Trisha Price: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. I have an exclusive discount for Hard Calls listeners to Pendomonium Pendo's Product Festival happening March 24th through 26 2026 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Listen in at the halfway point today to get this special discount to the product festival, bringing today's top leaders in product, AI and software.

Trisha Price: When you're getting ready to decide if you can work with a company and if they're a good fit for you and you're a good fit for them, what's your litmus test to determine whether the company or the product leader is really ready for you? Is ready for a transformation? 

Gabrielle Bufrem: They all want that story. They want like the outcomes, they want the results.

Gabrielle Bufrem: They're like, I'm bought into that and I need to understand are they bought into what it takes to get those results? Because everyone is interested in like staying fit as an analogy, but are you willing to go to the gym with me? Like, are we actually signing up for this? Are you [00:01:00] gonna wake up at 5:00 AM and make it there?

Gabrielle Bufrem: Are you gonna really be able to kind of move because. That is, I think the bare minimum the commitment to like, there's no plan B like this is it. This is what we're gonna do. And I need that from the senior leadership level. 

Trisha Price: If you build software or lead people who do, then you're in the right place. This is hard calls, real decisions, real leaders, real outcomes.

Trisha Price: Hi everyone, I am Trisha Price and welcome back to Hard Calls. The best musicians, athletes, and even writers all have coaches to help them get out of their own way and reach that next level of excellence. Product leadership should be no different. And on today's episode of Hard Calls, I welcome Gabrielle Bufrem, a former global product leader who is now a renowned product leadership coach.

Trisha Price: Gabi has partnered with founders, leaders, and global companies to push the boundaries of what they think is [00:02:00] possible and help them build products and teams that people love and drive real business outcomes. I personally am continually impressed by Gabi. Whether Gabi is surfing or coaching, she is cool and calm in her approach to conquering big things.

Trisha Price: Making hard calls. In today's episode, we're talking about the cultural impact of driving digital transformation and what product leaders can do to facilitate transformation. Welcome to the show, Gabi. 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Aw, thank you so much, Trisha. That was an incredible intro and so happy to be here and to get to talk to you for a bit.

Trisha Price: This is gonna be great. I'm really looking forward to it. Gabi, before we jump into the meat of the discussion today, can you share a little bit about yourself to our listeners, about your career path and how you became a coach? 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah, absolutely. So I fell in love with product in college, actually, which is not super common.

Gabrielle Bufrem: But I was interning for Google. [00:03:00] Before that I was like the joke in my friend group. I only did volunteer work. Everyone was like, will you ever get a real job? And I was like, I hope so. I worked for Google. I had an incredible manager. I was on the marketing team actually, and she was like. You're a born product person.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And I was like, what is that? She's like, go spend some time with them and then tell me, tell me what you think. And I was like, I can't believe I can get paid for this. This is like, so fun. And that was my beginning of enchantment with product. I went back to college. I actually took four computer science classes my senior year, got told I was absolutely crazy.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And since then I built products across nine different industries and three different continents. So I lived in Europe, in Asia, and also in North America. And it's been an incredible journey. I really became a generalist and with that came the belief that product is a craft and something that if you work really hard at and if you really devote time.

Gabrielle Bufrem: You can learn and once you learn, you can apply it everywhere. So that was kind of my, my love for product and [00:04:00] how it all started. I also became a manager really early. I was, I think 24. I was like excited, but also terrified, I think is the right emotion. And I wanted to be good. I was like, if I'm gonna do this, I want this to be great, not only for me, for the company, but also for the people that I'm managing.

Gabrielle Bufrem: So I took a coaching course way back when, and. After leaving that I was like, whoa, one day I wanna do this. This is so impactful. And I think looking back, all the stars aligned. I met all the right people. I met Marty Cagan early in my career and he became a mentor and a really good friend. I ended up meeting all of his partners along the way.

Gabrielle Bufrem: I met some other coaches that I really admired. When I left my last startup, I was honestly like not falling in love with any other product. And everyone kept telling me like, yeah, that's because you told us you wanna be a coach one day, like maybe that day is now. And that was the beginning of my transition.

Gabrielle Bufrem: I actually posted on Twitter. I think I [00:05:00] was kind of bored 'cause I was like looking for my next thing and how I posted on Twitter and I got a DM from this girl and she's like, I've been waiting for you to do this, like, can I hire you? And I was like. Ah, that's cool. Sales, like that would be awesome. and, and that was the beginning.

