Sylvain Grande: From Roadmap to Revenue - Elevating Product Strategy with Financial Insights

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My name is Matt, and I will be talking with Sylvain Grande about the critical role product management

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plays in driving business growth and balancing processes with company culture.

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So you're an experienced CPO.

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You work as an adviser.

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You are for quite a time in the in the tech field.

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But your background, it's not only the background around the product, around the tech. It's around the business.

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And I think I haven't discussed it before with any of my guests.

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It's like the P&L thing.

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So I wanted to start with that.

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So I just would like to understand and maybe you could, tell about this.

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Like, is the p and l important for you to understand from the port product perspective, why

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this is important, how this is influencing your work, so we can start with it.

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Yeah. For sure. I mean, look, the the product and the and the chief product officer impact on

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p and l may be indirect, but I consider it essential. Right?

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I think, the traditional kind of view of product is like, oh, you focus on, on engagement of

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your team of motivation as a manager and then on product strategy, vision, and delivery quality.

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But this is just foundations that, fuel customer impacts, revenue growth, and also cost efficiency.

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So I think while most organization tend to have a a functional organization, and even in the

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case of matrix organization with, with general managers, there are not historically, many people

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with product backgrounds that are in kind of business, I think, seats.

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And let's remind ourselves that product management is still a a line of work that is still young,

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but I think there is a lot more diversity now in product people profile.

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When I started, it was mostly ex engineers, and there is a lot I think a much deeper appreciation

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that product is intertwined with revenue, gross margin, direct contribution to upsell or cross sell.

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And look, I had the chance to to have direct p and l responsibility multiple times, so maybe

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it's a it's a bit more, same year with me, but I would say that this is a bigger, one of the,

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I think, biggest, gap maybe for some product people now to be to really have a deep understanding

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of the business metrics and especially unit economics.

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Because I'll be honest, like, I don't know how you can design a roadmap without understanding,

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those points from, from the full life cycle, from acquisition to activation to engagement to retention. Right?

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So I always tell my my PMs, look, a feature shipped but that, that is not known and not used

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is is irrelevant, and I I think actually the most frustrating thing.

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So I tell them, look, think always about the go to market plan.

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You may not think about it alone, but, product people usually have a good understanding of the

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the channels and they can contribute a lot to how we roll out things and promote, experiences that drive revenue.

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So for me, it's like a a must have now for sure.

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And regarding the p and l and the financial KPIs for the CPOs or people around the product,

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so you don't have I think you don't have to be even a a CPO to have the basic understanding

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of the p and l and how does it work, like, how your work and features impact the results of the the company.

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So maybe have you noticed, like, a common, misunderstandings or the things that people are,

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like, are not so familiar from the, like, financial aspects. Right?

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And maybe something that, you know, like, a common mistakes that you notice around the PMs,

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around the product owners, CPOs.

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I mean, look. I think there is, at times, they can be a self reinforcing will, including within

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organizations because, people that may not be outside of product may not be familiar with what

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product does essentially outline, hey.

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I want a I want a road map where what about the delivery, right, and you're reinforcing that

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pure delivery reel whereby in the end what matters is, is not output, it's outcomes, right?

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And so I do think that

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it it's not about the inputs and the decision come from business, which is I think a very old view. Right?

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It's like, there is business inputs and that come that can come from from anywhere, including

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data analysis where product usually can have, a direct contribution.

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So understanding the business metrics, what drives revenue, what drives margin contribution,

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what are the key benchmarks?

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So that's even more important for likely for, for the leadership, for the product leadership,

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but what drives the the benchmarks that the board and the CEO will have in mind?

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I would encourage always, products to partake, participate in business reviews, and you need to share, these elements.

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You need to raise your team awareness, obviously, pending some confidentiality parts Grande there is different culture.

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I tend to be like, you know, maximum transparency camp.

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And I think you can relate it to some, existing competencies of, upfront people where revenue

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is also about understanding segmentation, right, what it enables for customers.

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And so how what you ship can be translated also in, like, in sales pitches when you have a kind

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of sales driven acquisition machine.

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And it's it's critical just to build those relationship in the organization Grande it's bidirectional, right?

