How to Control the Chaos of a Multi-Product Portfolio

1 - > Hannah Clark: After my best friend had her second child, 2 - > she said something I'll never forget - "Having one kid feels 3 - > like having one, having two kids feels like having a 4 - > hundred." And I have to say, the episode you're about to hear 5 - > has a lot of the same energy. 6 - > Turns out when a single product organization decides 7 - > to introduce a second product or third or fourth, all the 8 - > while protecting everything the first one has already 9 - > earned, the complexity doesn't just double, it compounds.

10 - > And that's where a lot of product leaders start getting 11 - > some harsh reality checks: when to place the bet, where to put 12 - > the resources, and how to know whether you're building towards 13 - > something transformational or quietly turning away 14 - > from what's already working. 15 - > My guest today is Anneka Gupta, Chief Product Officer 16 - > at Rubrik, where she spent the last five years steering 17 - > a portfolio that spans data protection, cyber recovery, 18 - > and identity resilience.

19 - > Before that, she helped scale LiveRamp from an 20 - > 11-person startup to a data connectivity powerhouse. 21 - > And in this conversation, she's sharing the frameworks 22 - > she actually uses to stack rank products, the real 23 - > cost of starving your core to fund innovation, and 24 - > the Rubrik acquisition that didn't go as planned, but 25 - > what it unlocked anyway. 26 - > Let's jump in. 27 - > Welcome back to The Product Manager podcast.

28 - > I am joined today by Anneka Gupta. 29 - > She's the CPO of Rubrik. 30 - > Thank you so much, Anneka, for making some time 31 - > to talk to us today. 32 - > Anneka Gupta: Thanks for having me.

33 - > Hannah Clark: We'll start the way we always started off. 34 - > Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how 35 - > you got to where you are today as a CPO of such a huge company? 36 - > Anneka Gupta: I have been Chief Product Officer of Rubrik 37 - > for coming on five years now. 38 - > It's gone by very fast, so I didn't expect time 39 - > to fly by this quickly.

40 - > Before Rubrik, I was at a company in the marketing 41 - > technology space called LiveRamp for 11 years from 42 - > when it was 11 person startup pre-product market fit. 43 - > I started as a software engineer, then moved 44 - > into product management. 45 - > By the time I left, I was leading product 46 - > engineering, security, as well as customer support. 47 - > So it was an incredible journey.

48 - > Very different than Rubriks product, but the through line 49 - > in all of it is data, and that has been central to Rubriks 50 - > product and our strategy and our portfolio strategy, as 51 - > well as LiveRamp in the past. 52 - > Hannah Clark: I'm glad that you touched on portfolio 53 - > 'cause we're gonna be focusing exactly on that today's 54 - > episode is gonna be focusing on what goes into leading 55 - > a multi-product portfolio. 56 - > It's the topic that we have surprisingly not 57 - > covered on the show before.

58 - > So to start us off, what makes this specific challenge 59 - > fundamentally different versus, you know, like a 60 - > having a single product that the whole company is behind? 61 - > And what do you wish more product leaders understood 62 - > about this challenge? 63 - > Anneka Gupta: So I think going from a one product 64 - > to two product to three product, it doesn't just 65 - > get twice as complex or three times as complex. 66 - > It actually gets exponentially more complex to execute on 67 - > a multi-product strategy, and I think often.

68 - > When you're going about trying to launch your second product 69 - > or your third product, you have to come back as a product 70 - > leader to why as a company is now the right time to be 71 - > launching this next product. 72 - > And hopefully that reason is something that is 73 - > quite existential to the future of the company. 74 - > Maybe not for this year or next year, but certainly 75 - > when you're thinking five to 10 years down the line. 76 - > I think that's commonly misunderstood.

77 - > A lot of companies might try to go multi-product too early by 78 - > saying, Hey, look, I feel like there's this big opportunity 79 - > now and we should do this. 80 - > Not really recognizing that might be very challenging 81 - > to execute on and what the trade-offs might incur, 82 - > and whether at that time in the market and the time 83 - > in the company, is it the right time to actually 84 - > go on to the next thing. 85 - > Of course, choosing what that next thing is also equally 86 - > as challenging and complex.

87 - > But I think the really misunderstood piece of it 88 - > is that you're not just slapping on something onto 89 - > your portfolio that's gonna add two times the complexity. 90 - > It can truly be exponential complexity. 91 - > When you talk about how you actually go to market, how do 92 - > you execute internally, and how do you get your message 93 - > out externally to customers and really sell multiple 94 - > products at the same time? 95 - > Hannah Clark: Yeah, absolutely.

