Building high-performing teams | Melissa Tan (Webflow, Dropbox, Canva)
Melissa Tan, former Head of Growth at Dropbox and Webflow, shares insights on building high-performing teams, effective growth strategies, and common pitfalls. She discusses her approach to leadership, talent development, and the nuances of scaling growth in product-led companies.
Deep Dive Analysis
15 Topic Outline
Melissa Tan's Transition to Full-Time Advising
Lessons Learned from Dropbox's Growth Journey
Deciding Between Product-Led and Sales-Led Growth
Melissa's People-Focused and Results-Oriented Leadership
Developing Talent and Finding Mentorship
Key Attributes of High-Performing Teams
Strategies for Fostering Team Ownership and Collaboration
Melissa's Hiring Practices for Product Managers
Common Pitfalls in Building Growth Teams
Understanding the DACI Framework for Team Collaboration
Who Should Own Revenue in a Company
Advice for Investing in Growth and Making the First Hire
When and How to Engage a Growth Advisor
The Value and Application of First-Principles Thinking
Lightning Round: Books, Products, and Pro Tips
5 Key Concepts
First Principles Thinking
This is an approach where you don't use a set framework or formula, but instead create your own based on context. It involves asking fundamental questions, forming a mental model, and being open to evolving it when new information arises, prioritizing curiosity and critical thinking over predefined answers.
People-Focused Leadership
This leadership style emphasizes deeply caring about team members, building trust, and investing in their career development. It's not mutually exclusive with being results-oriented; rather, it aims to support individuals in achieving goals and driving impact through direct feedback and belief in their potential.
Flying Formation
This concept describes how different teams, especially growth teams, work together within a company. It involves defining roles, responsibilities, and operating rhythms to ensure clear collaboration, avoid stepping on toes, and make clear who the decision-maker is for various projects.
DACI Framework
A simple framework used to clarify roles and responsibilities on a project. D stands for Driver (the person leading the project), A for Accountable (the ultimate decision-maker), C for Contributor (teams providing input), and I for Informed (those who need updates but aren't directly involved in decisions or contributions).
Growth Mindset
An attribute sought in hires, indicating a person's willingness to learn, seek feedback, and incorporate it effectively. It suggests an openness to personal and professional development, seeing challenges as opportunities for growth rather than fixed limitations.
9 Questions Answered
High-performing teams typically have really clear goals and a mission, a results-oriented and team-first culture that fosters collaboration and ownership, and they also make sure to infuse fun into their work.
Leaders can foster ownership by defining clear and exciting scope for each team member, infusing a culture of proactive problem-solving where individuals exhaust all options before feeling blocked, and by leading by example, taking ultimate responsibility for team outcomes.
A product-led company should consider investing in a sales motion when larger companies in their self-serve base start requesting enterprise-grade features like SSO or enhanced security, signaling a need to cater to more complex organizational requirements.
Common pitfalls include not having a clear strategic go-to-market or pricing strategy from the start, blindly following best practices from other companies without data-driven hypotheses, not right-sizing experiments for their stage, and having an unclear 'flying formation' for how growth teams collaborate with other departments.
For the first growth hire, a company should look for someone with a strong first principles thinking ability, an analytical mind, and creativity in finding users, rather than deep expertise in a specific channel. This person acts as a 'portfolio manager' to test different acquisition channels at scale.
Managers can develop talent by hiring individuals with a growth mindset, setting them up for success with clear 90-day goals and early wins, providing continuous feedback and visibility (e.g., through Loom videos for leaders), and maintaining a lifelong relationship as a mentor and friend.
Individuals can find mentors by seeking out managers with a reputation for developing people, looking for roles where their success is closely tied to their manager's, building relationships with non-direct managers at their company, or proactively reaching out to external advisors with specific questions or problems.
Revenue ownership depends on the company and what product growth drives; it is often owned by the product growth team. However, it can also be owned by marketing (for top-of-funnel growth) or, in early stages, by finance, though it typically evolves out of finance as the company scales.
A minor change that can have a big impact is clearly defining roles and responsibilities using a framework like DACI (Driver, Accountable, Contributor, Informed) to ensure clarity on who is doing what, who is making decisions, and how teams are collaborating on projects.
44 Actionable Insights
1. Deeply Care, Build Trust
As a leader, deeply care about your team members, build trust, and actively invest in their career development to foster loyalty and high performance.
2. Infuse Growth from Start
Infuse go-to-market, growth, and monetization thinking into product development from the start, rather than treating growth as a separate layer.
3. Establish Results-Oriented Culture
Establish a results-oriented culture by clearly defining team goals, breaking them into individual levers, and making success metrics transparent for everyone.
4. Give Direct, Supportive Feedback
Have direct, even uncomfortable, conversations with team members, clearly stating your intention is to set them up for success, as this builds trust and drives improvement.
