Orly Stern Izhaki - Building Meaningful Products for SMBs - Trust, PLG, and Sustainable Growth

Speaker A: This is the scalepoint Podcast hosted by me, Martin Kodarish. On this show I sit down with founders and experts in the payments and fintech industry to explore key trends, opportunities and the realities of building a sustainable and profitable business in this next phase of the industry's growth, defined by tighter budgets and more challenging access to external funding. Right, let's get started with this week's episode. So welcome everybody to another episode of the scalepoint podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Orli and Isaqui, um, who is a seasoned product leader with a lot of experience and I'm looking forward to exploring her perspective on what building products or SMBs globally uh, is all about. So welcome. Ollie, how are you doing today?

Speaker B: Hi Martin. So first of all thank you for having me here. I'm super excited to have this conversation about product and specifically global SMBs. Uh, so great to be here.

Speaker A: Great. Why don't we just kick off with just a high level introduction uh and then we'll, I mean I've got a lot of questions that we've prepared so we'll get, we'll get to that later.

Speaker B: Sure. So I've been spending my last uh, 20 years or so in the tech industry in different roles. I grew from uh, data to engineering to product management and general management roles, uh, in different and diverse companies and industries. Um, in my last role I was uh, GM of uh, business applications at payoneer. Payoneer uh, is a fintech company, um, taking care of SMBs globally, uh, making sure their payments and financials are ah, taken care of. Um and before that I was uh at Wix for several years leading to different companies, uh business units within the company in the area of premium services, the business model of the company and also uh WIX restaurants that I will probably share more later.

Speaker A: What's interesting is that you're obviously the guests that I typically have on the show are ah, from the. Exclusively from the payments or fintech industry or financial services. But your background is I would say broader than that. Right. So you mentioned Wix, um, digital platform, um, and other experiences which I uh, suppose are somewhat adjacent to payments. But you know you come from an outside in perspective I would say and that's quite refreshing.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that most of my career was in the area of fintech and finance. Was uh, working for one of the biggest banks in Israel for many years, uh, leading some digital transformations and uh, mobile only uh, banking and then moved to Wix and also at Wix I did both, uh, more fintech related uh, roles and also different ones. So I have like um, a wide you know view on the industry.

Speaker A: So the WIX maybe was a sort of transition period for you into, into fintech. I mean tell me a bit about wix. That's an amazing story in itself that um, doesn't really get told that often certainly in the fintech sphere. But uh, perhaps just explain what you introduce, the platform, what it is and what you did there and what products you developed.

Speaker B: Sure. So Wix is definitely an amazing company. It started as the ah, company that tried to solve the uh, website building uh, issue that ah, was very complex back then uh 20 years ago. And what they did, and I think it was amazing is uh, growing with the SMBs so not only serving them in um, building websites but also in providing all the solutions that they need to run their business online. So if I'll take the restaurant example which is one of the verticals in Wix, uh so it's not only about building your website but also about managing your menu and um, managing online ordering and allowing this and taping reservations which is actually dining and more physical area of the business. So this is part of the vertical view and also very cross verticals. They have um, solutions for marketing solutions for uh, managing your customers and also a payment uh platform ah, that goes today even beyond payments to a real kind uh, of uh, financial solution for those systems.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean you mentioned that Wix is what 20 plus years old now? It's incredible isn't it how time goes by and you kind of suggest in there I might be a sort of a first generation of digital platforms and then that sort of next generation or latest generation of digital platform from a product perspective in your experience, you know, how have they approached product development differently or how has that product development journey evolved over that period?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I think that when you uh, when you start, you know, you started a new startup, you aim for solving for specific problem, usually for specific audience. Uh, when you grow and you expand the company and you want to go after different audiences and trying to solve more issues, uh, it becomes more complicated. So the essence of product management remains the same. Uh, however you need to prioritize better and you need to decide, you know, where you put, you know, your efforts, uh, if it comes to different verticals, if it comes to global expansion or different you know, solutions that you want to provide and you want to maintain those that you already built but also uh, exploring new opportunities. So it's a lot about leadership skills I would say prioritization really Understanding uh, what moves the needle, what is important for the users, the customers.

Speaker A: So talk me through your framework to kind of prioritize, you know, the product roadmap. It's very busy, there's lots of demands, lots of things you could do, you know, what's your approach to actually prioritization.

