CPO Stories: Jamie Mercer - TrustedHousesitters

This is the hardest thing I try to stress to people looking to elevate in product, that the job really changes once you get to head of director, CPO. And it's really rewarding when you get it right. I told my CEO the other day, the best feeling in the world is alignment. We go out of a meeting, a workshop, decisions are made, we all know what's important. There's no better feeling. But to get to alignment is never easy. And, you know, it's not for the faint of heart, and it's a muscle you need to develop. Hello, welcome to CPI Stories, where I take the opportunity to speak to the UK's biggest and best executive product leaders, as well as some of the upcoming stars of the future. On this episode, I'm delighted to welcome Jamie Mercer. Jamie's had a glittering product career, starting out as a technical product manager with RetailMeNot before moving up the ranks through VoucherCodes, Skyscanner, Student Beans, and IVC Evidensia, before taking a CPO hot seat at TrustedHousesitters, a global pet care and travel marketplace that's proudly disrupting two industries at the same time. As if disrupting one wasn't hard enough. Jamie, thanks for coming and welcome to the show. Thanks, Jason. Good to be here. Well, I'm looking forward to getting into it, and also hopefully, and I don't know if this is what you do in any of your kind of engagements, I'm hoping I get a free dog at the end of this as well. Is that on the cards? Definitely, yeah. Absolutely. Right, well, let's talk about that then. So TrustedHousesitters, where travel meets pet care. Not quite the Uber for dogs cliche, but, yeah, maybe getting a bit more close to that than some of the other companies I've spoken to. So why don't you give us the elevator pitch for TrustedHousesitters, describe what the core value proposition is and kind of what you're working on there as a company. Yeah, so TrustedHousesitters is an incredible community. On one side of the platform, we have pet owners looking for affordable pet care when they travel, and we have pet sitters looking to try out the life of someone else, meet a new pet to hang out with for the weekend or on holiday. So it's two very different sides of our marketplace network, but it's an incredible proposition. Once you experience it, I think 97% of members say we've changed their life. So I feel like it's one of the best kept secrets around pet care and travel, and I'm here to help get the word out and make it even better. But is it a secret, though? Like, you seem to be doing quite well for yourselves. I've seen you in the news. You've got good partnerships and stuff going up. So is it really a secret, or is it, you know, a bit bigger than that and something that's already kind of on a good growth trajectory? Yeah, we're growing really well, and we're still small. We're around 200 people. I left a 41,000-person company to come to this 200-person company, and it's growing steadily. We're hitting great numbers year over year growing. But I think we primarily grow through word of mouth. I think 70, 75% of our members say they heard about us from our friend, which is an incredible thing and one of the reasons I joined. But my job is how do we scale that? How do we amplify that? How do we get the word out and make more incredible experiences that people want to rave about to their friends and neighbors? No, absolutely. And I guess one of the benefits of what you do and kind of the problem that you solve is that lots of people, majority of people, love animals one way or another, right? And lots of people have travel as well. So it's kind of this idea that you kind of pull on the emotional heartstrings of people as well. It's the sort of thing that people would recommend. You know, I was looking at the website thinking, yeah, maybe I should sign up for that because, you know, I want a dog and I'm not allowed a dog yet. So thinking maybe I should go and borrow someone else's for a little bit. So, you know, maybe I'll sign up after this. But fundamentally, you, and correct me if I'm wrong, kind of feels like you operate as a sort of a two-sided marketplace. You've got the homeowners, almost like an Airbnb-type thing on one side where people are not going to be there and you can go and stay in their house, but rather than paying them for it, you... The person that goes and stays there, they get to kind of look after that dog or pet, whatever type of pet it is. They get the accommodation for free, and the homeowner gets the pet care for free, rather than putting them into a kennel or some kind of other sort of situation. Yeah. Now again, that all sounds wonderful, and again, I'd love to try it. But at the same time, I'm imagining as a marketplace, you've probably got some of the same characteristics of any marketplace. You know, you've got the supply side, you've got the demand side, you've got to drive up both of those. You've got to keep that all kind of in equilibrium, not have too much on one side or the other. And there's also the potential to maybe focus specifically on one side or the other, like whether you're very supplier-focused or very demand-focused. So how do you see that from a marketplace perspective? Do you kind of try and keep everything on balance, or do you prioritize a lot for one side and the other side follows? Like, how does the marketplace work for you? Yeah, I think it ebbs and flows a bit. I think we track every marketplace health, liquidity, supply side, demand side, and try to make it fair and balanced and scale as we go. And I think we've done a really good job of, like, I think we have, you know, north of 90% fill rates. But the tricky part is how do you introduce new sitters onto the platform that don't have the streak cred, that don't have the five-star ratings yet? How do we build some trust in them so they get a chance to try things out? How do we do AI and machine learning personalization matching to get the best sitters matched up with the best owners, as well as thinking about how we grow into the future? So we've done a lot of research into sitters and owners, market research into