Trisha Price: That's a amazing story. I love your story about getting into product in college. I feel like for most of us, you know, we came out of, of college in computer science, but fell in love with the business problem versus the implementation. Or you have people who, you know, went through college, went into some sort of a marketing role or some sort of a business analyst role but it's fascinating that you got involved.

Trisha Price: In product in college, which then makes sense of how you ended up in a manager role younger in your career. One, because you're a go-getter and you're smart and great with people, but equally interesting in that, you know, you started right away as an intern in product, which I think yeah, is, is [00:06:00] not as frequent for most people.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yes, exactly, and I actually very privileged. I think like once you find kind of like your thing, it just doesn't feel like work. It feels really, really fun. And honestly, I think I thought I had that when I was in product and then now that I'm a coach, I'm like, whoa, now I really have it. This is like really, really fun and really what I believe I'm meant to do 

Trisha Price: Well, it's so special because now your reach is not just your product team or the product you're building and your users or your market.

Trisha Price: But it's essentially the whole world and anyone who gets to engage with you and your coaching. And that's that's a great thing for the craft, as you said, of product and for you. 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Aw, thank you. Yeah, it feels, it feels amazing. Plus it's really fun and I get to work with really smart, awesome people that all wanna be better.

Gabrielle Bufrem: To your point about like, sports, like being a very coach driven culture and like the best athletes in the world, like they have many coaches. They don't have only one. So I, I love that. Now [00:07:00] there's this transition to that being the case in business too.

Trisha Price: Me too. I love that. Well, this show is Hard Calls and the premise for the show is as a product leader, we are constantly faced with hard calls and, and then we like to drive into like, well, what helps you make those hard calls?

Trisha Price: Is it data? Is it process? Is it people? but before we jump into that, I'd love for you to share with us looking back over your career. What's a hard call that you've had to make? What made it challenging and, you know, how did you make the decision? 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah, absolutely. it's a great question. I love that you start with it because it is very on theme with the show.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And I'll say, I, I told the, the cho version of the story already, which was kind of like my patch of coaching, but honestly, I, I vividly remember. Being having left my last startup, people were like, you're crazy. The market is not good. You have a great road, a great company. They're doing super well. And I was like, yeah, but I, I need [00:08:00] something different.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Like, I know that it's time. And I remember talking to many CEOs at that time, and they were all really great. Like a lot of them, I was like, whoa, this is like great business. I can see the returns. I would work for this person, all of that. But still, I like wasn't falling in love. And it was one conversation I had with Marty because any big decisions, I think, like I looked for my mentors and I, I told him, I was like, yeah, I'm just like not falling in love.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And he told me, yeah, because you wanna be a coach. Like, you told me this. And like, I think I gave him 20 reasons, Trisha, why I wasn't gonna do it or why I wasn't ready. I was like, maybe it's this, maybe it's that, maybe it's this other thing. And I think he like crushed them all and like. The bear like 10 minutes that he was just like, no, because of this.

Gabrielle Bufrem: No, because of that. And then he was like, anything else? I was like, no. But I, I really do think it's taking the plunge from doing something that I knew I was good at, which was [00:09:00] Running product and being a product leader to then stepping into a new role of helping other product leaders do their job really well and learning marketing and learning what sales is, and learning how to operate as a solopreneur and not have a team around me anymore, and really taking that plunge and.

Gabrielle Bufrem: I think that it, it felt like a hard call because it was the unknown, but it also felt really right, which I think is kind of the, the magic of product and making product decisions in general. It was like the art and the science. It's like I, I knew what had to be true for me to do it, and that was the science part, but I also knew, in my gut that it was the right instinct and I, I knew that it was what was gonna bring me joy.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Overall, so I love, I remember I set like three OKRs for myself because product people never change. You know, like we can, I can be a coach now. I'm still the same. I still operate [00:10:00] very similarly, but I wanted to be good at it for my clients. I was like, if I'm not driving impact, I don't want this to be my path.

Gabrielle Bufrem: I wanted to like it because I was like, I used to love what I did, so like I need to like this too. and I needed it to be a good financial decision. So I set those three OKRs. I gave myself about three to six months, and after three months, I remember having this conversation with my mom walking at the beach and being like, I think this is it.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And she's like. I've known it all along. 

Trisha Price: So that's amazing. 

Trisha Price: I love that you treat your business of coaching like a product, right? Yeah. With clear, measurable outcomes that you're trying to drive a product mindset of experimentation and testing. Before you commit and go all in. So that's, that's really great.

