224. MVPs, Milkshakes & Corporate Innovation

How do you make something completely new? And does the process differ if you’re in a tiny start-up or a tech giant like Google?

Listen to this episode to find out.

You will learn from Maria Fernandez Guajardo, Senior Director of Product Management for Gmail at Google. 

You'll learn the framework behind what makes a good Minimum Viable Product, the process Big Tech companies use to bring new ideas to life and the differences between start-up and corporate innovation.

Maria's book, Sail to Scale: Steer Your Startup Clear of Mistakes from Launch to Exit, is available now.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

02:52 Understanding Jobs to Be Done

06:00 Psychological Aspect of Product Design

08:56 MVP Features

12:10 Generative AI in Product Development

14:54 Corporate Innovation

18:02 Building Momentum

20:50 Similarities Between Startups and Corporations

24:10 Becoming a Corporate Innovator

27:00 Experience in Entrepreneurship

29:52 Writing a Book for Entrepreneurs

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Transcript

Sophia Matveeva (00:02.444)
Maria, I have a question for you. What do milkshakes have to do with technology?

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (00:08.539)
Other than we like them and we them like a synergy through the day. I think that we talked about milkshakes in the content of technology, because we were talking about minimal viable products or MVPs. And an MVP is something, it's a product, it's an early version of your product that you build to test hypothesis as quickly as, fast as you can. And the reason you do that is because.

Sophia Matveeva (00:23.519)
Yes.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (00:36.207)
People usually have a hard time to give you feedback on an idea in an abstract context and you need to present your products in use. And there's a great story about milkshakes and McDonald's that exemplifies this. This is one of the examples that appears in the book, Competing Against Luck by Clayton Christensen. And the story of the milkshakes is that McDonald's saw

a bit of like a rise of sales of milkshakes. And obviously it was like, there is something here. Let's go and let's, let's do more desserts. Let's do more sweets. And that didn't, didn't work. And what competing against luck explains is the framework jobs to be done with is what is the real motivation of people to use your product. And, what, McDonald's did with their milkshakes is that they did a lot of research to really understand who were.

people buying these milkshakes, in which context they were having their milkshakes. And what they found out is that people were buying those milkshakes through their commutes for themselves and for their kids in the car. Okay, that's not the right, the perfect snack for the kids, but okay. But they were buying them. And the reason why they were buying milkshakes and not other sweets were actually working is because they needed something that didn't create a mess in the car.

and that it lasted long enough for their commute. So actually they were hiring these milkshakes to entertain them in a way through that commute. Once McDonald's had this knowledge, they were able to create different flavors of milkshakes, different consistencies, different products that met the characteristics of these findings.

That's what like why we build MVPs and we test them with real users in real time. So we actually get the context. Another example that I really like is Sophia. If I ask you on January 1st, how is it to be your gym routine and how often are you to go to the gym? It's going to be fantastic. How often are you going to go?

Sophia Matveeva (02:44.472)
fantastic. Yes of course. six days a week, one rest day. Like an athlete, like a pro.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (02:52.929)
Exactly. Exactly. And then what's reality is that, you know, your real life really comes into the picture and, know, you have meetings and you have to drop your kids and you're stressed and you don't feel good and like, and then you end up not going. So this is why as, as product manager, as technologies, you have to be extremely worried when you show a mock or when you show slides of like, this is an idea that we have, this is what thinking about this.

because the feedback is going to be extremely positive. Most of the cases, nobody wants to tell you in your face that your baby is ugly. one. Number two, people, it's not that they lie, it's that we have a really hard time to put ourselves in the context of how we're going to be using the things. And we have a hard time to really express our deep needs and wants of the product. So that's why...

in technology this concept of having an MVP, which is your minimum version that you can possibly put together as fast as you can, that can test your assumptions of why your product matters as fast as possible is being very common right now in technology and a lot of companies use it.

Sophia Matveeva (04:05.421)
So want to clarify how does that idea of jobs to be done from Clayton Christensen, how does that relate to the MVP?

