190 - What If Leave Policies Felt Like Product Design - with Romy Malviya

190 - What If Leave Policies Felt Like Product Design - with Romy Malviya

Leave of absence sounds like a simple HR checkbox until you’re juggling federal law, 26-plus sets of state rules, and company policies that all overlap. We sit down with Romy Malviya, founder and CEO of PulpStream, to unpack why leave management becomes a paperwork-heavy risk zone and what it takes to make the process feel smooth for real humans at stressful moments like childbirth, surgery, and family care. We get specific about where big HRIS platforms like Workday, UKG, Dayforce, and ADP tend to “lightly touch” leave, and why many teams either attempt to outsource the problem or run it in-house with spreadsheets, email chains, and manual tracking. Romy breaks down the three messages that resonate most with large employers: reducing compliance risk (including serious penalties), saving HR time that can stretch into many hours per leave case, and improving visibility so managers can plan coverage and schedules, especially in shift-based and blue-collar environments. We also explore what AI should and should not do in HR. Romy shares how AI can review submitted medical certifications for completeness, validate provider details, and flag mismatches, while still respecting privacy by keeping medical reasons out of a manager’s view. The goal stays clear throughout: empower HR with better information and faster workflows, without replacing the human conversations that make leave administration compassionate and fair. If you care about HR compliance, employee experience, leave of absence automation, and practical AI in the workplace, listen now, subscribe, and share this with someone who owns leave at your company, then leave a review with your biggest leave-management headache.

189 - Behavior Patterns That Predict Conversion - with Keith Zubchevich

Funnels are comforting because they look orderly, but buying rarely is. Keith Zubchevich, President and CEO of Conviva, joins us to unpack what most digital analytics misses: the difference between tracking clicks and understanding intent. We dig into why two people can purchase the same product through completely different paths and why forcing everyone into a single “best journey” quietly hurts conversion. We get concrete with examples like the “research shopper” who bounces between reviews and the shopping cart. A review-page visit is just a fact; the looped behavior pattern is the meaning. Keith explains how Conviva collects every session event, computes thousands of consumer behavior patterns in real time, and groups them into archetypes and segments you can actually act on. That shift from top-down questioning to bottom-up pattern surfacing helps teams focus on the changes most likely to move high-intent customers forward, instead of over-investing time and data science effort for marginal gains. We also challenge the hype around agentic AI. Agents do not fix vague data or “AI-washed” dashboards. They get smarter when they can pull from accurate, structured behavioral context and start the conversation where the user actually is. We talk UX personalization, context-aware agents, and where Conviva fits alongside tools like funnels, heatmaps, and session replay as teams push toward hyper-personalized digital experiences. If you care about product-led growth, conversion rate optimization, real-time customer analytics, and building better AI-assisted UX, this one will sharpen how you think. Subscribe, share this with a product or growth friend, and leave us a review with the biggest analytics blind spot you want to fix next.

188 - ADHD Is A Label But Capacity Is The Problem - with Frankie Berkoben

You can be brilliant, ambitious, and wildly capable and still feel like your follow-through is slipping. That doesn’t automatically mean you’re broken or “not disciplined enough”. It often means your executive functioning is overloaded by context: stress, layoffs, a heavier emotional load, shifting team expectations, or the simple fact that life outside work got bigger.  I sit down with executive coach Frankie Berkoben, founder of Frankly Quite ADHD, to unpack a more useful way to think about ADHD and productivity for tech leaders. Frankie explains executive functioning in real terms: planning, working memory, attention, emotional regulation, and adapting when conditions change. We talk about why these skills dip under pressure for many people, and why the diagnostic label can be less helpful than understanding what your brain needs to do its best work.  We also go straight at the toughest part for high performers: the gap between potential and performance. When your identity is tied to achievement, that gap can trigger shame and harsh self-talk, which then suppresses the very prefrontal cortex resources you need to plan and execute. Frankie shares patterns she sees across founders, senior ICs, and executives, plus a practical path forward using design thinking: get clear on what’s actually draining you, ask better questions, and run small experiments that reduce friction rather than demanding heroic willpower.  If you’re leading teams, building products, or carrying a lot of visibility and you’re feeling “something is off”, this conversation will give you language, frameworks, and next steps. Subscribe for more on product leadership and human performance, share this with a teammate who needs it, and leave a review with the biggest insight you’re taking away.

187 - Product-Led Growth Meets Agentic Selling - with Channing Ferrer

Your product might be the best salesperson you’ll ever hire, and AI is about to make that idea even more literal. We sit down with Channing Ferrer, Chief Revenue Officer and CEO Americas at Brevo, to get precise about what product-led growth actually means: a path where users discover value, solve problems, and choose to expand without needing a human to nudge them along. We also call out a common trap: slapping a 15- or 30-day free trial on a pricing page and calling it PLG.  From there, we explore the new grey zone: autonomous selling. If an AI can answer questions instantly, guide a user past a limit, or even deliver a personalized demo you can interact with, what bucket does that fall into: PLG, sales-led, or something new like agent-led selling? We dig into practical examples like chatbots that function as always-on product experts, shortening time-to-value and quietly increasing conversions by removing friction at the exact moment a user gets stuck.  We also zoom into Brevo’s world of omnichannel marketing for high-volume customer bases, where the real challenge is not choosing email vs SMS vs WhatsApp, but stitching together scattered touchpoints into one coherent customer journey. Along the way we talk UX as a differentiator, the shift toward extensibility and agent-friendly systems, and a grounded buy vs build framework for anyone tempted to vibe-code their own CRM or system of record.  If you care about product-led growth, SaaS monetisation, AI sales automation, CRM and CDP strategy, and the future of agentic marketing, this conversation will sharpen your mental model. Subscribe, share with a GTM friend, and leave a review. Where do you want automation to help customers, and where do you still insist on a human?

186 - What If Recognition Worked Like A Viral Product - with Ali Linz

Remote work didn’t erase birthdays, farewells, sympathy moments, and thank-yous it just removed the simple office ritual that made them easy. We sit down with Allie Lenz, co-founder of GroupTogether, to unpack the very real “recognition gap” that shows up when teams go hybrid: people still want to show appreciation, but the old card-and-envelope flow doesn’t work, and asking coworkers to chip in can feel awkward. We walk through how GroupTogether turns that messy process into a self-serve digital group card and group gifting platform that feels surprisingly personal. You pick a card design, share a link in Slack or email, teammates add messages, photos, and GIFs, and optional contributions stay private. The recipient gets a polished reveal experience and a flexible gift card option, which helps employee recognition feel like a keepsake rather than another notification. Then we zoom in on product-led growth: why the product’s inherent virality matters more than heavy integrations, how UX drives the loop (and where friction kills it), and how Allie’s team uses customer conversations, behavioural analytics, and the right metrics instead of vanity stats. We also talk about AI in a human-centred way: using AI to help people find the right words without automating away intention, plus why trust, compliance, and payment safety become key differentiators as volume scales. If you care about PLG, employee engagement, team culture, and building software that delivers real emotion, this one will spark ideas. Subscribe, share the episode with a teammate, and leave a review with your favourite takeaway.