how do we go after and target and figure out how we message our service to them. And I really think we're going heavy right now on owner acquisition and making sure we can scale that way because we want to go after— Owners in the best locations and that are really enticing through sitters so we can get more growth into our marketplace. But it's harder to market to that audience where sitters, it's in the name. It's really, it works well on social and other channels and in those communities. So what we've tried to do is really be specific about the side of the marketplace we're trying to grow and cater to at any given time, and also understand the real thing we need, the real problem we need to solve from a product perspective is how to build that trust. How can I make people like you take that leap of faith, being like, I'm going to give this a try, because I do know that once you do try it, look at our trust pilot, look at our retention rates, look at our NPS, you'll love it and you'll think, how did I ever go without this? But getting people across that hurdle of giving it a try and getting set up and onboarded and using it is my job and isn't easy. And that's, I mean, I understand the trust thing obviously as well, just people generally wanting to use you, but it kind of feels like apart from their kids, like pets are many people's most valuable possessions. Not that kids are possessions, of course, but like, you know, you've got a dog or you've got a cat or whatever it is that you've got, and that's like one of the loves of your life, right? So it kind of feels like there's a trust, confidence thing. You kind of mentioned it in passing, this idea like, well, you know, getting new people onto the platform, like someone that's not got any credibility yet, someone that's not got any star ratings or whatever within the community. So like, how do you work on that side of trust where you can actually sit there and say, okay, well, this person who's just signed up, you can leave your dog with that person for a week and they're not going to, you know, just like let it run away or do something stupid like... Because that feels like a big hurdle for some. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, and I also look at it from the perspective is what's best for the pet? Is it to send a dog to a dog kennel or to somebody that doesn't really want to look after it? So there's a lot of education into, like, this solution and why it's really great. But, you know, both sides of our marketplace pay us. So sitters pay, owners pay, and it's kind of like a community mutual respect, mutual reinforcement that drives that. So rather than being transactional like some of our competitors or even Airbnb, both are paying. So sometimes our research shows there's some entitlement with that. So I'm paying for you, so you're going to do this, this, and this, and this. So it's my job to be like, this is a mutual exchange of trust. Pet owners and homeowners, you need to make sure your house is nice and set up, and you're catering for the person that's going to come stay there and what's fair. And then for sitters, the same thing. So we invest a lot in verification, background checks. We get referrals on everybody. It's my job to make sure we have the most trustworthy people coming into the product. If there's any bad actors or anything nefarious going on, we have data that pinpoints that and we can address that, because all we have is trust, and that's why they come to us and that's why you pay us. But I do think there's something really special about both sides paying, because we're in it to look after each other. And we see people coming from paid platforms into us, sitters, because it's just a more positive experience for both pet owners and homeowners. And I really think it's the best thing for your house and for the pet when you go on holiday. Right now I'm in between pets, and every time I go away, I have a pet sitter come and look after my house, collect the mail, water all my plants. I have a veg patch, and I don't know how I did things before that. I just let my veg patch wither away. So I think, you know, it's something you just, you don't know until you use it how valuable it can be. Absolutely. But you just talked about, obviously, yourself being in between pets. We've talked about maybe cats and dogs, but kind of feels also that there could be some really weird and wacky pets out there as well that people have got in their houses that maybe they're getting people to come and look after. So I don't know if you have any kind of stats on the end of your fingertips, but like, what's the weirdest pet-sitting gig that you've seen listed or that you're aware of? Oh my gosh. We have, like, lizards and chickens. Like, whatever you're into, every kind of pet you could imagine, we can cater for, and it all depends on what you're looking for. I mean, ideally, most of our sitters—you have to think of a sitter as like, what are they in it for? And some of them are really, really in it for this novel pet, live on a farm, fill that fantasy. And some of them just want kind of a low-maintenance pet that they can take out when they're on holiday. So we're investing a lot in data and machine learning to make sure we're driving the right matches. If you have a first-time sitter and a first-time owner, maybe you don't match them up. Maybe you put an experienced sitter with a new-time homeowner. If you have a pet that needs medical attention or special needs, you match them with a really experienced sitter that's been there, done that, that knows the species. So we try to make their profiles pop. We try to make sure that we can highlight what they're best at and bring all that data into our algorithm that personalizes and matches people up. Absolutely. I guess one of the things, though, there with what you're talking about and maybe some of the kind of international flavor that you have, because I know that it's not just a UK thing, like you've got people all the way around the world, you're operating all over the place, and like the further away you get from maybe your own comfort