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (04:14.841)
Yeah. So on the jobs to be done, you really understand what is the motivation that your product that the users have to use your product. So that is like, you say, say my product got hired to do X job, like the, because there is a, there is a willingness to use and a willingness to pay for something that you are hiring for that. When you understand what is the customer actually trying to do, there's two things that happens. One.

is that you really understand the core value proposition. The core value proposition has to be in the MVP. If you really want to like really have the feedback that you want. And second of all, if you really understand the deep motivations and the, you know, a little bit like more subjective needs when they're doing their job, you can do a better user design of that product. Like for example, like, you know, just like,

Imagine you are like an accountant or something like that. Accountants, imagine they have this personality where they love to get things done. check, check, check, check. You can also see they have this sense of accomplishments when they do, imagine that you are designing software to track their accounting. I don't know much about accounting, but just for the sake of it. Because their need is to check, check, check, they'll have a great sense of accomplishment if when they do something in your software,

you click, you like show like, that's has been done. This is like, I feel so much better. Like I have done what I, the checklist that I needed to do. So small things like that. What is, what's driving people to do the things they do and make sure that your core value proposition is in the MVP, but also like their, their deep wants and needs are met by that product.

Sophia Matveeva (05:39.712)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sophia Matveeva (06:00.928)
Yeah, the psychological aspect. And I think this is really especially important for luxury brands. And yes, there are luxury brands and technology. mean, Apple, right? And because, you know, for a handbag or an iPhone versus a cheaper phone.

The job in a way you could see that, the job to be done is to carry something or to make a phone call or I don't know, use WhatsApp. But actually there is a deeper psychological need to, a job to be done. So an iPhone does a different job than say a cheaper phone, which also has WhatsApp connectivity in a way that a Chanel handbag does a different job than a bag from Target, even though they actually perform the same functionality. And I think because we have people who are listening here and they're building tech

products. I don't want people to only think about the actual function, like what does the thing have to do in a very obvious way. It's also kind of what's the psychological aspect. And so, yeah.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (06:58.117)
Sofia, sorry to interview you. Do you mind to do that with a different example? Because we built Android.

Sophia Matveeva (07:05.302)
my God, I totally forgot. Of course. Yes, no, that, yes, yeah, yeah, Yeah. Yeah. No, but I mean, there are lots of cheaper androids, but yes. Okay. Let's, I was, let's just use handbags. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll, cut that off.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (07:07.245)
Yeah, so you're saying like iPhone versus a cheaper phone, which are not cheaper by the way.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (07:17.409)
If you could, that would be great. Yes, exactly. The hand was right. Like you're building a handwork. It's not just about the leather. It's about what it shows.

Sophia Matveeva (07:24.235)
So actually let's know what's a what is a what's a luxury tech Tesla Tesla used to be luxury. They have a luxury Tesla because I want to use it. Yeah, it's not not anymore. Hmm. What is a really expensive tech? Okay, well, if it doesn't come to me, I will go I will just go with Apple. No, not with Apple. I'll just go with Chanel. Okay, shall we start?

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (07:35.065)
it's kind of complicated these days.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (07:53.017)
Okay, that sounds great. Yes, thank you.

Sophia Matveeva (07:54.206)
Okay.

And I think it's really important for people who are creating products to understand that there are different jobs to be done within the same thing. So for example, let's look at a handbag. You can get something from Target for 20 bucks, or you can get something from Chanel for $10,000. And both of them do the obvious job of carrying something from A to B. But why is, Chanel is clearly a successful company. So clearly people are buying these bags and

buying these items that actually they could get for much less. It's because there is another job to be done, a psychological job to be done. So maybe it's showing to yourself that now you've made it. Maybe it's showing to your sister that you know finally your career has gone well and hers hasn't. Whatever that need is but there is another need and we can also see that in technology. So don't think that just because you're creating a product and even if it's a tech product or you know whether it's

a tech product or not, there is the very obvious job to be done, but then there is the psychological job to be done and both are really, really important. And so when people are thinking about creating a minimum viable product, how minimum should it be?

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (09:18.255)
Yeah. This is one of the trickiest questions of creating the MVP is like, what is the set of features? And we see the both spectrums. We talked about this in the book, in Sector Scale. We talk about the startups mistakes. And this is one that comes really, really often, which is people oscillate between the two sides, which is they either put too much on it, too many features, and this happens very often, or they don't put enough.

Let's talk about the two cases because they're both really interesting. There is a tendency to put too many features and sometimes what that happens is that they build a version and then they have big ambitions, which is great. We all want big ambitions for our products and for our startups and they think, okay, this is going to reach everybody who will use my product because everybody is an accountant at heart and everybody will use this.

Sophia Matveeva (09:50.026)
Mm-hmm.

Sophia Matveeva (10:04.788)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sophia Matveeva (10:12.2)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (10:16.439)
And, and you end up like trying to target everybody and you put like so many different features that it becomes really unusable for the majority of people. And you are lost, you get lost. It has other problems, which is like, start building more and more and more and more, and then it's harder and harder and harder to make iterations and pivot and like all of those things. On the other side is I'm building a minimum. I'm going to get it out there as soon as possible. And.

