Be alive. Perfect. Welcome everybody to the Chief Fintech Summit. I am so thrilled that you're all joining us over here. Um My name is Masasa and I'll be your host today. I'm a principal product manager lead at Meta.I am also a public speaker, a singer and a member of the Grace Hopper Conference and the Limit and product leadership team. Today, I am so thrilled to have this fireside chat with the amazing Nancy Wang on how to transfer your product leadership skills into becoming a founder.

Nancy is a multi Catholic leader. She's a director of product and engineering for Aws. She's the founder and co chair of Advancing Women in Tech. Nancy has worked at Google and Rubric before joining Aws. She's also the winner of multiple awards including Advocate of the year issued by Women in It Awards and mentor of the year in the 2022 ST D awards. Nancy, welcome.

Thanks so much Lydia and I appreciate the intro.

I am really excited to hear your perspectives on how to transfer your product leadership skills when you become a founder because I think you have this unique perspective that you are yourself a product leader, but you work with a variety of founders as part of your side hustles.

So let's get started and start with the basics. What are some of the key differences in product leadership between working for a company versus being a founder?

Yeah. Well, I think just to start right, without being too, you know, tongue in cheek, uh you know, when you're starting your own company, right, you're really on your own. So things that you might expect as, let's say, support functions or um you know, auxiliary teams such as marketing, you know, pricing, packaging, business development, um that's you as the founder. And so as someone who, you know, has had the opportunity and good fortune to work with start up founders who from, for example, all the way from precede where it's just an idea or sometimes they are still brainstorming ideas to series a where you start having paying customers all the way to IP O, right?

You really see this evolution of uh folks who come from product backgrounds who have an idea or a space that they're passionate about and really figure out how to essentially the commercialization aspects of that technology. Um So it, it's really interesting to see someone progress from, you know, all the way from early stages to later stages with those skill sets, but also looking at how they evolve, right? How they mature their thinking around. Well, if I don't have, let's say 100% team. Right.

How do I still get this road map done? And it really forces it's a force, good forcing function to be really crisp with your MVP definition. Right? Because you're not going to have a ton of resources. You don't have, you know, tens upon tens of engineers. Right. You might have a few, you might also be writing the code yourself. Right. Also being a product person.

So, really being scrappy. Absolutely right. You want all the

in Amazon, we call it exactly ownership, you know, uh frugality, dive deep, it's really part and parcel, right? Of what it means to be scrappy, really chase your ideas and most importantly, have conviction that what you're building truly solves a real problem.

Mhm How do you think people can, founders can test product market fit? Because essentially that's what it boils down to, right? Like figuring out if your idea has some semblance of, is it solving a real need that, you know, the market is willing to pay in some shape or form? So how do you suggest, how will you work with founders to determine when a product has product market fit?

Yeah. So it's actually one of my favorite topics to brainstorm with founders is especially around the series seed or sometimes early series a phases. You know, I asked them point blank. Do you believe you found product market fit? Sure there's good proxies, right. You can say, OK, how many paying customers you have, maybe how many design partners do you have? What's your A RR, what's your A CV? Sure. Right. Those are all in my opinion, lagging indicators of whether or not you found product market fit. I think the leading indicator really again comes back to the conviction. Right. Because just because you have paying customers doesn't mean that you're solving a real problem. Maybe you're part of that discretionary spend that, hey, as market goes through downturns, right? They'll stop spending money on you, right?

Or maybe it's a nice to have where customers are more than happy to use your free version without ever converting into a paid version, right? So it really comes down to, well, what do you, what is your vision for your product and how close can or are you able to differentiate where you are on that journey? In fact, actually, that's a good answer. In fact, during my conversations, it's a good litmus test of how well they know their product, how well they know their business and overall, right? How successful they will be as founders,

right? That's a great answer, Nancy. So now I want to flip that and ask uh how can founders strike a balance between being visionary about their product while also staying grounded, the realities of market and product and user needs?

I say the only way to do that is iterate, fail and fail fast, right? It's really that old adage which is sure. Right. You can, you know, wait a couple of years to launch your product and have all the bells and whistles and nice to have and customization features or you could have something that is super bare bones, right? But solves a real need. And this is where again, take my words with a grain of salt because I come from very much enterprise B to B products where oftentimes, right? Customers don't even use my product via the console, they go straight to API or they script, right? And so what we typically look at is, you know, even if for example, the UX at 1st may not be worth you want it to be right? But if you still see adoption, if you still see paying customers, that's actually a really good sign that you might be very close to product market fit because it's a sign that customers are willing to wade through your horrible experience because your product solves a real need, right?