Trisha Price: I love that.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah. Absolutely. And then I think I had the final hard call was like, I had the opportunity of working with one of my best friends, [00:11:00] who was running design for that company at the time, and they were just like, yeah, you've won it, it's yours. And that's when I said no to that. I was like, okay, now I know I'm all in on this one.

Trisha Price: Yeah. When you give up one of the best product opportunities, you know, you're in the right spot. Yeah. So, you know, you. You get to see all kinds of different companies and help them transform and Yeah. You know, every company must transform to stay relevant in some capacity. Yeah. And when you're getting ready to decide if you can work with a company, and if they're a good fit for you and you're a good fit for them, what's your litmus test to determine whether the company or the product leader is really ready for you?

Trisha Price: Is ready for a transformation? 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah, great question. I think everyone is excited about the results, right? You tell the story. Like, one, one that I really love is I worked with Anir, who is an incredible now chief product and technology leader. Before he was [00:12:00] head of IT or VP of it that was long passed.

Gabrielle Bufrem: But like they, they all want that story. They want like the outcomes, they want the results. They're like, I'm bought into that. And I need to understand, are they bought into what it takes to get those results? Because everyone is interested in like staying fit as an analogy, but are you willing to go to the gym with me?

Gabrielle Bufrem: Like, are we actually signing up for this? Are you gonna wake up at 5:00 AM and make it there? Are you gonna really be able to kind of moved? Because that is, I think, the bare minim the commitment to like, there's no plan B like this is it. This is what we're gonna do. And I need that from the senior leadership level.

Gabrielle Bufrem: So if I get someone who's a director of product really wants to do this, I'm like, excellent. Let's talk to your manager. Let's get that buy-in. Because if we only work with you and your team, there will be a very clear glass ceiling that we hit, and you're gonna ultimately get frustrated because [00:13:00] it's not gonna be a transformation across the board.

Gabrielle Bufrem: So, that is really the, the beginning. It's like, do they really want it and are they willing to put in the work to do it? Because if the answer to any of those is no, I don't think I'm the right fit, and I honestly don't know that they're ready yet to be going on this journey. Then in terms of like, me and I, I tell people, like coaches are awesome.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Like I have a lot of friends who are product leadership coaches and product discovery coaches. And we're all, I mean, I love them. They're, they're amazing. And I, I joke that we're all dessert, you know, in a way, we're just different type of dessert. So I tell people like it should feel as close to magic as possible.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Like it should feel like you can talk to me about anything. Yeah, it should feel easy for you to open up. And there's like a vibe, there's a chemistry that is gonna make this go so much faster if we're able to achieve it. So I tell people [00:14:00] like, you will know it. You will feel it if I'm the right person for you.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And if that's the case, I will feel it too. And then we're gonna embark on this. Epic journey together.

Trisha Price: I mean, that's a little like hiring, right? I mean, obviously there's skills and personality, you know, traits that fit better for certain types of company and experiences, like if you're in growth phase or you're private equity, or you're getting ready to do lots of acquisitions, there's different experience that matter, but that vibe together and like, are we gonna have fun and go climb this mountain together every day?

Trisha Price: Yeah. has to be there. So I love that. That's no different when you're looking to work with a coach as well. 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think it's exactly that. It's like that is, that is the piece that is super special. I love that you mentioned experience, because that's one thing, it's like, I think when you're hiring someone to help you with your product org, like they need to have done this.

Gabrielle Bufrem: They need to have been in those trenches [00:15:00] before because they're acting as your coach. But there are many times that with my clients, I tell them like, Hey, this will save you like 10 hours and like, I'm interested in you saving 10 hours. So like, let's go this path. And they're like, oh, I love that. So,I think it's this mix of the coaching plus the advisory that allows people to get to those results that we all want. 

Trisha Price: So they come to you and they're like, I wanna be more product led. I want these particular results, and mm-hmm. How do you start, what are the uncomfortable discussions or truths that you have to help them confront or even find before you can really get started with transformation?

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah, absolutely. So they, they first tell me, yeah, like, this is what I want. And I normally ask them to get more specific. So I tell them like, we wave a magic wand in the next six months to a year, like what happens? What's that vision? And I ask them to describe that to me for their org for themselves, for their key people.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And [00:16:00] then I tell them to tell me about what's going on right now. Right. And they, they normally, like, they start with like some vague things and I'm like, no, no, no. Get specific. Like, tell me what's actually happening because I need to know like we're, we're in this together, you know, we're on the same team.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And then I have kind of a lay of the land, like a gap between today and what they want or what they think is possible. And what I love to do is I start off with this conversation and then an assessment. So I go through. All different areas of product, vision, strategy, how they're coaching their teams, how the teams are working together, discovery, collaboration, even the roles, what they mean at different companies.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And I tell people, like no one goes to the doctor to know that they're sick. They go to the doctor to know what to take. So, I give them an action plan. I'm like, Hey, this is what I see and this is where I think we should start. And we normally start small, like we start with the leadership team. We [00:17:00] start with really conveying this row of what product is and how we can help them across this team.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And then we start with one pilot team that can really show what is possible. And I don't tell people like, this is a pilot because we're doing an experiment. This is more like a poster child team. I'm like, I want your best players ever here on this team, and we're gonna train them like athletes. People tell me, they're like, I've never worked this much in my life.

