Peter Spannagle

📈 Curious about the startup scene in Massachusetts? Explore our detailed funding list featuring startup names, HQ locations, and investor info. Perfect for investors and entrepreneurs alike! Check it out: https://lnkd.in/dAp3xj-Q #startup #startups #venturecapital #funding #vc #managementconsulting

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Inside how Stripe crafts quality products from Katie Dill (Stripe's Head of Design): "Beauty can elevate utility and usability. Beauty can attract users to your product and motivate them to try it earnestly. If users have to jump through hoops to get the utility, they might never reach the magic moment." "Even the best builders can make wrong decisions and assumptions. So we practice continually showing things to users, getting feedback, and iterating, sometimes in less than 24-hour cycles. This has been key to Stripe's success." "We try to minimize “presentationing” and the "let me tell you the story" narrative as much as possible. We like reviews where we just jump into the prototype to see and feel it from the user's perspective." Katie is one of the most influential design leaders in tech, and I think everyone can learn from Stripe's obsession with craft and users. 📌 Read the full interview now: https://lnkd.in/g963QAQs

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🎨💸 What's the biggest gap for product designers in tech today? 🎙️ This is one of the many questions Marc and I explored with Josh Brewer (Partner @ Enjoy The Work) in our latest episode of the podcast. Josh's answer was fantastic: most product designers don't spend enough time understanding their product's business model and go-to-market strategy. This can create a disconnect between user experience and business objectives. Designers who can productively balance UX with $$$ will dramatically increase their impact and accelerate their careers as a result. I couldn't agree more. The most impactful designers I know always connect value for users and value for the business. Our conversation also covered other engaging topics, including: • Attracting top talent and fostering a culture of creativity & accountability • Josh's thoughts on "founder mode" • Delivering and receiving feedback in a growth-oriented environment • The role of design in the AI era and its impact on future products • And more! Episode links in the comments 👇

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Reflecting on some recent advising sessions, something I don't see talked about as much is how critical it is to have an incredibly strong, unified* Design leadership team in order to build an even stronger design team and product. Why this is so critical 👇 What I’ve seen happen when you DON’T have that unified Design leadership team: 1. Massive gaps in the user experience – Let’s start with the obvious one. When Design leaders are staying neatly in their corners and not communicating, the experience degrades pretty quickly. Especially where the "seams" of their teams/org are. We've all seen (and let's be real…probably have been guilty of at times) the navigation structure that clearly shows the org chart vs. what users actually need. This can happen way too quickly without that unified team. 2. A lack of Design’s ability to influence product direction — The best Design leadership teams work together, pushing each other, to have a unified perspective of what the big things are to tackle in the user experience that leverages the unique expertise of the Design functions, all the way from it being grounded in research, to it having a compelling narrative. When they have that unified perspective and are all consistently sharing that perspective, it is so much easier for cross-functional partners to understand and buy-in on it. 3. Design works against Design — When Design leaders don't have a shared perspective on what is important (both in the user experience and the culture), don't have the right level of visibility into each other's work, or even worse, when they don't have mutual respect for each other, it leads to the leaders (mostly) inadvertently working against the progress of the other leaders/teams vs. together toward a unified vision. 4. A limit to the flexibility and scalability of the Design team – To build great experiences at scale, having the flexibility of shifting people to focus on different parts of the product is critical. When the culture and processes are dramatically, instead of it being exciting for that person to focus on a new space, it is incredibly disorienting, slows everything down, and can quickly lead to burnout. *A note on when I say "unified". I don't mean at all that they agree on everything. In fact, the opposite. They push each other the most, early and often. However, they have shared respect, cultivated by their leader, and shared responsibility around aligning within a timely manner. THEN they support each other in any way they can with hurdles they may each face (e.g. cross-functional buy-in or team-wide communication). ——— Is this interesting? Let me know if you want me to share more on how exactly you can cultivate this strong design leadership team –OR– if you want more personalized advice around this, set up some time with me here: https://lnkd.in/g-vyymtW

