The Product Leadership Podcast From Lighthouse London

Tom was joined by Laura Jackson from creative content agency Not Actual Size to talk about content, a topic that often gets forgotten about and not given the focus it deserves. NAS design content and manage communities for some of the biggest brands in the world and their words are seen by millions.Along the way they talked aboutWhat content actually is and why it's so important to peopleWhat teams can do to bring a more rigorous content focus to their workflowsUseful frameworks for content success and the importance of accountability 

The Lighthouse Podcast returns, and we've had a format re-shuffle!

Want to get in touch with Bianca Berning? Have a look at all of her work here. Want to learn more about font design? Have a look at Dalton Maag!

In this edition of the Product Leadership Podcast, Alice and Russ chat about how we created the Spacer plugin for Sketch from an internal problem we had and then turned it into a commercial product. Along the way they cover: How Spacer was created to solve issues that our own designers were facing, staying curious about your audience and connecting with them and the importance of getting the right feedback and using it to improve your product. Lighthouse London is a UX and UI design studio who help teams bring new digital product MVPs to market and breathe life into existing tools.

For this edition of the Product Leadership Podcast we invite John Monks from Curve once again, where he talks to Tom on how to facilitate remote workshops and allow for creativity to flow - even when you’re miles away from your team

In this episode of the Product Leadership Podcast Tom is joined by Jonathan Hollis from Mountside Ventures. They chat about the wide range of funding options available to startups, how Jonathan's company makes the fundraising process more efficient for both investors and startups, and the effect Covid-19 has had.Along the way they cover:What startups should do in preparation for taking their proposition to market.Why the UK is a great place to invest in early-stage companies (and to be an early stage company!)How funds have responded to the need for remote investing, and what goes on in an institutional investor's head.How similar the process really is to the one we see on Dragons Den.Grab Mountside's list of funds still active during Covid-19 here

John Monks from Curve talks to Tom about how to run amazing creative workshops and the main pitfalls to avoid. Along the way we discuss:How to manage troublemakersWays to encourage collaboration with teamsWhy PowerPoint is just the worst

Stop thinking of launch as a date in the diary, and instead focus on the smaller, more subtle stages and release your product by increments.Dan and Tom discuss how little is actually needed to start sharing your ideas, and the stages involved in using a 10x launch strategy.Along the way they cover:#1 Not being afraid to launch to a tiny group - you're ideally placed to speak to users directly when your idea is still just a scribble on the back of a napkin, so now's the time to get feedback.#2 Early stage MVPs and faking it before you start to scale.#3 The importance of experimenting while you're still able to move quickly- and how established companies envy this ability to release something imperfect and learn.#4 Tom's preferred sandwiches if you invite us to your launch party. (No plain cheese, please.)Read more about the 10x Launch Strategy here 

Prioritising the contents of your feature backlog is a vital part of determining your product roadmap. Tom and infrequent co-host Russ talk us through how to go about backlog weighting in order to work out what you should be building next.  They cover:Weighting by perceived value - Chatting to your users, stakeholders and frontline customer service team about what people are lacking, longing for or frustrated by.Weighting by analytics - Using Google Analytics etc to provide the least subjective picture of what's needed.Weighting by cost/resource - Working out  the effort needed by teams to get the feature completed.The tension between prioritising fixing bugs and building new things.We also find out why sorting tasks alphabetically isn't a sensible framework! Grab our backlog weighting template here (we've added some example features and scored them to get you started)

Dan and Tom talk about the mini pitch process, our tried and tested methodology for showing the people who matter that an idea is worthy of taking forward. We use this at the end of our Idea Generation Workshops to help innovation teams from larger companies convince management that the product ideas they've come up with are going to make an impact. But it's something that can be used by just about anyone who needs to get an idea out into the world so we thought we'd share. They run through: What each of the five slides represents, and why each matters. Tips and tricks for filling our your pitch. 3)...And the German word for mullet. (literally 'short at the front, long at the back.'

Why do some businesses seem to have the best ideas and launch the best products time and time again? Dan and Tom discuss the innovation lessons we can learn from them.

Dan and Tom talk about how to make sure you get great results from the UX and UI designers you hire and how hiring the world's greatest designer might not guarantee amazing results if you don't give them the right information to work with. Along the way, they discuss The mistakes that businesses make when briefing talented designers What sorts of processes you can put in place to get the best from your design team What a great designer will expect from you to allow them to do their best work

We're back! An embarrassing period of silence but Tom and Russ are back with some handy advice for UX and UI teams kicking off a relationship with an external product development team. Along the way they discuss What's needed to build a seamless working relationship How to use agile techniques to speed up delivery What the common pitfalls are and how to avoid them

We talked to Steve about how he helps teams discover their inner creativity through workshops that take them out of their comfort zone and into the realm of uncertainty. Along the way we discussed: Challenging norms and constant experimentation to help push innovation in organisations How something as simple as lunch choices can help people be more creative Why we should be listening to more "inexperts"

We discuss ways in which people can introduce innovation to their organisations alongside their everyday activities. We talk about: How leaders can create an innovation stream with small, simple changes How to encourage innovation techniques in your team and see quick results How a focus on customers will give you the power to shift and change and report to the powers that be

We talk about the research techniques we've learned and adopted over the years while talking to customers and users. Learn about why conducting good research is one of the most important parts of any tech project. In the podcast we cover: How to eliminate bias and get the right answers What benefits research will bring and how it could save you money How you should conduct research and who you should be talking to

Any product manager/owner will have a million things to keep on top of and lots of potential ways to take the tool. How do you effectively manage your priorities to make sure you're steering things in the right direction? We give our four top tips for staying on top of the workload and product roadmap.

We chatted to Feast-It founders Hugo Campbell and Digby Vollrath to learn how they built a platform bringing street food to the masses from the ground up. Along the way we learned: How they faked the tech and focused on design and experience to get the startup off the ground How their sales and marketing focus has shifted since launch and the effect it's had Why experimentation and constant change is key to their long-term success

Digital products can bring value to a business in many ways. It's important to know how the product you're developing is going to benefit you and how this will affect your business value. We talk about the four types of value: Direct value Additional value Influence value Innovation value On top of that we talk about examples of some successful businesses who have shown the benefits of these types of value over their product lifetime.

Lighthouse founders, Dan and Tom, explore the process of ideas. They discuss the ways to generate and validate ideas, as well as the role of idea management in the product development process. Along the way we learned: The danger of becoming too attached to an idea Why "lightbulb moments" is a bad expression How to generate ideas when you have none, how to filter when you have too many How keeping an idea a secret is harmful