Gabrielle Bufrem: I'm like, welcome to being in product. Like this is what your world is like now. and we show them results that we wouldn't have been able to achieve otherwise, and that gets people excited. 

Trisha Price: So I love this idea of starting with an all-star team. You really are a coach. Clearly. Yes. And getting success and using that to get the rest of the company and the leadership team sort of a blueprint and get them excited and use that [00:18:00] for future teams.

Trisha Price: But I know it's not that simple, right? Like I know there are failures. I know that there are a lot of roadblocks that get in the way. like. What are your principles about failure that you, you share with your clients? When things don't go well? When even though they pick the best team and the athletes, you know?

Trisha Price: Yeah. Something stumbles. 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah. Good. Good question. I'll say too, like it's not only the pilot team, so like when I'm coaching the, I coach the pilot team myself because actually like they can't really fail. Like if they fail, this transformation is doomed, in my opinion. 

Trisha Price: But that's not where you see most the failure because they're all stars.

Trisha Price: They're committed. You're hands on with them.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah they're like the bootcamp. Yeah.

Trisha Price: The failure comes next? 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah. Yeah. It comes like way more I think at the, at the more leadership level, at the stakeholder [00:19:00] engagement, and that is when I work really closely with the product leaders and the team.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And a lot of the times, if it's a big transformation, like I'll fly to their office. And I'll spend a week with these people because it's not only about the technology department being bought into this, it's about other people being bought into this too. Because I tell people like, we can't really play alone.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Like product is a team sport and it's a team within, like product design, engineering. It's also a team with the marketing team and the sales team, sales team, the ops team, and the CEO. Everyone needs to be bought in and there's them saying that they're bought in and then there's. Like them actually getting bought in.

Gabrielle Bufrem: So I think that it's really about having this constant communication, constant conversation. And what I tell my clients is like, there are a lot of times where we're gonna take two steps forward, feel really awesome, and then take one step back and then be like, oh my God, I can't believe we're back here.

Gabrielle Bufrem: But we are already [00:20:00] further along than we were before. So, the way I like to describe transformation is kind of like. If you've taken like a dirt road to a beautiful beach, like I love like a remote experience, right? So I'm like, great. But the road is bumpy. It's normally not paved. Rarely is there's like holes everywhere.

Gabrielle Bufrem: It's hard. You don't have the right car to be on it. And then eventually. You get to a waterfall and then you get to maybe a coconut water, and then you get to another waterfall and then finally you make it to the beach. So it's really about like embracing that this is a journey and that failure is a, is a part of it.

Gabrielle Bufrem: I don't, I don't think you should strive for it at all, but understanding that, the way I like to frame it is like, if you're failing and not learning anything, then you're really failing. Yeah. If you're failing but you've learned and you can iterate and you can do better, then that was a failure maybe worth having.

Trisha Price: Yeah, and, and as you work with [00:21:00] these leadership teams who are changing how they think and changing how they operate, what's the biggest hurdle for them to get over in moving to a true product mindset and a product approach? 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah, I think that there is, there's a few, but I, I'll talk about a couple of them.

Gabrielle Bufrem: The first one that I think it's, is trust, right? They need to be willing to trust their teams and their teams need to have the trust of the organization. So those are two separate things. They're, they're kind of similar, but they're different. And a lot of the times I tell their, their people, that you can't expect your organization to trust you because you haven't been delivering what they want.

