Ha Nguyen, a seasoned Silicon Valley product leader, then co-founding partner at Spero Ventures, Chief Experiences Officer at Swimply, and now Managing Partner at NextStep, a fractional & advisory COO consulting firm, shares her perspective, lessons learned, and journey through the ranks with us today.
Ha's journey underscores the importance of adaptability, continuous learning, and leveraging networks in navigating a product management career. She highlights the significance of being proactive, driving outcomes, and having the courage to ask for opportunities and support from leadership. Ha's experience showcases how excelling in one's function, seeking opportunities for growth and expansion, and being ready to pivot when necessary can lead to transformative career shifts, such as her transition from a VP of Product role to venture capital.
Continuous product discovery is proven critical through Ha’s story, even as companies scale, emphasizing the need to maintain customer contact and understanding throughout growth phases. Ha Nguyen's advice on driving impact, seeking expanded responsibilities, and being willing to walk away when opportunities for growth are limited resonates with the team at Product Science Group. By prioritizing personal growth, seeking supportive environments, and proactively shaping their career paths, product developers and leaders can make strategic decisions that propel their careers and products forward.
Resource Links:
Visit NextStepFwd, Ha’s Consulting website
Visit the Product Science Group website
Explore Product Science Workshops and Courses
Quotes from Ha Nguyen:
(00:05:45) "I felt like I was ready to sort of increase my scope and my impact, albeit at a smaller company. However, I really wanted to have more influence over the direction of the company, not just the direction of our products." - Ha Nguyen
(00:09:39) "Be incredibly good at what you do. Startups give you the opportunity to have expanded scope, work for a great boss who's supportive of your career. Don't be afraid to ask. And then finally, if. If they're not going to support you and what you need, then you might need to make the decision to walk." - Ha Nguyen
(00:28:47) "When you build the network and people have seen that you have been putting the hours in to build what I call the labor of love projects, it, it's just easier because when you need to reach out to folks for anything they want to help you, they'll pick up the phone and they'll help you." - Ha Nguyen
Lab Notes:
Lab Note 605.1: As a company grows, you must intentionally create structure for continuous product discovery. (00:31:46)
“In a company that's in hypergrowth, one of the things that can happen is you can start losing contact with customers. Where you used to be talking to customers regularly, now you know your scope gets narrowed, other teams scope gets narrowed and it ends up being sort of handed to a single person or a single team as like they're the ones with the customer contact. And that can be a really difficult maturation for a company because you end up having all these handoffs and that decreases the actual understanding of the customer.” - Holly Hester-Reilly
Lab Note 605.2: Raise your hand to access new opportunities. (00:33:03)
“...I was working at a very early-stage startup, even though I was the head of product, I identified a lot of challenges that were going to prevent us from having a successful launch and growing our and scaling our company. And so I ended up getting involved with a lot of things like building business processes, setting up a customer service organization and doing a lot of things that are outside of the traditional scope of being a product leader.” - Digant Davé
Lab Note 605.3: There are varied perspectives on work-life balance and startup life. (00:34:07)
“Younger generations today are being more thoughtful about their work-life balance and what may and the meaning of the work that they're doing. And they're asking deeper questions about how do we make sure that if we're taking this time away from the rest of our life, that it's for a mission, it's for a reason.” - Holly Hester-Reilly
Lab Note 605.4: Fractional product work is a great fit for creative people who thrive in ambiguity, but it’s not accessible or right for everyone. (00:36:38)
“...for me, like it's much more about a feeling, I think of feeling sort of alive, that entrepreneurial spirit, that there's variation... That I might not know what to expect. Because that feeling of sort of risk or uncertainty for me is really tied to creativity...” - Mark Enache
Lab Note 605.5: Invest in your network throughout your career and it will pay dividends. (00:40:27)
“I think that it's important in a regular kind of corporate setting in life, but then also especially in the consulting world, in the independent world. Just the network is, is where business comes from in many cases. And I think that what she said resonated just being able to meet people and kind of know where people's strengths lie and who you can call on for different needs and how you can help them.” - Dina Levitan
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