85: Yasi Baiani | SVP Product & Marketing, Cleo

Hello everyone. You are listening to She Leads with Carly. I'm your host, Carly Malatsky, and my guest today is Yasi Baiani. Yasi is a product and strategy executive and has been in various health tech companies of all sizes in the last decade. She's currently the Senior VP of Product and Marketing at Clio. A family caregiving platform that offers support to families and caregivers so that they can balance work and their family responsibilities. Prior to Clio, she has led products at companies like Teladoc Health, Fitbit, and Athena Health. And aside from product and strategy, Yasi has also played a key role as an investor for early-stage companies and has even been on the entrepreneurial side when she started her own company called Active Pepper, which was a mobile application that helps people find fitness partners and sports activities locally. She did this while receiving her MBA from Harvard Business School. This and so much more, I am so excited to get started. Yasi, how are you? Thank you for joining me on She Leads.

Hi, Carly, it's great to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to have a conversation.

Of course. So first, set the scene. Where are you in the world? How's the work situation? What's going on?

Absolutely. I'm talking to you here today from Silicon Valley where I live with my 2 kids and my husband, and I've been working since the pandemic remotely, which I do not complain as a mom. I love working remotely. So kind of getting into the Zoom world pretty much all day, all week.

Amazing. Yes, remote work does definitely have its benefits, especially as a mom and whatnot. So I love that. So Yasi, I love going back to the beginning. You graduated from Berkeley. I wanna know first, where did this passion for technology come from? And did you always know you wanted to go into product? Was this something that you always had this passion for? How did it come about? Sure.

No, I had no idea what the product management is when I kind of, was in my early kind of youth and teenage ages. First of all, I landed in Silicon Valley when I was 19. That really kind of started the beginning of getting exposed to technology, Silicon Valley, all the vibe that exists here. I was blown away by all the conversation in any cafe I would go. People were pitching to VCs. Anywhere you drive in Silicon Valley, there were all these big companies. So that energy and the exposure I had to technology really kind of ignited a fire inside me me and seeing firsthand what technology can enable, which really gravitated me towards technology and entrepreneurship. And when I went to UC Berkeley, graduated from there, I initially decided to do investment banking. So I— my first job was in one of the top 4 investment banks at that point was called Citigroup. Today's called Citibank. And as a young person, it was a really fun, awesome job. I would travel between Silicon Valley, New York, China, Europe, taking companies public, be part of large M&As. And I really honed some key skills that even today I use them in my role, particularly the love for data analytics and financial modeling, which honestly make me a better product person because I always approach any problem with like data and analytics approach. And also that's a key part of what me and my team do in order to evaluate what we are building and the impact of those for any business. So ultimately at investment banking, I decided that money is not the only driver for me. And I really wanted to do something different. And kind of that initial exposure and Silicon Valley experience I had really gravitated me towards venture investment, which was probably one of the first, one of the best jobs I've ever had when I look back at my career. And that's particularly because in venture role, you get to hear a lot of really amazing ideas when they're so early. They're basically ideas on a napkin or a piece of paper. Which is then really fascinating to look back and see when the companies scale. And of course, many companies fail along the way, but some of them scale and they become iconic companies. And being part of kind of seeing that has been really fascinating experience. And for me, there were a few instances that I remember from that journey. One is when Twitter pitch made it to my desk and I was blown away by the whole concept of what a 140-character type of communication can do for us and how that can really change how we kind of consume information. And we see it today, like we all move to bite-sized communication, the videos, text, everything tend to be shorter and smaller. And I think a lot of it is a trend that Twitter created. And at that point, I remember like insisting to our— my partners to invest in Twitter. Unfortunately, we passed on Twitter, but we were lucky to invest in Tesla. So our firm was one of the early investors in Elon Musk and Tesla. And another kind of fun memory from that era is that I remember one of the first Roadsters come to our office for a test drive and kind of getting to hear really bold, really visionary ideas of Elon Musk early on and how he envisioned to bring all of this to the whole world was really fascinating. And seeing him now build such an amazing company are kind of some of my highlights from that time.

