#2 - Theo Tabah: Community-Based Products, Leading
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Theo: [00:00:00] it's just interesting people, smart people, industries.

And then just work hard. Figure out what game you're playing, learn the rules, play it well, and enjoy the ride..

My name's Isabel, and this is your product thinking Toolbox.

Isabel: Theo Tabah is the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder at Late Checkout, a product studio and agency that designs and creates community-based products. He has been managing teams for over a decade and is here today to share insights on how to turn teams into communities to unlock their full potential.

Thanks for coming on the podcast, Theo, I'm pretty excited for us to chat and get into your brain a little bit.

Theo: . Me too. It's nice to see you again.

Isabel: , nice to see you too. So maybe let's start with the reason why I reached out in the first place, because looking at your profile and looking at your career path, you have honestly one of the fastest career paths I've seen.

You started off [00:01:00] as a PM from 5by and then you got acquired to Stumble Upon, and then you went into Luxury Retreats, Airbnb, and then now you're a COO of Late Checkout. So maybe just to start, how do you get here? Let's give the audience a little story about your career.

Theo: Happy to. I mean, you make it sound speedy. That was also over 11 years, so it's, it feels like it's been a minute, but, , no, it. . Looking back, it's all a blur. , I actually started in the beer industry, so way back was in merchandising, marketing beer was really, you know, cool for me as a college kid. I wasn't one of those like, oh, how did the entrepreneurs start?

Oh, well they played video games and were taking apart computers. Like, that was not me at all. Wasn't on my computer a ton from, you know, age, whatever, X to 18. Um, got into it in [00:02:00] college and then was like, What job could I do that would allow me to go to school full-time and also make a living and also connect with a bunch of cool people, friends, et cetera, and have fun.

And I had a buddy in the beer industry, worked at Molson Coors, and you know, Molson originated in Montreal. Huge brewery here owns a lot of other breweries. And I had joined that team. And, uh, I gotta say it was really fun for two years and then really not fun. . Um, Very tiring. A lot of late nights, a lot of parties, which again, was all cool for a 22 year old, um, in college.

But at the end of the day, like. I got tired of the boat cruises where you were stuck on a, on a ship with 400 drunk people from 9:00 PM to three in the morning. Just wasn't what I wanted to be doing. . Um, and then, uh, I rekindled my relationship with Greg. I really wanted to get into tech. I'd been, you know, MySpace, stumble upon ironically, which I ended up going and working for these websites.

[00:03:00] I start to use more and more and start to kind of take note of behavior patterns on the internet and more and more people using it. Um, And it was exciting. And so I wanted to join tech, so I reached out to Greg on Twitter.

And this is Greg Isenberg, right?

Greg Isenberg, yep. My current co-founder and the CEO of late checkout.

And at that time kind of ran into him at a university course. He was actually a guest speaker and like judging pitches in my entrepreneurship class. And I was like, why is this kid my age? Judging my pitch. Like where, where is he coming from? What's his deal? And uh, he looked familiar at it. I'd met him five, six years prior or, or a couple years prior.

And, um, I reached out to him. I was like, what are you up to? And he said, I'm starting this startup if you want to come check it out. I did it for free. Just wanted to get involved. You know, long story short, five by turned into a pretty successful video startup we were trying to disrupt. [00:04:00] Um, You know, video on the internet and specifically mobile video and how to find what to watch.

And at the time, mobile video was exploding. So we did that. Got acquired like in nine months, uh, which was record time, I would say, and, uh, moved to the Bay Area, um, moved into product. I didn't join five by as a product manager cuz I had no idea what a product manager was, right? I had no idea what tech really meant at that point in 2011, I.

2012. I wasn't really in the game yet. So it was kind of a fun foray into that world to see what startups were like and looking at code and understanding, you know, growth hacks and how to do some gorilla marketing and figure out just everything A to Z as like one of the first employees and one of the only employees on how to get this thing towork.

Isabel: . How do you know when you were starting to do product as a whole? Because you mentioned you didn't know what product was. What made you say, oh, maybe I am a [00:05:00] product manager right now?

Theo: Yeah, that came when, so we had a team and as we grew. Greg got further from the product and he was more strategic, helping more with stumble upon in their strategy and helping more kind of in other areas and, and really focused on growth, right? On how to get more users and how to grow this thing and how to solve the problem we to solve.