zone, maybe the wackier the pets you might expect to meet. Like, you know, I don't know, like whether you get to kind of look after... You know, alpacas and llamas and, you know, bears, you know, those would be the kind of pets I'd be very interested in sort of checking out on the platform, rather than, you know, yeah, dogs are cute, right? But once you've sat for ten dogs, you kind of want to up your game, right? That's almost like, it almost feels like it could be a gamification play, like Duolingo, like just sit there and, like, just get more and more weird pets or, you know, like outlandish pets. But I don't know if that's an OKR for this year or something that you want to come back to. Yeah, I mean, I see us kind of like, I compare a lot of what we do to a dating site. Get a good match. Like, you know, not everybody's going to want to look after an alpaca, but we do have places that have those, but that we set everybody up for success. So we're not—we enable good—we're investing a lot in video calling and communication and making sure our app really connects people to set expectations and prompt them to ask the right questions. So I, as a new homeowner, know, like, how to leave my house and how to leave instructions for each animal that needs care so that everybody comes away with our goal of, like, a five-star sit every time. No, absolutely. But we've talked a lot about travel as well, like, and I'm thinking, you know, because again, I kind of want a dog and I'm not allowed one, so I every now and then kind of Google around and try and find someone that let me play with their dog for an afternoon or something, or, you know, become a dog walker or all of those things that you can do. But of course, there are a lot of that type of thing specifically around, especially dogs within the UK, where I am based and where you're based as well, just down the road as it turns out. But obviously with the international thing as well, there's this kind of this chance to travel all around the world and get the same benefit. So do you see your core value proposition as being quite international, like that's actually where the majority of the usage comes from, or is there a lot of kind of local sort of just doing it for dog sitting in your local area type thing as well? Yeah, I think there's a bit of both because some people are in it for different reasons. Like our headquarters is in Brighton, and a lot of our staff just want to go and, like, stay in a really nice house on the beach or in town. They live rurally. So, and I also think we try to educate people for your first sit to get some street cred, try something local, go visit the homeowner before you become, like, a full-time cat sitter. So I think there's different sitters and owners that match up in different ways. But I think our unique value proposition and what we do enable is kind of this global travel-the-world experience. And we're really ideally suited for longer sits. So you can, when somebody's going away on holiday for a while, they can trust somebody will show up and take care of that long trip. Whenever, like, you know, for a day or two, you might rely on a neighbor or, you know, it wouldn't be as advantageous to go through the coordination process. But I want to make it easier and easier and seamless to book even for shorter durations over the next few years. Absolutely. But you talked about it a little bit earlier, like data and AI, and obviously everyone's talking about AI these days, some people far too much, but yeah, let's give them the benefit of the doubt. But there's a lot of AI talk going on. You talked a lot about matching and the algorithms that you use to kind of connect people up, which, yeah, in some ways kind of feels like old AI these days, even though obviously in your case it's probably incredibly advantageous, I'm sure it's very advanced. But when it comes to some of the, you know, let's call it new AI, what are some of the use cases that you're seeing that maybe help you to use some of that to deliver a superior experience through your platform, if any? For sure. I think, you know, we've been through all these technology shifts, and principally, it always comes back to the core of how do we make the product better? How do we make the company better? How do we be more productive? And I've tried to stay grounded in that when people keep asking me my AI strategy, let's talk about the product strategy. Let's talk about the company strategy first. But I'm really excited for the potential here. Like, we've made it very clear to everybody: show the productivity. Obviously, in my job, before I came on this podcast, I ran every simulation of, Jason, give me examples, collate everything he's done so I could just get into your head for a few hours. Oh dear. And I encourage my whole company to do the same. But we're excited about the potential. Like, we're bringing in AI consolidation of user research and insights, buying in lots of software that helps us move really fast until we can develop our own capability. We're using data and analytics, AI solutions, so we can dig into segmentation and cohorts and predict A/B testing and experimentation work. There's some exciting stuff there. And obviously, one of the first hires I've made in the company was a data product manager. So thinking about the data we need to collect and leverage everywhere and how it can help us learn more about our members, collate all the things about them, and then spit that back out to the product and our marketing technology so we can build that joined-up end-to-end personalized experience. So, you know, we're doing all that. And then obviously, we're looking for every job description now for design, for engineering. Part of the interview process is how are you going to use AI and different solutions, whether they're third-party or ChatGPT or other solutions, to make you more productive, and how would you bring it into the business? But luckily, I kind of like that I'm in a service business. So, you know, until the robots can look after houses and cuddle pets, I think my job is safe, hopefully, and our business is