Product Quest Podcast

Today we talk about one of those shiny words in business that many talk about, yet few really understand and that word is “Scaling”- So many businesses are looking for business models that can scale, yet very few succeed. Today is all about scaling and New Business Building with our guest Frank Mattes and his approach and company called Lean Scaleup. Before we jump in let me just say that it’s always inspiring to talk to Frank and – I’m talking from experience here, a great guy work and think with. He brings the experience, the thoughtfulness, and the energy and momentum to make great things happen – all in one person

This is part 2 of our conversation with Eric Eskey.
Eric is the managing director of Dark Horse Works. If you’re in innovation, product management or jobs-to-be-done, you’re in for a treat - and listen carefully. Eric is one of the most experienced JTBD practitioners on the planet… and likely across other planets too.
Like myself, he was personally trained by JTBD pioneer and creator of Outcome-Driven Innovation, Tony Ulwick. He has nearly 20 years of experience in executing JTBD projects. He’s completed projects across many industries: healthcare and medtech, government, finance, textiles, software, agriculture, food… and I expect many more. Both large multi-nationals and start-ups as well.
But when you meet Eric, you find a humble dude who listens more than he talks and asks amazing questions. 
Last year, I jumped at an opportunity to work with Eric on some projects, and I was quite transparent about how much I valued his expertise; but I can tell you that I value his friendship even more, and listeners, we’re all in for a treat today to learn from one of the top global practitioners of JTBD.

Today, we welcome our special guest, Eric Eskey. Eric is the managing director of Dark Horse Works. If you’re in innovation, product management or jobs-to-be-done, you’re in for a treat - and listen carefully. Eric is one of the most experienced JTBD practitioners on the planet… and likely across other planets too.
Like myself, he was personally trained by JTBD pioneer and creator of Outcome-Driven Innovation, Tony Ulwick. He has nearly 20 years of experience in executing JTBD projects. He’s completed projects across many industries: healthcare and medtech, government, finance, textiles, software, agriculture, food… and I expect many more. Both large multi-nationals and start-ups as well.
But when you meet Eric, you find a humble dude who listens more than he talks and asks amazing questions. 
Last year, I jumped at an opportunity to work with Eric on some projects, and I was quite transparent about how much I valued his expertise; but I can tell you that I value his friendship even more, and listeners, we’re all in for a treat today to learn from one of the top global practitioners of JTBD.

Today, we welcome our special guest, Dr. Harvey Castro. Dr. Castro has such a diverse and amazing background, it’s tough to know where to begin. He’s a serial entrepreneur who started his first company selling vitamins at 16. He’s a physician, an executive, an entrepreneur, and product developer - having led teams to create over 30 apps; oh, and also he’s the author of multiple books. 
In particular, he’s been writing about the intersection of healthcare and AI, something we’re sure to get into today.

Many of you, innovators out there will have been faced with the following question by a senior leader about an early-stage innovation idea: “Yeah, but what’s the ROI?” Of course, sometimes you just don’t know yet and it’s a bad question at a bad moment in time. But then again: Management is there to manage, whether it’s about the core or about new ventures. So how can we measure innovation? Our guest today took a brilliant approach to this problem she calls “Innovation accounting”.
Esther Gons is one of those thinkers in innovation that just seems to win a prize with every new publication. Together with Dan Toma and Tendayi Viki she wrote “The Corporate Startup” which won a 2019 Golden Axiom Business Book Award and the 2018 Management Book of the year Award. The latest book “Innovation accounting” again won a 2022 Axiom Business Book gold Award. Esther is the founder and CEO of GroundControl, an innovation management software that helps corporate startup teams with the structure and learning for new business models. Esther is an international speaker, an entrepreneur for over 20 years and has mentored several hundred startups as an investor in the NEXT startup ventures, lead mentor in the Rockstar accelerator program or in the Lean Startup Machine weekends.