And so I channeled that and realized, you know, I kind of fell into the role of, hey, I'm actually kind of dictating and defining. What the user needs, what their problems are. Empathizing speaking to users a lot because I was head of content, so I was running all the content, so I was listening to people on what they liked, what they didn't, looking at metrics, and then before I knew it, I was writing requirements, working with a design team and the engineering team to figure out what our roadmap would be and what features to build.

And lo and behold, I was launching apps and doing that with Greg and releasing iteratively [00:06:00] and listening to clients and just trying to figure it out. And so at that point, I, I was like, you know what? I think I understand now more what a product manager does, and I think that's what I'm doing.

Isabel: Right? Yeah.

And now you are COO .

Theo: So, and lo and behold, a couple more iterations, a couple breaks in between, more product. Yeah. More. More. Okay. I, I really love product. I also really love managing people and I also really love business strategy. So a little bit of a transition there into business strategy and operations and people management.

And that was at Airbnb and, uh, made the leap to c o o at late checkout where. You know, I'm also acting head of products, so it's like a really fun kind of balance of everything I love in one melting pot.

Isabel: I mean, you have discounted your career trajectory by saying 11 years is not a short time at all, but it is a short time from you getting from marketing all the way to COO.

So what do you think has been the biggest [00:07:00] challenge of moving or pivoting so quickly?, especially in completely different domains.

Theo: Yeah, it's a great question. I think one of the challenges is like as you move, just checking in with yourself on like, is this what you want to be doing? Um, and that's something I had to do at Airbnb with product and Airbnb.

Again, I got into Airbnb through an acquisition from Luxury Retreats. So I was PM at Luxury Retreats. One of their first ones we got acquired, you know, 18 months later after I joined, and. About a year into that, it was, there are two paths, product or you know, strategy and ops and people management. And I was a very natural people manager.

So just checking in with yourself on, do I want to keep doing what I'm doing? What path is going to help me on kind of my mission and what I want to do and who I want to serve? And so checking in your health when you're moving quickly and making all these moves, just [00:08:00] like, don't discount the value of like taking a breath.

you know, it's okay to be patient, it's okay to slow down. It's okay to like take a step back and take vacation when you know you're in a startup environment. It sometimes feels like there's no room to even like go to sleep. Mm-hmm. . But, uh, at the end of the day, that will bite you in the ass. And, uh, I get the body keeps score, I think is the saying.

So the body will keep score and I think it's important to. Chill. And then like, there's a bit of imposter syndrome for everyone. I think when they're moving into roles they're not familiar with, um, or they've never done before, like, look at me, c o o yet, that is a title that I have. I'm very proud of it.

I've never done it before. I'm doing it now. I think I'm doing a, an okay job, but like, If you wanna be coo, go start a company and be c o o, you know, like you don't have any prior experience. So I think, uh, a lot of it's earned, but a lot of it's learning on, on the job and I think everyone's kind of learning and has a bit of that imposter syndrome.

Yeah,

Isabel: I resonate with that completely. I think also a lot of people probably can [00:09:00] also resonate with that. So, what I'm hearing then is if someone is trying to be ambitious in scaling their career, is it to just start something you had more of, like a combination of starting something and finding the right people to work with.

what is the advice that you think you'll give those people who are ambitious at scaling their career and what's the sweet spot between, that?

Theo: Yeah, that's a tricky one. I'd first ask why, like, why are you ambitious in scaling your career? There's a natural drive in people to want to do better and, and continue to level up as, as we say, at late checkout.

And of course, I vibe with that. That's awesome. Keep, keep, stay hungry, keep going after it. Like go for it. But figure out why you want to become a senior product manager or grow into this role, or be a Level X at your company or run something. Is that really what you wanna do? So figure out why. Exercise some form of patience.

Like don't sacrifice the real good stuff, which is the journey, and is the learning and is the people to just move faster. I [00:10:00] would say speed is great, but at what cost? So just take a second to stop and smell the roses at times and just exercise a bit of patience. But what I did and, and I think what you articulated well was look for smart people, smarter than.

In industries that are interesting and that are growing, right? Like for me, video and mobile were huge. When I joined tech that ended up taking off in acquisition and then, oh, luxury travel and travel and that kind of blend of tech and travel and OTAs and all of that, that entire world. Cool. I went and joined that with some smart entrepreneurs and people that took off, got acquired an outlay checkout community.

For us, community is the answer to so many things. And disconnection is, and lack of connection is such a problem that for me, we think community. We're taking a bet on it and know that it has massive upside. And so for us, positioning ourselves at late checkout and me moving there, it's just [00:11:00] interesting people, smart people, industries.