safe. But I do think there's huge opportunity to make us better at our job and our service. Yeah, kind of is exactly the point, isn't it? Like, until we've got, like, virtual robot pets, like, yeah, your business is like, yeah, aside from the marketplace that connects people, like, it's still connecting people. And, you know, could argue that's something we could all do with a lot more of these days. But it's definitely good to hear that you're, yeah, you're on the bandwagon, but in almost like a responsible fashion, like not just trying to do it all and just throw everything out. But you talked then about, hey, you know, we've got people, like, we're kind of almost screening people for AI on the way in now. Does that mean that AI is playing a big part in your kind of your processes, if we can call them that, like the way that you kind of decide what to build or the way that you design what to build, the way that you get it built? Like, is it playing a big part in any of those areas at the moment? I mean, I think everything from, like, product strategy. So I've just been through a 12-week product strategy reset cycle, and we used it so many times to help us gain competitive insights. We did huge, like, customer research meta-analysis, data meta-analysis, where we were able to dump everything and get the key nuggets out of that and then, like, consolidate that for the board. So, like, it's just helped the cycles of learning and feeding into a good product strategy go a lot faster, because to make all the components of building a product strategy in a company. Honest of building a product strategy and a company strategy even better. And yeah, I think it just makes the cycle time for my job as a leader, everything I do is just sped up so, so fast. I just have my AI assistants churning through and making decisions and doing everything about my job. I feel like I have a coach next to me all day, like where I'm talking to this coach about something and we're coming to a conclusion together. So replicating that and encouraging that. So we've got open Slack channels where the design team is creating, like, style guide copywriting bots. So spit it out in our tone of voice. Or where we've got now a chatbot answering 40% more of our inquiries into the customer support team. So that means the member support team can go on and do, like, they're helping onboard by calling up members instead of answering tickets that a chatbot can do. And, you know, there's just so, so much excitement here and so much low-hanging fruit before we get to the really complicated stuff we're trying to do with, like, impact scoring and personalization and segmentation, which is all coming, all coming soon for us. Yeah, watch this space, right? But, you know, we talked a little bit about the team, so it's probably a good time to kind of segue into product management and the product management team that you've got there. Obviously, you've got responsibility for them. I don't know if you've got responsibility for other functions, like you kind of mentioned design, for example. But how many teams have you got under you? How big are they? How are you set up? I mean, kind of give me a quick walkthrough of what product looks like at Trusted Houses. At the moment, we kind of have two tribes with a handful of squads in each one. We're only a 200-person company. And then I have a data and platform product manager. And I've been—what I've tried to do really purposefully here is keep my org really flat. So I have held off with heads of product for probably a little bit too long, but I thought it was the right thing to do for me to get personally involved really in depth into the details and the weeds and hire very senior, experienced— Commercially driven product people. And I come from, like, this American, like, I don't know if it's American, but it's what I remember from doing product in America, where the product managers and leaders are very commercial. They're like GMs. They can really drive strategy, commercial performance, and develop their own product strategy. So I tried to really get that breed of product leader into the org and also invest. So instead of hierarchy in product, I've invested a lot in product operations and product marketing. So how do we enable them with insights? How do we be consistent? How do our roadmaps look the same? How do we do strategy? So having product ops in is huge to help with that, and product marketing. So do we have these feedback loops with what's we're shipping? Do we have a go-to-market? Are we really, really tight with marketing and consistent? And then also building, like, a really great relationship with marketing. So I kind of have seen companies where the squads are so separate and product and marketing is so separate. So I really pride myself on, like, bringing it all together. It's all about the customer. And I had some comments when we recently updated our strategy that it didn't feel like separate teams. It felt natural to, like, our mission of building trust and building a growth engine around word of mouth, that we all have a role to play there. But now I'm at the tipping point, and I'll be hiring product directors really soon because, you know, there's just too much on me right now, and it's not doing the company a service to be a hero. Well, yeah, you know, heroism doesn't scale, right? But I think there's an interesting point around the commercial nature of product management, because I think that in some ways, and there's a lot of people talk about this these days, but in some ways it kind of feels like it kind of got lost along the way as product management grew. And I'm sure you've seen it when you've been looking to hire people. I've seen it when I've been looking to hire people as well, like... There are some decent enough people out there that are very delivery focused, or maybe in some cases very almost what I might call book focused, you know, kind of idealistic product managers. But there seems to be this kind of gap sometimes with some of the financial acumen, the business acumen. And exactly to your point, like I've walked into companies