Episode 182: Balancing Stakeholder Needs in Educational Products with Amir Kabbara

In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, Melissa Perri interviews Amir Kabbara, a product leader with experience at Microsoft, Amazon, Shopify. Currently he serves as Advisor to the CEO at Paper. Together, they speak on how Amir adapted his strategy for leading teams at large corporations compared to when working on high-growth, scale-up jobs.

Amir shares his learnings from each company, including the importance of data-driven decision-making at Microsoft, the value of customer conversations at Amazon, and the use of Shopify principles and frameworks for decision-making.

They also chat about the challenge of balancing the needs of different stakeholders in an educational product, the significance of customer conversations at Amazon, and the application of Shopify's frameworks in shaping product strategies.

Overall, the conversation highlights the importance of data, customer conversations, and a balanced approach to decision-making in product management.

During this conversation, Amir addresses the challenge of balancing the diverse needs of multiple stakeholders in educational technology. When the end-users (in this case, students, teachers, parents and administrators) all have different and distinct needs, it’s crucial to have some aligning North Star that interconnects them all, and to have real clarity on what that is. Amir references a lesson he learned in his time at Amazon during a meeting with Jeff Bezos, where the focus was redirected to the primary customer – the children using a particular product. In the context of Amir’s work with Paper, the principle was applied by recognizing that while students are the central focus, their success is influenced by teachers, and in turn, administrators.

At Paper, Amir integrated the Academic Learning Team into the product organization, recognizing that the core product was not just the software, but the tutoring experience facilitated by a large team of tutors. Initially focused on building gamified features to engage students, Amir realized that true engagement and outcomes required an academic foundation. By incorporating academic principles into the product strategy, he ensured that the features built would not only engage students, but also drive educational outcomes.

While discussing the subject of balancing AI automation and human interaction, Amir outlines a framework for determining when to use AI and when to involve human tutors. For straightforward, one way interactions, such as providing hints during problem-solving, AI can be effectively used. However for the more complex, two way conversations that are a huge part of learning and growth, human interaction and tutelage is still an absolutely vital cog. Amir shares an example where students using Paper’s chat service often reveal personal issues, such as mental health concerns or unsafe home environments. In these cases, tutors are trained to identify and escalate these issues, providing crucial support beyond academic assistance.

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Previous guests include: Shruti Patel of US Bank, Steve Wilson of Contrast Security, Bethany Lyons of KAWA Analytics, Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann of Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue of Doodle, Jason Fried of 37signals, Hubert Palan of Productboard, Blake Samic of Stripe and Uber, Quincy Hunte of Amazon Web Services

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