Lessons from Gusto & Square on finding your product wedge | Michael Cieri
Description
Michael Cieri is the Chief Product Officer at Gusto, an HR and payroll platform used by more than 300,000 businesses. With a decade of experience, he has led successful SMB product development and scaled high-performing orgs. Before Gusto, Michael was also the Head of Product at Square, where he led a team of 15+ PMs responsible for $600m in annual revenue. Michael was also the VP of Product Management at Opendoor.
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In today’s episode, we discuss:
- Key product strategies used by Square and Gusto
- The pros and cons of building for SMBs
- How to build horizontal after creating a wedge
- The catch with building vertical SaaS
- How product teams can move faster
- Developing product sense and intuition
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Referenced:
- Alyssa Henry: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyssa-henry-0905692/
- Copilot: https://copilot.microsoft.com/
- Gokul Rajaram: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gokulrajaram1/
- Gusto: https://gusto.com/
- High Output Management: https://amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884
- Marty Cagan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cagan/
- Opendoor: https://www.opendoor.com/
- Silicon Valley Product Group: https://www.svpg.com/
- Square: https://squareup.com/
- The Three Horizons Model: https://www.mckinsey.com/enduring-ideas-the-three-horizons-of-growth
- Toast: https://pos.toasttab.com/
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Where to find Michael Cieri:
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Where to find Brett Berson:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
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Where to find First Round Capital:
- Website: https://firstround.com/
- First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
- This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast
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Timestamps:
(00:00 ) Introduction
(02:41 ) Why SMBs require unique software solutions
(05:58 ) The level of specificity required when building for SMBs
(08:47 ) Finding Square’s form-fitting solution
(11:48 ) Building vertical versus horizontal SaaS
(14:34 ) Inside Square and Gusto’s decision making framework
(16:15 ) How to build horizontally from a wedge product
(23:00 ) Using the Three Horizons Model
(25:29 ) How to craft a compelling vision for products
(28:51 ) How to assess Horizon 3 bets
(32:08 ) How to give employees the freedom to try things
(34:24 ) Creating a risk-taking culture
(37:27 ) Essential advice for new PMs
(40:27 ) Common thread with bad product pitches
(42:29 ) Applying the Horizon framework at Gusto
(44:46 ) Developing good product sense
(47:43 ) 5 signs of great product sense
(49:03 ) Why product sense is like athletic ability
(51:43 ) How to ship faster without increasing headcount
(56:10 ) People who had an outsized impact on Michael
United States