before where you sit in a meeting with product marketing and the product team and product management team, and it becomes very clear very quickly that they barely ever spoken to each other. It's like, well, how on earth does that happen? Like these people should be, you know, working really closely together. So do you feel that commercial product management acumen, business acumen—I know you say that you want it yourself—but do you feel that it's kind of lacking in the market these days, or do you think that it's getting better and that you're seeing more candidates that have it? You know, I've seen—I've worked for VC scale-up unicorns, digital transformations, founder-led. I've seen different shapes and sizes across Europe and America. And I do think it's kind of a missing piece that I often have to coach and bring in. And when I find a product manager that is really commercial, it's so fantastic. But I think it's my job, or when I come into a company, is to make sure the product strategy and the company strategy are so intertwined, and we really understand our growth in a way that by solving customer problems, we will drive commercial outcomes. And going through that stakeholder management process and building a strategy that's derived in customer but is commercially successful is such a huge component of setting my teams up for success and also hiring and empowering the right people to own those different spaces. But so, like, I like— But there is a trade-off as well. So I've made the mistake of going too far of having product-owned too many lagging out, really lagging metrics like revenue that, you know, they'll get distracted and forget about actually we're trying to build a great product experience end to end. But if we're too commercial, we lose sight of that, or we're always looking for short-term paybacks on a lagging metric. So I see it as my job to build a strategy that acknowledges the short-term commercial benefits, but also things that are higher risk or medium term or, you know, that aren't obviously gonna drive a commercial number, but we have a spread of bets. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, and it's the way to drive that alignment across teams, because then we're all going for the same goals and have the right leading indicators and the right alignment. But yeah, that's a bit of my experience there. Yeah, and I guess, I mean, you used the word empowered just now, and obviously that's to some extent a bit of a buzzword in product management these days, although of course, you know, the principles behind it are definitely powerful ones that I believe in. But there is this kind of idea that there's this kind of spectrum of product people, or, you know, from the kind of the Marty Cagan classic, you know, 20 principles, transformed, empowered, inspired side, and then you've got like the worst in the world kind of delivery management, feature factory type people over the other side, and kind of every sort of step in between. And you talked a little bit about empowerment then and how you're trying to push for that. So would you see yourself and your teams as kind of over towards the more empowered kind of book side of things with a bit of a commercial edge on the edge, or do you feel that's a journey that you're on? You talked about transformations as well. How do you see your teams, and it'd be interesting if they would agree, but like, how would you see your teams at the moment and the kind of the empowerment that you have managed to give them? Yeah, absolutely. I think I'm at the far end of the Marty Cagan spectrum. Like, I'm there. That is how I want to do things. I'm never going to tell anybody what to build or how to build it, like, or what to do, because they're closer to their domain. They're closer to the customer. So I strive for, like, great empowerment, domain ownership. But that comes with a lot of coaching around working across teams, working end to end, working with commercial and marketing partners. So, and also setting teams up for success for the right level of empowerment. Like, I've made the mistake of giving them too big of a box to play in, and that's not going to set them up for success. So what ownership and leadership do I bring, and then what do I give them to clearly run with and go with? But that comes with a lot of responsibility and a different type of leader that isn't just with their nuclear squad building stuff. The product's job in that squad where they're really empowered is to keep everybody connected, aligned, make it about the customer. But it's just a delicate balance of how much autonomy and problem area you give teams to make sure they're successful and aren't, like, too empowered and run away and lose sight of everybody else and the rest of the business. But you've talked a few times about the need to coach, and of course that, you know, a lot of people believe that. I don't think everyone necessarily gets it in their roles. Not all leaders have time to do it. Feels like it's something that you're very much pushing for yourself. And obviously coaching is about, you know, bringing people up, but it's also potentially about helping them to unlearn limiting behaviors as well. So are there any kind of common behaviors that you see as you're kind of trying to develop these people into that vision that you have, you know, the empowered people or empowered within the bounds that you set them? You know, maybe behaviors that you feel you see and you can remove or kind of tamp down, or things that you see commonly that kind of hold product managers back. Yeah. So I think a really big one, and I spend a lot of times, like every biweekly, we sit down with each squad trio of leads, so the trio that are representing those trios. And we sit down and we coach them. And it's, you know, we have check-in roadmap progress meetings, but there's also an opportunity to make sure they're operating their world really well and making sure whatever support they need, whatever coaching they need, whatever resources they need, when they're going off-piste or going in a direction that we don't think is helpful, we