An inside look at how Miro builds product | Varun Parmar (CPO of Miro)
Skills:
PM Basics70%
Varun Parmar is the Chief Product Officer of Miro and has over two decades of experience in the tech industry. Prior to joining Miro, Varun held executive positions as Chief Product Officer at Box and Syncplicity (acquired by Dell EMC) and spent six years in product management at Adobe. He also co-founded Doculus, which was later acquired by Box. In today’s episode, we discuss:
• The importance of empathy and how to foster it
• The “AMPED” structure for cross-functional product teams
• How to move fast and stay ahead of the competition
• Powerful product and design rituals
• How Miro acquired their first 1,000 users
• How Miro successfully added a sales motion
—
Brought to you by Miro—A collaborative visual platform where your best work comes to life | Braintrust—For when you needed talent, yesterday | Linear—The new standard for modern software development
Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/an-inside-look-at-how-miro-builds
Where to find Varun Parmar:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/vparmar230
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vparmar/
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Varun’s background
(04:08) How Miro operates as a cross-cultural product team
(07:22) How applying empathy helped Miro build Miro Talktrack
(11:51) What makes Miro stand out
(17:08) Miro’s AMPED structure
(22:57) The benefit of having product marketing as a part of the cross-functional team
(25:24) How competition affects growth and product strategy
(31:43) Why speed is so important and how to improve it
(34:21) How Miro ensures that their products meet quality standards
(37:19) How to remove blockers
(47:22) Miro’s product development process
(53:34) How OKRs work at Miro
(55:55) The product stack at Miro
(1:01:20) Big bets vs. maintenance and bug fixes at Miro
(1:03:44) The “three horizons” framework
(
Watch on YouTube ↗
(saves to browser)
Sign in to unlock AI tutor explanation · ⚡30
Playlist
Uploads from Lenny's Podcast · Lenny's Podcast · 0 of 60
← Previous
Next →
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
How to sell your ideas and rise within your company | Casey Winters, Eventbrite
Lenny's Podcast
How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google
Lenny's Podcast
How to create a winning product strategy | Melissa Perri
Lenny's Podcast
How to scrappily hire for, measure, and unlock growth | Crystal Widjaja, Gojek and Kumu
Lenny's Podcast
How to launch and grow your product | Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt and Weekend Fund
Lenny's Podcast
The rituals of great teams | Shishir Mehrotra, Coda, YouTube, Microsoft
Lenny's Podcast
The art of building legendary brands | Arielle Jackson (Google, Square, First Round Capital)
Lenny's Podcast
The nature of product | Marty Cagan, Silicon Valley Product Group
Lenny's Podcast
The art of product management | Shreyas Doshi (Stripe, Twitter, Google, Yahoo)
Lenny's Podcast
From a guy who's been in the game 20+ years, working with companies like eBay, HP, Netscape #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
A pearl of an insight from Steve Jobs' "The Lost Interview" #Shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Google thinks BIG #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Persuasive communication and managing up | Wes Kao (Maven, altMBA, Section4)
Lenny's Podcast
Shishir Mehrotra is an ex-VP at Google and the CEO of Coda ($1b+ valuation) #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Would you have expected this from a CEO? #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Have you seen this "disease" before? #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Arielle probably helped form some of the product one-liners that you know and love #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
How well do you think this applies across startups, writing, and social situations? #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
How to grow a subscription business | Yuriy Timen (Grammarly, Canva, Airtable)
Lenny's Podcast
“You may not know everything that’s actually happening… but it will blow your mind” #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
A simple way to speed up a LOT of decisions #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
When EVERY brick and mortar store has to sell online overnight, and you do online stores... #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
The role of AI in new product development | Ryan J. Salva (VP of Product at GitHub)
Lenny's Podcast
You've been thinking about it a lot... but should you do it? #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Overcome imposter syndrome and accelerate your career | Julie Zhuo (Sundial, Facebook)
Lenny's Podcast
Ryan led the incubation/launch of Github's Copilot #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
He's talking about Brian Chesky throughout his response to the pandemic #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
And the technology will only get more powerful from here... #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Anyone can do these! Julie is also the founder of Sundial #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Julie's speaking from experience as an author on the topic, Facebook VP and now cofounder of Sundial
Lenny's Podcast
How to build a powerful marketing machine | Emily Kramer (Asana, Carta, MKT1)
Lenny's Podcast
Sanchan was Head of Product @ Instagram from 2014-18 and he's now the VP of Product @ Coinbase
Lenny's Podcast
This is always a bit of a reality check #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Harvard Business Review has a great article on these & Shreyas went deep on them in the podcast
Lenny's Podcast
Pause it and try yourself! It's harder in practice than you might think
Lenny's Podcast
Do you agree or disagree? #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Extremely clarifying for marketers and non-marketers alike #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Shishir is CEO and co-founder of Coda and a former VP of Product at Google #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
When to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass)
Lenny's Podcast
So valuable to hear some insight into the actual signs of burnout versus just working hard
Lenny's Podcast
Adam was also a VP of Product and Marketing at LambdaSchool and a VP of Marketing at Masterclass
Lenny's Podcast
Adam said this is a very common challenge across the companies he advises
Lenny's Podcast
Building a meaningful career | Jason Shah (Airbnb, Amazon, Microsoft, Alchemy)
Lenny's Podcast
Jason Shah has led product teams at Amazon, Airbnb, Microsoft, and currently, Alchemy (web3)
Lenny's Podcast
Pause and try for yourself before he explains what he's looking for! #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Amazon is famous for "working backwards" but what does it actually mean? #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Why product-led growth is the future | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Surveymonkey)
Lenny's Podcast
Free trials aren't just about converting YOU to a paying customer... #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
What do you think the right balance is here? #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
We hear about product-led sales all the time, but what does it actually mean? #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
"the only way you will ever have any chance of being product-led" #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Common... and costly? #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
The tables have been turned! #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Ken said that interviews are as much you interviewing THEM as the other way around #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
"I still care about people, but it's a redefinition of how that serves me" #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Only OGs know this one... Adam brought it up when talking about the dangers of relying on 1 channel
Lenny's Podcast
Is product a part of marketing or are they "joined at the hip"? #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Fire insights #shorts
Lenny's Podcast
Customer-led growth | Georgiana Laudi (Forget The Funnel)
Lenny's Podcast
Using behavioral science to improve your product | Kristen Berman (Irrational Labs)
Lenny's Podcast
More on: PM Basics
View skill →Related AI Lessons
⚡
⚡
⚡
⚡
Meta announced major job cuts, spends billions on AI
Medium · AI
DeepSeek made its 75% discount permanent. The AI price war just escalated.
The Next Web AI
Anthropic's Milan Move: Italian AI's Moment of Truth
Dev.to · Gian Paolo
Big fears in Big Tech sector over Artificial Intelligence job losses
Hacker News
🎓
Tutor Explanation
DeepCamp AI