Marisa Sires
Creating a Customer-Centred Product Culture
In this episode of Brave UX, Marisa Sires shares the story of her rapid ascent from client services to VP Product at Gigya, what women in tech can do to increase career success and how to effectively manage feature requests.
Highlights include:
- What is the greatest risk to product success?
- How do you enable your team to make great products?
- What can women in tech do to achieve greater success?
- What do you look for when you're hiring a product manager?
- How do you help people to understand that they are not their user?
Who is Marisa Sires?
Marisa is the SVP of Product at Alfred, where she's helping to build the future of living. She was previously VP of Product at BuildingLink.
A wickedly sharp product leader, in 2011 Marisa joined customer identity startup Gigya as a Client Services Manager and within five years she had risen to be VP of Product, leading her team to deliver what was widely recognised as a best in class product.
Marisa is also a strong voice and helping hand for women in technology. She actively mentors other women through several organisations, including as a founding member of CHIEF.
Transcript
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Hello and welcome to another episode of Brave UX. I'm Brendan Jarvis, Managing Founder of The Space InBetween, and it's my job to help you to put the pieces of the product puzzle together. I do that by unpacking the stories, learnings, and expert advice of world class UX design and product management professionals. My guest today is Marisa Sires. Marisa is a wickedly sharp product leader with over 13 years of experience across client services and product management, nine of which have been in leadership positions. She is an expert in B2B to C platforms and is currently the VP of product at Building Link, a leader in property management software that helps to provide superior living experiences for over 2 million residents worldwide. Marisa has also been the VP and global head of product and experience for CBRE's HA brand of flexible workspaces as well as head of product and customer experience at Rally bus call.
- But it was her time at Giga, the identity management platform that provided her with the foundation for her product leadership skills. It was there that Marisa rapidly rode Rose to VP of product in just four short years leading a globally distributed team to create the number one product and the customer identity and access management space. The company was sold in 2017 to SAP for 350 million US dollars. Marisa is a regular speaker on podcasts, panels and conferences. In 2020, she delivered an excellent keynote at the Chief Innovation Officer Summit called Shifting Yourself and Your Organization to an Innovation Mindset. She's also a strong voice in helping hand for women in technology, mentoring other women through One Up, one down built by Girls and Power to Fly. And it's my pleasure to welcome her to speak with us today. Marisa, welcome to the show.
- Marisa Sires:
- Thank you so much for having me. That was a very comprehensive overview. I really appreciate that.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Well, it's always good to give people listening a sense of just the caliber of the people and in this case you that I'm interviewing. And I really was curious after doing a bit of research before this conversation to find that you have a BA in comparative literature for from Columbia in New York, and you are a self-described poly block, which is something I didn't actually know what that was, but from people that are listening, that's someone who can speak or use several languages. And I believe in your case that's English, Chinese, French, German, and Spanish. That's a lot of languages. When did you develop this love for language?
- Marisa Sires:
- Yeah, I feel like that's quite overstated, but I do know a bit of all of those. I think it started when I was a kid at the middle school that I went to, had a program called World of Languages where we did 10 weeks in each of four different languages. I think it was Spanish, French, German, and Japanese. And I actually thought my high school language was going to be Japanese, but then the teacher left, so I ended up with Spanish, which is easier, more common, but also more useful. And then in college at studying comparative literature, we actually had to study two different languages. I studied abroad in Germany for a month and then took up German, which I was much better at the month that I lived there than even when I went back to school and continued to study it. And then French and Chinese actually well my husband is Chinese and I picked up, I could order food long before I could do anything else in Chinese, but primarily learn French and Chinese on Duo.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And what is it about language that you love so much?
- Marisa Sires:
- That is a good question. I really like traveling. I like being in different countries. I like being in different cultures. I like being able to interact in the language of the people who live there and who are from there often to my detriment because my language skills are not as good as I might like them to be. So lots of times getting lost on your way to the bathroom, but it really is just that love of travel and food and being abroad. I think that that drove me to languages.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I understand that when you were at Giga, the team, as I mentioned in your introduction was distributed team and you were largely managing the team from New York. What if any benefit was the slug of language and the way that you were able to interact with people from other cultures?