96 - > It's, I guess it's almost like a challenge of should we 97 - > have another child like it? 98 - > They're talking about the lifecycle of something 99 - > that's going to be with a company, ideally for 100 - > the rest of its lifespan. 101 - > Just briefly, I'm just curious because you're 102 - > framing this as something that could be existential for 103 - > the company in the future. 104 - > What does that kind of evaluation process look like?

105 - > Just in brief, I'm curious what are the kinds of questions 106 - > that have to kind of come across in order to make a 107 - > decision of that magnitude? 108 - > Anneka Gupta: So I think there's a couple of ways to look at it. 109 - > One is more of an inside out perspective of, as a company, 110 - > every company is aspiring to be a high growth company. 111 - > Being able to set the wheels in motion early enough, 112 - > understanding what is the TAM of your existing product?

113 - > How quickly can you really sell it? 114 - > How quickly can you continue to scale that and when 115 - > do you actually need to add in another vector of 116 - > growth in order for you to hit your growth ambitions? 117 - > And you have to do that early enough. 118 - > Because it takes time for a new product to scale.

119 - > Very rarely do you have an overnight success that is going 120 - > to, you know, be of equivalent scale as your core product in 121 - > one, two, or even three years. 122 - > So that foundation has to be laid quite early. 123 - > There's also an external perspective as well, when 124 - > you're thinking about, well, what does the market look like? 125 - > How is the competitive landscape?

126 - > Evolving. 127 - > You know, in the world of AI, of course, that's throwing 128 - > up a lot of questions about creating an existential 129 - > threat to a lot of businesses. 130 - > If they don't adapt or change or add new product lines in, 131 - > that may be another factor that makes you think, Hey, 132 - > now is the time that I need to launch my next product. 133 - > Hannah Clark: There's so many fascinating through 134 - > lines that we could explore with this topic.

135 - > So we'll kind of bite things off in smaller pieces, starting 136 - > with the organizational piece. 137 - > So when you're managing multiple product pillars, 138 - > how do you think about cross-functional engagement 139 - > and dedication for each one, and what does that structure 140 - > really look like in practice? 141 - > Anneka Gupta: I think what's really difficult in 142 - > a multi-product portfolio, especially when you're just 143 - > starting with your second product, let's say separate 144 - > from your core, if you don't have someone waking up every 145 - > single day and thinking about the success of that product.

146 - > Then you're really setting yourself up for failure 147 - > because it is very hard to keep two things in your 148 - > mind at the same time. 149 - > Oh, I'm trying to execute on something, or I'm 150 - > trying to scale it out. 151 - > I'm, you know, I already have product market fit, hopefully, 152 - > and I'm hitting the next set of scaling challenges 153 - > while also taking something that is completely starting 154 - > from zero and trying to find early product market fit.

155 - > Taking that from zero to one. 156 - > So I think like obviously there is a point in time 157 - > where you may not have fully committed to saying, 158 - > I wanna do a second product. 159 - > Where you probably have people within the organization, 160 - > maybe within the product team and in the engineering 161 - > team who are doing some early proofs of concept 162 - > exploration, user research that you can do with like some 163 - > amount of carved out time. 164 - > But when you have said, Hey, I definitely wanna go do this.

165 - > At least like in my experience, having a dedicated product 166 - > person and then having some level of folks around that 167 - > person, whether they're dedicated out of the gate or 168 - > at least like 50% of their time and energy is going towards 169 - > this, are focused on this. 170 - > That is what it's gonna take to get it off the ground. 171 - > And what we've done really well, I think at Rubrik is often when 172 - > we're incubating a new product, we set up dedicated product.

173 - > We set up dedicated engineering. 174 - > Then we also set up dedicated sales and sales engineering 175 - > folks that are actually going to go and incubate this product 176 - > and see where we can take it next to get that zero to one 177 - > initial product market fit. 178 - > And that I think is a very powerful combination, especially 179 - > in B2B enterprise because. 180 - > Often, it's not just about building the best technology 181 - > in order to deliver a solution to the customer.

182 - > It's how you sell it. 183 - > It's what the value proposition, it's the positioning around 184 - > it that's actually gonna help make it successful. 185 - > Hannah Clark: So I'm so glad that you talked about, you 186 - > know, allocating resources and teams, because something 187 - > that I'm very interested in is how do we kind of think 188 - > about resource allocation when we're talking about, 189 - > you know, we have to be early enough on the ball in order to 190 - > make sure that we are hitting our revenue goals on time.