Wow.

Yeah.

So, Yasi, I have to ask, first of all, that's incredible, right? Getting Twitter on your desk and then Tesla, all of these, you know, now companies that are making an impact every moment of our lives, if you will. So I'm curious now, as you know, someone who's also transitioning to venture capital, you came from investment banking. And as you said, so much of it, especially at this early stage, is having this intuition for the person, right? It's not even just, it's the idea on a napkin. It's really tapping into the founder and investing in them and what they're going to do. How did you develop that muscle, if you will? Do you think it's a muscle? How did you really become better at, you know, seeing, okay, this is someone we want to invest in?

Yeah, absolutely. I think there's like, you know, venture similar to many roles is some, you know, art and science combined. In early days, it's very much the art and really understanding that founders, their relationships are so key to build those relationships, particularly now. There's still, even going through the downturn, I feel like there's still plenty of money to be deployed. But the question is like, where people wanted to invest their money. And on the founder side, particularly people like Elon Musk and really amazing founders, they have the option to pick from, you know, various types of checks that come their way. So the question is like, how do you build that relationship? And I think the particular part that's really important as an investor to develop is really understanding the trends, the consumer trends, the employment trends, the market trends, where things are going, and really get yourself deep into that. And then identify based on that, what could be actually the next movement? What could be the next behavioral change that we'll have as individuals and as a community? So I think social media was early days when Twitter kind of was also born. So really trying to understand which of the social media had opportunity to really kind of hone and change the way we all communicate and connect with each other was the question, you know, we all were trying to answer at that point. And there were some really early players like Orkut and, you know, other ones. They kind of didn't grow at the level that Facebook or Twitter did. And then the next wave of social media, social media players came in. So really trying to hone in that skill, I think, is key. And it's not always easy when you're sitting. It's always easy when you look back. But when you're there sitting and trying to make those decisions is very difficult.

Yeah, it's interesting. It reminds me so much of right now I'm at Floodgate, right? It's a very early-stage investing firm. And one thing that Mike, the partner at Floodgate, co-founder, he mentions all the time exactly kind of what you're saying is this idea of thinking in the future. We can't think right now in the present and, you know, a current problem, how are we solving this? And it's exactly what you said. It's really tapping into what are the trends of the future? Where are consumers going to? What does social media look like in the future? So I think it's so valuable. It's such a different mentality to take on.

Yeah. And thinking about every 10 or so years, like the way we utilize technology and the companies we, and the products we're adopting changes generally. So like thinking about what are the products today that are almost mature, they're kind of going out of date, out of date. And then what would that look like in, you know, 3 years from now, and really trying to find those companies, I think, is the art of venture investment.

Amazing. So keep going down this journey. Obviously, you then decided to get an MBA from Harvard Business School, and also, you know, be on the other side of venture capital instead of venture capitalists. Now you're starting your own thing. So take me through that process. And what was the impetus?

Yeah, absolutely. I think some of it was a combination of things. I think my entrepreneurial spirit, I had my first business at the age of 14. So I always kind of carry that inside of me. But also when I was at Harvard, kind of observing some of the problems that people wanted to go and do workouts and want to find classes. But this kind of combination of what is the right fit for you was, was a big question. And kind of a few of us did a bunch of research. And we realized there is actually a gap in the market that you, if you want to find classes or sports partners, it actually like there is no platform that allows you to find that match. And I think a few companies at that point emerged to try to solve that problem. One of them was ClassPass. At that point, it was called Classitivity. And then ActivePepper and a few other players. We were all trying to solve the same problem. So while I was at business school, because of my kind of exposure and aspiration by the entrepreneurs I've seen, but also like my interest into kind of entrepreneurship in general, I decided to start Active Pepper with my co-founder. And we tried to basically solve that problem. We had kind of great initial success and traction. But as we were trying to grow, it became really hard. And we really funded the company through various venture competition and awards that we won at Harvard. And really, when we start scaling that, we realized we need to pivot and change parts of the product. And we didn't have enough funding to do that. So I think at the end, after 18 months, we decided to actually shut down Active Pepper. But the experiences and the kind of learnings I had from that was transformational for me in terms of like, first of all, where my passion is. My passion is to building something from nothing, is to really understand people and their problem and create solutions for them. through technology. So that was one of the biggest self-discoveries I had, which kind of led me to product since then. And I never looked back. I love, you know, what I'm doing. And then the other pieces of it is all the learning you have as an entrepreneur, like what to do and what not.