And then just work hard. Figure out what game you're playing, learn the rules, play it well, and enjoy the ride.

Isabel: Let's unpack the game right now that you're playing in, which is community-based products. So maybe give us a rundown of like what is or are community-based products and why do they matter right now in, in the game or in society?

Theo: Yeah, sure. So, Community-based products, or CBPs as we call them, um, they've been around for a while. I think it's just creating a term and creating a, a category around them and really making a point to focus on them was something that late checkout was very intentional about and for good reason.

So a community-based product, think of it as the community, either is the product or enhances the product experience and is the main growth driver. Could be the main growth driver. So, If you go into Twitter today and that community is not there, that product is, has zero value, right? You're tweeting to no one.

You're [00:12:00] consuming nothing. It, it doesn't matter. It's not. It's meant for multiplayer, so community. Is the product. Reddit community is the product. Figma notion. These products, boss Babe, for example, these types of products and companies, community really enhances the product community. Without the community, the product would not be as enticing, have as much of a moat or be as cool and badass as they are today because of the people around who contribute to.

Who are there with you when you're collaborating or when you're working, um, et cetera, et cetera. So that's kind of community enhancing the product and community driving growth. Hmm.

Isabel: And when you say community based products, it sounds almost like product led growth, habit loops and principles, but on steroids, it sounds like you really need it to start, like give, maybe give us an example of one of your favorite community based products that you, you have done at late Check.

Theo: , [00:13:00] so we are a consultancy or an agency like you mentioned, we have, that's like one of our, we're, we're essentially a HoldCo and we create products under that HoldCo. And our first product was our consultancy or our agency where we help Fortune 500 s Cool startups figure out their community-based product strategy.

We do product design. We kind of, you know, unpack opportunities, turn them into insights, and then define a strategy design and go. We also start a bunch of other companies, launch a bunch of other experiments that we think are really interesting, um, in the community space. And, you know, 90% of those probably will go to zero or amount to nothing or will kill after three or six months.

But we'll take those learnings, we'll re-inject them back into our agency and re-inject them back into. Studio projects that we end up starting. And so this allows us to, for someone like me who like is like a serial problem solver, like I just love to like, oh fuck, that's cool. Health and [00:14:00] wellness. Like, yeah, let me go solve a problem over there.

Oh yeah. Like, oh, engagement on like, oh, browsers are broken. How do we think about that? Oh, token omics. How do we think about, like, I love all of it and so for me it's a dream come true and it's really a place to be your most creative self. If. Are not single problem obsessed and then unpacking that single problem, but you like to be exposed to many problems and help collaborate on that.

So picking just one CBP that we've worked on is very challenging for me. To come back to your question, we worked on, uh, with Soul Savvy, which was a really cool sneaker app, and it wasn't an app before we started with them. They're a Slack community of sneakerheads, 10 different Slack communities, a thousand people in each group sharing beta, essentially like.

When's the next sneaker drop? What are the best prices? Where can I get it? What's the new fashion coming out? Like, who wants to trade with me? I've got these pair of sneakers, but I want these ones, anyone. So all of this activity is happening in a Slack group in this community, which was [00:15:00] super cool and vibrant and really fun to watch.

So we helped conceptualize and develop the app that actually just launched, which. Um, which is a really cool product. So that's one. And we've worked with, you know, open Sea Moon, paid Dropbox, Shopify, all products that aspire to be community-based products or are in service of a community, but maybe aren't quite there yet.

So we've helped do some cool innovation with them and thinking around that.

Isabel: Cool. So it's almost like you are the one that validates and tests and discovers almost like how you can leverage community to solve specific problems. And then the tech is almost like a nice to have. So if you, for example, work with Dropbox, Shopify, they are more of the, you want to be involved in this space, let us help you be in that space through your technology.

Did I capture that correctly or is that completely a different.

Theo: Yeah, it could be like that. It could also be like, Hey, we have this big idea. We don't wanna use the core team on this [00:16:00] because they're, you know, heads down on the problems we're solving and what stock, you know, shareholders are, are expecting we solve, et cetera.

We want to. Deploy X percent of our capital into innovation. You guys go help us figure out what this, you know, solution to this problem could look like or what this could come to be. It's honestly the best job. And so we just get to like, take that prompt and go out and do research and again, take that research the problem they're trying to solve.

Tease it out. Is it the right problem? And then come up with some solutions or generate some insights and come up with some cool product, uh, ideas on how to solve that problem and put that forward.

