An interview with Thom Rimmer, a global design leader with over a decade of experience building industry-leading products and developing a culture of design as a competitive business advantage. The discussion covered:

- Thom's background, including his transition from working at agencies to the world of SaaS.

- His experience at Huddle, a sports tech company, where he worked on globally distributed product teams, managed designers, and helped bring products to coaches and athletes worldwide.

- The challenges of working on a hardware product (a camera) at Huddle, including building a team, overcoming technical hurdles, and convincing stakeholders of the opportunity.

- Thom's decision to leave Huddle at the peak of its success and join Intercom, a B2B customer support SaaS company, to seek new challenges and growth opportunities.

- Insights into building trust and relationships with teams, handling failures and maintaining motivation, and being a leader who protects their team while giving them credit for successes.

Key Moments

(1:11) - Guest Introduction

(2:46) - Globally Distributed Teams at Huddle

(12:21) - Designer Relationships with Product Managers

(18:11) - Leaving Huddle and Joining Intercom

(20:44) - The importance of knowing how to sell your work

(41:00) - If you're not failing then you're not trying hard enough

(47:42) - Advice for Product Managers

In this episode of Bounce, we discuss the role of product marketing teams and the challenges they face. The hosts, Molly Cox and Claire Flowers, interview Olivia McNaughton, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Grinn, about her experience working in product marketing.

Olivia explains that product marketing acts as a go-to-market specialist, supporting the product, sales, and customer success teams. Their primary responsibilities include launching products into the market and funneling market information back to the product team. She highlights the importance of aligning with different teams, communicating effectively, and showcasing the value of product marketing within an organization.

The discussion covers various topics, such as defining the roles and responsibilities of product marketing, potential friction points with product managers and designers, strategies for proving the value of product marketing, and the challenges of coordinating successful product launches. Olivia shares her insights and best practices based on her extensive experience in the field.

Episode Details

(1:30) - Guest Introduction

(3:00) - Defining Product Marketing

(6:00) - Challenges in Product Marketing

(12:00) - Proving Value as a Product Marketer

(18:00) - Collaboration with Product Managers and Designers

(24:00) - Product Launch Processes

(28:00) - Biggest Stressors in Product Launches

(30:00) - Stop Doing This: Requests from a Product Marketer

Join Mollie and Claire in their discussion with Christopher Nguyen, the founder of UX Playbook. From a computer science dropout to a business graduate, turned self-taught designer, and now a content creator. This episode covers Chris's career journey, including his experiences in toxic work environments, his decision to quit his job during the pandemic, the process of starting and growing UX Playbook, his approach to writing and content creation, and his future plans to evolve his business into coaching designers to build their own businesses. Key discussion points include recognizing signs of an unhealthy work culture, taking ownership of one's career path, the importance of self-reflection, the role of writing and content marketing, and Chris's vision for helping designers become entrepreneurs.

(1:11) - Guest Introduction

The hosts introduce their guest Chris, a product designer, founder of UX Playbook, and former head of design who has worked with companies like Google, Nike, and Coca-Cola. They discuss Chris's background and career journey.

(3:01) - Toxic Work Environments

Chris shares his experience of joining a company that turned out to be toxic, despite being warned beforehand. He describes the red flags, lack of innovation, and the 'good enough' culture that eventually led him to quit.

(12:31) - Taking a Break and Starting UX Playbook

After quitting his toxic job, Chris took some time off to experiment with different projects before accidentally stumbling upon the success of UX Playbook through writing online content.

(19:21) - Knowing When to Leave a Job

The discussion shifts to recognizing signs that it's time to leave a job, such as physical aversion to going to the office, draining interactions, and lack of excitement about the work.

(23:41) - Layoffs and Career Transitions

Chris offers advice for those feeling stuck in their current roles due to the fear of layoffs, emphasizing taking small steps towards exploring new opportunities.

(28:21) - Chris' new venture - The Job Sprint Program

Chris talks about his new program 'The Job Sprint', created to help people land their dream jobs through a tailored approach and active learning activities.

(33:11) - Future Business Evolution

Chris shares his vision for evolving his business beyond just serving designers, potentially helping them build their own businesses and potentially owning a stake in their ventures.

Be sure to check out Chris' latest venture - https://backlog.design/?ref=bounce