So share with me a little bit about now, you know, being in the entrepreneur seat, what are some learnings that you took away from it? And especially what advice can you give other entrepreneurs that are starting a company right now?

Absolutely. First of all, it's a really transformational experience. There's nothing like it when you actually are the founder. Just the love and passion you put in a company, the experience you have. So there's so much of that that, you know, only founders know the feeling. And so I encourage people who are interested to go and try it. And I will advise them to hopefully do with, you know, following lens but also like really go into it equipped with knowledge so that you increase your chances of success, because we know that most of the companies don't succeed. First of all, funding is really key. When to raise money and have that timing right so that you can buy yourself time to go through the cycles that you're required is really key. First of all, like, you know, raising before you actually launch your product so that if there are learnings after that, you can pivot and then you know, do other things versus, you know, doing it at another time, raise enough money that you have enough run rate. Again, if you need to do pivot, also you have funding for that. So I think we know that really the time and money is all that matter in, you know, startup. And of course, the resilience and idea and market opportunity, all of those also are important. But it's like how much time you have and money to get to the next big milestones for that company. So I think the timing of the funding, I can't emphasize how important it is and how strategically founders should think about that, not just the kind of step ahead of them, but also have scenario A, B, C. If something didn't work out, what is your plan B? And how are you going to make sure you have enough funding? So kind of that scenario analysis is really key. The other piece is really be customer obsessed. And customer obsessed means like you really spend time to understand your customers, their behaviors, their problems. And while you're doing that, even though we all are passionate you know, founders, we wanted to pitch our, you know, product and idea, we should really hold back to pitch. Because during the pitch, you're selling, you're kind of trying to really convince other people about your idea and about your product. While your customer discovery and where you're really trying to understand that customers, you need to listen a lot more and speak a lot less to really observe and understand the customer problems, And kind of related to that is I can't emphasize how important it is to understand alternative solutions that consumers have today and the competitive landscape.

Yeah.

Because understanding that will allow you to say, what are you doing differently? Because you have to kind of scratch from scratch, create that brand product opportunity for your own company versus existing products or competitors. What are you doing so differently that consumers will shift and use your product? So under— understanding that, I think, is also really key. So I think those are some of the key ones. And in terms of personal skills, I learned that entrepreneurship is really the game of resilience and hustle. There's so much hustle involved. And the ones that really succeed is, you know, Idealwe and ClassPass had the same idea. They had more funding, but also like the kind of hustle that you go and stick with it and try to figure it out and try different business models, try different products, is really key to increase the chances of success of the company and ability to monetize from day one. Yeah, go ahead.

So, okay, I can take this in a few different directions, but one thing I am curious about is, say someone, you find almost 2 heads, one where you have the entrepreneurial mindset where they're just passionate about starting something, but they don't know what that is. And it's more like, okay, I want to start a company now and let's now go to the drawing board and ideate and see what problem is out there that we want to solve. And then on the other hand, you have those who, you know, like similar to what you experienced with Active Pepper is that you saw it as a personal problem and you wanted to fix it and you wanted to help, you know, a problem that you saw could help many people right then and there. How do you, do you also see this dichotomy? Does it come into play? How do you view the different mindsets, whether one is better than the other or advice for different entrepreneurs?

Yeah, absolutely. I think most of the founders we see, they kind of approach it with they seeing a problem within in their own work or community or for themselves or their family, and then they start a business. That's one route. That's a more common route, I would say. But I've also seen a lot of kind of incubators, venture entrepreneur in residence, you know, people who go to ventures and try to figure things out, or just in general entrepreneur with a lot more, I would say, kind of rigorous mindset and process-oriented.

Yeah.

