As a product leader, you're not expected to be an accountant. However, finance is the common language at the C-suite and board. To succeed, you need fluency in relevant aspects of corporate finance. Without it, you won't be taken seriously. This class will expose you to the essential areas in a rigorous manner. The class is a mix of lecture and structured exercises/cases based on real scenarios. We'll then constantly tie our financial analyses back to strategic product decisions. Ultimately this is a product leadership class, just with a focus on finance. Class 1: Learn how an income statement tells a story and feeds into product decisionsClass 2: Best practices for modeling, using models for alignment, and communicating your analyses to the C-Suite/boardClass 3: Revenue models, packaging/bundling, and pricingClass 4: Business valuation, differences in owner/investor classes, and why this is crucial for product leaders to understand The classes themselves are 90 minutes, with an additional weekly Q&amp;A session (optional) and take-home assignment. Each week there is a modeling exercise. We begin classes 2, 3, and 4 with a detailed examination on an optimal way to approach the analysis. Our focus isn't on the spreadsheeting but rather (a) how to think through critical risks, opportunities, and assumptions, (b) forecasting possible scenarios, and (c) examining how it might be best presented to a senior audience. The Q&amp;A sessions are open-ended. Topics we've covered in past include:- how these concepts can help you diligence a company you are thinking about joining- differences b/w how these concepts might apply in startup vs scale-up vs large-enterprise contexts, as well as innovation vs product-improvement contexts- real examples of how making a financial case enabled an important project to get approved- a challenge a member of the cohort is tackling at work NOTE: this class is a "partner" class with my Modeling Business Impact class on Maven (https://maven.com/giff-constable/intro-to-business-modeling) — it doesn't matter which one you do first.

If you want to succeed in the C-Suite and in front of a board...

We're going to examine several mock P&amp;Ls, find relevant insights, and then debate critical decisions you would make as a product leader given the insights you've spotted.

Class 1: How does an income statement tell a story?

We're going to touch upon modeling best practices, dive into a detailed scenario, and discuss the (oft-misunderstood) best way to share your analyses with executives and board members.

Class 2: Best practices for modeling and communicating your analyses

It's increasingly falling upon product leaders to (re)design how a company makes money. We will examine the pros and cons of different revenue models, talk through a real-life case where product had to change an established revenue model, and then get hands-on building an analysis for a board on a proposed pricing change.

Class 3: Revenue models and pricing

Class 4 cracks open the black box of how businesses are valued, the different classes of business owners, and how this can help you become more strategic with your roadmaps and more aligned with your CEO and board.

Class 4: Business valuation and what this means for product leaders

Course syllabus

90 minutes of hands-on, case-based learning and group discussion around one core topic. For this cohort, classes will be held Oct 3, 10, 17, 24.

Tuesdays: 90 min class

A chance to meet with Giff and other peers in the cohort and dive deeper into anything covered in the Tues class and the take-home exercises.

Fridays: 60 min optional Q&A

The best way to learn these concepts is to do them. After each class, you'll be given a structured assignment and classes 2, 3 and 4 begin with a detailed walkthrough on a recommended approach to each one.

Take-home assignment

Course schedule

Mid-to-senior product managers who want to speed their path to a leadership role.

New product VPs who want to shore up gaps in their skillset and be more successful in the hot seat.

Design and engineering leaders who want to increase their influence over strategic business decisions.

Who is this class designed for?

What will you gain by taking this class?

Be seen by the CEO, the board, and other execs as a strategic business thinker, not just a product thinker

Build fluency, and thus credibility, in the common language at the C-suite

Build more compelling cases for your product initiatives, improving alignment with other execs

Expand your "systems thinking" beyond product features to the entire business model

Ultimately, level up a critical skillset you'll need in order to succeed as a product executive

Get hands-on learning the essential financial skills you'll need to succeed as a product executive.