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Because the more you will make the effort to understand, let's say, so called business, mechanics,

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inputs, and economics, the more you can also, explain how you prioritise a roadmap, and not

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just, hey, I'll turn out a roadmap and features, and I'll be measured by, like, oh, I shipped

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on time x, which is like, to be honest, not a great, indicator of contribution.

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My cofounder, recently asked on the interview process, like, a good question.

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How how will you contribute to the revenue of a company?

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How will you impact the revenue of the company?

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And what what you are saying, I fully agree with that I think, like, understanding the

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p and l and, like, basic financials, it's, like, crucial.

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and I'm just wondering, like, in your case, maybe so when I was starting the company, I had

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the problem that maybe sharing the financial pay.

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It's, like, it's bad thing.

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Like, even sharing with the employee, so you have, like, the weekly get get get the viral, like,

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weekly newsletter or weekly updates. Right?

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And, like, sharing the entire national data, it's really, like, hard for the cofounder

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or for the leaders to deal with the people.

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But nowadays, like, my mindset switch a lot.

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So I think, like, when the people are getting the content on the product side, on the business

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side, on, like, on the engineering side, it's even better because they understand, like, how

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the mechanics, like, how the rest grow when the profit grow works.

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So in in your case, like, you work in a various organization.

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So do you share the financial data with the employees, or you, like, you are really, you know,

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not, not pushy with that and and afraid of doing it?

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No. I I I think I think there are almost 2, like, 2 elements.

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There is, there are differences in company cultures. Right? And also in phases.

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There are always some phases where it's a bit harder to, to share with the same level of transparency.

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Like, if I think about a company that may not be doing super well, that may be running out of

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cash, it may actually be counterproductive, to to give too often the details about, like, the

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the runway as an example.

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I think the the the the challenge is, like, is is how do you explain with whom you share, right,

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because you need to recognize that it's not just about sharing, a document, with an entire organization

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and assuming everybody will understand the same thing and will translate, into actionable begin the same way. Right?

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First, you need to work on the, differences in understanding, and then you need to really do

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the extra mile whereby people react differently. Some may be motivated.

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Some may, panic, and as importantly, you need to translate and connect it, whatever your framework.

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If it's like OKR, you need to be able to ask anyone in the organization, do you understand how

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your objectives and your contribution relate directly or indirectly?

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That's okay at times, to a, to a top level indicator. Right?

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Because, let's say a PM that works on, upsell and cross sell, there's a much, easier, connection

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than someone that manages the platform team or the infrastructure. Right?

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And on the infrastructure side, it may be easier to connect to the cost efficiency.

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So I think it's, it's really always about that translation.

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And that translation, by the way, may happen differently, not just within product, but between, product design and engineering. Right?

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You don't have the same motivation drivers, but you need to have a a common, I think frame and

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understanding of, look, if we do this, do we have an acquisition problem?

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Do we have a a a growth objective?

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Do we have an EBITDA, kind of a topic or focus?

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And you always have the same set of KPIs.

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You you should not change KPIs all the time.

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That's very confusing for people, but you need to indicate what is the ranking order. Right?

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There's always 1 or 2 KPIs that matter most at different phases of growth or time of a company.

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Many people now focus on things like, you know, EBITDA and, and, revenue per employee.

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Those metrics existed 10 years ago.

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It's just, the rank, the ranking order has changed.

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And and how about the MBA studies?

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Did they, like, change your mindset in some way?

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Like, you you had this moment and now, like, you know, you started to operate a bit differently than before. I mean, look,

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I think it's a bit different because, I entered product, when it was a nascent field Grande

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my field of study was business and MBA.

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So I'm a bit, I have that I would say, biased.

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I think I think as always, it's about curiosity and, look, it's better if you know how to

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read a p and l.

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It's better if you have basic understanding of core economics.

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But in the end, it's like mostly logical things that you can, I think learn over time, And,

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you should not be afraid of about, the standard acronyms that every, field has?

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So it's about like, okay, like, what are the key drivers, of the unit economics?

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I think this is really, like, in the end, it boils down to what does it take to get one more customer?

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What does it take to get one more unit of, growth contribution margin or or cash?

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Like, it's, you have a different level of understanding.

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But, yeah, MBA for sure, helped, but there are many other ways.

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There are lots of resources online now.

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So there are, let's say, cheaper ways to acquire that knowledge that MBAs nowadays.

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And let let's talk about the processes. Mhmm.

