#52: Mike Belsito (Product Collective)

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:00:00]:

for me to get back into doing something again, I have to have the belief that we could create the best in the world. Whatever that would be. Right? And so At the time, I had asked myself, we started talking about industry. Can we create the best product conference in the world? And I believe that we could. And I believe that we have, actually. You know, again, I'll put it up against any conference. I think that experience is one of the thing that sets us apart.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:27]:

Let's discover the Cleveland entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are telling the stories of its entrepreneurs and those supporting them. Welcome to the Labland podcast, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern, and today, we are talking about something very close to home for me given that outside of this podcast. it is my day job. I am responsible for this at my company, actual, and I spend most of my days thinking about and actively trying to improve at product management. product management is the topic of the day, and our guest is none other than Siedo, who is a serial entrepreneur and product manager himself, and who is the co founder at Product Collective. which is an organization he started here in Cleveland back in 2015, which now boasts a thriving community for over 30,000 product management professionals and is most known for hosting globally top rated product management conferences, notably industry, the product conference, and the New York product conference. This is a a fascinating deep dive into to the world of product management and the business of community and of conferences And it's awesome that Mike is doing this out of Cleveland. So I hope you all enjoy my conversation with Mike Velcito. So I've been, very much looking forward to this conversation in my own Product Journey as as we were talking before we return on the mic, Sierra. I have actually come across product collective media, collateral content, and was was really excited to find out that you're building this organization. It's really kinda like tenant product management organization here in Cleveland that I'd I did not know about.

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:02:24]:

Well, I'm glad that you found out about it for sure. We always love hearing new members come into product collective. But, no, yeah, it's it's we've been building it since 2015. And, yeah, right here from Cleveland. And it does surprise a lot of people, especially when we're, you know, we get around. I was in Raleigh, North Carolina a few weeks ago, actually a couple weeks ago, but, you know, during the pre COVID days, traveling around speaking at other conferences. And usually, you know, these types of things are started and The Bay Area or New York or Miami these days, but, yeah, I'm proud that we're doing it right here in Cleveland. Yeah. So Can you just give us a brief kind of overview of what product collective is? Yeah. We like to think of ourselves as a community for product people And when I say products people, I'm referring to product management professionals, but I like, I like using that that more casual term product people. But, you know, as a community that can mean a lot of things. For us, it's really sort of a way for us to gather people, connect them, help them find information, you know, get connected to resources that might help educate them, but also just really find inspiration to build better products. And the types of products I'm talking about are technology products, software, internet companies, those types of things, And we have a lot of different things that are sort of under the product collective umbrella, including our newsletter. goes out every Friday to about 30,000 people or so. We also host several video chats a month. There's on the first and third Wednesday of every month. We have our industry interviews, which are virtual fireside chats, but we also do 1 to 2 webinars, a month now at this point with different tech companies as well. We have a pretty active slack channel as well with a few thousand product people that are every day just sort of trading tips and best practices and and looking to build connections there. I also co co host a podcast rocketchip.fm, and I think we now surpass 500 episodes. So we we've been on it a few years, ourselves, and it started out as a podcast for entrepreneurs, but now is much more encompassing for entrepreneurs and product people, together. But the biggest part of what we do probably or maybe what people know us best for is our conference series. we started back in 2015, a conference called Industry The Product Conference, and Its first incarnation was at music box supper club in Cleveland. And we've now done, gosh, several in person additions here in Cleveland ever since COVID started. We brought the conference to Europe. We started European Edition in Dublin, Ireland in 2018, and had 3 additions, including 1 March 9th through 11th, 2020. We literally put on the last conference in all of Ireland until probably pretty recently. I don't know if they're they're doing conferences again there. And and actually, recently, we also acquired a conference. We took over the New York product conference specifically for the New York product community and our next in person edition actually will be New York product conference coming up April 7 2022. So, yeah, that I mean, it's product collective. Again, community for product people, but it's all these things and more that we're doing on a day to day basis.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:38]:

Yeah. And we'll definitely unpack some of those in a little bit for more depth and and detail, but I I love to just this again is something we were talking about before we we turned on here, but I think everyone's path that kind of product management is a little atypical. Not like there's no standard path to to product management necessarily. So I'd love to understand how it is that your path came to to the world of product and know, just a bit about your yourself and your background and your your interest in in entrepreneurship.

