Paul Johnson

Great chatting with Siddhartha Ahluwalia and Neon team on navigating your career in tech among other things. (Since you are here, if you want to work with me, check out https://lnkd.in/edib9qQW)

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How do you build for Gen Z? 🏃‍♂️ Immediacy 🎨 Flexibility 👀 Authenticity These are the principles you need to ground your product in. Gen Z are the first digitally native generation. They've grown up in a world of hyper-connectivity, hyper-stimulation, and hyper-personalization. One where everything not only auto-saves and auto-updates, but auto-optimizes too. And while they trust in technology to anticipate their needs, they're much less trusting of the platforms where they spend their time. So what does this mean for how you build, hire, and market? Excited to share my #Config2024 talk, where I explored exactly this 👇 Grateful to the folks whose stories added to these insights: Yuhki Yamashita, Dabney Dayes, Adam Polselli, Peter Yang, Helena Jaramillo, Ceci Mourkogiannis, David Hoang, Colin Dunn, Andy Chung Figma 🙌 Most of all, thanks to my Gen Z co-creator, Maddie Johnston, for pairing with me to bring this to life 🙏 https://lnkd.in/gx833AuF

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As a product guy, Instacart's foray into restaurant delivery piqued my interest. While it echoes the "everything-to-your-door" playbook pioneered by Doordash and copied across globe, two key questions emerge: (a) Is MVP enough in a commoditized space? Do we need built-in differentiation for commoditized features, even at launch? Should we focus on launching MLP (Minimum Lovable Product) vs a MVP in first go itself assuming users may not give us a second chance (in terms of perception built for a standard experience) for a commoditized product or a feature? And if answer to that is yes for a MLP, next ques to answer is does your org have patience - Are your business leaders ready to wait / to invest in features that may take time to pay off but could become strategic differentiators? (b) When prioritizing inputs for our product and feature pipeline, should competitor analysis hold equal weight alongside problem discovery methodologies like 'Job-To-Be-Done' or an 'Opportunity Solution Tree'? Are these frameworks overly theoretical, suggesting a more pragmatic approach of mirroring competitors, or is there inherent value in diverging from the pack? While it's unlikely that Instacart's approach solely relied on competitor benchmarking, these questions remain interesting, for consideration. Would love to understand what have been your experiences in similar situations and what have worked for you as a Product Leader :) Happy to connect and learn! #ecommerce #productleadership #productmanagement

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From my time at Amazon, I learned how much they push the right partners ahead. They nurtured the partners who made an impact—whether it was through meaningful content or innovative growth strategies. It wasn’t just about the big agencies. I saw smaller agencies thrive because they delivered better outcomes. At Hypelinks, we’re applying that same philosophy. We want to evangelize Amazon Ads and show brands how to leverage channels like TikTok and Pinterest to drive traffic and growth on Amazon. It’s about building the right partnerships—and scaling together.

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Big day today. For the first time, Workday is part of the Fortune 500 list. We are in good company - 60% of the Fortune 500 use Workday. Fortune features our CEO Carl Eschenbach and other CEOs talking about what it means to be on the #Fortune500 list. #TeamWDAY

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I just wrapped up presenting my framework on Product Strategy to the Walmart Global Tech team in collaboration with Reforge. One of the lessons I shared was how product strategy is not only important initially when you are searching for product/market fit, but especially important as you seek to expand beyond your initial market. I shared a detailed case study of such expansion from Figma. Figma's vision has always been to make design accessible to everyone. But they realized that their core product largely encouraged designers to create while other stakeholders like engineers, product managers, and marketers were largely viewers and commenters. To ultimately realize their vision, they came up with an expansion strategy to create a new tool called FigJam, a whiteboard tool, that was easy enough for design stakeholders beyond designers to actually create. Non-designers would use this in the earliest stages of design thinking to map out user problems, run brainstorming sessions, and explore new product ideas. The strategy has been very successful in that now 2/3s of Figma's weekly active users are non-designers.