191 - > But that means that we're gonna be allocating resources 192 - > that won't necessarily be profitable for quite some 193 - > time while still wanting to make sure that we're taking 194 - > care of our flagship products. 195 - > Thinking about. 196 - > You know, Rubrik obviously is a very well resourced company, 197 - > and we might be talking to folks who are maybe starting 198 - > on the journey of launching their second product, let's say. 199 - > How should leaders be thinking about how to break down their 200 - > resource allocation between their products that are 201 - > currently making the money and the ones that will be really 202 - > important for them later?

203 - > Anneka Gupta: There's no black and white answer to this. 204 - > The way that I think about it and the way that I advise 205 - > my teams to think about it is for each of our product areas, 206 - > especially the innovative areas where you're trying 207 - > to do something new and you're trying to get that, 208 - > that second product, find that product market fit. 209 - > Knowing what is the hypothesis that you need to go prove out 210 - > at this point in time, and how much of that, what is the 211 - > actual product roadmap that needs to be delivered versus.

212 - > The market validation around the messaging and the ICP 213 - > and is this an urgent and important enough problem that 214 - > people are willing to pay? 215 - > Hopefully you've done a bunch of that research before you've 216 - > started building, but you're still continuing to refine 217 - > your hypotheses around that. 218 - > And so often I think like you actually don't need a massive 219 - > number of resources to build the first version of your 220 - > product in order to really test.

221 - > How big could this be and what's the next step we could take? 222 - > And I think that's especially true when you take an approach 223 - > that, hey, often you may be in a market where you're 224 - > launching a product where other companies have products 225 - > that are solving this problem. 226 - > Hopefully you have a very unique and differentiated way 227 - > just because you're entering, and this is very true for 228 - > Rubrik, often we're entering in a place where there is some 229 - > other player in this space doing something similar, whether it's 230 - > our traditional competitors or a new age competitor, we have 231 - > to say, well, what is the one killer capability that's in this 232 - > product that's going to make some percentage of companies 233 - > wanna buy this product?

234 - > Because of this one capability, even if we don't have all 235 - > the bells and whistles of everything else, we have one 236 - > killer capability that's solving a killer use case that no one 237 - > else does as well as we do. 238 - > And if you know the answer to that question, it creates a lot 239 - > of clarity in terms of what do you actually have to deliver to 240 - > go prove out your hypothesis to go prove the product market fit. 241 - > Versus saying like, Hey, I just, because my competitor who 242 - > has had this product out for five years and I'm launching 243 - > a product for the first time, they have a hundred features.

244 - > I'm only gonna have five on the first date. 245 - > How am I possibly gonna compete? 246 - > You actually have a structured way of thinking about it, 247 - > and you have one killer value proposition that you're banking 248 - > on that you think is gonna really make a difference. 249 - > And then that gives a lot of clarity to the resource 250 - > allocation, especially on the product and engineering side.

251 - > Hannah Clark: I'd like talk a little bit about more like 252 - > the finance and sales ops as well when we're planning 253 - > resources around the portfolio. 254 - > So to your point, you kind of mentioned the phrase banking 255 - > on, you know, there are a lot of bets that go into developing 256 - > a product, especially if you're trying to get ahead of the 257 - > development and where you need to be, you know, in the future. 258 - > But how do you think about ROI and investment decisions?

259 - > Especially in an environment like we are right now where, 260 - > you know, development and the AI is causing a lot of uncertainty 261 - > and a lot of instability in the market where it's really 262 - > difficult to make some of those long-term planning decisions. 263 - > Anneka Gupta: So I think on a resource allocation and 264 - > planning with finance and other functions, that might 265 - > be part of the process of like helping you decide how many 266 - > is what is your total resource bucket and where are you 267 - > getting additional resources.

268 - > It's really important to recognize that. 269 - > Resources are fungible. 270 - > Now, you might talk to an engineering leader and be 271 - > like, Hey, don't say that, because like resources are not 272 - > obviously completely fungible from one area to another. 273 - > But in a sense, they are quite fungible, like how much you 274 - > decide to put in one area.

275 - > You could always decide to like shift one or two 276 - > people to another area. 277 - > Now you don't wanna be flip flopping around and pulling 278 - > people from one team to another. 279 - > Very frequently, but you do have the ability to reallocate 280 - > your existing resources based on what your current 281 - > strategy, what the state of the market is, et cetera. 282 - > And that's a very powerful tool before you start saying, 283 - > Hey, let's add more resources, adding more resources, you 284 - > know, is asking finance and it's asking the company to 285 - > really make a bet that this is the right, right place.

