving. Exactly perfect. Okay, so Lupin and think, thank you very much for sharing with us regarding a growing into girls PM now let's and also remember for everybody. If you like those kind of insider podcast, please make sure to like and subscribe our content and so that you will be notified every time we have a new one and actually within two weeks we also have another podcast with a director platform Netflix. And then the week after we have the podcast interview with the VP of product at Google is actually very excited about those. Now let's go to into Q&A, and people who join us live actually are our student in the inner circle so which means that they get exclusive access to more insider tips with our speaker. So let's do this any anyone listen in to have any questions we can go into Q&A quickly. You can directly unmute yourself and raise your hand. Carla. Thank you. I'm here. I'm here. I'm getting on camera and I'm meeting myself. Hi nice meeting you. I'm not sure if you've experienced this but I've experienced this quite a bit and I've witnessed it as women, especially women of color. It's our behavior that tends to be policed and that ends up taking the focus on what we are versus our accomplishments and what we have been able to deliver and the value that we've been able to provide for the organization. Have you noticed that experience that yourself and so how do you overcome that. Thank you Carla that's a great question. It's, it's painful to hear but it's true. I, I, I feel that in the past, I had, I had people being like, oh you need to like, you need to improve your communications and you need to. And they couldn't pinpoint it and I was like, is it because I talk like long sentences that's because I'd like my original language is Spanish and like we speak longer like we were not that concrete so I'm going to try to be better in my English. So I don't do that but then there's also part of me that is always going to be like that right so I cannot improve quote unquote that I'm not my accent. Yeah, it might improve it might not. I don't know, but I never warm this way. Right, it's like, I can. Yeah, my accent is better than when I moved here eight years ago probably is still strong and you can listen to Latino me coming from miles away. Definitely. I don't care. I have moments where I was like, you know what I'm much more, much, much more smarter in Spanish like you want to have an argument Spanish right now because we have kind of things like it drives me crazy. But I understand also that there's, there's a culture that I am embedding so I try to kind of like, they're parts of me that I'm not going to turn off, I'm not going to stop being one of the loudest voices in the room, I'm not going to stop being talking whenever I feel that I have something to say even though if it's a room like more senior people and whatnot like I'm not going to be. If I'm invited in that meeting I assume that I'm part of that meeting that's it right. But if the comment is kind of like, can you like tone it down. I can't like I can fake it for a solid month. That's all I can give you. I also on the other hand, had. So when I introduced myself in this new company, and for like all the product team I had two people coming at me on DMs being like hey nice to meet you I love seeing you not meeting your energies amazing. Like I love how you got in there like full power. And that's who I am. And that's what I feel I bring to the meeting. It's not for you don't take it I don't care. But there's people that they're appreciating that and they're appreciating how I am my energy and whatnot and I respect me for that. And those are the people I want to talk to. So that's kind of how I feel it. And it's a little bit an apologetic I would say, but I'm like hey, I, I'm going to bring the whole me here, if you don't like it. That's that's kind of like your fault because I'm not precise in the way you are. When it's more senior people, for sure. But I try to, I also avoid conflict as much as I can. So I try to you know what if that person is in the meeting. I'm just going to say whatever I need I feel is like important to the point and just skip it but I'm not going to change the way. And I take what the good parts to right. I'm just sitting saying something that it's going to help me grow and be better at my job I'm going to take that. But for me one of the strong parts is always like communicating and be more politically correct sometimes or even more strategic sometimes with what I tell what I don't tell I am pretty open like I'm going to tell you everything. So that's that's something that I don't know if it's it's cultural or what but I feel that it is something that happens to me when it's like oh, you don't want me to discuss certain things around certain people because you don't like that. But I don't want to get on that. So that's, I don't know if I answer your question but that's kind of for what I. Yeah, that helped a lot. Thank you. Awesome. Be the loud person in the room if you are shy be the shy person in your room but be yourself, your best way and if they want to change you then they are the problem in many cases. Yeah, exactly. The other side of party actually love you for being who you are. That's that's why I really like you the first time we talked about when you bring her on the podcast because she can inspire like me and some women out there through her story. So it's always two-sided story and so next time quick tip for everybody next time when people give you advice, you need to evaluate and ask lots of follow up questions on site is this constructive feedback or not. And actually I have like one minute short story is crazy so before I became a director I asked my existing boss and hey what can I improve so that I can become a director as well because I want to get on the seat on the table. Then my director and manager at the time saying that you're too green. I was like define to green. How can I make more yellow the screen more ripe and and he doesn't he just like you don't spend enough time in the company. I was like joining the company only three years in the company was okay so what can I do better, except I can change the fact that I'm not old enough or I'm only three years in the company but doesn't change my leadership potential what can I work on. And the more I ask the less information I can get so which means that it's all BS is like that's not anything you can do is more about you getting beaten too young. So that triggered me to become a director outside my existing company because they just felt like I'm just too young and I cannot change. I'm always the youngest director so what I cannot get older because you're asking me to grow up. No, I love that I think that's, and I started doing that at some point was like okay let me know how how can I improve that what was my communication style that you like. Is it about what the message I'm