5. Model Ownership & Responsibility
As a leader, model ownership by demonstrating proactive problem-solving and taking ultimate responsibility for team outcomes, including failures.
6. Cultivate Ownership Mentality
Cultivate an ownership mentality within the team, where members proactively solve problems and take accountability, especially as the company scales and ownership might otherwise feel diluted.
7. Define Clear Team Scope
To foster ownership, define clear, independent, and exciting scope for each team member, ensuring they have distinct areas to own and drive.
8. Prioritize Team-First Collaboration
Foster a results-oriented culture that is also team-first and collaborative, encouraging members to help each other and share learnings to achieve collective success beyond individual metrics.
9. Lead by Example (Help Others)
Lead by example in being ’team first’ by actively helping other teams and contributing to initiatives outside your direct scope, demonstrating the benefits of broader collaboration.
10. Foster Curiosity & Questioning
Foster a culture that encourages curiosity, questioning assumptions, and revisiting work, as this drives better performance and creates a more engaging environment.
11. Hire First Principles Thinkers
To foster innovation, hire smart individuals who are new to a domain, as their ‘I don’t know anything, let me figure this out’ mindset encourages first principles thinking over relying on preconceived answers.
12. Assess First Principles Thinking
In PM interviews, heavily assess first principles thinking and critical thinking through live problem-solving scenarios, probing ‘why’ they approach problems a certain way and observing their questioning.
13. Assess Growth Mindset in Interviews
Assess a candidate’s growth mindset by giving direct feedback on their presentation draft during a prep call, then observe how they incorporate it into the final presentation, revealing coachability.
14. Conduct Live Problem-Solving Screen
Conduct live problem-solving during the initial hiring manager screen, asking candidates to analyze a real product (e.g., your pricing page) and explain their proposed changes and reasoning, to quickly assess critical thinking.
15. Offer Presentation Prep Call
Offer a prep call before the final presentation to answer candidate questions and review their draft, providing feedback and context to help them succeed while also observing their coachability.
16. Focus Feedback on Work
Focus feedback on observable work and specific areas for improvement, avoiding personal criticism or finger-pointing.
17. Clarify Go-to-Market Early
Clarify go-to-market strategy early, especially for blending consumer and B2B, and don’t delay investment in sales/enterprise if applicable.
18. Define Pricing Strategy Early
Define your product’s value metric and pricing strategy from the very beginning to avoid complex and costly re-pricing challenges later as you scale.
19. Base Experiments on Own Data
Base growth experiments on your own data and customer insights, forming clear hypotheses, rather than blindly applying best practices from other companies.
20. Focus on Bigger Experiments
Early-stage companies should focus on bigger, needle-moving experiments rather than small optimizations, as minor improvements won’t significantly impact growth until massive scale.
21. Distill Changes to Hypotheses
When redesigning or changing a product, always distill changes into clear hypotheses to ensure that you understand the ‘why’ behind success or failure.
22. Define ‘Flying Formation’ for Teams
Define a ‘flying formation’ or clear operating model for how growth teams collaborate with other departments to ensure seamless integration and avoid growth feeling like an isolated layer.
23. Use DACI Framework
Use the DACI framework (Driver, Accountable, Contributor, Informed) to clarify roles and responsibilities on projects, especially for cross-functional initiatives, ensuring clear decision-making.
24. Growth Teams Share Feedback
Growth teams should proactively share user feedback with other departments to inform the broader product roadmap and encourage all PMs to adopt a growth-oriented mindset.
25. Assign Revenue Ownership Strategically
Assign revenue ownership to the team most directly impacting it (e.g., product growth for in-product monetization, marketing for top-of-funnel), rather than defaulting to finance, as this aligns responsibility with impact.
26. Ramp Up New Hires Quickly
As a manager, actively ramp up new hires by clarifying 90-day success metrics, connecting them with key people, and guiding them to secure early, visible wins (e.g., presentations, low-hanging fruit projects).
27. Encourage Loom Video Updates
Encourage team members to create short (5-10 minute) Loom videos to share project updates with leaders, offering a flexible way to gain visibility when live meetings are difficult to schedule.
28. Maintain Lifelong Relationships
Maintain lifelong relationships with former team members, offering ongoing support for career advice or job searches, as this builds lasting trust and community.
29. Everyone Owns Early Growth
In the early stages (pre-product market fit), ensure everyone in the company is focused on growth, identifying the ideal customer profile and product-market fit.
30. Hire First Growth ‘Portfolio Manager’
After achieving product-market fit, hire a first growth person who acts as a ‘portfolio manager’ for acquisition, focusing on testing and scaling 1-2 key channels where you hypothesize traction, rather than an expert in many channels.
31. Prioritize Quality Signups
When focusing on acquisition, prioritize quality signups that are likely to monetize, not just high volume.