286 - > So the first question is like, hey, can you actually take 287 - > your existing resource pool and allocate it better for your 288 - > current strategic priorities? 289 - > And that is a hard decision to make. 290 - > It is not easy because it impacts real people. 291 - > It impacts real projects.

292 - > But when you take a mindset of, hey. 293 - > I can pull a couple from here, a couple from there. 294 - > Especially when we're talking about launching a 295 - > new product, you don't need 50 people working on it. 296 - > You probably can get a lot out of just five people dedicated 297 - > to this, and you could pull one from each area and say, 298 - > Hey, I'm willing to go slower in this part of my roadmap 299 - > to accelerate the product discovery for this new area.

300 - > So I think that's one very powerful tool. 301 - > If you do have to end up going and making a case to 302 - > the company, then it's really about like understanding, 303 - > first of all, what is the. 304 - > You should go in knowing whether this is actually 305 - > going to be something that's approved or not. 306 - > Like how existential is this for the business and what 307 - > is the willingness to invest at this point in time, given 308 - > the broader context of where your company is at, right?

309 - > Your company might be private, you might be hitting the 310 - > stage where you're about to raise another round. 311 - > Well, maybe wait till the next round is raised before 312 - > you're going and asking. 313 - > Or as a public company, it's like we're constantly looking at 314 - > cash flow and profitability and. 315 - > If that's something that we have to take into account 316 - > when we're saying like, Hey, what are we asking for?

317 - > I think again, you can always start small 318 - > and build from there. 319 - > What always helps is seeing proof points that your 320 - > product is getting traction. 321 - > So maybe you start with five people and then if 322 - > you start really seeing accelerated traction, then 323 - > the willingness to invest in those areas is much higher. 324 - > So understanding that context and then working 325 - > with the different.

326 - > Partners to justify that. 327 - > I think it's a way to move fast without trying to predict 328 - > out five years in the future what this product could be. 329 - > That's a much harder challenge, and sometimes those are 330 - > things that you have to do. 331 - > If you're working in hardware, if you're working in areas 332 - > like, you know, we're working on federal certifications, 333 - > those things take years to pan out, so you need to do a longer 334 - > business plan, but for the vast majority of decisions, you 335 - > can actually make decisions.

336 - > More micro decisions and realize that there are for a period of 337 - > time, and that you are willing to reevaluate that resource 338 - > allocation in those decisions after you see how a few 339 - > different milestones play out. 340 - > Hannah Clark: Yeah, it makes sense and I think 341 - > that flexibility mindset is, it's really important. 342 - > I would like to talk a little bit about, speaking of 343 - > decision making frameworks and rubrics that you personally.

344 - > Especially when making trade-offs or making really any 345 - > major decisions with respect to the product portfolio, are 346 - > there any kind of frameworks that you kind of find yourself 347 - > kind of coming back to when making decisions that impact 348 - > more than one product? 349 - > Anneka Gupta: So I think one of the hard things about managing 350 - > a multi-product portfolio is that it's very easy to make 351 - > a decision to starve the core to pay for innovation.

352 - > Or the opposite way starve the innovation. 353 - > So you don't even get a, give it a chance to breathe 354 - > to do things where there's like a more sure ROI on them. 355 - > And so I think this is like a very common trap to fall into. 356 - > And often in the moment you don't know if the decision 357 - > you're making is actually gonna starve the core or 358 - > feed these other areas.

359 - > And one of the things that I really think about is 360 - > what is the pace for each part of our portfolio? 361 - > What is the pace of innovation that we really 362 - > need at this moment in time in order to ensure that 363 - > we hit the next stage of what this product needs? 364 - > And also, in my mind, I truly stack rank the product lines 365 - > not in terms of, I mean, it's hard to stack rank things in 366 - > terms of the overall importance to the company because you 367 - > can't say like, Hey, the core is not important at the extent 368 - > to all of these other things.

369 - > But where are the places that there are the 370 - > most unknown unknowns? 371 - > We need to invest more in because we need to learn 372 - > quickly so that we can figure out what we don't know and 373 - > we can keep moving forward. 374 - > What are those places and what are those things that like, if 375 - > we really don't get those things right, we don't figure out those 376 - > unknown unknowns, that is gonna create a huge amount of risk 377 - > for the company down the line.

