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Unorthodox frameworks for growing your product, career, and impact | Bangaly Kaba (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Instacart)
- Bangaly Kaba, a growth advisor to several companies who has also been the head of growth at Instagram and has worked at Facebook and YouTube, shares frameworks that can help grow your career. He suggests that to advance your career, you should focus on creating impact which is the result of multiplying environment (manager, resources, team, scope, compensation, and culture) with skills (communication, leadership/influence, strategic thinking, and execution) that you have control over. Kaba explains the adjacent users' theory, which is the theory of unlocking new stages of growth. Adjacent users are the next segment of people who can benefit from your product but are not quite converting and retaining as you’d hope, and can be identified by looking for cohorts that show signals that your product is almost a fit. It is essential to understand superior work before executing on a product idea and invest in understanding pain points, alternatives, and opportunities through data analysis, user feedback, or data instrumentation, which leads to higher experiment win rates over time. Kaba advises viewing product management like coaching a sports team where team success depends on individual players' success and investing time in coaching enhances the leader's effectiveness in their role.
- Kaba highlights that challenges can arise when a team wants to make a change, and for solving them, he suggests the 'Managing Complex Change' framework. It identifies the five things that a team needs to change that are vision, skills, incentives, resources, and action plan. Missing any of these items can result in a negative outcome instead of the intended outcome regarding change. For example, missing vision leads to confusion, and missing the right incentives leads to resistance. Kaba suggests that product managers can make excellent coaches and team leaders like sports coaches.
- Kaba's advice for companies looking to grow is to understand the adjacent product users, and his experience at Instagram and Facebook has been productive in this area. He shares lessons he has learned from his time at YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, including the importance of understanding superior work and how it can help you drive growth. It is crucial to evaluate the environment you work in, and targeting the next segment of people who can benefit from your product but are not quite converting and retaining as you’d hope can be the key to unlocking new stages of growth.
- Kaba's tips for successful product management are understanding that not everyone needs to be a star player but should play a critical role in achieving team success. He emphasizes investing time and effort into coaching and developing team members which enhances the leader's effectiveness in their role. Kaba suggests investing up front time in understanding what is happening in the product through data analysis, user feedback, or data instrumentation before executing on an idea, which can lead to more exceptional experiment win rates over time.
- Kaba advises on balancing the importance of time invested in understanding pain points and executing on a product idea. He explains that understanding adjacent users can help unlock new stages of growth, and catering to a new set of users may require building new products.
- Kaba explains that to grow companies, you should identify adjacent users, and the understanding superior work can help you drive growth.
- Kaba discusses some valuable lessons he learned from his time at Instagram, including how the company employed SEO and partnerships in its early growth and the role of value proposition in driving growth. The success of individual team members reflects back on the leader; hence investing time and effort into coaching and developing team members not only benefits them, but it also enhances the leader's effectiveness in their role.
- Kaba stresses the importance of investing time up front in understanding what is happening in the product before executing on an idea and how the up-front investment will result in high experiment win rates. He also suggests that product managers can make excellent coaches and team leaders like sports coaches.
- Kaba suggests viewing product management like coaching a sports team where team success depends on individual players' success and investing time in coaching enhances the leader's effectiveness in their role.
- Kaba advises companies to understand adjacent users and shares lessons from his time at Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. He highlights the importance of evaluating the environment you work in and targeting the next segment of people who can benefit from your product but are not quite converting and retaining as you’d hope key to unlocking new stages of growth.
- Kaba emphasizes that success in product management reflects back on the leader; hence investing time and effort into coaching and developing team members not only benefits them, but it also enhances the leader's effectiveness in their role.
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