Christina Gee

An intriguing startup called Fragment is shaking up the ledgering game. 💡 If you’ve ever dealt with tracking customer balances, you know how tedious it can be—Fragment's API aims to simplify that by offering real-time, double-entry accounting without the accounting jargon overload.📊 Founders Thomas Neckel and Omi Chowdhury are onto something big here, especially with their track record of successful startups. With early adopters like TruckSmarter and Nala already onboard, it's exciting to see where this tech goes. 🚀 #Fintech #Startup #Innovation #AccountingTech #TechTrends https://lnkd.in/eUrC-tJE

6

🤔 It may be an unpopular opinion, but I think it's always best to be first to the party 🥳 Innovation is the engine of growth, and the partnership between MikMak and DoorDash is a testament to this principle. This first-of-its-kind integration is a game-changer, revolutionizing how consumers shop and brands sell. Imagine this: you're scrolling through your favorite social media platform, see an ad for a product you love, and within moments, you can have it delivered to your doorstep via DoorDash. This is the power of MikMak's integration with DoorDash, a seamless fusion of social commerce and on-demand delivery. But this partnership isn't just about convenience; it's about empowering brands with valuable data and insights. MikMak's closed-loop attribution provides a granular understanding of consumer behavior, enabling brands to optimize their marketing strategies and drive sales. 🚀 This is the future of omnichannel shopping, a world where every interaction is a potential purchase, and every purchase is a data point. MikMak and DoorDash are leading the charge, and I'm excited to see where this journey takes us. 🗞️ Read the Press Release here: https://lnkd.in/e-VqFtSb? #MikMak #DoorDash #Omnichannel #ecommerce #innovation #marketing #attribution #data #insights #partnership #futureofretail

69

6 Comments

“If there is no clear owner, then it’s the PM that owns it.” I sat down with Esteban Contreras from #ProductState to discuss Product leadership, or Prioritization process at Productboard. We also dug into the concept of Extreme Ownership, which is a principle I firmly believe in. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eVN47mWn #productmanagement #productexcellence #ownership

59

4 Comments

**In-person SWE roles at top NYC startups** Things are heating up at July, and we’re on the hunt for a fresh face to join our new office and take the last open desk (for now)! As a company, we’ve always kept things lean, operating with a “hire slow” philosophy to make sure we only bring on absolute KILLERS — and every one of them have been found through LinkedIn. If you’re looking for a new opportunity and want to play at the highest level, I would challenge you to apply. What we're looking for: 1️⃣ Side project junkies (people who love to build) 2️⃣ People who obsess over the details 3️⃣ Founder mentality 4️⃣ Those that love to hustle and want to level-up in all areas If not with us, a few of my good friends are also on the hunt for similar candidates. Daniel Andrews (Playground), Benjamin Döpfner (Vesto), Avante Price (Posh), Keyan K. (222), and Steven Schwartz (Whop), are also on the prowl for talented NYC based engineers that fit the above description. Comment your email down below and someone from our team will reach out with more information about the role! If you don't want your current employer to see you're interested in joining the dark side, DM me! I hope to chat soon 😉 #nyc #startups #growth

458

2,221 Comments

Roughly two-thirds of the 50 companies making the Disruptor 50 list describe artificial intelligence as “critical” to their businesses. And it starts at the very top: for the first time ever, a company repeats as the list’s No. 1: OpenAI. No. 2 is the military defence AI company: Anduril Industries. No. 3 … well you can read about it 🚀👀

17

PMs, be the founder of your product We take it for granted that founders send regular updates to their investors. If they’re not (or can’t), usually it’s because the company is in trouble. Your stakeholders are no different. If your senior leaders, inmediate team, and dependent stakeholders can’t all tell a simple story of where you’re at, what you need, and where you’re going, you’re going to lose funding soon — even if your product is performing. A weekly update email is a simple way to keep people in the loop. It will feel like screaming into the void. Before long though, you’ll meet colleagues who know you through your updates and support your vision through your sheer persistence of talking about it. What do you practice to bring your stakeholders along for the journey?