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:06:06]:

Yeah. Well, I'll work backwards because my my path to product came more recently than my path to entrepreneurship, but I think that's a good place to start. So I sort of fell into product. I came into it by way of being an entrepreneur. So I had a company of my own from 2011 to 2014. the company was e Funeral. and we were one of the very first sort of internet death care companies that were out there. And e feeder in 2014 was acquired, but I always called a fail sale we we did not achieve what we wanted to achieve. It was an amazing experience. I learned a lot, build a lot of amazing relationships. Actually, there's there's kind of a fun story about almost every employee that worked at e Funeral. One of them now is a professional YouTuber. Another is one of the people that reports up to one of the co CEOs at Oracle. We had an amazing team, but, you know, didn't achieve everything we wanted to. And so after it wrapped up, you know, I had to figure out what I wanted to do next. And, you know, there wasn't the kind of acquisition I was gonna live on a beach for a while to go get a job. You know? And so, I got recruited by a few companies in town to be a product person. And I had to look up what that even meant You know, I remember when when I started getting recruited to be, you know, product manager, director of product, you know, these companies. I'm like, what what the heck does a director of product strategy. That's actually the role I took. A company called Veritex. It was a ticketing technology company here in town owned by Dan Gilbert. Yeah. They they recruited me to be their director product strategy. which I Googled, what does a director product strategy do? And, I remember when I met with them, you know, I remember being at lunch, and I remember saying, hey. Look. This role sounds awesome. It really does, but I don't know if I would be good for it. I mean, I never went to school for product management. And they said, oh, no, Mike. nobody went to school for product management. You'll be fine. You'll be don't worry about it. And so I ended up taking that role, but in in my mind, I kept thinking, but what happens when they figure out? I don't know what I'm doing. You know, I'm just sort of making things up here. And but this so that's how I ended up getting into product management in the first place. And shortly after that, it's sort of the origin for for product collective started. But, but, yeah, that was my first take. Now I will say at e Funeral, I was a product person too. I just didn't really realize it. Like, that wasn't necessarily in my vernacular. I wasn't identifying as a product person. When I look back at the things I was doing, I mean, as a co founder, you're wearing so many different hats. And I certainly was wearing that product hat back then too. Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:37]:

maybe just a a brief aside. How do you think about product management? Like, what what does that mean to you now when you describe what it is that a product manager does. Yeah.

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:08:48]:

This is something I struggle with myself. Right. It's kinda hard to answer that to some people. I mean, I like in sports terms anyway. You could kind of think of it as the quarterback of what to build, right, but it's not really about the what. more about the why. And I think that's something that, you know, there might be some disagreement on with some people. Some people will say the product person is, you know, they're they're they are the person at a company that's working with the developers, working with the designers to figure out what to build. And so the product person actually isn't the one building it. You know, it's the software developers that are building it. The designers are designing it. But who at the company is actually setting that structure in place? Who's who's creating that roadmap? Who's determining what's built? Well, you could say the product manager is determining that, but I would argue the more important thing that they do is determine why. So something should be built, or should it even be built at all in the first place? if it was just the what, we'd be more like a project manager. But because that why is involved, we're we're we're the ones that are interacting with customers or at least we should be trying to dig in on what are their pain points and problems. the product people, the ones that are also interacting with the C suite. You know, we're interacting with the executives and our colleagues, you know, in other divisions like marketing, like customer success. And we're supposed to take everything that we're learning and translate into product that we can build that supports the corporate strategy. So that the product person does a lot of different things, but at the core, I'd say that's what they really do.

Jeffrey Stern [00:10:18]:

Yeah. That that resonates a lot. There's a a word I've learned recently that I I really like using in the context product. And it's a Japanese word, and I hope I'm pronouncing it correct, but it's Nemawashi, which is essentially referring to, like, carefully laying the foundation for proposed changes by talking to all the stakeholders involved, gathering support and feedback. to a point where you can enable change with consent of all the parties. Interesting. This is a this is a very specific term, but it feels very, like, applicable

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:10:53]:

to what? If somebody was a product manager back in the day that came up with that word, it sounds like.

Jeffrey Stern [00:10:58]:

Yeah. Yeah. That all checks out in terms of my own experience as well. Yeah. For sure. So as you kind of took on this role in a product management capacity. I guess, how did you come to the founding insight for what product collective ultimately came. Yeah. I mean, so

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:11:17]:

product collective and and efuneral, that first company I had, they share they seem like totally different companies you know, completely different ends of the entrepreneurial spectrum. I mean, but at the they actually have a lot in common in terms of why I founded the company, which is that it sort of solved a need that I had personally back with the funeral that need was I had a family member that had died and and my family was put in that position to find a funeral home and and plan the whole process. And so later on, I I ended up starting a company to sort of solve that need for other people, but product collective is sort of similar. Basically, when I took that job, as I mentioned, I felt lost as a product person. Like, the company was telling me I was doing a great job, but in my mind, I'm like, feeling like I'm just making things up. And I was you know, just trying to find blogs and books and podcasts to try to learn what it meant to be a product person, but The best way that I like to learn is through other people. So when I found other product people and I was talking to them and trading war stories, you know, trading practices learning from them, that's what really felt good for me. So set that setting that aside for a minute. There was a point in time right at right around this time where I had taken on that new role that I got asked to speak at a local event, local conference here in Cleveland, at the time, though, it was called the industry digital summit. So it was it was the precursor to what has become industry, but that was an event that was built by Paul McVinci and Rebecca Feliciano and others, I'm sure, that was an offshoot of their tech pint series. So they built tech pint as this really meet up for the tech community. And the industry digital summit was the 1st sort of day long version of that. And it was it was a broad tech conference, you know, local, so mostly local speakers, local audience. and I get Paul asked me to speak at that conference. So I spoke. I don't remember what the topic was to be to be honest with you. But afterwards, he asked for my feedback as a speaker. And I said, well, hey. Look. I thought it was awesome. Like, people turned up seemed to have a lot of fun. I said, but, you know, there are a few of these types of events here in Cleveland where you know, it's broad tech events for the local tech community. Same speakers on stage. Same people in the audience. You just kinda swap out the banner, and it feels like you were at the last event that organization X Y Z put on. And I said, yeah. Which is fine. I said, but, you know, what you ought to do you know, what if you focused on something specific within tech? You know, you really went deep at it. And I said, hey, look, I'm trying to figure out what it means to be a product person. You know, maybe it's product. There's not a whole lot of things out there for people like me that are trying to learn what it means to be a product person. And I said, by the way, if you did that, Maybe it wouldn't just, you know, it just happens to be here in Cleveland. You know, it it doesn't need to be a Cleveland thing. Maybe people from Detroit would come. Maybe people from Pittsburgh would come. it it shows you kinda how small I was thinking at the time. but I was thinking, you know, 2 hour driving radius, you know, kind of a thing. And and Paul looked at me and said, You sound pretty passionate about that. What if we did it together? And that that lunch that we had, that was really the seedling for what ultimately became product collective. We decided we would take that industry digital summit event, which is a totally different event. You know, it was positioned as a local broad tech event, and we would reposition that as a product conference that just happens to be here in Cleveland. It's not about Cleveland. It's just happens to take place in Cleveland. And we decided that 2015, fall 2015 would be the first time that we'd roll that out. And we again, thought it would be mostly a local audience with no marketing budget. We had no real budget at all. We both had full time jobs. We kind of had no business to put this to put this conference on. I mean, Paul and and Rebecca, they had experience of putting on events. So we did have that at least. But we we went about thinking of this as not build it and they will come, but I'll build it and I will find them and make them come. So Our whole marketing plan that 1st year was I would wake up and Paul would wake up, you know, 5:30 in the morning a couple of hours before we'd have to go into our real jobs and we would look up product people on LinkedIn. And I would I would literally search like product manager, Pittsburgh, product manager, Detroit. I would find the pre I would guess at their email address because it's easy enough to do that these days. Right? If they work at x yz company, that's probably atxyzcompany.com, you know, fur first initial last name or first dot last name, you know, whatever it might be. Yep. Yep. And we'd reach out to these people and we would say, hey. Look. We're building this as product people ourselves. And we'd love your feedback on it. Love for you to come. And that 1st year, that's what drove most of the people to actually come. That when we had the conference, I think we had 250 people that 1st year. So kinda modest in terms of total attendance, compared to what it is now. I mean, we that we were going we were high fiving each other 250 people back then. But they came from 21 States and 7 countries, even in that 1st year. I'll never forget walking around the happy hour meeting people, and I remember, introducing myself to somebody in where'd you come in from? And he said, oh, China. And I said, oh, what what brings you to Cleveland? And he looked at me kinda funny. He's like, no, this conference. And I'm like, oh, alright. No. Yeah. Of course. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Well, welcome to Cleveland, you know. because in my mind, it's it just blew my mind that we would people are coming from other countries to the conference. But but anyway, that's kinda how it happened. You know, it it took me being that confused product person feeling that pain of of what it was to figure things out for my own. And wishing there was a place for me to connect with other people And we created that place.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:06]:

that's that's awesome. At what point after that first conference do you start thinking about Can we build a business out of this? And at what point in your mind did it transition from, we can have these conferences to the word to use earlier of, like, how do we build a community,

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:17:27]:

around this? Was pretty much immediately afterwards. I mean, it might have been in the next day when we debrief on the conference. We're like, hey. This was amazing. Right? Like, we we also learned a lot of what not to do or what to do differently. And we're like, gosh, if we change these things, we could have been even more profitable. And but but how amazing? Like, looking back, we've we got these people to come to Cleveland for this. We we created, you know, the MVP, so to speak, and the MVP proved to be successful. Like, people people enjoyed it. And so right away, we we asked ourselves 2 questions. 1, what could this have been if we were full time into it? Like imagine we had no budget. We plan this whole thing with just being basically mornings, you know, because in the nights, we liked hanging out with our family. but so if we did this all on the side, and really had no budget for what could it have been if we were full time into this? And how do we create a path for us to go full time into it? So That was one one question. Then the other question was, this is 2 days out of the year. What about those other 363 days? You know, like, we're or conference takes place over a 2 day period, at least ours, how else can we be helping product people? How else could we've let them find that inspiration or connect them with other people. And that's that's really where the community started to blossom up. I think the first step we took was inviting every attendee that came that 1st year into a slack into a, basically, a slack that we created. And we said, hey. If you wanna keep the learning going, like, here's place to do that. And over time, we invited people outside of the conference. Like, it wasn't just for conference attendees anymore. And then started to develop our newsletter. I think right at that time is when I also became co host of rocket ship. So rocket ship's not a podcast that we started. We actually did start a podcast of our own called Build Launch Scale, which was fun, but then I was co hosting 2 podcasts and we realized you know, rocket ship was being named to top, you know, product podcasts, but and we were, like, an up and coming product podcast. I'm like, well, Why am I doing 2 product podcasts? Why won't why don't we just reposition rocket ship to be a product podcast and an entrepreneurial podcast? Because before mostly a podcast that served entrepreneurs. And so he sort of repositioned that. My co host, Michael Saka, is the one that started rocket ship.fm. And Anyway, so they'll all of those other things really started to develop and and we realized, hey. All of these different pieces this isn't just, you know, different pieces happening individually. Like, this is a part of one big collect active, like our name. Right? And so that's where we started really referring ourselves as more of a community and and trying to use each of those elements to to build up the other pieces too. So it was really more of this community that that serves you in, more than one way. It's not just for you coming to the conference is not just for you to learn through the podcast, but, you know, we want all those pieces sort of tie together like a flywheel.