Gabrielle Bufrem: If you had, we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be in this position. So what I tell them is that we need to earn their trust, and it's not like we're starting from zero. We're starting from like minus a hundred. We're having to work with like trust debt, basically. Yeah. [00:22:00] And the best way to do this is by showing results.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Or what the business cares about. So if it's like more sales, amazing, let's get on it. Let's help them with that. And then once we start helping, they're like, oh, okay. Like maybe there's something to these people, like they still don't understand us and it's fine. Yeah. But they're like, okay, maybe we can give them a little more rope and then a little more rope.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And that's how we start kind of. Understanding and gaining their, their space, I would say. And then trust with their teams. And I often say like for you to have an empowered team, which is a team that is actually tasked with solving problems that are really important for the business and for the user.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Because I tell people, like, making users happy is super easy. Like, you know, buy me like a boat where I'll be happy. Like that sounds great. But like a product without the business is a hobby and we need that intersect. So giving a team a problem like that to solve, [00:23:00] you need to trust that they can do it. And it's not just about like handing it off and being like, okay, now we're empowered.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Like empower teams actually need way more management, I would say way better management around. Truly coaching them on what success looks like. How do they become the best product person in that team? How do they collaborate with design and engineering to shift something that people wanna use that actually really works for them?

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Trisha Price: That's "hardcalls" lowercase. And the numbers 30. Get your discounted ticket at pendo.io/pendomonium. See you there.

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Trisha Price: There's a couple of just really great nuggets in what you just talked about first. I love that when you talked about trust, you didn't say trust to ship a feature. Oh no, you said trust to deliver a business outcome, which means you're trusting them to do proper discovery, to do experimentation, to figure out what the feature is, not tell them what the feature is, and then celebrate because they delivered it, and then be mad when it doesn't actually drive the business outcome.

Trisha Price: So I love that like your immediate trust was not will they ship your immediate trust was. Can I [00:25:00] trust them to deliver this business outcome? Yeah. And then I love the second nugget that you shared around empowerment and trust doesn't mean hands-off management because what you, what I just said around what you mentioned, taking a business outcome and then figuring out what.

Trisha Price: Features to ship to deliver that business outcome is not a muscle that a lot of these teams who are going through a transformation have yet, and they may not have enough exposure to what really moves the needle in the business. And that's our job as leaders to help connect those dots with our teams.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah. 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah, absolutely spot on. And I think that a lot of people don't realize how much harder that is or, or they, they do when they start doing it. But it's so much easier if I'm just giving people like a feature to build or a thing to do, but giving them a real problem to solve and signing up for the results.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Signing up [00:26:00] for that outcome, it really changes the game. Yeah. And, and that's why these teams have ownership because they're not only trying to build something, they're trying to actually deliver on something that works for customers first and then works for the business. 'cause I also say like, customers don't care about your business.

Gabrielle Bufrem: It's a sad reality. Like if people were like, oh no, but my customers are loyal, I'm like. Sure until you serve them. Once you stop serving them, they will be loyal to something else. They care about themselves and they care about their problem. They might say they care about you. You might think that they do.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And people tell me like, no, my users are loyal. Like these people love me. And I'm like, yes. But they love them more than they love you. And because of that, they need their problem solved. And once you stop solving their problems in the way that they will choose to use it, they will not be loyal to you anymore.

Gabrielle Bufrem: So it's really about delivering on what the customer needs. That also helps the business.

Trisha Price: I love [00:27:00] that and totally agree with you. I'm gonna switch gears a little bit, Gabi, and because it's product and because it's 2025, we would be embarrassed if we didn't talk about AI. 

Trisha Price: You know. Rapidly changing both how we do discovery and build products as well as the experiences we're delivering to drive value to customers. Yeah. And so when you're coming into these businesses and you're doing a transformation. What do you see as the biggest challenge or fear that the teams you're working with have around adopting AI and using AI in their day-to-day processes?

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah. Love that question. And first I think I'll, I'll tell you what I, how I view transformation. Is that okay? Yeah. Because I, I think that a lot of people think, and when I review Transform, right? I, I wrote to Marty and I was like, Hey, this is a book for every single [00:28:00] company. Yeah. This is not a book for like a big company that's trying to transform.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And I tell all my clients like, you all are in transformation. If you are not transforming, you are dying. Because a five person startup to a 50 person startup to 500 to 5,000, those are very different companies. 

Trisha Price: We're all transforming. 

Trisha Price: And to your point, you know, I just had Todd, our CEO of Pendo on my podcast a few weeks ago, and Todd was talking about we are in major transformation at Pendo.