378 - > And I think about that and I truly stack rank the products 379 - > in the portfolio that way. 380 - > And that helps me say like, oh, if I could 381 - > only invest in one area. 382 - > What is that area going to be? 383 - > And then you layer that on with like, how fast 384 - > do we need to be moving?

385 - > And that helps like with really a lot of the decisions, not 386 - > just resource allocation, but even how do I spend my 387 - > own time and thought process? 388 - > Where do we need to do more product discovery 389 - > and UX research? 390 - > Where does marketing need to lean in more with us 391 - > so that we can create more campaigns or refine the 392 - > messaging, things like that. 393 - > And of course, we're doing all of these things across 394 - > the entire portfolio.

395 - > That clarity as a leader of saying this is the one, 396 - > the thing that matters most right now, at least for like 397 - > this quarter, that I think helps with, you know, create 398 - > a lot of clarity, at least for me, in terms of how 399 - > to make some decisions and where to search the time. 400 - > Hannah Clark: I really like this way of thinking of things. 401 - > I'm curious whether you're able to provide sort of like 402 - > an anecdote of this kind of framework and practice.

403 - > So if there was a situation maybe in the past. 404 - > You're at liberty to speak about when you did have to kind 405 - > of make an evaluation around, you know, what are the unknown 406 - > as unknowns and like what kind of impact that might have 407 - > had that we're kind of seeing the benefits of that today. 408 - > Anneka Gupta: I'll give an example from Rubrik 409 - > from many years ago. 410 - > So when I joined Rubrik, we were really on this journey 411 - > of reframing the business from being a modern backup 412 - > and recovery platform to a cyber recovery platform.

413 - > And that also meant changing our identity as we're not just 414 - > like an infrastructure company. 415 - > We are a security cybersecurity company. 416 - > And that was a really big bet to make. 417 - > But there was a lot of pull we were seeing in the market of.

418 - > Organizations using our product to help them recover 419 - > from ransomware attacks. 420 - > And so that was kinda the state that we were in. 421 - > And we had a lot of products around cyber 422 - > recovery specifically. 423 - > That was the state that I came in to Rubrik with.

424 - > And when, you know, I looked at what our team looked 425 - > like, our future, it was really interesting 'cause 426 - > we essentially had almost no one on the product team. 427 - > With any sort of security experience, they'd never 428 - > built or sold products to a security persona. 429 - > We had a lot of people that sold to it, but we didn't have that. 430 - > One of the things I realized was like, Hey, we actually 431 - > really need, and I didn't come in with security expertise.

432 - > I came in with data expertise, but not security expertise. 433 - > I realized, hey, we need at least like a product 434 - > leader who comes from the security background to help 435 - > us frame up this strategy. 436 - > And I actually surged a lot of my time before even 437 - > making that decision to say. 438 - > Let me go explore this space, like we'll do conversations 439 - > with our founders, let's go really understand where we wanna 440 - > go in the security space and try to frame a point of view.

441 - > But I also realized that we were all kind of learning on the fly 442 - > and we needed some experience in the room to move faster. 443 - > So we made a security hire and that really helped us start. 444 - > Framing our thinking around where we were going and how did 445 - > we wanna approach this market. 446 - > And we made decisions.

447 - > We made some bets that didn't pan out the way that we thought. 448 - > We built products that didn't get traction. 449 - > Lots of learnings from that, but it started us on 450 - > this journey of learning. 451 - > Finally we did find a product that was really relevant to 452 - > security personas that was very adjacent to what we did.

453 - > But it took us, you know, three or four years it took us 454 - > trying and failing and doing, you know, lots of different 455 - > things to try to understand this market better and understand 456 - > like, where do we fit in? 457 - > And you know, at the time it was a bit of a bold 458 - > move to say, Hey, we're gonna hire this person. 459 - > We don't know what exactly, like, we don't have a 460 - > vision of what exactly this product strategy should 461 - > be at this point, but we're gonna get started.

462 - > Hannah Clark: I can see how that really amplified the efforts. 463 - > If you have someone who, you know, I'm sure that even just 464 - > having someone who has that expertise in the room, we can 465 - > really illuminate, you know, the opportunities that you 466 - > wouldn't otherwise know that you have within reach, so. 467 - > Anneka Gupta: Right. 468 - > Yeah.