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It's the thing that I'm really bad at.

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So but, I'm wondering if you enter a new organization, do you have your own, like, processes

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or the areas where you put the Matt, like, emphasis?

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Like, which which process are more most important for you?

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Yeah. Look. I think this is also depending on people's, literally philosophy.

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I believe, like, every company is a bit different. Every context, matters.

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But there is also a lot of commonalities between topics, between organizations.

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So how do you find that balance whereby you don't want, like, process to, to kill culture?

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You want a good equilibrium between both.

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And so the way I translate it personally, and it's it's also a personal philosophy, I'm not

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obsessed about, process standardization for everything.

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I rather focus on few processes where I essentially care and mandate standardization Grande

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one of which is, is really what I call the initiative briefing or the epic document.

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Like, if you're not able, I think, in product to write whatever, a 2 pager where you outline

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what you wanna do, for whom with what success metrics and what you would not do, then I think there is a problem. Right?

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So personally, in my teams, that's one of the few processes where I irrespective of where I,

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I work, I, I feel this is important to standardize.

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Otherwise, I I I think there is, there is a fine Grande, relation with how you like, what are

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the the the the things you need to do to raise the bar constantly. Right?

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Because I think what's most important is we're all learning or we should all be learning all the time.

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And I think one of the elements in in product that is amazing is like, especially in software,

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is we can learn new things very fast.

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And, I think the key objective of culture and process is to make sure that you have a fast learning

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organization where people learn from the successes and failures of everyone as fast as possible, right?

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Which is why having hypothesis in the first place when you work on something is critical just for your own sake.

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In terms of, you know, without going into details of Agile, part of that means that however

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you do it, retrospectives are really important, sharing learnings, especially cross functionally,

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which is not a tendency that many organizations have, is critical.

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For the rest, I think it's a lot more about culture.

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And I really emphasize culture.

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Like, culture is usually more powerful than processes, but also harder to change. Right?

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So it could be like, oh, what are your principles? Right?

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Data driven, customer centricity, speed learning, and how do you make sure that the few processes

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you have really, kind of display those objectives, from a culture standpoint?

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And one, it's it's like sinks in, you essentially need a lot less processes in my view.

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I kind of understand the, the culture.

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Like, if you have the right culture, you can improvise in the right direction without the processes.

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This is, like, how I kind of Yeah. Right? So I

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Let Gabriel. Any many organizations, obviously have the objective to, to succeed and scale,

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with differences between succeeding and scaling.

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So I I think this is really important that you have, look, you have thresholds of organizations

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that tend to complexify or naturally, kind of create silos or block things.

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So how do you have compensating mechanisms?

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Ideally from the culture itself, but also from processes when you meet those different thresholds. Right?

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It's like why do people redesign orgs constantly?

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Sometimes there are a lot of bad reasons, but, there is one good hypothesis, which is, humans

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do not really like change in in most cases, and things tend to solidify or get silos.

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And change brings some, I think, some elements, some positive elements.

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But how do you do that in the best way?

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And it's really through culture that I think you create those foundations.

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Sylvain, and you mentioned the revenue, per employee as a KPI.

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So this is interesting point.

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So why do you think this is important for organization?

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And maybe, like, how do you measure it?

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Do you measure it, like, I don't know, on the on the on the product or engineering people or

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all like, the whole organization? Like Yep. I mean, look.

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Revenue per employee is this, funny, simple, new KPI that is, that is not new at all. Right?

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We just had lost that view.

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And to be honest, in Matt org, this was never a shared KPI. Look.

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You can, you can obviously play with it a bit through, through outsourcing, etcetera, but I

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think it fundamentally helps, beyond the benchmarks, which is a small tendency that we just

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do that metric for benchmarks. Right? Yeah.

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Benchmarks are good, but they also have differences, but it helps people connect. Right?

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I think it's very easy when you have a company that does, like, tens of 1,000,000 or 100 of

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1,000,000 of revenue and whatever, kind of EBITDA profile or profit margin profile, like, this

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is very in your face.

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Like, oh, this is the revenue we bring per employee.

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Oh, my salary is right?

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And it's, I I can connect it.

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It's a very in your face, metric.

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I think the next one would be margin per employee, right, because I think it's this one is less talked about.