They'll go through the route that you mentioned, that they kind of look at the, the market and opportunities and try to kind of assess where the gaps might be. I think both could work. I would say the latter is based on my experience, I've seen less of that, more are the, you know, first type of founders, how they approach a problem.

Right.

Both could work. What I would say is like, it's not a great idea to build a product for yourself. As a product person, we always say you need to listen and build solutions for a large number of people. It's not good to just customize something for your own problems.

Yeah.

A lot of times that doesn't scale well. So that's one thing to keep in mind for entrepreneurs who approach it that way. The other approach, I've actually had 2 companies that I've advised that they actually approach it, you know, from the other methodology to look at the, you know, interviewed a lot of people. One of them actually interviewed 100 women to identify a problem they had, and then they started a company based on that. So I think either one could work. I think you know, people just kind of take different approaches. The most important thing is to make sure you're still customer obsessed, you do research, never get too tied to a particular idea or business model or approach, and really continue to test and iterate and make sure you constantly are seeing progress with the business, that you don't get stuck.

And then before we even get into product, you mentioned the importance of funding and timing of funding. How— what advice do you have for those founders who You know, try to have to balance the importance of investor relationships and having the right people part of your team and investing versus we need funding now, right? And the pressure to move fast.

Ideally, you position yourself to be a founder that you can always choose. So that's my first advice. Prepare your journey for entrepreneurship before you really pull the trigger to do that. Build those relationships. Think about who will be your co-founder, who will be your team if you wanted to do this, what kind of a team you need. Don't pull the trigger and start thinking about all this because then again, it goes back to the point I was mentioning, time to get to what you need. You wanted to pull that time in and do that while hopefully you're doing something else, thinking about that, build those relationships, understand what's needed to build a successful business. And while, when then you are in the position to raise money, hopefully you already can just send a few emails in an ideal scenario, but we all know fundraising is a lot more difficult than that. So I don't want to send a false kind of signal.

Right.

But at least you have the relationships, at least you can send 20 emails to people who know you, who have done some, who have had some exposure to you. Ideally, you can get them to then also send some warm emails to other investors, rather than you trying to now go to LinkedIn and figure out, you know, which investor is the right fit for your category, for instance.

Yeah.

So you want to do a lot of that work in advance, and really kind of put yourself in the best position to success, basically.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's, that's very valuable. So, okay. Take me now. When did you break into product? How did you discover that product management is the best move for you after Active Pepper? And what advice do you have for those breaking in?

Yeah, absolutely. So I think it was really after that kind of entrepreneurial experience and after we shut down Active Pepper, I kind of did a self-discovery and I was like, what are the parts of my job as a founder I really enjoy the most? And really came down to like creating something, really spending time to figure out where that product market fit is, where the opportunity is, how do we solve the problem with technology, what things are key. So that kind of led me to my first role as a product person that was in Athena. But also because I had so much affinity for, you know, fitness and wellness and all that, I was also very closely watching wearable market. I was actually one of those weird people who had 15 of those devices on their wrist and testing all these different products. And I started writing about wearables pretty early on. That kind of gave me some traction in that area. And there were not that many experts in wearable market. So I became one of the early experts and then eventually, you know, landed on my role at Fitbit, which again was one of my best roles. I really enjoyed the team, the learnings I had there, the opportunity. And then kind of seeing the company going from a smaller company to fast growth and IPO and all the kind of different stages was invaluable. And I had amazing learning from the people I worked there at Fitbit. They've been one of my best mentors and advocates, and I have tremendous amount of respect for all of them.

Yeah.

So that's kind of how I started in the product route. And I think my advice for people is a few things. First of all, find your passion, but that's not enough. I found a passion in that like kind of wellness health category, but it was also in a fast-growing market. And that kind of goes back to the advice that Ben Horowitz had in one of the speeches he gave to the graduates. Don't just follow your passion. If you just follow your passion in a very small category or a dying category, that it will not get you far in your career. So you wanted to again, approach this very strategically. What are your passions as a product person? And what are the kind of fast-growing industries that you are best fit to kind of like go and do interesting things there and help grow that category? And I think that's really key to try to understand. And product is a bit of a different role than some of the other, you know, roles. For many roles, you don't need to become an expert in your category. In product, because you need to come up with the even at the early stages, understanding the need of the member, the strategy, what do we build to address those needs, really understanding that category will give you a huge advantage. So I encourage you to find that passion, find that category, and try to build expertise in that area as much as possible.

