Otilia Otlacan

Quite often, I get asked how to understand the true seniority behind titles at companies. In today's job market they can be as varied and confusing as a multi-flavoured sweet assortment. A "Solutions Architect" in one company might be a "Senior Consultant" in another. Does a "Lead" actually lead anyone? Understanding the true seniority of a role is crucial both for those looking for a new position, internally or externally, and employers wanting to attract the right talent. Here are some tips on how to cut through the title clutter: - Focus on the job description itself. Look at the specific responsibilities—are they focused on execution or strategy? Do they involve managing others, or are primarily individual contributions? - Consider the scope of the position. Does it influence a project, a team, or an entire department? Also, assess the level of decision-making power. Does the role suggest influence or final say? - Industry matters. A "Director" at a startup might have responsibilities similar to a "Manager" in a large corporation. Research the standard hierarchy for companies of a similar size in your industry. - Additionally, pay attention to the company's own language. Check out their website or existing employee profiles. How do they title similar roles? This gives you the vocabulary specific to their organisation. - Salary, if listed for the position, can offer valuable clues. While not foolproof, salary ranges generally correlate to seniority. Compare the advertised salary to industry benchmarks for similar roles. - Finally, don't be afraid to ask. If you're interviewing, respectfully ask the interviewer to clarify the role's placement within the company structure. Ask about reporting lines and team size, if any. Job titles can sometimes be more about marketing than a precise definition of seniority. By focusing on the actual substance of the role, you'll gain a clearer picture of where the position truly sits within a company's hierarchy. #careers #jobseniority #leadership

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Here are the 3 biggest cons of being a product marketing manager: Con #1 - No one understands what you do 🤷 I've had to explain what I do and what value I bring to every startup I joined after leaving Google (4x to be exact). It's like getting hired for a job that no one knows about except your boss and maybe the CEO. Con #2 - You can't please anyone 😬 The PMM function is a cross functional one and oftentimes you're pulled in opposite directions by different teams. For example, the sales team wants to oversell a product to close a deal but the product team wants to be conservative in what they can offer to set realistic expectations. Con #3 - Watch the video to find out (the biggest con)👇 https://lnkd.in/g6D_3hjX #productmarketing #marketing #pmm #cons

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OKCupid (a dating site from the 2000s) once published a blog post claiming that, according to their data, the way to find higher quality matches was to include more polarizing information on your dating profile, not less.* It’s a strategy of shrinking the number of people who might want to talk to you at all, in exchange for having a greater match with the (relatively fewer) people who still do. This also applies to quarterly planning. Quarterly planning is also a multi-step process, where the CEO and executive team make decisions on strategy and key priorities, then each of the departments need to figure out what they can do to help achieve them. The more opinionated and focused the exec team, the fewer options each of the departments need to consider and choose between.* The more vague or open-ended the exec team is, the greater options that need to be considered and selected. The problem is, the difference between these two is exponential. For vaguely defined strategies, the number of options to consider at the department level might grow from 5 to 10, multiplied by the number of departments who each need to do this work, plus all of the cross-functional meetings that now need to take place to assess those options. Same number of company-level strategies, but double the amount of quarterly planning work for the departments. Execs: being opinionated (while open to bottoms-up data, ideas, and feedback) is one way to really help your teams be more aligned and move faster. —————— *If you’re interested in reading the footnotes as well as my work-in-progress thoughts (today: a clarification on my last post about probabilitistic thinking), sign up for my free newsletter: https://lnkd.in/g44P3_rB

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Great tips for product leaders as you navigate career growth! (same applies for engineering imo). Exec recruiters love a kind, short response… even when we’re reaching out at the wrong time, or it’s not an opportunity of interest 🙏🏼 Colin Lernell for sharing your wisdom

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It’s been a fascinating past few days speaking with Founders & Product Leaders about their challenges in relation to AI adoption. A few themes emerging so far; • Benchmarking SaaS Tooling: There's a strong desire to understand how their SaaS tool adoption compares to peers. They want to know if there are additional tools they should consider and which AI features to prioritise for adoption. • Proving Impact: Before committing to AI tools, leaders need concrete evidence of their impact on key metrics, such as reducing response times for customer support tickets. • Team Resistance: Some teams are hesitant to adopt AI tools, fearing job replacement, data analytics was pointed to as an example. • Roadmap Disruptions: There's apprehension about disrupting product team roadmaps by pushing for near-term AI integration into the product experience. Leaders want to validate AI opportunities without overburdening their engineering teams. If these points resonate with you or if you’d like to discuss your own AI adoption challenges, please reach out. I'm gathering insights for a new offering in this space and would love to hear your thoughts.