One word that comes up often in design and innovation is the word "need". "Goals" are central to Alan Cooper's influential "goal driven design". A famous book in Jobs-to-be-Done theory is called "what customers want". And of course the word "job" is right there in the name "jobs-to-be-done". Chairs, rocks, stories, stars, information, music and countless other things do not have "needs", "goals", "jobs" or "wants". But people, animals, organizations, societies do have these things. And they have them because they are what we might call purposeful systems, they can have goals and try to reach them.
The original movement to scientifically study and understand purposeful systems was cybernetics and many important ideas in engineering and AI can directly be traced back to the work from the original cyberneticians. It has had an influence on just about any field one can imagine: Psychology and Architecture to Management, Education and Theatre... you name it! From the beginning, through the work of major figures in the field like Ross Ashby, cybernetics has had quite a bit to say about design, which is what we discuss in this episode.
Our guest today is Paul Pangaro.
Paul is the president of the American Society for Cybernetics which was founded in 1964 and is currently a visiting scholar in both the School of Architecture and School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. Paul worked for a time at the famous startup incubator Idealab, was the CTO of several startups, and also founded several of his own. He has taught many courses over the years, namely at Stanford, on the role of cybernetic models in the design of products, services, and teams. He is a recognized expert in the cybernetics field of conversation theory, which is central to his understanding of design and which we talk about in our discussion.
You can find Paul at www.pangaro.com on twitter at @paulpangaro.
Show references:
- Notes on the Role of Leadership and Language in Regenerating Organizations, Pangaro & Geoghegan
- ON MODELING What is interaction? are there different types? Dubberly, Pangaro, Haque
- Cybernetics and Design: Conversations for Action, Dubberly & Pangaro
- A Cybernetic Perspective on Design and Creativity: a Conversation with Dr. Paul Pangaro
- Introduction to Cybernetics, Ross Ashby
- Conversation Theory, Gordon Pask
 
 
 

Today, we welcome our special guest, Dr. Andrew DiMeo. Andrew is a former professor at NC State and UNC in biomedical engineering. He’s an entrepreneur, having built CanvasGT, whiteboard software that was acquired by medtech software firm Greenlight guru. 
Andrew is a big thinker in all things innovation and all things relating to medical devices. But more importantly than that, he’s a super dude and friend who has a lot to say on many topics. 

Today, we welcome our special guest, Leah Tharin. Leah is the Head of Product at Jua.ai. She’s an advocate for product-led growth, something we’re certain to get into today. She has an impressive background in product management and product leadership, but the thing that brought her into view for me is that she is a direct and brilliant communicator really on all things product, from the challenges of a product team to those of leadership. 
Find out more here: https://www.leahtharin.com/
Get the product-led Growth Guide here: https://www.leahtharin.com/p/the-product-led-growth-guide

Today, we welcome our special guest, Rob Schade. Rob is the Chief Customer Officer of Strategyn. Strategyn, of course, is the innovation firm founded by JTBD pioneer Tony Ulwick. Rob was actually the second employee of Strategyn over 20 years ago and has personally been part of the JTBD’s development from a theory where we just talk about milkshakes to a repeatable process that innovators can actually use.
For our listeners, let me make an impassioned plea for why you’ll want to listen to this episode from beginning to end. The most critical part using JTBD is framing… or establishing the bounds of a project and define your market to be pursued. Rob has led this activity perhaps more than any other person in the world. So let that sink in, Rob has framed more JTBD projects than anyone else; so hang with us today as we’ll explore some tips for how to do this well.
Additionally, Rob has had some other interesting experiences, including owning a night club in New York City. I personally have a lot of questions about that!

Our guest today is Wolfram Nagel Senior UX Designer at TeamViewer. I think it’s fair to say that Wolfram has been in UX before it was cool and has worked in different companies and as a freelancer. He’s published a book on Multiscreen UX Design, is co-founder and main curator of designmethodsfinder.com, he’s a public speaker and regularly publishes insightful articles on wolframnagel.medium.com. In addition to that the likelihood to meet him at a Jobs-to-be-done or UX Meetup is quite high. So, today we will take a deep dive on how UX and Jobs-to-be-done are a match made in heaven.