Giff Constable

Cohort 5

Cohort 6

When I was tasked with leading PLG initiatives at GitLab, I quickly found myself juggling multiple responsibilities:- I needed to show concrete lifts in key metrics to build trust and secure resources.- I had to define a PLG strategy and educate the organization about it since no one else had.- To ensure long-term success, I also had to identify and address gaps in data and tooling As of 2023, 58% of B2B SaaS companies have PLG initiatives. Many PLG leaders, like myself, find themselves grappling with the same challenges: How do you show immediate impact, while also clarifying strategy and building a strong foundation for PLG? This course is designed to solve those challenges, drawing from my experiences guiding over 20 B2B SaaS startups and scale-ups on their PLG journeys. First, you’ll learn how to define success for PLG, cutting through myths and setting clear expectations. I’ll walk you through the four steps I use to identify the biggest opportunities across the PLG funnel.&nbsp; Next, you'll be equipped with frameworks to evaluate your PLG foundation, pinpoint major gaps in product, data, and tooling and develop a plan to fix them. Then, we’ll dive deep into the key growth levers: New User Self-serve Activation &amp; Conversion, Existing User Engagement, Expansion, Monetization, and Product Qualified Leads (PQLs). You'll get proven analytical frameworks &amp; tactics, real-world examples, and a wealth of experiment ideas you can test today. This course aims to be tactical and actionable and focuss on the 7 most growth critical levers along the PLG Funnel:- Build a killer homepage- Design an effective onboarding flow- Maximize checkout success &amp; trial conversions- Understand and increase product engagement- Create in-product monetization triggers- Design a high converting pricing page- Kickstart Product-led Sales process In addition to the in-depth course material delivered via live sessions, I also designed hands-on projects for you to apply the learning to your own product and dedicated sessions to discuss questions you might have with the material or projects. By the end, you’ll leave with a PLG roadmap ready for immediate implementation—featuring quick wins, big bets, and the foundational improvements needed in data, infrastructure, and tooling. With it, you are truly ready to maximize your PLG funnel, both in short term and long term.

Do you face these challenges with your PLG initiatives? 

Provide a brief description for each module as a way to sell the value of what students will be learning throughout the course.

First Module

Second Module

Third Module

Product &amp; Growth Leaders who are leading the charge on PLG initiatives. You need to show impact fast while solving daily challenges.

Startup Founders &amp; Company Executives who seek to leverage PLG to scale their business. You need to integrate PLG with company strategies

First-Line Practitioners (PM, Marketer, Analyst) who want to become strategic thought leaders in PLG. You want to uplevel your career.

Who is this course for

What you’ll get out of this course

<ul><li>Define success metrics</li><li>Create a growth model</li><li>Compare with benchmarks</li><li>Identify the opportunities</li></ul>

4 Steps to analyze your PLG funnel to find the biggest opportunties

<ul><li>What are the must-have's for your MVP PLG motion</li><li>How to mature your PLG data infra &amp; tooling over time to support long term success</li></ul>

Common gaps in your PLG foundation: product, data and infrastructure/tools

<ul><li>Build a PLG homepage that attracts quality signups</li><li>Set up effective new user and team onboarding experience</li><li>Design a trial experience with high paid conversion rate and checkout success rate</li></ul>

3 Key Levers to maximize your New user Self-serve Activation and Conversion

<ul><li>Design the Golden Journey to turn your product into an engagement machine</li><li>Design in-product monitization triggers that really drives expansion</li><li>Design a pricing page that really converts</li><li>Integrate PLG with sales motion via Product-qualifed leads (PQLs)</li></ul>

4 Key Levers to drive Product-led Engagement, Expansion & Monetization

<ul><li>Top Quick win experiment ideas</li><li>Top Bigger bets</li><li>Top tooling &amp; data investments</li></ul>

Build a PLG roadmap for both short term and long term successes

In-depth course material and hands-on projects to apply your learning right way

A network of peers & access to instructor for in-depth discussion

Maximize your PLG funnel: Identify key growth levers, launch quick wins, and build a strategic roadmap for long-term PLG success

Hila Qu

Cohort 1

Network with 120+ students per cohort! 👩‍💻&nbsp;𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗖𝗧𝗢𝗥Dr. Marily Nika is one of the world's top AI executives and award winning AI Product educator that is establishing the field of AI Product Management. With over 10+ years of experience at Google and Meta launching AI products in Silicon Valley. Marily founded the AI Product Academy in an effort to establish the AI Product Management field and offers certifications that educate the next generation of AI Product Managers. 💡 𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗦𝗘This 12-week course has been taken by over 5k students. It is an award-winning, the first ever and top rated AI Product Management course for AI Product leaders of all levels. It aims to cultivate the next generation of AI PMs, with 0 coding experience. This program offers a comprehensive package comprising 25 hours of live content &amp; 6 practical hands-on exercises encompassing both technical and strategic aspects. To cap it off, participants will engage in a stimulating Capstone project for their own companies, where they can apply their newly acquired AI PM skills to harness AI technologies for developing cutting-edge products for testing purposes. Marily selectively signs NDAs and consults with teams to help them bring their project to life.﻿Additionally, students will have the opportunity to take part in a pitch competition, which will be graced by professionals from prominent venture capital firms. When you enroll in this course, you’ll receive $1,395 in free credits to level up your workflow with Superhuman, Linear, Sprig, Dovetail &amp; Gamma (see FAQ for details) 📜 Plus, get 3 official Certifications, recognized by the industry. 📜 📚 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗗𝗬 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗔 𝟭𝟮-𝗪𝗘𝗘𝗞 𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗠𝗜𝗧𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧?If you would rather not invest in a 12-week program, you can check out Marily's 3-week AI PM 101 course or 3-week Advanced AI PM course instead.

