20Product: Snap's VP Product on How Snap Hires 10x Product People, What Makes Evan Spiegel So Special at Product, Three Ways to Prioritise Product Ideas in Teams, The Future of AR, Why Snap Glasses Will be Huge and Snap Will Be Massive in Japan with Jack

24:46And you have to do that publicly. And you have to do it yourself. Now, one of my favorite things to do when I'm offering up an idea to a team is to preface it with the fact that, hey, this is a stupid idea. Because that just helps everybody realize that it's okay to share stupid ideas. And when other people are doing that, you got to give it room to breathe. And so I think there's no better way to create a culture of psychological safety than to make sure that you are rewarding people when they're taking risks. And you're doing that in a way that's public so other people see that it's okay. When you think about the options that you have in front of you with ideas coming in, how do you think about a framework for prioritization when there's three that you could choose, but resource constraints mean that you can only do one?

25:26Is it like upside planning? Is it ease of execution? What is the fact that determines your choice? It's a combination of all of these things, right? I would actually put a lot of this, I would bucket it into three different areas. One is what is the potential impact? What is the opportunity size of doing this idea? Two is what is the cost? What is the engineering cost? How much time will it take? How many resources to make it successful? And then there's this third bucket, which is the arc part of this whole thing, which is what is your gut instinct into how important this is for our long-term vision or how much people are going to like it?

26:01And that's a little bit of instinct. And so you have these three buckets and then you - Can I add one? Yeah, please. The probability of outcome and execution, if it's a 95 % that you will be able to do it versus a 3 % flyer, it would also change decision-making processes. I think that's exactly right. And I think a lot of that comes out in the cost to build it, right? That can help you understand. It's not just about how long is it going to take? It's about the opportunity cost, right? If we spend three months trying this and we can't get it out the door, that's three months wasted. You've got those three buckets and you have to apply relative weighting to them.

26:35High, medium, low impact. High, medium, low cost. High, medium, low gut feel. If something's high impact, low cost, high gut feel, build it yesterday. If it's low impact, high cost, forget about it. If it's somewhere in the middle, if I had a perfect answer for you, I'd spend half the amount of time at work. That's the hard part. Can I ask you many different product tools today as well? and we have lots of product leaders and hundreds of thousands of founders. What big mistakes do you see people make and product teams make in their product processes? I think the most common mistake I see is people becoming too hung up on a solution and spending too much time on a specific solution rather than spending all of that time really understanding the problem and defining the problem.

27:19You can get really excited about a solution, but ultimately if it's not solving the right problem, it's not worth doing. And so if you can really get deep around the problem you're going to solve, then I think your path to success is going to be much higher probability. In these meetings and with these kind of prioritization decisions, sometimes people will make mistakes and sometimes on execution people will make mistakes. And again, having to talk the shit out of you, I know your strengths and weaknesses. And one of them is you support people selflessly. Great, but sometimes someone is actually just not good enough.

27:51My question to you is, how do you know when to continue supporting someone versus when to cut the cord and say, Jack, this is the third time now. I'm sorry, it's not working. It's a really great question. Something I spend a lot of time thinking about and I take very seriously. If there's good intentions, you have to start by giving it time. If there are bad intentions, you got to change something very quickly and you got to make a decision. That person needs to go. But let's assume good intent because 99 % of the time people have good intent. If their intent is good, but their execution is flawed or they've made mistakes or their judgment was bad, you have to deliver feedback in real time.

28:29You have to help them understand what mistakes they made, why they might have made them, and what your expectations are. Where is your bar? What is good enough? And what I've found is that if you're having that conversation frequently and very candidly, and again, the best way to have a candid conversation like that with a team member is to have it come from a good place. If you have good intentions as that person's leader or manager, it's going to be much easier to deliver tough feedback because they're going to know it's coming from a good place. So that's how you make those conversations easier to have.