What ended up happening is that you may be missing key value proposition that is just like not going to give you the right signal. Cause then what ended up happening on that case is that people don't use it, but you are left a little bit clueless of like, why is it because they don't like my idea? don't like my product, or is it because they're they're just missing like a key part. So that, that balance, like what we want, what we recommend to do is like number one.

to avoid the problem of having too many features is like really to start small and have a very, very targeted segment of people that you really understand what they're trying to accomplish and how and why, back to the jobs to be done framework. And when you understand those people, you really target it. You can always expand from there. Like try to find small cohort that really likes what you're doing. You can always go up from that.

So that's one. And then on the other side is like, let's identify your key assumptions. An MVP is there to mitigate risk. Let's not forget about that. Your ideas, you don't know if your idea is a good idea. Everybody has in their heads, their ideas are great. Like, you know, you are convinced that this is going to be the best thing. So, but they're all assumptions and it's very easy.

you know, with confirmation bias to those assumptions in your head, turn them into facts very quickly, but they're not, they're still assumptions. So it's very important that you distance yourself from like your idea, your solution, and you really list all of the assumptions that you are making. Like I believe that people will do X when I show them Y, well that's assumption, you don't know if they're gonna do that. So make sure that, you you list all of the assumptions that you need in order for your product to be successful.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (12:38.297)
And then for each of the assumptions that you have a way in your MVP to prove it. That's one thing. And then the other thing is that you have a way to get the feedback if they use it or not, either, you know, in your product, you instrumentalize it. So you have metrics that you can see like, yeah, they actually did that, that step. Or, you have lineup, qualitative feedback, interviews, customer, like you're talking with customers, like a way that you can collect the feedback. Otherwise an MVP, which is a vehicle for learning.

has no point because you haven't learned.

Sophia Matveeva (13:10.196)
And you know, this is actually where constraining your resources or basically not having a lot of resources is a good thing because right now I am literally in the middle of running an accelerator on tech for non-technical founders and we're covering MVPs, you know, how to make an MVP. And I am seeing that, you know, when people actually have resources because, you know, they've got funding or they've already got a successful business, so they've got the cash to spend.

arguing them out of having lots of features in an MVP is really difficult. And also because, you know, when we have a vision, we have a vision of something big and we want it to be great and we want it to be really awesome and perfect. And, you know, when somebody says, you've got to slim it down, I mean, nobody wants to do that. And

So there I see that actually, you know, having money can exacerbate this problem. Whereas when I'm speaking to founders who don't yet have funding and they're not, they're not yet running a successful business that's spitting out cashflow. And so, you know, they are kind of paying for it themselves. Then actually talking to them about, let's keep it really simple because you're going to have to do it yourself. Or, you know, you don't have the money to pay a lot for developers and designers. So let's

just keep it really, really simple. And so I would say to people who are in corporates where you do have bigger budgets, the budget makers, if there is a CFO listening, do be the CFO at the beginning. Be a bit stingy at the beginning. If it starts working, then stop being stingy and start funding it. But resource constraints at the beginning is a really good thing to avoid feature creep.

I'm wondering now that generative AI, like everybody's talking about it, some people are disappointed with it. Some people think it's changing the world, but everybody's got an opinion. So when it comes to creating something new for the first time has, you know, is generative AI relevant here?

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (15:15.995)
So I think, we have, we have seen, you know, an explosion, right? With the technology, like everybody jumping in and creating new products. And we see this like with every new technology, there's a lot of this boom. And then there's like a return, kind of like return to normal. And, and, you know, the interesting thing is like the mistakes that people do during this boom is like, it's almost like the same, the same, it's the same, the same story over and over again, because you have to do like the return to normal, right?

Sophia Matveeva (15:31.912)
Mm-hmm.

Sophia Matveeva (15:39.752)
Mm-hmm.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (15:44.827)
And one of the mistakes that we see that we have seen through this cycle of AI is that people fall in love with their solution. And this is a technology driven process. Let's do everything in Hatch and AI. H &I here, H &I there, H &I there. All of the possible flavors. And that doesn't work because just because something is innovative doesn't mean it's going to win. Just because something is...