“All Product Managers will be AI Product Managers in the future” - Marily Nika

<ul><li>AI/ML &amp; Generative AI basics</li><li>AI Product Development lifecycle</li><li>AI Product applications</li><li>Intro to algorithms, data collection, model training</li><li>AI PM Craft (strategic thinking, making trade-offs, hypothesis testing)</li><li>Metrics in AI PM</li><li>OKRs and Goals in AI PM</li><li>MLOps</li></ul>

AI PM 101 course

<ul><li>Model training using Google colab (code provided)</li><li>Leadership training</li><li>Architecture</li><li>Productionization</li><li>Responsible AI</li><li>4 guest product leaders</li></ul>

Advanced AI PM 

<ul><li>1-1 Coaching by AI PM Leaders</li><li>Resume &amp; LinkedIn creation</li><li>Access to exclusive jobs board &amp; recruitment specialists</li></ul>

Personal development

<ul><li>3 weeks of hands-on, structured work</li><li>Pitch to a forum of VCs</li></ul>

Capstone Project

If your events are recurring and at the same time, it might be easiest to use a single line item to communicate your course schedule to students

Tuesdays & Thursdays

Feel free to type out dates as your title as a way to communicate information about specific live sessions or other events.

May 7, 2022

Schedule items can also be used to convey commitments outside of specific time slots (like weekly projects or daily office hours).

Weekly projects

Seasoned Product Leaders Interested in pivoting to AI Product Management in their companies &amp; elsewhere

Aspiring AI Product Managers looking to understand the AI Product Developemt Lifecycle and how to launch AI-powered features.

Software Engineers/Data Scientists looking to pave their path towards AI PM, enhance their skillset and learn how to position themselves.

C-level professionals that want to understand the basics of AI Product Management in order to better understand how to staff AI PM orgs.

Senior Product Leaders looking to transition to AI/ML within their own organization or in Big Tech / a smaller startup.

C-level professionals that are staffing AI Product orgs and want to learn how to make strategic tradeoffs and foster an AI-first culture.

You will start off by joining the <a href="https://maven.com/marily-nika/technical-product-management" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Introduction to AI PM course</a><ul><li>6h of live sessions with Marily</li><li>10h of async material/homework</li><li>Group coaching call to create your personalized plan</li></ul>

Phase 1: Introduction to AI PM  (3 weeks)

<ul><li>You will join Marily's <a href="https://maven.com/marily-nika/advanced-ai-product-management/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Advanced AI Product Management course</a></li><li>6h of live sessions with Marily &amp; Silicon Valley top leaders</li><li>10h of async material/homework</li><li>Group coaching to revamp your resume &amp; LinkedIn</li></ul>

Phase 2: Diving Deeper (3 weeks)

<ul><li>Bring your AI product idea or your company's AI product challenge</li><li>Work on this project in a structured, supervised way by FAANG AI PMs</li><li>(optional) Pitch your idea to a group of curated VCs (General Catalyst)</li></ul>

Phase 3: Capstone Project (3 weeks)

<ul><li>Interview Training Workshop</li><li>Mock interview practice</li><li>Access to private job &amp; recruiter pool&nbsp;</li></ul>

Phase 4: Getting ready for interviews / getting the job (1 week)

<ul><li>Get 3 certifications including the AI Product Academy's official 'Certificate of AI PM Readiness'</li></ul>

Phase 5: Get certified

The #1 AI PM Course. Google's Marily Nika aims to cultivate the next generation of AI Product Leaders with learnings from Silicon Valley.

Cohort 14

Cohort 8

Dr. Marily Nika

Gen AI PM Lead @ Google | ex-Meta, Fellow @ Harvard | TED AI Speaker | 40 u 40

Cohort 9

Through multiple real examples of well-run experiments and real stories at Microsoft, Amazon, and Airbnb, you will see the humbling reality that we are terrible at assessing the values of ideas. Trivial changes can be surprisingly useful, whereas large efforts often fail. Accelerate innovation by building Minimum Viable Products and Features (MVPs) and make the organization evidence-based and humbler, as it adopts and learns to use evidence from the gold standard in science: the controlled experiment. You will understand the challenges in designing and running trustworthy controlled experiments, or A/B tests, including the importance of the Overall Evaluation Criterion (OEC), scaling, pitfalls, and Twyman's law. The 2nd week covers additional topics, some more technical, including cultural challenges, institutional memory, maturity model, observational causal studies, offline evaluations, AI/Machine learning and triggering, Bayesian vs. Frequentist, scaling, build vs. buy, challenges, and requested topics.