Yeah. And one thing you mentioned that you took a lot away from Active Pepper being an entrepreneur and then transitioning to product. And probably one of those is even As a product manager, I've heard from, you know, all the guests I've had on my show that empathy is one of the most important aspects and really stepping into your user's shoes. What are some other product muscles, if you will, and how do you think are good ways to grow, grow those muscles, especially for new product people coming in?

Yeah, absolutely. I think as I shared, product is a really fascinating role. It kind of sits in the middle of many other functions, partially between business and engineering. But also when you look at even within the R&D products, it's between design and UX research and engineering and data analytics. So there's a lot to expect sometimes from product people because they need to understand all of those dimensions to some extent. And depending on the size of the company, the type of product discipline they have and the gaps they have in the overall team, the expectation is the product team will lean in more in that area that there is a gap. For instance, if there is lack of design resources or design kind of acumen, the expectation is that the PM can lean in there. If there is kind of lack of UX research team, the expectation is PM can run UX research and do all the discovery. If the technical team needs support, again, expectation is that the PM can lean in and understand that. So back to your question of what kind of skill is needed, really try to build that multidisciplinary skills as much as you could. And it's hard from day one, but try. And all of us have, you know, certain strengths and weaknesses. I think particularly it's important for PM to understand, kind of categorize themselves in 3 ways. Are you more of a technical PM? Are you more of a design-oriented UX research type of PM with a lot of empathy and customer discovery background? Or are you more of a business strategies type of PM? First of all, understand that from your own kind of background and strength and try to lean in more in where you're strong, but also make sure you kind of COVID and understand some of your weaknesses and learn in that area too. So if you're not technical, try to put some effort to learn that. But guess what? You probably will never become as expert as an engineering type of background coming into the product role. So be aware of that, but have enough skills so you can carry the conversation. You can make sound decisions in whatever area that you needed, but then build upon your strengths. So I think that's really, you know, key. And to me, communication and collaboration is a really important skill. There's nothing— I don't think any leader has got, you know, penalized or got feedback for, you know, communicating too much, or any PM got that feedback. Always more communication, better. So communication, effective communication, frequent communication with all your stakeholders and teams, And collaboratively working with them is a key soft skill for PMs to succeed because again, their role is so cross-functional. So really trying to build those skills.

Yeah. And so you mentioned in the first part of knowing what your strength is. So say I'm a technical PM, so I maybe don't have as much business acumen. And you said try, right? Try and learn. What does that look like? Does that look like I'm going to talk to Strategy leaders in the same company? Am I reading articles? Am I listening to podcasts? What does that actually look like? How do I gain those skills?

All of the above. All of the above. Practical ones are read books, read content, sign up for online courses. Today, there is, first of all, the skills and things we all need to know change so fast. Like we all have to constantly learn. So that's one thing as a product, as an engineering, we have to build that muscle. So growth mindset, learning mindset is key for any role anyways, in my mind. And I always encourage my team, I offer them books, I offer them, you know, go take this course if you're taking a new role and it's a new area. Like, I really encourage them to take new courses in that area. And it's easier today because you can take online courses. So everything is available. So do all that, listen to webinars, listen to industry experts. So kind of ingrain yourself in that category, if it's a design or product management craft, whatever you're trying to understand, there's a lot of content that you can really ingrain yourself into. But also to your point, that's not enough, right? Ask for intro. If you wanted to become a better strategist or commercially facing type of PM, ask your head of sales or commercial leaders to introduce you to 5 more commercial leaders or to 5 more, you know, head of products so that you can talk to them, see what it is like. How do I do that? Right? And if you're in a company that has that level of skill internally, if you're at Google, Facebook, try to build those relationships within the company. So I think really understanding and understanding from everyone's background, because my experience is very different than someone else's. So talking to each of us, you kind of really build your own repository of information and you decide how you want to approach your career and your craft.