469 - > Hannah Clark: I'd like to shift a little bit over to metrics 470 - > and measurement since we're talking, we mentioned data. 471 - > Let's talk about data. 472 - > So, across a portfolio of multiple products, naturally 473 - > you're gonna have products in different stages of their 474 - > lifecycle, and success is gonna look different for 475 - > each of them, depending on a number of different factors. 476 - > How do you think about what to measure and how to 477 - > compare performance across the different products in a 478 - > portfolio, especially when they're in very different 479 - > stages of a development.

480 - > Anneka Gupta: It's a lot easier to think about the metrics for 481 - > your core products and the ones that already have traction. 482 - > You're looking at things like, you know, how much 483 - > revenue, how much new business are they bringing in? 484 - > What does the churn look like on this product? 485 - > A lot of those business metrics that at scale you monitor that.

486 - > You predict what it forecast, what it's gonna look like. 487 - > You test whether that's actually what happens, and 488 - > then you go investigate what's going on to try to fix it. 489 - > So I think those are a lot of the core metrics that we look 490 - > at for the at scale businesses. 491 - > When you're talking about a really early scale business, 492 - > what at the very earliest stages, it's really about how do 493 - > you measure product market fit.

494 - > And part of product market fit is certainly, you can see it 495 - > in the numbers and you can feel it in the numbers, but a lot 496 - > of it is actually a feeling. 497 - > It's like, does it really feel like your product has pull? 498 - > Is it the thing that everyone wants to talk about? 499 - > Is your sales team leaning in?

500 - > Like there's so many kind of qualitative ways 501 - > that you can tell you have product market fit. 502 - > And then there's the quantitative ways where 503 - > it, you say like, how many customers do you have signed up? 504 - > Like how much are you selling this product for? 505 - > Are your betas fully subscribed, or are you having a hard time 506 - > recruiting people for betas?

507 - > Like there's a lot of things around the numbers of like 508 - > just the adoption and traction, even deal cycle time that can 509 - > really help tell you, Hey, do you have product market 510 - > fit, and should I make more investments versus less? 511 - > But even like, regardless of where your products are in your 512 - > portfolio, at the end of the day you choose these metrics. 513 - > You forecast out one quarter, two quarters a year, and very 514 - > quickly you see like, are you surpassing your estimates 515 - > or are you falling short?

516 - > And it's a kind of an a good wave to say like, 517 - > Hey, I have a hypothesis. 518 - > Let me see how this actually plays out. 519 - > And you're not just in the meantime sitting there like 520 - > waiting for things to play out. 521 - > You're doing everything you can to move those metrics 522 - > forward and to get the traction and to move the ball forward.

523 - > Like looking at pipeline, looking at the leading 524 - > indicators that are gonna tell you are you actually gonna 525 - > hit these lagging indicators? 526 - > Hannah Clark: Okay. 527 - > Well thank you for sharing that. 528 - > That's very interesting insight into kind of the nuances.

529 - > 'cause I think many of us are really thinking a lot about. 530 - > The metrics of success for a very specific product or 531 - > a very limited portfolio. 532 - > So I can see where I can get very com, like you said, 533 - > exponentially more complicated. 534 - > Taking a little pivot here into moments where decisions 535 - > have really impacted the company as a whole, you know, 536 - > let's think about this in terms of the butterfly effect.

537 - > Can you think of a moment where a decision about the 538 - > portfolio really challenged assumptions or led to a 539 - > breakthrough and how Rubrik, or even you just have thought 540 - > about strategy and execution across multiple products? 541 - > Anneka Gupta: There are many examples of this because 542 - > I think we're constantly learning from what has worked 543 - > and more importantly, what hasn't worked in the past. 544 - > So we back probably close to three or four years ago now.

545 - > We made a acquisition in the data security posture management 546 - > space, which is an adjacent space to what we do, but it's 547 - > still under the like larger umbrella of data security. 548 - > Data security is a very broad umbrella, so it was in there 549 - > and we had this hypothesis that maybe we could sell this 550 - > other solution as a standalone solution to security and then 551 - > pull through our core product. 552 - > You know, we had a lot of different hypotheses of why we 553 - > would do this, and we also felt like the underlying technology 554 - > was something that was gonna be valuable across the portfolio, 555 - > and the team was gonna be great.

556 - > So we made this acquisition and we tried to go sell 557 - > the product as a standalone product separate from our core. 558 - > And what we realized was there wasn't really a 559 - > fast path to selling this. 560 - > As a separate product, like it was too far away 561 - > from the core of what we were doing in a different 562 - > persona, that it would be too difficult for us to really 563 - > go and sell the standalone. 564 - > And there wasn't, it was still very early days for this market, 565 - > so people weren't saying, Hey, yeah, I need to buy this today.