- Marisa Sires:
- Well, funnily enough, the majority of the team that I was managing was in Israel. I did go to Hebrew school growing up, so I have the ability to read Hebrew characters, but I cannot understand anything. So I was able to play games with my team that I could actually understand certain things. And I actually did do lingo Hebrew for a while while I was working there but I think it is this, at the time that I was studying on do lingo and texting people in Hebrew and added the keyboard on my phone and everything I think even that act of trying to come to their side, they're so used to operating in English in order to do business. And it's very rare that somebody is coming to them and trying to learn Hebrew and speak Hebrew and engage with them. So I think I want a lot of points from that perspective.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah, certainly sounds like you would've, and I suppose it's quite an important thing these days to be mindful that English is often not the primary language of many of the people in technology that we're working with [affirmative]. So it's great that you're able to do that for your team. [affirmative], the fascinating thing about product and the people that I speak to in product is that there appears to be no sort of standard track for how people arrive in a career in product. It's not like when you go to college and you're studying accounting and then you CPA and then all of a sudden you're an accountant. So you've gone from comparative literature to being VP of product for a successful Silicon Valley startup and several organizations since, and you did that all within seven years of leaving college. Was this always part of the plan, this career track?
- Marisa Sires:
- Oh, no, not at all. When I was in school being a comparative literature major, actually part of my how I looked for jobs was where can I use my Spanish? But I was in book publishing a couple of internships. I did a journalism internship and I just didn't love it. I didn't get excited about it. It just really didn't feel like it was for me. And then my senior year of school, I found a internship at a local startup here in New York City, and I just went for it and I was working there my last semester. I stayed on after I graduated. At that point I was doing customer support both. It was a multi-sided platform, so we had tourists on the one side and then people selling tours and different trips and leisure activities on the other side. And so I was customer support for the tourists and then also supporting the providers that we worked with.
- And somehow while I was there, I got exposed to search engine marketing very minor in a very minor way, but I thought it was so interesting. At that time I wasn't interested in marketing, but this idea behind search and what Google was doing with the paid results, and I somehow decided I was moving to Silicon Valley and that was what I was going to do. And so that's how I got to Silicon Valley Tech from New York Tech. Obviously now I'm back in New York Tech and it was at that company where I started off entry level search marketing specialists, worked my way up to account manager, but I was the account manager on a beta rollout for our display advertising, moving from search advertising to display banners. And that was my first taste of product. And I think at that point I knew that was eventually I was going to find my way into a dedicated product role.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And what was it, and you said you knew, what was it that you realized? What was that moment?
- Marisa Sires:
- I think it was this ability when you're an account manager or now a customer success manager I think would be a more appropriate title, but you are working with customers and you are working within the confines of the product that you have available to you. So the product in and out your customer, you figure out the best way for your customer to use your product. But if the product falls short, then you're stuck. You have your product team, you work with your product team of course, but when you're in product, you actually have the agency to make the change that you wanna see.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Now I'm curious because you did come from that customer success management background, but you also come from a non-technical background, [affirmative], what advantages or disadvantages have you experienced moving into the product world, particularly in a tech organization having that background?
- Marisa Sires:
- Yeah, it's a really interesting question. And I think at the time that I moved into product, which was around 2012, it was much more frequent that product managers came from software backgrounds. So it was a little bit even weirder for me to move into product. And so the first kind of hurdle is are you technical enough? And so being able to speak to engineers understand what engineers were saying, that they didn't feel like it was gonna take three hours to get me onto the same page enough to work with them and engage with them was a really big starting point because if I couldn't win them over that I could do what I needed to do, then I was stuck from the beginning [affirmative]. But I think also as a customer service manager, I would take bugs that were coming through as far as I could and really get into the JavaScript console and those sorts of things. And so had engaged a lot with our support engineering in order to segue to working with our actual application engineers. I think today, to your point coming from client services, customer success, account management is much more prevalent path coming from data science or design or marketing. I think any organization you go into, there's not gonna be just one or two or even three paths that brought people into the product org.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- So just fast forwarding a bit now to 2019, you join CBR E'S premium office space brand, Hannah as a VP of global and global head of product and experience and innovation. And a year later Covid hit [affirmative]. And from the outside in perspective, that decimated commercial, the commercial property sector in particular shared spaces. What was that experience like for you happening so soon after joining?
- Marisa Sires:
- Great question. Yeah, HANA is a very interesting experience, not least of all because it was the first time that I worked for a company that was not a technology company. The product was the office space and the technology was ancillary and supporting of that experience. So I think even from day one my experience at HANA was much unlike anything I had ever done before. But then, yeah, COVID hit and the organization split into there are the folks that are all dealing with returning to work, which it's funny to think that back in the beginning we thought that maybe it'd be a couple of months [laugh] and then everybody else who's supporting the business. And then I actually got laid off, so Covid hit in March. I was laid off in May and it was in the first round. It just wasn't surprising because to your point, nobody knew what the future of commercial was going to be. Hana was still very new. We only had a couple of open locations so it was all kind of very surreal at the time. But I think everything that I do now in terms of podcasts and talking at conferences and posting on LinkedIn all came from that time that I had last summer. So it's a blessing you guys, I think
- Brendan Jarvis:
- That's really interesting. And especially now because we've all had a bit of distance since everything started happening in February and March of last year. So you mentioned your podcasting and your contributions on LinkedIn, that's all come as a result of that. What was it about that experience now that you've had some time to reflect on it, that you learned about yourself and that has led to this action that you've now taken?
