Hypergrowth 101 with April Underwood from Adverb Ventures

How do great product leaders navigate rapid scaling, the AI evolution, and unpredictable founders? April Underwood, former CPO at Slack and Co-Founder of Adverb Ventures, shares her playbook for building enduring product vision through change.

Francois and April frame their conversation by first exploring her background with hypergrowth orgs such as Twitter and Slack, unpacking key learnings around what it takes to scale your own skills alongside your company. You’ll hear her thoughts around leading with clarity, building trust with your founders, and navigating technology paradigm shifts such as GenAI.

Additionally, April offers sharp insights into how product teams can stay grounded during uncertainty, how design becomes a competitive advantage during inflection points, and what she looks for in early-stage founders as a venture investor. Whether you’re investing in the next unicorn or building it from the ground up, this episode provides grounded frameworks and hard-earned lessons for you to follow.

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Guest Bio

April Underwood is the Managing Director and Co-Founder of Adverb Ventures, with a focus on investing in various sectors and stages such as Future of Work, Consumer Health, and Developer Tools. 

She has held significant roles at companies like Slack as Chief Product Officer and Twitter as Director of Product, demonstrating her expertise in product management and strategic partnerships.

Underwood's career highlights include co-founding #ANGELS and Nearby, as well as serving on the boards of Zillow Group and Eventbrite, showcasing her strong leadership skills and strategic vision in the tech industry.

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Guest Quote

“We should all be looking at AI and thinking that if everything we have worked hard to do in the past is now becoming commoditized, then I either need to fire these tools up and get into the mindset of somebody that comes to this with a fresh set of eyes, or I need to be on the side of building tools that are a part of the evolution.” – April Underwood

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Time Stamps  

00:00 Episode Start

01:45 April's jump from Twitter to Slack

06:15 Decision making within a hypergrowth organization

09:15 Aligning your organization around the North Star

12:20 Creating a winning Founder-CPO relationship

17:40 How April views the AI future

23:00 AI has created two worlds in Silicon Valley

25:15 The "It-Factor" in emerging startups

30:55 Looking back on April's career trajectory

34:00 The importance of community

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Links

• Connect with April Underwood on LinkedIn
• Check out Adverb Ventures
• Connect with Francois Ajenstat on LinkedIn
• Check out Amplitude