LaunchPod | Product Management Podcast

Today, we’re joined by Karen Chao, Chief Product Officer at Flowspace, an ecommerce logistics platform, where she’s also taken on a role as head of marketing. Previously, Karen held product leadership roles at Apple, Replicon, Innit, and more. In this episode, Karen shares: How she ended up running Marketing on top of Product, and how bringing these two functions under one leader has improved go-t...

On today’s episode of LaunchPod, we’ve got something special for you. Normally, you’d have to join us in person at one of the dinners we host for product leaders to hear this talk from Oji Udezue. But the response has been so great, we had to bring him onto the show again. Oji has previously held product leadership roles at Typeform, Twitter, Calendly, and Atlassian. Today, he’s joining us to shar...

Today, we’re joined by Trevin Chow, Chief Product Officer at Big Cartel, an ecommerce platform for independent creators to turn their art into income. Previously, Trevin held product leadership roles at Nike, Microsoft, Axon, and more. In this episode, Trevin shares: How they thread the needle between brand history and innovation — respecting a 20+ year legacy while still driving towards the futur...

Today, we’re talking with Curtis Stevens, who, until recently, was Tinder’s Director of Product Consumer Insights, and prior to that held product leadership roles at Qualtrics, Amazon, and more. In this episode, Curtis shares: How AI can actually be a tool for human connection His process behind Tinder’s transformation into customer-centricity, with real, measurable results How to balance short-te...

On today’s episode, we’re talking with Rajitha Chaparala, VP of Product at Procore, a construction management solution and one of the most successful examples of vertical SaaS out there today. In this episode, we discuss: How Rajitha and her team are using LLMs to streamline complex processes like requests for information (RFIs), project revisions, and construction site walkthroughs Why building t...

Today, we’re joined again by Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear. In this episode, Nan shares: Why you’re wrong to think of AI as a way to reduce costs -- and why the real value is in enabling new work that was previously impossible The 3 must-haves he’s deduced from across the most successful AI products to produce consistently great outcomes for users The behind-the-scenes details of Linear’s new...

Today, we’re joined by Shakir Karim (Senior VP of Product) and Karthik Chakkarapani (CIO & Senior VP of Corporate Operations) from Zuora. In this episode, Shakir and Karthik discuss: Why they believe AI is a bigger inflection point than web, mobile, or cloud Their internal AI agent workflow that automatically resolves thousands of service requests instantly, freeing teams to focus on strategy...

Today, we’re joined by Zac Hays, CPO at Luxury Presence, a fast-growing real estate tech platform that made a huge bet on AI adoption across the company.. In this episode, we discuss: Luxury Presence's 30x Value Principle and how they rethought goals and projects to have exponential-level impact The AI design sprint process that allowed the company to 20x product velocity How their mandatory AI bu...

Today, we’re joined by Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier. In this episode, we discuss: How Phil built No-Code Ops into a thriving community and SaaS product - and what led to its acquisition by Zapier Why Phil ended up leading the initiative on Zapier’s first solution-based product, and the decision process behind making it Lead Router How Zapier is driving AI transformation acro...

How is Optimizely reshaping experimentation with AI? Cory Liebgott, VP of Product at Optimizely, joins LaunchPod to share how her team is using AI into both customer-facing solutions and their own product workflows. Cory shares how her team: Uses Copilot and Claude for everything from PRD writing and meeting recaps to translating technical language into accessible insights Developed OptiGPT, an in...

Today, we’re joined by Michael Krafft, CPO at FoundersCard, a membership community for entrepreneurs and executives offering exclusive perks and VIP treatment. Previously, Michael worked in investment banking, led product teams at American Express, and played a key role in turning around Alight, an HR-tech firm, ahead of its IPO. In this episode, we discuss: How Michael uses AI to be a 1-person Pr...

Unlock the future of product management with AI. In this episode of LaunchPod, we dive into the top 4 AI workflows every product manager needs, from automating user research to building smarter prototypes and running faster experiments. Hear real stories from product leaders who are already using AI to: *Turn hours of customer interviews into actionable insights *Prototype and test new features in...

How is Optimizely reshaping experimentation with AI? Cory Liebgott, VP of Product at Optimizely, joins LaunchPod to share how her team is building agentic AI tools that put customer trust at the center. Cory shares how her team: Pivoted away from risky benchmarking AI to focus on agentic AI tailored to each customer’s brand and data Launched Opal, Optimizely’s AI suite built on Google Gemini, with...

How is AI changing the game for sports betting? Marty Styles, VP of Product at Pro Football Focus (PFF), visits LaunchPod to share how his team is bringing pro-grade football analytics, trusted by every NFL team, to everyday bettors. Marty shares how his team: Built Key Insights, an AI-powered feature that simplifies 200+ data points per play into actionable betting takeaways Designed the Player P...

How do you decide what to build when growth is flattening and you're facing intense competition from free products? When Aleks Bass joined Typeform as Chief Product Officer, she was faced with this exact challenge. In this repeat episode, we cover: The "Feature Constellation" Concept: How combining features can unlock exponential customer value and willingness to pay. Prioritization at Scale: How...

On today’s episode of LaunchPod AI, we’re talking with Joel Polanco, Senior Hardware Product Manager at Intel’s Edge Computing Group. He’s led dozens of enterprise AI edge deployments and knows exactly what it takes to run AI models locally at scale. In this episode, we discuss: Why AI at the edge will cause a whole new wave of disruption across multiple industries Why moving AI to the edge slashe...

How did an AI agent help 4x the productivity of collections teams? Dave Ruda, VP of Product at Billtrust, visits LaunchPod to share how his team built a collections AI that transformed drudgery work into high-impact outcomes. Dave shares how his team: Reduced average email handling time from 8 minutes to just 2.5 minutes Built an AI agent that categorizes and prioritizes collector workflows to max...

Why is AI adoption so hard inside companies? Derek Pharr, CPO at Sporcle, joins LaunchPod to reveal the 3 biggest barriers to AI adoption and how he helped his team overcome them. In this episode, you’ll learn how Sporcle: The 3 biggest barriers to AI adoption and how Derek addressed them How Sporcle built a “content intern” with Claude Projects to augment trivia writers and improve user engagemen...

Today, we’re talking with Zach Heller, VP of Product at Penn Foster Group. In this episode, we discuss: How Penn Foster plans to literally “fill a stadium” with 150,000 graduates by 2029—doubling completion rates to do it Why they shifted focus from acquisition to graduation—and how that’s now driving over 50% of enrollments through word-of-mouth How AI-powered learning tools boosted course comple...

Today on LaunchPod, we’re talking with Bret Tushaus, VP of Product at Deltek. In this episode, we discuss: How Deltek built Dela—an AI agent framework powering everything from smart summaries to autonomous accounting Why AI is rewriting the role of Product Management, and what leaders need to know now And how Bret’s team leveled up their AI skills fast — with short, high-impact sprints focused on...

Today, we’re talking with Prittam Bagani, VP of Product Management at Chargebee, where they have insight into how over 10,000 customers are optimizing their pricing models. In this episode, we discuss: How AI is forcing companies to rethink pricing - and why usage-, outcome-, and agent-based models are the future Why OpenAI made over 100 pricing changes in a single year and what you can learn abou...

On today’s episode of LaunchPod AI, we’re talking with Neha Monga, former Head of Product at Lattice and has led product teams at Meta, Amazon, Expedia, and more In this episode, we discuss: The AI workflows that are table stakes for PMs now—and how to adopt them so you don’t fall behind How Neha’s team used Figma Make + Claude to spin up high-fidelity prototypes, gather customer feedback fast, an...

Today on LaunchPod, we’re talking with Ken Houseman, VP of Product at Zuora. In this episode, we discuss: Why even a 0.1% increase in churn can cause huge losses, and how to turn retention into a growth engine How Zuora made payments so valuable that customers want to pay more - boosting revenue, margins, and customer retention And how Ken used AI to slash prototyping time and unlock faster, smart...

Today on LaunchPod AI, we’re talking with Sierra Hahn-Ventrell, Director of Product Management at Apartment List. In this episode, we discuss how they: Analyze customer interviews with ChatGPT, even uncovering a missed insight that led to a full product strategy reset Built an AI Slack bot to flag issues in a new customer-facing tool before they become big problems And transformed sales enablement...

Today, we’re talking with Charlie Kaplan, VP of Product at Audiomack about Product Market Fit and how to tell if you’ve got it or not In this episode, we discuss: How he drove 50x user growth at Cymbal, and why that still didn’t matter because they lacked strong fit The story of how he launched Audiomack’s product org and scaled to 42M MAUs, on the back of strong product market fit How he transfor...