can set them up for success. A big part of, like, working in this model, empowered model, is empowered design, empowered engineering, the right culture and behaviors within a squad. So for a product manager to go up and be strategic and think about commercial trading, to be out there, the face, bringing things to market, working across teams, they've got to have a rock-solid squad that can pick up the slack, that can make decisions when they're not there. So I work really closely with everyone in and around the squad to make sure they know expectations and that we have an empowered set of leaders to drive that. Also, my job is to make sure all the stakeholders, all the exec team, all the board are on the same page as well, and, like, creating headroom and understanding of what you can get out of this product development team, how we want to operate, how we sign up at a board level to drive outcomes, and this is how we're going to update on progress and lead indicators. So before I can bring this in, before I can bring in my product operating model, before I can bring in a product strategy. You know, you've got to work on those nuclear teams. You've got to work on setting your product development organization up for success so they can operate in service of the customer and the business. But is that an easy discussion to have, that one with your non-product executive stakeholders, partners, whatever, however we want to refer to them, other people in the C-suite, maybe people that have come from different backgrounds, don't necessarily understand all of this stuff, like inherently because they, again, they've come from a different place, maybe different types of company. And in some situations, I'm sure that you have loud voices in the room, or you have like a big pet project that comes up, or this thing that absolutely must be done because of a reason that may or may not make sense, but that doesn't, you know, no matter how much it does or doesn't make sense, it still needs to be done because someone's shouting about it. And there's you on the other side, obviously, as you just described, advocating for all of these things. So is that an easy thing, or has that been an easy thing for you to do? Are there any kind of approaches that you've taken to try and embed that in, or was it already kind of in there and you just had to kind of take over something that already worked? This is the hardest thing. That's, this is like building the software and getting to be creative and drive impact through testing, like that's fun. This is really, really the hard part. And this is what I try to stress to people looking to elevate in product, that the job really changes once you get to head of director, CPO. And it's really rewarding when you get it right, but it's, and it's the things that keep you up at night. It's the political things, the misalignment. So I, you know, absolutely, it's, you know, things that I really do is try to, like, I think I told my CEO the other day, the best feeling in the world is alignment. Like, alignment, like my shoulders drop, and I'm like, we come out of a meeting, a workshop, decisions are made, we all know what's important. There's no better feeling. But to get to alignment is never easy, you know? Countless workshops, forecasting meetings, you know, listening to stakeholders. And, you know, it's not for the faint of heart. And, but, you know, it's a muscle you need to develop. So I've spent years figuring this out, how to listen to people, how to understand their perspective, how to advocate for product, how to draw, you know, draw out what are the problem you're trying to solve, bring them into a design sprint so they see, oh, we can design something, and that's a better way to look at problem solving. So it's, but I'm really grateful now that I'm in such a great company that the product, the way we make money is the product strategy, large in part, and marketing strategy. And it's, I like companies where it's really joined up. You know, digital transformations and other things are a whole different can of worms on stakeholder alignment. Like I said, 41,000 employees to 200. But I love it at Trusted Housesitters because we do have that alignment. The exec team, we're like, you know, we're able to argue and debate and disagree and give up Legos to each other in service of the business. We spend a whole day together almost every week. It's waning a bit as we scale, but I think I see, like, the exec team is like the parents, and if they're not getting along, the household's not going to get along. And if you can't have healthy debate and argue and hear each other. The company's not going to succeed. So I think getting that team really aligned is the best feeling when it happens, and it's the best thing I can do for my teams as well. Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of that air cover that you can provide by being an advocate at the, for want of a better word, top table. But you talked a bit about how the job changes, and this actually is a question that's come through from one of your team. Anonymously, I have no idea who they are, so if they're listening, this is one of your questions. But it kind of touches on that thing about, well, it all changes. And of course, with change comes potential discomfort, and occasionally surprises, because maybe you didn't expect it to change like that. So when you became a CPO, and I know that you didn't become one here, you've had other leadership roles at other organizations, but when you first kind of stepped into that C-suite, you know, going to the executive washroom and all of that stuff, what was the biggest surprise, something you weren't expecting? My first CPO opportunity was I was a head of product, and my philosophy in life, like how I think I've risen through the ranks, is like I try to do the job above me out of natural curiosity. It's not a political thing, but I like bigger challenges and to take on more, and I have this insatiable growth mindset. So I was given that role because my voice was more valuable to the CEO at that exec level than where it was in the mid-level senior leadership team. So I think that, but then what do you do on that team? What do you represent? What do you bring out? So I think some of the things I've learned is it's kind of what we've touched on already, like... It's, it's like listening and engaging with and empathizing and understanding your different execs on that team and building that healthy relationship. I'm lucky. My background, I'm very T-shaped. I started in commercial roles and merchandising and operations. So it's a lot of time and effort needs to go into those relationships, weekly one-on-ones with people who aren't product people that you don't have as much in common with. Like I had a call this morning with the CFO, and he's an introvert, but I really respect him and I need to hear from him every week what's on his mind. How can I help? So leaning into those relationships and building that trust, being able to have difficult conversations. Like I'm very direct, very American, and I need to have that psychological safety so I can say what I need to say. Because if you don't have those, if you don't have friction throughout your relationship with these peers, it's going to build up and fester just like it would with your husband or your partner. So I think it's the soft skills come into play so much in building those good relationships so that you can, like, create a cohesive leadership team. And the job is that. And the job is not the fun workshops, delivering and ideation and roadmaps. I yearn for that sometimes. It's doing all the stuff that isn't obvious. Well, you say you yearn for it, and obviously that is something that as people move into leadership, you know, there's always the time when you're doing the fun stuff, right? And there's also this narrative these days, especially in the kind of the world of AI, that, you know, we should all go back to being super individual contributors and we don't need leaders anymore and, you know, AI can cover all those other bits. You kind of touched on that a little bit earlier yourself with some of the things that you use it for. But this idea that maybe we can all kind of bounce back. But on the other hand, I know people that have done that, that have been senior leaders that have then gone back to trying to, you know, get back on the tools, as it were. And they actually got incredibly frustrated. So do you think that leadership is still alive and kicking? Absolutely. I think the skills of product management, I think I saw an interview with Sam Altman the other day, and he's like, We need soft skills. We need leadership, humanities, arts, systems thinkers, creative people in this future, which we don't know where it's going to end up. But I think leadership skills are, you know, there's still going to be people running companies and making decisions and getting people to work together to tell the bots what to do. So I think the skills you develop in product, especially if you're really T-shaped and curious about different domains, absolutely there's a future. So I'm optimistic for now. For now, for now. We'll check back in in a few months. Yeah. Another question from your team. I don't know if there's a specific story behind this one, but how important do you find motivation and team morale compared to the team's impact on KPIs? I mean, it's like there's skill and will and impact, and it's so important to make sure people show up and want to work hard, and that you hire people with a growth mindset that want to get better and solve new problems and stay motivated. But, and I think the role that is really important to me is that alignment and customer. So developing like a customer product strategy, mission, vision that motivates people to work hard and do the work that we're all aligned. And luckily at Trusted Housesitters, we're all shareholders, and our commercial and product strategy is in service of just making our platform better and more known and growing. So I think... I've tried to infuse that, like, customer impact. Look at the problems we're solving. Look at some of this customer feedback that we could address, we could make better. So building a strategy that's grounded in helping our customer unites everybody and unites everybody to work hard and show up. But like I said, like coaching teams is really important, but also coaching individuals and getting the most out of them. So I'm a big believer in, like, psychometrics, strength findings, figuring out how to coach and get the best out of everybody. But, you know, it's hard to stay motivated and show up to work and care. So, you know, it's something we track, our employer net promoter score across teams and functions. I run a survey. My product ops leads runs a survey every quarter. How clear are you on strategy? How motivated are you? What's holding you back? What sucks about working here? What is working? To just take the pulse and then as a product development leadership team, pick a few things to work on. Or is it coaching? Is it personal development? Is it, you know, you name it. Is the strategy not clear? They don't agree with it, or we're being pushed too hard. You know, I've had some teams say, like, we're pushing too hard on, like, some stuff we're doing about pricing, and we need to back off and give them some space. So just creating that back-and-forth communication. And like I said, we have squad health checks every two weeks. So, like, from the squad leads, how's morale? How's team health? How are you doing? Those are just some of the ways we keep an eye on that. But it's hard to keep the balance right. Yeah, but it also feels like, and again, I'm sure it's different days of the week and different weeks of the year, but, like, almost motivation and team morale. And teams' impact on KPIs, they don't necessarily feel mutually exclusive. I mean, they obviously could be when times are really hard, or if you're kind of going for like a really big deadline or something and everyone's kind of working to the bone. But yeah, there should be, and I don't want to philosophize too much, but there should almost be a kind of an impact on their motivation and morale because