28:59And once they're easier to have, you can have that conversation way more consistently. And Harry, what I've found is that by doing that, the number of times I've had to let somebody go is actually relatively small. And it's not because I don't take performance management seriously, but it's because through these series of conversations, that person either gets better or they realize that this isn't the role for them or this isn't the place for them. And they choose to leave themselves. Can I ask you something I'm struggling with now? I'm always dangerous to use real time situations in a podcast, but I lack morals and scruples.

29:31And so I will anyway. It's when you do care and you actually do really care about the person. For me, it's not easier. It hurts more because, bluntly, if I don't, sorry, Jack, you're not good enough. And I, bluntly, I don't really care about you. Sorry. But when I do really care, it pains me that you're not good enough. And I'm sad for you, for me. Do you see what I mean? It hurts more. And it resonates deeply because I struggled with that for a very long time. And look, don't get me wrong. I still struggle with it. It's never my favorite thing to do to get out of bed in the morning and go have a tough conversation with somebody I really am want to see succeed.

30:05But I have seen enough times I've had to go have those tough conversations with people I really cared about who have really good intent but just weren't cutting it. And what I've seen every single time, Harry, is that person, whether it's a month later or six months later or a year later, is better for it. They have found something that is a better use of their time, that is a better match to their skills, and that makes them more fulfilled. If you're really struggling in a role, not to say everybody shouldn't be challenged all the time. You should. I'm struggling all the time. But if you really aren't meeting those expectations, the basic expectations of the role you're in, I can guarantee you're not enjoying yourself and you're not finding it fulfilling.

30:42And so it's much better to let that person go, find the thing that they're going to love because we all deserve that. What are you struggling with most today? Where do I start? Every day is a constant struggle. And ultimately for me, that's what makes it all so enjoyable and so rewarding. If there's no struggle, if there's no journey, you really don't appreciate the outcomes on the other side. Jack, one thing that came from my references on you was perfection. You're a great surfer. You're a fantastic father. You're a fantastic husband. You're an incredible product leader. Do you feel the pressure to keep everything perfect?

31:17Now you're sounding a lot like my therapist. And so this is something I talk about a lot. I would actually not consider myself a perfectionist by any means. I obviously work really hard and across a bunch of different areas and I try to be a good person. But I've found that the best way for me to at least get close to succeeding in multiple areas simultaneously is being okay with falling short of perfect. And I will say that has become more challenging, you know, especially in the last year, we've had a baby Sky who's now almost one years old. The work is really something that I'm dedicating a lot of time and energy and passion to.

31:51And then of course I have my wife, Nicole, who has been in my life for 10 years and I want to make sure that everything is great all the time. And so I constantly feel this tension. If I'm not working, I feel some guilt that I could do more. And if I'm not with Sky or Nicole, I feel some guilt that, you know, I'm not doing enough for them. There's constant tension, there's constant pressure. But I think ultimately, recognizing that you're going to have to fall short of perfect is the only way to really enjoy everything in the moment and recognize that it's okay. And to get comfortable with that kind of failure in yourself and recognize that every time you fail is an opportunity to learn and to get better and to do a little bit better next time.

32:27I always say that's the hardest thing for me which is bluntly i'm always failing at something failing at being a son but i'm crushing at being an entrepreneur failing at being a fund manager but i'm crushing at being a son whatever those are yeah i have not got used to that failing i just used to remedy it with caster azul in large quantities sadly that's now not allowed either but we spoke about letting people go i want to start on actually the hiring process itself i see a lot of mistakes here how do you actually structure the hiring process for a product team and jack picture me as like a younger founder How do you advise me on how to hire and structure that process?

32:58You'll hear me say this a lot. You could ask me about just about any question about how to apply process to it. And I'll go back to the same kind of design thinking process. Because the beauty of design, the beauty of design thinking is that it's a way of solving problems. It's a process for problem solving. And by the way, not having a team member that you need, that's a problem for the organization and one that you have to figure out how to solve. And so I really look at every process as this iterative process that it starts with defining the problem. And hiring is the same, right? If you're a starting founder or a public company CEO or whatever it might be, before you start the process of actually looking for a candidate, you have to understand and define the problems within your organization that need solving through hiring somebody new.

