Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard – Interview Collection

Hubert Palan is the Founder and CEO of Productboard, a product administration platform designed to assist groups carry merchandise to market extra effectively by prioritizing person wants and aligning groups round a shared roadmap. Greater than 5,400 firms, together with Zoom, UiPath, JCDecaux, and Microsoft, use the platform to collect buyer insights and inform improvement 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 concept got here throughout a flight after I was making an attempt 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 and not using a single, consistently-updated supply of reality.

When creating Productboard, our objective was to construct one platform that covers the whole 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 middle of recent product administration, utilizing AI know-how to champion the voice of the shopper, elevating the function of the PM.

And it’s labored. Right this moment Productboard has 6000+ clients together with wonderful firms like Salesforce, Autodesk, and Zoom.

What challenges did you face throughout the early days of Productboard, and the way did you overcome them?

Within the early days of Productboard, I discovered in regards to the challenges of onboarding new employees at a startup. Productboard was shifting in a short time and I had a bent to count on new hires to catch onto what we have 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 possibly can foster groups which can be simply as knowledgeable and passionate in regards to 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, inserting massive bets, and constructing wonderful groups. It is our product philosophy at Productboard, guaranteeing that we’re at all times centered on delivering worth to our clients. We developed this framework after recognizing frequent challenges confronted by product groups, equivalent 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 trendy 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 reworked product administration?

One thing that grew to become clear to our group 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 answer to investigate this knowledge at scale, establish key insights, and assist prioritize what to construct subsequent. This has reworked product administration by permitting groups to make faster, extra knowledgeable choices with larger confidence. It has additionally elevated the PM to a place of management through which they can provide extra strategic suggestions that aligns with an organization’s enterprise objectives. General, AI in PM is about staying forward of the curve and guaranteeing our clients can construct merchandise that sustain with rising developments and actually resonate with their customers.

Are you able to share particular examples of how AI has improved decision-making for Productboard’s clients?

Think about a product supervisor desires to know the final sentiment on a brand new characteristic. As an alternative of sifting by 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 clients saying in regards to the final replace?” or “Is pricing a significant concern for customers on this sector?” This entry permits PMs to shortly establish ache factors and alternatives, resulting in simpler product improvement.

Past Pulse, we even have an AI-powered analytics dashboard that routinely surfaces key themes and developments from buyer suggestions. This helps product managers prioritize options with the largest potential affect, making it a game-changer for data-driven decision-making. We’re seeing clients use these insights to speed up time-to-market, enhance product satisfaction, and finally, construct higher merchandise that individuals love.

How do you tackle considerations round knowledge safety and privateness when utilizing AI to course of buyer insights?

We take privateness very severely. At Productboard we use a multi-layered method to knowledge safety and privateness, incorporating industry-standard practices and strong measures to guard delicate info. Our dedication to safety is obvious in our SOC 2 Sort II compliance certification and our adherence to strict knowledge safety laws like GDPR and CCPA.

We make use of knowledge 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 knowledge. Our clients have granular management over their knowledge, permitting them to find out what info is collected and the way it’s used. For AI particularly, we make use of nameless knowledge to investigate buyer suggestions, defending particular person identities whereas extracting precious insights.

What developments do you foresee in using AI for product administration, and the way is Productboard making ready to guide on this house?

AI will probably be important for product managers to navigate the complexities of the fashionable product panorama. Utilizing AI in PM is not only about automating duties; it is about empowering PMs to be extra strategic and customer-centric, thus elevating the affect they will have inside their respective firms.

At Productboard, we’re dedicated to main the best way in AI-powered product administration. We’re repeatedly enhancing our AI capabilities and delivering modern options that empower our clients. Final yr, we introduced a number of iterations of our AI functions and there’s extra the place that got here from in 2025.

Our objective is to make AI accessible and helpful 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 into extra integral inside their organizations.

How has your management fashion developed as Productboard has grown from a small group to a global group with over 6,000 clients?

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 group, and empower them to take possession.

Nonetheless, even with the significance of letting go, I additionally discovered the significance of staying linked and sustaining a founder’s mindset. I’m consistently questioning, analyzing, and looking for methods to enhance. Efficient management is about balancing strategic imaginative and prescient with a deep understanding of the day-to-day realities of our clients and our group.

What recommendation would you give to aspiring product managers who need to leverage AI of their roles?

I’d encourage aspiring product magnets to learn to leverage AI successfully by following these three finest practices:

1. Develop Buyer-Centricity: At all times join AI-driven insights again to the human wants and ache factors they symbolize.
2. Search Mentorship and Collaboration: Join with skilled product managers who’re already leveraging AI of their roles. Be taught from their successes and challenges, and ask for steering on learn how to navigate the evolving panorama.
3. Embrace Steady Studying: AI is a dynamic area, so keep curious and continue to learn. Discover on-line programs, attend workshops, and browse in regards to the {industry} to deepen your understanding of AI ideas and functions in product administration.

What’s your long-term imaginative and prescient for Productboard, significantly in leveraging AI to reinforce customer-centric product improvement?

My objective 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, inventive and strategic. As their ache factors change, so will our know-how. Actually, we use Productboard’s know-how ourselves to ensure we’re being actually customer-centric and delivering the updates and options that our clients actually need. So it’s laborious to say at the moment what we’ll do sooner or later, as a result of at Productboard, it’s all about what our clients want proper now. However I can promise that we’ll proceed to evolve and leverage AI to supply for our clients 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.