Some industries are built on trust, touch, and timeless tradition. Think art auctions, luxury resorts, or cruise lines. But even the most high-touch experiences are being reshaped by digital experiences.

This week, we’re spotlighting three leaders who are redefining what “product” means when the product is an entire experience:

• Elizabeth Van Bergen on blending gallery trust with digital reach at global auction house, Phillips

• Raul Parquet on transforming cruise bookings into data-driven journeys

• Mauricio Prado on emotion-driven customer experience at Wynn Las Vegas

Happy reading,

Imane Rharbi

How Product Leaders Navigate High-Touch Industries: 3 Cast Studies

1. Leader Spotlight: Creating a seamless digital experience for luxury products, with Elizabeth Van Bergen

Elizabeth Van Bergen is a Lead Product Manager at the prestigious auction house, Phillips. Her work is a masterclass in bridging the physical and digital divide, demonstrating how to replicate the in-person trust and experience of a gallery experience online.

In her interview, Elizabeth talks about:

• How Phillips operates for a clientele of ultra-high-net-worth individuals, seasoned collectors, and sophisticated art professionals accustomed to a high-touch, relationship-based model

• When “product” is not merely a physical product, but an entire ecosystem of trust and expertise. For Phillips customers, this includes verification of an object's history, expert curation of sales, discretion of private transactions, and seamless handling of post-sale logistics

• How the COVID-19 pandemic inspired a global shift away from in-person interactions that forced the centuries-old business model to accelerate its digital presence

READ NOW

2. Making creative decisions backed by data, with Raul Parquet

Raul Parquet is the Director of Ecommerce at Princess Cruises, where he is leading a full-scale digital transformation of Princess.com. He is focused on simplifying the complex cruise booking process and unlocking new revenue by enhancing web merchandising, personalization, and pre-cruise planning for guests.

In this interview, Raul talks about:

• How the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a catalyst for digital transformation in a slow-to-adapt industry like cruises

• How he uses analytics to navigate high-consideration purchase journeys with multiple customer segments (e.g., those new to cruising, those new to the Princess brand, and returning customers) with different needs

• How the digital strategy extends across the entire customer lifecycle to build long-term relationships and loyalty, including a mobile app that becomes an onboard planner for booking excursions, spa treatments, and dining reservations

READ NOW

3. Rethinking luxury through emotion-driven CX, with Mauricio Prado

Mauricio Prado is the former Vice President of Digital Technology at Wynn Las Vegas. His role highlights the challenge of infusing a world-renowned luxury hospitality brand with a digital layer that enhances the highly personalized guest journey through user-centric design.

In his interview, Mauricio covers:

• How Wynn Las Vegas operates at the apex of the luxury resort market, where the “product” is the total guest experience, and how this affects every touchpoint, from the initial booking process and pre-arrival communication to the in-room environment, dining reservations, and post-stay engagement

• The balance between sophisticated technology and personalized guest relationships, so there isn’t a digital disruption, but an integration

• The need for a deep understanding of the guest journey and identifying points of friction that technology can solve

READ NOW

ICYMI: LaunchPod

Jeff Wharton sits down with Elizabeth Van Bergen, who leads product experience at Phillips, a global high-end auction house, to cover:

• Creating a product experience for both tech novices and early adopters

• How the traditional auction industry went digital overnight

• Why the digital experience is as important as the functionality itself

🔥Hot🔥 discussions in PM this week

1. PLG vs. AI: What’s next for Product-Led Growth?

2. I Believe in Interim CPO Roles, But Not in Fractional CPO Roles

3. Context-aware design systems, AI-first design principles, and PMs as strategic orchestrators

4. Is half of product management just cleaning up organizational debt?

5. The distinctions between CTOs vs. CPOs: Who leads who?

What does LogRocket do?

LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.

Each event features a cocktail hour for networking, an engaging talk by a highly regarded industry speaker, a delicious multi-course meal, and some fun departing gifts, courtesy of LogRocket.

