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Jag Duggal

Episode #130

Chief Product Officer (CPO)

Nubank

📈Growth & Metrics🎯Product Strategy🔍User Research

📝Full Transcript

15,463 words
Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:00): NewBank is bigger than Coinbase, Robinhood, Affirm, SoFi, and Lemonade combined. 80% to 90% of NewBank's growth is through word of mouth. Jag Duggal (00:00:10): We're not trying to be incrementally better, we are trying to be fundamentally different. We want our customers to love us fanatically. Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:18): It feels like NewBank is one of the historically most successful companies that launching new business lines. Jag Duggal (00:00:22): We built a lending product, we built an investment product, we built an insurance product, we built a series of small business products. We rarely scale a project until we know the Sean Ellis score hit a threshold that we find really compelling. Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:35): I want to talk about strategy. Jag Duggal (00:00:36): Kevin Systrom in the early days of Instagram, I heard him say it at a conference. We may not be right, but at least we are clear. Even if your strategy isn't right, you have a very clear idea of what was supposed to be happening. Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:49): Where do you think all this goes in the future? Jag Duggal (00:00:51): Why not have the company that reinvents banking come out of Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Bogota? Lenny Rachitsky (00:01:01): Today my guest is Jag Dougal. Jag is chief product Officer at NewBank, which is one of the most under-the-radar monster businesses that you'll ever come across with a fanatical user base, and a really unique approach to building product. Before NewBank Jag was director of product management at Facebook, leading monetization of video and third-party content, including news, gaming, and influencer content. Prior to Facebook, he was senior vice president of product and strategy at Quantcast, and group product manager and head of strategy for Display ads at Google, which was Google's second-largest business at the time. (00:01:35): In our conversation, we cover how to build products that people become fanatical about, how ...

💡 Key Takeaways

  • 1Do not scale a product until it reaches Product-Market Fit (PMF), defined by a Sean Ellis score of >40% (or >50% in optimistic cultures like Brazil).
  • 2Product strategy means making concentrated bets to be 'fundamentally different,' not just hedging with incremental improvements.
  • 3The role of a Product Manager is often to say 'no' to scaling prematurely to avoid creating 'big messes' later.
  • 4Customer research requires a crisp hypothesis beforehand; be a judge of your hypothesis, not a lawyer defending it.
  • 5Direct customer contact is vital: calling 10 customers often yields better insights than large-scale, outsourced research.
  • 6Define your own category (Category Design) to avoid competing on incumbents' terms.
  • 7Culture is operational: values like 'acting like an owner' must be practiced in daily decision-making, such as killing weak products.

📚Methodologies (3)

📈 Growth & Metrics

Nubank utilizes the Sean Ellis survey ('How disappointed would you be if this product went away?') as a strict gate. They adjust the standard 40% threshold up to 50% to account for cultural politeness in Latin America, ensuring true 'fanatical love' before growth investment.

Core Principles

  • 1.Survey customers asking if they would be 'very disappointed' without the product.
  • 2.Set a strict threshold (e.g., 50%)—if unmet, do not scale.
  • 3.If the aggregate score is low, analyze sub-segments/cohorts to find the 'bullseye' users who love it.
  • +1 more...

"We rarely scale a project until we know the Sean Ellis score hit a threshold that we find really compelling."

#high-bar#ellis#growth
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🎯 Product Strategy

Strategy is not about being incrementally better; it is about attacking a deep pain point with a solution that redefines the category on dimensions of quality, complexity, and price simultaneously. This requires concentrated bets rather than hedging.

Core Principles

  • 1.Identify a deep, emotionally held pain point (e.g., hatred of bank fees).
  • 2.Aim to be fundamentally different, not incrementally better.
  • 3.Make concentrated bets; diversification preserves wealth, concentration builds it.
  • +1 more...

"We're not trying to be incrementally better, we are trying to be fundamentally different."

#fundamentally#different#strategy
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🔍 User Research

Effective discovery starts with a crisp hypothesis. Researchers act as judges (impartially testing the idea) rather than lawyers (trying to prove the idea works). Direct observation and small sample sizes (calling 10 people) often beat large datasets.

Core Principles

  • 1.Formulate a crisp hypothesis before talking to customers.
  • 2.Act as a judge of the hypothesis, not a lawyer defending it.
  • 3.Observe behavior rather than just asking direct questions.
  • +1 more...

"If you don't have a hypothesis, you're going to spend a lot of time researching... and you're not going to know what to make of it."

#hypothesis-driven#discovery#research
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