The Productshop Podcast

A few days before Musk took over Twitter, Ashtyn and Anne talked about social media algorithms tend to make content that elicits strong negative reactions go viral. Will decentralized social media fix these problems? Or just give you more power of what to do with your data, but otherwise, the same old song? Listen to our thoughts we recorded before  (new) chaos broke out on the bird app.

This week we’re talking about calculating value of a feature idea and the metaverse. One of our listeners asked us to talk about how we think about calculating value, especially when having to make the case for a  feature to stakeholders. And, Ashtyn shares about a metaverse demo he  received which leads us to talk about what is the metaverse, who is  using it right now, how they are using it, and what is the time to value for the users.

This week, we dive into overreliance on frameworks in product interviews and Meta’s strategy for web3. How should PM interviews be run, and how does it help you find a “good” PM? Is Meta too ahead of its time in web3, or are some of their recent rollouts examples of reactionary features to the 2021 NFT craze?

Anne and Ashtyn discuss the Atlantic article that talks about Elon  Musk’s texts dispelling the “myth of the tech genius”, and what society  images a tech genius to be like. And we dive into what made the darlings of the early pandemic so successful, and why their success  wasn’t sustainable. 

This week we talk about the Ethereum merge and real stories from  situations where the companies we’ve worked at weren’t successful and  why. We talk about the situations, the company culture, interpersonal  dynamics, and the lessons we learned about why things didn’t work out in  those scenarios.

Anne and Ashtyn finally get back to answering community questions and also discuss a recent product crisis with NFT loan protocol BendDAO.  This week’s community question asks how to pitch new ideas to engineering managers and other ICs. In our conversation about BendDAO,  we discuss their liquidity crisis, how they got there, how they were saved, and talk about how they could have prevented it.

Anne and Ashtyn recap NFT NYC, and talk about the differences between retail and the builders in attendance.

Anne interviews Ashtyn about one of his previous startups Greenbook, and the lessons he took away from that startup. They also talk about how to get a job in web3 full-time now that both Anne and Ashtyn work in web3  full time.

Anne and Ashtyn attempt to debate several aspects of being a PM from startup to big company PMs, and fail at trying to debate being a PM from technical background. Listen in to hear more on different perspectives on being a PM.

"They do anything for clout (Anything)." Excuse me while I turn down  Offset and Cardi's song, Clout. Welcome back to The Productshop! In this episode we talk about the difference between clout and social capital,  and how both manifest themselves through tech products. Also, is Anne trying to build clout or social capital by being braggadocious about her BBQ  skills? Listen and you decide.

Pontificating on what the future of the album looks like in a world  where a lot of music lives on Spotify and TikTok. We dive into what  music distribution used to look like pre-Spotify, like back in the days  of No Limit and the Times Square Virgin Megastore. We also talk about  some of the artists using web3 to make money while maintaining control.  And lots and lots of references to some of our past and present favorite  artists.

In this episode, we talk about product's role in creating ethical and safe technology, especially in web3. We especially focus on how web3 is a  place known for many scams and phishing attempts, and what product  managers can do to try to prevent harm to their users knowing people  will be targeting them. Also, we're still trying to understand what  Ashtyn meant when he said his friend said something about being "crypto in the sheets.”

What does it actually mean that TikTok surpasses Google traffic? And how does Tik Tok compare to more similar products like YouTube? We also talk about Spotify and if they can create a product that is actually profitable for creators. Lastly, we answer a community question around boundaries at work.

Welcome to the pilot episode of the Productshop podcast. In this episode we talk about web3 airdrops, the future of (or lack of future of) the gym, and answer some community questions about influence.