At a recent event in Los Angeles, Oji Udezue (former CPO at Typeform and Calendly, and product leader at Twitter and Atlassian) shared insights on:

• Growth acceleration for PMs: How PMs can use AI to shorten the path to value, making it easier for teams and customers to see impact quickly

• The future of PM workflows: Core workflows haven’t changed, but the tools have, and we haven’t reached the “final” AI toolset, so it’s important to stay abreast of current trends as capabilities advance

• Thriving as a startup: Applying the 2x4 framework (Who is using your product? and How often?) to segment workflows and focus on high-value areas in a world where +90% of startups fail

• Competitive advantage beyond product: Lasting advantage doesn’t always come from product features alone! Business models, distribution, customer relationships, and proprietary data can be just as powerful

Interested in attending a future Product Leader Networking Dinner? Reach out to inquire about attending: jessica.srinivas@logrocket.com.

Leader Spotlight Roundup

In this interview, Raed shares insights about:

• Embedding Voice of Customer (VOC) into company culture by aligning it with mission, leadership buy-in, and everyday decision-making across all levels

• Turning insights from reactive survey data into predictive models that inform customer behavior and future investments

• Turning customer delight into measurable ROI by linking advocacy, retention, and growth to business performance and using storytelling to keep the customer voice present in leadership conversations

Read more Leader Spotlights

ICYMI: LaunchPod

In this recent episode of LaunchPod AI, Sierra Hahn-Ventrell, the Director of Product Management at Apartment List, visits to discuss:

• Analyzing customer interviews using ChatGPT, which led to Sierra’s team uncovering huge missed insights that led to a full product strategy reset

• Building an AI Slack bot to flag issues in new tools before they become big problems

• Automating documentation processes using NotebookLM and Claude

WATCH NOW

🔥Hot🔥 discussions in PM this week

1. Is the PM job market finally bouncing back? The September jobs report shows a 2.9% worldwide increase in PM roles, with Europe in the lead. Remote opportunities also saw a significant 14% jump after a summer slump.

2. Is the "no manual testing" trend going too far? A discussion from this week highlights growing concern over the removal of dedicated QA teams, even in regulated industries, which turns users into the primary bug reporters and raises questions about product quality.

3. Have you heard of the “Product Strategy Squad”? A hot debate this week centers on a new org model where a "Product Strategy Squad" defines initiatives and hands them off to execution teams, sparking concerns about killing learning loops and weakening the PM craft.

What does LogRocket do?

LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.

Product leaders are no strangers to the “build, ship, and pray” mentality. But promotion is a crucial part of the product workflow because even the best features will fail if users never discover them.

This week, Derek Pharr, VP of Product at Sporcle, a trivia and pub quiz online and mobile platform, is exploring the flaws with the “build, ship, and pray” approach, and why even you shouldn’t wait for “perfect” (is there even such a thing?) to promote your product.

Happy reading,

Imane Rharbi

Our go-to-market sucks (and what I'm doing about it)

Derek Pharr, CPO at Sporcle, shares how his team is shifting to a go-to-market approach that treats promotion as a crucial part of the product process.

In this post:

• Why the “build, ship, and pray” mindset leads to invisible features and wasted effort

• Real examples from Sporcle where a lack of promotion undermined strong product launches

• How Derek and Sporcle are shifting culture by building GTM into product craft, from better infrastructure to defining “good enough to promote”

READ NOW

Leader Spotlight Roundup

In this interview, Jessyca talks about:

• The outcomes and learnings from a digital transformation initiative that involved integrating cross-functional divisions into one cohesive site

• The qualitative and quantitative signals her team monitors to track digital experiences

• Bringing systems thinking and SEO background to product

Read more Leader Spotlights

ICYMI: LaunchPod

Ken Houseman, VP of Product at Zuora, was recently on LaunchPod to discuss how even the smallest increase in churn can cause huge profit loss. Also in this episode:

• How Zuora made payments so valuable that customers want to pay more, boosting revenue, margins, and customer retention

• And how Ken used AI to cut down on prototyping time and unlock faster, smarter product development

WATCH NOW

🔥Hot🔥 discussions in PM this week

1. Are PMs too obsessed with framework? Product leaders often lean hard (or are told to lean hard) on these “recipes” for success, but trendy frameworks are only as good as the seasoned product leaders using them.

2. Shopify is adding a coding section to its Product Manager interviews. Does this mean PMs should hone their vibe coding skillset?

3. Five questions to ask your product monthly to drive sustainable growth, including “Will my product be here in a year? In five? What can I do today to make this happen?”

4. What the GPT-5 launch teaches product managers and why OpenAI caused an uproar by sunsetting GPT-4o without warning (and ultimately bringing it back).

What does LogRocket do?

LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.

It’s almost time to close that last tab, silence your Teams notifications, and get ready for a long weekend (if you’re lucky enough to have Labor Day off like we do).

But before you sign off, don’t miss this week’s top stories, where we’re covering all things growth, including:

• How Michael Park scaled from $0 to $25M ARR

• The growth playbook that took Charlie Kaplan and Audiomack to 42M users

• Why 0.1% churn might be your most expensive problem

• As well as some great insights from the product leaders in our Leader Spotlight interview series

Happy strategizing!

- Imane Rharbi

Lessons From Product Leaders On Growth

1. The Hidden Cost of 0.1% Churn | Ken Houseman, VP of Product (Zuora)

Ken’s team at Zuora turned retention into a growth engine by focusing on churn and making payments a true value driver. By reframing payments as crucial to customer experience, they helped businesses increase margins, reduce churn, and unlock faster product development with AI.

Here’s how they did it:

• Elevated payments from a billing add-on to a standalone product that simplifies complexity and helps companies expand globally

• Used market segmentation to prioritize high-value processors and regional partners, giving customers flexible, low-cost access to new payment methods

• Leveraged prototypes built with AI to cut weeks of design and engineering time

Tip for PMs: Start by measuring involuntary churn from failed payments. Even small percentages add up fast! Use AI-driven retries or smarter payment routing to recover revenue, then reinvest those gains into improving customer retention.

2. How to scale $0 to $25M ARR | Michael Park, VP of PM (Buffini & Co)

In this episode, Michael draws on lessons from scaling multiple startups to show how product leaders can balance founder vision, team focus, and sustainable growth. Instead of chasing every new framework, his approach centers on consistency, customer closeness, and avoiding fatigue from “the latest playbook.”

What he did:

• Involved engineers directly in roadmap planning to avoid rigid, top-down deadlines and overly chaotic agile cycles, creating ownership and innovation

• Focused the team on consistency and solving user problems instead of chasing the latest product fads, reducing burnout and sustaining growth to $25M ARR

Tip for PMs: Don’t get caught up in every new framework. Focus on fundamentals: solve user problems, involve your builders in decisions, and create clarity for your team. Consistency beats intensity.

3. Growing to 42 Million Users: Audiomack's Growth Playbook | Charlie Kaplan, VP of Product (Audiomack)

Charlie’s journey shows the difference between hype vs. real product-market fit. At Cymbal, he drove 50x user growth but learned that signups without stickiness lead to failure. At Audiomack, he applied those lessons, built systematic testing, and leaned into accessibility, scaling the platform to 42 million monthly users!

Here’s how he did it:

• Grew Cymbal quickly with press buzz, but discovered churn was high, showing that a social product without a “single-player mode” can’t survive

• Joined Audiomack and introduced systematic data tracking and hypothesis-driven testing, turning failed features into new monetization opportunities

• Positioned Audiomack as the accessible streaming service for global listeners priced out of $11/month subscriptions, driving adoption in Africa and fueling growth to 42M MAUs and 12M DAUs

Tip for PMs: Don’t confuse hype for fit. Look for repeat usage and retention, not just signups. Build a sticky “single-player mode” first, then expand into network effects.

ICYMI: LaunchPod

In this episode of LaunchPod, we sit down with Joel Polanco, Senior Hardware Product Manager at Intel’s Edge Computing Group, to explore why product leaders need to rethink where their AI models run. From cloud economics to retail automation and hybrid architectures, Joel explains how moving AI to the edge reshapes cost structures, customer experience, and product strategy.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why companies start in the cloud but shift to the edge once usage and costs scale (03:00)

• How retailers are using conversational agents and inventory automation to optimize workflows (04:00)

• Why latency, privacy, and security make edge deployments essential for customer trust (09:00)

Leader Spotlight Roundup

In this interview, Michael Thornton spoke about:

• How he applies lessons from a background in neuroscience and therapeutics to show how PMs with a scientific or engineering background can transfer technical skills into product roles

• Why AI is a tool that generates plausible but not perfect answers, making human critical thinking essential in product workflows

• The importance of hiring for durable skills, prioritizing empathy, curiosity, communication, and critical thinking, skills that last longer and create stronger teams

Read more Leader Spotlights

🔥Hot🔥 discussions in PM this week

1. Is this AI wave like the dot-com bubble?

   In this thread, PMs argue whether AI is a bubble or the next “cloud,” widely adopted and increasingly costly, and something PMs should plan around as expenses rise.

