 Hello, everyone. Super happy to be here and to share with you what we've learned at BlaBlaCore over the past two years. Before I jump into the topic, a bit of myself, but I'll promise it'll be short. I'm a VP product designer at BlaBlaCore, and I joined in 2014. The two pictures here are the fun and serious one we do. My team is making fun of me every day, because they tell me the fun one is serious. I'll let you judge on that one. And the emojis is about me as well. So if you want to talk about product, because I don't do product management on the weekend, we can talk about those. First, I'll zoom a bit into BlaBlaCore and what we do. BlaBlaCore, we aim at becoming the go-to marketplace for short travel. That means that on BlaBlaCore, we aim at making people able to book a car pool, long-distance one, a bus, or tomorrow a train. We do that in 22 countries, from France to the UK, India or Mexico or Brazil. It's more than 130 million users, and every quarter, 25 million people travel with BlaBlaCore. But over the past two years, we've been witnessing and actually experiencing a lot of crises as you hear, but even more because we're a transport company. And today, I want to share what we learned from those and how we changed the way we do product management at BlaBlaCore. But first, I want to tell you a bit more what happened to our company over the past two years, because we've been very exposed to all the crises that we've seen in the world. In February 2020, to start, just before COVID, if you were in France, we had strikes. So what you can see here is that in train station, you had no trains, which might happen in the UK in a few days or weeks. On the highway, we had tons of cars and buses. So the only way you had to go from A to B was to use BlaBlaCore or to use the buses. So for us, it was a huge boom in our activity. It was in France, but actually in Brazil, or India, or even Spain, without the strikes, we were seeing the activity growing like hell. And 2020 was supposed to be a super year for us. So we were super excited. And when we were looking at our numbers, everything was going up. So for us, everything was perfect. But then, March 20, from the super packed road, we ended up with the super empty roads. So from having a lot of people using our product, we ended up with no one. So you opened BlaBlaCore two weeks before. You had hundreds of buses, hundreds of carpools, thousands of passengers traveling every day. And one day, after you used BlaBlaCore, no rides. And that's what we've been experiencing as a product team for the past two years. Obviously, up and downs, because we have many countries. So when France was in a lockdown, the UK was not. Then it was Italy, India. Everything was different. But in our product, it was very difficult to predict what was happening. And as a business, everything was not super clear. Two years of that, everyone is getting a vaccine. We can travel back. 2022 starts well. But one of our two markets are Ukraine and Russia. Yeah. February 2022, the war. So the war started in two markets. So again, Black Swan number two. I hope it's the only one, the last one. We have to adapt again as a company. Before I deep dive, just a small thought for the six people. The six people are product managers in my team. And they're based in Kiev. So today I'm here. I can share everything we learned from those two years and the amazing work they've been doing. But they can't leave their country because they're at war. So I just want to have you shoot for them. And the talk is also for them. Thanks. So Roller Coaster. Two years, ups and downs when you think things are going to be good. They're actually getting worse. Be assured summer was very good. So we hope everything is going to stop. So two years of ups and downs. What are those crises reveal about our culture? And how have we changed the way we do product management as a team? Three things I want to share with you today. The first one is about accepting the unknowns. Over the past two years, uncertainty was every day in our lives. And how we change the way we do product management. Also, our principles. How do we stick to our principle despite all the changes? And finally, the basics of our product. How do we make sure we own them and we keep on improving them because sometimes we just had forgotten those? The first one I want to zoom on is accepting the unknowns. And how you shall not try to predict the future as a product team. When COVID hit us, we had like 400 engineers and product people just asking ourselves, asking themselves, what should we do? And actually, when we'll get back to normal? Because when the first lockdown appeared, we were thinking, okay, it's gonna be three weeks and then everything's gonna be back to normal. Three weeks multiplied by a lot of weeks. Things won't get back to normal. The first question we asked ourselves actually was, what should we do? Should we do something as a transport company to help people? And should we do something as a product and engineering team to help people? We asked ourselves a lot of those questions and I want to share with you examples actually what we tried and failed and what we learned from that when we do product. The main mistake we did actually was trying to react too fast and not accepting all the uncertainty and unknowns. The first try we did was actually trying to change our product. If you ever use BlaBlaCore, there is an option that says two max in the back. As a driver, you can say that you will be only taking two people in the back so they'll have a lot of seat and the ride's gonna be great. When we were in the first lockdown, we just didn't stop walking and talking about what could we do and we decided that we should change the way our product works for COVID. So what we decided was to move two max in the back into only one in the back where people could travel safely with what we assume were the rules of the post-COVID era. It was actually in April 2020 so we didn't knew what was the end. Actually, we didn't accept the uncertainty and tried to change our product despite everything that was happening. The result was pretty obvious. It didn't work. People didn't use a feature and people that were using it just use it once and then stop. The main reason is that despite people telling us during COVID they would love the feature, the world was changing so fast that by the time we build it and we shipped it, then things have changed because in a country