Yeah. I love it. No, that's so helpful. When you're looking at PMs and you're the products that you lead, the product managers, What do you think are the most challenges that people, that PMs fail in, that really there's a lack in?

Yeah, I think there's a few things. One is I feel as a PM, as I shared earlier, expertise and understanding the product in and out and competitive product in and out and your consumer in and out is really key. So I've seen sometimes product people take their time to really understand that within a company. So I think that the faster you can understand the existing product within each company, The good and bad of that, how would you fix that? How would you make it better is really key. And also trying to use the combination of data, user research, market research to come up with the solution that you wanted to propose. When PMs either take their time very long to do that, so then they don't get there fast enough, or they significantly ignore one dimension, like they don't use data as much, they don't use voice of customer as much.

Right.

Then the kind of solutions start becoming less bulletproof and people have less kind of buy-in into the direction or solutions they're proposing. So that's one thing. And I think relationships are key. Like as product people, we rely on so many functions to successfully, you know, build the product, engineering team, design team, you know, commercial team, product marketing team. So when PMs don't build those relationships and don't invest in that, then it becomes harder for them to do their job. Then everything slows down. Everything is less effective and it kind of causes failure. So those are the areas I would really encourage people to kind of watch and spend time on early on, building relationship, understanding the existing product, and really expand the tools in the toolkit, understanding how to use those tools.

Amazing, amazing. So take me through your process. You've obviously now as SVP of Product Marketing at Clio, Through this journey of going from, you know, product manager to head of product at different companies, how did that transition look like? How did your role responsibilities look like? And then internally, was there some imposter syndrome? How are you dealing with these different leadership responsibilities that came your way?

Yeah, absolutely. I think there are a few things. One is I always make my decision about the roles I took based on people, product, and mission. So then because those things are generally in a really good place, I kind of can push through, you know, whatever that is to make the product out, to get our team to be successful. So I think that's one thing is make sure you land on what matters to you then, because again, the role is not easy like many other roles. So you have to have that stamina to make sure like you're successful and your team is successful. I'm kind of early on, of course, like my role and scope of the work was smaller, but I always made sure that I may take whatever responsibility that I had, I make that successful. For me, it was like being goal-oriented, being, you know, metrics-driven, and really kind of aligning myself and my team with the company's goal and business goal was one of my things, superpower. I always kind of identify what are the big projects and big opportunities that allow the business to succeed and be competitively positioned. And one success kind of led to the other. I think at Fitbit, I remember when they gave me a role to be a product person for wellness, I spent quite a bit of time with our R&D team, with all of our researchers, and did market research, did a lot of competitive research to come up with where in wellness we have to invest in more and And we went with sleep based on the recommendation our team had versus weight or other things we could have prioritized. And that led to kind of success of our team. Why did we come up with that? Because we had the competitive advantage at that point from technological perspective versus our competitors. We knew that based on all the research we have done. We were one of the first ones, we were tracking heart rate variability, and that was key for having a sleep stage that is sound and sophisticated. So we did all that. We invested in sleep. And even I would say today, out of all the sleep trackers, probably Fitbit Sleep is one of the best, if not the best. And definitely in that, you know, first few years was the best product in the market. And that gave us a lot of competitive advantage. And sleep part of Fitbit was the most engaged part of the product for multiple years. So, the richness of the information we created there, the experience we created there, the insights we created there, and kind of actionable, actionable kind of insights we created there led consumers to come back over and over. And that led my role to kind of expand. And then I, you know, strategize and help launch female health, which was another successful category. We had over 2 million users adopting it in the first month. So, kind of like really strategically approaching things allowed our team to have kind of small and big successes under our belt. And I always approach that— again, I've learned from folks I work with at Fitbit a lot, from my head of product and my boss, and also like our head of design and many other people that I work with there. We approached problems from user lens at Fitbit and a lot of research, combining that with our, you know, technological advantages. That was what I carry in my next roles. I always approach it with deep research, understanding market and competitive landscape, and then kind of come up with the sound strategies that we can actually apply and execute in the timeframes that we had in mind. So I think that ended up being, you know, a theme. And I think my role is now very different, but still, like a lot of times I have to sometimes lean in to pixel perfect with my design team and get really deep. But a lot of my work is strategic, supporting our commercial teams, Um, so like spending time with our clients, um, spending time with my team, really bringing the craft of product and marketing together, which I'm personally really passionate about, um, because I think understanding them, the customers and their needs, and how do you build that kind of, um, overall experience through the marketing is really, really fascinating and exciting opportunity. Um, and kind of, I spend my time split between product and marketing at this point. And I have an amazing team that I can't ask for a better team, particularly at Clio. I've always been lucky to have amazing teams and people I work with, but at Clio, like super driven, super mission-focused, super capable team that honestly I can challenge them with any goal and they're just like laser-focused and hit that. So I think that's a really good place to be as a leader.