Speaker B: So I'm a big fan of the OKRS mechanism. Uh so some companies work with OKRS objectives and key results. Other work with different naming, um, but same concept of having like main goals that the company wants to achieve if it comes to revenue or retention or. And based on this trying to take the teams and derive from you know, the company goals, what the teams can do to move the needle and always keep in mind the customer and the value for the customer. And at the same time uh, it's a uh, it's a company that needs to earn money. So how can you monetize what you do and also take care of revenues and so on. So uh, very uh, gentle balance between those uh, two uh, but I think that top down like understanding from what the company wants to achieve, this is one approach but at the same time merging this with bottom up meaning what customer needs, uh, gathering all the requirements and new ideas for an, opportunities for new features or capabilities.

Speaker A: Yeah, you mentioned it's a gentle balance. I like that. That's a good way of putting it. So uh, does that just come with experience? I mean there's no real exact science around that. It's just something that you develop a feel for would you say?

Speaker B: I believe so. I believe like you can give, you can provide guidelines and this is what I'm doing with my teams, especially junior PMs that are joining.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: But at the end of the day, the day the matter of experience. So you know, the more you try and sometimes fail you, you do it better later, you know.

Speaker A: So you mentioned in, in our prep call, uh, building trust with SMBs, you know, is absolutely crucial and obviously even more critical in the fintech space. When you're moving money or managing their money, what, what, what in your experiences worked well to, to build that trust.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I think that uh, um, it's like the key in succeeding uh with SMBs because SMBs are very busy in many cases it's a one man show that needs to operate everything and their day to day is very hectic and there are moments of truth that you have to be there for uh, those SMBs, for those customers. So I would say that the most important thing is be there when it's critical for them when they are stuck and they need someone to help them figure out something or to solve something. So for example, if you are a restaurant owner and you are using Wix or any other company, uh, online ordering system, it got to be accurate and a time, right? So if a customer just submitted uh, an order, the restaurant must sit in the kitchen at the same time like in the middle of the seconds. And if it doesn't work you need to be there for the restaurant owner. And I was leading Greeks restaurant and I think that was like the most critical uh, point that I took with my team. Like really understand a lot of empathy and really understand the sense of urgency for the same business owner. And this is just one example where I can go to like payments as well. But be there for them when you plan the product, when you design it and also find a way to support um, when there is a problem.

Speaker A: Very good. Yeah, I agree. So you've got a vast experience all the way to established um, platforms like Wix and Payoneer. But also you've worked with plenty of startups, right? And we often talk about product market fit in the startup world and that's also in the more mature environment. I mean first of all do you think is product market fit as relevant um, in a more mature environment as it is in a startup environment. And then secondly, what signals do you actually look for? What does product market fit mean for you? What signals do you look for to tell you that you've actually achieved it?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I think that of course when you start, um, it's more critical and when you are more mature so you have lots of data and you have more connection uh, and relationship with customers to really know what is the next thing. And if you can find a market fit when you have your next idea, opportunity or product you want to build. Uh, so it's always important to validate uh, your assumptions and hypothesis. But it's easier, bit easier when you have a wide customer base that you can rely on. Whether it's about talking with them m directly or using uh, the data that you already have. Uh, in mature companies many times the next ideas will come from just exploring what you already have, searching in the data. And nowadays with AI you can do magic uh, to get some insights about what your customers are looking for next. When you are smaller, uh, it's a bit more tricky and in terms of like what I'm looking for. So when it comes to more mature companies, uh, I would definitely look at the data. As I said before, I would be in touch with customers both directly, but also through um, all the support, um, resources that we have. Whether it's like sales management, if it's like success management teams or support directions.

Speaker A: Hmm. Yeah, I mean uh, that's, that's great. I mean the startup phase, product market phase just seems very difficult. Right. I mean to know whether if and when you have it, and there's various different levels of product market that you might have initial traction. But does that really quantify as sufficient product market fit, if there's another level of traction you're looking for, when do you actually know you've got, you know, sufficient traction, um, to take you to the next level?

Speaker B: Yeah. So I think that it takes time, right? It takes time and lots of iterations. Uh, and I think like some criteria or like symptoms to see that you are in the right direction is um, when customers are talking about your product in like social.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And when they are recommending their friends to, to join. If it's a product, uh, that is um, based on collaboration, that a team should be involved in using the product and you see more and more team members using the product. This is also a good sign, a good signal for um, adopting the product. Uh, not only, you know, one that was uh, an early adapter and tried your product, but actually made his whole team to join and use it. And also in terms of data, so it really depends on the product. Um, if it's a product that you expect, ah, users to use on a daily basis, you want to see a daily usage, you will track this if you see it over time. So you are in the right direction. Right. People will start using it but will churn after a while. So we have a problem and then you have to explore whether it's the product or the product market feeds.