- Marisa Sires:
- So I also toward the end of 2019, Jor joined an organization called Chief that was founded here in New York and now exists in other cities, but it's all about networking for executive women in getting a seat at the table or creating your own table. And through that, there was a Slack channel or a Slack workspace, and people were just posting, people were posting a lot, engaging Chief was quite new, and I just made a decision to say yes to everything. And so the one thing that actually stands out the most in my mind was there was a woman who was creating a blog about where we would travel next when we would be able to travel again. So very covid inspired and she put a call out on chief for people who wanted to write about that. And again, I have a conflict background, I did a lot of writing in school.
- I've never kind of done writing as a leisure activity, but I probably call it signed up in March or something and told her I'll do this. And it wasn't until I got laid off, and it was very soon after I got laid off that I was like, oh, I have free time. I'm gonna finally write this blog post. And so once I wrote this blog post, which was about Chengdu, China which is in Wan province, which is where my husband is from and has the most amazing food in the world I wrote that and I posted it on LinkedIn and I saw the engagement on that. And I have posted very minimally and usually just resharing other things or liking things. And I saw the engagement, I was like, oh, this is really interesting. People actually react to things that you post when they resonate. And so I think from there I was like, oh, I should try to do this more and write about different things. And I have a former colleague who was like, you're not writing about food anymore, [laugh]. I was like yeah, maybe I'll get back to that. So
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah, I understand you're a big fan of the food and from my recollection, the swan cuisine is very spicy.
- Marisa Sires:
- Yes. A numbing spice
- Brendan Jarvis:
- [laugh]. Hey, you mentioned Chief and one of the areas that, as I mentioned in your introduction that you're really passionate about is supporting other women in technology through mentoring. And you're part of a number of organizations that do that [affirmative], which sounds like it was partly inspired by your, I'm just gonna say yes to everything, sort of help with that. What was it though about this particular cause of helping other women in technology that made you want to commit and invest so much energy into it?
- Marisa Sires:
- That's a good question. And of the three mentoring programs that you mentioned, it's actually coincidentally a New Zealand company one Up, one down that's a startup that I was introduced to from a colleague here in New York. Also, it's really funny to think back on the path that I've had in terms of networking. So it's somebody I reached out to when I left Giga back in 2017. I met her, learned about her journey. We got back together this year. She had met one up one down all of, and she had only done it from the perspective of filling out the survey to help one up, one down in their discovery of how do we launch a mentorship platform, how do we differentiate? And I really just liked the team there. And I also filled out the survey but then became involved. And I think it was just that first experience mentoring in that kind of structure was just a very rewarding experience. Obviously I'm in New York, one up, one down is in New Zealand. I got a mentee who was in Finland. And I really learned just how rewarding it is to help another woman figure out her path. And then also just how much I would learn in the process. And I think the mentee that I had after that was even more of a situation where I was like, should I be the mentee? Are you the mentee [laugh]? So it really is just a symbiotic relationship where everybody has really a lot to gain from it.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And for women in technology that are listening to this podcast, what does that mentor mentee relationship look like? What's the sort of summary there?
- Marisa Sires:
- Yeah, it's also interesting because the formats, when you work through these organizations, the formats vary widely but I think at the core of it it's typically an hour of your time once a month for three months. And it really is about both of you have to put an effort or it's not gonna be very valuable. And it's really about the mentee thinking about what they want to accomplish in that time based on the goals that they have currently in their jobs or in their careers, and the skillset and experience that the mentor has and taking time during that first session to figure out what aligns here and how can we work together and how can the mentor really help you. And so I think that's the foundation is having those goals and creating a path together. And then the specifics can vary quite a bit.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And in your own journey, what role have mentors played for you?
- Marisa Sires:
- So yeah, I've never had a formal mentor mentee relationship but I do have a couple of folks who stand out in my mind as those critical people within my career. And so the first is actually the product manager who owned the product that I ran the beta program from the account management side. And so he was the first product manager that I saw doing product. And so that was really my model for a long time. And he and I stay in touch to this day and much more so when I was still in Silicon Valley and we would meet up and talk through product. And so that was the first point at which just having somebody who I really trust, who knows what they're doing that I can go to and ask questions and navigate different situations as they come up. And then the other person that stands out was actually my boss at Gigo when I first got hired. He helped moved me into a product capacity and he as well, that was more from a business perspective lesson, the functional areas, but more how he navigated the organization. He actually made the switch from product into client services and thinking about how different functional areas work together and how those different career paths look. So now I have a lot more kind of peer networking where we rely on each other, but those two people really stand out as if I need something or I really dunno what I'm doing then then that's what I'm gonna call.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It's interesting hearing about those two people in your career being both men. I remember, I mean not no value judgment here, but I think it is, if you look at the statistics, I believe 23% of executive roles in America held by woman [affirmative]. So I mean you think about the opposite of that, they're held by men largely. Yeah. But what has it been like being an executive woman in technology operating in a largely male dominated upper hierarchy?