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And I think when you work in product and tech, you need to understand in relation to the costs,

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right, of product and tech that tend to be, in most organization, cost centers.

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And as a good example, like, if you work in infrastructure, you can understand the cost per unit economics. Right?

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This is the cost of running my infrastructure, per 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000, customers.

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And, you need to understand Matt margin usually comes from scale. Right?

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So I think something key for, people beyond the revenue per employee, and that's always, like,

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more difficult to explain, but in product and tech, like in anything, you have fixed and variable costs.

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And I know it sounds like super basic, but a lot of people may not be clear about what is a

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truly fixed cost, what is a truly viable cost, and what is a essentially in between, like, look,

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in some countries, labor cost tend to be a lot more fixed than viable.

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So I think this is really important.

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I have a feeling that this KPI is relevant today, last year, but, like, in a few years, we forget

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up we will forget up after then this will be another switch, because the money will be cheaper

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Grande the people start to

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Yeah.

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I in a higher speed.

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It also It's like Yeah. You know, close. Yeah.

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It goes yeah. Look. Business is a bit like fashion. There are cycles. Right?

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If you recall over the past 40 years, what, the theory has said on the theory of the theorem

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and verticalization, orientalization, vertical, etcetera.

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Like, I mean, we've changed many, many times.

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But I do think that revenue per employee actually will also evolve, in relation to artificial intelligence.

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New innovations or fundamental breakthrough tend to have, long, to be seen, economic effects,

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but also some disproportionate effect on, on top percentile, top quartile.

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Grande so I think you will see also, like, I think, huge productivity gains in some elements

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that will impact revenue per employee, and we'll have to think a bit differently about that, through AI.

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So right now it's a bit like the the the famous, Solow's paradox, from 25 years ago.

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I see computers everywhere but in statistics.

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I see eye everywhere but in statistics.

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I I I I think it will exactly have the same play.

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It will be, coming into the statistics very soon.

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I wanted to discuss the motivation of engineers and product people versus the business KPIs.

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I'm just wondering, because I I feel like the engineers and product people, they don't they

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are not so motivated or so, you know, stick they don't stick so much to the business KPIs as the sales does. Right?

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And, and they are not always motivated around it.

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So maybe you could give me some examples.

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How do you encourage those guys?

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How do you motivate them to deliver those business KPIs, like, to have it always on the back of their minds?

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Look. As much as I am, quite deep in, in business side, and I believe it's important for product

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and tech to understand, and to grasp the business metrics, I do not believe that business metrics

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are the key motivators for product and tech people.

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You need to stop there.

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So these are, in my view, proxy outcomes of good work.

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And what motivates usually product and tech people is having impact on customers and prospects,

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thanks to a great product, a great experience. It's about shipping. It's about delighting.

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It's about solving complex problems.

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And so I think there is, like, plenty of examples where you can connect the dots. Right?

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Let's say revenue needs to improve by 10%.

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That may not be, like, very translatable, like, or motivating for some product Grande tech people.

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But what if we say, hey, look, we improved this and this, and then we're actually gonna work

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on the usage and satisfaction of these features and experiences, and will actually result in

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x percent increase retention rates, right, which actually means 10% revenue increase.

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So that's just a very basic example.

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Or if you look Matt on the cost side, it could be very motivating for engineers to say, look,

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we've improved the scalability of our system, the resiliency resiliency, sorry, of our systems,

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which actually, resulted in, like, that cost efficiency or the ability to support 20% more customers on the same infra. Right?

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So I think it depends.

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I gave 2 very different examples actually Grande I think whether you're in product and design,

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in data, or in engineering teams, you need to find and even within engineering, right, it's

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like an engineer that works on let's say a super customer facing feature of the website or the

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acquisition funnel, understands way better some of the impact and mechanics usually than a platform engineer. Right?

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The lower you are in the stack, the more difficult it is to translate some some inputs.

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But then, you need to find other mechanics to explain that connection.

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I think about a question from my colleague, to be honest, right now.

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So I have a colleague who's a CPO in organization.

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They're growing pretty fast, and we were discussing a few weeks ago the case that he is having on his way.

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And the case is following that they, you know, growing pretty fast.

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They have the ERP system that connect to sales, back office, accounting, like, you know, like,

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one central kind of thing for everybody.

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But, you know, this system, like, over time, they're adding some new features.

