Transitioning to a customer-centric, product-led company
This article covers the key takeaways from our conversations with Tony Fadel on our podcast show, Let’s Talk Product. If you haven’t listened to our show yet, be sure to check it out here, or listen to the full episode here.
Born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, Tony Fadel graduated university with a degree in Computer Science and then moved to the UK for his Masters Degree in Software Engineering. After obtaining his MSc, Tony entered the workforce and shortly after joined Google where he spent 7 years between Dublin and Mountain View, California working on some of the most used products in the world. At that time, Tony was living the dream. Like many eager engineers and product managers, he has always wanted to work for one of the top tech companies in the world.
One day, while he was playing with his newborn daughter and reflecting on what life has given him, he couldn’t help but feel somewhat privileged for the career opportunities life presented him. At that moment, Tony became consumed with the urge to giveback and create better opportunities for his people back home (the Middle East). When Tony first joined the workforce back in 2006, he did not find any exciting opportunities at regional tech companies and had no other choice but seek better opportunities abroad. After gaining a wealth of knowledge working at global companies, he decided to move back to the region and help tech companies build engaging cultures and better opportunities for those who want to be part of an innovative company. As he puts it, “I don’t want anyone to have to make the choice of leaving the region in order to join an innovative company.”
In 2017, he moved to Dubai and joined Careem as Product Lead. Few years in, and after Uber’s acquisition of Careem, Tony sought out new opportunities of greater impact and joined talabat as Senior Director of Product Management. talabat, a food delivery platform, was undergoing a critical transformation to a product and tech driven company at that time, and Tony was brought in as part of the new management team responsible for transforming this 15-year old company.
Where do we start
Culture can make or break a company, and building and maintaining culture is one of the toughest jobs of a leader. Changing the culture of an existing organization on the other hand, is a tremendously harder thing to do and that is what Tony and his team were responsible for.
Before rolling out any new changes, they spent a lot of time thinking of the best way to do so and decided to focus on 2 main things:
1) Build the right teams and culture
They knew that innovation starts with collaboration and hence wanted the teams to work very closely together. Their teams were scattered across different countries and so the first thing they did was move the 100-person tech team from Kuwait to Dubai, almost all at the same time. They then had to figure out how to merge the teams and create a place for everyone to be at their best. We will get into all of that below.
2) Build the right vision and get everyone excited about it
The second crucial element was to build the right vision. He explains how many successful companies get caught up in that success and forget about planning for the long term and changing market conditions. Once that vision was established, they now had to get the team excited about the future of the company and get them to believe in that vision. “You can make all the changes you want, send out an email detailing the new company vision, but that won’t work, people will most likely archive that email.” What you need to do is “convince them that this is real. Get them to believe in you and in the future of the company”.
Building the right teams
When it comes to building the right teams, Tony makes a very important distinction between product teams and teams that build product.
A product-led company in his words “is basically a company that is strongly led by the voice of the customer; how customers use the product, how they interact with it, and their feedback is what drives company decisions. And so when we say product, it is not just the product managers, but the entire product teams”.
So let’s dig deeper into this.
What are teams that build product
He explains how a team that builds product is typically made up of engineers, designers, and product managers. In these teams, the product manager usually does the research, decides on the features that need to be built, and writes up a list of requirements for the engineers to work through. This creates a disconnect between what you’re building and the people doing the building (the engineers). They end up being told what to build.
What are product teams
With product teams on the other hand, as Tony puts it,
“there is no real distinction between the product managers, the engineers, the sales, or anyone else in the company; everyone is product. When you’re working on a new feature, you involve the whole team.”
With this setup, the engineers do not get a list of what needs to be built, instead they are involved in the product discovery process — they take part in discussing the problem, they read through customer feedback and also conduct customer interviews themselves. This approach builds empathy for the customers company-wide and creates a connection between what they’re building and the impact it has on customers.
