Rohini Pandhi is a product leader at Mercury, and previously spent over seven years at Square/Block leading product work on Square payments, invoicing, and the Bitkey hardware Bitcoin wallet. She’s also the co-founder of the startup bootcamp Transparent Collective and is an active angel investor. In our conversation, we discuss: • Key indicators that it’s time to hire PMs • How to build your early PM team • Why founders should initially take on the product manager role themselves • How to attract top PM talent • What she’s learned about going multi-product • A case for investing in quality • More — Skip the Mercury Personal waitlist: mercurytechnologies.typeform.co… — Brought to you by: • Cloudinary—The foundational technology for all images and video on the internet • OneSchema—Import CSV data 10x faster • Airtable ProductCentral—Launch to new heights with a unified system for product development — Find the transcript at: lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-b… — Where to find Rohini Pandhi: • X: x.com/rohinip • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rohinipandhi — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: lennysnewsletter.com • X: twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky — In this episode, we cover: — Referenced: • Immad Akhund on X: • Mercury: • Square: • Product management career ladders: • Pioneers, Settlers, Town Planners [Wardley]: • Jason Zhang on LinkedIn: • What is ‘Dogfooding’?: • Mercury Bill Pay: • Zip: • Jira: • The art and science of pricing | Madhavan Ramanujam (Monetizing Innovation, Simon-Kucher): • Gokul Rajaram on designing your product development process, when and how to hire your first PM, a playbook for hiring leaders, getting ahead in you career, how to get started angel investing, more: • Gokul Rajaram on X: • Transparent Collective: • 16 Reading Tips from Naval Ravikant: • Shrinking on AppleTV+: • Bad Sisters on AppleTV+: • Slow Horses on AppleTV+: • Severance on AppleTV+: • Presumed Innocent on AppleTV+: • Waymo: • Adam Robinson on X: • Cyan Banister—From Homeless and Broke to Top Angel Investor (Uber, SpaceX, and 100+ More): • Bobby Matson on LinkedIn: • Jobs at Mercury: — Recommended books: • Vectors: Aphorisms & Ten-Second Essays: • The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance: • Pachinko: • Cutting for Stone: • The Song of Achilles: — Production and marketing by . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.