Trisha Price: Yeah. We're not a company that's been around forever and a traditional company moving to product led. He wrote the book on product led, but we're completely changing the way we do things with AI. You know, our world and is completely changing. So even us, we're in the middle of transformation 

Gabrielle Bufrem: too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And I bring this up at this point because sometimes people would be like, oh no. But I am at the forefront of all of that. And what I love is like, actually AI has given me a [00:29:00] lot of, legs to stand on with my argument because I'm like, well, actually, like so much has happened since you went to sleep yesterday.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Like everything is changing so fast. That you can't tell me that you don't need to transform all the time. I mean, like blockbuster's an amazing tale as old this time, but now we're seeing a lot, a lot more, and I'll kind of like break up the question in two different pieces. I think that one is kind of like how do you use AI or how should companies be using AI and thinking about it when they are, deciding what to build in product and how to solve for things.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And then the other one is leveraging AI as a way to become a better product team. On the first one, a lot of companies hire me and then they're like, "Gabi, we need an AI strategy." And I am like, "no, you don't." Please don't have an AI strategy. And they normally do already, right? When they tell me they need one, they've written one and they're like, want me to see it?

Gabrielle Bufrem: And the truth is just like add, AI is not enough. we [00:30:00] actually are solving for very similar problems than we were solving before. AI. AI is one of the levers that we now get to pull. Which is super exciting because it makes a lot of things that seemed really difficult or nearly impossible possible, but AI should be a part of how we solve the problem.

Gabrielle Bufrem: AI is not the problem, and I need an AI feature is also not the problem. And what is my AI story is also not the problem. So AI for AI's sake is not the right game. We're starting to see that with all these features that were shipped to AI-ify product and they get a lot of traction in like the first days, and then people realize that they're actually not very useful and then it becomes like yet another thing for companies to trim and to rethink completely.

Gabrielle Bufrem: So I think it's a really powerful lever, really powerful tool, but it's not a strategy unless you are. Literally building AI and you're building the models and stuff [00:31:00] like that then is not for you. Then like, yes, let's think about how to make that better. But everyone else, it's really about how do we leverage this to solve the problems that were still true?

Gabrielle Bufrem: Before this became mainstream.

Trisha Price: What's the company strategy? What's the product strategy? What are the business outcomes we're trying to drive? And yes. Yeah, I agree with you. AI can solve things. In a way that maybe we couldn't before. Yeah. in a more interesting way or in a more valuable way or might decrease time to value for customers to adopt it.

Trisha Price: But yeah, it's still gotta drive value and it's still gotta be aligned to company strategy. It can't just be a standalone AI strategy. Our first principles of product of is this a painkiller or a vitamin? And are we solving a real problem, cannot go away. 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Absolutely. And I, I'm still a fan of building less.

Gabrielle Bufrem: I tell my teams all the time, like, Hey, let's build as little as possible to achieve the result. And they're like, is that like lazy? And I'm [00:32:00] like, no, that's smart. Smart. I wanna build the smallest possible thing that gets me the best outcome possible. And I think that that's true with AI as well.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah. Love that. And then in terms of like how it's changing the game and teams, like, I think it's been the coolest thing to watch how AI has changed, how teams do discovery, like vibe coding is so cool and things that like, I mean, I feel old now. Like I usually like go to bars and like prototype stuff and like literally use like napkins and Yes paper.

Gabrielle Bufrem: You know, like that was what I used to use and I'd be like, oh, let me test this. Um. And that was what we did at the time. And then we do a prototype. But that was like even a really good team that would take a couple days and now with like one or two great prompts, you have it in like minutes. Yeah. So I think it's super exciting. 

Trisha Price: And gonna to share it, not like individual [00:33:00] meetings you can share it when you able to get these prototypes that are truly prototypes, not just designs so quickly now you can actually get feedback on it at scale is pretty cool. 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Absolutely. Yeah. And I, I love how now it's just becoming like, if anyone's like, oh, we don't have time to experiment.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Right? Which is what. People say all the time, and I'm kind of like, well, we all do discovery. Some do it before we build it, others do it after we build it. Christian who's a partner that I love working with, he talked about this all the time and it's true. It's like we're all doing discovery. One is just way cheaper than the other.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And now with these tools and with what AI is really enabling us to do and to work as a team, I, I really. See it as this kind of accelerator and this incredible argument to tell leaders like, oh, it's actually not that we don't have time. Like we can do this in a day. Like I've seen like teams go with multiple iterations in a day.

Gabrielle Bufrem: [00:34:00] In a day. Yeah. And it's awesome. I think it's amazing. Um. I also see a very exciting shift in the row of the engineer, which I love. And I think now engineering is becoming like, some people are like, oh yeah, like you're automating everything. I'm like, no, it's becoming even more valuable than ever. Yeah, because really.

Gabrielle Bufrem: They have the space to focus on co-creation, and I'm the first one to say like, the best features ever shipped by like teams that I've been a part of came from engineers on my team. They were so involved and so in the know, and they really understood the technology and they had the context. They understood the problem, they understood the user.