And it's really actually those type of businesses that I see and I love to source as an investor,

I think, you know, some founders, there's also an interesting point that you touched on which is B to B versus B to C. Do you see any difference in how founders should approach their thinking when they're working on A B to B product versus A B to C product? Just because the customer needs and mental models might be so different across these two segments.

Yeah, for sure. And again, I'm, I'm not an expert in B to C products, having actually never worked in that space. Even at Google, I was working actually in Google Fiber, which was uh more on the enterprise side. Um Yeah. So look from, I think it really comes down to data points and market segmentation, right? So for example, um you know, the best analogy I like to use is there are only 500 companies in the Fortune 500 right? So if your sample size is not gonna be that big, and if you look at for what my team at Aws does, which is we build SASS products that help customers protect secure and keep their data compliant while on Aws, right? That's selling to some of your largest, you know, not even Fortune 500 we're talking of Fortune Tens, right? Fortune fifties and there's just not that many numbers, right? Your n equals is gonna be very small versus on the consumer side, right? I'm a consumer, you're a consumer, there are millions of consumers, billions of consumers and your data points are going to be inherently much, much larger. So, in my opinion, right, the best I would say B to BP MS and therefore founders that I've met have a really good conviction, right? Of OK. You know what I see where the, the puck is right in a hockey game.

But I also see where the puck is headed, right? And this is how I'm able to time and tap the market. And that's, that's more of a um kind of innate skill, right? You, you have to have a sufficient expertise in an area to be able to understand. OK, where are the trends headed and where are enterprise buying patterns headed? Because one of the biggest pitfalls especially for early stage founders, right is, you know, chasing logos, right? Because that's how you raise your series. A if you have some nice splashy Fortune 10 fortune 50 logos, and if you have a right telling you, hey, I need this purpose built, you know XYZ feature and the company B telling you, well, I need this other purpose built feature. It's a really fine line, especially for early stage founders to ride because you ultimately don't want to become a services company, right? Because it's a very difficult multiple from being a software company. So you have to understand that goes back to fiction of what it is that you're looking to build that solves a real problem out there. And how much are you willing to actually deviate from your original road map in order to capture those logos, right? There's no right or wrong answer but truly right.

Those who figure it out and understand the art of negotiation are going to be this successful,

right? I'm sure our audience are very keen to ask you how would one build at that conviction because that's a really hard skill to build.

I it really comes. Um So I'll use an example, for example. Um you know, I uh spoke a couple months ago with uh one of the co-founders of Hashi Corp, right? As you all know, they've built a wildly successful company, one of their, you know, products, Terraform is widely adopted across multiple different environments, right? It really named as the, you know, Poster Child of Dev Solutions, it from there, right? It was really that kind of user empathy that they developed working in the operation space, right? And so that's one way, for example, the other way, um you know, if you haven't worked in that space is from talking to, you know, a whole bunch of customers, right? And under really understanding, OK, if you're able to map out the market, what those customers are thinking and also what are their top priorities when they're sourcing a solution for that problem, right? So those are, I would say the two most common models I've seen.

Yeah, that, that's very insightful Andy. Thank you so much. So now let me pivot a little bit more and ask you in your experience of working with so many founders, what are some common mistakes that product leaders turned founders make and how can they be avoided?

Um Sure. So I think first thing, right, it just coming from a big company. Um and I I myself have done the jump between big companies and smaller companies, for example, went from Google to Rubric to advising super early stage start ups to now, of course, at Aws where it's big company again. But, you know, I think it's a very different mindset as I mentioned. Where here? Right. It's almost you have to navigate between different teams. Understand. Ok. Where is your swim lane? Where is their swim lane in a start up world? Right. It's very much scrappy. There are no swim lanes to think of. And so I do see that as one of just the mindset uh mindset shifts that needs to happen when you're going from a big company to being a founder, which is well, you know what everything is your problem, right? No problem is too big or too small for, right? I think the second question like I mentioned, right is, you know, at, again, bigger companies you do have. So for example, there is a professional services team that also supports my product. So for example, when there are customizations that need to be built, I can easily pull in the professional services team and ask them, hey, can you help out with this, you know, very strategic customer in a start up?