Sophia Matveeva (15:59.699)
Mm-hmm.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (16:15.085)
Superior doesn't mean it's going to need because at the end of the day, what you need to do is to solve a for somebody. And it's like, it's back to the same core principles of like, okay, who are these people? What problems do they have? How can I help and use the technology in the support of solving those problems? Not that technology first approach to problems, which is what we actually experienced a little bit at the beginning. What we are also seeing is that

You know, I like to see, you know, the type of products as like either Tylenol of vitamins, like you have products that are, you know, solving headaches and they're really, really important. they're all, you know, nice to have like a vitamin, et cetera. When, companies right now are being bombarded by products that are doing AI, you know, even, you know, when you're trying to evaluate vendors and things like that, there's like so much, so much change that you all.

also have to prioritize like why, where do I spend my time thinking about this new technology and how can it help me? Am I behind? I'm not. So I think that what we are seeing is that, you know, people will prioritize the Tylenol because that has like a bigger impact on my bottom line. So, you know, to, to entrepreneurs out there and to everybody who's working in this technology, like to, to advise like first,

Use the technology in support of your strategy, in support of the problems that you are solving for your customer. And number two, make sure that, I lost my train of thought. I was the second one. Sorry.

Sophia Matveeva (17:52.82)
Let's start again. That's fine. So you were saying that you said that there were two things that you would advise in temperatize. One is basically have a strategy and then use AI to solve problems within that strategy. And then

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (18:02.362)
Yes.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (18:11.675)
yes it was like the Tylenol and then the other one yeah and then the other one what was the other one my god i forgot

Sophia Matveeva (18:16.584)
Tylenol and vitamin. We can cut that off if you want.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (18:28.123)
Can you believe that? This is because it's 7 a.m. Sophia.

Sophia Matveeva (18:31.448)
But it happens.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (18:38.159)
Well, you know what? Cut, cut that.

Sophia Matveeva (18:41.428)
Yeah, so shall we start with a question? Why don't we shall we start with a question again where I with the generative AI question?

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (18:50.043)
no, no, that's too much. think that we should cut on like, like, there's like two things that I will say to the entrepreneurs. I was just like, okay. Okay. So, No, I can, I can wrap it up. Yes. So I will, I will say that, you know, to entrepreneurs, to entrepreneurs out there, I will say just make sure that you focus and they use generative AI to go back to the basics, which is to solve problems for people.

Sophia Matveeva (18:51.899)
Okay.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. Okay, cool. So we're done with the genera- Okay, yes. Mm-hmm.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (19:18.853)
go use it to establish your strategy rather than just chase a new technology. So it's really going back to the basics.

Sophia Matveeva (19:29.84)
Awesome. And now you are working at a massive company and you've just been giving advice to entrepreneurs and you've got this book which is aimed at founders. So, you know, how do you know what you're talking about? Basically, if you're at Google, they haven't been a startup for a while.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (19:52.569)
Well, I I have worked at startups for a number of years and, you know, I work in a very innovative startup, like either as advisor and in other capacities in the entrepreneurial world. But I have also created, I've been an intrapreneur, which is like entrepreneur inside big companies and creating new products, new business lines, like things like out of like very different from what the existing company was doing and what a lot of people.

Maybe don't realize is there's a lot of more commonalities that there are differences. Yes, there are differences and we can talk about them, but there's a lot of, but I would like to address the commonalities that some people, you know, they get them by surprise. Like, first of all, the basics are the same. You still have to find an idea. You still have to define a product, do an MVP. You still have to convince somebody that like, and find the way that this is going to solve the problem. And that is hard. Like, you know, doesn't matter where you are.

Sophia Matveeva (20:32.998)
Yeah.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (20:50.299)
It is hard to design good products that solve problems, existing problems, right? So that is still the same. There's another thing that is interesting, which is like, know, in the startups, you raising money, they have to go to VCs. Well, guess what? I also have to raise money and go to VCs, which is my leadership because every year there's a strategic planning and things are awarded like a certain number of resources.

You know, know, people who have ideas and to what to build things, they have to convince people that they know what they're talking about, that there is an opportunity, that there is a business plan that we're going to, you know, this is how we're going to solve this problem. And every year you have to show progress because every year there is a reevaluation of like, where do we spend in our resources and what do we do? So as, having been an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur right now, it's very similar. And I take it myself.

very similarly and I approach it in the same way. There are obviously differences. Like for example, in a big company, you probably have easier distribution of get your idea, your product in front of eyeballs of like the people who are going to use it. But in a startup, you spend your time more in the go-to market, right? Like how am I going to get this in front of people, sales, marketing, business development?

