Some *GOLD* from Female Product & Growth Superheroes 🦸‍♀ to watch in 2023

Here's one for the ladies 🦸‍♀🌷 ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ Growing up, I played football with the boys and never imagined I'd ever have to stand up for gender equality - I just thought there was gender equality. Until issues like sexual harassment and gender discrimination (which are still so common, I literally can't think of a woman who doesn't have a "me too" story) hit me like a ton of bricks - so I will take every professional opportunity I have to support women: this newsletter being one (and luckily, my company supports this, plus 47% of our employees are female and 44% of our leadership roles are female - check out this post on our [Userpilot Ladies in Product](!). In 2023, like with most jobs, [there's a gender pay gap among product managers:]( A male product manager earns an average annual salary of $115,412, while an average female product manager earns only $110,934. 4% doesn't sound like much compared to the yawning pay gaps in other industries (and I feel like SaaS/tech is a safe space where I don't hear I need to "doll up" nearly as much as I do from the general population 🤦‍♀️) but look at this: [Image] While the percentage of female product managers has grown over the years, they are still heavily underrepresented in the industry - with only 34.8% of PMs in the US being female as of 2019 (probably a bit more now, but I didn't find newer data + that's in the US! I can only imagine what it's like in more "traditional" economies.) You can easily see this when you go to any product conference - the majority of the speakers will be male.  And there are so many powerful female voices in Product and Growth that should be heard: So that's all I want to do today - give my favourite ladies in Product a shoutout, and some extra screen time by sharing the most impactful posts from female product thought leaders I've spotted on LinkedIn recently. Here's all the GOLD you may have missed if the old algo served you the "mainstream" options (and sorry sorry guys - I still love you 😉)  [Leah Tharin just killed Agile (well, almost.)Â]( "We don't have a problem anymore of not having products for our problems. We have too many. Our tools became so incredibly good at reaching everyone with products we created quickly that there is now a new enemy: Choice. We don't know whom to trust anymore. Everyone says they have the best, and convincingly so. It is an absolute bloodbath that everyone tries to solve in sales and marketing by convincing people somehow better.​  And this in turn means being agile - building fast - is not enough anymore. You could have the perfect sprint and achieve nothing. Agile may not be entirely dead but if anything it became a small cog in the machine. In the past, it was the machine. No scaled agile framework will ever change that."  [Image] On a scale from 1 to 10, how much am I loving this?  11. [Image] [Büşra Coşkuner on what learning culture is, and what a Product Team really needs to become outcome-oriented]( "Learning can only happen in a place where your team feels safe enough and motivated to trying things out, breaking things, and being late with releases, always with the aim to find a target group worth focusing on, opportunity worth pursuing, and/or solution worth building. This is what an empowered team does." [Image] [Melissa Kwan made it OK again to be OK]( I'm obsessed with Melissa's posts recently. I'm reading and liking all of them like a psychofan (please don't seek a restraining order [Melissa](!). A 3-time bootstrapper, travelling the world with her partner-con-co-founder, Melissa shares her struggles and thoughts of building multiple product companies without funding (hey hey we used e-webinar in Userpilot too!) in the most authentic way. Her posts are so raw, and so genuine, without a trace of humblebrag. So much depth & value. I love how she's normalizing being normal. Take this one: [Image] She also does the whole startup community a big favour by [explaining]([what taking VC funding *really* means:Â]( [Image] Read this post by Jason Lemkin on this too: "[Does Raising Funding From VCs Limit Your Exit Options? If So, How Much?]("​  [Dr. Else van der Berg is on a personal vendetta against digital trash (and we're loving it)Â]( "Burning energy to contribute to the waste pile, polluting society with marketing messages, deceiving and harassing to sell, setting VC money on fire, demotivating brilliant people... Speaking of unethical." She must really hate it on the internet now 😅 [Image] [Image] On a more serious note - I totally agree and it pains me to see product companies working on more and more "addictive" features in B2C, knowingly wasting *years* of their users' lives: [Image] (Graphic from [a g]([reat post by Bart Jaworski)]([Â]( [Elena Verna is sorry she's not sorry]( Yes, yes, I'm perfectly aware I do that too. I haven't replied to someone's email in 4 hours? I'm already "sorry". The paranoia escalates. The best tip I've heard for this is: if you must say something: replace "sorry" with "thank you". "Thank you for waiting for my reply" etc. etc. Elena Verna nailed it in her recent post: [Image] ...and is killing the internet with[all the memes](: [Image] [Juste Semetaite warns against seeking growth before you have PMF:Â]( All those VC-backed startups, listen... [Image] [Yi Lin Pei has some Obviously Awesome books to recommend:Â]( [Image][Image] ...and [Anna Holopainen just validated me so much 🥲]( [Image] Demo effect happens to the best of us. Every. Single. Time. And that's it for today. Happy International Women's day! [Image] Emilia Korczynska, Head of Marketing at Userpilot I'm a marketing manager obsessed with product growth. Wanna talk? Simply respond to this email! P.S. Sign up early to secure your place on our [LIVE webinar on SaaS In-App Messaging](! [Image]( To make sure you keep getting these emails, please add emilia@userpilot.co to your address book or whitelist us. Want out of the loop? Don't remember you subscribed at all? We get it. We sometimes don't remember how we got to our office today let alone how we subscribed to this or that email. Sometimes people also get offended by our strong opinions on all matters product, SaaS and UX, but you know what? We won't stop sharing them - and what we believe is the best product practices and the future of SaaS. Anyway, if you ever want to come back you'll know where to find us. Until then! [Unsubscribe](. Our postal address: 1887 Whitney Mesa Dr #9995 Henderson, Nevada 89014 United States