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:29]:

Yeah. When when you, I think a flywheel is the right analogy there, what were the signs that your community building was working and that it was, like, starting to flourish? what were kind of the things that were transpiring that like, and at what point did you go full time in that? consideration.

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:20:46]:

Answering the first part first, when you start getting unsolicited emails that are just thanking you for no reason, like, We we got emails like that, like banking us for this community that we built. Then it might be, hey. I could I found my job, you know, through somebody that I connected with on slack. or coming to your conference, I ended up meeting somebody. We just started a company together. I mean, there those early days, like, actually, the some of some Cleveland, or I should say Ohio companies that have taken off IPO ed. May I remember hanging out with some of those founders at our first conference, like, at the happy hour. So we started getting unsolicited emails like that, like, thank you emails. And I think that was just the first just sort of anecdotal sign. Like, that you get email like that. That's a that's not a guarantee like, oh, you're gonna have a successful business, but it was at least a sign that what we were doing was right. which I think when you're an early entrepreneur and even if you are sustainable, you're in those, like, ramming sustainable days. Getting emails like that make a big difference because you could create a business that's earning you money, but when you're not like, you're not seeing the impact that it actually makes, it could get it could get exhausting. So getting those early on really helped drive us To your question about when we went full time, it was right before the 2016 conference. So we started planning that 2016 conference. And I we got to a point where that where I think it was, like, June, July. The conference took place in fall. So it did in September, October. I don't remember which month it would have been that year, but June, July, I started thinking about, okay, right after this conference. that my goal is to go in full time. But as we got closer or a few months away, now there's some money in the bank account, you know, that that created a little bit of runway And I'm like, well, does it make sense for me to jump in full time right after the conference when the real work Like, I could be doing work now to get people to the conference. I could maybe I could do work now that could result in more ticket sales or more sponsorship sales. is a little bit of a leap of faith. I mean, there wasn't that much money in the bank account where it's like years of runway, but it's a few months of runway where I'm like, you know what? Let me take a pay cut. Let me let me give myself a pay, which is always awesome, right, when you're giving yourself a big pay cut. And jump in full time and start to really build it out. And so I was the first one to jump in full time. Paul came in full time just after the conference. because we had enough runway for one person to come in full time, but we need a little more for two people to come in full time. But that's what it was. So we had a we had a little bit of faith in it. we had a little bit of cushion, but not a lot of cushion, but it was enough for us to sort of let us take that leap.

Jeffrey Stern [00:23:33]:

Were were you at all ever thinking about macro level, how the product manager as a role seems to just have proliferated extraordinarily in the last 10 years. Was that, like, every part of equation in thinking about this

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:23:48]:

focus for the company? It I mean, it was part of it. Right? I mean, part of it in the beginning was I was this new product person. And I I knew that this is an important role because, again, the people that were recruiting me out of e Funeral They were for product roles. But when I went to go and try to find something like product collective or like industry, This didn't exist. I mean, industry wasn't the very first product conference, but, like, at that time, there was one other one that I could find in the world. and it was in San Francisco. And it's like, well, maybe there's product people that aren't in San Francisco that might want to learn at a product conference, right, So I think that was like an early sign. I think one of the other things is that back then, a friend of mine who he works still works at Drive Capital is a talent partner. Robert Hada. I remember having a conversation with him to say, hey. I'm considering going full time into product collective. But first, I'm calling you to ask, am I crazy? And Robert is a I I actually used to work for Robert. Robert and I worked together at a company called Findaway and Robert was my boss back then and is still a friend and mentor. And and Robert, I remember him saying, well, Mike, you're probably a little crazy, but that that's regardless of whether you're gonna jump full time into it. You're you're just a crazy guy, but he goes, I'll tell you what, you know, my role is trying to help find talent for for our portfolio companies, and product is an extremely hard role to recruit for. It's one of the hardest roles to recruit for a chief product officer. and it's one we're seeing companies more and more point to as one that's super important. So seeing the early feedback we got from that first conference, the early results, hearing somebody like Robert point to the fact that, hey. At Drive Capital, product is an important role for their portfolio companies. I I was starting to see some things that were just adding up. And I'm like, you know what? That I think if any time is the right time to jump off, it's gonna be right now. And so that's what it definitely helped. Now would I know that a few years later, product would explode the way that it did. And, we would see product companies, you know, companies that specifically serve product managers, IPO, raise 100 of 1,000,000 of dollar. You know, I would have not seen that coming necessarily, but I could tell that things were going in the direction where product was going to be more and more important to technology companies.

