Productly Speaking: Real Stories for Product Managers
Productly Speaking is a product management podcast featuring product managers and builders telling real product stories. We dive into the human side of product work, exploring lessons learned, challenges faced, and how people actually approach product strategy in the real world.
Episodes
S5E4: Authenticity Over 'Fake It': Lessons in Leadership and Life with Reese Gifford
At some point in your career, you have to decide who you’re going to be when things are uncomfortable. In this episode of Productly Speaking, returning guest Reese Gifford joins Karl Abbott to talk about authenticity and humility, not as polished leadership traits, but as choices made under pressure. The kind that cost you something in the moment and only make sense later. Reese reflects on enteri
S5E3: Navigating the Complexity of Product Leadership with Rick Lewis
What if the moment everything tilts sideways at work could actually make you better at your job? In this episode, Rick Lewis sits down to talk about the messy middle of change, the kind that knocks the wind out of a team long before it becomes one of those polished “growth stories.” Rick brings stories from big reorganizations, mergers that paired frenemies into one team, and the kind of customer
S5E2: Finding Balance in Product Management with Katie Tamblin
Ever had one of those weeks where the roadmap is bursting at the seams, everyone wants one more thing, and you can practically feel your balance slipping through your fingers? This conversation with Katie Tamblin goes right into that moment. Katie shares the kind of stories product people don’t usually admit out loud. There’s the time she walked into a team with seventy‑two product “priorities” ta
S5E1: From Punk Rock to Product Management with Scott McCarty
Ever wonder how a punk‑rock kid hauling amps through Midwest basements ends up helping steer one of the world’s most widely used pieces of enterprise software? Yeah… us too. In this episode, Scott McCarty invites us into the winding, deeply human story behind his career — a life that didn’t unfold in straight lines so much as heartfelt pivots. Scott shares what it felt like when the band he’d pour
Season 5 Trailer: The Human Side of Product Management
Product management gets talked about like it’s all clarity, confidence, and momentum. But most of the time, it’s not.Season 5 of Productly Speaking explores the human side of product work — authenticity, balance, uncertainty, and values.These are conversations about what product management actually feels like when things are unclear, when the roadmap breaks, or when the rules everyone repeats stop
S4E4: AI, Product Failure, and the Skills PMs Need for What’s Next with Dina Atia
AI is supposed to feel magical. So why does it so often leave product teams confused, overpromised, or quietly disappointed?In this episode, Karl sits down with Dina Atia, a PM working on AI products at Microsoft, to talk about what it is actually like to build in the middle of the hype. Dina shares candid stories from the trenches, like watching teams chase “cool” AI ideas that never quite map to
S4E3: Beyond Dogfooding: Balancing Complexity and Market Insight with Jake Bowen-Bate
What if the thing you are closest to is actually what is blinding you?In this episode, Karl talks with Jake Bowen-Bate about the quiet, human challenges of building products in fast‑moving environments. Jake shares what it really feels like to work in places where you are building the plane, flying it, and still figuring out how the controls work, all while knowing the money might literally run ou
S4E2: Why Lean and Agile Struggle in Chunky Corporates with Katie Tamblin
What happens when all the advice you followed turns out to be wrong for the job in front of you?In this episode, Karl talks with Katie Tamblin about the lived reality of building products inside what she calls “chunky corporates” and why so many well‑intentioned product efforts quietly fall apart there. Katie shares hard‑earned stories from decades inside large organizations, including the moment
S4E1: From Failure to Breakthrough: The Product Manager’s Journey with Lee Fischman
Have you ever realized a mistake only after you hit send?In this episode, Karl sits down with Lee Fischman to talk about the very human side of product work, the part that rarely makes it into neat success stories. Lee shares lessons shaped by decades of building products across wildly different industries, including the hard-earned habit of letting every message sit before responding. Not becaus
Season 4 Introduction
Welcome to Season 4 of Productly Speaking! In this short kickoff episode, host Karl Abbott introduces the theme for the season:Why do products fail and what can we learn from those failures?We’ll explore the hidden risks, organizational dynamics, and human factors that shape product success or lead to disaster.If you’re a product manager, founder, or anyone building products, this season will chal
S3E5: The Truth About Roadmaps: Why Dates Don't Deliver with Janna Bastow