Building an engaging and empowering culture
With product development, there are practically two challenges, first, figuring out what to build — product discovery — and second, figuring out how to build it — product delivery. Once you’ve decided on the what, it’s time to figure out the how. At this stage the engineers are already engaged and invested in the opportunity you’re solving, having taken part in multiple product discovery discussions. It is therefore very important to keep them engaged and empowered when building the product as well. To do so, Tony emphasizes, “do not tell them what to build and how. Instead present them with the challenge/opportunity, and let them figure out how they’re going to attack the problem.”
Not too long after Tony joined talabat, they started working on a new, very important and exciting product. To start, they had to merge two teams that had never worked together before. To add to that, they also had never worked with Tony before. Before doing any work, Tony made sure that everyone understood the vision clearly — “why we’re doing this and what are the short-term and long-term opportunities?” They then spent the first few days not writing a single line of code. Instead he made sure they were all talking to customers and pulling data together, giving everyone the 360 view on what they are going to build.
This approach completely transformed the team and delivered spectacular results. What was previously a quiet team expecting a list of requirements, was now a super engaged team fighting to deliver the most value to the customer. The team initially set a 6 week timeline to deliver the product, but ended up launching the first MVP in under 3 weeks.
In search of the right team structure
Tony and his colleagues spent quite some time thinking of the best team structure for practicing agility and empathy, and initially settled for a model loosely connect to Spotify’s tribes and squads model. With time and as their work evolved, they faced some challenges with that structure, particularly around forming new cross-functional teams to work on gorund-up products. They experimented with an ad-hoc model of bringing in people from different company functions when needed (someone from marketing or PR for example), but that didn’t work well for long as they started to feel that they were losing some major insights. Finally, they settled for a slight variation of their original model, where they have core product teams and then there are people in other company functions that work on specific areas of the product. “So if you need insights on a specific product area from the marketing team, you know who’s the right person to approach and work with on solving the problem.”
“This way everyone, from marketing to sales, are thinking of contribution from a product perspective, not just a functional perspective. Everyone is part of a team that is delivering an experience to the customer.”
Bottom-up insights feed top-down objectives
Making sure that the voice of the customer travels bottom up and feeds company objectives, Tony and his team share customer insights with the leadership team at the start of every quarter. The leadership team gathers information from multiple sources and consolidates them into the most important items. That way, they ensure that top-down objectives incorporate the day-to-day insights that have been feed bottom-up.
Managing resistance to change
Tony was brought in to an existing team that has been working in a particular way for quite some time, and as with every new change, there’s always some form of resistance. To manage resistance Tony focused on three key things.
1) Build a layer of psychological safety
He explains, “psychological safety is the ability to allow everyone in the company to speak up without any fear of repercussion or being shut down.” He does that by practising radical candor. The ability to connect with every individual on a personal level, understanding their dreams, their hopes and their worries whilst giving very direct and constructive feedback. He does so to create opportunities for growth, allowing them to be the best they can be.
2) Show them that you’re capable
Some companies worry that product discovery is a waste of time and usually push teams to just build and deliver. “As a new product leader, you need management to trust that you are capable of delivering but sometimes choose not to because knowing what to build is just as important as building.” When Tony joins a new company he seeks an opportunity to demonstrate to management that his team is able to deliver really really quick. Through that interaction and over time he earns their trust, and so when he puts the brakes on an idea, management team understands that they need to have a discussion to understand what they might be missing.
3) Show the team that no one is above the work on the ground
Finally, Tony makes sure to show his team that no one is above the work on the ground and does that by writing some code himself.
“If I’m a director that does not mean that I live in an ivory tower and tell people what to do, you lead by doing”.
This philosophy is big at talabat. Their C-level suite call customers all the time just like any other company employee. They do that not only to build empathy with their customers but also to create accountability by showing the team that no one is above any sort of work.
talabat’s success with the transformation can be seen in their new product releases, their regional expansion, and the work they’ve been sharing through their tech blog. We salute them for the tremendous efforts and hope to see more product-driven companies in the region.
About the Author:
Propeller is a seed-stage, MENA-focused venture capital firm. If your startup is looking for an early-stage investor, make sure to get in touch, we’d love to talk!