You don't have again, those resources and you do have to make that call of. Well, is this a feature in the MVP or is this a customized feature that we're only going to build and only this one particular customer or maybe this one particular industry segment will use and you have to have sufficient data points. And again, goes back to conviction to make that call because if you make the wrong call, you will have just spent all of your engineering resources for, let's say, 3 to 6 months building this one feature that's not going to get that much adoption. Whereas your competitors are busy building out their M LP. right? And it's very much the difference between success and

failure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For a start up, especially in that and then, yeah, that's a, that's a very interesting point. So ruthless prioritization being really grounded in, you know, customer empathy, customer data points and you know what the market is really indicating and paying close attention to that is, is what I'm hearing as, you know, a couple of uh mistakes that product leaders usually make, but they can avoid.

So piggybacking off of that Nancy, I think you've already like, you know, given us some really good insights as, as we wrap, like, what advice would you give to product leaders who are considering transitioning into a role of founder? Like I've definitely seen a trend where a lot of product leaders who've been a product manager or your director, et cetera wanting to pivot to entrepreneurship and build their own start up, right? So what advice would you give such product leaders who are considering transitioning?

Yeah, make sure that you're in a full scope product role. Right. So one of the things that, uh was new to me when I joined Aws was that P MS at Aws also handle pricing, packaging, go to market and PNM,

um, there is almost like a general general manager role. Right.

Yeah. And I, I think that's actually the best to you, in my opinion, to become a founder because the founder, like I said, right, you're not going to have those support functions for maybe some time because you're cash strapped, you're raising money and you have to be elite, especially in this market.

And so make sure that you have a, you're in a position where you can gain all of these skills, right? And more recently, um it's also been an interesting journey for me to learn how, for example, enterprise sales works, right? Because again, in the B to B world, you can't simply rely on, well, it's a premium product or, you know, product led growth motions, there is actual real selling, right? Understanding how do you do campaigns? How do you incentivize sellers? How do you create like sales and sales comps? It's very much, you know, it's an enterprise thing, right? But as a founder, you're going to have to hack that, right? So making sure that, you know, you map out all the skills that you need understanding. If you're a business founder, you might be looking for a technical founder and vice versa, right? Map out the skills that you need skills that you have and skills that you can learn between. Now while you're, you know, on a company's dime versus on your own dime when you become a founder,

that's a, that's a great advice. I like, I like that sectioning that you mentioned like skills that you already have skills that you can learn now with the skills that you can, you know, learn eventually in the journey. I I love that. I love that. So as we wrap three more minutes, I can't believe it. It's only 20 minutes. I think we should do like II I have more questions to ask you. I am sure I can complete the collision for two more hours. But um let's do a quick rapid fire. What is the most overrated skill for a founder,

overrated skill uh deck making everyone asked founders for a very pretty deck. But honestly, I'd rather your product be sound. Um and your, your Q and A um during our conversation be sound.

I love that. OK. Now the flip, what is the most underrated skill for a founder?

The ability to sell um is a common trait that I've seen across all successful founders of successful companies. I don't care if you came from an engineering background, uh PM business sales background, whatnot, but the ability to make sure that you can compellingly talk about your product, right?

Talk about your vision because ultimately, if you're selling as a start up, right? You're not going to have the, the brand cachet of a FF company. So it's really very much you selling your vision to the buyer and the buyer has to believe in you and also believe in your product.

I love that, Nancy. What a perfect book end to our conversation. Well, Nancy, thank you so much once again for coming and sharing the sharing with us your insights on how product leaders can leverage their skills, you know, in their career into and, and when they turn into found, I really appreciate our conversation. Thank you so much, Nancy.

Thanks via and actually if for folks who are interested in maybe just hearing more detailed answers, uh we as a nonprofit advancing women in tech, we do have real world product management specializations that you can find on coursera.org. Um It's really designed to take you all through the first year's curriculum of what it means to be A PM Technical at Aws.

Love it. And I'm sure people can, our audience can find the details on your linkedin profile. Is that a fair place to point them to? Ok, perfect. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much, Nancy and have a good one. Everyone

take care.