On my side is less about that, but it's more about internal alignment with internal stakeholders because this thing has to fit into a bunch of other things that are there. So the skills of influencing and storytelling and strategic, like explaining why this is important, they're very similar. It's just that you're working with different groups and different things.

there's probably there's different risks tolerance. Obviously startups have more risk tolerance. They have less assets, less things to worry about. In a big company, there is more risk. Therefore, there is potentially more processes. You have to make sure that things are aligned so decision-making may take longer. But the other side of that coin is that in a startup, you don't have ability to do a lot of bets because you don't have

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (23:11.215)
You don't have the resources. You are much focused in like a single bed. So there are differences. There's, there's some skills that you develop better in a startup that others that you develop better in a bigger company. But a lot of the things are the same, you know, even like when you are thinking about an exit, you know, this people's like, you as a startup, like, what is my exit? What is my exit? Same thing on a, on when you are at the, being an entrepreneur in a big company, because when you're creating.

A new product, at the beginning there's like a small team and you know, it's kind of like on the side and we don't know, but what is the future for that? Are you going to implement, are you going to integrate into the bigger picture? Is that going to be integrated into the bigger team? Like what is the plan? And as a founder or entrepreneur inside a bigger company, you also have to think about that. It's like, what's going to happen with my team? What's going to happen with this? How is this going to come together in the bigger scheme of things? So there's a lot more similarities than people think.

Sophia Matveeva (24:10.982)
So would you say that if somebody wants to be an innovator but basically doesn't want the financial risk of not knowing how to pay their rent, that becoming a corporate innovator is a good alternative?

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (24:28.208)
I love being a corporate innovator.

Sophia Matveeva (24:30.49)
But how do you become one? Because I often wondered.

You know, how does somebody who basically wants to do that at a corporate, how do they like, is that, is there a job opening that says, and be a corporate innovator? Because I know some departments, you know, some companies have innovation departments, but usually they tend to be quite small. So even big companies don't have a massive innovation team. And that's not the only place where innovation happens. And so people often ask me, okay, I want to do this.

How do I go about it in a corporate?

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (25:05.913)
I get asked that question a lot as well and I have, I have opinions. first of all, I'm not a big fan of the innovation teams and you know, there's this incubators, skunk wars, like I don't think they work. They may have some cases where they have work. I, I just like in my experience, the majority of those things. And the reason is because they are disconnected from the actual problems of the users.

You know, they don't really, whatever idea doesn't really go with the rest of the strategy. It's just like a little bit too much outside. So I'm not a big fan of like having a career as an innovator. I don't go out there and pitch myself as an innovator. No, I'm a product leader who solves problems for people. Now, how do you do that? Those things. And how do you, you know, imagine you have like an idea and how do you get it out in a bigger company? How do you get it? sponsor. So there is, there is a, there is a lot of framework to.

to do that. First of all, you have to understand that the timing doesn't depend on you. The timing depends on the company, but you have to be ready when the time comes and you have to build the momentum for you. become in my, I'll tell you, but here's the thing. You, you don't, I don't think that somebody goes to you and say, Hey, you here do this idea. That job doesn't, it doesn't happen. Like you almost have to create for yourself.

Sophia Matveeva (26:17.305)
What does that mean? Build the momentum, yeah.

Sophia Matveeva (26:33.541)
Mm-hmm.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (26:34.183)
And how you do it is that first of all, you come with an idea and that comes from being curious, like understanding, like, know, ideas usually happen at the edges of like what people are doing. Obviously, if you go into what somebody else is doing, it's like, Hey, let me tell you how to do your job. That's probably not going to work, but there is a lot of overlaps and connections and holes and edges like between the products and opportunities.

Sophia Matveeva (26:44.87)
Mm-hmm.

Sophia Matveeva (26:51.642)
Mm-hmm.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (27:00.825)
So if you're curious about how your company works and how the outer space works, you can find those ideas. So once you have that idea, it's almost like when VCs invest in people, like sometimes we say VCs invest in people, in the founder. This is like the same thing. So how would you say, how did you get the sponsor? You need to show passion. This is very similar to what you would do with a VC. You have to show passion. You have to show a deep...

Sophia Matveeva (27:16.069)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (27:29.229)
understanding of the details. You cannot go and say, I have an idea. Let's build a flying car. What did you know, Maria, about flying cars? You don't know anything. What are you talking about? Like, no, no, no, no. Here's the market. Here's the technology. Here's the thing. Like, I know my details. You have to be persistent. They are going to tell you no many times. So you have to have the grit. And also, like as executive, sometimes when people in my team comes with ideas,

Sophia Matveeva (27:41.413)
Mm-hmm.

