Member profile: Ellen Juhlin, product manager

Specializing in the zero-to-one stage of developing products, Ellen Juhlin is a product coach, consultant, and manager who understands the intricacies of transforming innovative ideas into products that are ready to ship. Her two decades of experience have taught her how to ask the right questions, define and shepherd the process, know which pitfalls to look out for, and clearly communicate complexities to various members of a team. We’re thrilled to have her expertise on our team here at informal. We connected with Ellen to learn more about how she got her start and some of the many gems of knowledge she’s gleaned over the years.

Tell us a bit about yourself. What’s your professional superpower? What lights you up outside of work? 

I have a bit of an untraditional background, in that I have a BFA in theater. My first career was in sound design and live audio. I’ve always loved music, and I still sing and play piano to this day. My first product management role was at an audio company. So in addition to my 20 years in product management, I have a pretty extensive knowledge of audio systems and hardware. When I’m not working on new products, I love building interactive art pieces and immersive experiences, which often involve soldering things together in my workshop, programming Arduinos, and creating evocative sound effects.

What draws you to working in hardware?

I love thinking in systems — the more complex, the better! I enjoy the complexity of thinking through a digital hardware product that also requires firmware, an app (or several apps), maybe a backend platform, and having them all work together to create a useful and valuable experience for the people using them. Plus, I love having something tangible that you can hold in your hands or point at and say, “I made that.” It’s harder to do that with software alone.

What’s your favorite product? Why?

Great question. I recently traded in my 20-year-old Honda Civic for a new-to-me Tesla, and I’ve really been appreciating the numerous ways in which it reduces cognitive burden. You don’t have to remember to lock the doors. You don’t have to tell it which person is driving. Even the small touch of automatically closing the charging port cover after you unplug it. It’s made me excited to go on road trips again.

What do you wish you knew when you started out in your career?

This is a difficult question as I really feel I’ve learned so much over the course of my career. But one thing I have noticed in the course of coaching and teaching is that it’s really common to have a bias toward fast, immediate solutions. The problem with this is that your first idea is rarely going to be the best idea. It takes some real effort to focus on the problem space — and really define what you want to solve for — before jumping straight to solutions. And your solutions will always be better for it. So here are a couple key pieces of advice I would give to my younger self:
1. The more time you spend on defining the problem, the better your solutions will be.
2. You don’t have to come up with all of the solutions, but you do need to create a culture and environment where the best solutions can arise.

Any productivity hacks you use to keep yourself on track?

I recently read How to Have a Good Day by Caroline Webb, and one of the big takeaways was to spend just a couple minutes every morning thinking about what’s really important for that day. I have a small paper notebook, and every day I write down the main things I’ve been thinking about that need to get done, and then quickly get a sense for what’s most time-sensitive. This was especially useful when planning my wedding last year!

What about freelancing excites you?

You know, at the beginning of my career, I was really focused on audio, and I couldn’t imagine wanting to work in any other field. But during my time as Head of Product at Orion, we talked with quite a variety of other businesses who needed communications solutions, and I got interested in all of them. Public transportation, mining, executive protection, hotels, retail stores — we even worked with a trash collection company. They all had different interesting challenges, and I really enjoyed getting to learn about new types of businesses and their customers. That’s one of the things I like most about freelancing is getting exposed to lots of new types of products and why they’re valuable. There’s always something surprising to discovery.

What’s the best part about what you do?

I think the thing that’s kept me excited about product management is this sense of being a bridge and translator between different factors. You have to have an understanding of what’s possible, both the constraints as well as the open fields, and you have to really explore and listen to what people need and find valuable, and then work to find where these multi-dimensional circles overlap. You can’t be a good product manager without being able to clearly communicate complex learnings to people in different disciplines, and bring them into the process of exploring what’s possible and what’s valuable.

What’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned from a mistake?

Being upfront and immediately owning up to a mistake, especially one with a big impact, is always better than trying to hide from it. Mistakes are inevitable, but by being open about it, you can rebuild trust much faster than if you wait for someone else to call you out. Plus, you don’t have to live with the stress of hiding it, or waiting to be found out! This is something I hold myself accountable for, and something I encourage in my mentees as well. You may face temporary anger or frustration, but the sooner you can expose your mistake and apologize, the sooner you can start working to address it.

As a freelancer, what does your typical process with a client look like? 

Even before my first meeting with a client, I do as much research as I can into what they’re trying to do and the competitive or market space around it. And then in that first meeting, I’m really looking to understand how their new product fits into their business. How will this product be valuable for their company and help it grow? How will it fit into their other offerings? What was it that led them to pursue this product idea? Since I’m often working in a customer validation space, this helps me think about what customer behavior to research. Is the company trying to reach a new market or grow an existing market? What other research have they done?

All of this information helps me formulate a research plan that will answer the key questions a company might have about their new product: Who needs this product? What do they need it to do? How are they solving this today? Does our MVP have the right features? Getting clarity on which of these questions is most important helps me make sure I’m researching the right behavior that will help de-risk their product decisions.

How do you ensure you and your client are on the same page?

In communication throughout the project, I’m upfront about which specific tasks I’m doing next and when I’ll report back in with an update. I’m always happy to dive into details on my specific research plans and what we’re hoping to learn — as well as the caveats and limitations on what’s possible.

I enjoy collaborating with clients as much as possible, requesting or sharing new information as needed. There are often many different puzzle pieces involved in making product decisions, and sometimes even small details can trigger a point of inspiration. By the end of the project, I’ll provide an analysis and overview of findings, but will also share as much other raw data I’ve collected as possible.

For clients who are new to hardware, what should they do before starting their project?

Building any new product is risky, hardware even more so because it’s much more difficult to reverse a decision down the line. If you learn that the button is in the wrong place after you’ve made 1000 units, it’s unlikely that you can go back and change them. But on the other hand, you can’t wait until you have 100% perfect knowledge of everything, as that could take years. When starting a project, set aside some time to think through all the possible risks and list out as many as possible. You’ll likely think of more over time — add them to the list. This can help you prioritize which things to test, research, or prototype earlier in the process.

What are some red flags or things to avoid early on in the product development process?

Try not to get attached to a specific solution before you’ve really understood the problem space and the people who have that problem. If you get too attached to a solution too early, then you may miss the mark on appealing to the right customer base. Try to challenge yourself to come up with multiple solutions for the same problem. If there’s only one possible solution, then you might be thinking about the problem space too narrowly.

informal is a freelance collective for the most talented independent professionals in hardware and hardtech. We’re always looking for engineers, designers, brand strategists, and other professionals to join our team. If you’ve got a skill that you think we need, let us know! We’d love to chat. And of course, if you’ve got a hardware product or product idea you want to bring to market, we have just the experts to help! Fill out this quick form and we’ll be in touch!.