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One of the things that worries me the most about 2021-era AI startups is precisely this: early-stage burn rate. Burn rate applies not only to dollar amounts but equity as well. Raises ultimately have to tie to revenue at the very least, so even if the first stage VC went starry-eyed, it doesn't mean the second stage will. I suppose it's just the Great Filter of AI, but here's to the prudent leaders!

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Accurate read on product leadership search from all angles! Thank you Colin Lernell and Aakash Gupta. Adding on one other insight...Making a Head of / VP Product leadership hire - especially first-time founders - can be time-consuming as they understand different personas and levels. Outside of just finding candidates, I've found that CEOs truly value the partnership with a search partner to provide invaluable support and expertise in navigating their options and finding the right fit for each stage #Productmanagement #executivesearch #TalentAcquisition #Recruitment #Hiring #Interviewing

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Starting a startup? Here's how you should think about splitting the pie. What this post doesn't show is how important it is to setup an option pool for advisors and key hires.

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Do you know how to get the most out of #Copilot? What prompts will give you the answer you’re looking for and which will miss the mark? I loved chatting with Cloey Callahan for a new episode of Digiday's #TheReturn podcast, highlighting my favorite daily Copilot prompts and talking all things #AI in the workplace.

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The one-on-one relationship with AI is evolving. What was once a simple back-and-forth between you and #Copilot – instructing it to perform tasks, asking it to catch you up on a meeting or email thread – will soon become a dynamic exchange that can involve your whole team. Copilot will be able to act as a team member, participating and contributing alongside everyone in the group. Charles Lamanna, Microsoft’s CVP of Business Apps & Platforms, joined the latest episode of our #WorkLab podcast to discuss this evolution, highlighting the ways Copilot can help you get back to the work you love:

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You're in your weekly leadership team meeting (you're the CPO) and the CEO says, "The CMO and I are planning on boosting growth with a big demand-gen campaign next month around the new product features." You think to yourself: "YES the new feature could be shipped in time for the intended launch of the campaign BUT to hit that date, it won’t be truly battle tested and likely will have bugs and design issues that will frustrate users." You would prefer to take 4-6 weeks to iterate with an invitation-only beta period. You pull the CEO and CMO aside after the meeting but you can't convince them and they can't convince you. What do you do next? You don't have hard data to prove a case here, but you really believe you're right. I'm giving a free 30-minute "lightning lesson" on Maven on May 16th (Noon ET) covering this scenario and showing how a simple model can change the nature of the debate, shifting it from two sides arguing to one team working together. I'm going to show how one can design a model for *the conversation*, rather than to be *the answer*. Because ultimately the name of the game is to make the best decision you can. If you want to join, here's the details: https://lnkd.in/gYMMFfmk

