Welcome to Growthmates — the place to connect with inspiring leaders to help you grow yourself and your product. Here you can learn how companies like Dropbox, Adobe, Amplitude, Canva, and many more are building excellent products and growth culture. Subscribe to get all episodes right to your inbox on katesyuma.substack.com.
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This time we talked to Matt Woods, a Product Manager focused on Product-led Growth, who helped companies like Coda increase key activation metrics by 60%, and introduce personalization experience that combines great UX and business impact. Matt also contributed to Reforge artifacts to share examples of his work as one of the earliest contributors to their program. Being a Product Manager, Matt has a fantastic website built with Coda full of insightful case studies. I personally learned so much from Matt, and if you listen to this episode, you will learn about:
The process of defining activation and aha-moment with examples from Coda
How connection to customers helped to uncover meaningful wins
The secrets behind collaboration between product managers and designers in Growth
and much more
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Where to find Matt Woods (Product Leader, ex-Coda):
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewchristopherwoods/
Website: https://portfolio.mattwoods.io/
Where to find Kate Syuma, Growth Advisor (ex-Miro):
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X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/kate_syuma
What we’ve covered in this episode:
00:00 Introduction and Website Creation
03:11 Learning and Mission Statement
07:12 Coda's Success Factors
10:07 Product-Led Growth and Experimentation
14:32 Defining Activation and User Behavior Insights
34:33 Building a Partnership
35:23 Challenges in Working Together
36:23 Trust and Inclusion
37:34 Understanding Motivations
38:31 Embracing Collaboration
39:44 Overcoming Communication Issues
42:25 Fostering Creativity
50:26 Building Healthy Partnerships
56:25 Favorite Artifact: $100 Voting
58:41 Favorite Book: Setting the Table
Resources referenced:
Reforge Artifact “Weekly outcomes update message at Coda”: https://www.reforge.com/artifacts/weekly-outcomes-update-message-at-coda
Welcome doc onboarding: https://portfolio.mattwoods.io/case-studies-how-i-work-3
100-Dollar Voting Exercise: https://coda.io/@lshackleton/100-dollar-voting-exercise
“Radical Candor” by Kim Scott: https://www.amazon.com/-/en/Kim-Scott/dp/1250103509
“Managing Humans” by Michael Lopp: https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Humans-Humorous-Software-Engineering/dp/1430243147
“Setting the Table” by Danny Meyer: https://www.amazon.com/Setting-Table-Transforming-Hospitality-Business/
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Unlocking Activation at Coda and Building Trust Between PMs and Designers | Matt Woods (Product Leader, ex-Coda)