Gong's Product Strategy: Leveraging Design Partners and Autonomous Teams

Gong's Unique Pod Model for Product Teams

Gong has developed a distinctive approach to organizing their product teams, which they call the "pod model". This model was implemented around 2016 as the company started to scale. Instead of following traditional structures with separate frontend and backend engineering teams, Gong decided to replicate their initial small cross-functional team structure.

A typical pod at Gong consists of:

• 1 product manager
• 1 user experience designer
• 5-7 engineers (mix of frontend and backend)
• Fractional writing and analyst resources

Each pod is given an agenda or focus area, such as launching a new product line. The pods are granted significant autonomy in how they approach solving problems and working with customers.

Working Closely with Design Partners

One of the most unique aspects of Gong's product development process is how closely each pod works with design partners (customers). Some key points about their approach:

• Every pod works with 6-12 design partners on new products and features
• Design partners are typically existing Gong customers who have expressed interest in a particular capability
• Pods work very closely and iteratively with design partners, sometimes showing them partially built features to get feedback
• This approach helps ensure products will actually be used and valued by customers before full development

Alon shared an example of a product manager demoing an in-progress forecasting tool to a design partner, even though core functionality wasn't built yet. This allowed them to get early feedback and show progress.

Benefits of the Design Partner Approach

Working so closely with design partners provides several key benefits:

• Very high success rate - Alon estimates close to 100% of features they build end up being used significantly
• Reduces risk of building something customers won't use
• Allows for rapid iteration and course correction
• Creates strong relationships with key customers
• Provides confidence that products will have market fit

Alon believes this approach is a "cheat code" for expanding product lines and increasing total addressable market. By working hand-in-hand with customers, Gong can confidently build new capabilities that will be valued.

Fostering Autonomy and Trust

A core principle at Gong is giving product teams a high degree of autonomy and trust. Some key aspects of this:

• Pods are given an overall goal or focus area, but have freedom in how to achieve it
• Teams can make many decisions without getting approval from executives
• There is an expectation that teams will solicit feedback, but they drive the process
• This autonomy helps teams move faster and stay more motivated

Alon believes this approach gets more out of people by letting them be themselves and tackle problems in their own way. He compares it to letting people bring whatever dish they want to a potluck, rather than assigning specific items - you end up with more creative, high-quality contributions.

The Spiral Method for Learning

Alon shared his "spiral method" for quickly learning complex topics:

1. Start by talking to someone knowledgeable about the topic
2. Ask them who else you should speak with to learn more
3. Talk to those additional people, continuing to ask for more contacts
4. Keep "spiraling" deeper, talking to more experts
5. Eventually you'll start hearing the same things repeated, indicating you've reached a solid understanding

He used this method to rapidly get up to speed on deep learning and AI when starting Gong. The spiral approach allows you to efficiently gain knowledge while also revealing when you've reached a sufficient level of understanding.

Lessons from Building AI Products

As an early adopter of AI and machine learning, Gong has learned valuable lessons about developing AI-powered products:

• Don't assume large language models (LLMs) can solve everything - they have limitations
• You still need AI/ML expertise on your team to guide development
• Measurement and benchmarking of AI performance is critical
• Consider having embedded AI specialists within product pods
• A mix of custom models, fine-tuned models, and LLMs is often ideal

Alon cautions against swinging from one extreme (needing data scientists for everything) to the other (assuming LLMs can do it all). Having AI expertise to guide product decisions remains important.

The Power of a Narrow Initial Focus

When first launching Gong, the founders took an extremely narrow approach to defining their initial target customer:

• Selling products in the US
• In English
• Over video conference (specifically WebEx)
• Selling software worth $1,000-$100,000

This hyper-focused approach allowed Gong to:

• Develop a very tailored product for a specific use case
• Create a small "pond" where customers would talk to each other
• Achieve rapid adoption within the target segment
• Expand from a position of strength

Alon contrasts this with his previous startup where they targeted multiple disparate industries from the start, making it much harder to gain traction.

Key Takeaways for Product Leaders

Some of the most important lessons from Gong's approach:

1. Working closely with design partners reduces risk and increases product success rates
2. Giving product teams autonomy and trust leads to better outcomes
3. A narrow initial market focus allows for faster growth and expansion
4. Continuous learning and adapting is critical, especially with AI/ML
5. Making decisions quickly, even without perfect information, enables faster progress

By implementing some of these strategies, other B2B SaaS companies may be able to achieve similar levels of product-market fit and customer love that Gong has attained.

Conclusion

Gong's unique approach to product development, centered around autonomous pods working closely with design partners, has been key to their rapid growth and widespread adoption. By giving teams freedom while maintaining close customer connections, they've been able to consistently deliver products that solve real pain points. Other product leaders can learn from Gong's willingness to challenge conventional approaches in pursuit of better results.

Article created from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL7PS0fy1Ho