Hubert Palan is the Founder and CEO of Productboard, a product administration platform designed to assist groups convey merchandise to market extra effectively by prioritizing person wants and aligning groups round a shared roadmap. Greater than 5,400 corporations, together with Zoom, UiPath, JCDecaux, and Microsoft, use the platform to assemble buyer insights and inform growth choices.
What impressed you to begin Productboard, and the way did your expertise at GoodData affect its creation?
Productboard was impressed by my work as a product supervisor and product chief. The thought got here throughout a flight after I was attempting to handle product roadmaps throughout varied displays and spec sheets whereas on less-than-optimal airplane Wi-Fi — making it apparent how inefficient it’s to try to coordinate strategic product choices with out a single, consistently-updated supply of reality.
When creating Productboard, our purpose was to construct one platform that covers all the product administration course of, fixing much more PM ache factors alongside the best way. Productboard has now grown right into a platform that places buyer centricity on the heart of contemporary product administration, utilizing AI know-how to champion the voice of the shopper, elevating the function of the PM.
And it’s labored. At this time Productboard has 6000+ prospects together with superb corporations like Salesforce, Autodesk, and Zoom.
What challenges did you face in the course of the early days of Productboard, and the way did you overcome them?
Within the early days of Productboard, I discovered concerning the challenges of onboarding new workers at a startup. Productboard was shifting in a short time and I had a bent to anticipate new hires to catch onto what we had been doing nearly instantly and clarify, strategic choices immediately. Since then, I’ve discovered that there’s extra worth in taking your time with onboarding. By specializing in efficient data sharing and coaching, you may foster groups which are simply as knowledgeable and passionate concerning the work as you’re. The ROI on an intensive onboarding interval is substantial.
What’s the “Product Excellence Framework,” and the way did you develop it as a foundational idea for Productboard?
The Product Excellence Framework is our structured method to product administration, emphasizing customer-centricity, putting huge bets, and constructing superb groups. It is our product philosophy at Productboard, guaranteeing that we’re at all times centered on delivering worth to our prospects. We developed this framework after recognizing widespread challenges confronted by product groups, comparable to the necessity to consolidate suggestions, prioritize successfully, and align everybody round a transparent roadmap. It is a core a part of our mission to assist product managers navigate the complexities of constructing fashionable merchandise, particularly within the age of AI.
Productboard makes use of AI to investigate buyer suggestions at scale. What motivated you to include AI into your platform, and the way has it remodeled product administration?
One thing that turned clear to our staff early on was a urgent want to assist product groups make sense of the huge quantities of buyer suggestions they obtain. AI was the pure resolution to investigate this information at scale, establish key insights, and assist prioritize what to construct subsequent. This has remodeled product administration by permitting groups to make faster, extra knowledgeable choices with better confidence. It has additionally elevated the PM to a place of management during which they can provide extra strategic suggestions that aligns with an organization’s enterprise targets. Total, AI in PM is about staying forward of the curve and guaranteeing our prospects can construct merchandise that sustain with rising developments and really resonate with their customers.
Are you able to share particular examples of how AI has improved decision-making for Productboard’s prospects?
Think about a product supervisor desires to grasp the final sentiment on a brand new characteristic. As a substitute of sifting by means of mountains of information throughout Salesforce, social media, the Apple Retailer, and who is aware of what else, they will simply use Productboard. Productboard Pulse’s AI-powered conversational interface immediately solutions questions like, “What are prospects saying concerning the final replace?” or “Is pricing a serious concern for customers on this sector?” This entry permits PMs to shortly establish ache factors and alternatives, resulting in more practical product growth.
Past Pulse, we even have an AI-powered analytics dashboard that mechanically surfaces key themes and developments from buyer suggestions. This helps product managers prioritize options with the most important potential influence, making it a game-changer for data-driven decision-making. We’re seeing prospects use these insights to speed up time-to-market, enhance product satisfaction, and finally, construct higher merchandise that folks love.
How do you deal with considerations round information safety and privateness when utilizing AI to course of buyer insights?
We take privateness very critically. At Productboard we use a multi-layered method to information safety and privateness, incorporating industry-standard practices and sturdy measures to guard delicate data. Our dedication to safety is clear in our SOC 2 Sort II compliance certification and our adherence to strict information safety laws like GDPR and CCPA.
We make use of information encryption, and our platform is constructed on safe infrastructure. We additionally implement application-level safety measures, together with person authentication, authorization, and entry controls, to forestall unauthorized entry to buyer information. Our prospects have granular management over their information, permitting them to find out what data is collected and the way it’s used. For AI particularly, we make use of nameless information to investigate buyer suggestions, defending particular person identities whereas extracting worthwhile insights.
What developments do you foresee in using AI for product administration, and the way is Productboard getting ready to guide on this house?
AI will likely be important for product managers to navigate the complexities of the fashionable product panorama. Utilizing AI in PM isn’t just about automating duties; it is about empowering PMs to be extra strategic and customer-centric, thus elevating the influence they will have inside their respective corporations.
At Productboard, we’re dedicated to main the best way in AI-powered product administration. We’re constantly enhancing our AI capabilities and delivering modern options that empower our prospects. Final 12 months, we introduced a number of iterations of our AI functions and there’s extra the place that got here from in 2025.
Our purpose is to make AI accessible and useful for all product groups, no matter their dimension or technical experience. We imagine that by embracing AI, PMs can unlock new ranges of productiveness, creativity, and customer-centricity and turn out to be extra integral inside their organizations.
How has your management fashion developed as Productboard has grown from a small staff to a global group with over 6,000 prospects?
Early on, I adopted a really hands-on management fashion — sporting a number of hats, and figuring issues out as we went alongside. As we expanded, I needed to study to delegate extra successfully, belief my staff, and empower them to take possession.
Nevertheless, even with the significance of letting go, I additionally discovered the significance of staying related and sustaining a founder’s mindset. I’m consistently questioning, analyzing, and in search of methods to enhance. Efficient management is about balancing strategic imaginative and prescient with a deep understanding of the day-to-day realities of our prospects and our staff.
What recommendation would you give to aspiring product managers who need to leverage AI of their roles?
I might encourage aspiring product magnets to discover ways to leverage AI successfully by following these three greatest practices:
- Develop Buyer-Centricity: At all times join AI-driven insights again to the human wants and ache factors they symbolize.
- Search Mentorship and Collaboration: Join with skilled product managers who’re already leveraging AI of their roles. Study from their successes and challenges, and ask for steerage on find out how to navigate the evolving panorama.
- Embrace Steady Studying: AI is a dynamic discipline, so keep curious and continue learning. Discover on-line programs, attend workshops, and skim concerning the {industry} to deepen your understanding of AI ideas and functions in product administration.
What’s your long-term imaginative and prescient for Productboard, notably in leveraging AI to reinforce customer-centric product growth?
My purpose for productboard now is similar because it was day one – to resolve PM ache factors and empower PMs to make the very best merchandise attainable.
We’re dedicated to persistently evaluating and updating our AI choices to make sure we’re serving to PMs be extra collaborative, efficient, artistic and strategic. As their ache factors change, so will our know-how. In actual fact, we use Productboard’s know-how ourselves to ensure we’re being really customer-centric and delivering the updates and options that our prospects actually need. So it’s onerous to say immediately what we’ll do sooner or later, as a result of at Productboard, it’s all about what our prospects want proper now. However I can promise that we’ll proceed to evolve and leverage AI to supply for our prospects and empower PMs to be distinctive members of their group.
Thanks for the good interview, readers who want to study extra ought to go to Productboard.