Isabel: Which sounds like a, it, it sounds like an agency, uh, or it sounds like a discovery design agency.

But you mentioned to me before that you think Late Checkout is almost like the ultimate product school. Why do you think that's the case? Like tell us more of why, what do you mean by that?

Theo: So, [00:17:00] and this varies by PM and where they're at in their career, but if you are starting out and you're looking at a break into product or you're early in your product career and you just want to get the reps in, you know, maybe going to another company and writing user stories and playing the product owner and.

Learning how to read and analyze data and learning how to turn that data into insights and like that is valuable, a hundred percent valuable. I'm not discounting that What Lay checkout can do is offer you kind of unparalleled exposure to a lot of problems and. To me that is just not seen anywhere else in any other industry or any other, you know, company or, or, or whatever else exists out there.

And that's the benefit of agencies. Why I think it's the best product school because of the community lens is we actually also go and build products. We're also a studio. And so not only as a PM are you strategizing for the biggest companies in the world, so you're learning [00:18:00] about what a senior level PM would do at, you know, a Dropbox or a Moon Pay or a wherever.

But then you're also getting to be boots on the ground, roll up your sleeves, launch your own startup under our umbrella with the funding and support of entrepreneurs who've done it before, and kinda learn the ropes that way by actually doing, you know, there's that 70, 20 10 model of how people actually learn and develop.

70% of it is actually by doing, there'll be the 10% of training that needs to go into it. There'll be the 20% of support from the c. But the bulk of the learning and the growth happen in the doing. And I think that's often sometimes that PMs like miss out on at other companies or Baker codes as they want to do.

But what they end up doing is a lot of admin and wrangling instead of shipping. Um, and that's not consistent for every company. Don't wanna knock all the great codes out there that are doing product right or trying. Uh, but yeah, I think [00:19:00] late checkout has an edge.

Isabel: I'm curious too, that there's always specific frameworks that specific companies use because it has been maybe traditional or some type of way that they've done product.

It can be like the big web behemoths like Google, Amazon, or it can be used specific scale-ups, for example. They've done products a certain way given that you're solving so many different problems and different types of solutions. How do you look at process in, in, in your team? Do you have process?

Theo: Just asking the COO if we have process, fuck.

I hope so. Exactly. Um, but honestly, like, I love the term like PM's, love minimum viable product, like minimum viable process is something, it's still our m mvp in our version of it. What you're trying to do is essentially increase, improve efficiency. Keeping quality high, or even in improving quality [00:20:00] without compromising focus.

And so process isn't meant to get in the way. It's meant to actually get you out of your own way. And so we don't want people to worry about where to put this document or where who to ask for help when or when to present and check in. That should all just be reflex. That should all be second nature and sometimes.

You know, if you're leaning into like a Netflix model of people over process or whatever it may be, the people will take initiative and will do that. But I'm more of the mind that if you set up the systems that you know, work, almost treat them like recipes and refine them as you go and you know, you need to add a little more salt or take away a little bit of whatever you do that, but to stand them up so that people have something to follow and like product.

You have a hypothesis, you put out a process to solve that problem, and then you iterate, iterate, iterate. So we have a process around how we do design sprints from A to Z. So how we stand up decks, what wire frame [00:21:00] templates do we use, how we design and present the work, how we, you know, componentize the Figma file before we hand it off to the client, how we name things.

That's all standardized so we can really create a system that scales. And also one that allows people to just be their most creative.

Isabel: I'm curious to unpack that a little bit more, but I know you are a fan of recipes slash equations and I kind of wanna dig more into that cuz you did mention once about the five quote unquote math equations.

I think it was productivity, impact, power, culture, and influence. And I kind of wanna dig more into that. Sure. Specifically, you mentioned, let's say impact for now. You mentioned that impact equals outcome over time. Can you maybe tell me more about how, for example, you define what an outcome is at late checkout to start?

Theo: Yeah, great question. Like if there's any, like there's, there are terms as you go through your [00:22:00] career that you realize get like played out or you know, totally butchered. And I think the delineation between impact outcomes, Is one that often just gets thrown into the same kind of witches brew of it's, it means it's working, but like they're, they are different things.

And that's why some people now are all about outcomes over outputs, which I think is like the Amazon saying people frown on previous work that was written in, like Andy Grove still wrote one of the best books on management, high output management. It's in the title, high output Manage. People will bash that because it's not about outcomes, but when he was talking about it, there was an undertone of this is all outcome driven.

