Sales-Led Companies Can Build Great Products

Claire Vo believes in bending the universe to your will and creating a fast-paced environment within larger companies while maintaining high quality standards.

As a leader, Claire approaches organizations with a founder's mindset, even in later-stage companies. She explains, "People often think that I get hired into later stage companies because I'm supposed to teach them how to operate like a big company and in fact I say I'm hired to remind them they can operate like a startup." This perspective drives her leadership approach to pace and quality.

To accelerate organizational pace, Claire implements three key practices. First, she refuses to let recurring meetings dictate progress, pushing for decisions now rather than waiting for the next scheduled meeting. Second, she sets "one click faster" expectations for her team: "I communicate to my leaders that my expectation is they bring in the clock speed one iteration faster. If you think something needs to be done this year, it needs to be done this half." Third, she maintains a rapid personal service-level agreement, ensuring she's never the bottleneck for organizational progress.

For maintaining high quality, Claire focuses on talent density and clear expectations. She creates specific, measurable career ladders rather than vague descriptions, particularly at senior levels. She normalizes direct feedback, believing that "conflict-avoidant, feedback-avoidant cultures degrade the talent bar." As she puts it, "Clear is kind" - being direct about performance issues is more respectful than vague suggestions for improvement. When necessary, she moves quickly when someone isn't a fit, which she sees as essential for maintaining team health.

Claire advocates for agency in career development. She advises knowing exactly what you want from your current role and what you want your next role to be, then clearly communicating this to leadership. However, she emphasizes that these conversations should focus on organizational needs: "The conversation needs to be about what you being in a different position does for the company and why the company needs it" rather than personal career aspirations alone.

On the evolving product management landscape, Claire believes AI will significantly impact the PM role. While she doesn't think PMs will be eliminated next year, she expects the skills required will shift, potentially faster than anticipated. She sees AI replacing "lowercase c communication" - the functional trading of information - while "capital C Communication" involving influence, conviction, and leadership will remain distinctly human. This perspective informs her creation of ChatPRD, which she built to both understand how AI impacts the product function and learn how to build products with these new technologies.

Claire's contrarian view is that sales-led companies can build excellent products: "I am a sales-led product apologist unabashedly... I think there are tremendous businesses built on sales motions and I disagree with the fact that that means you do not care for the craft or the experience of users."

Leadership Principles

Claire's leadership philosophy can be distilled into several core principles:

• Fast beats right: When debating between perfection and execution, choose execution with conviction.
• The universe is bendable to your will: Organizations are fluid, especially in startups, and can be shaped around talented, motivated individuals.
• One click faster: Always push to accelerate timelines beyond what seems natural.
• Clear is kind: Direct feedback is more respectful than vague suggestions for improvement.
• No lanes: Encourage cross-functional work rather than rigid role boundaries.