Speaker A: Yeah, gotcha. No, that's great. And that leads me nicely onto the next topic around, um, you know, product LED growth or product building a product led, um, business which uh, I think um, you know, you're quite passionate about. So tell me a bit about your views on product led. Uh, I mean obviously, obviously it's talked about a lot and I think in my experience it works in certain environments and it doesn't necessarily work in other environments. Right. So product led, you've got to be careful when you apply that strategy. It certainly works, you know, in some SaaS environments, but particularly in the payments and fintech space, perhaps it's less applicable I would say. Um, so just good for me, it's got me a fairly note of caution when you when you go down a product LED route I don't know what your view is or what's your perspective.

Speaker B: Yeah, so first of all maybe let's define like what is important in product led growth. In product led growth it starts from uh, the product should be able to sell itself to the customers and then you want to drive engagements. Uh so it should be self serve and it should be uh easy to find capabilities. So the discoverability sorry issue is very very ah crucial. So customers, users can really find what they are looking for in the platform whether it's like new features or existing ones. And also when you have a problem, when you encounter a problem you want to know that you have a way to solve it. Uh you want to start like the first line of support should be uh automatic and within the product and not domain based. Right. So this is like generally speaking uh product led groups. I think that with uh, SMBs both in fintech and other industries uh PLG can work very well. So if I'll take the payoneer example, uh it's very PLG uh um based. Right. So uh, the company has a huge go to market operation but this is for like touch customers, high touch customers are the bigger ones and the no touch customers which are the um, in many cases the majority of they use the platform by themselves. So uh, it's starting from exploring the uh opportunities within the platform and then growing with the platform and getting all they need. And when I was at payoneer we put a lot of emphasis on driving this self serve and make sure that whenever a customer has problem or looking for a solution he can find it by himself within the platform. Because again SMBs M are very busy, they don't have time. Uh, they just want to solve whatever is on the table at the moment and you need to provide it uh via the product.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. I think again when we were speaking last year you were hinting that some of the first generation platforms find being completely product led quite challenging. Their tech stack doesn't necessarily support it. Even if you define product as a strategy, you know the platform may not be able to fully support it sufficiently. Support it is the point or question that's something that you've experienced.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So um, definitely I think that many companies, especially you know even tech companies that started uh like 10, 20 years ago uh find themselves um, many times in struggle. Uh it's not only about the uh infrastructure like uh tech wise it's also about the mindset and one of the reasons that I find Especially in fintech is fintechs that are going globally is that they have to solve for different regions, different regulations and different legal requirements. And they have lots of opportunities when they grow so they really want to run after those opportunities. And what they usually do is solving some of these uh, technically and building uh, automatic flows. But a lot of this is being done by human, meaning they recruit more and more operation teams to kind of um, bridge this gap and to run faster. And when they grow after several years uh, it becomes much difficult to uh, kind of go back and be PLG and really um, be ah, product led in the approach, in the, in the concept. Um, so I think it's like technology is something that you can always solve. Right. I think it's a matter of mindset. And for me when I joined Payoneer, uh, the company had a huge platform, a very advanced one but still it was heavily uh, reliant on operations. And this was part of the journey that I took with the team, uh, leading a transformation to become really plg. And for me the most challenging part was actually um, kind of creating the engagement so everyone is aligned, everyone really wants to be PLG comes from the management and all the teams and units in the company. But on the day to day when they need to decide something or they need to choose between, you know, different options, um, the, the automatic and like the native ah way for them is to, to think about let's bring more people to solve this and not let's build new features that serve the customers in the right way. Um, so maybe my tip for this would be to really invest a lot of time in the management team, in the team m making sure that each one of them is really engaged, understand the value but also what it takes to have this change, to make this change uh, with their teams.

Speaker A: Yeah. So okay, I totally got you. So it's like uh, change, cultural change as much as anything else. Right. Mindset like you mentioned, uh, and you're suggesting it certainly must be sort of top down. But what can you do? Is there sort of some kind of grassroots change that you can introduce at a more at a sort of grassroots level? I mean, you know, because I think a lot of companies face this challenge, right. So ah, and it's not an easy one. Um, and even when you know the management is aligned and there is a sort of top down common approach, it still doesn't necessarily work. Right. So to actually get that cultural, cultural shift that you're looking for. So um, what else can you do do you think?

Speaker B: So I think it's ah, um, like always uh, creating small improvements and presenting the value uh, to all the relevant stakeholders. So instead of building you know, big plans that will take years to really complete and the patience of the company will you know, just run. So it's really uh, about finding small opportunities like quick wins, low ending fruits that you can in PLG that you can present and based on this to create trust and engagement and move to the next phase. And also I would say it's always about like speaking with customers, see their approach to this and try to involve as many stakeholders as you can uh, in listening to customers feedback what they are looking for, how deeply they are looking for ah, PLG solutions because they are looking for it. Um, yeah. So this would be very helpful to drive this kind of change.

