One Knight in Product

The State of B2B Product Management (with me, Saeed Khan and guest host Janna Bastow)

On this episode, we try something a little different. ProdPad and Mind the Product co-founder Janna Bastow joins as guest host to interview me and Saeed Khan about our recently released research report "The State of B2B Product Management". We go deep on the key findings of the report and what to do about them. Episode highlights * The sales-led roadmap reality - In many B2B organisations, roadmap ownership effectively sits with sales, driven by short-term revenue pressures rather than long-term strategy * Customers vs markets tension - Product teams often fail to shift from building for individual customers to designing for scalable market opportunities * The leadership perception gap - A stark ~50-point disconnect exists between how leaders assess themselves and how their teams experience them, pointing to either deluded leaders, poor communication or unreasonable IC expectations * Lack of strategic foundations - Weak or absent vision and objectives create a vacuum where every deal feels equally valid * Product leaders as system designers - Leaders must take responsibility for shaping environments where good product work is actually possible * Discovery isn't just external - Product teams neglect internal discovery, failing to understand stakeholders, sales processes, and organisational dynamics * The cost of short-term thinking - Chasing large deals often creates hidden long-term costs that outweigh immediate revenue gains * AI as efficiency, not transformation - Current AI usage is reported as largely tactical (summarisation, documentation), not fundamentally changing product outcomes * Optimism despite dysfunction - Even with systemic issues, many product managers remain positive about the future of the discipline ... and much more. Check out "The State of B2B Product Management" report You can check the full report here - no email address required: https://b2bproduct.io/?okip [https://b2bproduct.io/?okip] Check out ProdPad Janna is the co-founder of ProdPad, a roadmap, idea management and feedback platform that brings clarity to your organisation. She was kind enough to step in as a guest host for the episode, so why not check what the platform can do for you? https://www.prodpad.com/ [https://www.prodpad.com/] Find us all on LinkedIn * Janna: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jannabastow/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jannabastow/] * Saeed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saeedwkhan/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/saeedwkhan/] * Jason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-knight/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-knight/]

CPO Stories: Nick Kenn - Winmau

On this episode, I speak with Nick Kenn, interim Chief Product Officer at Winmau, the world's leading darts brand. Nick's career spans companies such as Betfair and Redbubble, and he now operates in interim and advisory product leadership roles across private equity and venture-backed businesses. He's now on a mission to hit the bullseye and revolutionise a traditional sport with a new, fully digital experience. We cover a lot, including: * Digitising a traditional sport – Building a connected darts experience requires blending physical play with digital layers like tracking, stats, and online competition without losing the tactile essence of the game * Balancing heritage and innovation – Introducing new product experiences in a 100-year-old brand demands careful alignment between modern features and long-standing identity * AI as a pragmatic tool – Rather than chasing trends, AI is applied where it adds clear value, such as computer vision for scoring and an AI referee for dispute resolution * Focus over experimentation – In a high-pressure delivery environment, prioritisation matters more than exploring every new technology or idea * Building inside a non-digital organisation – Establishing product thinking in a manufacturing business requires translation, education, and patience on both sides * Hardware and software alignment – Unlike pure software, product timelines are constrained by manufacturing cycles, creating hard deadlines and forcing disciplined execution * Hiring for passion and proximity – Teams perform better when they have genuine interest in the product domain, especially in consumer experiences tied to physical interaction * Differentiation through awareness – Deep competitor understanding is essential not for copying, but for identifying where to stand apart and create unique value * Private equity vs venture dynamics – Product strategy shifts significantly depending on ownership model, with PE favouring speed and certainty, and VC allowing more exploration * Book smarts and street smarts – The most effective product leaders combine formal knowledge with real-world experience, adapting frameworks to context rather than following them rigidly ... and much more. Find our more about fractional product leadership Nick mentioned an article I wrote about fractional product leadership - you can check it out here: https://oneknightinproduct.substack.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-fractional [https://oneknightinproduct.substack.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-fractional] Check out Winmau * Winmau: https://winmau.com [https://winmau.com/] * Winmau careers: https://winmau.com/pages/careers-with-winmau [https://winmau.com/pages/careers-with-winmau] Contact Nick * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-kenn/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-kenn/]

Dan Olsen - Vibe Coding: The New Product Team Superpower? (with Dan Olsen, Product Management Trainer and Author “The Lean Product Playbook“)

