Maven

How to Increase Your Technical Depth

Stripe

Notion

First Round

Cristina Cordova

Chief Operating Officer at Linear. Prev. Stripe, Notion, First Round.

Deeply understand a new product through the eyes of a customer.

Understand what matters to a technical stakeholder.

Learn to speak the same language as your technical counterparts.

Senior IC Product folks (IC 7+) at the top companies have an incredible ability to move between complex product problems in different domains and land impact in short amounts of time. They exhibit high levels of product thinking in addition to organizational savvy in execution. People with strong product thinking capabilities across levels (IC5 - IC8) are not just highly desired within the companies they currently work at, but are coveted by companies across the tech industry. In order to expand your product thinking, you need to go broad and think about a lot of products/markets from first principles. The challenge that people face is that they only get to work on only 1 or 2 products every few years and become fully immersed in that space. They put in the effort to broaden their product thinking only when they are looking for new jobs. That is already too little, too late! This course will help people Uplevel Product Thinking Skills for digital products in a short amount of time. The unique approach I will be taking is:1. Break down digital technology products into 12 themes &amp; ~50 markets / product types.2. Demonstrate how to think about product problems in those themes and markets/product types3. Leverage 30 min interview styles questions to help people practice product thinking across markets. Theme 1: Entertain, Educate and connect people!- Media - By Studios: Netflix, Disney, HBO, CBS, Peacock, YouTube TV…- Media - Traditional Publishers: NTY, Economist, WSJ, Yahoo- Media - Music / Podcasts / Audio Books: Spotify, Itunes, Podcast, Audible- Media - By Creators: IG Reels, TikTok, YouTube, Snap, IG/WhatsApp Channels- Media - By Community: Reddit, FB Public Groups, LinkedIn- Media - By Friends &amp; Family: FB Feed / Stories, IG Stories, WhatsApp Status Theme 2: The middlemen making connections!- Marketplaces - Local: Yelp, ZocDoc, Thumbtack, OpenTable, Tripadvisor,- Marketplaces - Ecommerce: Ebay, FB Marketplace, Etsy- Marketplaces - Real Estate: RedFin, Zillow- Marketplaces - Short Term Rentals: AirBnB, VRBO, ..- Marketplaces - Transportation: Uber, Uber Freight, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart- Marketplaces - Travel: Kayak, Expedia, Hotels.com- Marketplaces - Jobs: Upwork, LinkedIn, Indeed,- Marketplaces - Dating: Tinder, Match, Bumble, … Theme 3: Makes it easy to spend money!- Ecommerce - Everything: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Costco- Ecommerce - Local: DoorDash, Uber Eats, Instacart, Amazon, Walmart..- Ecommerce Verticals: United, Marriott, BestBuy, HomeDepot, HelloFresh / Blue Apron, Chewy, Theme 4: Always On Connection to People!- Communication - Private: WhatsApp, iMessage, Messenger, IG Direct, Snap, Linkedin, X, Telegram- Communication - Large Group: Slack, Discord, Microsoft, Google, Workplace, WhatsApp, Telegram Theme 5: Do More With Less!- Productivity - Personal: Notion, Coda, DropBox, TaskList Apps, Grammarly,- Productivity - Enterprise: DropBox, Box, Google bundle, Microsoft 365, Atlassian,- Productivity - No/Low Code Tools: Zapier, Airtable Theme 6: Amplifying And/Or Replacing Humans on Some Tasks!- Gen AI - Business Agents: TBD- Gen AI - Consumer Agents: TBD- Gen AI - Creator Agents &amp; Tools: TBD Theme 7: Enhancing world and How we interact with it!- AR: Assistants, Spatial computing&nbsp;- VR: Games, Experiences, Communication &amp; community Theme 8: Portal to the Internet!- Consumer Hardware: laptops, phone, watch, glasses, health trackers, AR/VR- Consumer Platforms - Operating Systems: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android,- Consumer Platforms - Browsers: Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Arc- Search: Google, Microsoft, Perplexity, YouTube, TikTok, .. Theme 9: Pays the bills for the free stuff!- Advertising - General: Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, YouTube, TikTok, Snap,- Advertising - Vertical: Yelp, Uber, Instacart, DoorDash, Expedia, Kayak, LinkedIn Theme 10: Makes it easy(ier) to make money- Ecommerce Logistics: Fulfillment by Amazon, Shopify Fulfillment, Flexport, Uber Freight- Ecommerce Dev &amp; Marketing: Shopify, Meta Pages / Shops,- Business Website &amp; Marketing: Yelp, FB Pages, WhatsApp Business Accounts, Wik, Squarespace ..- Business - HR / Finance: Intuit, Service Now, ADP, Zenefits, Workday,- Business - Marketing/Sales: Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho, SAP, Oracle, Marketo, Mailchimp, LinkedIn Theme 11: Moves, Stores and Invests Money!- Payments - Dev Platforms: Stripe, Paypal, Adyen, Shopify Pay, Bolt- Payments - Peer to Peer: Venmo, Zelle, Paypal- Finance - Banking &amp; Credit: Wells Fargo, First Republic, Citi, Mercury, Monzo, Nubank- Finance - Investments: Charles Schwab, E*Trade, Fidelity, Robinhood, Coinbase Theme 12: Build On Top Of Others!- Developer Platforms - Infrastructure: AWS, Google Cloud, Azure,- Developer Platforms - Tools: Cloudflare, Twilio, statsig, Datadog, Splunk, Okta, Stripe- Design Platforms: Adobe, Figma, Canva Who is this course for:This course is going to help you:- No matter how many years of product experience you have. IC, Manager, Dir, Sr. Dir, VP- What function you serve in product org. PM, Eng, Design, DS, UXR, PMM etc.- What ever company you currently work at in the product landscape

