AMA with Leah Tharin
Head of Product at Jua.ai, Leah Tharin takes us on her journey of being an AI product leader. Get an inside look at how she approaches skills to invest in, identifying niches to experiment in, and how to nail retention.
“Building something that nobody else can actually copy easily, is going to be the name of the game in the future. And that means that you have to niche down. You have to be very, very specific about something. ”
💡 Key Moments
- How ML is changing how PMs run experiments
- Creating business cases for complex products and how to defend yourself in a competitive market
- Finding niches and knowing what to build
- How AI killed the age of acquisition
- How do you nail retention
- How Leah calculates good revenue, retention, and LTV
▶️ Session play-by-play
- (01:51) Leah’s introduction and what she does outside of her full-time job. Spoiler: More full-time jobs.
- (04:36) The difference between machine learning and numerical models.
- (07:46) How machine learning changes the way project managers will need to approach experimentation.
- (10:03) Creating business cases for complex products and how to defend yourself in a competitive market.
- (11:53) The importance of finding the niches that are left, emphasizing that knowing where to go is much more important than working on something.
- (13:20) The value of building something that no one else can copy.
- (20:51) The need to be really good at estimating upside, breaking down work into difficult risks, and really nailing individual risks.
- (23:59) Basic skills to invest in (including SQL)
- (30:44) The age of acquisition is over
- (33:38) How do you achieve strong retention?
- (40:52) How Leah calculates good revenue, retention, and LTV
- (47:35) How to measure opportunity
- (51:07) Strategies on how to avoid the shiny object syndrome.
The People
Leah Tharin is a product leader, content creator, advisor and startup founder. Formerly the head of Product at SmallPDF, Leah is now reinventing weather forecasting with Jua.ai and is a well-known author of beloved newsletter ProducTea with Leah.
Franciska is the Head of Growth Marketing at Amplitude, a leading digital analytics platform that helps companies build better products. She has been with the company since 2021 when she started as a Senior Product Manager working on the developer experience.
See you at our next AMA! 🎤
We run a monthly AMA series to bring real stories from the field with a focus on actionable insights. We focus on failures, wins, and ways to help people like you build confidence in your own analytics journey.