In this episode, I speak with returning guest Dan Olsen, product management trainer, consultant, speaker, and author of The Lean Product Playbook. We go deep into the rise of "vibe coding" and what it means for product teams. Dan has gone deep into vibe coding, is offering training courses in it, and believes it firmly sits within his existing Lean Product Playbook process and supports the Product/Market Fit Pyramid. Episode highlights * AI shifts the product bottleneck – As AI tools make engineers more productive, the limiting factor increasingly becomes product discovery and decision-making rather than development capacity. * Product management isn't going away – AI can automate some tasks, but judgement, prioritisation, and making decisions under uncertainty remain core human responsibilities. * The rise of the product builder mindset – New AI tools allow product managers to prototype ideas directly, giving them a more hands-on way to explore solutions. * The vibe coding spectrum – AI development tools exist on a spectrum from simple browser-based tools through to full developer IDE integrations, letting teams adopt them at different levels of technical depth. * Vibe prototyping vs vibe coding – For most product managers, the real opportunity isn't replacing engineers, but quickly generating interactive prototypes that help teams explore ideas before committing to production code. * Divergent thinking still matters – AI tools often generate a single solution, so teams need to deliberately explore multiple directions and alternatives rather than blindly optimising the first result. * Prototypes have four key audiences – Early prototypes help clarify ideas for the creator, align the product team, communicate concepts to stakeholders, and gather feedback from real users. * Context beats clever prompting – The quality of AI-generated output depends far more on the context, requirements, and constraints you provide than on the prompt itself. * Iteration beats one-shot builds – The real power of these tools comes from rapid experimentation and refinement rather than expecting a perfect result from a single prompt. ... and much more. Dan's stuff * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danolsen98/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/danolsen98/] * Dan's Website: https://dan-olsen.com/ [https://dan-olsen.com/] * Dan's Vibe Coding Template: https://dan-olsen.com/vibe-coding/ [https://dan-olsen.com/vibe-coding/] * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/danolsen [https://www.youtube.com/danolsen] * Lean Product Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/lean-product/ [https://www.meetup.com/lean-product/] * The Lean Product Playbook: https://amzn.to/1EYCUdP [https://amzn.to/1EYCUdP]

Hugo Alves - Let's Get Real About Synthetic Users (with Hugo Alves, Co-founder @ Synthetic Users)

On this episode, I speak to Hugo Alves, co-founder of Synthetic Users, about one of the most controversial topics in modern product development: using generative AI to simulate users for research and decision-making. Hugo has a background in clinical psychology and product, and has spent the past three years building a platform that generates synthetic qualitative interviews to help teams reduce risk and make better decisions. Episode highlights: * What Synthetic Users actually is - generating in-depth qualitative interviews with AI-powered "synthetic" participants to help teams reduce risk and accelerate discovery * Most companies don't do enough, or any, research in the first place, and they need as many tools in their locker to help with the ultimate goal: making great products. * The pragmatist's view of AI - why Hugo doesn't care whether LLMs are "conscious", only whether they produce useful outputs * The agentic "swarm" approach - using specialised sub-agents (planners, interviewers, critics) instead of one giant prompt to improve quality and reduce drift * B2B vs B2C - why synthetic research works well in B2B contexts, and the harder (future) problem of modelling organisational dynamics * Bias, sycophancy and realism - the technical concerns around LLMs and how to validate responses with pilots and human comparison studies * How to use synthetic research in practice - filtering ideas, informing human interviews, and treating it as an accelerant rather than a replacement * "It shouldn't exist" - the moral argument against synthetic users, reacting to UX thought leaders and their objections, and why some of those objections aren't really about evidence ... and much more. Contact Hugo * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugomanuelalves/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugomanuelalves/] * Website: https://www.syntheticusers.com/ [https://www.syntheticusers.com/] * Twitter/"X": https://twitter.com/Ugo_alves [https://twitter.com/Ugo_alves]

CPO Stories: Jessica Hall - Just Eat Takeaway

In this episode, I speak with Jessica Hall. Jess is the Chief Product Officer at Just Eat Takeaway, a global leader in the on-demand delivery space. With a professional pedigree that includes leadership roles at UK retail giants like Tesco, Argos, and Sainsbury's, Jess brings a wealth of experience in navigating complex, high-stakes consumer environments. Our conversation delves into the "big idea" of managing a massive three-sided marketplace, balancing the needs of consumers, partners, and couriers while transitioning from a food-centric brand to an "everything delivered" platform. We cover a lot, including: * Navigating the Three-Sided Marketplace - Jess describes the Just Eat Takeaway product as a complex ecosystem connecting 60 million active customers with nearly 400,000 partners and a vast network of couriers. The core insight here is that the "product" isn't just an app; it is the seamless orchestration of these three distinct groups, where a failure in one branch inevitably disrupts the value for the others. * Scaling Global Platforms with Local Nuance - Despite operating a global tech platform, Jess emphasises the importance of "optionality" to respect regional differences, from currency formatting to cultural preferences like cash usage. This approach allows the company to maintain a unified technical infrastructure while remaining flexible enough to adapt when a specific market, like the UK or Canada, leads the way in new category demands like grocery delivery. * The Power of Customer Closeness - Moving beyond data and reports, Jess advocates for getting "on the ground" to talk to couriers and visit partner restaurants. By understanding the physical realities, such as a busy kitchen staff finding a feature too cumbersome to use during peak hours, product leaders can solve real-world friction that data trends alone might overlook. * Cultivating Dual-Track Career Paths - Recognising that not every brilliant product mind wants to manage people, Jess champions the value of senior Individual Contributor roles. She highlights that technical and strategic mastery is just as vital as people management, and providing high-level growth opportunities for ICs ensures the organisation retains its most creative and experienced problem solvers. * Leading Through Influence and Commerciality - Jess argues that the best product leaders act as "first-rate business partners" rather than just a bridge between engineering and the business. By focusing on "win-win" outcomes and deeply understanding commercial metrics like order volumes and market trends, product teams earn the credibility needed to influence strategy at the highest levels. Check out Just Eat Takeaway Check out Just Eat Takeaway's website: https://justeattakeaway.com [https://justeattakeaway.com], or their careers page: https://careers.justeattakeaway.com [https://careers.justeattakeaway.com]. Connect with Jess You can connect with Jess on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicalrhall [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicalrhall].