20VC: Ramp's Product Playbook: How To Hire Product Teams, How to Run Sprints, How to Increase Product Velocity, When and How to Go Multi-Product with Geoff Charles, VP Product @ Ramp

Geoff Charles is the VP of Product at Ramp, leading the product management, operations, and support teams. Prior to Ramp, Geoff helped spin off Mission Lane and scale credit products to millions of consumers. He started his career advising Fortune 100 financial services companies.

In Today’s Episode with Geoff Charles We Discuss:

1. How to Become a Product Leader:

• How did Geoff make his way into the world of product?

• What are the single most important skills for product people to learn early?

• What are the biggest mistakes that product people make early in their career?

2. When and Who to Hire for the First Product Team:

• When is the right time to hire your first product people outside of founding team?

• Why are the best product teams in the early days professional services teams?

• What is more important; the person has stage or sector experience, when joining?

• Should you hire senior product people or junior product people as the first hires?

3. How to Increase Velocity Using Sprints:

• How does Geoff and Ramp use two-week sprints to have insane product velocity?

• How are they structured? How are goals set? Who is included?

• What makes a good vs a bad sprint? How is accountability tied to sprints?

• When do two-week sprints no longer become possible? What happens then?

4. Going Multi-Product, Will Incumbents Kill You and Product Re-Usability:

• When is the right time to add a second product?

• What are the biggest mistakes companies make when going multi-product?

• Why is it unlikely that an incumbent is the one to kill you? What competitor should worry you?

• What does Geoff mean when he speaks of “product re-usability”? Why is it crucial to velocity?