Tim Holley

Effective alignment requires extreme repetition of the core narrative and KPI until they are fully internalized by the team.

"The old adage of you need to say something three times before people understand it. I would wager you need to say it another three times before they internalize it. And having that be part of the day-..."

A lightweight weekly focus ritual creates accountability and helps teams recognize patterns in their productivity.

"a simple exercise of weekly focus. What are you focused on this week? And then reflecting on, did you get done the things you were focused on last week? Seems super simple, but just the exercise of th..."

Using internal platform currency as a referral incentive reduces friction for new users and rewards existing ones without direct cash outlay.

"on the seller side... it costs 20 cents to list an item... we really leaned into that as the currency for the seller referral program... If I refer them, they'll get some listing credits. It'll be eas..."

The guest discusses the 'flip-flop' between supply and demand, the 'graduation problem' where sellers leave the platform, and how to use data to guide supply to meet demand.

"If you've got supply without demand, then you don't really have a marketplace. If you've got demand and no supply to meet it, then you also don't have a marketplace."

Live case studies and questions about self-taught skills reveal a candidate's ability to handle constraints and their growth mindset.

"I'm a big fan of case studies, live case studies. I think you learn a whole boatload about how someone thinks on the fly, how they react to constraints... The other one I like to ask is around somethi..."

Transitioning from a consensus-based culture to a speed-oriented one requires managing the existential impact on employees' identities.

"We had had a pretty entrenched consensus-based culture, where we would really debate a lot of decisions and a lot of features... On the other hand, not fast. When you have your identity tied up in the..."

Codified guiding principles like 'digging deeper' and 'minimizing waste' help small teams stay diligent about resource investment.

"We call them guiding principles at Etsy... one of them is around digging deeper, and that really speaks to aiming to really understand the why behind a change... Another example of a principle is mini..."

The PM's primary role is to be the accountable decision-maker who selects the best path forward, even if they didn't generate the idea.

"Nick, our CPO like to say you don't have to have the best ideas, but you have to choose the best ideas. And so really figuring out how you're selecting what you're going to build and then living with..."

While A/B testing is the gold standard for causality, it should be balanced with other validation methods for long-term strategic changes.

"A/B testing... that's the highest bar. It proves with near absolute certainty that there's a causal relationship... But I think that it maybe misses the point in some changes or some areas where you a..."

Expanding the traditional 'three-legged stool' to include research, analytics, and marketing ensures all constraints are considered early.

"we've evolved that to five legs of the stool... product eng design and we've got our insights partners. So research and analytics, and we've got our marketing partners really working in a tight team t..."

A single, clear North Star metric provides a universal measuring stick for prioritization and aligns the entire organization.

"having GMS as our north star KPI, just having that, being absolutely front and center, being the drumbeat that we talk about in every meeting, the measuring stick that we measure the success of launch..."

Benchmarking against the broader market, even without a direct one-to-one competitor, grounds product decisions in actual buyer behavior.

"bringing an outside in perspective, really benchmarking against your competitors and your competitive set... our buyers are shopping all over the internet. They're shopping on High Street, they're sho..."

Deep immersion in the user's physical environment builds a rich understanding of their workflow and constraints.

"Back in the day, we were doing studio visits with sellers. We were going to their workshops, we were going to their homes. We were seeing how they make items, we were seeing how they package and ship..."

Direct, 'old-fashioned' outreach to users during periods of volatility provides critical qualitative insights that data alone cannot capture.

"we were worried about certain sellers not being able to meet the demand that they were seeing. And so we did the old-fashioned thing, of not personally, but we called them and we said, 'How are you gu..."