Scandinavian Product Podcast

Most startups don’t fail because of their product. They fail because they think too small. Gelato became a Norwegian Unicorn by doing the exact opposite. In this episode, I sit down with Pål Næss (employee #2) to unpack what it really takes to build globally from day one - and why most founders never get there. Pål has seen hundreds of startups and is a well-known voice in the Scandinavian ecosyst...

In this episode, I sit down with Uri Levine - serial entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of Waze , one of the most successful navigation apps ever built. Uri has spent the last two decades building and investing in startups, and in this conversation, he shares the hard truths behind startup success and failure . We explore what it really means to fall in love with the problem rather than the so...

Today’s guest is the Innovation legend Alex Osterwalder - 5x best-selling author, inventor of the widely known Business Model Canvas (BMC), and Founder & CEO at Strategyzer . We covered a lot of ground here. Everything from unpacking the transformation of Strategizer from a consulting firm to a scalable SaaS platform, to Alex’s hard-won lessons from his journey navigating the tension between explo...

This is a raw and unfiltered conversation with the legendary Unicorn founder ($2.9B exit with ForgeRock) Lasse Andresen . Every founder in Scandinavia should listen to this. We talked about why Norwegian startups need to stop thinking small, lessons learned from an IPO at Nasdaq and from the painful early days without funding, what Norway’s startup ecosystem needs to do to truly compete on the glo...

Brought to you by: Gnist - Gnist is a leading boutique consulting company in Norway that helps companies reach their full digital potential. Whether you are a developer, product lead, tech lead, or business leader - Gnist can help you with the tools and practices you may need. UX Signals - Don’t let your busy schedule stop you from talking to users. Automatically recruit interviews and user tests...

My guests today are Martin Spinnangr and Shubham Bhattachary a, CPO at Munu and former CPO at Favrit - two Nordic rivals in the world of hospitality SaaS. We talked about what it takes to build and scale a vertical SaaS product, the challenges of defining your ideal customer profile, why most product validation efforts fail, acquisition vs. retention, the real cost of poor strategic alignment, and...

My guest today is Ninni Høver - Head of Product at Vipps MobilePay , the largest mobile wallet in the Nordics. This conversation is part of my series of talks with more than 20 product leaders in Scandinavia. Make sure you subscribe to my newsletter so you don’t miss out! This episode is packed with lessons learned from both scaling and going through a large merger. I don’t know a single Norwegian...

My guest today is Tor Erik Skårdal and Stian Øien - two former product leaders at Easee , once one of the fastest growing tech companies in Norway and the largest platform of EV chargers for homes in the Nordics. This is one of the most vulnerable conversations in the podcast so far. Most people in Norway and Sweden know how difficult Easee’s journey has been. From being one the fastest growing te...

My guest today is Francesca Cortesi , former Chief Product Officer at Hemnet - the largest housing marketplace in Sweden. This is a deep dive into Hemnet's journey into adopting the Product Operating Model and Francesca's product and growth leadership journey. Francesca shared deeply insightful stories, practical advice, and her perspective on driving change while keeping teams aligned and inspire...

My guest today is Cecilie Skjong , Investment Manager at Skyfall Ventures - a Norwegian early-stage venture capital fund. As a founder, nailing your pitch, thinking big and challenging yourself to be more visionary, and quickly testing your ideas to get a sense of the market pull are crucial. And the same applies to a cross-functional team building a new product in a scale-up. The same applies to...

Today's episode is with my friend Frederik Hansen - CPO at Ignite. Ignite is a leading sustainable procurement platform that enables companies to take control of their purchasing from suppliers, comply with regulations, and reduce costs, emissions, and risks - all in one place. Before Ignite, Frederik was CPO at Bookis. He is also the co-founder of Produktleder.no - the largest community for produ...

Today's guest is Melissa Mills , VP of Product at Ardoc, former Director of Product at Kahoot!, and former Global Product Lead at Google in San Francisco. Ardoc is a fast-growing scale-up in Norway, recognized by Gartner as a leading Enterprise Architecture Tool. Their Series D raise is one of the five largest private funding rounds by a Norwegian tech business. Many enterprise companies like Carl...

Would you like to know how Norway's best mobile bank builds its products? Today's guest is Thomas Allan Nygaard - Product Leader at Sparebank 1, one of the largest banks in Norway and named Norway's best mobile bank. Thomas and his team are constantly trying to push their boundaries and this conversation walks you through their ongoing journey into adopting and continuously adjusting their product...

My guest today is Beth Stensen . Beth is a gem in the Design world in Norway. She was Head of Design at Ruter (the company responsible for the plan, coordination, order and market of public transport in Oslo & Akershus), she then became the CEO at Netlife (famous for their Y Oslo Conference), and now she's the Head of Design at Posten Bring - the leading post company in the Nordics. Beth has a lot...

Today’s guest is the one and only Christina Wodtke - Professor at Stanford and author of several bestsellers, including the famous book on OKRs “ Radical Focus ”. We covered: * Foundations and misconceptions about OKRs * Prerequisites for successfully use OKR * Why OKRs might not be for you * The importance of psychological safety and strategic context * Outcome-based key results vs. output-based...

I've interviewed more than 30 Product leaders in Scandinavia, and this is one of those conversations. Subscribe for free so you don’t miss out on future conversations and related content Today I'm talking with Marius Røstad - CPO at Aidn - and Espen Sundve - former CPO at Oda , who’s now a Senior Advisor at Schibsted . Marius used to head up product at Ruter before joining Aidn as Chief Product Of...

Today’s episode is particularly special. A 2-hour masterclass on discovery that every designer, product manager, founder, and product leader should hear With bestselling authors Teresa Torres (Product Discovery Habits) and Petra Wille (Strong Product People) - two of my biggest references. My god, this was fun...! Is it the first long-format episode on discovery with 2 industry legends? Possibly.....

My guest today is the globally renowned marketing expert April Dunford . April has probably advised more B2B tech companies on positioning than anyone in the world. April's book Obviously Awesome is one of the biggest best-selling marketing books out there - and I'm so happy we had time to dig into everything you need to know to nail Product Positioning so that customers get it, buy it, and love i...

My guests today are Itamar Gilad and Bruce McCarthy . Itamar is a former product leader for Gmail, Youtube, and Microsoft - and is the author of the bestselling book Evidence Guided . Itamar’s latest book is about creating high-impact products in the face of uncertainty, and he also has some strong views on roadmaps, roadmapping, common traps to avoid, and what to consider instead. But so does Bru...

My guest today is Melissa Perri. Melissa is the author of the bestselling book " Escaping the Build Trap " and recently co-authored “ Product Operations : How successful companies build better products at scale”. She runs a successful CPO Accelerator, is a former professor at Harvard Business School, serves on several Boards, and is the Founder of Product Institute. In this conversation, we explor...

Stay tuned by subscribing for free: https://afonsofranco.substack.com/ My guest today is Ryan Singer . Ryan is the author of Shape Up , an excellent guide to help teams and companies work in a better way to ship work that matters - consistently over time. Ryan's work is incredibly important to understand. Whether you adopt Shape Up or not, there are so many golden nuggets in how Ryan sees the worl...

My guest today is Janna Bastow . Janna is the Co-founder of Mind the Product - the world’s largest product community - Founder & CEO at ProdPad, and the inventor of the widely adopted roadmap framework “Now, Next, Later” There’s so much Janna and I could have talked about but we focused on what great roadmaps look like, and the future of product management. We discussed: * The story behind how Now...

Subscribe for free: https://afonsofranco.substack.com/ My guest today is Daniel Elizalde . Daniel has trained more than 1500 people in product management, including folks from top tech companies like Tesla, Microsoft, and more. He's been working in Product for over 25 years, in so many different industries - and is the author of the book The B2B Innovators Map. This conversation was a deep dive in...

My guest today is someone special to me: Bruce McCarthy . Bruce has probably seen and helped more companies with product roadmaps than anyone in the world. He's the author of the best-selling book " Product Roadmaps Relaunched " and has just launched his new book Aligned: Stakeholder Management for Product Leaders . Bruce and I met in Madrid a couple of years ago. Our first 1:1 was over breakfast,...

My guest today is one of my favorite product people out there: Petra Wille Petra is the author of one the best books for product leaders you can find " Strong Product People ", she's the founder of an amazing product conference " Product at Heart ", and one of the few product coaches featured in Marty Cagan's new book Transformed . Petra is such a great human being, and I am a big fan of her work....