Have you ever put something on a roadmap knowing, deep down, it probably was not going to happen on that date?In this episode, Karl talks with Janna Bastow about the uncomfortable truth behind most roadmaps and the moment she realized they were quietly training teams to overpromise. Janna shares the story of building her first roadmap tool and the surprising pattern that emerged when almost every
S3E4: Open Source, Real Business: Lessons from Mozilla and Microsoft with Reese Gifford
What happens when the people building your product do not work for your company, and still feel deep ownership over every decision?In this episode, Karl talks with Reese Gifford about the lived reality of building products in open source, where community passion can be both your greatest strength and your hardest constraint. Reese shares what it was like stepping into Mozilla, falling in love with
S3E3: How to Make Pigs Fly (and Other PM Miracles) with Ali Rakhimov
What if being a great product manager had less to do with sounding smart and more to do with getting your hands dirty?In this episode, Karl talks with Ali Rakhimov about a product career that started far away from tech titles, roadmaps, or polished decks. Ali shares how he quite literally tripped into product work while trying to solve real problems in K–12 schools, like watching student cash disa
S3E2: Remote Realities: Product Management in a Hybrid World with Flora Taagen
What if your path into product management started behind a coffee counter, in the middle of a global pandemic?In this episode, Karl talks with Flora Taagen about a journey into product management that looks nothing like a straight line. Flora shares how she went from studying computer science to serving coffee during COVID, where suddenly “making coffee” also meant rethinking safety, budgets, and
S3E1: Teaching Product Through Real World Experiences: A Conversation with Adil Hussain
What if you were already doing product work years before you ever heard the job title?In this episode, Karl talks with Adil Hussain about a path into product management that started with a teenage side project and quietly grew into a career. Adil shares how, at just 14, he and a co‑founder were building websites, talking to users, and figuring out what people actually needed, without realizing the
S2E5: Dealing with High Stress Environments with Kevin Bailey
What happens when the thing you worked so hard to build starts quietly working against you?In this episode, Karl talks with Kevin Bailey about the hidden cost of high‑growth success and what burnout really looks like when it sneaks up on you. Kevin shares the story of building a bootstrapped startup with two friends in his twenties, watching it explode from a team of three to over a hundred people
S2E4: Navigating the Intersection of Product and Sales with Richard Cawkill
What really happens when sales and product have to sit in the same room and agree on what matters?In this episode, Karl talks with Richard Cawkill about the lived reality of working at the messy, often misunderstood intersection of sales and product. Richard shares what it feels like to carry a number, build long‑term relationships with customers, and still genuinely care about protecting the inte
S2E3: Navigating the Intersection of Product and Marketing with Austin Fuller
What if the biggest risk to your product isn’t what you build, but how you talk about it?In this episode, Karl sits down with Austin Fuller to unpack the very human tension between product and product marketing, and why getting that relationship wrong often shows up much later, in churn, confusion, or missed expectations. Austin shares what he’s learned from years of listening closely to customers
S2E2: Managing Stress and Influence Without Authority with Keith Allen Johns
Have you ever ended a workday exhausted, knowing you were busy all day, but unsure what actually moved forward?In this episode, Karl sits down with Keith Allen Johns to talk about the invisible weight product managers carry and why the stress of the role so often shows up at work and at home. Keith shares his own journey from climbing to the C‑suite to realizing that something still felt off, and
S2E1: Mastering the Craft of Product Management with Michael Palmer and Evie Brockwell
What happens when two product people stop chasing perfection and start talking honestly about the job?In this episode, Karl is joined by Evie Brockwell and Michael Palmer for a wide-ranging, refreshingly human conversation about what product work really feels like day to day. Michael shares the excitement and pressure of stepping into BBC iPlayer, including the surreal experience of watching real
S1E8: And Then I Went Ice Skating
What do ice skating, a broken leg, and product management have in common?In this reflective season finale, Karl and Danielle look back on the first season of Productly Speaking through a story neither of them planned to tell. Karl shares the unexpectedly dramatic moment when a casual family ice skating trip ended with a broken leg, surgery, and weeks of forced stillness. What started as a personal
S1E7: The Triad of Design, Engineering, and Product with Johannes Marbach and Callum Upfield