- Marisa Sires:
- Yeah, it's definitely been a situation where you're the only woman or maybe you're one of two women, or maybe it's you and the executive assistant who's the other woman in the room. So I've always been very, very conscious of being the only woman and very conscious of just what women are included in or not included in. And a lot of companies have an issue where you have the top tier of the executive team that reports into the ceo, and then there's this nebulous senior leadership that's ill defined and different people will be included in different things. And also seeing the relationship of men and women in that level. So I think it's historically there's been a lot of trouble with women who are at the top, enjoy that space at the top and having that to themselves. And so really shifting that and trying to empower other women.
- There was one, for example, who was in that senior leadership level at a company that I was at, and she wasn't being included in meetings. And I told her, I was like, just raise your hand and tell them you wanna be there and you'll probably go. And she was like, no, if they're not gonna invite me then I'm not gonna go. And so I think there are a lot of different philosophies around this, but these things aren't, are not necessarily going to get handed to us. And so we really do have to raise our hands for ourselves, but also advocate for others.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I mean it, it's the soft exercise, exercising of power, it sounds like the excluding people from meetings. And are there any other behaviors, given you've walked this path and you're now in senior leadership, are there any other things other than ask, asking to be included in meetings that you think that women in tech that are on the ascent need to be mindful of or can use to help navigate some of these patriarchal constructs that still exist in a lot of organizations?
- Marisa Sires:
- Yeah, I think it's a really good question and I think it does have to do with alliances and something that this calls to mind is just a lot of people ask how to get into product management if you're not already a product manager. And it's this idea of it's a lot easier to enter an organization in a different functional area and work your way into product than it is to come in from the outside and say, I'm gonna have a product role. So I think similarly for women who are trying to work their way up, it is what are those alliances who are the senior women that you can talk to within your organization who can not only mentor you in a general sense, but also in navigating the specific context. It's also those alliances with people who aren't women, but it's being very conscious of demonstrating what it is that you're capable of taking on new opportunities and just really being good at what you do and not being shy about making sure that people are aware of the things that you're doing.
- And I think people also just take for granted, people may think it's like an arrogance, but there's also just this active communication that people like knowing what's going on. And if you happen to be able to do that or be responsible for what's going on, then that's only going to benefit you. I think it's also important for leaders to raise up their people and if my team is doing something amazing, even if I end up presenting it for whatever reason, then all of those people get named. It's not gonna be, this is what I did, or even this is what the generic product team did. There are specific people who need to get that recognition or
- Brendan Jarvis:
- What can men do to help?
- Marisa Sires:
- Well, [laugh] tough. The first thing that comes to mind is to not treat women differently but I do think that there is something to making a conscious effort to empower women. And it's similar with all kinds of employee resource groups and things like that. Mean don't a small company, so we don't have that right now. But if you're making that conscious effort to recruit for differing levels of diversity, I'm not gonna say that I'm diverse in the sense that there really are underrepresented minorities, but you have to be deliberate about the initiatives that you're raising. So it all starts from the hiring, the culture that you have hiring and elevating women and underrepresented minorities is going to engender more people being interested in your organization. And so I think there is this flywheel effect but I think it is making conscious decisions to include women, to elevate women and also to hire in that way.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- So thinking about and the impact that's had on the work environment, how do you look at this and its potential impacts for women in the professions?
- Marisa Sires:
- It's interesting. So I am married, but I do not have children. And the experience of covid particularly in our extended lockdowns here in the States the experience for women and some men, [laugh] who have children, is totally different. And it's a lot more that you have to deal with in terms of being able to do your job and be able to take care of your child and to make sure that your child is able to do their schooling from home. And so I think one of the biggest things is just that, the acceptance of that. I think early on there were a lot of women who were posting with their kids on Zoom and just the acceptance of that. And if there's noise in the background, people get that. But I think perhaps the more things have changed for you during covid, the harder it is to go back.
- I think remote work needs to be here to stay. There's been a lot of talk around when people are going to go back to the office, obviously major tech companies and some other companies saying we're work from home or remote first forever. I think companies have to think long and hard about the implications of remote work and the implications of taking away the flexibility that people have had for a year. My team is constantly asking me, are we going back to the office? Do we have to go back to the office? And we've been remote for a year and the company hasn't fallen apart, we're doing something. And so it's hard to say, oh, well now we need to go back because everybody's proven that they can make this work.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- [affirmative], it's been such a circuit breaker and it's really disrupted a lot of closely held beliefs about what work needs to look like. [affirmative] and a lot more trust seems to have flown both ways between employers and employees, which I feel has been overall quite positive.