33:42And I think what you find when you do that exercise is that oftentimes you can solve those problems by changing something existing within the organization, changing a process, moving somebody between roles, changing their scope or the responsibilities, doing a reorg. All of these things are different tools you have at your disposal to solve a problem without necessarily needing to bring in someone. Now, oftentimes the problem you're facing is you've got a gap in skill sets. You need an additional person, whatever it might be. And once you've identified that problem and the scope and responsibility that is required from that person, then you can start the hiring process.

34:16But the thing I think I can add most to anybody who's thinking about hiring is, now there are plenty of books you can read about how to interview, what questions to ask, what to look for, things like that. But I think what people often forget is that step zero or that step negative one where you're actually really defining what you need in the first place. How do you do that effectively? I'm constantly hiring and I'm like, that has people with job description. I'm like, not really. I just know I need this person and they're going to do newsletters and YouTube and copyright for the blog, how would you advise me?

34:46Based on the stage of the company and the need for that role, you don't always need a JD. It doesn't always need to be exactly prescriptive. And I'd imagine, Harry, that you have a really good sense for what you need, what you're looking for, and what that person is going to be responsible for when they join. And you've come to that sense by taking in a bunch of different information from the things that you're working on, the people you're working with, the opportunities you have in front of you, the vision of where you want to go. all of those things come together to help clarify for you what it is you're looking for.

35:15And I think that's basically this process, right? You have to start by talking to the people. You got to understand what needs to do your team members have? Where do they feel stretched thin? What skillset gaps do they see? Just like when you're building a product, you start by talking with the customers. In this world, when you're hiring somebody, your customer is your team. You're trying to make their jobs easier. You're trying to make them more efficient. You're trying to make them enjoy the work they are doing more and not have to do some of the work that they're less equipped to do or less passionate about.

35:42And so it really starts with having those conversations, talking with the people you work with, understanding their needs, understanding where they see the gaps. You got to take in all that information, you need to parse it, and you need to come out of it with some instincts around what it is you need to hire. In terms of the process for hiring new team members at Snapso for product, is it like a meeting with a PM and then a meeting with someone else and then a meeting with you? What does that actual process look like? Yeah, it depends on the role. It depends on the level. It depends which team they're sitting in.

36:10But for the most part, I think like many companies, we have a screening call first. It's usually just 30 minutes. It's a get to know you. You provide some information about the role. You ask a few questions. Make sure that there's at least a pretty strong likelihood of a fit. And you do that so that you're not wasting the time of six or seven people in an interview loop spending 45 minutes each with this person, which is time consuming. Especially when you're in hyper growth, people will spend a lot of time interviewing. And so those screens are a really important way to make sure that that is time well spent.

36:39I think once you get into the interview stage, I think one thing that is really important when we're doing our hiring is making sure that the panel of the folks interviewing this person are diverse and not just from a ethnicity standpoint or socioeconomic standpoint, but also from a roles and discipline standpoint. If you're a product manager at Snap, you're going to be working very closely with engineers. You're going to be working very closely with designers. You're going to have to be able to juggle all of these different roles and disciplines and work well with them. And so we want to make sure that our panel is well-rounded from that front and can really gauge how well this person can work across those different disciplines.

37:14What are the biggest hiring mistakes you've made? The biggest for me has always been I've over-indexed on logos. I think young founders in particular do this. They question their own judgments. They go, oh, wow, you were at Pinterest and X before and it gives us confidence. What are your biggest mistakes? I would say that the biggest mistake in hiring is actually not a mistake that leads you to hiring the wrong person. It's how you deal with the moments when you do hire the wrong person. Because interviewing is hard. It is not a perfect science. We make mistakes. We all do. But I think sometimes the candidates make a mistake too.