Gabrielle Bufrem: They knew what we wanted to do as a business and. They proposed these ideas that were epic. And I think that the best teams just get more space for that to happen. 

Trisha Price: I totally agree with you. I think it is the most fun time in product, in my career of building. Yeah. and the different roles that I've been [00:35:00] in, and I totally agree with you on engineering becoming wildly more interesting and less about sort of the mundane and product two, right?

Trisha Price: Yeah. Less about the mundane activities. It's not about writing PRDs and it's not about writing Jira tickets for product and for engineers, you know? Now you're breaking hard problems down. You're coming up with different solutions. yeah. And sometimes the implementation of it might be scaled and be easier and faster, but I just think it's such a, a fun time for that to absolutely.

Gabrielle Bufrem: I think it's never even like before AI and vibe coding and all of that, it's not been about that. And now I, I feel like people that maybe were telling themselves these narratives are, are really like, they're gonna have to change because now they, that can all happen, on the side, which is so exciting.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And, and now really the, the task of product teams is to find the best solution for users in a way that works for the business that hasn't changed. It's just more fun now. [00:36:00] Yeah. 

Trisha Price: Well, I know our listeners can feel my passion and especially your passion for building product, for the craft and for how AI's impacting it.

Trisha Price: And I know that one of the things that you do when you work with different teams is you coach them to make an energy audit of their work. Yes. Tell us a little bit why this is valuable and why it's important for culture and strategy. 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's now, now it's like really come into play.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And it's interesting, I was just talking to a client before this because now it's kind of like self review time. Everyone's like writing all their things, what they've done through the year, which is amazing. And it's a lot about achievement, right? Like product is a lot about impact and I love that.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And I think it's really important for us to think about the impact that it all has on us because I believe that. We should be doing work that really fulfills us, that gets us excited, and if we don't stop and [00:37:00] track and think about our career as an experiment, our next task as an experiment, we're really missing out on that opportunity.

Gabrielle Bufrem: So, I normally used to ask people that report it to me, and now I ask my clients, I'm like, give me a list of things that bring you energy, like what makes you excited? And then bring me a list of things that take away energy. And one thing that we do often is we balance this list. And we talk about like, are you doing, are, is most of the things that you're doing actually on that brings energy list or are you doing things on the, the list that takes away energy?

Gabrielle Bufrem: Are those things things that you should be doing or should other people be doing them or can other people be doing them? Yeah. And that ensures that we are actually working on. The things that are, we're, we're best at, because I really do believe that for us to do our best work, we need to feel energized by it, at least the majority of the time.

Trisha Price: I love that Gabi. I think that's a great challenge for all of our [00:38:00] listeners today, is every one of us to write down, you know, what are the top 10 to 20 things we are spending our time on right now, and which of those are bringing us energy and which of those are not bringing us energy? And are there ways as good product managers to think, stop, start, continue for each one of those things, because you're right, like, if we are bringing the energy and passion to work every day, we are gonna build beautiful product. Yeah. That drives business outcomes. Exactly. And if we are bogged down in a whole bunch of tasks that either we don't see value in or we really dread. How are we really gonna ship beautiful product that our customers love and drive business outcomes unlikely.

Trisha Price: I know I'm personally gonna take that as a challenge and do that. I love that over the next week. And I would love it if the rest of our listeners did the same. 'cause I think that's a great piece of advice. 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Amazing. I think another pro hack is like to look at your calendar and really be like, do I need to [00:39:00] be in this meeting?

Gabrielle Bufrem: Is it, is it absolutely necessary that I'm there? And that is especially true for the leaders because like, especially people that are involved and they care about their teams, they, they think that them being there is better when in reality, a lot of the times it's not. The meeting could have functioned completely well without them.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And by them being there, they don't have enough context, they don't feel prepared enough, and honestly they couldn't. They just have so many other things to do that it would not be the best use of their time. And they end up having less time to do things that only they could do. 

Trisha Price: Yeah. You know, a lot of times, both leaders and product managers get this FOMO, fear of missing out feeling if they're not invited to a meeting or they don't go to a meeting, that somehow, you know, they're not seen or they're not important. Yeah. But I have this thing now, I call it ROMO, which is relief of missing out. And if you can change, I love that your mindset to be like.

Trisha Price: Feel relieved and happy that you didn't [00:40:00] have to go to a particular meeting. And what value can you drive? And I think you can think about the same way with using ai. What are the tasks that I don't like that I can use AI to automate for me so I can spend time doing the things I love and focus on relief of missing out instead of fear missing out.