Yeah. So speaking about, you know, an amazing team, do you have certain secret tricks, if you will, of choosing the right team? Right. And like making sure that who's coming on board have the growth mindset, like you mentioned, and all the different attributes that make a great product team?

Yeah, absolutely. First of all, as you're building the product team, it's really important to understand the gaps overall within the R&D function, within the company, figure out like what gaps you wanted to fill and what skills. So that's one thing because my team is pretty much multidisciplinary at this point. They're not only product managers, they're product design, UX research, content, you know, various other groups sit within our team, but understanding the gaps and really make sure first of all, hire for those gaps. I think when you're hiring, you wanted to look at what individuals you need, but what does that look like as a cohesive team together? So that's one key thing, strengths and weaknesses, and how do you basically construct that team as a whole? The other thing is that you really wanted to raise the bar with each hiring. So that's really important. Bring people along that everyone else gets excited and inspired to work with them. And that's why we have a very rigorous process for our hiring. We, I think the process is really key for us all, like knowing what you need, but then also put a collaborative, rigorous process in place to hire people that not only fit the skills that you need, but also are bringing, you know, cultural value to the team and kind of are, you know, good players with the rest of the team and bring the team who's working with them into the decision-making. So any person we hired, we had, you know, a few rounds of interviews that multiple of us conducted. And also we had a panel that people come and present depending on their function, they present different things. If it's design, they'll show their portfolio. If it's a PM, we had an exercise for them to do. But that allows us to have a buy-in of the team and every hire we had, every one of us were excited about the person. And then when they come in, we do a— I think onboarding is really key to set the person for success. And then from there on is really just set the clear goals and support the team. For me, it's really important to be there as much as possible for the team, in it with them, to support them, to kind of hit the goals that they have and we all have.

Amazing. Wow, Yasi, this has been so, so informative and I've learned so much. I have to ask, So you've been on almost every side, if you will, in tech in the sense of product, right at the center of the product within a big organization, within startups, also the entrepreneur and also the investor. When you think of your future, if you will, how do you imagine it and what role really speaks to you and where do you see yourself growing the most?

Yeah, I think as Steve Jobs said, you can only connect the dots backwards. So it's really hard to kind of draw it forward. So I don't know, I'm very open always to future options. Always open to big challenges, you know, so that's kind of been common through my kind of career. But what I know is I also get a lot of energy from doing all of these together, because I think they're all, you know, related investment, you know, doing things like this to help the future, you know, generation to figure out what they wanted to do and grow, mentoring, Being in a kind of operator side, they all are related. And there's so much of the learnings I can kind of apply from one side to the other. But who knows what's going to be the future, but I'm excited about whatever that is. And I'm always up for challenges.

Yeah, I love it. And I love one thing specifically you said that was so quick, but just what gives you energy, right? Like you tap into what is giving you energy. And that's something that I can very much relate to. And I tap into that and it's very telling. So I love that. And I really, I've loved this episode with you. So thank you Thank you so much for joining She Leads. It's been amazing.

Thank you so much for having me.