566 - > They were like, oh, this is kind of interesting. 567 - > And it was somewhat easy to attach it to existing 568 - > customers 'cause they were more willing to try new things 569 - > with us as they already used our product and they already 570 - > had a contract with us. 571 - > So we had a lot of debates around like, 572 - > okay, do we keep at it? 573 - > Do we keep trying to sell this as a standalone solution 574 - > or do we integrate it into the platform story and then 575 - > figure out from there how do we take these components 576 - > and repackage them into the rest of our products?

577 - > And we made the decision that we didn't think that there 578 - > was a path forward to selling at standalone, but then as we 579 - > thought about how do we pull it into the portfolio, there 580 - > were still a lot of iterations. 581 - > That we had to do to figure out where was the 582 - > value going to come from. 583 - > And I think along the way, what we learned was. 584 - > One is that if we can't provide both visibility and 585 - > remediation together, then it's not a valuable solution.

586 - > So whatever we're doing, it has to give both visibility and 587 - > you have to be able to fix the problems that you're seeing. 588 - > The other thing that we started to realize was like, okay, what? 589 - > Who are the person when you say security is big, there's a lot 590 - > of different people that work in a security organization. 591 - > How do we think about the personas that within that 592 - > security organization that we are gonna be best solving 593 - > for given the products we have and the adjacency?

594 - > Like how far away is this from? 595 - > What is the core value proposition? 596 - > And so really like that whole experience, like really 597 - > sharpened our thinking as an organization of like, 598 - > how do we think about. 599 - > Product adjacencies into completely new personas.

600 - > How do we go pursue those and what is the level of tieback 601 - > that we need to, the story that we have now and fast forward 602 - > to today, we launched an identity product around identity 603 - > resilience and the core of our products around data resilience. 604 - > That has really taken off over the past year. 605 - > And has been remarkably successful and has been a 606 - > bridge into security, and what we have realized is that value 607 - > proposition is so tightly aligned with our core value 608 - > proposition, but sold to a different persona that it's 609 - > way more natural to pull those two together than going like so 610 - > far outside to another person.

611 - > We still got a lot of value from the acquisition. 612 - > We used a lot of the technology empowering, really interesting 613 - > use cases for our core products, but we realized that hey, 614 - > that there's doesn't have legs as a standalone product. 615 - > Hannah Clark: I love this thread of learnings from specific 616 - > cases 'cause I feel like we get so much value out of really 617 - > hearing how things have kind of played out in a real time. 618 - > So kind of following along that thread, I'd love to 619 - > hear about some kind of, to your point earlier, you kind 620 - > of mentioned sort of like misconceptions about taking 621 - > bets around new products.

622 - > What are some of the other pitfalls or myths or kind 623 - > of hard learnings that you think are really valuable for 624 - > leaders who are kind of, at the precipice of branching 625 - > out into a multi-product portfolio should hear? 626 - > Anneka Gupta: Yeah, so one of the things I mentioned earlier 627 - > was that it's very easy to make a decision to starve the core 628 - > to fund innovation or basically not even give your innovation a 629 - > chance to try to be successful because you're funding the core.

630 - > And I'll give you an example from. 631 - > My time at LiveRamp, I think there was a time where we were 632 - > so pressured to think about new growth avenues because we saw 633 - > the core growth rate declining, or we needed new innovation and 634 - > we needed new innovation fast that we put in an inordinate 635 - > amount of resources in new areas, and we tried a lot of 636 - > new areas at the same time. 637 - > So I think there was also a learning around 638 - > focus, but we put a lot of energy into new areas.

639 - > And what ended up happening is we actually took our eye 640 - > off the ball with the core, and we started seeing higher 641 - > churn rates, higher customer dissatisfaction, because 642 - > some of the actual work that we needed to do in the core 643 - > customer experience to make the experience better, more easy to 644 - > use, and to just deliver better outcomes for the customer. 645 - > We started to focus less on that as we were pouring new 646 - > resources into new verticals or new kinds of solutions that 647 - > could help prop up growth.

648 - > And the real challenges is that once you start 649 - > seeing churn in your core, that's like exacerbating 650 - > the problem and your new products are just not gonna 651 - > make up for that fast enough. 652 - > And so it was a real lesson in like thinking about and 653 - > being really intentional about how much can you 654 - > really take away from the core to fund new innovation. 655 - > And I think that was like one very valuable lesson of like 656 - > just not taking your eye off the ball and like keeping control 657 - > of the core as you're starting to like peel off for the bet.