He just called it output. And so I think all that to say is, for us, outcomes are the measurable effects or the tangible effects of the outputs. So what did you produce, right? I may have produced a deck for a client, or I might have produced a [00:23:00] new process for how to, you know, invoice, late checkout or how to, whatever it may.

That might be the output, but the outcome is the effect that it had on the people involved or the organization. So for us, an output might have been a killer strategy deck with a beautiful prototype of the product and you know, all these great animations and everything. We just brought it to life and told a beautiful story, rooted in data, rooted in research, and rooted in best practices and expertise.

That's what we hand to the client. That's an. The deck is the output. The outcome might be nps, maybe client rates us, you know, a great rating. Maybe the repeat rate, maybe client resigns with us. That's a great outcome. An outcome might be the client actually goes and raises money. Maybe they have now a deck or a product that they can show an investor tough in this market, but they could go show an investor and actually raise money.

That's a fantastic out outcome. Maybe they refer another client. Maybe [00:24:00] internally we. Less people, or we have a higher employee satisfaction rate because we did great work and that was recognized by the client and we did it well together. So those outcomes are super important and that's not something you wanna lose your sight on.

It's not about the output, it's about what it, what it does for you, and then the impact is what that does for your business over time or what that does for the client over.

Isabel: Got it. So almost like the outcome is laddering into the objectives that you want to solve as a company.

Theo: Totally. I think objectives is a great kind of proxy or, or like you said, that layer above the outcomes.

What outcomes do you need to drive the objectives or achieve your goals? And then the impact is almost like, what is that? What if you achieve those goals? What happens over time? Like Soci, like at a community level, at a society level, at an economic level, a market level, what actually happens.

Isabel: Got it. [00:25:00] And now let's move on to the next equation.

What you mentioned productivity equals output over labor, and you mentioned about minimal viable process previously as well. What does smarter mean when we think about working smarter? Do you have a definition of what smart, working smart.

Theo: Yeah, like there's working hard just putting in the hours, grinding, swinging that hammer faster.

You know what it is. Um, and then there's working smart, and I don't think the two are completely separate, but I do think working smarter means. doing things a little bit differently to maximize your value, the value you're providing. So like in other words, how do you maximize your leverage and impact, like we were just talking about, without just working more hours.

What can you do to maximize that leverage that you're providing? So maybe you're building, you. Uh, a CanBan from scratch [00:26:00] or like a sp you know, but instead, why don't you just use the tool or use a template that's working a bit smarter? You've just saved yourself x amount of time. You've just now freed your time up to do something else.

Maybe you could spend hours trying to figure out an answer to a question that your colleague knows you should have. Just exercise a little bit of, you know, why, what am I trying to achieve? And then who could know the answer and go there. So it's, it's just about thinking through what you're trying to achieve.

and then the how instead of just doing the how with brute force and, and hours and time, what are levers you can pull to do it more effectively and efficiently that benefits not only you, but everyone A around you.

Isabel: Hmm. So I'm gonna throw another tricky question to you. What has been your. Favorite tool that you've maybe carried through the 11 years of your career or just a tool that you use or a couple tools that you use currently that help you work faster or smarter?[00:27:00]

Theo: Yeah, that is a tricky question. Favorite tool. So I think for me, the tool, and this is gonna be, you're gonna hate this answer, and so maybe the listeners might hate this answer tool, but the tool that I find most helpful. Knowledge is expertise. And honestly, like, I know it's a corny answer, but like your best tool in your toolkit is your, yourself in your mind.

Like, yes, Figma will help. Yes, slack will help. Yes, notion will help. Yes. Being better at, you know, writing formulas and Google Docs will help or Google, uh, sheets will help. All of those things, mastering tools will help you become more efficient at using them and therefore unlock more potential from them, which will unlock more potential from you.

I don't discount the value of that, but the best tool that I've had in my toolkit is like podcasts, books, and my own experience and trying [00:28:00] to put that knowledge and experience and expertise together. To actually make decisions faster to, you know, make less mistakes, to help teach others so they can go do more.

Um, So I would say like, how do you just level yourself up to be your own best tool? It's, it's a corny answer and probably not a great one, . But that's, that's, that's what I've got.

Isabel: Well, I mean, for someone, let's say in product that's, let's say, new to the product. Space in general, what, what do you think is the fine balance between that experience to theoretical knowledge slash expertise from the market to work smarter in that knowledge space

Theo: that you Yeah, I think there's so much great content out there and so many learnings that have been, you know, like are you using chat g p T to like literally scour the internet and come back to you?