37:51They think they want this job. Once they're there and they're working on it, they realize it's not a good fit for them for some reason, right? These things happen. So there's this kind of risk on both sides of the equation. And so it's never going to be perfect. So the biggest mistake you can make is when you bring somebody on who's not a good fit, not dealing with that quickly. Because have somebody who's not performing or not getting up to speed quickly enough becomes an anchor for the entire team. I think one of the most impactful ways to make a team more efficient is to make sure that those low performers are moving on.

38:21And that is a cycle that happens pretty quickly. When you hire somebody pretty quickly, whether or not they're going to have what it takes in that role. And so I think the biggest hiring mistake that many people make and that I myself have made in the past is not actually being decisive enough in those moments when you realize it's not a good fit. I once heard that if you're doing hiring right, you get it right 50 % of the time. What would you say your right ratio is? A really good question. I think that's about right, by the way. I think that you're going to get it wrong about 50 % of the time.

38:49Now, that doesn't mean 50 % of the people you hire aren't gonna work out. But I will say about 50 % of the people we hire end up changing their role or tweaking it or working on something slightly different. Because over time, we realize that there's a better fit within that. For the most part, the people we hire will stick around for a while because I think we have a good sense of what makes somebody successful at Snap. But of course, we're never perfect there. And I do think that 50 % mark is probably at least a good one to strive for. I want to move to the future because I could talk to you all day.

39:21There's a couple of different elements in particular. Developing world, it's not one that Snap has focused explicitly on really before. How do you think about the developing world today from a product strategy perspective? It certainly has been a focus for us over the last five years or so. In 2018, we took on this project to basically rewrite the entire Android app from scratch. Because obviously, when you're looking at the rest of the world, most people are using Android devices. In the US, and especially in the US for early adopters of Snap, the vast majority of them were using an iPhone. And so our app was largely designed and most performant on an iPhone.

39:59And that meant that we had made our product unintentionally very difficult to use or frustrating to use or inaccessible for the majority of the world. In 2018, we realized that the tech debt that we had built up over time, building all of these features had just built up to the point where the app was basically unusable. Now, the really exciting thing in that moment of time was that there were millions of people across the world, still using Snap in spite of how difficult it was to do something as simple as open the app and wait for it to load and start up. So we rebuilt it from scratch. And because of that, we saw a huge acceleration in adoption across the world.

40:39And so I think that was a really key learning for us as an organization that how accessible your product is and making sure that it feels like it was made for you, no matter who you are, no matter where you live, is a really important part of building products at scale. And so now I think when we think about building this product for markets across the world, for different demographics, all sorts of different people with different needs and different cultures, we have this mentality of trying to build a local product globally. No matter where you are, we want you to open the app and feel like this was made for you with somebody who really understand your needs and what you want out of it.

41:14Do you think that's possible? And what I mean by that is when you look at actually consumer preferences around UIs and I'm sure you're a product nerd. I mean, I'd like to think I am, but I'm a venture investor, so we proclaim to be experts in things that we know nothing about as a hobby. But like when you look at like Southeast Asia, China, Japan, their UIs are incredibly different to ours. They're noisy, they're very colourful, they're very busy compared to much more simplistic, simple, but I would say beautiful framing that we have in Europe and North America. Can you have a universally appreciated UI design product with such divergent consumer preferences?

41:48No, I don't think you can. You can't be perfect. You can't be optimal everywhere. Sometimes you have to decide to do something slightly different in a different market. And to make that decision, you have to feel like that market is valuable enough for you to go make the investments to differentiate your product there. But I would say certain things like the amount of teaching in the app, the language that's used, those are things that are pretty cheap to distinguish in different markets. Now, other pieces of a product, like it's the core product value you're delivering, that's really difficult to change across markets.

42:22What we try to focus on are universal things, things that no matter where you are in the world, this is something that is going to be valuable. For example, having conversations with your closest friends and family and empowering those conversations to be more fun, more playful, more intimate and safer. That's something that's universal. No matter where you are in the world, if we can build an experience that makes that better, people are going to love it. Where is Snap not big today, but you think will be in the next few years, country-wise? Japan has been a very interesting market for us. I've always thought that is a market in which a Snap would really take off because there are certain elements to it.