658 - > Another pitfall related to like not investing enough 659 - > in some of the innovation areas when I joined Rubrik. 660 - > We had a business around protecting Microsoft 365 or 661 - > actually we didn't have a business, we had zero business, 662 - > but we had a product and engineering efforts and we 663 - > were trying to figure out how to go sell this product. 664 - > But we had a few times where we, you know, tried to 665 - > have the core team sell it. 666 - > It wasn't really getting off the ground.

667 - > It was one of those products where there were a lot of 668 - > competitors in the space and we didn't have like the laundry 669 - > list of 1000 features that. 670 - > Other competitors have. 671 - > So we were really struggling to get this product off the 672 - > ground, even though we knew there was a market for it. 673 - > And that was a case where once we got the focused go to 674 - > market product and engineering teams together to say, Hey, 675 - > you guys are gonna go incubate this and go figure it out, and 676 - > getting the right people, right?

677 - > You need the right DNA of a seller who's gonna be willing to 678 - > say, Hey, I'm willing to sell. 679 - > Basically a half baked product and go to bat for 680 - > this and iterate on the value proposition and figure 681 - > out how we can sell this. 682 - > But you have to get that right DNA. 683 - > But once we got all those people together, we were really able 684 - > to get it off the ground and it wasn't a massive investment.

685 - > It was like 10 people maybe total across the org that we 686 - > put and we put the dedication on and that allowed us to actually 687 - > like find the product market fit and really see it at scale. 688 - > Hannah Clark: I'm really hearing this kind of trend 689 - > of the value of having small but dedicated team to really 690 - > push things forward into the direction that they need it. 691 - > And it's really putting it into perspective, the 692 - > real resources required.

693 - > So this is really interesting to hear as we kind of wrap up here. 694 - > I'm curious about kind of building on the thread that 695 - > you'd mentioned earlier about anticipating existential 696 - > threats and often product decisions, kind of coming 697 - > down to anticipating and being able to react early for that. 698 - > What, like looking forward and especially with your knowledge 699 - > of the market today, are some of the mindsets or kind of muscles 700 - > that product leaders should be building now in order to kind 701 - > of make these decisions as far as expanding their operations or 702 - > whether or not it's a good idea?

703 - > Anneka Gupta: Well, I think today specifically, the key 704 - > skills that a product leader needs is AI proficiency, like 705 - > using hands-on, using the tools, and really understanding 706 - > the capabilities and the art of the possible with AI, 707 - > both for how you operate as a business, as well as what it 708 - > means for your own products, and how is it gonna radically 709 - > change the experience, the way that you deliver your 710 - > products to your customers.

711 - > I think it's so important. 712 - > For two reasons. 713 - > One, obviously that's where the world is moving and all 714 - > products will eventually be AI native products. 715 - > But internally, what is so different about this area 716 - > is the pace of change is also growing exponentially.

717 - > The changes in the market. 718 - > The expectations around how much you are going to do 719 - > with how many resources is also drastically changing, 720 - > like a company started today needs one 100th of 721 - > the resources that a company started even 10 years ago. 722 - > Probably needed to get to that, to a certain scale, size, 723 - > product, maturity, et cetera. 724 - > Recognizing that means that, you know, what is existential for 725 - > all companies is how quickly can you innovate in a, still in a 726 - > disciplined way, but how quickly can you innovate and deliver 727 - > and continue to grow your business And the expectations 728 - > of growth are also changing.

729 - > So speed is essential, it is existential, and that is 730 - > what I think every project leader needs to understand. 731 - > And we all need to be upskilling ourselves to figure out 732 - > how do we deliver more with less as quickly as possible. 733 - > Hannah Clark: Anneka, this has been such a 734 - > fascinating conversation. 735 - > Thank you so much.

736 - > I feel like you've just given us so many valuable insights 737 - > into the role that you hold. 738 - > Where can folks follow your work online to hear more from you? 739 - > Anneka Gupta: You can follow me on LinkedIn, Anneka Gupta. 740 - > Hannah Clark: Wonderful.

741 - > Well, thank you so much for being here. 742 - > Anneka Gupta: Thank you. 743 - > Hannah Clark: Oh, hey, before you go, make sure to subscribe 744 - > to hear more great conversations on The Product Manager podcast, 745 - > brought to you by The CPO Club.