Frameworks for product differentiation, team building, and first principles thinking | Ayo Omojola

Ayo Omojola is Chief Product Officer at Carbon Health, one of the fastest-growing and most innovative health tech companies in the world. Previously, he was a PM leader at Cash App, where he co-created the Cash Card and scaled it to a nine-figure revenue line for Square. He’s also an angel investor in companies like Mercury, Modern Treasury, Faire, and many others. In this episode, we discuss:
• How Cash App broke through the noise and became a consumer app success story
• Why small teams are better than big ones
• Hard-won lessons on team building and hiring
• Why it’s “criminal” not to connect people in your network to things that they need
• Why you sometimes shouldn’t listen to experts
• The importance of first-principles thinking
• Advice for health tech founders

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Where to find Ayo Omojola:

Where to find Lenny:

In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Ayo’s background
(04:13) The story of how Ayo used Quora for discoverability 
(06:44) The scale of Cash App 
(07:37) What Cash App did well
(10:12) Lessons from building consumer apps 
(13:08) Why it’s so important to be different
(14:08) What Ayo learned from how Square/Block operates
(16:36) How to succeed at building a startup within a startup
(19:06) How Ayo transitioned from fintech to health tech
(22:51) Why Ayo loves hiring founders 
(28:32) Team-building strategies
(32:12) The importance of going deep and challenging assumptions
(36:58) Why you should always ask questions
(38:45) Lessons in leadership
(41:43) Advice for founders in the health-care space
(44:48) What Carbon Health is
(46:58) Lightning round

Referenced:

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

[amanik]

Ayo is fun to listen to, and you can easily tell he worked through many challenges to extract this wisdom. Also, love Mailform!

[stephenakomolafe]

True point about the Uber hack. I wish Uber can share the numbers but in Nigeria, a good percentage of Uber rides are used by local small businesses for delivery.

Especially e-commerce businesses.

[MiguelHernandez-ptkl]

Awesome interview Ayo !! Can we get a list of those books in your background please ?

[SophyTiffany-rg]

Clark Ruth Wilson Betty Hernandez Jose