How can data-driven decision-making lead to success in product? In episode 333 of the Product Divergence series with Ubiety Technologies CPO Nacho Andrade, Railsware CEO & Co-Founder Yaroslav Lazor shares his journey in building successful products, the transformative power of data-driven decision-making, and the importance of hiring the right talent. From uncovering revenue discrepancies to scaling data usage for marketers, Lazor’s experiences and strategies offer valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and business leaders. Discover how he helped nurture billion-dollar companies, navigate product development challenges, and find the path to data-driven success through persistence, innovation, and a deep understanding of problems.
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Show Notes
- Yaroslav Lazor, CEO & Co-Founder of Railsware, discusses product direction and growth.
- He discovered a $200,000 revenue discrepancy, leading to data-driven improvements in revenue operations.
- Coupler.io is a data product that facilitates scaling data usage for marketers with minimal clicks.
- Mailtrap, a tool for testing email marketing campaigns, boasts over 1 million users.
- Titan Apps serves as a checklist and productivity tool for managing processes and portfolios, used internally to run the company.
- The discussion covers the journey of building successful products, emphasizing data-driven decision-making and hiring the right talent.
- Calendly, a billion-dollar company, emerged from their consultancy, highlighting their marketing and value delivery approach.
- The strategy involves building 10 products in parallel, each with discipline and a spark of genius.
- Domain knowledge immersion and mapping roles, benefits, issues, and risks is vital.
- Engineers should understand the educational aspect of a product, not just its technical specifications.
- Founders often begin with the easiest part of a product, which can lead to inefficiencies and delays.
- Starting with the riskiest part, like the API, can enhance efficiency and product understanding.
- The HEART of their product development process involves identifying the simplest and riskiest part for validation with a prototype.
- The BRIDGeS process maps ideas, locates simple solutions, and validates with prototypes before full development.
- A developer creates a checklist app and validates it with 700 users.
- Clear communication is vital in product development.
- Yaroslav Lazor’s early coding experiences and entrepreneurial ventures are recounted.
- Success hinges on finding the right idea/problem, with persistence and hard work as key factors.
- Important factors include trust in one’s idea, persistence, deep problem understanding, and luck.
About the speaker
CEO of Railsware, building great products through great teams and awesome culture. 1:100 hire rate pays off.
About the host
Nacho is an Evangelist for all things product, advocating for innovation, diversity, and building amazing products. Nacho has spent over 10 years in product roles ranging from startups to enterprise in industries like education, healthcare, finance and gaming.