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They are rebuilding it, and, like, everybody's everybody's hates it.

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So I I think you saw the those kind of system before.

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And he he has a challenge right now.

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Should they, like, buy something out of the shelf and, you know, adjust to their needs or maybe

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to build, like, a solution, like a custom solution?

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And I'll and and he was asking me, like, how do you approach this kind of thing?

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Like, maybe do you have some some some process behind it or maybe some, like, what what are

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what is your thinking process behind it? How would you approach

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it? I mean, look. It's a, build versus buy is like all things product.

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You first need to define the scope of the issue, the dependencies, and what can be split and prioritized.

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And I think, look, the the the the key elements are, 1st, everyone has precious resources.

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So the key is, is this really core or so specific?

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And I I mean when I mean specific is, like, for real. Right?

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Because, product and tech teams have the tendency to say, like, yeah, our situation is so specific.

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We need to build it, which is rarely the case.

26:01 - 26:07
To decide whether it's an internal team that needs to spend time on this, There is often complexity

26:07 - 26:10
also in how multiple systems connect and interact.

26:10 - 26:15
We've all, seen that and between external and internal systems.

26:15 - 26:20
So it means that you need to be clear whether the issue is the the system or actually how the

26:20 - 26:25
system integrates within the larger architecture or systems of the company.

26:27 - 26:32
So look, I've had multiple experiences and with different contexts, on this.

26:32 - 26:37
In one of the previous companies I worked for, Yieldstreet in the US, that was a fintech.

26:38 - 26:48
Very early on, we had, kind of a system that enabled us to track deals, etcetera.

26:50 - 26:57
So we implemented it, but we did a lot of development internally around, portfolio valuations, which is quite complicated.

26:57 - 27:05
Grande the assumption at the time was, like, this is core and, this connects to the customer's portfolio view, etcetera.

27:06 - 27:13
And in the end, like, 4 years in, we embarked on a journey to integrate with a specific system

27:13 - 27:18
that was doing this, but we kept the integration with all the other, things we did internally.

27:19 - 27:27
We did not deploy all the modules at the same time, and we essentially worked a lot on the architecture and the value.

27:27 - 27:32
And we said, like, look, look, long term, if you want to scale, this is not something that is

27:32 - 27:35
core to us Matt we know how to do well.

27:36 - 27:47
And by the way, in terms of reputation, it actually helps also to have a very well known, robust,

27:47 - 27:52
we can debate, system that was done, externally and integrated entirely correctly.

27:54 - 27:55
So it really, really depends.

27:56 - 27:58
There is no right or wrong answer.

27:58 - 28:06
There is, like, usually a lot of these decisions are, have lots of elements of legacy Grande,

28:07 - 28:11
in many cases, decisions are made without even understanding the full context and the full history

28:12 - 28:14
of why things were made in the 1st place. Right?

28:14 - 28:21
So my the the the key point is if you can, always document things for the next people to to

28:21 - 28:27
have a better understanding and document what led you to that decision at the moment because

28:27 - 28:28
the hypothesis likely have changed.

28:30 - 28:38
When an organization scales, you have very different, problematics Grande, it's very rare that

28:38 - 28:43
you will find one of the shelf product that does everything you need. Right?

28:43 - 28:49
So do you need to replicate what NetSuite does in accounting? Yeah. Likely not. Right?

28:50 - 28:56
But how do you make the information flow between your core products Grande, NetSuite or whatever

28:56 - 28:59
equivalent, just depends on the organization.

29:00 - 29:08
It also has you need to think about architecture but also about like data engineering flows, right?

29:08 - 29:16
Because, I think in most cases, topics like data governance Matt taxonomy to where is the source

29:16 - 29:21
of truth, what are the data flows is a misunderstood topic.

29:21 - 29:29
And when you when you build things and you integrate with external solutions, like, you usually erase those topics, again.

29:29 - 29:34
So I would encourage people to do that always, but I don't have a I don't have a magic solution,

29:35 - 29:36
for that, to be honest.

29:37 - 29:44
Yeah. I understand. But, like, long story short, you would go our and ask around the stakeholders

29:44 - 29:49
and the users of the software what are their problems with the current software. Right?

29:49 - 29:51
Like, you will start to map it.

29:51 - 29:53
And based on that, you will Yeah.