Gabrielle Bufrem: I love that relief of missing out. Yeah. I was notorious at my, my last job tour. Like anything that didn't have an agenda or like a goal, like why are we here? What are we trying to achieve? I would just decline. I'd be like, I'm not attending this. Like if I don't know why I am here, I don't even know how I'm supposed to show up.

Gabrielle Bufrem: Like am I there to brainstorm? I be like, in such an important communication thing that we all need to be together. Are we trying to make a decision? Like, and I love that. I'm like, I think meetings. And I don't like hate them, but I think they should have a purpose. Like if they don't have a purpose and it's not absolutely necessary, we should not be in them.

Trisha Price: Yeah. If the meeting doesn't have a purpose, it shouldn't happen. And if I don't have a role in the meeting, I don't even, I should not go. [00:41:00] Yeah, exactly. Well, as we finish up, today's podcast, it is called Hard Calls and the reason I started. This concept of Hard Calls is because I feel like as a product leader, you're kind of always getting squeezed, right?

Trisha Price: Like sales thinks they know what you should build. If you just do this one feature, I can, yeah. You know, improve win rates significantly, and the CEO's like, I know the strategy, I just need you to execute on it. Right? Yeah. Customer support and the success organization is like, if you just fix these three problems, everything in life would be amazing and we would have better retention.

Trisha Price: Yep. But as the, as the product person, you're the one left to make the decision. The hard call. You're the one really like holding the bag and accountable at the end of the day. And, you know, there's a combo of gut instincts and, and ex and experience along with data that we all use Yeah. To make those decisions.

Trisha Price: So like, tell us, how do you think about that? How do you think when you're [00:42:00] coaching product leaders to be their best, where do they rely on that go to seek and experience versus. Where do you make sure that they're utilizing, data? 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yeah, great question. I think that the a, a common thing that kind of became clear as you were framing the question is like just all the noise, right?

Gabrielle Bufrem: There's so much noise. There's noise from the board, there's noise from our stakeholders, there's noise from customers. And I think the most important thing product leaders need to do, and honestly the hardest is focus. I tell a lot of people their problem is that, yeah, there are a lot of things that they could do, and no one comes at you with a bad idea.

Gabrielle Bufrem: I'm never gonna be like, Trisha, I have a terrible place to suggest for us to go have coffee. You know? I'll be like, there's these five places that are amazing, whatever. Right? I would get one. Yeah, how do we pick one? And I think a lot of the times people are trying to like discern between like a banana and an [00:43:00] apple and like a chocolate cake.

Gabrielle Bufrem: And that is really hard if you don't know exactly what you wanna do. So I'd say like. First and foremost, it's about focus and it is the hardest thing a product leader needs to do. Like the vision is fun and exciting and amazing, and working with your people is so cool and great, and seeing them thrive and become these like epic, epic product people, like I love all of that.

Gabrielle Bufrem: That's amazing. But the hard call, I think is truly on deciding what problem to solve right now. And knowing that you can't solve everything. And I do think that it is like a perfect mix of data and also the the art behind product product. So it's really like the art and the science coming together and the more I think I've evolved in my product career, like the more it is this idea of product sense and something that you can really build and develop and that you can train and, and hone in. And I think it [00:44:00] goes beyond industries. I think it goes beyond different stages, but it that combined with the true understanding of where the market's going, where the business is going, and what your customers truly desire.

Trisha Price: I love that, and I totally agree with your comment about product sense and focus and the best product leaders figure out what to say no to. yes. And they do build that product sense on a bit of art and a bit of science. So yes. I really appreciate that advice for, for me and for our listeners and Gabi, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Trisha Price: To have you on the show today. I absolutely look forward to seeing you at product camp in Brazil. I know we're gonna get to spend time in real life together then, and I'm really looking to that and, and, and during that week, having the opportunity, like you spoke about today, to hone our craft and work with other great product leaders.

Trisha Price: It's gonna be a lot of fun. 

Gabrielle Bufrem: Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for having [00:45:00] me. And I just had so much fun. I mean, this is just like us getting to have coffee together and talk about stuff that we both love. and I am so excited to see you in person and I think it is one of these jobs that like, it's hard, but if we have really awesome people around us, it's the most rewarding row, I can ever think of at least.

Trisha Price: Me too. Well, thank you, Gabi. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Hard Calls, the product podcast, where we share best practices and all the things you need to succeed. If you enjoyed the show today, share with your friends and come back for more.