Sophia Matveeva (27:48.995)
Mm-hmm.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (27:55.201)
I need to see that this is somebody who's going to stay with the problem until they get it done. You have to show that great, very similar, right? You also need to, you need to ask for help. You are not going to get this done on your own. have to, you have to create that momentum around you with other executives, with other partners, with other people who's like, I, I'm starting to like, see how this comes together.

Sophia Matveeva (28:02.223)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sophia Matveeva (28:09.839)
Mm-hmm.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (28:23.931)
And the last, the other thing, there's a couple of more things. First, you have to, you have to have some wins. So you have to build a reputation. Like if you got, just got hired into a company and it's like, I have an idea. like, who are you? You need to showcase and you need to prove to the people who are going to sponsor that you can be trusted and that you get things done and that you are able to this. And then the last point is that on your idea, you need to show that there are.

Sophia Matveeva (28:32.943)
Mm-hmm.

Sophia Matveeva (28:36.911)
Mm-hmm.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (28:53.837)
early wins, that you have proof points that, you know, this, way the market is going, the way this is thing, like you are showing that you are going into the right direction. Anyway, there is, my opinion, like being an innovator into a big company, you, you make it rather than they hire you for it. because if they hire you for you for it, this innovates the innovation departments. In my opinion, this is just like not very successful.

Sophia Matveeva (29:20.781)
Interesting. Yeah, this is

Thank you very much for that framework. it is interesting how much the steps resemble entrepreneurship. Obviously, there is a lot more risk in entrepreneurship, just, you know, frankly, financially. But in terms of, you know, building your reputation, building your network and that actually getting a deal done takes a really long time, whether it's fundraising or, you know, a big client deal. If, you know, if it's a small client deal, they tend to happen kind of more quickly. But if it's something, you know, if it's a

big client win, it's literally the same thing. The client needs to see for a long time that you can deliver, that you can deliver the project, that you've got that team and so on and so forth. So it just seems like these are professional skills that are really useful to have. And yet I do, it's amazing how many people kind of don't bother developing these kind of innovation skills, which I think you don't actually need to go and invent, you know,

smartphones or EV electric vehicles or whatever. You don't need to go and do things at that scale. But these these are fundamentally really useful professional skills, especially at a time when, you know, technology is changing so much. And we all have to keep on learning new things. And also, we all keep on having to have our own opinions. You know, is generative AI useful for your job or not? I don't know. It depends on the job. So when you speak. So actually, why don't you tell us about

book that you've written because you've written it with three people and it's aimed at entrepreneurs and obviously you do have the background and the insight but there are also lots of entrepreneurship books out there so why did you decide to write another one?

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (31:07.507)
we decided, so Mona, Heather, and myself, we decided, to write this book because we, we have been, you know, we have been in Silicon Valley for, for many years. the three of us, we have a lot of experience in, in, startups. And, it was interesting because when we were talking, so I am a more the expert, I'm more of the product expert, a lot of like new products, innovation, launches, like first phase, et cetera, and pivots and the iterations.

Heather is more of like the CEO, CEO type of profile, a lot of scaling, pivoting, scaling companies. And Mona is really an expert on exits and scale and exit because she actually has an advising company on startups exits. So when we are triangulating, like a lot of our experiences in entrepreneurship world, we saw so many

mistakes that are connected through the journey of a startup. And we found that there was a voice missing about having been in the trenches and having gone and seen these mistakes over and over again and having clear ways to identify them and what to do about them. We thought that there was a lot of books out there who talked

brilliant ideas about unicorns that probably are going to happen like once in a lifetime. That's great to read, highly recommend, super inspiring. There was a lot of books that they were very frameworky and very much like here's like the structure and all of that. But what we were missing were voices of people. And the book is full of stories of startups that have been successful and failures. There's like both of them.

And we wanted to make it extremely instructional and like, how can I learn to identify these things and what do I do about it? So it's very approachable. This is people who have read it. is what they told us. It's very easy to read and very easy to understand and very like, okay, now I got the tools to do these things in my, in my own.

Sophia Matveeva (33:18.104)
I will put the link to that in the show notes. So thank you very much for joining us on Tech Fun on Techies and for sharing your insights.

Maria Fernandez Guajardo (33:27.481)
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Sofia.

Sophia Matveeva (33:32.004)
Okay.