43:01It's very visual. It's playful. The lenses that we offer in augmented reality is something that the Japanese market generally likes to really experiment with. Now at the same time, they have line. So they have a product experience that they're using to communicate all the time and it's saturated that market. But Snap has always been able to overcome these other messaging services because it does it in such a different way. It offers visual communication that empowers a different type of conversation. I think that's a market where with enough focus, it's something that we can take to the next stage.

43:31Did you copy Kakao Stories? So I would say the answer to that is no. Beyond the stories element of Cacao Stories, it was a very different product. And I'll tell you actually what stories came from because I think it's a great story and actually is one of my favorite analogies to one of my favorite design quotes, which is the Henry Ford quote. If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me faster horses. But Henry Ford went beyond the solution the customers were giving him. And he looked at the problem, which was they wanted to get from point A to point B faster. And he built the automobile, which was a better way of doing that than a faster horse.

44:07I love that story because that's exactly what we're talking about when we say focus on the problem, on the implicit needs, not what customers are explicitly telling you. And with stories, what we were hearing from the community was they wanted a way to send a snap to everyone. They wanted it to be easier for them to go take a snap, tap everybody on the send to list and blast it off. Now, we recognize that if we did that, it would really dilute the feeling of receiving a snap. Now, when you receive a snap from a friend, you know that they tapped your name. And as subtle as it is, that makes you feel special.

44:42You know, that person was thinking of you. And that's the beauty of snapping. If we were to give you a button that allowed you to select everyone, you wouldn't feel as special. And so we took this problem people were telling us, which is, hey, I want a way of sending to everyone. And we invented a new way that wouldn't dilute the experience of snapping, but actually in turn would spark more conversations. Because it was this broadcast forum to your closer friends. It was ephemeral, so people felt comfortable posting raw, authentic, in-the-moment content. But it also gave everyone a chance to reply, which would then spark those conversations that could lead to that really meaningful one-to-one snapping behavior.

45:16Do you know one thing I used early in the marketing of the show? We used to promote Snap. I was like, hey, follow us on Snap. And I was like, follow HW1996. we had thousands and thousands who did. And the wonderful thing about being as homogenous a market as we have listening, you have thousands of Simons, thousands of Davids. And I used to go, hey, David, check out the newest show. And then you could literally just tap 300 Davids and they would get it. And they'd be like, wow, individual. That is amazing. Sorry, that was just like recounting back to my memory. I love it. That's guerrilla marketing at its finest right there.

45:49Oh, yeah. We used to do that a lot. It works brilliantly well, by the way. The second thing I have to ask is about AR. What's your vision for the future of AR? We always hear the talk of it. Is it always through the phone camera lens? How do we think about that? What's so incredible about Snapchat is that it really redefined what the camera can be. Before Snapchat, the camera was really a tool to capture a moment, to save for later. Snapchat really took the camera and it said, okay, what if this was a tool for communication? What if we made it more visual, more immersive, so that a picture says a thousand words, right?

46:20And that was the power of Snapchat. And so people were opening our camera hundreds of times a day to send a snap to somebody to continue a conversation. That led to a bunch of other opportunities and it really helped us think about other ways of using the camera. But ultimately, the most exciting and most important opportunity for Snap was that you could use the camera to augment the reality around you. Because now we had a viewfinder into the world and into your setting and into the things that you were experiencing. And it's really where AR came from. And it started with these pretty playful lenses that helped you communicate with a friend or express an emotion.

46:55but ultimately we found that some of those lenses could actually be very utilitarian. It could help you solve a math problem. It could help you understand what are the ratings behind this wine bottle by pointing your camera at it. I think that the future of augmented reality is going to be around creating more and more utility through the way of understanding the environment around you. And I think that's really where AR is going. Like all technologies that find some form of product market fit, they tend to evolve pretty quickly. And Snap has certainly helped AR find that product market fit and find a ubiquitous way of people playing with these things.