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UX design is often underestimated, but it plays an important role in whether customers stick around or not. If your product is hard to use, even the most innovative features won’t keep users engaged. The challenge is getting leadership to see how UX directly affects business outcomes like retention and growth. Here’s what to keep in mind:  1️⃣ Retention insights: Are customers dropping off because the experience is clunky? Quantify those losses to strengthen your case.  2️⃣ Competitive edge: Are rivals gaining ground with better UX? Show how improving usability can help win back customers.  3️⃣ Team capacity: If your team is doing great work but overloaded, demonstrate how adding more designers will help you move faster and deliver more impactful products. Leaders are more likely to support UX improvements when they can see how it directly affects the business. Let the data speak for the value of design. How has investing in UX design impacted your product's success? Share your experience in the comments! #dearmelissa #productmanagement #ux #uxdesign #userexperience #productstrategy #growth #productthinking

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“If there is no clear owner, then it’s the PM that owns it.” I sat down with Esteban Contreras from #ProductState to discuss Product leadership, or Prioritization process at Productboard. We also dug into the concept of Extreme Ownership, which is a principle I firmly believe in. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eVN47mWn #productmanagement #productexcellence #ownership

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A SAFE and convertible note had a baby and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati was the midwife- out popped the D-SAFE! 👶🏽🎉 A new #climatetech funding instrument was announced by Elemental Excelerator last week. One of the company’s main goals is to support smaller, up and coming companies during the awkward “Scale Gap” phase between #VC funding and natural growth. It’s called the #DSAFE (Development Simple Agreement for Future Equity) and it aims to aid the process by giving companies a small amount of cash to overcome initial risks and expenses during the developmental stages of a product launch or company. How does it work? D-SAFE has a redemption clause meaning companies can choose to have their payments offered as a loan or convert to equity at the investor’s discretion. Funders and companies will have clear communication and expectations about where the money is going and how it will be applied to either the company or the projects at hand. Financiers and companies will work together with more #transparency, and that’s a great boon for #startups and VC alike. As of this month, Elemental has already invested using D-SAFE in eight different companies, including Dimensional Energy and Origen — both companies investing in innovative and out-of-the-box solutions to environmental issues! Seems like a win-win on the surface. What do you all think about the D-SAFE? Alfredo Coppola Momoka Ueda Tim Wagner Stephen D. Torres Olya Irzak Natsuho Toyama Noriya Tarutani Shin Ogawa

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Grid, schmid, indeed! Much rightful rage directed at Centerpoint here in Houston over the past week, and I wonder if its CEO may last the week? But after the big Texas grid freeze failure of 2021, I decided to put in my own solar+battery system so that it never happened again. It sailed through the blackout with ease - wouldn't have even known we lost power except for the notification sent to my phone by my SPAN smart panel. My desktop computer didn't see the slightest hiccup. Now our own outage only lasted ~12 hours, so wasn't able to give every aspect the full stress test, but approach sunset on the first day w 94% in my battery when the power came back on, and am confident based on prior experience in managing these 2x Tesla Energy batteries, that we would have been fine. Wouldn't have cranked the 2 A/C's as hard as usual during the night, but am confident would have made it to sunrise (and next recharge cycle) just fine. In an island of darkness, our home also became refuge for family, and for that I am doubly grateful. The future of energy is not only electric, but more decentralized. The rapidly declining cost of batteries, and a bit more improvement in software, will make such options accessible for many more people. And then, they too, will never have to go through the pain of an extended outage again! https://lnkd.in/d2ssrphd

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I wanted to give a shout-out to David Pereira for his first book Untrapping Product Teams (I was a beta reader). The book is grounded in reality, and full of actionable insights that are based on David own experience. David covers a lot of ground in a concise and compelling manner, using his typical no-nonsense style and real-world examples. If you're a product person, I'm sure you'll find much value in the many insights, frameworks, and tools the book provides. https://a.co/d/01Sn4LFH

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How to Organize and Drive an Effective Launch Team... 👉 Check out my blog post -- https://wix.to/98qbWAp #GTM #productlaunch #launch #productmarketing #productmanagement

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This is a crucial discussion on navigating BERDO. Building owners are required to report their energy and water data for the calendar year in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager and they must fulfill the 2024 BERDO Reporting. We look forward to learning from Tim Ashmore Adam Wellen and Hannah Payne at Decarb Boston on June 18th. See comments to join us! #BERDO #EnergyEfficiency #Sustainability