The playbook for a [00:29:00] PM at a big company that does X, Y, Z and solves X, Y, Z problem. Like you could probably type that in and get a half decent answer. I'm not saying it'll be perfect, but it will help you make less mistakes. And so I think for early PMs, you're gonna one, adapt to the tool or the, you know, in, in its traditional sense, the toolkit or the the stack that a company has, right?

If they're using G-Suite plus Slack, Notion or Jira, you're gonna adapt and adopt to those. You're, if they're using Microsoft, you're gonna, you're gonna kind of lean into those. And so I think if they're thinking about tools, go out and listen and learn from the best source, the frameworks, you know, rice Prioritization Framework or the Eisenhower Matrix, or whatever it is, source, the frameworks that speak to you in the early days of how to prioritize, how to make decisions, how to write great user stories, how to communicate, how to, you know, get to the right problem.

There's an expression I love, which is [00:30:00] the right answer to the wrong problem is still the wrong answer. Like so, okay, if you're trying to solve a problem, but you have it wrong upfront, everything else is all the features you build, all the recommendations you have are not gonna matter cuz you're not even solving the right problem in the first place.

So again, how do you mitigate risk by nailing that first step? Using frameworks and using, you know, expertise and learnings from the best in the business, and sourcing and creating your own little wiki or your own little knowledge repo of how can I level up.

Isabel: This is like almost a perfect pitch for just this podcast in general.

Cause I named it the product toolbox because I feel like there you go. Every PM has a toolbox that they use. Just

Theo: explain it out. Exactly. . There you go. Um, and I know there's like great tools out there to, you know, my mind and others that you use to like source things on the internet and store in one place and people are probably have their own notion pages or their own website or their own, whatever it may be.

Um, but yeah, just figure out a system that [00:31:00] you can actually maintain. It's more about consistency than it is about what's flashy and new. Um, one that you'll actually maintain. It might be a notebook and not the best for crawling and searching and looking back into, but whatever it may be, use this podcast, use other podcasts, like whatever will help.

And then take the one or two tidbits from it that matter, and then put that somewhere where you can look back on and use it to level up.

Isabel: I love that. So we've talked, this is almost like laddering into one of the variables that you talked about in your equation, which is strength. Like how do you become a strong product person?

But one of your other equations was power equals strength, time speed. And with that, let's start with maybe, especially as you're hiring slash hired, what are the biggest things you tend to look for in a solid team?

Theo: Yeah, great question. So, Fit is obviously what you're optimizing for. You could interview the smartest person or the quote unquote most [00:32:00] qualified engineer or designer.

But if it's not a fit, if they don't like being serial problem solvers and working on tons of different products and like they're not gonna fit at late checkout, it's not the right place for them. They don't like working fully remote or working with a distributed team, it's not the right place for them.

So fit is what you're optimizing for. And that can look different to many different companies and can look different at different points in a company's evolution or maturity. So what I look for for fit is our, is our core values. So we designed our core values back. It was like one of the first exercises we did after we'd done a couple of projects and hired a few people.

I think that's the best time to define your core values as a startup, not upfront, because you don't really know who you are yet. And so, Our core values be surprisingly thoughtful. Put community first and level up. Those are the three core values. That is what we look for in candidates, and that is how we assess fit.

Are they, you [00:33:00] know, in terms of being surprisingly thoughtful, do they have a strong why behind what they do? And you know how they present ideas. We want people to think big, but then think bigger. We want them to do unexpected things that exceed expectations. Those are the, you know, bullets under that put community first.

Are you respectful? You have humility, you support others. Do you also challenge people? Being respectful is also helping people grow and just being, you know, nodding along and saying, that sounds good, and oh, your work's great when you actually have something to say and it wasn't the best work. Like that's not being respectful.

You're missing out on an opportunity to challenge and help people grow and help get the best work. So that then stems into Level Up, which. We need people to have a growth mindset. We need people to be passionate about their craft. If we hire a designer, we want them to love design. We don't want them to simply do it passively and not care about it and not be interested in it.

That's gonna be hard for them to show up every day. And it's not even again, about [00:34:00] us and our requirements. It's about will this be a fit and it just won't be a fit because of our expectations. Um, being scrappy, we launch a lot of startups. We want people to level up, be scrappy, move quickly. , um, I know there's an expression, haste makes waste.