- Marisa Sires:
- And to your point about women in particular, I think it is people with these different circumstances that are gonna be impacted more or less negatively by the decision to
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Force
- Marisa Sires:
- People back to work if that's what happens.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Perhaps a few people have developed some greater empathy [affirmative] as to what it's like to try and juggle family life and professional life. Absolutely. So changing gears here and thinking about your time at Gig, which was, well it seems like a phenomenal time, you know, were promoted to VP of products I think within four or so years of joining the company. How did it feel to get that position to be in that role?
- Marisa Sires:
- [laugh]? It was actually quite a shock. I had moved, so I was in Silicon Valley when I started at Giga. We had our sales and marketing headquarters in California, product development headquarters in Tel Aviv. And in the middle of 2013, I had moved back to New York, I got married my husband got a job here, I'd always wanted to move back to New York. And so I was working remotely. We didn't have an office in New York. I didn't have coworkers in New York. And about nine months into that, which is probably six months before I got promoted, I had told our CEO, who I reported to, I can't do this anymore. I don't wanna work from home. I need to get into an office. And so at the time I was actually working from First Round Capital's offices in Union Square in New York because they were an investor in Giga.
- And then our president gave me a call one day, he was our co-founder and he also was the defacto head of product. And he just all of a sudden on this call is, I think you should be VP [laugh]. And so it was both in the promotion but also in the delivery and it was very out of the blue. So it was just a very exciting time and I was like, oh, is this real? And what does this mean? I'm in New York, the team is in Israel. At that time I was really the customer facing side of product. I had a technical director counterpart in Tel Aviv. So then there are all the questions of, oh, is he gonna report to me? Is he gonna be okay with that? How is this gonna work? I've only managed teams of a handful of people and now you're asking me to manage 15 people. So there were a lot of layers to the reaction. I think the primary one was just being really excited and then getting past the excitement to be like, how do I this? I've never even been a product manager in the sense of running a squad and working directly with developers. So how does this work?
- Brendan Jarvis:
- So let's talk about that. So you find yourself in this VP position for good reason, you have the excitement of being in that position. And then it sounds like you had the realization of, I've gotta figure some things out, [affirmative], what were the things that you needed to master or build on that you realized were gonna be critical for success in that role?
- Marisa Sires:
- I think the first area that I focused on was how to work with the team in Israel. And so that was priority number one. At that point it was me and I may have had a couple of people who were based in California and then this director in Tel Aviv who ran the entire product org. And so it was figuring out those dynamics and then also figuring out, okay, he's the technical product manager, he's worked in startups doing software development and product, and I've had a couple jobs, but this is my first time working in product, all of these things. And so what do I bring to the table and what does he bring to the table and how do we make that work together? And so that was the real key. He was the technical person. I was the one with the customer service background in Israel, we didn't have clients and we had very limited customer facing employees, so they were very far removed. And so it actually became my campaign as VP to up level the entire product team and get them in front of customers and not have everything funnel through me. I mean, a big part of the reason why I was promoted was because I was so close to customers and understood them, but it didn't make any sense. I didn't, especially as vp, but it didn't need to funnel through me and they could do that work and they were gonna be better at their jobs from doing that work. So I think that was the biggest initiative.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- So you've been through that experience and you've held more leadership positions since. What has the greatest learning been for you as a leader? What has leadership taught you about yourself?
- Marisa Sires:
- Oh, how to let go [laugh]. I think when I was first around that time when I was vp, I also ended up hiring somebody who was a senior director with many years of experience, many years more than I had. And it was mean, hindsight is 2020. But I was not set up for success in leading this person and really understanding their value and that their value didn't detract from my value. And so thinking back to when I first came into a VP role, I was definitely micromanaging too much, trying to stay too close to things and feeling like, well, if I don't stay this close, then how do I know things are happening? And so from then to now, six and a half, seven years later it's just totally different. And I've completely flipped that in terms of giving my team space and the proof is in the work that they're putting out there and supporting them and being better at their jobs without having to know all of the minutiae of their day to day.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- So for people that are listening, they might get that they'll understand letting go, delegating, trusting your team, but are there any particular practices that you put in place as a leader to help you feel less anxious about stepping back and enable that trust and that relationship to develop positively?