47:26So I think that kind of charts the path for the future there. I love that in terms of the utility value created there and final one, I promise. But does that still go through the phone camera lens though? Or does it go through contact lenses or glasses? What happened to the Snap glasses? It's something we're still working on and can't say much, but there's some really exciting progress. We fundamentally believe that AR is going to become better and better. It's going to become more and more useful. and the promise of augmented reality is that it can help technology move to the background, right?

47:56So you don't have to have this thing between you and the world. And glasses are a better form factor for that. It can really take technology out of the way when you don't need it, but overlay it on the world when it's useful too. And for us, that is the pinnacle of augmented reality and why we're pursuing it. I think ultimately augmented reality will find its true essence through glasses. Today, it's extremely powerful on the phone and the amount of engagement and the developer ecosystem we've been able to build around that ubiquity is what's going to empower us to be really well positioned for that future.

48:30The glasses are a success when they launched. The first version of the glasses were an incredibly fun thing to get out in the world. It was the first time we had shipped a hardware product and we saw some really exciting buzz around it. But ultimately, it was very difficult for us to deliver to that demand in the spike that came with it. And I think in many ways, the first product we launched, it had some pitfalls, right? I think we knew that it was early. We wanted to get something in people's hands. And our philosophy has always been, whether it's with software products or it's with our hardware, get these products into the hands of real people as quickly as possible and use that to inform the step you need to take next to make it magical.

49:07So I would say that the first version of spectacle. Obviously, it wasn't an iPhone moment. It's not something that has generated an enormous amount of revenue for the company, but it has absolutely helped us hone in on where to take these things in the future. And so from that regard, it's massive success. We're going to do a quick five because otherwise I'll take all of it. All right. Tell me, how has angel investing impacted your product mindset, Jack? I think it's made it clear that no matter what stage of company you're in, you have to maintain a startup mentality. And that is a constant reminder of that.

49:37Tell me, most important skills to build early on in your career and product? Get really good at focusing on the problem and defining the problem and let the solutions follow. What would you say is the biggest mistake founders make when hiring product teams? Not hiring somebody who's willing to play a bunch of different roles. If you're hiring for too much specialization, you're not going to find somebody who's passionate enough and excited enough to really get their hands dirty and do all the work that's required at that early stage. How has becoming a parent changed your operating mindset? I've got two things going on.

50:12I've got work and I've got my family. And I used to be a very restless soul. I'd be sitting at work and I'd know it was great waves outside and it's a beautiful day. And part of me would be like, ah, I wish I could surf right now. And now there's none of that. It's I'm working when I'm working and I'm with my family when I'm with my family. So it's really clarified those things. What one piece of advice would you give to a product leader starting a new role today? Get vulnerable fast. I think the most important thing to do when you're starting in a new role or in any role is to be willing, share your insecurities and your vulnerabilities, because it then gives you the time and the space to learn and to grow because you're not going to be perfect day one.

50:51You're going to have to learn the environment. You're going to have to learn the people. You're going to have to learn the product. There's so many things you're going to have to learn in order to become good at what you do. The more that you are open about the fact that you're not good yet, the more people will give you the feedback and the time and the space to get good. What are your insecurities? I'm insecure about everything. I think imposter syndrome has been the thing that has been most consistent throughout my career. It just always feels like I'm surrounded by brilliant people that are so capable at so many things.

51:20And in so many ways, no matter where I look, I find somebody who's better at something than I am. And that's the beauty of working at a company where everybody is smart, everybody is talented, everybody's creative, everybody's driven. It can make you wonder sometimes, am I good enough at all of these different things? And the reality is if you surround yourself with great people, you don't have to be good enough at everything because you can lean on other people. When I say like master product mind, I immediately for me think about two people, Scott Balski and Antoine from Antoine Martin. When I say product master for you, excluding those two, you can't take mine.