Empower your organization to be data-driven and innovative

<ul><li>Introduction to controlled experiments, or A/B testing</li><li>Interesting experiments – you’re the decision maker</li><li>Organizational tenets</li><li>Advantages and limitations of controlled experiments</li></ul>

Introduction

<ul><li>Interesting example</li><li>End-to-end experiment: Running and Analyzing an Experiment</li><li>Metrics</li><li>The OEC</li></ul>

End-to-end example, and Metrics and the OEC

<ul><li>Interesting example</li><li>P-values and statistical power</li><li>End-to-end experiment: speed matters</li><li>Twyman’s Law and Trustworthy Experimentation</li><li>Generating ideas, prioritization, ethics</li></ul>

P-values and power, End-to-end Example 2, Twyman's law and Trustworthy Experimentation

<ul><li>Interesting example</li><li>Cultural challenge, Institutional memory, maturity model</li><li>Observational causal studies and quasi-experimental designs</li><li>Pitfalls in observational studies</li></ul>

Cultural challenges, Prioritization, AI/Machine Learning, Complementary Techniques and Observational Causal Studies

<ul><li>AI/Machine Learning model, and triggering</li><li>Leakage and interference</li><li>Bayesian A/B Testing</li><li>Experimentation Platform and scaling</li><li>Build vs. Buy</li><li>Challenges</li><li>Requested Topics</li></ul>

Advanced topics, challenges, and requested topics

Three x 2-hour sessions in week 1 on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday

Week 1: Mon, Tue, Thu

Two x 2-hour sessions in week 2 on Monday and Thursday

Week 2: Mon, Thu

Optional Q&A

Data science managers and scientists will be able to design and interpret the experiment results in a trustworthy manner

Program managers focused on growth, revenue, conversions, and prioritization will understand how to provide the org with robust clear metric

Engineering leaders will be able to make the organizations more data-driven and efficient with fewer severe incidents through A/B tests

Who is this class for?

What you will learn from this 10-hour course

You will hear multiple real memorable stories and examples, many that don't make it to books or articles. These were chosen from over 20 years of experimentation. You'll have the data to show that the poor success rate is documented across multiple organizations; expected it!

Understand and internalize the humbling reality that we are poor at assessing the values of ideas: most ideas fail!

Understand key concepts like causality, hierarchy of evidence, and key organizational tenets required for effective experimentation.

Understand the key advantages and limitations of A/B testing

Designing metrics is hard. There is a hierarchy of metrics and perverse incentives. The most important metrics comprise of the OEC - The Overall Evaluation Criterion. We will look at good and bad examples.

Learn how to design metrics and the Overall Evaluation Criterion

Getting numbers is easy; getting numbers you can trust is hard. You'll understand common pitfalls and how to design reliable and trustworthy tests.

Learn how to designing trustworthy A/B tests

Learn about the cultural challenges, the humbling results (most ideas fail, pivoting, iterating, learning), institutional memory, ideation, prioritization, experimentation platforms

Learn about the cultural challenges

When building AI or machine learning models, using A/B testing and triggering to evaluate the models that were built offline based on historical data

Learn about the relationship to AI and Machine Learning Modeling

When you can't run an A/B test, quasi-experimentation methods and the risks of observational causal studies

Learn about complementary quasi-experimental techniques

What are key challenges and open questions in the field

Learn about existing challenges

If there is something specific you want to cover, there is time allocated for topics voted by the audience to discuss

Learn about YOUR topic of interest

The course focuses on developing the intuition and common misunderstandings, without the details of the statistics, which you can find in many books. We cover p-values, statistical power, and triggering.You can go as technical as you want in the Q&amp;A and community discussions

Technical to your needs

Learn from a world-leading expert how to design and analyze trustworthy A/B tests to evaluate ideas, integrate AI/ML, and grow your business

Learn directly with top operators I admire

Curated by me

Curated by me

Grow with peers

Grow with peers

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Learn directly with top operators I admire

Curated by me

Curated by me

Grow with peers

Grow with peers

Take action

Take action

My 0 top career courses

My 3 top product courses

Financial Fluency for Product Leaders

Maximize the Product-Led Growth Funnel: Advanced Strategies & Tactics

AI Product Management Bootcamp with 3 Certifications

My 1 top growth courses

Accelerating Innovation with AB Testing

🎁 $1,395 in free credits for Lenny’s favorite product tools