Kate's Syuma Newsletter & Growthmates
Growthmates: Insights on Product Growth, UX, and Leadership
Unlocking Activation at Coda and Building Trust Between PMs and Designers | Matt Woods (Product Leader, ex-Coda)
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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.

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

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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. 

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

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

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:

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Kate's Syuma Newsletter & Growthmates
Growthmates: Insights on Product Growth, UX, and Leadership
Insights on Product-led Growth, UX, and Leadership. 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. Join the newsletter to get inbox delivery and more: katesyuma.substack.com