they changed the rule and in one country you didn't have to have a mask or others. So basically we tried to build and too much uncertainty and instead of accepting it and waiting, we're just pushed to act and it failed. We did something else as well that ended up in the same way was that we tried to do an hack at home. The team is very committed into helping people. So we said, what could we do to help people during COVID with our teams? We called it the COVID fight and thought about all our ideas. One actually we had and that we launched was called BlaBlaHelp. BlaBlaHelp was just using our product, copy pasting it and make it available for people to do grocery shopping. So you would be afraid of going to the supermarket we would find someone to do it for you. When COVID started, terrific idea, everyone was super enthusiastic about that. But again, it was built on March 20th, after 2020 reality. Things were changing so fast that by the time we launched it it worked a bit but then stopped because the reality had changed. What we learned from those two actually is that again, accepting the unknowns is accepting the ambiguity and accepting not moving because everything is changing so fast that whatever you're going to build might be wrong in a few days or weeks. And luckily for us we had the second crisis with the war in Ukraine but we learned from those two when the war started. Actually we did another hack at home to help the European team. But this time we set very strict rules. We said to our teams you can change the product but you can only do tiny changes. You can leverage the tools we have, you can leverage the parameters. You can change the UI if you want but only slightly or you can build stuff outside of BlaBlaCore that could help the teams and the people on the ground. And actually it did have a terrific effect. Why? Because we keep our product, change it a bit but didn't try to build something that would rely on a new paradigm that we did a new back then, what would it be? Example is that we allowed people to increase the number of seats they could offer on BlaBlaCore. So we had people like renting buses and offering hundreds of seats on BlaBlaCore remove fees on our platform so that it would be free to travel or we launched a bot on Telegram. Thanks to that, thousands actually of people and refugees moved from Ukraine to Poland and to other countries. Thanks to BlaBlaCore and we're very proud of that. And we've done that because we taught the team let accept that we don't know how the thing is gonna be. Let's tweak a bit our product but let's not change completely how things happens. So our main message is, when we think back to normal they will never be back to normal. So as a product team, we need to accept that when those time of changes happen we need not to try to predict the future and just adapt if needed but really accept the ambiguity, live with it and don't be biased for actions as we can usually be as product managers. So that's accepting the unknown. But then the second thing we learned was sticking to our principles. Where do we wanna be? Why I'm insisting on that because when the COVID hit us it was 400 people looking at each other and asking, okay, what should we do as a company? Should we continue investing on what we had as a plan? But also as a pretty young company back then we were doing those roadmaps on a quarterly basis and we were ideating a lot on what we do. The problem with those moments is that when a crisis hits, if you don't have a clear plan to your teams, then they get lost. So actually what we worked on is defining what we call our principles. The intangible principles, the things that will never change as a product team. Where will we invest our energy as a product team on our product? Obviously the energy might be different from one year to another's but those are the dimension of our product that we'll always keep on investing and that we're gonna be really aware of. So we basically worked on those defining what we call our principles. So those are the nine areas of our product that you can see here where we always invest. And on each of those we really worked on being clear on where we wanna head to and what are the bricks and steps towards the end vision. Those can change, the order can change, the detail is for the team to detail but in reality we know where we have to go. So if there is a bump on the road the team can change what they're doing but they know what they have to head to. So it's about giving a vision and an end goal to the teams. And with that we build a quarterly roadmap where we're very clear on where we wanna go. So we have those principles now that luckily for us when the war in Ukraine hit us we're able to adapt. For example we were about to actually we're deploying some product projects in Ukraine we stopped and we moved to the next one because we are very clear of where we wanna go afterwards. Details to be defined but the plan was very clear. You have that but when the crisis hit you how do you adapt the past? Because obviously it's really simple to say you wanna be there but when the war hits you pretty hardly how do you adapt especially when you have people in a country at war? What we said was pretty simple we set rules for our teams. The first one is accept our certainty again. Don't plan too much, don't try to build those plans that you know will never be right because things are changing so fast. So do a very quick, very simple and short planning so that you can adapt along the way. The second thing is finishing. I'm pretty sure if I ask every PM in the room there is a project that is 98% done. You've not done the two last percent for sure you do it, it's in the ticket but you start the new project. We really push team to finish what they're doing before moving on because that's a unique opportunity to do so. And the last one is actually transforming the problem of not having enough traffic on the platform into a new opportunity because when you have another one on the platform basically you can ship stuff if it doesn't work not that much people will be impacted so that's an opportunity as well to change the way you think about building and rolling out your product. So really what we told teams and what we work on is making sure that we are clear on where we want to head to so that if there is a problem we can adapt. We don't have to sit down again and ask ourselves where shall we go? We know where we're heading to. We know