We don't wanna move so fast that you, you know, forget a bunch of things. And that's why we have be surprisingly thoughtful as a good tension value to this. Um, but yeah, pulling back that was a long, uh, long walk for a short drink of water to say that like our, our core values, um, are really the best way that we can assess fit and, and kind of.

Yeah,

Isabel: so it seems like the right people, as you know, Jim Collins once said, one of my favorite books from Good to Great said that getting the right people on the bus is the one of the most important thing for a startup or any company. So I'm hearing that in the interview process, your biggest thing that you're looking for is that value piece and everything will follow.

Or do you have almost like a system of [00:35:00] values plus x

Theo: y. Yeah, definitely a system. I'd say one call out. I love Jim Collins as well. One call out. Um, like the bus ride is long. I agree. Like, you know, when you ride a city bus or at any bus, there's some interesting characters that get on that bus, but they might only be on it for one stop.

Someone might ride it from, you know, for 15, 30, you know, six hours. Who knows? And so I think the, the call out on the, on the startup piece is that your bus ride is long. And that the right people will probably look different at different stages of the ride. And I would also say that the landscape has changed pretty dramatically since Good Gray was written and since, uh, I'm not saying it's not relevant anymore.

I think it, it totally is. I would just say that like there's a, been a migration to remote work and also even to project-based work and freelancers where everyone's kind of their own business and going off and doing their own thing and becoming influencers or creators [00:36:00] themselves. And are open to trying and working on new projects, but just for that project or just for these hours or just for whatever.

And so that, you know, our, one of our mentalities or one of our sayings is dating before we get married. We want a date before we get married. And so whenever we can do that and bring someone in for a project, because of how we operate, we get to assess, fit and see if it actually works. And so that does lower the stakes of when we open that door to the bus.

We wanna make sure the values are hit and we wanna make sure you have the right e. We do a, a hiring challenge or an assignment for folks. Um, so we can get a, get a sense into how they think and if they're qualified, if they have the expertise and the skills. Then we do an interview where I actually let people interview me.

Most of the time you get to see what's important to them, how they speak, how they structure conversations. Um, and then if all goes well, we do, you know, core value assessment as well. Oftentimes, if possible, without the hiring manager being in the. . So it's someone who's less biased, who's less like, fuck, [00:37:00] we need to make this higher cuz our team needs to staff up.

And they're just really assessing is this person like hitting the core values on the head? Which was a great takeaway from Airbnb. I love that. And so for me, sure we can tick all those boxes, but then we still wanna optimize for yes. Sometimes we'll take a bet and we'll hire someone in and we'll be full-time right off the bat, but sometimes it's cool we have a project coming up, we think it's a perfect.

Come in, come to the community, join us, get into our slack, run this project with us. See how you do. We'll coach you, we'll guide you along the way. We'll give you the support and then after the two months it might be, that was great. We'll see you later. It's not a fit. Or it might be, wow, this was, this was magical.

How will you come work for us full-time? ,

Isabel: and usually that's, that's pretty clear, I assume from, from the start when you do engage with candidates, you're like, Hey, we're dating right now, .

Theo: Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, uh, I've made full transparency. We made the mistake early on of like maybe [00:38:00] not making that like hyper clear early on of saying, this is for this project and if it goes well, we will continue.

Um, So, yeah, I'll, I'll eat that. Definitely. We haven't been perfect in this, but I think we're, we're pretty good now. Um, but still, you still wanna optimize for fit. Getting bad apples in is not, again, you don't want the guy on the bus to come in who, you know, all the drugs fall out of his pocket and he is like a dangerous guy in the ba.

You don't want that person. I'm not saying that's who we're hiring, but you don't want that person in your team. It, it hurts the team if you pair them together on a project with an existing member and they don't hold their, it's like doing a project in school. , you know, the person never shows up or never puts in the work and then everyone else is kind of like, I guess we had to carry that.

You don't wanna put your team through that. That hurts team culture. And so we are very careful, but we're a little less, you know, cross ts.is on everything because we do have this date before we get married. Um, right ideology. .

Isabel: So that means you mentioned a little [00:39:00] bit of Okay. Communication upfront, but I know also when you talked about the last of your equation, which is influence is communication plus inspiration, which I think honestly you and Greg do a really good job at amplifying that voice in, in terms of inspiring people through how you communicate.

Let's maybe start with the right amount of information, given that you are having almost. So many people that you are, and I'm saying this in quotation marks, dating , and you obviously don't wanna disclose too much information in the org, but you also don't wanna disclose too little information in the org for them to actually deliver and move quickly.

