#Build 8: Pluralsight’s Nate Walkingshaw on Why The Secret to Hypergrowth Is Building a Product with Empathy

Pluralsight's Nate Walkingshaw literally wrote the book on product leadership. On this episode of Build, Nate dives into the importance of empathy in product and how his own background as an EMT helped him build more empathetic, more intuitive products. Plus, Nate shares his framework for the "product heart" – all of the key elements for what a healthy product should look like. In this episode: 00:35 - Nate’s journey from EMT to Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Pluralsight 1:48 - Inventing products to solve EMT problem 3:25 - Nate’s work at Stryker 4:09 - The transition from hardware to software development 4:45 - Nate’s work at Strava 6:20 - Launching Strava’s first commerce based app 6:47 - Nate’s work as Head of Tanner Labs at O.C. Tanner 8:00 - The Mission of Pluralsight: Democratizing Technology Skills 8:30 - Joining Pluralsight   9:45 - How to develop a great product that impacts people 10:27 - Why “why” matters 11:25 - Direct Discovery: Mission, Vision and , & The Client 12:17 - Hearing the voice of the customer 12:50 - Customer Preference Testing (CPT) & Customer Confirmation Testing (CCT) 14:40 - Merely sSolving problems vs. creating meaningful outcomes 16:22 - Leveraging key performance indicators for product design 17:19 - Outcome and  & the customer’s success 19:15 - How you can benefit from switching to output focus 23:17 - How Nate taught his team about output focus 25:30 - How Nate’s team stays available & engages customers 29:50 - Care for the craft (and popularity will follow) 30:35 - The value of listening in a distracted world Books & Resources Mentioned in this Episode: Read Nate’s book on Product Leadership https://www.amazon.com/Product-Leadership-Managers-Products-Successful/dp/1491960604 Check out more of Nate’s wisdom https://medium.com/@nwalkingshaw Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! And be sure to check out more insights on product development on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @maggiecrowley, @drift and @seekingwisdomio.