13

4 Comments

We struggled to hire engineers for our first startup in college. As non-tech founders, finding the right talent was: - saturated - not transparent - a daunting experience We went through: → Various directories → Google searches → Friends’ recommendations Unfortunately, we got burned. We lost money, time, and energy. Determined to solve this problem, we moved to Berlin to test our hypothesis: “Are we the only ones struggling to hire tech talent, or is this a common problem?” Turns out, it’s a widespread issue. That’s how we built our company– to help others avoid the same pitfalls. 👍 if you’ve been there ♻️ repost to help others learn

140

83 Comments

Years ago, I co-wrote product management principles with my team at Sprout. I often fall short of the ideals, but I regularly reference them for myself. And of course, they're nearly all inspired by great product writing elsewhere, but these specific words are ours as a team. --- Outcome over output Be clear on the customer and business outcome you’re trying to achieve. Let the desired outcome shape your features and projects—not the other way around. Empower your team Share problems—not just solutions—with your team and encourage ownership. Empowered product teams are engaged, motivated, understand the business context, and have empathy for the customer. They produce a better product as a result. Clear writing is clear thinking Writing is about more than communicating an idea; it’s about sharpening and validating the idea itself. The process of writing and rewriting lays bare your thought process for yourself and others. Every feature is a hypothesis A proposed feature is inherently a hypothesis about who will use it, how they will use it, and how much they will care. Form hypotheses from instinct, but validate them with evidence and alternate opinions. Actively seek opposing views. Be honest about your level of confidence. Think big, start small Think ambitiously, but know that big things have small beginnings. Look for the smallest coherent solution. Starting small enables you to ship and learn faster. Measure to improve It’s always easier to move on to the next thing; have the discipline to learn from what you’ve shipped. Quantitative product data will rarely give you an “answer” directly. But it will spark new hypotheses, improve your decision-making, and validate impact. Listen to your customers Actively engage with your customers. Listen to their feature requests, their rants, and their raves. Do this intensely and regularly to learn about their problems, understand their motivations, and validate your ideas. Use the product There is no substitute for using your own product. Hands-on experience adds depth of empathy and understanding to any customer feedback. And it exposes the hidden pains and opportunities your customers can’t or won’t tell you about.

172

13 Comments

Zip recently snagged $190M in a Series D, and if you're still sleeping on them, you’re missing the point. Led by BOND and backed by heavyweights like DST Global, Adams Street Partners, Alkeon Capital, Y Combinator, and CRV, this round didn't just give Zip a cash boost—it sent their valuation soaring to a cool $2.2B. Zip’s not playing around, and neither is Rujul Zaparde. The man’s got his sights set on breaking procurement wide open. Enterprises are bleeding cash on outdated procurement processes. Zip’s AI-powered platform steps in like a cleaner, making supplier management seamless and cutting inefficiencies before they become bottom-line problems. Snowflake, Discover Financial Services, and SEPHORA are already $4.4 billion richer because of it. In a world where CFOs are hitting the panic button, Zip’s a necessity, not a luxury. Jay Simons at BOND said it best: “In this market, solutions that drive efficiency and control costs aren’t nice-to-haves—they’re lifelines.” The $190M will fuel some big moves: Pouring gas on the R&D fire to make their Procure-to-Pay suite even sharper—companies like Coinbase and Northwestern Mutual are already in. Building the Zip AI Lab to drop some serious tech that’ll integrate with those ancient enterprise systems everyone’s stuck with. Expanding globally, with the EMEA region seeing over 200% growth in the last year. Zip’s going global in a big way, and the competition’s sweating. Over $107B in customer spend has flowed through Zip, and their client list just keeps getting bigger. Three times the enterprise clients this year alone? That’s not hype. That’s domination. Congrats to Rujul and the Zip team. You’ve just set the standard—and the rest of the industry is playing catch-up. #SeriesD #VentureCapital #StartupFunding #Startups #Technology #Procurement #Technology #Innovation #TechEcosytem #EnterpriseTech #AI #AIAutomation

3

I'm loving this debate between John Cutler and Ed Biden - both are thinkers and leaders I deeply admire. Zero-interest PMs were hired by zero-interest Product Leaders, who were probably hired by zero-interest CEOs. It's turtling all the way up 🐢 Are they all incompetent? Nah, they are just a product of the environment. It would've been foolish to not take advantage of the zero-interest capital. The key question is whether these people - at all levels from the CEO to the PMs - are capable of adapting to the current environment where profit margin and sustainability are key. Everyone needs to 'sober up' after years of being drunk and high with cash. Zero-interest leaders focus on acquisition at all costs. Sober leaders focus on bringing solid value that leads to retention and sustainable growth. Zero-interest leaders double, triple, even quadruple the size of their team. Sober leaders realize that team size != productivity, that spending hours in alignment meetings for a small feature isn't any fun. Running lean is the way forward. Zero-interest leaders build or even acquire aggressively, trying to capture as much market as possible. Sober leaders are thoughtful in choosing just 1 or 2 things to do. Zero-interest leaders care about framework and rules "This is the only correct way to do product." Sober leaders care about results, knowing that those frameworks and rules are merely vehicles to achieve results. Ultimately, sober leaders are accountable for business performance, not just acting like consultants in suits talking big words and making pretty slides. It's not easy to sober up - but it's adapt or die.

