Uri Levine is a 2x 'Unicorn' Builder (Duocorn) who co-founded Waze and is a former investor and board member in Moovit. Uri recently published his book, "Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution". We talk about some of the themes from the book as well as some stories from his own career.
This episode is sponsored by My Mentor Path. I'm a passionate advocate for mentoring and believe it to be one of the highest-leverage activities you can undertake to get ahead in your career. I try to do my part, but am but one man, so I helped set up this FREE mentoring community to try to help out at scale. Sign up now as a mentor, a mentee, or both!
Uri is often asked if selling Waze was the right decision, but you can only make decisions based on the information you have. It's more important to make a decision than wait for the perfect decision.
Find a problem you care about, but you are a sample of oneYou should be passionate about the problem you're solving, but don't assume that anyone else cares as much as you do or wants to solve it the way you want to. You have to get out & speak to people who have the problem
If you're afraid to fail then, in reality, you already failedWhen you're building something no one has built before, you never know if it'll work. You need to experiment, fail fast and have multiple shots on goal. The faster you fail, the sooner you can have another shot.
Product/Market Fit does exist & it is measurableIf you're not creating value, people won't come back. Retention is the most important way to measure P/MF & make sure that the solution to your users' problem is actually valuable. Getting people to value quickly is essential.
B2B & B2C product management share the same goalsYou might have different customers who care about different features, but they all care about something. The metrics might differ, but the ultimate goal is to deliver value & solve a real pain for all these different people.
Buy "Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution""Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution offers mentorship in a book from one of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and empowers you to build a successful business by identifying your consumers' biggest problems and disrupting the inefficient markets that currently serve them."
Check it out on Amazon.
Contact UriYou can visit Uri at his website UriLevine.com or follow him on Twitter.
Inside the Mind the Product Acquisition - Why Now & What’s Next? (with James Mayes, Evangelist @ Pendo & Co-Founder @ Mind the Product)
Developer Relations & Product Management - Friends or Foes? (with Tessa Kriesel, Head of Platform DevRel @ Snap & Wesley Faulkner, Head of Community @ SingleStore)
Using Solution Tests to Make Sure You’re Building Products Users Want (with Jim Morris, Founder @ Product Discovery Group)
Building Life-Centred Products with Collaborative Product Discovery (with Sophia Höfling, Co-founder & Head of Product @ Saiga)
Using the Power of Community to Grow Your Startup (with Anna Maste, Founder @ Boondockers Welcome & Subscribe Sense)
Pragmatic Digital Transformation in Traditional Industries (with Dan Chapman, Director, Product Line Leader @ Merck)
Understanding & Interrupting Cognitive Biases in Product Design (with David Dylan Thomas, Author ”Design for Cognitive Bias”)
Building Disruptive Products by Harnessing Power Users (with Moustapha Seck, Founder @ Fluid)
We’re All Responsible For Accessible Product Design (with Holly Schroeder, Senior UX Researcher & Accessibility Advocate)
Aligning Teams with Data & Finding Your Second Product/Market Fit (with Matt Arbesfeld, CEO & Co-Founder @ LogRocket)
Supporting Product Managers & Standing Up for the Value of Product Management (with Princess Akari, founder @ PeopleInProduct)
Adventures in Product Management (with Dan Olsen, author ”The Lean Product Playbook”)
Getting On Top Of Your User Stories & Requirements (with Richard Awe, founder @ Requstory)
Escaping the Build Trap with Product Operations and Strong CPOs (with Melissa Perri, author ”Escaping the Build Trap”)
Climbing the Product Management Career Ladder ... and Working Out if it’s For You (with Katerina Suchkova, Founder @ Ahead of Product)
Build High Growth Products by Following the Product Science Success Path (with Holly Hester-Reilly, founder @ H2R Product Science)
The Importance of Getting Your Product Launches Right (with Derek Osgood, Founder & CEO @ Ignition)
Standing Up for Diversity & Inclusion When No One Looks Like You (with Merina Khanom, Product Manager @ BBC iPlayer)
Getting Strategic to Land Your First Product Management Job (with Crystal Parker, Product Manager & Entry Level Career Coach)
Test Business Ideas Ethically by Experimenting With, Not On, Customers (with David Bland, Co-author ”Testing Business Ideas”)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Commercial Edge: Unleash the Power of People
The emPOWERed Half Hour
NABOR® TALKS
U.S Property Podcast
Aligned Money Show
The Ramsey Show
Planet Money