29:53 - 29:57
But I think the the the always what are the needs, what are the issues for sure.

29:58 - 30:01
But, is this really core to what we need to build?

30:02 - 30:07
And it can be core, yet it doesn't mean that you have to build everything. Right?

30:07 - 30:11
So what is exactly core? What is differentiating?

30:11 - 30:14
What are the off the shelf, solutions?

30:14 - 30:17
What are the additional, things you need to work on?

30:17 - 30:22
And usually, a lot of the complexity and the relies in the integration,

30:25 - 30:31
of, office of of the shelf solution within an existing system or within a wider, understanding.

30:31 - 30:36
So you you really need to touch when you integrate third party solution, you need to touch many

30:36 - 30:39
small systems, to make it work well.

30:39 - 30:46
It's, like, the the phrase off the shelf is obviously, kind of, a bit misleading in that sense.

30:49 - 30:56
What are the biggest, challenges or the pain points that you as a CPO is facing?

30:58 - 31:02
I mean, I think it, it again depends on the context of the organization.

31:03 - 31:11
I think at the basic level is, with the past, 10 years or so, that was as of kind of a year

31:11 - 31:17
and a half ago, being exceptional times with cheap money growth.

31:19 - 31:28
A lot of companies, including ours, adopted, maybe, practices that, that obviously, were made

31:28 - 31:33
for absolute growth and not always, scalable growth or Matt good unit economics.

31:34 - 31:42
So it it relates to, like, change management always, like how do you drive, the the the ability

31:42 - 31:47
Grande going back to culture and processes, mostly your own culture where people can can react

31:47 - 31:49
and adapt to different times.

31:49 - 31:54
That's always the as a as a kind of a manager and leader Matt, that always is on my mind.

31:55 - 32:00
And then I think it's it's, you know, for us, it's like how do we drive on a very complex topic

32:00 - 32:06
like payroll, more satisfied autonomy, for our customers.

32:06 - 32:09
So that's our one of our key, challenges.

32:09 - 32:18
And then, how do you drive, a multi product strategy, that, you can connect your, kind of, product

32:18 - 32:26
architecture that has solid foundations Matt enables actually, to, to launch new lines of business

32:26 - 32:28
or to package things differently.

32:29 - 32:32
So these are, I would say, the 2 key challenges I would highlight currently.

32:34 - 32:40
And for you, like, what what challenges do you have on your plate this year?

32:41 - 32:44
I mean, in the end, it's all about delivering value. Right?

32:45 - 32:51
Customer satisfaction, autonomy, and many other, elements, and then contributing to the business

32:51 - 32:53
growth and to the path to profitability.

32:53 - 32:57
We're not yet a profitable company, but we're on the on the way to get there.

32:58 - 33:03
And so it's as simple as, look, you have a lot of trade offs to do.

33:04 - 33:08
That's also one of the pain, but also one of the exciting part of the job.

33:09 - 33:11
And how would you balance things? Right?

33:11 - 33:18
Like, the biggest challenge, I think always Matt whatever level you are in product is to, to

33:18 - 33:27
make decisions and trade off, usually as fast as possible, as, transparently as possible so

33:27 - 33:30
people understand why you made the decision at the time.

33:31 - 33:36
And, and, look, in the end, it's about having a great product, however it is measured.

33:38 - 33:44
What would you advise like, what what advice would you give, to other leaders, on the product

33:44 - 33:50
side or, like, who who around the around, like, the highly distributed teams?

33:50 - 33:53
I think, like, nowadays, we work hybrid environment.

33:53 - 33:56
We work in environment where you have, like, the in house people.

33:56 - 33:58
You have some people outsource.

33:59 - 34:05
And maybe do you have, like, your own key factors or approaches how to make this delivery successful

34:05 - 34:08
in this kind of environment? Yeah.

34:08 - 34:09
I mean, I'll go very basic.

34:10 - 34:18
It's over communication, clear ownership, and aligning everyone to the same product vision.

34:18 - 34:22
I think these are critical, especially, I think, with more distributed teams.

34:23 - 34:28
So, look, if if you have then you have different configurations. Right?

34:29 - 34:37
I worked in many different configurations, but mostly distributed teams, but mostly in house.

34:37 - 34:42
Obviously, I I leverage a few, a few external teams at times.