49

8 Comments

With the growing demand for high-performing IC PMs, the term "PM as mini-founder" is popping up everywhere. You see it in job descriptions, and it’s becoming a popular buzzword. But here's the thing—this term can be misleading. Founders (or founding CEOs) have the authority to influence decisions in ways PMs don't. PMs are constantly managing cross-functional stakeholders, often without the backing of a direct chain of command. This reality emphasizes the importance of collaboration and the "disagree and commit" mindset that’s core to the role. Framing PMs as mini-founders can set unrealistic expectations—leading to overworked teams and, eventually, burnout. So as you search for a role, it's important to keep your expectations grounded and understand what the job offers. Take a moment to reflect: What environment do you thrive in? What motivates you? Are you a 'founder-mode' PM who enjoys the thrill of building, testing, failing fast, and reworking the roadmap? Then early-stage startups might be your calling. Or are you a 'manager-mode' PM, who excels at driving major initiatives, building consensus, and scaling influence? Perhaps a role in a big tech is where you belong. There's no wrong answer. As we grow in our careers, we may switch between these modes, and that’s okay—it’s how we learn and evolve. Just remember: "Founder mode" is not the same as being a founder. Don’t let this buzzword create a false impression of where you can thrive.

9

Three Wins I Hope Every Founder, Builder Experiences 1. Hands-On with the Cool Tech Nothing beats diving into promising tech and seeing the impact firsthand. Getting up close with foundational models and LLM applications over the last three years is an experience I hope everyone got a taste of. 2. The Magic of an Aligned Team Being part of a team that’s not just smart but also daring greatly and committed to winning together - that's the best. A great mix of people bringing purpose, energy, and good vibes. 3. The Win of Creating Real Value Watching ARR take off, seeing customer value grow significantly, and knowing your work drives real impact - that's amazing. ----------- Looking back on the past three years at everc, I'm grateful for all that and more. From the hands-on work with LLMs to the friendships, amazing memories and lessons — What a ride. Together, we tripled ARR, drove significant customer value growth, and built a product group focused on speed and impact. A big thank-you to everyone who made this journey special ! Keep on keeping on — daring greatly, building, pushing forward, and inspiring each other. So long, and thanks for all the fish 🐟🐟🐟 ----------- What’s Next for Me? Exploring: • Zero-to-One LLM app product opportunities • Fractional product roles in early and mid-stage startups Who are the startups you know that could use an expert product hand to drive significant impact quickly?

67

16 Comments

A decade ago this week, I read Nir Eyal’s book “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products” for the first time. I dogeared pages. I took notes. I made plans. So did a lot of people just like me. As builders, we couldn’t code fast enough. We kept iterating. Designing sexier triggers; urging you to take action; feeding you rewards (sometimes); and getting you to invest more and more time and effort. Why? So we could build sharper and pointier hooks. After suffering together through the acceleratingly negative impact that social media and meticulously crafted content veiled as 24 hour news has had on our society, I wish I never read that book. I wish no one ever read that book. Especially not builders like me who codified such a harmlessly simple process into most everything our minds consume hundreds of times a day. As users, we weren’t given a choice. Companies built these features. We used their products. We became addicted. Unfortunately there is no undo. We can’t mash [CTRL]+[z] enough times. We can’t shake our iPhones enough—even like a Polaroid picture. As a society we unknowingly walked through a one-way door. Nir realized that Pandora’s box was opened so he later gave us “Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life” which is helpful but operates at the scale of 1–an individual. Firms could follow a recipe they found in a cookbook and make an app that addicts a generation; but, to kick the habit every user has to go it alone—like Caine from Kung Fu. I would like to think that if us builders had complete foresight into what has happened over the last 10 years that we would have made different choices. I wish we had a choice as users—not that we would have believed or even read the terms of use before we clicked to accept them. Since I don’t have a Time Machine (yet), I can offer you a blunt force hack to prevent you from succumbing to these apps we all hate to love. It is (mostly) an unreversable process to undo Hooked’s 4-step process with a 3-step one, a 25% reduction in steps, to stop yourself from doom scrolling your (least) favorite social media apps: 1) Add Two Factor Authentication (#2FA) to you social media account you want to stop using using Duo Security or a similar app. 2) Despite instructions that implore you to do otherwise, do not save the backup codes they give you. DO NOT! 3) Log in one last time to say your goodbyes and then delete that account from your 2FA app. You won’t be able to (easily) get back in. All you could do is start over, and that takes too much effort! I am sorry. You are welcome. Use at your own discression. Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear. -Streeter P.s. This is not a jab at Nir nor his work. “Hooked” should be required reading so builders understand they must start with the first principles of why (psychology, sociology) in order to know the how of whatever problem they are trying to solve. Hopefully building something they won’t regret!