Uplevel Your Product Thinking to have more impact and grow in your career.

Provide a brief description for each module as a way to sell the value of what students will be learning throughout the course.

First Module

Second Module

Third Module

Course syllabus

Session 1 - Sat Oct 5

Session 2 - Sun Oct 6

Option A: 7AM - 9AM US Pacific Daylight TimeOption B: 5PM - 7PM US Pacific Daylight Time

Session 3 - Mon Oct 7

Session 4 - Tue Oct 8

Session 5 - Wed Oct 9

Session 6 - Thu Oct 10

Session 7 - Fri Oct 11

Session 8 - Sat Oct 12

Session 9 - Sun Oct 13

Session 10 [Bonus] - Wed Oct 16

Session 11 [Bonus] - Thu Oct 17

Session 12 [Bonus] - Wed Oct 23

Session 13 [Bonus] - Thu Oct 24

Session 14 [Bonus] - Wed Oct 30

Session 15 [Bonus] - Thu Oct 31

Course schedule

Product builders across functions from Product Manger, Design, Data Science, User Research, Marketing will benefit from the frameworks!

People with all levels of experience from IC, Manager, Director, Sr. Director and VPs will benefit from the breadth of topics.

No matter your industry / company you will benefit from the deliberate thinking that you will practice through the course!

Who is this course for

What you’ll get out of this course

Understand the frameworks to come up with compelling product ideas

Understand the complexities of different product types

Apply strong product thinking to a spectrum of products

Understand what great responses look like across product types

Frameworks to evaluate markets & come up with compelling solutions. Applied to 12 product themes!
🔥 500 students 🔥