2. How do you handle delays? Are they really inevitable to some extent, or am I doing something wrong?

   Why do product delays happen? And how do you turn these setbacks into growth?

3. A day in the life of a PM

   Daily standups, dashboards, stakeholder meetings, and unpredictable chaos. Here’s a snapshot of what these PMs’ days look like.

4. Writing user stories is daunting for me, and I see a lot of variations. Don't know what to follow

   Writing user stories can be overwhelming. Here’s what PMs have to say about finding a clear and effective approach (and which questions to ask!).

What does LogRocket do?

LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.

(Trust me, our dutiful newsletter writer, Imane, left me, your favorite podcast producer, to write this in her stead while she’s doing the same.)

With that said, this week we’re bringing you:

• Our top four AI initiatives that have proven successful for our LaunchPod product leaders, from Apartment List to Lattice

• LaunchPod’s interview with Zach Heller, VP of Product at Penn Foster, where he talks about how Penn Foster rethought retention, doubled completion rates, and built a product-led engine for student success.

• Interviews with product leaders about leveraging AI for personal brand building and how to use analytics to keep your customers and clients at the center of your product.

• Plus, the best conversations we’ve seen this week from product leaders

Happy reading, whether you're in the office or lounging on the beach,

Em Kochanek

How Product Leaders Are Using AI: 4 Case Studies

1. The AI Slack “Intern” | Neha Monga, former Head of Product (Lattice)

Neha’s team built an AI assistant directly into Slack to help PMs quickly access notes, past decisions, and research. Instead of losing time digging through Confluence or docs, the AI delivered instant answers inside the team’s communication hub.

How they did it:

• Identified repetitive tasks PMs spent too much time on (note-taking, decision recall, status reporting)

• Embedded an AI bot in Slack so it worked in the team’s natural flow

• Started with small use cases to build trust before expanding functionality

• Used feedback loops from PMs to refine the assistant’s responses

Tip for PMs: Pilot AI in the tools your team already lives in (Slack, Teams). Focus on one “painful but boring” task and let AI handle it before scaling.

2. Rethinking Product Strategy with AI Customer Insights | Sierra Hahn Ventrell, Director of Product (Apartment List)

Sierra’s team used AI to analyze customer interviews, uncovering insights that contradicted their roadmap and forced them to scrap their initial plan and pivot their product strategy.

How they did it:

• Collected raw interview transcripts and centralized them

• Fed transcripts into an AI tool for fast synthesis

• Compared AI findings against the team’s original assumptions

• Discussed contradictions openly, leading to a strategic reset

• Used AI-driven insights as inputs into the new roadmap

Tips for PMs: Run your unstructured customer data (interviews, tickets, surveys) through AI. Look not just for speed, but for patterns and blind spots that might expose flawed assumptions.

3. Prototyping in an Afternoon | Derek Pharr, CPO (Sporcle)

Faced with limited resources, Derek used Replit and Claude to build a prototype in a single afternoon. The prototype wasn’t perfect, but it gave his team a fast way to validate ideas and avoid wasting engineering time.

How they did it:

• Picked a small idea worth testing without over-investing

• Used Replit and Claude to generate a first-pass prototype quickly

• Shared the prototype to gather immediate feedback from stakeholders

• Measured engagement and identified flaws early, before committing engineering cycles

• Iterated or discarded based on learnings without sunk cost

Tip for PMs: Encourage PMs to use AI code tools themselves. Even rough prototypes can clarify direction and give engineers a tangible starting point.

4. Automating PRDs and Redefining the PM Role | Roman Gun, VP of Product (Zeta Global)

Roman’s team experimented with using AI to draft PRDs, reframing them as living documents co-created with AI. This shifted PMs from being document writers to orchestrators who curate and align.

How they did it:

• Asked AI to generate first-pass PRD drafts based on context and requirements

• Reviewed and curated drafts, layering in team-specific insights

• Treated PRDs as iterative, updating AI-generated sections as new inputs came in

• Repositioned PM focus from writing to orchestration and alignment

• Built team norms around AI-assisted documentation

Tip for PMs: Stop starting PRDs from a blank page. Use AI to generate the skeleton, then refine and contextualize. This frees PMs from time-consuming writing so they can focus on strategy and stakeholder buy-in.