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When asked “Do you think we can meet AI’s energy without total blowing out climate goals?” at the AI+Energy Summit, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt answered: “We’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway... I’d rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it.” Makes at least a little sense: If a problem is too tough for the minds working on it, bring in smarter minds. However, surely we can find a way to not cook the planet while we do that. Schmidt cites 15% efficiency improvements in his interview. What we need are orders of magnitude in efficiency improvements. https://lnkd.in/ghfygzhZ

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A/B testing is not product design. In recent years, it’s become fashionable to use lots of small A/B tests to try to build and refine products and experiences—even though there is no evidence that this actually works. I've worked with companies that went all in on A/B testing over all other methods and are now in deep trouble. While A/B testing can be a powerful tool in the right hands, it can also be an incredibly dangerous tool in the wrong hands. And I think most product and tech teams don’t have the sophistication to pull off A/B testing properly. I've written in the past that you can’t A/B test your way to product transformation, and Tony Fadell explains why in his book Build: “A/B and user testing is not product design. It’s a tool. A test. At best a diagnosis. It can tell you something’s not working, but it won’t tell you how to fix it. Or it can show you an option that solves one hyperlocal issue but breaks something else downstream.” — Tony Fadell. That final point is so critical. A/B testing done poorly will result in runaway butterfly effects, where these small tests lead up to big, unknown changes long term in your products. A/B testing is what you should do once you know the product design — once you have the vision. If you don’t know the vision and why you are building something, you shouldn’t be anywhere near A/B testing. What becomes really dangerous is when a company starts doing multiple hyperlocal A/B test experiments on the same page and then tries to slam together the results from multiple tests into one vision. Fadell also talks about how user panels/focus groups aren’t very useful. You can’t ask users what to build (but you can ask them about their pain points). Why? Because they can’t conceive of what has never been built before. I highly recommend Fadell’s book Build to anyone looking to either learn how great products and experiences get made or to learn how to get better at product development. It’s one of the best product and business books I have read in years. #productdesign #ux #abtesting #testing #data #userresearch

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Nils Davis, I appreciate you for a great conversation about the current state of product management! Nils put a spotlight on key factors impacting product managers in the B2B space. He also shares what he believes are the essential skills of product management success. It may a surprise to learn that Nils puts a premium on developing soft skills and the ability to communicate through storytelling. Key Take Aways from this episode include: •          Storytelling is Product Management a superpower •          How to avoid the feature factory •          Go-to-Market skills are a key differentiator Don’t miss this episode of GTM Disrupted! Click the link below to listen:  Listen here: https://lnkd.in/gN_jk-QN  #GTMdisrupted #gtmstrategy #prodmgmt #cpo #GTM

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California's Carbon Champions in this week's Climate Tech Roundup number 21 #climatetechquartet. Cool stuff happening in our state to fight #CO2. Here are 4 #California early-stage companies working on clever ways to capture or utilize carbon. Check them out: Ebb Carbon HQ: California Founders: Ben Tarbell, Matthew Eisaman, Todd Pelman Ebb Carbon uses #electrochemistry to remove carbon dioxide from the ocean while also reducing ocean acidity. Their innovative approach not only helps combat climate change but also addresses the growing problem of #oceanacidification, benefiting marine ecosystems. Blue Planet Environmental Systems Inc. HQ: California Founder: Brent Constantz Blue Planet Systems is creating carbon-negative #concrete by mineralizing CO2 in building materials. Their process captures CO2 from industrial sources and permanently stores it in synthetic #limestone aggregate, which can then be used in concrete production, effectively turning a carbon problem into a valuable #construction material. Curious about more climate tech startup updates? Stay in the loop, I publish a new episode of my #climatetechquartet every week. Twelve HQ: California Founders: Kendra Kuhl, Etosha (Eee-tah-sha) Cave, and Nicholas Flanders Twelve is transforming CO2 into valuable products and materials. Using their carbon transformation technology, they're able to convert captured carbon dioxide into chemicals, materials, and fuels that are typically made from #petroleum. Heirloom HQ: California Founders: Shashank Samala, Noah McQueen Heirloom Carbon is accelerating the natural process of #carbonmineralization. By enhancing the ability of minerals to absorb CO2 from the air, they're developing a scalable, permanent carbon removal solution. #carboncapture #climatetech #CO2 #carbon #carbonoffset #greenstartups #cleantech #california #Innovation #carbonremoval #netzero #sustainability