giving the way I'm giving it the way I am the way it's like my accent. What is there, and there are a lot of things that I improved a lot from feedback like that. But when the feedback was just like repeating. And I kept changing things and improving things and feedback was repeating from random people and say okay, let me dig a little bit deeper. Oh you're just repeating someone that something that someone told you and you have no idea. Which is you're not comfortable with the way I talk so there's another option you guys that's one of the reasons why I was like piece out once I'm like you know what I'm not going to be able to improve my English anytime soon so if that's going to portray me as not professional not smart enough. Maybe the company wasn't diverse enough. Yeah. Cool. Any other question before we close today's podcast. The speaker. Raise your hands. No, cool. Okay, great. And loop and how can we break into Oh this is a question I think Germany asks this question how can we break into girls PM row. So she's her questions more about how to manage up in PM row. Transitioning from other industry into PM row so do you have any top tips. Yes, I, I was talking about this with someone in the past, and I was telling them like kind of like start creating your portfolio of stories and things that show that growth mindset. If you're a PM from different area show a lot a little bit more of like that depth on data that depth on experimentation. I hired many people for growth PM roles, many of them didn't come from a PM from a growth background but came from like data analytics background from PM on a small company where many of the things they did were actually really aligned to growth from marketing. So it depends on kind of like what your background is, but start gathering the examples of things that could be applied to a growth PM role so anything related as I said before with data anything related with experimentation mindset and how you run experiments, even like this person I was talking she was. She was an experimentation, she was a PM, but she was not a growth PM and she wanted to be a growth PM I was like, just start running more experiments in your little area that you own within the app and try to grow that area. And then you're going to have the, the case, the case studies or examples to give you an interviews and kind of like explain how from there you want to migrate to a growth role. The other way is within the same company. If there's a growth role growth PM opportunity to start like building the relationship with the team that is on that and be like okay what are you missing what what is the person that you want to hire or what what's your next next hire going to look like and start building towards that. And actually, you touch up on the key concept we teach people inside PM, etc, which is building a product portfolio to demonstrate your skills before even become a product manager. This is amazing hey guys we have certain different kind of product ideas, and you can build on the side. You are part of the portfolio and I'm going to also going to link the certain different project in the show notes so you guys can start build your portfolio starting from today. Okay, awesome. Thank you for providing all the like insider secret tips today. Thank you, Lupin. Alright, so any last minute advice you want to tell tell our audience. I think there's one in the chat. I am. Just a question here what top three must have skills in senior product manager. Well, I've been hired mostly on growth roles so it's kind of relate with what I was saying but if I have to move outside to not give the same answer all the time. I would say, I think there are like hard skills soft skills on the soft skills side is the power to influence people without power. I think that is something that as a PM you need to be really good at like everyone needs to rally behind you even though you have no no one is reporting and you don't have the power of of a title over them to make them move which is something that I don't even do with two people that report to me, but it's kind of like how traditionally in companies like oh you do whatever your boss says as a product manager you have to manage a lot of people around a lot of people around products around ideas around experiments or not. I don't owe you quote unquote anything. So that power, I think that skill I think it's super important is a soft skill but super important. I think I'm trying to think the top three execution and be able to prove that you can execute in a tight timeline making decisions on the way I think it's important for for a PM senior PM role. I think you need to know how to execute on different projects at the same time and how to prioritize. And then I don't know if this is a this is a something that I will you will be able to find out on on an interview or not but maybe from examples, but I think another good skill is to know when to ask for help. Nice. To know when to when to escalate problems to know how to escalate problems to to know how to read on time enough to avoid a fire. A lot of people don't understand that our role as directors is to help you put up potential fires before they happen and not running behind you to to make you put them out right the firefighter. Exactly. Sometimes you're like, if I if you tell me certain things I I know when something is going to explode. If I don't have that information, I'm not but if you're like, I feel like something might be happening here I'm going to wait it out. That's a big problem. You know that's that talks about how you're not experienced enough to escalate things at the right time. And also if you can escalate everything all the time it's kind of like well I have five more pms to work with so it's like I cannot be running behind your team all the time. So it's kind of like balance but for me it's really, it's a really important skill to be to know when and how to escalate things to make things happen. Yeah, I'm here to unblock you but you need to bring up which blocks are showing up. This is beautiful. Thank you so much loop and and thank you for your time and and also the audience in our inner circle thank you for your questions as well for people who are interested in a circle please go to darknancy.com slash inner circle so you can get exclusive Q&A right now and current in the circle is free so people should take advantage continue to learn starting from today. Thank you very much loop and for joining us so everyone please make sure to share, subscribe and follow product insider and check out a future episode with director product at Netflix and people at Google. And thank you very much for joining us today loop and all right have a good day see you guys. Thank you. Bye. Oh, Lupin stay here one sec. Let me stop recording now. Let me. Let me check checking on one thing my second let me stop the. Oh, to turn off. One sec. How to. One second.