Product Club

In this episode we talk to Lars-Petter Windelstad Kjos, a serial entrepeneur in EdTech, whos journey from CD-ROMs and laser discs, to gamification and immersive AI- powered products has redefined the space of interactive learning. Currently Lars is the co-founder and CPO of We Are Learning, an immersive 3D learning management system for anyone to create content like interactive stories, simulations, and animations with a Pixar-looking quality in minutes. He recounts his journey in Product, from the inception of Hyper, an agency turned into a pioneer in using gamification for learning. The discussion unveils the strategic evolution from agency work to impactful product development, marked by significant ventures like Hyper Games and Motivate, which was eventually acquired by Kahoot! Lars-Petter shares insights on transitioning from a creative director to a Chief Product Officer (CPO), emphasizing the shift in focus from episodic agency work to the continuous evolution of product life cycles. He highlights the critical role of customer feedback, product-led growth strategies, and the importance of maintaining a deep understanding of the product to foster customer relationships. The conversation explores the challenges and strategies of scaling a startup, balancing customer feedback with product vision, and the art of leveraging animated avatars to enhance educational experiences through emotional connections. The episode also touches on the broader implications of product development in the tech and gaming industries, including the necessity of entrepreneurial fortitude, the value of long-standing partnerships, and the continuous journey of learning and innovation. Lars-Petter's narrative offers a comprehensive view of the entrepreneurial journey in the tech space, from the initial stages of curiosity and exploration through the complexities of product development and strategic growth, to the nuanced challenges of international expansion and product refinement.

Join us as we delve into C-level product leadership with Frederik Meinertz Hansen. We discuss his method of starting a new CPO role with a four week grace period, where the only task is to observe, research and track the inner workings of the company, essentially peeling the onion to get to the What, How and Why. The episode explores the Chief Product Officer's role and challenges during organizational change. Frederik underscores the importance of mentorship, empowerment, and a unified vision. He relates corporate strategy to sports coaching, offering insights for aspiring product managers. Concluding, the discussion ties together product management and business acumen, showcasing Norway's active product community. It points out the importance of cross-disciplinary teamwork for business success and the influence of financial knowledge on pricing and monetization. Frederik's experiences provide key lessons for product managers and business leaders, reflecting the varied responsibilities of a CPO. Frederik was also our first ever guest on the Podcast back in 2021, so it was great to hear about his journey in Bookis and Ignite since then.

In this episode we meet up with Sylvia Brudeli, CPO in Trondheim-based Nomono. Nomono builds hardware and software for podcasting and sound editing and so this this is kind of a meta episode as well! Sylvia has had a very interesting career and have worked with both software and hardware in different companies and as a consultant. Her journey into product and product management was initiated (as it often is) by a person who inspired and pushed her into her current path. We also talked about the different challenges facing a CPO or Product Manager working with both hardware and software development. We were super lucky to record this episode as a hands on test with the Nomono Sound Capsule and the sound is enhanced in the Nomono cloud software. Let us know what you think!

In this episode we introduce a new concept in Product Club - Club Meetings. The club meetings are conversations between Halina and Hans Martin on whatever topic is on their hearts currently. In this episode they chat about Hans Martin having to leave his product director role in Oda, the feelings around being let go in a downsizing process, the opportunities and challenges in the market - and lastly - Hans Martin reveals his next gig - The Oschlo Product Studio (https://www.oschlo.co)

One of our favorite topics to discuss with fellow product people is how they ended up doing what they do. Because product managers come from a wide range of backgrounds, it's always an interesting story. Ida Aalen started getting paid for making websites when she was 12, built her own grafitti community on IRC, and has been passionate about great digital user experiences ever since. As co-founder and CPO of the video call startup Confrere, she experienced highs and lows, including 100x user growth when the pandemic hit, two burnouts, and ultimately a successful acquisition of the company in 2021. We talk to her about all this, and her new role as an independent product coach. Find Ida on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idaaalen/ We are excited to announce our partnership with Mixpanel! Mixpanel gives you powerful, self-serve product analytics to help you convert, engage, and retain more users, and ultimately build better products. Sign up for a free account here.