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Today, I had the privilege of facilitating another #IamRemarkable workshop for my eBay colleagues. #IamRemarkable is an initiative that empowers everyone, especially women and underrepresented groups, to openly acknowledge their professional and personal achievements. It challenges the traditional norms of modesty and the barriers that often hinder talented individuals from recognizing and sharing their full potential. 🔍 Why is sharing accomplishments important? 💜 Wellbeing: Recognizing our accomplishments has a positive impact on our wellbeing. According to positive psychology research, it boosts self-confidence and motivation. Achieving goals and mastering skills contribute to a sense of fulfillment, enabling us to view our lives with pride. 💡 Inspiration: Sharing our stories can inspire others. Our experiences could provide valuable lessons and encouragement for those looking to navigate similar paths. 🏆 Recognition: Articulating our achievements is a vital skill for career progression and personal growth. It ensures our contributions are seen and acknowledged. Do you agree with the statement below? What helps you to speak about your accomplishments? #PersonalDevelopment #CareerGrowth #Empowerment #DiversityandInclusion #SelfPromotion #PositivePsychology #Coaching

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Hey Friends, Today we're revealing the biggest launch in the history of Superhuman: reimagined for teams!! I would greatly appreciate your support if you could upvote us on Product Hunt https://lnkd.in/gX_b3PVi (if you haven't already, update your Superhuman version to get access the game-changing features)

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After 10+ years working with early-stage startups it’s fair to say I’ve seen I’ve seen some things (& some things I will never unsee), learned some things, earned some stripes, some scars, and some measure of expertise (one hopes) helping more than a dozen startups find product-market fit. While I’ve enjoyed year-long runways at well-funded startups that were eventually acquired, or went public, or very publicly imploded—what really taught me the real meaning of Lean startup was working with self-funded founders who had ten compelling concepts but resources to build one. When you don’t have a year to be wrong; you learn to get it right very fast. If you are a founder facing your own set of high stakes decisions & tradeoffs; we can help. For free. You can book a 1 hour chat with us to talk through all the things racing through your head. We know what’s involved in getting something tested, validated, and built; this is what we do every day all day. We might not have all the answers but there is a good chance we can give you some clarity, some calm, some options. Call us at 1.844.4FLAGRANT or DM me. And if you want to get a sense of what we are like as hoomans- check out our Delightful Reveal series. It’s all the things we have been reading, watching, listening to, & enjoying. https://lnkd.in/gfrz9tQS #startups #entrepreneurship #socialentrepreneurs #innovation

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This is a wake-up call to all retailers and brands CEO/CDOs/CMOs, you are going in the WRONG direction. Stop competing with commodity commerce sites like Amazon and Walmart and start innovating. You all “say” the right things at trade shows: “better customer experiences” “personalization” “real connections and brand engagement” Yet your actions are the OPPOSITE You don’t encourage your teams to take any risks or come up with creative ideas. You have teams of paper pushers. Everyone is looking to press a button or implement the newest Acme Company technology (yes, a Roadrunner cartoon reference). You are looking for the latest AI bot to do the trick Newsflash, consumers hate bots…no matter how smart they are You are cutting programs left and right, reducing customer service hours, getting rid of free returns You are being lazy You're playing defense not offense You need to do some real work, some elbow grease type stuff Case in point: When Domino's pledged to get you your pizza in under 30mins – that took effort and it worked. It was all about the customer experience. When Enterprise said “we’ll pick you up” – that wasn’t a push the button effort, it was a program and executed well. When my friends at Sweetwater promise you access to a real musician expert 1:1 to help buy the right products, that was a real effort (and it worked, driving their DTC to $1.7B) The biggest risk is the risk you don’t take. NEED Help? Here’s an example of an idea to inspire creative thinking – it may be a terrible idea but I want to get the point across on how you NEED to be dissecting the customer experience and coming up with creative solutions I call it Pizza Party - that will both drive conversion and reduce returns for apparel brands Hire fit models of varying sizes and body types near you warehouse For every new drop, have them try on the clothes and record their fit feedback Share that feedback on every PDP page Have fun with it, make your fit models ambassadors and show their personalities. 6 fit models $500/a day x 3 days of work = $7,500 1 Producer at $500/day x 3 days - $1,500 8 times a year = $72,000 Web manager to project manage this whole thing - $100,000 For $172K a year An apparel brand doing $50M GMV a year with 30% returns – that’s $15M in lost revenue + probably another $1M in return logistics A 2% drop in returns would recover approx. $1M in revenues Add another 2% conversion lift and that’s another $1M in revenues Net net - $2M gained for $172K spent Sounds like a pretty freaking good ROI to me any my CVR and reduction in returns #s are conservative  Plus you’ll get some amazing content, brand ambassador, etc etc That’s old school innovation stuff You get my point – start innovating.

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