Transitioning into a new role

I'm leaving Bolt and transitioning into a new CPO role. Key learnings from a four-year journey.

Hey folks,

It’s official now—I’m leaving Bolt. It’s been an amazing four-year ride and an incredible experience for which I’m immensely grateful.

My next gig is in Azerbaijan, where I’ll be stepping into a bigger CPO role, leading an e-commerce product at Umico (#1 Azerbaijani e-commerce and a subsidiary of the booming Pasha Bank ecosystem).

Since I’m in the process of packing bags and relocating, I don’t have much time to write.

Nevertheless, I understand that your hunger for new, good content should still be satisfied and my writing commitment fulfilled.

I decided to keep it short and sweet and focus on the key learnings from the past four years.

Lenny has recently published a research on which companies craft the best product managers. I think that Bolt can beat the top-ranked companies. Bolt provides the context, the skills, and the mindset to become a CPO or transition into a founder.

Let me explain this through my key learnings from the last four years.

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Today’s article

1. Why I have joined Bolt. The framework and rationale behind my decision.

2. Key takeaways from a four-year journey. What have I learned.

3. How will this blog change? What will change in the upcoming weeks due to my new role transition.

Transition through the eyes of Midjourney v6.1, loosely inspired by the minimal figurative art

📝 Word count: 2683 words
⏱️ Reading time: ~21 minutes

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🧐 Why have I joined Bolt

Or why would have I joined any company for that matter?

The tenure gaps

I view your professional tenure as a puzzle.

There are missing pieces, which you have to fetch in order to complete the picture.

I’ve had a startup gig for ~1.5 years. Burned some venture funding. Learned a lot.

Worked in mature corporate environments for 6 years in marketplaces and advertising. Incredible experience.

I grew from an IC to a mid-level leader. But there were still gaps in my tenure.

Before joining Bolt, I didn’t have much insight into a post-PMF scale-up or early-corporate contexts.

In such places you get to work with builders at a really fast pace. It’s very pragmatic, first principles driven and no-BS.

The more of such tenure gaps you close, the more adaptive you’ll be. It gives an incredible three-dimensional perspective on things. You’ll know the patterns and will possess the tools to tackle challenges in pretty much any context.

But most importantly, you’ll understand what drives you the most, where do you feel and perform at your best.

The economics of a transition

Every move has an opportunity cost.

I typically look at multiple factors:

• Can a company become a unicorn or exceed it’s existing valuation at a multiple? What’s the total addressable market and the companies current share.

• What’s the business model? Can it become profitable? Is it asset heavy? Operationally heavy?

• What’s the run-rate? What funds does the company have? How long it can sustain running?

You’ll run into career challenges if you notice red or yellow flags in each of those questions.

It’s quite easy to do. You don’t need to go through hoops of corporate due diligence. Napkin estimates and common sense would suffice.

All of those questions can be answered with a bit of googling. If you are unsure where to find funding info, visit crunchbase.com.

🔑 Key take-aways from a four-year journey

1️⃣ Business, not features

Ownership is set to the max.

You’re not confined to a set of features, an app or even a set of platforms.

Your job is defined by the P&L.

If the revenue or costs don’t move, you’re not doing your job right. Proxy metrics are great, but if they don’t materialize into something more tangible, well, no bueno.

The challenging part is balancing the breadth of the P&L with the depth of the product and knowing when to think outside the box (making an operational change instead of building a new feature).

This requires you to think like a founder, juggling multiple dimensions while staying focused.

2️⃣ Meritocracy as a single boat

There’s no time to think about the roles, the titles or the superiority of the senior management.

You are all in the same boat. You row, they row in front of you. If somebody gives up paddle, you take over and vice-versa.

If needed you can always go ahead and challenge the C-level leaders.

3️⃣ First principles or out

In a fast-paced scale-up, you have to understand the levers for growth.

At Bolt we’ve doubled down on the biggest supply density and the best price.

If you manage to do this sustainably, you’ll grow and win marketshare.

Those growth levers are the bread and butter. They cascade top down and feed into strategy, tactics and even backlog.

Not understanding them is akin to not having any prioritization at all.

4️⃣ Variable time allocation

Your time is limited, you cannot solve all the problems you face.

Additionally, you cannot do perfect work at all times.

This will just lead to burnout and game over.

What you can do, however, is to allocate more time and effort to the tasks that have higher ROI and less time to lower priority ones.

Have to admit, I’ve just plainly ignored some of the low or ambiguous priority requests. People in fast-paced environments do have a short memory for such things.

5️⃣ Your job changes daily

As the company grows, your role changes.

Over four years, the GPM title I’ve held meant four different things. From an early-stage IC to a director-level ownership with two verticals.

New markets, new growth challenges, new functions, new resources. All this adds to the complexity daily. All of this has an impact on your work and the team dynamics.

It’s a fun thing, as every day you walk into a new role. Nothing is the same.

6️⃣ Clarity moves the needle

You need to be extremely clear and concise.

Time is limited, and senior management’s time is extremely expensive.

If you cannot convey your message in a 30-second pitch, well, refine it again.

The longer and more diluted your RFD document is, the less likely it will move the needle.

If you want to influence stakeholders, you’ll need to have a doc that’s short, clear, and tightly connected to the business.

7️⃣ Error blast radius

The error blast radius is relative to the maturity of your business.

It is fully justified for Google to run dozens of UI tests for their ad widgets in the search bar. The potential cost of error is measured in dozens of millions.

On the contrary, a scale-up sometimes needs to make decisions based on incomplete data or sometimes even gut feel. A/B tests on a small user sample are noisy and do not justify the costs.

8️⃣ Google docs rule the game

Massive multi-billion companies are powered by Google Docs and Sheets.

It’s practically the only tools that are used by everyone in any function.

Writing skills and Sheet formula mastery are your best friends.

🤔 How will this blog change?

As I transition into a new role, I’m thinking about some value prop changes to the blog.

While I’ll need to assess how much time I can dedicate to writing and may not be able to produce four high-quality pieces each month, I’m committed to delivering even more value in new ways.

Here’s how:

🌟 Private Community: Gain access to a members-only space.

🕒 Office Hours: Dedicated time with me for personalized advice, guidance, and support.

📚 Unique Content & Book Recommendations: Receive exclusive articles, curated links, and tailored book advice.

This will ensure you continue to receive top-notch insights and support, even with a different content cadence.

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Let me know what you think in the comments below 👇