- Marisa Sires:
- I have to say that my time at Building BuildingLink has given me an opportunity to really take a greenfield space. We're transforming, we haven't had a formalized product organization prior to 2020 and I've come into a team of very collaborative, curious, growth-minded people and it's been amazing. And so I've been able to institute all of these different practices and I think the biggest thing is letting the team come to me. We have our one-on-ones, they have the time to come to me, we talk about coaching and the areas that they wanna focus on and how I'm helping them. If they have roadblocks or concerns or whatever the case may be, they'll bring those to that session. And between that and also the team meeting that we have where kind of everybody gets together and we are working on different areas, whether it's introducing OKRs or prioritization frameworks or how we're gonna handle experimentation and then elevating the product team within the org. So really knowing that my role is to let them do their thing and to show the rest of the company what they're doing and how effective they are and how well they're transforming and give them voices to engage at the all hands, engage with training and support with sales. So it's that two-sided piece of being there enough for them that they know I'm here if they need me and then spending my time to evangelize for us across the organization.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- [affirmative], what was it about Building Link? It's a property Property tech, is that the right term? [affirmative] company? Yeah. So what was it about your move out of Silicon Valley Tech into Property Tick and a particular building? Look, why did you choose to work there?
- Marisa Sires:
- Yeah, so when I left around the time we got acquired in 2017, I decided that I didn't wanna work in that specific space and identity tech or even security or whatever the case may be. And I took time off to figure out what I wanted to do and that's where I developed this interest and built World Tech, so consulting in real estate tech and then also spent some time in mobility and then HANA and now building Link. And I think building is really interesting because I per perceived myself as a startup leader of product that I would be the first product hire coming in maybe a series B startup. And then I found Building Link. And Building Link is a 20 year old family business that's kind of the size and maturity of a series B startup. And I had the experience at Gigia of kind of rebuilding the platform, moving over to microservices, dealing with all of the tech debt we had built up over the course of our lifetime.
- So BuildingLink just gave me this really great opportunity to stay in real estate tech, which is really interesting to move into residential real estate, which is much more future proof than commercial right now. And then also to take something where we have over 5,000 buildings and over millions, a couple million residents, that we have this so much fodder for doing customer discovery and understanding while also building the platform for the future. So it's just a confluence of a lot of different things and I think how great my team is is just the bonus on top of that that I didn't really know going in that I would get that.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah, you never really know for sure going in. So it's great to hear that that's the case. [affirmative], you've seen product management practice at many, well several companies now. You've seen it in the Silicon Valley security Tech style and now your, I think seven or eight months into building Link [affirmative]. How do these practices, if at all, differ between those remarkably different industries?
- Marisa Sires:
- Yeah, I mean think it's a bit, I think about it changing more over time than and by industry. So when I was at Gigia I think about a year after I became vp, we migrated from Waterfall to Agile. And so it's kind of crazy to think that it wasn't until 2015 that we were doing that and we did have a very technology led organization and there was a question of will our product owners be the product managers or the tech leads? And so I've definitely seen, so I have seen different organizations. Obviously there are technology led organizations and sales led organizations. So I've seen a lot of different flavors of that and whether even the technology organizations are product led or engineering led. And so I think that's for me coming into building Lincoln, having this greenfield where we can make it product led. And the CTO that I've been working with since I came on board was also very product led. And I think so each organization is different and I, I'd be hard pressed to parse out whether it's industry or location or year in our history that would indicate different paths of product and how product is run.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- So let's pick up on the term you used there, product lead [affirmative]. What does the nirvana of a product lead organization look like?
- Marisa Sires:
- Yeah, it's a good question. I feel like it's very cliche at this point to reference Marty Cagan but I think that at this point inspired really is the closest thing there is to the guidebook of what product led product management and product led organizations look like. And it really is around empowering the team. And this is something we spend a ton of time on that we're not just delivering from the CEO or the founder or the CTO, like here are all of the features, go build these. It's really understanding how we are connecting our work to the business and understanding the problems that we're trying to solve, the outcomes that we're trying to drive, and figuring out the best solutions for those. And so we're going through this process right now of kind of theme-based roadmaps where we're not tying ourselves down to the specifics of what we're to do, but giving the organization an idea of the areas that we'll be focusing on and why. And I think it is that gets people excited about the work that they're doing along with this kind of dual track discovery dual track agile with discovery and delivery where they are getting in front of customers a lot. And it's not just the tactical execution with the developers, but the developer and the designer or with them through that whole process of engaging with customers figuring things out and then moving to execution
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Track. Agile is something that I'm a big fan of and I speak with a lot of product organizations and what I have observed anyway from those conversations has been the role that structure plays in disempowering teams to operate that dual track agile model where, for example, you may have engineering as under a separate VP to product to design. What have you observed in terms of structure that has enabled better product practices to evolve?
