In our first episode ever, Brandon speaks with Craig Miller, the former CPO & CMO of Shopify and a company legend. He joined the company when it was worth less than $100M and 70 employees, and by the time he left it had grown to over $130 BILLION and 10k employees. He was the company's first marketer, and then built up the growth team as it's CMO. Mid-tenure, Craig took over the product team which he grew from 5 to 250.

The winding conversation covers Craig's early career in engineering and marketing, mental models for leadership and product, and tons of stories from his 9+ years at Shopify, from the earliest days to the present.

0:00 - Intro

1:06 - What's the vague experience listed on your LinkedIn called, "Owner"?

3:52 - What happened after "Owner", aka Kijiji

6:52 - How Craig came to run Marketing at Kijiji despite being an electrical engineer

8:54 - The start of the Shopify story

11:49 - The PS that changed Craig's Life (https://medium.com/inside-shopify/the...)

14:33 - Craig's Big Hairy Audacious Goal for Shopify

16:00 - Canadian tech imposter syndrome

18:44 - "If you have ambition, you're an entrepreneur"

25:35 - Why Craig hired me, and his thoughts on interviewing/hiring

30:13 - Being a product exec role at a hyper-growth company

34:32 - Leading through others

45:52 - Projects or features that launched at Shopify that are great examples of PM thinking at the company

53:38 - The importance of the details

1:02:10 - Scaling the product management team from 5 to 250

1:08:30 - What Craig is most proud of during his time at Shopify

1:10:00 - What Craig is doing now

1:15:00 - Final question - what's the single most important mental model or principle you have for life, work or both?

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The Black Box of Product Management