Episode 158: Turning the Tide with Mauricio Monico's Lessons from eBay, Facebook, and Google
February 14, 2024
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Mauricio Monico, Chief Product Officer at Wish. Join them as they discuss marketplace dynamics and turnaround strategies. They deep-dive into Mauricio’s extensive product management expertise and wisdom gained from his previous roles with Microsoft, eBay, Facebook, Google, and various startups. They also touch on Mauricio’s time with Indigo Ag, a company focused on agricultural sustainability, during a big turnaround.
In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Mauricio Monico, Chief Product Officer at Wish. Join them as they discuss marketplace dynamics and turnaround strategies. They deep-dive into Mauricio’s extensive product management expertise and wisdom gained from his previous roles with Microsoft, eBay, Facebook, Google, and various startups. They also touch on Mauricio’s time with Indigo Ag, a company focused on agricultural sustainability, during a big turnaround.
Mauricio is the Chief Product officer at Wish and has over 20 years of experience in the tech industry. He has built and led successful products at some of the world’s most influential companies, including Google and Meta. He has used his extensive experience in turnaround strategies and understanding of marketplace dynamics to build world-class products.
Mauricio began his career as an engineer at a start-up, and only developed a passion for product management after taking a job at Microsoft and realizing the scope and impact of the role. Mauricio's career has spanned product management roles with tech giants Google, Meta, and eBay. He utilized his impressive experience in his role at Indigo Ag to successfully pivot the marketplace with his concept driven approach.
Mauricio is a seasoned professional whose expertise helps businesses achieve their goals and gain desired results through effective product strategy and execution with unrivaled understanding of marketplaces. He is also an active advisor, mentor, and angel investor in the tech community.
You’ll hear them talk about:
- 11.37 - 13.28 - A turnaround can happen when there is a shift in the marketplace. In eBay’s case, they were thriving. They were the talk of Wall Street, until Amazon caused a significant shift and couldn’t be ignored anymore. The first instinct is to copy; you’ve seen a strategy come along and dominate the space, so you want to copy it. Instead, eBay had to find its unique value proposition through effective communication and steering the company into a clear direction and focus on the correct verticals. Clarity of communication is key in turnarounds.
- 15:32 - 23.09 - Anticipating difficulties and marketplace dynamics are key challenges during a turnaround. Shifting the business model, like at Indigo Ag, requires immersion, testing and quick decision making. The marketplace can throw an endless range of challenges, such as taxi unions opposing Uber. Indigo Ag needed a business model shift, to move from a first party grain buyer to a market place. They did this by applying e-commerce market dynamics for the benefit of the farmers and the grain buyers.
- 42.34 - 48.11 - A turnaround is not simply copying the other company’s strategy, which caused the market shift. Too many companies get sucked into copying what worked for others, rather than focusing on how they can differentiate and accentuate their unique strengths. What’s interesting is that a mixture of both is necessary. Learning from each other is a core practice, but you don’t want to always be two steps behind.
- 48.11 - 53.01 - The core question is “When is the right time to commit to a turnaround?” It often begins with the realization: we’re in trouble. That's a no-brainer. But actually admitting that is the hard part. Everyone wants to be winning. Even after admitting you’re in trouble it can be hard to tell people. The next step is prioritization, which problems need to be done? From his time with eBay, Mauricio learned there can be hundreds of problems that need solving. The trick is focusing on the problems that would ruin the company if they aren’t solved and learning to live with the other problems that can be sorted later. In a turnaround you need to make the clear decision of “not doing it now” and focusing on life and death decisions.
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Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:
- Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
- Episode 132: Simplicity by Design for Product Development with Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals
- Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services