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The LinkedIn changes I hate (add yours!). I do not know what happened, but over the past half a year or so LinkedIn has been getting worse. The new features do not seem to add value, just the opposite - they make the tool less effective and the experience more frustrating. I struggle to understand what the LinkedIn product team is trying to achieve. The way I see it, the tool has to cater to those who want to find relevant people, and to those who produce original content in their domain. it has to help people expand their professional networks and simplify doing business. Let's look at what the latest changes do: Top Community Voice Badge - forces people to contribute to [most of the time] meaningless AI-generated articles and earn badges that have 0 impact on reach/exposure/credibility Verification - forces people to verify their identity (a good thing!) but does it very awkwardly: the name in a government-issued ID has to match exactly the Linkedin display name. However, not everyone goes by their passport name (e.g. I go by Katya and not Ekaterina, Lawrence may go by Larry, and Steven could be Steve). Some people want to use accent marks which are not reflected in their government IDs. Let alone the fact that verification can only be done via mobile and some phones do not have NFCs. And unlike the Top Community Voice Badge, verification seems to impact the visibility and reach which is super frustrating. My Network (the People icon) - now has two tabs - Grow and Catch up. Grow has invites to connect and subscribe to newsletters (as before) and Catch up - birthdays, anniversaries, and other irrelevant information that used to be under the Bell icon. Before, there was a clear distinction - if I had an unread notification in the people's icon I knew that I needed to review it because someone added me (or in the worst case I was invited to subscribe to a newsletter). Now those notifications may mean people have birthdays or work anniversaries - why? Adding newsletter subscription invites under the My Network section was already bad, adding more clutter in there makes it worse. All these notifications belong elsewhere. Creator's mode and hashtags - some time ago people were able to switch to creator's mode, select hashtags (niche topics), and have the Connect button replaced with Follow. These were removed. I get it, it makes sense that everyone is a create now, but without hashtags, it is more difficult to understand what the person is focused on and also more difficult to find relevant people. The worst is that all the changes are poorly announced (if at all) and the vision behind them is not clear. Share here your frustrations with LinkedIn, I'd like to see where things are. #linkedin #socialnetwork #algo

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The Uber One subscription was the last product I named at Uber. I was delighted to see it in ads a year after I left—as I didn’t think it would ever ship. The project was a stark reminder that the bigger a company gets, the harder it is to maintain velocity. The project started in 2019. Two competing teams were working on an Uber subscription: a team from the rides business and one from Eats. When I was assigned to work on the Eats subscription, the rides team had already launched several rides subscription experiments in different cities called the "Uber Pass." Uber Eats spun up a strike team to launch an eater subscription in response to the Dash Pass without thinking much about the rides product. We worked quickly to develop a potential offering and get feedback from customers. We were ready to launch in less than 6 months, but we had just one problem. The rides team wouldn’t let us. They had been working on the rider subscription for over a year and wanted to launch a bundled subscription with rides and Eats. They didn’t want us to launch something only for Eats—and they needed more time to figure out what the offering would be. But Eats felt we didn't have the time. So, the teams battled. Naturally, the rides team wanted us to launch as the Eats Pass to match their naming. But as you can imagine, we were already responding to a competitive product called Dash Pass and couldn’t stomach calling it the same name! I ran a full naming process, which required buy-in from many layers of the organization. We landed on Uber One as the top contender as it worked for Eats, rides, and, someday, a bundled offer. But I couldn’t get it past the finish line after months of buy-in meetings. I was asked to do internal team votes, and “Uber Pass” always won, making it hard for a leader to push a new name. Since this process, I learned that internal code names will always win the most team votes if you give them the option—as it is what feels familiar. I now know how to educate teams to account for this bias.  After I left, the teams eventually completed the product and decided to use my name. I guess I write this post because, on some small level I still want a tiny piece of credit. It is incredibly cool to see your work in customers' hands. :)

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As you climb from Principal and Group PM to more senior roles like VP Product or CPO, your job search approach should evolve. Here's how to leverage each channel effectively: 1. Outbound: Be Strategic ➜ Principal/Group PM Roles: Cold outreach and referrals are key, and you'll have more targets to try. ➜ Leadership Roles: Target dream companies with personalized pitches. Almost always use your network for warm intros, though cold outreach can work in some cases. ⚠️ Where It Falls Short: Outbound, especially cold or lukewarm, is less effective for high-end VP and CPO roles and can appear desperate if overdone. Typically, these roles go to candidates targeted through executive, board, investor, or search firm networks. Success is possible here, but avoid appearing desperate. 2. Inbound: Boost Your Brand ➜ Visibility: Optimize your LinkedIn profile with enough detail about your title, scope, accomplishments, etc., to actually get targeted in searches. ➜ Thought Leadership: Speak at conferences, publish articles, and engage in the industry. This takes time to build and has variable return on investment, but some executives have told me it helped them land opportunities at top high-growth companies. ⚠️ Where It Falls Short: Inbound strategies leave a lot to chance. Also, inbound usually targets you for your current level or lower. 3. Executive Search Firms & VCs: Your Secret Weapon ➜ Build Early Relationships: Connect with recruiters and VCs to access unlisted roles. ➜ Network Power: Firms can advocate for you and provide insider access. ⚠️ Where It Falls Short: Executive search firms rarely handle IC or GPM roles, focusing instead on higher-level positions, especially VP+. Tips to Remember: 1️⃣ Always build your inbound presence: Continuously invest in your personal brand. 2️⃣ Use outbound strategically: Focus on quality over quantity in your outreach. 3️⃣ Cultivate firm relationships early: Establish connections before you need them. 4️⃣ Diversify your channels: Use a mix of strategies. 5️⃣ Stay persistent: Your job search is a marathon, not a sprint. I've been hearing great stories about these channels working for product leaders, so comment and connect!