what's the plan and we can adapt easily. That's true because our product is not going to change but in real life it was very helpful because again when the war in Ukraine started we were airborne and we saw teams by themselves changing the orders but still be obsessed about where they want to go. So you accept the uncertainty, you accept the ambiguity and you can do it because you know where you're heading to. But the other things we learned as well is the basics of our product that we had forgotten. When you're in a high gross company you build stuff and it's super tempting as a product team to move on to the next ID and keep on moving to new stuff. But the core of your product, what made your company and your product a success is key and shall never be forgotten because that's why people are using you first. And the risk is that you forgot those and you move to the next one. And actually we learned a few examples of those during COVID when we had more time to focus and now that's really something we push into the team to make sure that we're perfect on the basics of our product. Two examples of that in stuff is there are many things in our product that when you ask people why it's done this way people will answer that's the way it is. I'm pretty sure from many of you here it exists in your company. One example of BlaBlaCar is that if you would be looking for a right you would display a right but would not display the duration of a right. So if I'm asking you how long it takes to go from Rance to Ange in a bus it would take you a bit of time to compute that whatever. We didn't display duration because it used to be this way because back then actually when we created the product five years ago on that part it was this way. And actually we moved to something else so we stopped looking at our experience moved to new projects but actually someone during COVID has the right question. Why shouldn't we change? And you remember George's talk this morning that's the why not person in the team. And actually it's important when you own your basics to make sure that you constantly challenge what you've done so that you constantly improve what you have because otherwise you just forget those and move to something else and actually that is what is dragging your conversion down or what is dragging your product down. In that specific example we simply added duration which seems to be a small changes when displayed but actually people loved it even not asking for it because that was kind of the they were using BlaBlaCar for reasons and we keep on making their experience better when they use our product. So that's one example of the basics but the other one we run into was it used to be this way. That's the kind of stuff you've built on a year you moved to something else. You've built that product for reasons and for like a benefit for your users but that is changing along the time and people are changing and if you don't constantly look at the basics of your product what you assume was true two, three years ago is no longer true and you don't that much notice it in your metrics but your product might be going down. One example of that BlaBlaCar very striking was an option. It's the pro. If you ever use BlaBlaCar you can either select to be paid in cash or online. So as a passenger you either pay online or either pay cash in the car. So we offered the choice to our drivers that they would select that. We launched that a few years ago and people were loving it. We tend to look a bit at those metrics but not that much on a regular basis. So if we're looking at the numbers over the last year you would see the split that was pretty stable. But when I mean owning your basics I mean making sure that you keep on looking at those on a very regular basis and a long timeframe and actually if we look at a long timeframe that was going down. And actually given we're not that much owning our basics but moving to the next opportunity we forget those and we forgot to look at those on a long time span. So actually our product was going down. So what we did is actually changing and actually asking ourselves why should it remain this way? We had to change because the way we heartbeat that feature three years ago might no longer be valid or actually the values we're pushing to our users might not be real. So we ask ourselves again what should we do, should we change? And actually we ask ourselves for users why do you want to use that feature? What is the main benefit you see? And actually what we simply done is changing the content that may seem simple but actually we just change the content to make sure that it reflects the new world we're in and making sure that we constantly own that basic feature and we always ask ourselves is it still working as it should and should we change it? As you can see here actually the number's gone actually pretty high pretty high super fast but actually we changed the way it worked and we adapted that basic of our product to the new reality. And we have many examples of those actually of stuff in our product that we built that we forgot to look at because you moved to something else and when you look back you say wow actually we forgot and it's pretty important. So we now push a lot of our teams to own their basics and to make sure that we have people obsessed about what we have because those basics and principles that you want to build if you forget those they'll either drag you down but also that's what made your product work that's what your product market is coming from so you should cherish those because even there are some potential you've not untapped yet that you should look for. So that's what I want to share with you today. Those crises are personal and true things. First, uncertainty in those moments is very important and you should really accept that uncertainty and not try to react too fast. The second is that in those moments what's key is that you as a product managers know where you're heading and that that plan is clear so that whenever something happens you can adapt the path along the way and finally the basics. What is making your product successful? Never stop looking at those. Keep on being obsessed about those because that's what makes your success and that also can make you actually a disaster for your company and your product. So keep on looking at those and own those because they're gonna be the success of tomorrow. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you.