Jeffrey Stern [00:26:13]:

So when you look at the landscape today, I imagine and I know the answer because I've done this myself as a product person, but there's a lot of things out there now. Yeah. So how do you think about kind of the competitive differentiation, if you will, of product collective in the in the space of company serving product people. And and what does kind of the the landscape look like today?

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:26:37]:

Yeah. There are there are a lot of communities and conferences that are out there for product people. I mean, heck, I think every venture backed technology company that serves product managers, they sponsor our conference, but they have their own a conference of their own too, right, which I've spoken to many of those conferences. I mean, I think the the biggest thing for us I mean, there's probably a few differentiators, but I think when we got our start, we're always really a conference first company. I mean, that's the thing is we the conference industry is what's super special to us. I have no doubt in my mind that I would put industry up against any product conference today in terms of the experience that you get and, you know, the overall value. And that's one of those things when we first started product collective, I remember having this conversation with Paul saying, I you know, I'm just coming out of starting my own company and having an ending that I didn't really like all that much for me to get back into doing something again. I have to have the belief that we could create the best in the world, whatever that would be. Right? And so at the time, I had asked myself, we started talking about industry. can we create the best product conference in the world? And I believe that we could, and I believe that we have, actually. You know, again, I'll put it up against any conference. I think that experience is one of the thing that sets us apart. The other thing is that so many of these other communities that exist, they really tailor themselves to be for people that are on the coasts. you know, whether they're in the Bay Area or New York, they almost assume that you're in San Francisco. I when you come to industry or you see the people that are involved, like, in product collective slack. Yes. Some people from the coasts are there, but it's a lot of people between the coasts, and it's a lot of companies that aren't necessarily your, you know, quote, cool kids start up They're coming from companies like the Home Depot or McDonald's or, you know, companies that are real companies that, by the way, also have, you know, massive teams. They have budgets to spend, but they're looking for how they can sort of have their place in digital transformation? You know, how can they get to the next level? How can they operate as a true tech company or as a true product company? I mean, most people wouldn't think of the Home Depot as a as a tech company, but really they they are building a product culture internally as if they are a tech company. And so I think that's the other thing that sort of sets us apart are the people that are involved. it's it's not just those cool kids start ups from the West Coast. It's it's people that are at real companies in in real locations like Cleveland, Ohio.

Jeffrey Stern [00:29:14]:

Yeah. Well, I guess I'll I'll ask about, you know, building it in Cleveland having the the vision for the 1st conference that you mentioned being maybe just we'll pull in Detroit. We'll pull in Pittsburgh. But clearly, you guys have have really hit this with a a global audience at at this point. How do you think about you know, the role of Cleveland in the company building process. And as you, I imagine, just intentionally try and get more distribution globally where I feel like geography actually kind of matters to the the product, if you will, of conferences.

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:29:50]:

Yeah. It it does. I will say, like, from the very beginning, our intention to build it in Cleveland was kind of selfish just wanted to bring the best product people to us. We didn't wanna have to go -- Yeah. -- somewhere else for to meet the best product people and connect with them and learn from them. We wanna bring them to us. So That's what we did. That's what we set out to do, and that's what we ended up doing. I'll say we had some people in the very beginning say, well, you know, Mike, if you're gonna create a tech conference, I don't think you could do that in the Midwest though, you know. And and if you are gonna do it in the Midwest, you know, you can't do it in Cleveland. You know, maybe somewhere like Chicago, you know, so you could try to do it there. But the thing is we happen to know Joe Palitzi and Joe Palitzi is the creator of the Content Marketing Institute, creator of Content Marketing World, which is probably the biggest tech conference in all of Cleveland. It got started similar to product collective, but a few years sooner where it was a community for content marketers. And Joe started with a conference that had a few hundred people. And then the next year doubled and the next year, you know, more people. And soon enough, he had thousands of people coming every year to Cleveland for this conference. It's one of the best content marketing conferences in the world, and it happens every year here in Cleveland, he happened to sell that company for, you know, I think it was, like, $10,000,000 or maybe even more than that. But Joe, knowing Joe, you know, he told us, hey. Look, guys. That's what people told me. And you know what I did? I built a tech conference here in Cleveland, and it's done pretty well. So having Joe give us those kind of messages, having him be, like, gracious to just meet with us, I mean, just informally. Right? Like, just anytime we'd need help, you know, couple times a year, Joe would make time for us and answer questions that we had and basically kinda kinda gave us the content marketing institute playbook, you know, that he was that he used to build content marketing world. And we're like, you know what? we can be the content marketing world for product people. And so that's what we did. In some ways, I actually think Cleveland can be a competitive advantage in a way and that, you know, when you're trying to sell your boss on going to a conference in Las Vegas or Orlando, it's like, Okay. How are you really going to learn, or are you going to gamble for a few days? You know, is this some sort of boondoggle? When you're approaching your boss about flying you out to Cleveland, Ohio for a conference. Like, your boss knows that you are there to learn. You know, you're you're not trying to purposely go on vacation to Cleveland. Although, when you come, when you go back, you might be coming back to vacation in Cleveland because Cleveland's ended up being, like, almost like a delighter for a lot of our attendees. There are a lot of our attendees that even been to Cleveland before. A lot of our speakers that have never been to Cleveland before, and now we get them to come back multiple times. And, you know, they have their their own spots here in Cleveland that they love. And so I love that people have enjoyed Cleveland sort of looked at as a delighter. In terms of Cleveland being, like, having a role in how we've developed our company, you know, I think for us, the truth is we could develop product collective anywhere. You know, we I I this is one of these types of companies that could be, like, the digital nomad, you know, build it build it on a beach in Mexico. It probably could be that. It's not as if most of our members are from Cleveland. Cleveland does have, a great group of product managers. There are a lot of great product people that are here in Cleveland. A lot of great tech companies here in Cleveland and that are growing, but we probably could have done it everywhere. But instead, we wanted to do it here in Cleveland to bring the best product people to us to show Cleveland off. I mean, we love Cleveland. So we have enjoyed being able to do it from here.

