In this episode I’m joined by Jenny Rudd — founder of Dispute Buddy, and a natural product thinker with a non-traditional path into tech.

From turning her home into a top-tier Airbnb through clever customer research, to scaling a regional magazine and now building a legal tech startup from personal experience — Jenny’s story is all about deep empathy and smart product instincts.

We talk about staying in the problem space, running lean customer discovery, and building products that truly solve painful, emotional problems — even before writing a line of code.

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In this episode, I talk to Hannah—a seasoned product leader and platform product expert at Totara Learning, with prior experience at Xero and as a fractional CPO—about:

• Her transition from learning & development into product leadership.

• Lessons from bringing product thinking into technical teams at Xero.

• How to empower platform teams and define a clear strategy.

• Metrics that matter for platform teams, including internal satisfaction and time-to-release.

• Why developer experience directly impacts product quality—and how to improve it.

• Building strong product cultures in both startups and enterprises.

• Creating alignment through one-page strategies and async communication.

• How leadership differs between startups and larger orgs—and what remains constant.

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In this episode, I talk to Christina Baldarelli—Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Operating Partner at Ministry of Awesome, as well as a 1-1 Product Consultant and Fractional CPO—about:

• Her unconventional journey into tech and product leadership.
• Lessons learned from scaling Mobi during New Zealand’s COVID-19 lockdown.
• How to navigate product challenges when expanding into international markets.
• Balancing growth, retention, and prioritization during hypergrowth.
• The importance of iterative product development and validating early.
• Common pitfalls for startups and how to avoid overspending on MVPs.
• Building adaptable product teams and fostering cross-functional collaboration.
• Key strategies for aligning product, business, and market opportunities.

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In this episode I talk to Matt about:

• Matt's lessons from scaling Drift to a $1.2B acquisition.
• Insights on rapid iteration, product-market fit, and moving from SMBs to enterprise.
• Strategies for aligning product and growth with user personas.
• Advice on joining startups, spotting red flags, and staying flexible.
• Takeaways from AngelList on high-autonomy teams and compliance.
• Tips on avoiding perfectionism, validating early, and learning from failure.

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In this episode I talk to Rowan about:

• His journey as one of the first engineering hires at Vend, helping it scale from 5 to 200 employees in just four years.
• Key lessons from his seven years at Slack as a Staff Engineer, including tackling tech debt and building a product users love.
• What it takes to secure a tech role in the US.
• How investing in developer experience can motivate and transform your engineering team—and practical ways to apply this to your company.
• The valuable lessons Rowan is carrying forward as he builds his new startup, Prosaic.

Create one-click bug reports with Dummi. Matt Costa is a product leader with two decades of experience building products for software companies like Conqa, Datch, Auror, as well as his own startups. From UX design to leading product teams, Matt’s journey offers key insights for founders and product leaders working in early software teams. Among other things, we discussed: - How you can make better strategic decisions about product, - Why having product direction and risking being wrong is better than not making product decisions to keep your options open - How you can go faster and build more product with less resources and - Why founders should think twice before leaning on popular frameworks.

Contact us at ⁠producttales@dummi.com⁠.

In this episode we chat with Quality Assurance leader Yaroslav Donchuk. We dive into how you can improve your team’s testing process as a tech leader, how to know when is the right time to invest into a dedicated QA resource, and what are some misconceptions about testing and working with QAs.

If you are looking to learn about how you can improve your testing processes and what steps you should be taking to prevent expensive software quality problems that go beyond just finding software bugs, you’ll want to listen to this episode.

Make sure to subscribe as we publish new episodes fortnightly. Contact us at podcast@dummi.com

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Building a successful product team is no easy feat, especially when it’s spread across countries and cultures. In our latest episode of Product Tales, Giulia sits down with Farran Jonker, Product Manager at Trail, to discuss the challenges and strategies behind managing remote teams. From fostering culture across borders to aligning everyone with a shared vision, Farran shares insights on how he’s built high-performing teams across New Zealand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Tune in for actionable tips on managing remote teams, creating trust, and building a strong product culture.

For feedback or to be a guest, email us at producttales@dummi.com.

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In our first episode of Product Tales, we talk to product and developer superstar Billy Lam. Billy has worked with ed-tech platform Education Perfect from it's early startup days 12 years ago to now, where he works with their AI Enablement team. Hear about how Billy finds opportunities to create meaningful AI features across their product, and the best ways you can implement AI into your own product.

For feedback or to be a guest, email us at producttales@dummi.com