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April 21, 2024 • 1hr 40min
Vision, conviction, and hype: How to build 0 to 1 inside a company | Mihika Kapoor (Product at Figma)
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Mihika Kapoor is a design-engineer-PM hybrid at Figma, where she was an early PM on FigJam and is now spearheading development on a new product launching in June. She's known as the go-to person at Figma for leading new 0-to-1 products and is beloved by her colleagues. In this conversation, Lenny and Mihika discuss how to effectively take ideas from 0 to 1 at larger companies, craft compelling visions, build strong team cultures, and navigate the current AI revolution's impact on product management.
Vision, conviction, and hype: How to build 0 to 1 inside a company | Mihika Kapoor (Product at Figma)
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Key Takeaways
- Vision is everything for product development. It's crucial to create a vision you and your team believe in to stay anchored during the messy, chaotic process.
- Crafting a compelling vision requires being inseparable from users and your team, incorporating research insights, beautiful designs/prototypes, and engineering feasibility.
- Strong conviction allows you to navigate the messy journey from zero to one and rally your team. It's important to communicate your level of confidence clearly.
- Direct communication is key, but it must be two-way. Create a culture where everyone feels comfortable giving opinions and communicating their confidence level.
- Building hype internally and externally is crucial for new products. Find opportunities to demo and get people excited, even if the product is still rough.
- Culture is important because it establishes trust between people. Investing in team bonding and fun activities makes work more enjoyable and builds stronger relationships.
- Pivoting with grace and enthusiasm is a valuable skill. Be adaptable when priorities change or projects are killed.
- To successfully bring new ideas from 0 to 1 at larger companies: 1) Have the right idea (user empathy + company goals), 2) Secure buy-in, 3) Make it spread across the organization.
- Understand individual motivations on your team to cater to each person rather than the average. This leads to higher functioning teams.
Introduction
Mihika Kapoor is a design-engineer-PM hybrid at Figma, where she was an early PM on FigJam and is now spearheading development on a new product launching in June. She's known as the go-to person at Figma for leading new 0-to-1 products and is beloved by her colleagues. In this conversation, Lenny and Mihika discuss how to effectively take ideas from 0 to 1 at larger companies, craft compelling visions, build strong team cultures, and navigate the current AI revolution's impact on product management.
Topics Discussed
Crafting a Compelling Vision (7:34)
Mihika emphasizes that vision is everything in product development. A strong vision helps anchor the team during the messy, chaotic process of building something new. Key aspects of crafting a compelling vision include:
- Being inseparable from users and your team
- Incorporating research insights, beautiful designs/prototypes, and engineering feasibility
- Creating a single artifact that the team builds together, rather than separate deliverables
- Leaning heavily into designing and prototyping even before a project gets a green light
Mihika shares an example from her work on FigJam, where the vision centered around creating a more democratic workplace by extending the collaborative nature of brainstorming to other types of meetings.
Developing Strong Conviction (26:36)
Strong conviction allows product managers to navigate the messy journey from zero to one and rally their team. Mihika discusses the importance of:
- Creating momentum and forward progress
- Building intuition through constant user conversations
- Putting out ideas, even if they might be wrong, to catalyze discussion
- Being willing to "kill your darlings" if external signals contradict your conviction
"I think that one of the most important things for a PM to create for their team is momentum. You have to constantly be creating forward progress, know, probably towards that vision that we were just talking about." - Mihika Kapoor
Direct Communication (27:45)
Mihika advocates for direct communication but emphasizes that it must be two-way to be effective. She recommends:
- Being explicit about your confidence level in ideas
- Creating a culture where everyone feels comfortable speaking up
- Asking for feedback before giving it to create a balanced exchange
- Acting on feedback quickly to incentivize continued input
Building Hype (32:48)
Building hype is crucial for new products, both internally and externally. Mihika shares strategies for creating excitement:
- Leveraging company-wide forums like hackathons and sales kickoffs
- Pushing products to get visibility, even if they're not fully ready
- Using early staging and dogfooding processes to get feedback and investment from colleagues
- Creating emotional connections with users through product features and launch events
"I think that hype is something that you can't really create hype for, something you don't believe in. In my opinion, the only way to create hype is to get people to see what you see." - Mihika Kapoor
Immersing Yourself in User Insights (42:20)
Mihika stresses the importance of being deeply immersed in your user base to truly understand their needs and pain points. She suggests:
- Constantly talking to users, including non-users to understand why they're not using your product
- Building relationships with sales teams and joining sales calls
- Using yourself as a litmus test for user needs, especially in early-stage startups
Operationalizing User Insights (47:16)
To make the most of user insights, Mihika recommends:
- Using insights to inform product roadmap prioritization
- Creating artifacts (like demo videos) that sales teams can use to evangelize new use cases
- Storing and grooming feedback in project management tools like Asana
Building a Strong Culture (57:00)
Mihika emphasizes the importance of culture in establishing trust and creating passion for work. She shares examples of culture-building activities at Figma:
- "Hot Seat" - A game where team members ask each other questions to build deeper connections
- "Figies" - An Oscar-style awards ceremony celebrating team members' quirks and contributions
"I think that culture is important in that it establishes trust between groups of people. And so I think that, you know, actually earlier you were asking about passion and what makes someone feel passionate about work. And I think that realistically, that passion breaks down into two things. One is like, are you passionate about the vision that you're building towards which we spoke about? But the second thing is, are you passionate about the people who you work with?" - Mihika Kapoor
Pivoting with Grace and Enthusiasm (1:07:07)
Mihika shares her experience founding Design Nation, a national design conference for students, as an example of pivoting with grace when faced with challenges. Key lessons include:
- Being adaptable when resources or support change
- Leveraging cold outreach to build connections and support
- Focusing on the most important aspects of a project when pivoting
Building New Products at Larger Companies (1:16:07)
Mihika discusses the importance of staying entrepreneurial for companies to remain competitive. She outlines three key steps for successfully bringing new ideas from 0 to 1:
- Have the right idea (combining user empathy and company goals)
- Secure buy-in for the idea
- Make it spread across the organization
"I think that one of the most important things for a PM to create for their team is momentum. You have to constantly be creating forward progress, know, probably towards that vision that we were just talking about." - Mihika Kapoor
Understanding Individual Motivations (1:29:15)
Mihika emphasizes the importance of understanding individual team members' motivations to create high-functioning teams. She recommends:
- Directly asking team members about their preferences for involvement in product decisions
- Taking decisions in the open to give everyone a chance to voice their perspective
- Catering to individual motivations rather than the average
Conclusion
Mihika Kapoor's insights provide a comprehensive guide for product managers looking to drive innovation and build successful products within larger organizations. Her emphasis on vision, conviction, direct communication, and understanding individual motivations offers a roadmap for creating high-performing teams and bringing new ideas to life. By focusing on user empathy, building internal hype, and fostering a strong team culture, product managers can navigate the challenges of taking products from 0 to 1 and drive meaningful impact within their organizations.