Jeffrey Stern [00:33:32]:

Running with that kind of digital nomadacy, if you will, for a bit. How do you think about the role of conferences in the post remote

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:33:44]:

work world that we find ourselves in at the moment. Yeah. Well, and by the way, we've had change what a conference even means -- Right. -- ever since COVID started. Now I remember, by the way, like, we we had our conference, our European conference March 9th through 11th in Dublin, Ireland. And I remember flying back thinking, do I even have a business anymore? Like -- Right. -- 99% -- -- existential risk.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:08]:

Yeah. For sure. For sure. I mean,

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:34:10]:

that conference was the hardest professional experience I had, including closing down my company, you know, like finding an fire for the company and moving on back in the e funeral days. Maybe maybe that one was pretty tough too. But both of those combined, I guess, were were really tough for me. And coming back. Yeah. I didn't know if we would have a company. I didn't know if we could put together a virtual conference. If people would pay for a virtual conference, And it turns out that people are willing to pay for virtual conferences, and they're willing to come out to them. And we've now had 3 virtual editions of industry, and They've been amazing for our business. I mean, we've been able to charge a lot less, but they're very profitable for us, you know, from a business standpoint. So I think what it's made us realize is a couple of things. One is that virtual conferences will be here to stay. They serve a different purpose. you know, they're they're doing a if if if you, you know, are familiar with the jobs to be done framework or if there's any jobs to be done fans out there, they're doing a different job altogether. You know, people come to a virtual conference to sort of learn and connect with others in a way, but that connecting with others you're you're connecting in a less deep of a way that you could in person. I think the role of in person conferences which, by the way, will be back. I think people will love coming out to in person conferences. It's just they're gonna pick and choose which to go to but it's it's this is where you build relationships. I mean, if it was just about the speakers and the talks, nobody would go to a conference You just go on to YouTube. Spend all day in YouTube. There's amazing talks that you could pull up on YouTube. You could literally create your own conference every day 365 days a year, there's enough content out there. But you come to industry to not just learn from somebody like Bob Mesta who helped pioneer the jobs be done framework, but to then be sitting next to him and listening to the next talk with him giving you color commentary and then hanging out with him at dinner as well because a lot of our speakers, you know, they're coming for all they're not just in to give their talk and then out. They're They're coming to the dinners. They're coming to the events. They're there to meet other product people too. And I think that's why people come to industry. It's it's to learn. It's to make those connections, and it's it's to find inspiration. And I think that that's the role in person conferences can play is, yes, it's the educational part of it too, but do you really find that inspiration and you're really building a ton of relationships at virtual events? I don't I I mean, I'll I think our virtual events have have done really well, but I don't know that that's the job that they really do. So, yeah, looking ahead, I think that the in person events will be back big, but I think it's gonna be ones that really stand out, and it's going to be those that are sort of focusing on the experience and helping people build those relationships.

Jeffrey Stern [00:37:01]:

When you think about the future of product collective specifically, what are you working towards at this point? things that you haven't yet built or achieved that you're still aspiring to as an organization.