Satish Mummareddy

Cohort 3

Cohort 4

You sat through another meeting today feeling totally lost as the devs threw around terms like “rate limits” and “microservices”. Every time you have to make decisions that impact an engineer’s implementation, you feel like you’re on the back foot and struggling to keep up with the details. After you hand off a feature to engineering, you have no idea if it will be delivered the way you're expecting. You can feel confident, you just need the right plan. The reason most PMs can’t improve their technical skills is that they follow random online tutorials with no real plan or guidance. Or try to go from zero to 100 overnight by upskilling on complex topics - only to give up feeling frustrated and disappointed. That’s why this cohort is designed to help you build a foundational understanding of software applications. You won’t just memorize a bunch of terms - you’ll actually understand how software products are designed and deployed to handle millions of users. And our community will be here to give you the support, guidance, and accountability you’ll need to finally stick with it. After only 4 weeks, you’ll look back and think.. “WOW! I can’t believe I did that.”&nbsp; Now imagine if you could: ✅ Master technical concepts without getting lost in an internet maze. ✅ Stop asking engineers to dumb down concepts when talking to you. ✅ Predict risks, anticipate issues, and avoid endless back-and-forth. ✅ Improve your communication with engineers, users, and technical stakeholders&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Getting started is easy. 1️⃣ Start with my 8-day email course to start building confidence with APIs today (enroll for free below!) 2️⃣ Enroll in the 4-week cohort to build your foundations with application architecture, APIs, software development lifecycle, and system design. 3️⃣ Continue your journey with The Vault, our content library covering technical tradeoffs, generative AI, technical interview prep, and more. 🎉 Bonus: When you enroll in this course, you’ll receive $1,395 in free credits to level up your workflow with Superhuman, Linear, Sprig, Dovetail &amp; Gamma (see FAQ for details)

Does this sound familiar? 

Understand how technical skills fit into a PMs toolkit and why technical PMs get ahead faster.

Why PMs with Tech Skills Win

Start with fundamental application architecture and move to advanced topics such as containerization, microservices, and more

Application Architecture

Learn how APIs work and why they are a requirement for almost every modern software product

APIs

Get up to speed with SQL and start retrieving and analyzing data independently

Data Models

Build rapport with engineers by understanding development workflows and lifecycles.

Software Development Life Cycle

Learn how to scale applications to millions of users.

System Design + Scalability 

Live Sessions

Recorded Lessons

Practice Exercises

Senior Product Managers.Build confidence and gain a competitive edge amongst your peers

Non-technical PMs.Overcome imposter syndrome, improve communication, and make better product decisions

MBA graduates and consultants.Seamlessly transition into product by learning critical technical skills

Feel more confident in your decisions by building a deeper understanding of technical tradeoffs

Build confidence

Engage engineering by using common language

Improve communication

Understand fundamentals by learning and practicing essential concepts

Grow your technical skills

Gain a competitive edge in your career by demonstrating your technical acumen

Excel in your Product career

Build confidence without getting lost in technical jargon 
🔥Featured on Lenny's Newsletter🔥 

Cohort 10

Colin Matthews

Product Manager @ Datavant

Cohort 9 - Thursdays 5PM EST

Cohort 11 

Tech leaders are remembered not just for their technical prowess, but for the lasting impact they have on their team's careers and success. This course equips both new and experienced software engineering managers with the essential skills to amplify their influence and drive team performance. Over 100 software engineers and engineering managers have already enhanced their leadership capabilities through this course. Join them and transform your approach to tech leadership. --- This interactive course will teach you how to solve 3 key problems faced by senior engineers and engineering leaders: • Identifying opportunities for growth within your team and working with your team to fill these missing gaps • Effective communication with your direct reports, peers, and upper management • Asking for and delivering constructive, actionable feedback For the duration of this course you'll receive: • 4 hours of engaging content over Zoom, with interactive lessons and breakout sessions • Hands-on learning by walking through case studies and real life examples with your cohort • Templates you can immediately start using on the job • In-depth live Q&amp;A session to get immediate answers to your on-the-job questions • Recording and slides for future reference and review Don't just take my word for it! “Kelly taught me both how to implement effective processes to improve the efficiency of my team and how to lead with empathy and thoughtfulness. This combination of hard and soft skills has paid dividends for my team and me and is all the result of Kelly’s mentorship.” — Dunchadhn Lyons, Engineering Manager @ Spot AI "It's very rare to see the artful combination of empathy and effective leadership that Kelly possesses, and she bestows those traits generously on the engineers and aspiring leaders she supports." — Ivy Astrix, Former Senior Systems Engineer @ Govalo

What makes a great engineering leader?