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Things are never as bad as they seem. - Ad spend is harder to see a return (get better at keying down to your product market fit) I have a referral for you who is doing this with massive success right now. - Net new purchasers are down! (ok understood - what about your customers who have already bought once. They are more valuable anyway. Are you extracting as much LTV as you can right now?) - COGS are up! (understood. Let's go and eval payroll and non-payroll spend to see where we can save money. I ensure you are paying either too much for a set of tools, or your doing some redundant spend. There is generally a solve for many of our issues right now. The biggest thing is that everything shifted. Again. They did 3 years ago. They did 10 years ago. This is what the market is going to do. You have to move with it. Brands survive much worse economic conditions. And it's not magic. It's making the right moves.

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Most partner teams start with agency partnerships, that’s why I’m pumped to launch this Groundwork episode with Gil Rogoff! This week, I’ve had the chance to discuss partnerships in the digital agency and media space with Gil. As someone who partnered with digital agencies for almost 8 years at Optimizely and Amplitude, it was super interesting to get an inside view of how these companies operate and what their motivators and incentives should be. 💡 In this episode, Gil and I discuss strategies for overcoming challenges in the space, adding more value as a connector of people, and investing in yourself to build successful partnerships. This is a must-watch for people running their own agencies and those planning to work with one! Check the comments for the links. 🔗

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🚀 Knowing your customer data is key to navigating startup challenges! 🎯 Accurate data collection can streamline operations and safeguard your financial strategy. Discover the top data points to track in the original post by Vanessa Kruze, CPA #StartupSuccess

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👋 Do any of these resonate with you? A. Getting your first job in product management is tough. B. Changing customer behavior is challenging. C. Selling SaaS in this climate is tricky. D. Leading a team through uncertainty isn’t for the faint of heart. Over the past year, I've conducted over 200 calls on these topics with customers, founders, leads, and aspiring product managers. Here are my top two takeaways: 1. Community is key. Sharing experiences and seeking feedback from those on the same path (or having gone down it) sharpens your approach, makes the journey more rewarding, and less lonely. 2. Connection energizes. Engaging with the community has been incredibly fulfilling and motivating for me. To make these connections more accessible, I've opened a few 1:1 mentorship slots on Intro. Plus, 25% of the proceeds will be donated to charity (Kings County Tennis League). ⏩ https://intro.co/hirefrank As a former VP of Product at Slack, InVision, Casper, and Betterment, I’m excited to share my experiences and insights. I’ll also bring in learnings from my time at Etsy and Google. Here’s what we can cover together: ✔️ Roadmap prioritization & sequencing ✔️ Uncovering customer insights ✔️ Pricing & go-to-market strategies ✔️ Product feedback ✔️ Career advice for PMs ✔️ And more Honored to be on @Intro alongside world-class experts like Mark Mullen (seed investor in GOAT, Scopely, Figment & Trade Desk), Shegun Otulana (founder of Theranest/Therapy Brands, sold for $1.25B), Kathy Wang (head of AR product at TikTok), and Lars Schmidt (award-winning talent strategist, LinkedIn Top Voice). Comment “interested” and secure your spot now: https://intro.co/hirefrank

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