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:37:14]:

Yeah. I mean, I think that there's a lot of room for growth for us. I mean, our goal has always been to be the best product conference in the world, but also we'd love to be the biggest product conference as well. Right? So I think you know, now at this point, I I I can't remember what it was. I think there's hundreds of thousands of product people that are that identify as a product manager, a product management professional on LinkedIn. We had a thousand people at our last in person conference. There's there's there's a lot lot of room for growth there. So I think we're going to really stay focused on that. And and events in general, like, we, again, took over the New York product conference. So it's an opportunity for us to serve the New York product community, in a similar way, but I think there's also a bigger role that we currently play and can play in how product managers are educated and specifically I think how product managers become product leaders. You know, what I've noticed is that the people that come to industry, most of them aren't just getting started off in product management. They've they've had a few years under their belt, but they're looking to level up. And just like there's no school to go to for, you know, what it takes to be a product manager, there's certainly no school to go to for what it takes to be a product leader and leading product teams and managing product teams. It's a totally different ball game to to managing product. So I I think we will play a role in that. I and there things that we're working on that we have up our sleeves that, you know, I don't even know that we have the exact solutions quite ready yet, but we've we've been spending a lot of time talking to those that are transitioning from product management to product leadership. And and I know people are looking for that kind of guidance and that kind of help. And, you know, We we we definitely see we see ourselves playing a role in how they can make themselves a product leader.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:58]:

Yeah. No. I I think that that makes a lot of sense as well. There's only, like, so much you can just figure out on. You can figure out it a lot on your own, but it's very helpful to have people who have gone through the ropes before you to kind of assist and accelerate your your own learning. Yeah. I think so too. I mean, I I think it's it's less about

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:39:17]:

you know, the techniques and frameworks, and it's more about, like, relating personal experiences, especially when it gets to the leadership side of things. Like, I don't know that Now there's I I'm sure there are product leadership courses you can take out there, but I don't know that a course truly prepares you to be a leader. I think it's like learning from others' experiences. And and, yeah, that's where that's where I think we could play a role.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:39]:

Yeah. It's a what what is the the most exciting thing coming up next that that you're kinda focused on?

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:39:47]:

the most exciting thing for me is being able to announce into Street 2022, which we're about to do. So, we're we have our next in person comp well, actually, truly, the next in person conference will be the New York product conference April 7th. If anybody wants to take a little day trip to New York or spend the night, I mean, springtime in New York, not a bad place to be. That'll be the 1st in person event that we've done since industry Europe back in 2020, March 2020. But being back at public auditorium, on the same stage where the Beatles played, the Rolling Stones, Elvis, sitting next to Mark Duplas, who's a filmmaker. Actually, my favorite filmmaker and actor, he's gonna be speaking at industry coming up next fall. along with a couple of people that were about to announce. and I don't mind sharing it here. Christian Edioty, who's with Silicon Valley Product Group, Tiffany Dockery, a product leader at Etsy, and we're we'll be announcing all sorts of more, you know, more speakers, more experiences soon. So You could check it out industryconference.com. A quick plug on that, but that's what I'm most excited for. To be back in person with product people on that stage public auditorium that we've been on so many times gathering product people around from around the world. I cannot wait for that. Yeah. That sounds amazing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:09]:

What does the the organization look like today? I think we've kind of delved into the community a bit, but just like as a company,

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:41:17]:

yourself? Like, what what does it look like? Yeah. So we keep things really lean. I mean, there's o really only three of us that work on product collective year round full time. I mentioned myself, Paul, and Rebecca, who I mentioned before too. But aside from the 3 of us, like, if you were to put if you were to have a picture of everybody that works for product collective, quote, unquote, you know, as as contractor in some way, you might have 30, 30, 40 people, you know, I don't know what it would be. We have we have people that work with us in terms of sponsorship fulfillment, people that work with us on creating new content. that host our video chats. For the longest time, it's been me. Now we're starting to get more people involved with hosting video chats, helping manage community. We just brought somebody on board to help us more in terms of engaging and managing the community aspects of what we're doing. So there are probably yeah. I I don't know what it would be. Couple dozen people at least that we work with on a contract basis, but it's a 3 of us full time. And and that's that's kind of been intentional. I mean, we we didn't really want to create product collective as a company where we're hiring a lot of people, and we'd need to raise funding to pay those people in the beginning. we wanted to really bootstrap it from the very beginning. And kind of as we need things, you know, we'll we'll grow as we need to grow. Right? And and there's there's some downside to that. What it means is, you know, if you're not raising tens of 1,000,000 of dollars up front, you that growth might be slower, but, you know, I've had a shot at what it took to start a company, you know, when we're raising money, that's the route we took for e funeral. I want I really wanted to see, hey. Could I build and grow a company from scratch, you know, with no outside funding with, literally to say we did it ourselves. And that's kind of why we've taken that approach. I'm actually pretty grateful for it because when COVID struck, there are other companies that were similar to us, even in the product space that had to go through massive layoffs, some closed up shop altogether. And because we've always stayed really lean and we've been profitable from the beginning, you know, those 1st couple months were scary and definitely, like, no revenues coming in, you know, for for a good whatever it was. 2 No. I'd say 2 months or so because very quickly, we launched virtual workshops and and our virtual conference. But because we were able to stay so lean, We were able to weather the storm, and now we're in a better place financially than when we were when COVID, like, before COVID even started, which I'm really grateful for. I don't know if we would be in the same position if we had taken a different approach and and hired a lot of full time employees and kind of gone that route. Cool insight. I would have guessed that it was maybe a little bit larger. So that's cool. See how lean you guys are operating. Yeah. And we do surprise some people with that. Like, people expect it to be bigger than what it is. and again, like, it's not like we're doing everything ourselves because now we we bring on a lot more contractors than we did say 2 years ago, but but even still, like, it's it is we like keeping it lean.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:16]:

One thing I I was curious about just kinda generally with communities is how much stewarding do the 3 of you do of the community itself? First, how much of it is kind of self sustaining at this point where it's just kind of the dynamics of the community. Yeah. You know, in the very beginning,

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:44:35]:

it was we had to seed everything. Right? So we're you know, I just think of, like, slack as an example. that's one aspect of the community. And and so in those very beginning days of Slack, it would be were in there making comments and seeding questions and prompting people. And, you know, we're we're spending a lot of time doing that. Whereas now we don't really do that at all. Actually, I think we should do more of it. You know, now I think it kinda swung. So and it's not like we abandoned things there, but it's there's so many other things to do that I'll pop into Slack. And I'm like, okay. Well, people are talking. You know, like, people are asking their own questions and people are piping in with their own answers and feel like we don't need to do that as much anymore. But I think there's middle ground. Like, I I do think great communities are curated and great communities are they they can operate independently, but they need to be guided and nurtured. And so we're we're making kind of investments in that right now. We're bringing people on board to to help on that community side of things. But the beginning stages, I do think it's important, especially when you're very small, to do a lot, not just do all that yourself, but, like, you know, I think it's really important for a community. If if if you are the the you know, best thing in a person's day for ten people, that's way better than being It's just another thing to a thousand people. So I think this goes into, like, community building people that might be interested in building communities for themselves. I'd focus a lot on quality and, like, how can you be something that's really important to very few people and then you try to scale that as opposed to scaling before you're actually, like, really adding a ton of value.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:22]:

Yeah. That seems

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:46:24]:

have maybe very broad applicability even beyond community building. Probably. Right? I mean, I think it's, like, even when you're building a startup, you know, how do you serve those first few customers and make them love you as opposed to focusing a lot on, you know, just spreading the word to to thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people, and having them feel like you're, okay, it's just another product. But if you could get people being fans of what you're doing, that's gonna help you, you know, get new people the next time. Right? Or at least for for our conference, let's just say, like, we weren't so focused on the fact that it had to be a thousand people in year 1, that those 250 people, because they went back and started telling people about it and they started about how awesome an experience they had, we knew that that would lead to more people the next year and and it did. So, yeah, you're right. I think it has pretty broad applicability for all kinds of startups.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:17]:

Yeah. And I feel like I could ask you kind of endlessly about the the work you're doing and and the nature of product stuff, but only have so much time in the podcast, don't we? Yes. Yes. So I'll come up on our closing question, which We ask everyone who's come on. But, essentially, it's for not necessarily your your favorite thing in Cleveland, but for something in Cleveland, other people may not know about.

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:47:44]:

Okay. Well, this might be both. And maybe everybody knows about it, and everybody knows how amazing it is. And but may halls in Lakewood, this would be the thing that I would this is like it just makes me happy, like, to have an indie rock bar that I can walk to and watch live music and get amazing fried chicken and enjoy good craft beer. Like, it it is it's the oldest operating bowling alley in all of Ohio. So it has that going for itself, but it has awesome local acts and acts that come in from out of town and and that place just makes me happy. So if you love indie rock music or fried in or bowling, I would say come out to May Hall's in Lakewood.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:26]:

That's quite a Venn diagram. I like that. And I am right in the center of it, Jeffrey. That's a good place to be. It is. Well, Mike, thank you so much for coming on and and sharing the story of product collective. It's I'm I'm pumped. You guys are are building in here, and I I haven't I was really, like, pleasantly surprised to find out that that it was a a Cleveland thing because I I really did not know that before learning about yourself and and the work you're doing. Well, now you know, I hope hopefully, you can make it to industry next year.

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:48:57]:

and Regardless, I'm glad to meet another product person here in Cleveland. And, yeah, I look forward to our next conversations, whether we have the microphone on or off too.

Jeffrey Stern [00:49:06]:

Awesome. Well, if folks have anything they would like to follow-up with you about, where is the best place for them to do so? Yeah. I mean, first of all, you could straight up email me mike@productcollective.com.

Mike Belsito (Product Collective & INDUSTRY: The Product Conference) [00:49:17]:

You could hit me up on Twitter at at bellcito, b e l s i t o, or check out our work at product collective. You know, you could go to productcollective.com, drop your email, and you could start getting the newsletter, start getting an invitation to video chats, I know you'll find me next September 20th 21st. That's at public auditorium in Cleveland, Ohio at industry, so you could check out industry conference.com. for that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:49:41]:

Yeah. Hope to hope to be there. Sounds awesome. Awesome. Thank you, Mike. Alright. Thanks a lot, Jeffrey. all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show. So if you have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffrey@layoftheland.f or find us on Twitter at @podlayoftheland or at @sternjefe, jefe. If you or someone you know would make good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land.