Speaker A: And from an internal perspective, you know we talk about sort of cross um, functional collaboration as being key and breaking down silos. Would you echo that thought? And what's your experience in terms of collaboration between teams?

Speaker B: Yeah. So um, this kind of change is definitely not something that can be done only under the product organization or organization. This is something that is a course company as I mentioned before. And what I found very uh, helpful is first of all like building task forces around, you know, important areas that will involve different people. Um, many times you just need to kick off with an off site to engage everyone, to listen to everyone's opinions and ideas and then build together, you know, a very high level roadmap how you're going to address this and just to you know, keep track together and make sure that people are still engaged through time. Um, and in more advanced cases I would say, and this is something that happened at Veoneer, uh, we really changed the structure of the company. So we uh, went from a very functional um organization to one that is more based on like business units. In this case you have all the functions that you need under the same business unit with specific goals. So people are really ah, passionate and engaged about you know, leading together towards the change that is very measurable. So you know how success looks like and all the team works towards um, the same goal, uh, the same success that they want to achieve more advanced like not every organization will the structure. Right. So you can do it in smaller um teams um, just creating task forces.

Speaker A: All right, let's, let's maybe start wrapping up. When you look at across the landscape what, what sort of products, opportunities excite you the most at this stage.

Speaker B: So you know, we cannot record a podcast without speaking about AI, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I think that AI brings um, many opportunities, um, also challenges. Of course lots of things um, are not clear at the moment. Uh, however I think that it allows first of all to create um, smarter systems, smarter products for SMBs, uh in terms of you know, insights and digesting all the raw data for customers and bring them like the bottom line and where they should focus on which is really important for uh. Again they don't have time, they don't have time to spend in like you know, trying to figure out what's going on. They just want to get the gist of it. They want to be kind of managed if possible by those systems. And so this is uh, one thing that I would mention and maybe the other thing is I think that we are seeing a shift from uh, very specific solutions that are solving for one problem to an ecosystem of solutions. So if I'm a company and previously I was able to provide you know a specific solution, now I can integrate with different like more easily to integrate with different uh solutions and create something that is more holistic. One stop shop for those SMBs. And again with AI and MCP, uh it becomes easier to achieve those.

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, yeah I think that uh, ecosystem uh trend is definitely there. Um, so as we move into the sort of next era of fintech growth it's around extending beyond the core product into other adjacent areas and presenting a complete solution um, for the customer. And then AI plays a vital role in that. I would say, uh, yeah, uh, both in terms of the back end perhaps but also the actual ux, the user experience itself. You say where do you think AI plays them a greater role at this stage?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that first of all uh, you know the work within the organizations that are providing products and solutions becomes easier. You can you know do much more uh, your work is much more efficient if it comes to development or if it comes um, to uh, product management and so on, uh, in terms of like the customer facing. So they said I think like data is key and the ability to really uh, put provide smart insights. I think this is like, I'm a big fan of you know, providing insights for customers. Um, also like integrations will be easier and there is a big question about you know, how the design of systems will look like. Is it going to be like a uh, prompt based, like we know from ChatGPT or uh, like the traditional UX that we are familiar with. Um, not going to happen tomorrow I guess. But we see a transition to kind uh, of incorporating more prompt kind of experiences uh, in existing products. Uh, we are not saying goodbye yet to the traditional ux but let's see where it goes.

Speaker A: You're right. I mean the traditional payments page for example at the checkout, you know how that might be, might evolve in an era of agentic AI or agentic commerce where you know, perhaps you're not um, participating in that flow as much as you have been or have done in the past. Um, so yeah the UI may well evolve considerably in many cases.

Speaker B: You know, take the products from trying to manage your work to kind of doing it for you. And this is also a trend that we already see in companies.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. The discoverability I think uh, you touched on earlier on about product led and discovering, discovering perhaps travel product particularly within the chat interface. I think that's working actually quite well. Right. You know I was a bit, bit skeptical at first. You know how could you kind of allow chapter to perhaps build an itinerary and then book the travel etc. But you know I can see it happening certainly building itinerary and making actually quite useful suggestions um, is already there. Um, so the next step is then really to the transaction which I suppose you know comes with trust. Um, you know, huge amount m of trust is required certainly from my perspective both at a consumer and SMB level I suppose more than anywhere else. I mean how do you see the differences between SMB needs um just to go back a bit and let's say larger enterprises, you know, what are the, what do you need to really pay attention to when you're addressing those SMBs as opposed to enterprise or consumer.

