Jason Knight takes the Problem Busters through the ins and outs of Product. What is Product as a function and why is it so important? What do businesses stand to gain from becoming "Product companies" and why does doing it your way matter so much?

This episode answers the "what is Product anyway?" question and will leave you with a solid understanding of the product-driven mindset that permeates modern companies and has resulted in the products you love, and the apps you use every day.

Jason is a straight-talking Product leader who hosts the One Knight in Product podcast, and we talk about how to start a podcast, what is involved in podcasting and why we all love it so much.

About the show:

Problem Busters is a show that explores solutions to the biggest and the smallest of problems. Hosts Jonathan Goodwin and Oliver Happy discuss making the world a better place with guests from far and wide.

About our guest:

Jason Knight is a Product Leader, Podcaster and speaker. He is Product Director at RegTech startup DueDil, and is host of the popular One Knight in Product podcast. Jason lives with his family near London.

• Jason's podcast: One Knight in Product
• Contact Jason on Linkedin
• Follow Jason on Twitter

Show mentions:

• Starting out with 19 years in big corporate, from research, to analytics, to product management and now product leadership
• Transitioning to a Fintech startup
• 02:15 Doubling down on the growth journey and ensuring you don't go stale by keeping learning and getting to understand things you didn't understand before.
• Podcasting as an interesting ride - and a way to talk to interesting people. A way to talk to up and coming product leaders
• Podcast: One Knight in Product
• 03:00 Anyone could start a podcast. Anyone can! As with most things, just go for it, try it and get started.
• Apply the Lean startup terms to learning podcasting - test and learn. Just get started with a cheap mic, plugged into your laptop. You will meet some really interesting people.
• Book: Lean Startup
• There are now well over a million podcasts out there in the world.
• 07:45 It being easy to set up a podcast means that many people have. That also means there are many - and it's hard to get attention of people who you want to have tune in. It can be an emotional rollercoaster
• YouTube as the second largest search engine on the planet and a great place to get into podcast promotion and discovery
• 09:00 One Knight in Product as a podcast focused on Product Management themes
• Inclusion and Diversity as important topics in our world today
• Themes in Product, things people are struggling with and focusing on.
• 10:00 Aspirations of becoming a Product company don't always match with reality of a business. Need to find your own way.
• 11:30 Top down, setting of culture is vital for becoming a product company. Having the correct mindset and alignment is absolutely critical.
• Enabling the culture and the cross-functionality and the teams that are needed to have discussions and make difficult prioritisation decisions.
• 12:30 What is a product? Something that solves and important problem in a scalable way, for as many people as possible, in a profitable way.
• 16:40 What is a product company vs. what is a professional service company?
• A product is something you can buy in a standard way, a professional service is a service that is customised for you.
• As a product person, you will be asked to do a lot...