What is the balance that you found with your team on what the right amount of information in an organization is?

Theo: Man, that's a tricky one. Um. I don't know if there is like a perfect or right amount for, that's like a de facto answer for all orgs, right? It's gonna vary from org to org. It's [00:40:00] really dependent on the goals that your org has, how you structure the business, right?

Like us, I wouldn't say at any given time, we're more, our core team is, is, is roughly 25. We're never usually more than 27 or 28. Um, in terms of people we're dating, we might. Have two or even helping with, you know, design or content or whatever it may be. Um, but usually it's the core team and so the right amount is like, you need to ensure people know what's happening to a degree that they understand why it's happening, have clarity on their role.

In making things happen, but not so much that they're getting like this kind of blast of noise and unstructured information that actually has no signal for them and, and just creates confusion because we're trying to get people confident in the strategy bought in, which, which they are in, in theory, to the mission and to why we exist and what we're doing.

We're here to connect the disconnected, this is the way we're gonna do it this. [00:41:00] The business and the marketer, you know, have X, Y, Z dependencies, and this is the state of things. This is what we're doing. This is how this department ladders up to that. Or you as a designer, as an engineer, or as a manager, help with that.

This is our focus for the next little bit. Go out and do that. And then we set up these rituals to make sure people are informed. So we have a monthly all hands where we talk about bigger company topic. We do project kickoffs and retros, we do demo days, we do casual hangs twice a week, we, or for two different time zones every week.

Um, team onsites, things like that. So I think it's like how to package up the important stuff to keep your team working on the right things. That's as succinctly as I can put it. Um, and that's not an easy thing to solve. That's the, that's the challenge of managers, leaders, and, and communications teams is like, cool, how do you tell a great story?

Put the right things together that the team needs to know to [00:42:00] again, inspire, influence them, um, create trust, be transparent, but not give them so much from the fire hose that they're like, or like they're drinking from a fire hose so that they have no idea what actually matters and, and what's actually the focus.

There was one. I know that there's like a saying, communicate until you're sick of hearing it. Um, I, I can't remember where I heard that, but I do believe that's true for things like your values, things like your mission, things like your goals for the half or for the year. I don't think you can overcommunicate those and being a little hyperbolic, like for sure if I said it every morning like, rah rah, let, let's go be surprisingly thoughtful.

I'd be fucking annoying and everyone would hate me. Like there's a balance, but I, I really find it hard to overcommunicate those. Whereas like there are other things that you just don't need to, you just don't need to show from the rooftops every day.

Isabel: Yeah, that's fair. . And thank you for this, this, this [00:43:00] has been so fun.

. Maybe to end though, because speaking of drinking from the fire hose, uh, if there's one thing that someone can take away from this conversation in terms of. I wanna get better at product management. I want to break into it. I wanna be eventually, let's say even a product manager leader.

What was the biggest thing that you would give to that person who's listening in right now?

Theo: Ooh, yeah. Tricky one. So, um, if I have to choose one thing,

it would probably be around patient. It's doesn't all have to happen right away when you want it. Like you've got a long career ahead of you, assumedly, right? Be patient like learn things, ma like optimize. What are you optimizing for? For me, it was always learning and growth and still is, and working with really smart and cool people and then, you know, over time having impact.

On [00:44:00] communities and helping bring people together. I think that's really important. But what are you optimizing for? Is it learning as a growth as exposure? Don't try not to get caught up in the title and yes, the salary, you need the salary to live, but in the salary, in the, in the company name, that might not be as flashy as the other company.

Be patient. Focus on what you're optimizing for. Surround yourself with smart people and. Just work hard and have fun, like, uh, honestly, just enjoy the ride. Like it's just such a crazy fucking ride that you just gotta sit back and enjoy. Touche.

Isabel: , thanks again, Theo. Is there any way, if people had questions that they can reach you, what, what was the best way for them to chat with you?

Sure,

Theo: yeah. You can always follow and connect with me on LinkedIn. I try and share stuff there once a week on. , you know, management and unlocking your team's full potential and just personal development and, uh, just starting out kind of sharing more [00:45:00] content there and, and on Twitter as well. Um, but Theo Tabba, you'll find me.

Um, if not, you can go to late checkout and, uh, you know, drop us line and we'll let you out.

Isabel: Sweet. I'll put all your links in the description, so feel free to click through it. And, uh, thanks again for you. We'll

Theo: chat there. Thanks, Isabel. This was fun.