Building the Future of Professional Networking (with Peter Johnston & Matt Breuer, CEO & Product Director @ Polywork)

One Knight in Product

An interview with Peter Johnston & Matt Breuer. Peter is the founder & CEO of new professional social network Polywork. Matt joined as Product Director and employee #9. They talk about the vision for Polywork, the pain points it was designed to overcome, the way they're building it as a team, and how to avoid HIPPO syndrome.

We speak about a lot, including:

• The motivations behind Polywork, how it differs from other professional networking sites, and how they aim to "go beyond the job title"
• The personal pain points and collaboration issues that started the idea of Polywork and how it's more than just a reaction to LinkedIn
• How the dynamics work between a senior product professional & a vision-driven founder in an early stage startup and the importance of disagreeing but committing as a team
• How to manage upwards as a product leader, and tackle HIPPO disagreements by doing the product management work to validate your arguments
• The discovery work they did up front to turn the initial vision into a tangible product and the importance of thinking about the fundamental job to be done
• Whether they are worried about being a lockdown flash in the pan and suffering a collapse in user numbers post-pandemic
• The importance of maintaining focus for startups, not trying to chase every opportunity that looks good and how Peter learned this the hard way at a previous startup

And much more!

Check out Polywork

If you don't have a Polywork account already you can sign up using this VIP link and check it out.

Contact Matt & Peter

You can contact Matt at Polywork and Peter either on Polywork or Twitter.