Customer Centricity is at the Core of Product Development with Sylvain Grande, CPO at PayFit France

A big shoutout to all product leaders. Welcome to the Product Leaders Podcast by Fireart with your hosts, Dima Venglinski and Tolik Nguyen. Every episode is a deep dive into different aspects of product leadership to enhance the end-user experience.

In this episode, Dima is joined by Sylvain Grande, CPO at PayFit France, a software platform for digitizing all aspects of HR management. Sylvain walks us through his twenty-plus years in product development and management and shares how the essence of successful product development lies in being close to the customer in both B2C and B2B domains. He also shares valuable tips for young and upcoming product leaders and discusses type one and type two decisions PMs take.

Topics we discuss:

Role of design in product development
Product leaders need to get close to their customers
Learning from failures
Advice to upcoming product leaders

Hot Takes and Key Highlights:

The Role of Design in Product Development

Sylvain is a product leader with a passion for design. He recalls his days at Nokia, where he developed Here Maps, the precursor to Google Maps. He was actively involved in UI design, which sparked his passion for design. He believes that the best products have minimalist designs, thereby making the product user-friendly. Sylvain believes that design is an integral part of the product development process.

“We had to really think about key design elements like offering one search field or two while minimizing any trade-offs”.

Customer Centricity and Product Development Go Hand in Hand

Customer centricity for a product leader has two aspects: how close you are to your team and an ongoing interaction and feedback loop from potential customers. While the latter is easier to do in the B2C domain, more B2B companies should include product leaders in client meetings. Listen to the podcast as Sylvain explains how customer empathy ties into product development.

“All feedback has its inherent biases, and as a product leader, you need to be able to sift that out when actioning the feedback”.

Treat Success and Failures as two Imposters

Success and failure go hand in hand for all product leaders and must be treated differently. The euphoria of successfully launching a product is often short-lived because something bigger and better will come along. On the other hand, failure is a time of introspection and learning because you learn something new every time you fail. Product leaders need to look at success and failure as two imposters and treat them as such.

“I think it’s important to take positives and learnings from both success and failure when looking at their overall impact”.

A Veteran’s Advice to Upcoming Product Leaders

Sylvain advises product leaders and team members to spend more time defining the project's scope and clarifying the priorities. Spending some more time at the start can prevent delays down the line. Next, explicitly communicate all trade-offs and their short- and long-term implications. Categorize all decisions as categories one and two, where one refers to revolving door decisions that can be changed down the line, and category two decisions are pivots that can’t be retracted. Listen in as Sylvain explains how product managers are multi-specialists and why they need to develop anchor skills.

“PMs, in a way, are multi-specialists, and while you can’t be a specialist at everything, you need to develop anchors in relevant fields”.

Guest at a Glance:

Sylvain Grande is an expert in digital advertising and subscription revenue models with strong experience in general management, revenue development, and product management. Over a twenty-year career in product development, he has managed P&Ls from scratch and up to $350m.

Sylvain Grande on LinkedIn

PayFit France Website

Hosts at a Glance:

Dima Venglinski: Dima is the CEO of Fireart Studio, a boutique design and software development company committed to innovation and technology. His client portfolio ranges from startups to established global brands like Rolls Royce, Google, and Atlassian.

Connect with Dima on LinkedIn

Fireart Studio Website

Tolik Nguyen: Tolik is the CSO and Partner at Fireart Studio and leads the strategy team while solving the company’s end-user issues from an early idea stage.

Connect with Tolik on LinkedIn

Fireart Studio Website