- Marisa Sires:
- So I think the biggest hindrance to a product led organization is a product org reporting into a cto. And so as a product leader, that's always a red flag when you're looking for a new role and you see that product is tied up into engineering. It's interesting though because everybody talks about this tripod of product design engineering but it's so often that design reports into product. And I think right now design reports into me and I think it's fine for now, but there is this question of why shouldn't design also have its own leadership? Which of course in some organizations it does but I think placing equal weight on each of those, it's checks and balances and all of that is really important and making sure that everybody is aligned on the why behind what we're doing.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- So as a product organization, as a leader or a manager of product, you sometimes have to make decisions based on incomplete or unperfect information, and those decisions can have quite far reaching consequences. What level of risk are you comfortable with when making decisions about the future of the product?
- Marisa Sires:
- Yeah, it's a really good question and it's one that we talk about a lot. I actually just sent my team today the Jeff Besos concept of a one-way door versus a two-way door. And what's a decision that you can't reverse versus one that you can [affirmative]? And it is all about prioritizing the risk and understanding the impact of the risk. If we're wrong about this, then what's gonna happen? And just being comfortable with there, there's a threshold there and it doesn't make sense to over research and things like that. And sometimes you just need to move forward but it really is just evaluating what the impact of the risk is and whether you can undo it if you have to.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And what's the greatest risk to the success of a product?
- Marisa Sires:
- That's a good question.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Sorry about all the questions
- Marisa Sires:
- [laugh] something around that you're, you're not building the right thing and you're not building it in the right way. And I think it is something around really under understanding what your customers need and what they're going to value and what is going to drive the business forward rather than the thing that sounds really cool to build or that your unproven gut thinks would be really great for your customers, particularly when you are not a customer of your own product.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Really important to remember. So let's get into that. What does that look like? How do you help people to understand that and to build the customer into the product management process better?
- Marisa Sires:
- And so a lot of it is we're trying to get to this and we're not there yet, but in terms of just, and I've started to ask the team more like, what did you learn from customers this week? Because we really want folks spending time every week getting in front of customers. And because we're working on these major initiatives and redesigning and rebuilding our platform, there is a lot of the big heavy upfront discovery that's happening which is great. But then it's like once you get started, what are you doing to validate? What are you doing to look back? And so we have this joke that when you're demoing every two weeks, do you have an answer for all the questions that you get asked? Why did you do this? Why did you do that? And really pushing yourselves to have talked to customers and done the testing and set things up in a way that you have that justification and maybe the justification is, well, it was lightweight and it made more sense to release it and then test, but that you have reasoning.
- But a big part of that is that you are getting in front of customers often enough that you're constantly got checking and just getting to know your customers better. I think one of the biggest detriments for me coming into building Link during Covid is that we work with onsite staff in residential properties and it would be a really great learning experience to actually go and sit and observe and the ethnographic aspects of the study to see how they operate every day. And I have heard anecdotes from the team that's done this in the past but that is a big part of, I think a day, the day in the life is something that you cannot get through any conversation or you can't get what it's really like until you're there.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah, let's just spare a thought for all those ethnographers out there that are probably pulling their hair out, not being able to do the things that they love to do and that are so valuable in shaping that view of the problem and also playing a role in shaping the solution as well. Absolutely. How much of what we're talking about here with enabling dual track agile, getting closer to customer, building up that empathy, but also true insight into what we should be doing and how we should be doing it. How much of this has to do with the organization's culture?
- Marisa Sires:
- Oh, it's huge. I mean, I think one of the biggest impediments to product managers getting in front of customers is sales or leadership being like, no, no, no, you can't get in front of customers, which you hear all the time, especially interviewing product managers, you hear the different experiences they have. And so that's number one, that the organization has to be open to product being experts on the customers, just as the customer facing teams are experts on the product. And yeah, I think there's also that's a big hindrance. There's also folks just not being on board with outcomes over outputs and not being able to separate this concept of this is the list of features that we need to develop and release. And being able to let go of that and to be able to invest time in research to invest time in testing and experimentation. So we're very lucky at building length that the whole organization is very bought into the change to being a product led organization that we're trying to affect. But there are certainly a lot of hurdles if the organization is not behind that,
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It makes a big difference. [laugh], looking at your recent LinkedIn posts, I noticed that you have been conducting a North Star exercise recently with a team. What is that? What is a North Star for people that don't know and why is that something that you have decided to bring into building?
- Marisa Sires:
- Yeah, it's a good question. So first of all, a North star. It is what it sounds like in the general sense of what is that metric that we are trying to drive toward but in a more specific sense, and we're doing it in the context of Amplitude, which is a product analytics firm. And the framework that they've released it is the way to tie the work that we are doing, the direct outputs that we can drive through the product. So you release something and these are things that you can track and see that you're affecting change. And the North Star is then connecting that to the downstream business goals of reducing churn, increasing sales, et cetera, with the idea that the initial outputs, as soon as you release our leading indicators of those very lagging indicators of churn and revenue and such. And for us, when I came in we were looking at strategic intents for the first time and there were some goals around how much to increase sales in condo market or reduce a churn in the rental market.