We had the enormous pleasure of rounding off this years Y Conference in Oslo with a live podcast recording of our conversation with Product superstars Melissa Perri, Marty Cagan and Gibson Biddle, who all spoke at the conference. We had a room filled with 600 designers, PMs and developers, we had wine and beer, we definitely had some nerves and butterflies, but most importantly, we had a good talk about Product! Some topics we discussed: Reach out to us on Twitter: @halinahaanes @hmcramer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Product Club is sponsored by Mixpanel. Mixpanel gives you powerful, self-serve product analytics to help you convert, engage, and retain more users, and ultimately build better products. Sign up for a free account here.

Afonso Franco is a Product Leader, coach, writer and speaker, based in Norway. His framework for coaching PMs (The PM Growth Bubble) caught our eye, and in this episode we touched on these subjects and more: Read about the PM Growth Bubble and Afonso's other articles on Medium: https://medium.com/@afonsomalfranco Get the full framework here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/193B0i-KgKvj3sJjtgqp1S9HdPRBCw4FN/view ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We are excited to announce our partnership with Mixpanel! Mixpanel gives you powerful, self-serve product analytics to help you convert, engage, and retain more users, and ultimately build better products. Sign up for a free account here.

In this episode, we talk to Director of Product at Mixpanel in San Francisco about the Product Trio of Design, Product and Engineering, or "EPD" as they call it in Mixpanel. How can a well functioning Product Trio ensure that we have true collaboration and efficient decision making in our Product development processes? How do they divide responsibilities and ownership, and what are the challenges with this model? Mixpanel is a leading product analytics software company, currently helping the world answer 81 million product questions every year. Their pioneering event-based tracking solution gives product teams the ability to gain insights into how to best acquire, convert, and retain their users across web and mobile platforms. https://mixpanel.com/

Hans Martin is in the guest chair this week, along with Ninni Høver, Group Product Manager in Vipps. Both Oda and Vipps are in the process of scaling internationally and are ramping up their recruitment of Product Manager roles. We discuss what kind of profiles they are looking for (hint: they can come from many different backgrounds!) , how they are streamlining their recruitment processes, and what challenges Oda faced when recruiting in other markets. Open positions in Oda: https://careers.oda.com/jobs Open positions in Vipps: https://vipps.no/om-oss/jobb-hos-oss/ Reach out to Halina or Hans Martin on LinkedIn or the Produktleder.no Slack channel if you want to discuss this topic further or want to join the podcast as a guest.

Welcome to the second Product Club episode about Product Discovery. This time we were joined by Ragnhild Mjønner (Service Designer) and Hege Harreschou (UX Director) from Norway's biggest online market place Finn.no. Product Discovery, is it just a bullshit word? UX Research, iteration, product improvements, innovation... Whatever you like to call it, every product team has some way of discovering possibilities in their product, whether it's by talking to users or looking at data or ideas from within the company. Ragnhild and Hege share some examples of discovery techniques from Finn.no, and we get an insight into some of their challenges. While most of us in Oslo are back to working from home again, we did a remote version of the podcast, which allowed us to also record it as a video. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7qyug17dwU Curious about Product Discovery? Here is an interesting overview: https://maze.co/guides/product-discovery/

In this episode we talk to Leo Kongshavn, Global Product Lead at Google, about product management skills vs behaviors. Over the years Leo has worked across multiple product teams, across markets and regions and has collected notes on the top behaviors he has seen in product people with a high degree of impact - he calls them EPICC behaviours: EPICC

In this episode we talk to Gedi (Gediminas) Siuskus, Senior Product Manager in Sopra Steria. Throughout his career Gedi has had both Product and Project Manager roles, and we discuss the sometimes clear and sometimes confusing differences between them. We also get into public vs private companies, we discuss a public form so bad that it made Halina cry, and we manage to confuse the words Project and Product several times during the conversation. Reach out to Hans-Martin, Gedi or Halina on the Produktleder.no Slack, or on LinkedIn if you want to discuss this topic further or want to join the pod as a guest. Links from the episode: Origo: https://www.oslo.kommune.no/etater-foretak-og-ombud/oslo-origo/#gref Martin Eriksson: https://martineriksson.com His book on Product Leadership: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30014114-product-leadership Hackathons: https://www.techstars.com/events https://www.eventbrite.com/d/online/hackathon/

May this be the first in a long series of Product Club podcasts! In this episode we’re joined by Frederik Meinertz Hansen (Product Discovery Lead @ Iterate) to talk about Product Discovery. Join the conversation and meet up with other great product people at produktleder.no.