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🎙️ Have Burning Product Management Questions? Ask away! Ever found yourself struggling with product strategy, navigating user research, or juggling stakeholder demands? Maybe you're just curious about the ins and outs of product leadership? Well, you're in luck! Join me on the Dear Melissa podcast segment, where I dive deep into YOUR burning questions about Product Management. Here's the scoop: - You can keep your questions broad or specific, but give me enough context so I can answer as accurately as a I can. - Your privacy matters—rest assured, your name will stay anonymous. - Don't hold back! Feel free to submit as many questions as you like! From revamping company strategies to mastering the art of product leadership and even picking the perfect tools and frameworks, we're covering it all! Head over to DearMelissa.com and share your questions. Yours could be featured on an upcoming episode! (P.S. Need a quick response? Drop me a voicemail—I'll give your questions top priority!) 🚀 #DearMelissa #ProductManagement #ProductStrategy #UserResearch

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10 Essential UXR insights every #productmanager and #founder should know from Sr Staff #UXR and Phd, Laura Vardoulakis. Insight 1: UX research elevates the user's experience with your product "I think where user research comes in for the company is being able to elevate the experience people have with your products...There's no one right way to create a solution for a problem. There's many, many ways you can design things to solve people's problems. And so it's all about creating a solution that's really good and meets people's needs." Insight 2: Focus UX research efforts on three key areas "I tend to categorize UX Research into three big buckets. The first is usually called foundational research. What problems exist? What do we solve? What are the user needs? The second big bucket, which is much more tightly connected to design, is how do we solve it? This is often iterative research, by nature. How do we build it? How do we make the thing?...And then the final bucket, which is very important, is evaluative research: did we do what we set out to do?" Insight 3: Get your engineers into the field to build empathy "And almost every engineer, I think it was around 100 engineers at the time, had never visited a business who used these products in real life...We visited a hundred businesses over the course of two months in the United States and India, because that's where our engineering teams were...The real impact there was simply exposure. People actually, you know, there's an intangible feeling of connection that people who are working on these solutions get when they see them in use in real life and see people other than themselves and who are very different from themselves." Insight 4: User exposure can unlock new opportunities "So from a business perspective, it put a lot of attention, as you can imagine, on these users that did not get much attention from engineering resources at that time...That kind of exposure of the users in these areas, not just the administrators in these areas, prompted a giant wave of recognition that this is an opportunity that we can explore." Insight 5: Look at the user journey across your entire product suite "It was like, if you assumed your only goal as a user is to send an email. And, you know, people receive files over email and calendar invites over email. And they go between these products all the time...So I was inspired by someone else within Google who took a similar approach to higher level critical user journey research, where we set out to understand, explore, and define the user journeys for cross-app experiences." See the full interview summary on the Fireside PM substack for insights 6-10: https://lnkd.in/gWgQk_He

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Strategic Storytelling for product leaders was a fab session yesterday with TopProds community led by Ross Webb, MBA I love the takeaways below. I’m always intrigued and impressed with what people learn from my talks… helps me refine the message also. An amazing feedback loop. Thanks again for inviting me 💪🏻 —— My focus is on bridging worlds within organisations and sectors with a focus on creating amazing customer & product experiences. I’m passionate about bringing an element of creativity back into to the product conversation. 📞 DM me if you want to know more. Available for consulting gigs (short term / long term / fractional engagements) #productstrategy #productmanagement #digitalproduct #storytelling #leadership

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A great example of the ecosystem coming together to do this important work: "Symbiosis will work to solve this by setting a new benchmark for best-in-class nature restoration projects that have a high certainty of positive climate impact. We’ll develop shared criteria for project design and measurement, update these criteria based on the latest science, and pool demand for carbon removal credits that meet our high bar. We'll also share our project criteria publicly, helping other companies to adopt best practices and increase their confidence in high-quality, nature-based carbon removal projects."

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