- And the team was just like, how do I know that anything I'm doing is going to impact any of these numbers? And so as with any shiny object, the North Star provides this possibility that we can effectively tie the work that the product team is doing every day to those business outcomes. And so that's why I wanted to explore it with the team and get them thinking about what is that North Star? What does it mean for building Link to be successful? What is that key evidence that the things that we are doing are really driving value for our customers, such that we can sell to new customers, these customers are gonna stay with us for a long time and all of that. And so that's why we decided to do
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I'll be keen to hear how you get on with it and how it's affecting the direction of the product at a date. Yeah. So are you up for some rapid fire questions? Sure. All right, let's do it. So these are scenario based questions and really just drawing on your own experience and expertise. The first one is you are hiring a product manager to be your right hand and to manage a critical area of the existing product. What do you look for in that person?
- Marisa Sires:
- Yeah, well right in the thick of that. So it's interesting for me, a product manager is somebody who is curious, smart, detail or detail oriented and has good time management. If they have this basic set of criteria, then they will be successful as a product manager depending on the level of ambiguity and how much actual experience I need. Then in the trenches then I would have to vet for those other things, specific experience. But those four criteria are key.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You're getting bombarded with requests from the sales organization for features. They say that millions of dollars of future revenue are at stake if they aren't delivered. How do you respond?
- Marisa Sires:
- Also, also happening and one of the biggest things is communicating the roadmap and just the vision and the goals that we are focused on right now. And so if we're focused on the modernization of the current platform and you wanna build us, want us to build something new, not going to meet. And so the biggest thing for product managers is to communicate. If you think that you've said it too many times, maybe people have started to hear you and just being really transparent of like, okay, we're not doing this, but we are doing this. And it's valuable to you cause
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Got it. You're fresh into your first role as VP of product. The CEO asks you to prepare a strategy and present that strategy for the product to the board. Where do you start?
- Marisa Sires:
- So when I was interviewed at BuildingLink, we actually did a day of interviews with people where I had basically to come up with a strategy based on a mission statement and some thinking from the leadership team. And so it always is talking to key stakeholders and learning as much as you can and understanding what the goals are and then connecting the two.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You've got a rockstar engineer and one of your product teams who refuses to adhere to the same expectations and norms as the rest of the team. How do you bring them on side?
- Marisa Sires:
- Yeah, so in my capacity as a leader where I'm not actually on the squad so it's always trying to get the squads to self-organize first so that this is something that will come up in a one on one with the product manager. So talking through with them and role playing different ways that they can get the person on board, just depending on the specifics of how they're operating. And then sometimes, depending on how that goes and what they're able to take back to the team it could be a team lead, product manager, leadership and this person coming together and talking it through.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And the last one is, you've got two attractive directions that you could take the product down, but you can only choose one. How do you choose
- Marisa Sires:
- Research [laugh]? So we're actually in this position right now where we have a specific goal that we are going after and we have a couple of different opportunities that we can pursue. And so it's the highest value research we can do in the shortest period of time to understand the size of the opportunity and the value to our customers and the level of effort to execute and also the term and long term value and take it from there.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Makes a lot of sense. So just bringing us down to the close now, if you were going to be in a position to get a message out to all women who are considering a career in technology, what would that message be?
- Marisa Sires:
- Do it. I think the most important thing is to not be, if there is anything that is discouraging you to not listen to it and you can find people on LinkedIn or elsewhere, reach out to them, plenty of people will hear you out and give you advice. And of course then there are all these mentorship opportunities as well that you can come in as a mentee. So,
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Mm-hmm. [affirmative], what a wonderful conversation, Marisa. It's been full of insights. Thank you for so generously sharing those with us today. It's gonna make a big difference to the community. I really appreciate it.
- Marisa Sires:
- Thank you so much, Brendan.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah. You're a great role model for women and I really am looking forward to publishing this. For people that are listening to this episode and interested in finding out more about you, what is the best way that they can do that?
- Marisa Sires:
- Probably find me on LinkedIn.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Great. We'll put a link to your profile on the show notes. Yeah,
- Marisa Sires:
- Absolutely. Don't hesitate to reach out.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Wonderful. Thanks Marisa. And to anyone else that is listening hope you've enjoyed the show. If you're interested in any of the resources or finding Marisa or any other things that we've covered today, those will be posted in the show notes on YouTube. If you enjoy the show and you wanna hear more of these great conversations with world class leaders, then please subscribe to the podcast, give us a comment give us any feedback. We're always keen to hear it. And until next time, everybody, keep being brave.