they are impacting on the KPIs in theory, as long as they agree with the KPIs, which goes back to the empowerment. So I guess it all kind of rolls up into a ball, right? For sure. Well, there's a few lightning questions I like to wrap up with just to let people get to know you, but I'm actually going to start the lightning round with one final question from your team because it kind of feels a bit lightning-y. Toughest decision that you've made as a CPO? Toughest decision? I think there's a few times in my career where we've had to abandon a ton of progress, like kill an app, kill a project that was six months in. And those are the ones that have just, you know, stuck with you and, you know, kept you up at night. But yeah, at my last company, we were just down a path of a customer app that we were going to develop, but then we just realized that we just did not have the data and infrastructure to do the things we wanted to do. And the best thing I could do for the business was to kill six months of work, and those suck. Yeah, it's that kind of sunk cost bias as well, and the fact that, well, you know, we've spent so much time on it and it felt like it was the right idea at the time, but, you know, at the same time— Exactly, as you say, sometimes you've got to realize that you can learn from it, and so you can get better next time to foresee those things. Yeah. A hundred percent. First app you check in the morning. Ooh, um, definitely my calendar. I'm, gosh, calendar. I have twin six-year-olds and a busy schedule and a husband that we're always fighting over who does drop-off and pick-up. So, like, where's my head at for the day, and what do I need to do when we're in house? So, yeah, not that exciting, but yeah. No, but it's very, very pragmatic and practical. So, you know, I guess that's definitely, yeah. I can't even imagine. I've got two kids, but they're older than yours and they're not twins. I can't even imagine having two of the same age at the same time. It just shivers up my spine, or it would if it wasn't so warm. Most important trait in a product manager? To me, growth mindset. Like, you've got to be upskilling, trying things, getting out of your comfort zone, doing things that are uncomfortable in service of the business and the customer and the product, overcompensating for other functions that aren't ready to help you. So you just got to always get better and learn new things or you'll stagnate. Yeah. Well, you described yourself as very far on the kind of the Kagan side of the scale. So apart from his books, what's your favorite tech or product management book? Oh, um, you know, God, that's really tough. That's really tough because there's so many books and so many different things. But some of the—one of the biggest books, it's How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It's like 1980s businessman speak, but I read that at a really important time in my career when I was stepping up into product leadership and having to... Learn how to talk to developers full-time and connect with people and stakeholders. And I think some of that principle, the principles in that book made me a better leader, made me a better collaborator, and, like, a better person to just be curious about others and engage and listen more. And I try to reflect on that and, you know, keep some of those practices alive, but that's, like, really old school. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, some of the language and the examples in there may be slightly old-fashioned, but, you know, the rules are the same. Like, people are still people. Yeah. Okay, final one. If you had to start your career over, what would you do differently? I was pretty much a generalist, and I would have developed more specialism in something. So I studied business in Spanish and did an MBA, but, like, just having some hard skills really deep in one domain. You know, it doesn't even have to be technology-related. I think I would have loved to study psychology or something that I could just really sink my teeth into. But that's knowing what I know now. I don't know if it's the chicken or the egg that got me where I am now. But, yeah, that's one thing I could think of. Well, if I'd have known that you spoke Spanish properly, then we could have done this entire interview in Spanish and opened up an entire new market, and we get ChatGPT to translate it for us and make our voices. They've got things that can, like, make your eyes and mouth move differently now, so it's just so strange. Actually, final question. Why should product people come and work for Trusted House Sitters? Because pet people are the best people out there, and, like, we have the world's best-kept secret for pet ownership and pet care and travel. I haven't been in, and we're 200 people. That's like a great size. I work really, really hard, but I feel like the work I do makes a difference and grows the business. And it's all grounded in making our platform better and growing our platform. So I've, you know, I had never heard of this company. I had tried to drop out of the interview process a few times, but it's the best decision I've ever made working here with some of the best people. So it's a no-brainer. Yeah. Well, there you go. Well, if we can't go for no-brainers, what can we go for? But where can people come and find you after this and want to connect, maybe catch up, maybe check out your careers page or any of those sorts of things? Are there any places they can come and find you? Absolutely. Come find Trusted House Sitters on LinkedIn. Sign up, explore the product a little bit. Would love your feedback. I'm on LinkedIn if you ever want to connect or share any feedback. We're hiring loads of roles right now. So, yeah, I'd love to hear from more folks from this community. Well, absolutely. Well, hopefully if I put that in the show notes, you might get a few people wandering over and, yeah, taking you for a spin, either the company or maybe even trying to get a job. But for now, all I can do is thank you, obviously, ever so much for coming on and sharing your CPO story. Thanks, Jason. It's been a pleasure.