What does great product work look like when everyone actually trusts each other?In this episode, Karl and Danielle sit down with Johannes and Callum for a candid conversation about what really happens when product, design, and engineering work well together. Both guests share lived experiences from inside teams where things either quietly clicked or slowly unraveled, often based on how early peopl
S1E6: The 2 Hour Design Sprint with Teresa Cain
What if solving a hard product problem did not require days of meetings, just two focused hours and the right people in the room?In this episode, Karl and Danielle talk with Teresa Cain about the real moments that led her to rethink how teams solve problems together. Teresa shares how the pressure of remote work during the pandemic, combined with leadership expectations and life as a working paren
S1E5: Navigating the Beautiful Mess with John Cutler
What happens when you stop looking for the “right” answer and start sitting with the mess instead?In this episode, Karl and Danielle talk with John Cutler about a product career that never followed a straight line. John shares stories from an eclectic early path, including dropping out of school, building a wildly inappropriate CD‑ROM bartending game in the late 90s, and learning the hard way that
S1E4: Driving Success in Your Startup with Adam Strong
What does it really take to say no to a huge deal and mean it?In this episode, Karl sits down with Adam Strong for a candid, thoughtful conversation about the messy reality of product work and careers that rarely follow a straight line. Adam shares his journey from technical support and people management into product leadership, and eventually out the other side into solutions architecture, with h
S1E3: Customer Success Helps Focus Product Direction with Amy Taylor Mitchell and Trevor Mishler
What if your product problems are not really product problems at all, but expectation problems?In this episode, Karl and Danielle talk with Amy Taylor Mitchell and Trevor Mishler about what actually happens to young companies once the first customers say yes. Drawing from careers spent deep in customer conversations, Amy and Trevor share stories from early stage startups where excitement, pressure
S1E2: Navigating the Challenge of Product Market Fit with Bob Handlin
What if being ten times better still is not enough?In this episode, Karl and Danielle talk with Bob Handlin about the hard lessons that only show up once a product meets the real world. Bob shares a story from his time working on a storage product that was undeniably fast, jaw‑dropping fast, the kind of performance that should have won the market on the spot. And yet, deal after deal fell apart wh
S1E1: The Art of Revealing Customer Needs with Jennifer Scalf
What if the most important thing you can do with customer feedback is slow down and really listen?In this episode, Karl and Danielle are joined by Jennifer Scalf, someone who has spent nearly two decades living in the space between products and customers. Jennifer shares what it is actually like to walk into high‑stakes conversations where something is not working, tensions are high, and everyone
S0E4: Product Manager as Coach
What can ice hockey teach you about being a better product manager?In this episode, Karl and Danielle explore the idea of the product manager as a coach, drawing inspiration from the fast, physical, and surprisingly strategic world of ice hockey. Karl shares a moment of realization while watching a game, noticing how coaches constantly adjust lines, manage energy, and respond in real time to what
S0E3: Zizzer-Zoof Seeds and Product Market Fit
What if you are working incredibly hard to sell something that nobody actually needs?In this episode, Karl and Danielle unpack the now infamous Zizzer‑Zoof Seeds, borrowed from a Dr. Seuss poem and uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has ever poured energy into a product that just will not land. Through humor and honesty, they explore what it feels like to go home with sore feet after another lon
S0E2: The Pickle Jar
What happens when you join a team full of smart, capable people… and you grab for the jar they’ve already tried everything to open?In this episode, Karl and Danielle talk candidly about the realities of being a product manager at different stages of a product’s life, and why impact can feel wildly different depending on where you sit. They share the story behind the “pickle jar effect,” that uncom
S0E1: What Does It Mean To Be a Product Manager?
What if the best way into product management is never planned at all?In this inaugural episode of Productly Speaking, Karl and Danielle start where most product careers actually begin: by accident. They share the very human stories of how each of them “tripped and fell” into product management, not through a carefully mapped career plan, but through moments where something simply clicked. A conver
Show Trailer
What happens when two people from opposite sides of the Atlantic realize they’ve been asking the same product questions all along?This short trailer introduces Productly Speaking, a podcast hosted by Karl Abbott and Danielle Kirkwood, two product managers who both found their way into the role from somewhere else. Karl came up through support at Red Hat. Danielle moved from design into product whi
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