Inside Gong: How teams work with design partners, their pod structure, autonomy, trust, and more

Eilon Reshef is the co-founder and chief product officer at Gong, one of the most ubiquitous B2B products in the world. In our conversation, we discuss:
• Gong’s unique approach to working with design partners
• Their unique pod model
• Why Eilon makes big decisions quickly
• Lessons learned from being early in AI
• The power of extreme focus
• His “spiral method” for learning complex topics quickly
• How to maintain quality while optimizing for speed

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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Eilon’s background
(04:20) The pod model
(06:33) Working with design partners
(09:13) Finding and coordinating design partners
(13:12) Balancing customer feedback and vision
(15:10) Gong's 95% feature adoption
(17:05) The importance of autonomy and trust
(23:30) How to implement this unique way of working
(27:15) Speed and decision-making
(31:47) Early AI adoption and lessons learned
(35:50) Building effective AI teams
(38:16) The spiral method for learning
(41:36) Narrowing down the initial customer profile
(44:24) Failure corner
(46:35) Lightning round

Referenced:

Recommended books:

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

[prueba-kw]

I do a party every year and everybody comes at the hour they want and bring whatever they want and every year is better than the last. Autonomy and personal responsability really works.

[samd]

my company doesn't even include design in the "pod model" :(

[MrJkallay]

"Pod Model"? Do we need yet another word for the same thing, an independent product team?