ICYMI: LaunchPod

Jeff sits down with Prittam Bagani, VP of Product Management at Chargebee, to unpack how 10,000+ SaaS companies are navigating the biggest shift in pricing strategy since the rise of cloud.

Here’s what we cover:

• How AI is forcing companies to rethink pricing - and why usage-, outcome-, and agent-based models are the future (02:25)

• Why OpenAI made over 100 pricing page changes in a single year and what you can learn about agile pricing experimentation from it (06:28)

• And how to build the necessary technical and product infrastructure to test pricing models in real-time across millions of users (18:37)

Leader Spotlight Roundup

Karen Brophy shares her thoughts on how to:

• Make product strategic, not tactical: Brophy built product divisions at Hearst and Nexstar that generated tens to hundreds of millions in revenue, proving product’s place as a strategic driver.

• Build visibility with intention: She stays on people’s radar with a monthly newsletter, quick thank-yous after meetings, and consistent, authentic engagement on LinkedIn.

• Use AI as a career multiplier: She taps ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity for ideation and prep, using them to surface content ideas, role-play networking conversations, and explore job pivots.

Read more Leader Spotlights

🔥Hot🔥 discussions in PM this week

What does LogRocket do?

LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.

This week, Omar Mousa, former VP of Product at Ventricle Health and Founder and President of Ethereal Advisory, a product advisory firm for early-stage startups, shares how AI prototypes are replacing the clunky PRD of old.

We’ve also got leader spotlights from product leaders covering everything from how to make a product profitable by reframing metrics around customer problems, to balancing innovation with trust in high-stakes industries like cybersecurity.

Finally, from the PM forums: what does it really mean to be an “AI Product Manager"? And tips on how to build effective leadership update decks to share your team’s progress.

Happy reading,

Imane Rharbi

How we replaced PRDs with AI prototypes (with our prompts)

Omar Mousa, former VP of Product at Ventricle Health, explains how traditional PRDs are becoming obsolete in today's AI-powered product environment, and how AI prototypes are more useful, including AI prompts he uses with his team.

In this post:

• Why traditional PRDs are failing PMs

• How AI is revolutionizing prototypes by creating testable prototypes in minutes

• A recommended prototyping stack for PMs, including chat-based assistants, image generation tools, and interactive mockup tools

• How Omar is reimagining the PRD and what he recommends for actionable steps to get started

• AI prompts Omar uses to drive AI prototyping at his organization

READ NOW

Automating PRDs and Beyond: AI for Product Teams | Roman Gun, VP (Zeta Global) | LaunchPod AI

Roman Gun, VP of Product at Zeta Global, visits LaunchPod AI to talk about:

• The prompting and workflow orchestrations he created to automate writing PRDs, one of the most disliked tasks of product managers, and how he has made them into living, breathing documents that initiate collaboration

• The AI communities and platforms he uses, including Reddit and Discord, to stay ahead, learn new tricks, and gain early access to the best new tools

• His side-project centered around Magic: The Gathering, and how he built tools to prototype new decks and beat players with far more experience

Leader Spotlight Roundup

Mayank Kumar joins to cover how:

• He helped lead Policygenius to profitability for the first time in 10 years by reframing core metrics and grounding business goals in customer problems

• He uses clear goals and transparent metrics to align teams, and applies financial context to prioritize work

• He runs customer advisory boards that surface real problems behind feature requests, and uses roadmaps and $100 prioritization exercises to focus on high-value work

Read more Leader Spotlights:

🔥Hot🔥 discussions in PM this week

1. 7 things I’ve noticed after helping build over 60 startup MVPs
   This post shares hard-earned lessons from building startup MVPs, including promoting early and focusing on fewer (but stronger) features per release.
   

2. Hype around "AI Product Manager". What does this role actually mean?
   A debate on whether “AI PM” is a distinct role, a traditional PM using AI tools, or just a rebrand riding the AI wave.
   

3. Steal my product updates to my leadership, I've been told they are great! (example deck included.)
   A product manager's guide to efficient slide decks for board and leadership updates, including an example deck to use in your reporting.
   

4. Best PRD Al Tool: Projects, ChatPRD, Reforge, etc.
   A roundup of AI tools for creating PRDs, from Perplexity Spaces to ChatGPT and Claude Projects.

What does LogRocket do?

LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.