11

Was chatting with a product leader from a Y Combinator company last week. 🚀 He'd reached out because they needed greater control and flexibility around pricing & packaging, specifically bundling & unbundling features. 🔄💡 He explained it like this: "The issue we're running into is that it's actually really difficult for us to attach features to plans and quickly move features between plans. Any changes we want to make require dev cycles to support. The goal is to be able to move feature A to plan B or feature B to Plan A rapidly & without code changes, so that we can be a lot more agile with testing optimal packaging." 🔗🛠️ #pricing #packaging #featuremanagement

13

1 Comment

PSA: Being a PM is hard. But it would be a whole, whole lot harder without having a great designer by your side. I think too often we take for granted (or just plain don’t have the luxury of access to) this amazing role. Product Management and Product Design are so alike in many ways. Both require a deep understanding of problems, customers, outcomes, technical implementations, tradeoffs, and so much more. We specialize in different things, sure, and we apply our skills in different ways - but the similarities are way more common than the differences. When you’ve got a great PM/Design relationship, you often think as one mind. You can speak for each other (to an extent), seeing things through each others’ eyes. And the trust that builds lets you answer questions for each other, make (some) decisions for each other, and really amplify each others impact. Lean on your designers to help you with user research, with problem discovery, with solution refinement, and even with maintaining day to day alignment with your teams. They’re great at all of this stuff, filled to the brim with empathy, and *so much more* than just making stuff in Figma. Though I do really appreciate that last part because I’m f**king hopeless at it. I’ve got no real point here, other than to say that I really appreciate all the amazing designers I’ve worked with and encourage anyone in my Product sphere that doesn’t feel comfortable texting a picture of their dinner (or drink, more often in my experience) to their Design counterpart to go find a way to build that relationship. And, of course, big shout out to a few standouts in my mind Taylor Jordan Roary T. Soraya Nukunkit Roxanne Mustafa Annie Chen Bethany Morrow Sterling Koch Dmitry Nekrasovski Peter Shepherd Jenna Bilotta Olya Wiegel and I’m sure a whole bunch more.

60

16 Comments

This is great advice especially as you grow your business many want results asap and sometimes putting blinders to your own culture doesn’t help. Look within first, and give people a chance to make real changes and contribute. Setting clear goals and sharing financial KPI’s are key to foster an open and sharing environment where people want to move that needle. #productstrategy

1

If you want your company to do new things, interview each candidate for their ability to think, as well as digging into what they have done before. On the subject of #hiring, Hiive is adding another product manager. Posting link in the comments.

64

3 Comments

How much does industry experience matter in Product Management? I'm hearing from a lot of folks who I mentor that they are getting great feedback through the interview process only to learn in the end that they didn't have enough industry experience to be hired. I take issue with two things here: 1. You can tell if someone has industry experience by their resume. If it's that important, then don't interview them. 2. I don't think industry experience is that important for most product manager jobs. If you are a talented product manager who has skills for discovery, developing strategy, and engaging stakeholders, then you are miles ahead of most product managers. This individual should be able to ramp within 3 months. By the way, if this is you, keep a look out for when I have roles available. But if you hire an industry expert who is lacking in product thinking, they will take much longer to learn the skills of the field. In the meantime, they are going to do a lot of damage as they do things like: - Trust their own opinion over seeking learnings in the market. - Build to please senior stakeholders. - Alienate the engineering team and lose their trust. I'd love to hear the thoughts of others on this topic.

82

16 Comments