Unlocking Activation at Coda and Building Trust Between PMs and Designers | Matt Woods (Product Leader, ex-Coda)

Welcome to Growthmates — the place to connect with inspiring leaders to help you grow yourself and your product. Here you can learn how companies like Dropbox, Adobe, Amplitude, Canva, and many more are building excellent products and growth culture. Subscribe to get all episodes right to your inbox on katesyuma.substack.com.

Listen now and subscribe on your favorite platforms — Apple, Spotify, or watch on YouTube (new!).

This episode is supported by Appcues — make your product adoption easy!

Appcues is the platform that helps you design, deploy, and test captivating onboarding experiences. Appcues created the Product Adoption Academy to help you level up your product adoption, and you can use it for free. 

Check out the “5-step Growth Flow Review” template which I created to help companies connect growth hypotheses with behavioral patterns to uncover meaningful improvements. Find an example of Dropbox Onboarding inside the template and apply it to review any growth flows.

---

Get a 15% discount for my Self-Service Onboarding course

If you're keen on Mastering Product Growth and User onboarding, join the upcoming course in April. You will get personal guidance to create a stellar onboarding experience and frameworks to turn it into live. Get a 15% discount before 15 March. Learn more and get early access → https://maven.com/growth-course/self-serve-onboarding

---

This time we talked to Matt Woods, a Product Manager focused on Product-led Growth, who helped companies like Coda increase key activation metrics by 60%, and introduce personalization experience that combines great UX and business impact. Matt also contributed to Reforge artifacts to share examples of his work as one of the earliest contributors to their program. Being a Product Manager, Matt has a fantastic website built with Coda full of insightful case studies. I personally learned so much from Matt, and if you listen to this episode, you will learn about:

• The process of defining activation and aha-moment with examples from Coda

• How connection to customers helped to uncover meaningful wins

• The secrets behind collaboration between product managers and designers in Growth

• and much more

If you find our show valuable, please share it with your colleagues and friends. To receive all episodes right in your inbox — Subscribe to katesyuma.substack.com, your support means a lot. 

Follow Growthmates updates on:

• Substack Newsletter (for instant inbox delivery): https://katesyuma.substack.com/podcast

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/growthmates-podcast/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growthmates_/

Where to find Matt Woods (Product Leader, ex-Coda):

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewchristopherwoods/

• Website: https://portfolio.mattwoods.io/

Where to find Kate Syuma, Growth Advisor (ex-Miro):

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-syuma/

• Newsletter: katesyuma.substack.com

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/kate_syuma

What we’ve covered in this episode:

00:00 Introduction and Website Creation

03:11 Learning and Mission Statement

07:12 Coda's Success Factors

10:07 Product-Led Growth and Experimentation

14:32 Defining Activation and User Behavior Insights

34:33 Building a Partnership

35:23 Challenges in Working Together

36:23 Trust and Inclusion

37:34 Understanding Motivations

38:31 Embracing Collaboration

39:44 Overcoming Communication Issues

42:25 Fostering Creativity

50:26 Building Healthy Partnerships

56:25 Favorite Artifact: $100 Voting

58:41 Favorite Book: Setting the Table

Resources referenced:

• Reforge Artifact “Weekly outcomes update message at Coda”: https://www.reforge.com/artifacts/weekly-outcomes-update-message-at-coda

• Welcome doc onboarding: https://portfolio.mattwoods.io/case-studies-how-i-work-3

• 100-Dollar Voting Exercise: https://coda.io/@lshackleton/100-dollar-voting-exercise

• “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott: https://www.amazon.com/-/en/Kim-Scott/dp/1250103509

• “Managing Humans” by Michael Lopp: https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Humans-Humorous-Software-Engineering/dp/1430243147

• “Setting the Table” by Danny Meyer: https://www.amazon.com/Setting-Table-Transforming-Hospitality-Business/

If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to share it with your colleagues and like-minded friends. For sponsorship and other inquiries reach out to ekaterinasyuma@gmail.com.

Subscribe to get more episodes right in your inbox: katesyuma.substack.com