34:42 - 34:50
When you have external teams, it's about even more creating a seamless workflow where in house and, external work together.

34:51 - 34:52
But they can be very different setups.

34:52 - 35:01
Like, I worked with different models, where you add, many locations where teams and responsibilities

35:01 - 35:06
were defined by location, but I also worked in setups where there were splits across location

35:07 - 35:08
and all have their pros and cons.

35:10 - 35:19
I think the key thing is whatever your org model, you will always have some issues. That's normal.

35:19 - 35:21
So what are what is the next step?

35:21 - 35:24
How do you think of what I call your compensating mechanism? Right?

35:24 - 35:27
You you always need to correct for something. Right?

35:27 - 35:29
There's always a silo that will be created somewhere.

35:30 - 35:32
So I think it's very important.

35:32 - 35:37
But communication, ownership, clarity, and context.

35:37 - 35:44
This is like the basic stuff that is simple to say, very hard to, to live by.

35:44 - 35:45
I'm always I would like

35:45 - 35:52
to ask my guests about, like, the hardest or the toughest fail, that they have done in their career.

35:52 - 35:59
Maybe it could be, like, a controversial decision, Matt the the turn offs are right, like, the

35:59 - 36:01
lessons learned out of it.

36:01 - 36:06
So I'm wondering in your case, Yvonne, what was the hardest thing that you feel that you have done it done Matt?

36:07 - 36:09
And, like, what was the learning out of it?

36:11 - 36:18
I'll be honest, I'm not sure, I would give the same answer to that question each time I am asked

36:18 - 36:23
because I really believe there are moments of hard things, right?

36:24 - 36:28
You can tell always the story, oh, this was the hardest thing Grande maybe for some people it's clear.

36:29 - 36:31
For me, I think it's a lot of moments.

36:31 - 36:36
Look, when I was at SoundCloud launching subscription was really, really tough, aligning an

36:36 - 36:44
entire industry on, kind of, DJMix's, copyright status with product development, labels negotiation

36:45 - 36:51
at the same time, influencing the roadmap, deeply, and I was also very involved in those negotiations.

36:52 - 36:57
In other cases, it was like fundraising where it's, it can be very, very grinding because it's

36:57 - 36:59
on top of your day to day job.

37:01 - 37:08
Letting go someone in your team that was a good performer for the first time because of, obviously, economic reasons,

37:11 - 37:14
having to part ways with colleagues over Zoom during COVID.

37:14 - 37:19
I think a lot of people say that this was a very hard thing to do and I that's that's obvious.

37:20 - 37:22
So it's a lot of moments.

37:22 - 37:28
It's very hard for me to point to one project that was, like, harder than the other because,

37:28 - 37:31
like, hard is also what you what you like. Right?

37:31 - 37:36
I think, what is what I like, hard problems to, to solve and to fix.

37:37 - 37:39
But there are plenty of hard moments.

37:40 - 37:48
The key is to make sure that in those hard moments, like, there are teams around you Matt you create that, those contacts. Right?

37:48 - 37:55
Because a lot of people love to solve hard problems, together and have the satisfaction of, going through that phase.

37:56 - 37:58
And how about the fundraising?

37:58 - 38:00
This is interesting what you mentioned.

38:00 - 38:07
So, because this is additional work for you, it means, like, you need to deliver more data for the investors.

38:07 - 38:09
They are constantly asking, like, hey.

38:09 - 38:14
What are the cohorts and analytics around the users if the if the application is sticky or not?

38:14 - 38:16
Or or maybe I'm I'm wrong.

38:17 - 38:24
No. I think look. I was, I was very, very involved in the, in Neil Street, series c fundraising.

38:24 - 38:27
We raised a 150,000,000, and it was a long process. Right?

38:27 - 38:31
And we're raising kind of, like, 2, 2 parts.

38:32 - 38:39
I was, I was essentially representing product and tech, but but as importantly also, marketing and Matt.

38:39 - 38:41
I was responsible for the data team.

38:41 - 38:48
And you have a lot of, like, you know, the time is not fully controlled by you. That's the first part.

38:49 - 38:54
You have your pitch deck, your presentations, etcetera, but you constantly refine them. That's normal.

38:55 - 39:02
And then you have very you see the differences in angles, in the questioning from different, VCs or investors.