Speaker B: Yeah. So again I think like SMBs are looking for solutions that will be easy for, easy to use. Ah, that will be self serve and the trust piece. Right. And both are small teams, they don't have luxury uh, to spend too much time on your platform or to use like different resources in their company to solve issues. So they need everything to be very quick and again like when they have a problem they need to know that you are here for them and you will solve it for them.

Speaker A: How should we. We haven't mentioned pricing which I know you've done a lot of work in pricing. Right. And I think um, one thing certain about SMBs that particularly price sensitive I would say. Right. So you know what's your tip or advice or experience with regards to pricing these products for SMBs?

Speaker B: Yeah. So when I was at Wix I was leading the monetization which is actually like the, from the pricing page to purchase flows to managing SMB subscription and so on. And um you know uh hundreds of millions of users around the globe. So it's very different from region to region. Also like the price sensitivity is changing from one geo to another. Lots uh of testing, lots of experimentation. So first of all I would say that and I talked about this before a gentle balance between uh the customer value, the user value that it needs to get from your product and position piece and you always have to keep eyes on those two uh important areas. So of course we want to earn money but not on behalf of you know um the, the value that the customer will get. So uh experimentation really works uh well in this area. Always trying you know if you want to increase prices you will always start from like new customers try uh to see their reaction to this. Always you know track uh customer support tickets that are being opened ah after this or like social media sentiment and only then like gradually go to after a while to existing customers which is a different case and see how they react to this. Um so really experimenting new customers then go to existing different geos regions around the world with different sensitivity.

Speaker A: How scientific have you, have you in that experimentation phase? You know you can get quite scientific with regards to measuring, attempt to measure price sensitivity and willingness to pay. And you know you can get um into a lot of um specific detail there. Have you, have you. Is that something that you've done in your expense experimentation attempt to measure that uh, that willingness to pay by customer segment for example?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah definitely. And you in this case of course you will measure both like the conversion to purchase. If it's a company that is ah like a business model with um a trial period like weeks for example you would also measure like transient. So it's not only that they are willing to pay but they are willing to stay and keep on paying. And then there is the long time retention like after a year that they need to renew their subscription. But this takes more time to measure. So this is not part of the, of the A B test. Usually it's something that you are trying to predict but it's a bit more difficult.

Speaker A: Is that a specific role within the product team?

Speaker B: I mean yeah actually in my team I used to have a um product monetization um managers and it's what their role. So everyone are doing like a B testing of course like it's a company that's really reliant on data and uh put a lot of emphasis on testing. Uh but specifically those people worked uh really closely with the finance teams and marketing to set the pricing. Uh it's not Only the pricing. Right. It's also how it looks, how you present it to customers, how you build different packages, uh, how you prioritize them. Ah, lots of ugs and a lot of localization.

Speaker A: And actually, last question, to what extent do you position your product based on all that input you just mentioned? Um, customer uses, et cetera versus competitive positioning. How does that sort of feed into what you're doing and position your products? How closely do you track and follow your competitors?

Speaker B: Yeah, you have to track it all the time. So it's not only about pricing. Right. It's also about the capabilities that they provide or AI investments that they have at the moment or they are working on. So definitely in the pricing area and the monetization area, you have to track this all the time. And you have like researchers. Researchers, sorry, that are um, tracking this and. Yeah. And, and you adjust and you see also like that the feedback online when your competitors are rising prices or vice versa. So definitely this is something I consider.

Speaker A: Okay, Orly. Perfect. So, um, what's next for you? I know, I think I understand you've transitioned out your last role and now taking some time and um, you know, what's, what's, what's the next step?

Speaker B: So my next step, uh, will be ah, to continue working on products for uh, SMBs. This is what I like to do. Um, I really find it uh, very interesting and impact to work with SMBs that are, you know, the core engine of the global economy. Economy. Um, so yeah, I will share soon, uh, my next plans in a stealth mode.

Speaker A: Perfect. So great. Um, it's been wonderful chatting to you. What's, what's the best way for the audience to reach out to you? If they want to,

Speaker B: they can find me on LinkedIn. I will answer GLED.

Speaker A: Perfect. Well, I can put the link in the show notes and um, well, it's been great speaking and I wish you the best of luck. Uh, and hopefully we'll speak again soon.

Speaker B: Same here. It was pleasure. Thank you.

Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the scalepoint podcast. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and follow us on social media. You can also find out more at our website, which is is scalepointpartners. Com. That's it for today. See you next time and take care

Speaker B: of.