Lenny's Podcast · Jul 2Building minimum lovable products, stories from WeWork & Airbnb, and thriving as a PM | Jiaona Zhang
Jiaona Zhang is SVP of Product there. Its edge is the designer plus the CMS, so she wants deep investment there, and she is merging Webflow University with AI so users learn in context. Her first 90 days showed trust must be built before pushing change.
Tips
- Build a minimum lovable product with fewer features done with high polish▶ 20:45At Webflow, the team judged whether memberships and logic could reach minimal lovable, or whether to release what they had and let the ecosystem contribute the lovable piece.
- Understand why people love your product and double down on that core▶ 56:06Pattern JZ saw across Dropbox, Airbnb, WeWork and Webflow (where the designer and CMS are the core).
- Build context in a first 90 days by meeting 40 to 50 people across functions and levels▶ 48:25JZ had 90 days before parental leave at Webflow and packed her first weeks with these meetings.
- Earn trust before pushing for change in a new role▶ 49:47
- Run a tech spike early to surface unknowns before committing▶ 1:04:05
- Ask for help from peers and your team even as a leader▶ 57:47