You'll learn how to identify growth opportunities for each team member and work one-on-one with them both on a long-term quarterly basis and during regular check-ins to ensure your team members are continuing to grow as engineers.

Developing your engineering team

You'll learn how to build influence through facing challenging conversations head-on with your engineering team, peers, and upper management.

Conflict resolution across an organization

You'll learn how to give effective feedback to your engineering team and peers to build a more effective work culture.

Giving and receiving constructive feedback

Saturday Morning

Saturday Afternoon

Choose the morning or afternoon session to fit your schedule

New and experienced engineering managers looking to build the interpersonal skills required to succeed as a leader

Technical engineering managers who want to develop their team and build influence across their company

Aspiring engineering managers looking to lay the groundwork to create an impact as an IC and future leader

Who this course is for:

After taking this course, you'll be able to:

Your success as an leader is measured by your team's execution, and to have great execution, you need a great team. We'll talk through how to identify and leverage technical and interpersonal strengths of your current team and empower your team to grow professionally.

Build and scale a high performing team

1:1s and performance reviews don't have to be stressful–my own team can back me up! I'll teach you how to keep the feedback loop active by applying my framework to conduct meaningful 1:1s and provide tactical, actionable feedback to your team on a regular cadence.

Conduct impactful 1:1s and development check-ins

Learn how to give constructive feedback from a trained therapist! I'll teach you effective communication strategies for conflict resolution within your team and building influence within your organization.

Navigate challenging conversations with peers and direct reports

Learn the 3 key skills you need to be an impactful technical leader with this 4-hour interactive workshop

Kelly Vaughn

Learn the "Art and Science" of technical selling. AI + Cloud has changed the way enterprises consume software and services.&nbsp;This allows engineers to impact the B2B sales process in a very positive way.

Learn solution sales strategies that leverage your authenticity as an engineer.

Understand the B2B sales process

Meet your customer where they are

Researching and profiling customers effectively

Art & science of product positioning based on customer needs

Use your technical skills to engage customers and build trust

Identify risks in sales opportunities and neutralize them

Closing the deal

Tips for additional practice

Course Syllabus

4 Live Sessions over 2 Weeks

Project Work

Technical Founders who are building category-defining software products.

Technical Solution Sellers looking to speed up their time to revenue.

Software engineers in customer-facing roles who want to rev-up their careers.

Bridge the Gap Between Code and Clients.<ul><li>Gain practical insights into the world of B2B sales, tailored specifically for founders.</li><li>Understand how to articulate complex technical solutions to non-technical stakeholders.</li></ul>

Unlock customer opportunities by harnessing your technical skills

Engineers are in the best position to sell effectively. But, they lack the tools and framework to be successful. You will create your own high-velocity sales playbook that works for your technology domain.

Learn the high-velocity sales framework

Mass disruptions are also creating massive opportunities. Use the energy in the technology market in your favor.

Leverage AI and Cloud disruptions

<ul><li>Equip yourself with the sales acumen needed to successfully launch and sell your own SaaS products to businesses.</li><li>Learn to translate the value of your technical solutions into compelling propositions for potential clients.</li></ul>

Entrepreneurial edge for SaaS creators

You are selling every day to internal stakeholders. This course will arm you with strategies and mental frameworks to progress your agenda. These skills are valuable even if you continue in a developer role.

Cut through the FUD created by entrenched vendors

<ul><li>Enjoy continued access to the exclusive community for ongoing support and events.</li><li>Avail a 25% discount on the premium version of the community with over 50,000 industry experts. JoinTaro.com</li></ul>

Lightning Lessons

How to Increase Your Technical Depth