39:03 - 39:10
And by the way, like one of the most satisfying, meeting were the ones where we got the hardest questions.

39:10 - 39:17
Where I got the hardest questions, it was like a lot of, talking a lot about, like, CAC, LTV,

39:17 - 39:24
Dynamics or customer acquisition costs, a lifetime value in relation to scaling the business.

39:26 - 39:30
So a lot of satisfaction, but also like hard moments, right?

39:30 - 39:36
Because it's it's on a period of time that, for us was was was 6 months plus.

39:37 - 39:44
Lots of learnings, being exposed to people that you may not be interacting with.

39:44 - 39:48
I mean, I I participated in a few fundraising, but this one I was, like, essentially with the

39:48 - 39:56
founders, directly, directly in the core team, doing all meetings. So it was a

39:56 - 40:05
great journey. And my last question, that I ask all of my guests, can you recommend any books,

40:05 - 40:12
podcasts, resources, maybe conferences that have been particularly helpful to you as a as a leader in time?

40:13 - 40:19
Yeah. Look. I think it's always what what is, like, in your memory at a specific point in time.

40:20 - 40:27
I think, recently, and I would recommend it, it's called The Coming Wave by Mustafa Soleiman.

40:27 - 40:34
He's obviously now the, the AI leader at Microsoft around transformational, breakthrough from

40:34 - 40:38
AI and also, biology and robotics, etcetera.

40:39 - 40:48
I I read a few newsletters, and I think, Growth Hinge, by Kyle Pollier is obviously a well known

40:48 - 40:52
one, but also a very detailed, very helpful one.

40:53 - 40:57
I think one of the books that look.

40:57 - 40:59
There are many, many business books out there.

41:00 - 41:06
I think a lot of them roughly say the same things, but I think Hard Things About Hard Things

41:07 - 41:15
or Radical Candor by Kim Scott, I think are some that, that I think stayed with me.

41:16 - 41:20
And I think on product, purely like maybe a bit more purely product.

41:22 - 41:23
There are so many things.

41:23 - 41:32
I mean, I'm I I I know likely, 1,000 of a millionth of what exists, but I think, Masters of

41:32 - 41:39
Scale by Reid Hoffman, Lenny's podcast, obviously, from, Daniel Raschitzky, And I think in,

41:39 - 41:46
in the French community, Cledd Voutes, is also, one I would recommend.

41:47 - 41:54
But I get a lot of inspiration outside of business books and podcasts, and I think I would encourage everyone.

41:55 - 41:58
You know, I had a a funny bias in my first job.

41:58 - 42:02
I was working for, for the CEO and the executive team at, Grande France Telecom.

42:02 - 42:09
And one of my job actually, responsibility, was to summarize all the business books that were

42:09 - 42:13
published in 2 pagers, and I still have those 2 pagers from a long time ago.

42:13 - 42:21
So I got a bit of a bias of reading too Matt, and I think you can get a lot of inspiration outside

42:21 - 42:24
of business books, whether it's in fiction, in whatever passion.

42:25 - 42:28
We just finished the Olympics and the Paralympics in Paris.

42:28 - 42:32
You can get a lot of inspiration, from, from, things like this.

42:33 - 42:39
I I think this is a this is a great lesson for for everybody, and I feel, when I'm talking with

42:39 - 42:46
the experienced experienced people that does I I mean, like, the working many years, they they saying the same thing.

42:46 - 42:51
Like, they are recommending the stuff that are outside of our bubble. Right?

42:51 - 42:53
Get us out some different kind of inspiration.

42:53 - 42:56
So I have fully agree with that. I do the same.

42:56 - 42:58
So I stop to read those, like, business books.

42:59 - 43:03
I prefer summaries because, you know, you you have to go on a 2 pager.

43:03 - 43:09
You can get, like, the thing, like, the the the full, understanding on the book on on the pages. Right?

43:09 - 43:13
So and that's I I understand. Yes.

43:13 - 43:17
On fiction, you cannot summarize in 2 pages. Matt a big advantage.

43:17 - 43:23
Exactly. Silva, thank you so much for a really interesting talk. I really appreciate it.

43:23 - 43:29
I wish you a lot of success, the car and the next venture. Thank you. Thanks for inviting me.

43:29 - 43:34
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