32. Qualitative User Testing for Activation
For early-stage activation, conduct qualitative user testing with a small group (e.g., 5 users) and apply best practices instead of A/B testing, as volume is too low; also, prioritize pricing/packaging without a dedicated hire.
33. Delay Growth PM Hire
Delay hiring a dedicated growth product manager until much later in the company’s journey, as early-stage companies often don’t even have core product managers yet.
34. Hire Advisor for Knowledge Gaps
Hire an advisor to fill specific knowledge gaps within your team.
35. Try Before You Buy Advisor
When hiring an advisor, clearly define expectations and goals, start with a short-term engagement (e.g., a quarter) to assess value, and be prepared to part ways if the fit isn’t right.
36. Seek Mentoring Managers
When job searching, prioritize working for managers with a proven track record of mentoring and developing people, looking for signals like past team members following them.
37. Interview Your Manager
During job interviews, actively interview your potential manager about their management philosophy and how they approach career development for their team.
38. Seek Critical Roles for Mentorship
Seek roles where your success is critical to your manager’s success, as this often leads to more dedicated mentorship and time investment from them.
39. Proactively Seek Mentors
Proactively seek mentors outside your direct management chain within your company by reaching out for advice or suggesting recurring syncs with those passionate about mentoring.
40. Build Organic Mentor Relationships
Avoid directly asking someone to ‘be your mentor’ to reduce pressure; instead, build organic relationships by reaching out for specific advice when needed, respecting their time, and allowing the mentorship to evolve naturally.
41. Know Your Limits, Plan Handoffs
To avoid burnout when taking on extra work, know your personal limits, set specific timelines (e.g., a quarter) for temporary tasks, and plan for eventual handoffs.
42. Balance Helping vs. Core Tasks
Balance helping others with maintaining focus on your core responsibilities; if your primary tasks start to suffer, it’s a clear sign you’re overcommitted.
43. Learn Webflow with Videos
Learn Webflow effectively by watching university videos and simultaneously building in the designer, utilizing the side-by-side video feature.
44. Convert Figma to Webflow
Use the Figma to Webflow plugin to convert existing Figma designs directly into Webflow, streamlining the development process.
5 Key Quotes
Care deeply, but challenge directly.
Melissa Tan (attributing Kim Scott)
I don't know anything. Let me just figure this out.
Melissa Tan
The devil's in the details and the devil's in how you execute.
Melissa Tan
The blessing and the curse of early success is that you can get pulled in so many different directions.
Melissa Tan
People don't sometimes have someone like that in their career. They don't have a manager like a Melissa. Do you have any advice for people that are looking for someone like that or they're just like, man, I have no one around me that's really helping me develop?
Lenny Rachitsky
3 Protocols
Melissa Tan's Product Manager Interview Sequence
Melissa Tan- Hiring Manager Screen: Conduct live problem-solving, asking 'how would you approach X problem?' and 'why?' (e.g., pulling up the company's pricing page and asking what to change).
- Panel Rounds: Have other team members test for different competencies relevant to the role (e.g., technical skills, stakeholder management).
- Preparation Call for Presentation: Schedule a call with the candidate before their final presentation to answer questions, provide data, and review a draft of their presentation, offering feedback to see how they incorporate it.
- Final Round Presentation: Candidate presents on how they would approach a problem at the company or their first 90 days, demonstrating their understanding and approach. This is followed by a Q&A session.
- Dig Deeper: Use any remaining time in the final round to discuss other areas that emerged during the interview process.
Melissa Tan's Talent Development Lifecycle
Melissa Tan- Hire for Mutual Fit and Growth Mindset: Select individuals who are a good fit for the role and demonstrate a desire to learn and take feedback well.
- Rapid Onboarding and Early Wins: Set up new hires for success by quickly ramping them up, connecting them to key people, clarifying 90-day success metrics, and helping them secure initial achievements (e.g., suggesting presentations or low-hanging fruit projects).
- Ongoing Feedback and Visibility: Provide continuous feedback and create opportunities for visibility within the company (e.g., having team members create short Loom videos to share updates with leaders).
- Foster Lifelong Relationships: Maintain connections with managed individuals beyond their tenure on the team, offering ongoing career advice and support.
Melissa Tan's Approach to Building a Team-First Culture
Melissa Tan- Set a Clear Tone: As a manager, make it clear that while results are important, success is a team sport.
- Encourage Collaboration: Actively encourage team members to work together, share learnings, and contribute to each other's projects, even if it's outside their direct impact area.
- Demonstrate Personal Team-First Behavior: Lead by example by helping other teams or taking on tasks outside your direct scope when it benefits the company as a whole.
- Highlight Mutual Benefit: Show how helping each other ultimately benefits everyone and the overall team's success.