51:55Who would you say? This is going to be the most expected answer of all time. But I would say Evan Spiegel and I would say Steve Jobs. What's Av's biggest weakness? I would say his ambitions for where he wants things to go can very occasionally get in the way of where things are. And that is the beauty of the fact that he surrounded himself with leaders who are willing to help him see that bigger picture. which company product strategy do you most respect and admire when you look around you at the companies that we have where are you like smart they did really well and i respect that product strategy so i'll give you another maybe expected answer given everything that's going on in the world but i think the reason why i think it's so exciting is maybe different so open ai obviously it is the talk of the sound right now and for good reason but i think what is so interesting about their strategy, it really bucks convention.

52:48I am the first to tell you that you should not build a technology in search of a problem. You have to start with a problem. I've said that probably a thousand times throughout this podcast. But what's really interesting about what OpenAI has done is that they recognized artificial intelligence as a technology. It's actually fundamentally different. By nature, AI is non-deterministic. It's generative, which is both what makes it so exciting and somewhat terrifying. But it means when you're investing deeply in building this technology, you don't know exactly where it's going to go. You don't know the exact outcomes, but they knew enough to know that investing in this and getting this technology good enough would be able to solve a myriad of problems.

53:27And I think they even surprised themselves with ChatGPT and how quickly they found product market fit. But that's the genius of their strategy. They invested everything they had in building a technology that they had conviction in would be able to solve many problems. And so they've really helped me, I think differently about at least AI is a technology where you don't have to start with the problem you're solving. You can start with the technology and then it can be applied basically everywhere. And I think AI is really going to be transformative for that reason. Jack, I can't thank you enough for this.

53:56I've so loved it. I'm sorry for switching hats to being a therapist for a little of the questions, but you've been amazing. So huge thank you. Hey, we all need our therapy. I'm going to go cry myself to sleep and I'll wake up feeling fresh and great tomorrow. I mean, what a fantastic guest. You can find the full interview in video in full on YouTube by searching for 20VC. That's 20VC on YouTube. But before we leave you today, this episode is brought to you by Linear. Let's be honest, the issue tracker you are using today, it's not very helpful. Well, Linear is different. It's incredibly fast, beautifully designed, and it comes with powerful workflows that streamline your entire product development process.

54:35From issue tracking all the way to managing product roadmaps, Linear is designed for the way modern software teams work. Its powerful workflows let you customize and automate processes to fit your team's unique needs. And they have integrations with your favorite tools like GitHub, Slack, and it takes just minutes to set up. Linear is the default tool of choice for high-performance teams, from startups to a wide range of large established companies like Vasell, Retool, and Cash App. So see for yourself what makes Linear magical. Visit linear.app slash 20vc to try for free with your team and get 25 % off when you upgrade.

55:11That's linear.app slash 20vc. And speaking of tools we cannot live without, I need your input on the 20vc Miro board about new guests we should feature for 20vc in 2023. Just head on over to Miro.com forward slash 20vc. Miro is a tool I consider to be truly game-changing. It's a visual collaboration tool packed with the right tools, tech, and templates to help you think of and create that dream product. That means you can brainstorm the perfect product with your team, vote on the best ones, and explore with your customer journey roadmap all on a Miro board. Whatever you need, Miro's infinite whiteboarding capabilities help you get there.

55:49It acts as your team's single source of truth. And now I'm using it to hear from you. Go ahead and add your suggestions for 20vc guests on our miro board at miro.com forward slash 20vc and finally did you know that 90 of information processed by the brain is visual and with canva it's never been easier canva empowers teams to design impactful documents websites videos and presentations that will wow clients and colleagues with no design experience needed teams of all sizes can design together from anywhere on any device and you can start designing today for free what will you design today at canva.com you don't need any design experience there are hundreds of thousands of free templates and a huge content library and that's why the largest teams trust canva it's used by 85 of fortune 500 companies whether you're a team of two or two thousand canva empowers teams everywhere to create their best work together what will you design today start designing for free at canva.com as always i so appreciate all your support and we have an incredible episode with sarah grow at conviction coming on friday Thank you.