310. Product thinking and personal brand: why you need both to win

You can be invisible with brilliant ideas. Or you can be everywhere with nothing worth saying. Neither works.

In the age of AI, the barrier to building things has collapsed. The tools exist. The access exists. Which means the differentiator is no longer whether you can build — it's whether you know what to build, and whether people trust you to build it.

That's product thinking. And that's personal brand. And they are not two separate skills. They are two sides of the same thing.

In this episode:

• Why product thinking is no longer just for founders and product managers — and what it actually means to create something valuable
• Why personal brand without substance gets you nowhere — and what substance actually looks like
• Why the most ambitious professionals need both — and how to start building them deliberately
• How my clients are combining both to get promoted, get published and get discovered by the right people

This episode is for you if:

• You have good ideas but the right people don't know it
• You're visible in your industry but not sure you have the frameworks to back it up
• You're a founder or senior leader who wants opportunities to come to you rather than chase them

Book a free consulting session with Sophia: https://calendly.com/sophia-matveeva/new-meeting-1

Timestamps:

• 00:00 - Introduction: The invisible professional and the overexposed one
• 02:20 - Free gift: A one-on-one consulting session with Sophia
• 03:10 - The show's evolution: Product thinking meets personal branding
• 06:58 - Why product thinking is now a non-negotiable career skill
• 09:18 - You need to think of yourself as the product
• 11:33 - How personal branding built a $300,000 government contract
• 13:00 - Client story 1: A product manager going on international trips with the CEO
• 15:20 - Client story 2: A consultant heading to the Harvard Business Review
• 16:17 - Client story 3: A fintech founder building credibility ahead of fundraising
• 18:27 - Why strategic personal branding is not LinkedIn likes and followers
• 21:00 - Summary: Why product thinking + personal brand = unstoppable
• 23:02 - Closing and how to book your free session

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Transcript: 

[00:00:00] Sophia Matveeva: You can be the smartest person in the room with the best ideas in your industry and still be completely invisible to the people who could change your career. Or you can be everywhere on every panel, in every publication. But if you don't know how to actually create something real, then nobody takes you seriously for long. And this episode is about what happens when you combine knowing how to create valuable things that people want with making sure that the right people know it.

[00:00:32] Welcome to Tech for Non-Techies. This is a podcast for business leaders and non-technical founders building the future in the age of AI. Whether you've been in business for a hundred plus years and you're looking to modernize, or whether you're building something new, this is the show for you. You'll learn how to come up with new ideas and make them come to life no matter the size of your organization. I've taught tech and innovation at Oxford University, advise companies like Microsoft and written for the Harvard Business Review. You're going to hear the frameworks and the thinking that I've built and tested and taught at the highest level. And now it's your turn. Let's get started.

[00:01:10] Hello, smart people. How are you today? Summer is here and I am just so delighted it is the perfect temperature where I am. It is warm, it is not too hot, I'm just absolutely loving it, and you know what? Summer and sunshine just puts you into a really good mood. And I also have another thing to put you into a good mood. I've got a gift for you and it's not a crappy gift like a free PDF guide that you never actually opened. It's a very valuable gift. But you have to listen to the end of the episode to get it. Actually, you know what? I've just changed my mind because I want to tell you now because I'm so excited about it, because I get to speak to you.

[00:02:20] Free gift: A one-on-one consulting session with Sophia

So my free gift to you is a free one-on-one consulting session with me. It's going to be available for as long as I can basically keep this up. And I don't know how long it's going to be. So everybody who's listening to the show, you can basically just book this session. It's a one-on-one session. I can't give more than one session to people, but essentially, if you've never spoken to me and you've been listening to the show and you want to get some free consulting from me, this is the opportunity. And these sessions are going to be focused on the personal brand aspect of your career. So these sample sessions are super useful if you want to build your professional brand in order to achieve big things. So to build a company, to get to the top of a career, to raise some money for your company, for example, to get new clients. So basically, if you want to achieve really big things, if you want to get discovered and you want to have opportunities coming to you, so essentially you are known for being a thought leader and then clients, executive recruiters, investors, they're coming to you. And essentially if you want to create a more public profile to make more money.

[00:03:10] The show's evolution: Product thinking meets personal branding

And I'm gonna talk about that, but I'm also gonna talk about product thinking today and how these two things are interconnected. And if you listened to last week's episode, you would have heard that this podcast and also my business, they're going through some kind of renaissance. And this renaissance is unplanned. But I suspect it's something to do with me becoming a mother, because it's been such a radical change that my view on things has just rapidly evolved, or maybe I've actually just noticed how this evolution has been happening and finally I've been like, okay, so this has already been happening. Now let's actually just put a name to it.

[00:03:48] So as longtime listeners of the show know, I've been obsessed with teaching you how to create new products and new ventures in the age of AI as a non-technical person. So if you don't have a background in computer science, if you don't want to become a developer, but you want to build an app or a platform or a tech venture or invest in one, then this has really been the show and the company for you. And this is what my main programs are about. And this is where I've grown our team. So we now have a product coach working with us. And we've got a CTO who's working with our students to help them build tech ventures as non-technical founders. And we're still doing that. That is happening. It's our bread and butter. I love doing it.

[00:04:22] But you know what? I also have a significant client base of people who work with me one-on-one on building their personal brands. And this basically means that I'm helping somebody to become a thought leader in their industry so they can achieve their professional aims. This is not me helping somebody to become a celebrity like Kim Kardashian, because I don't know how to do that. I have never done that. But I have become a thought leader and I basically monetize that. So people ask me how they can do the same thing. And this is not just about entrepreneurship. So for example, if you want to get promoted to top management, that means that you need to be seen as basically a top management candidate. You need to be seen as somebody who is basically already doing the job and then the promotion is just, you know, kind of rubber stamping the facts. So this basically means that you need to be seen to be innovative, to be creative, and as somebody who knows where the industry is going. So somebody who can essentially predict the future or make the future. And this means that you're speaking on panels, you're giving interviews, and you have an opinion and people are coming to you to hear your opinion.

[00:05:30] Also, this is relevant if you're a founder. So if you're a founder, you want to have tech clients or investors coming to you. This also means that you need to be seen as a thought leader in your industry. You need to basically have a unique point of view and you need people to know about that unique point of view. And I've been living this kind of weird business double life for years. And I've been wondering how it fits together. Because my company, as you know, is called Tech for Non-Techies, and we have genuinely great results in helping people build new apps, new platforms, and create new ventures as non-technical leaders. But I've also helped my one-on-one clients get into the business press and speaker conferences and basically use that to make more money. And I remember one of my clients, she's a professor of AI at a top US university, and she literally got a 30% pay rise within a year of working with me just because she became more visible. Which generated more demand for her work, and basically she could renegotiate her salary with her dean at the university where she teaches for a fairly significant sum of money, like a 30% increase. That's pretty good, right?

[00:06:36] And so I've been thinking, okay, well, how do these two things fit? Like what do I think about it? Where's the business going? What does this mean about success? Because, you know, as I see entrepreneurs and innovators building ventures and products and as I see successful individuals essentially building their personal brand to get clients, make more money, raise funding. And I kind of see people working hard and achieving big things. I've been thinking, okay, what patterns am I seeing, basically, about what it takes to reach your professional aims today in the age of AI.

[00:06:58] Why product thinking is now a non-negotiable career skill

And here's what I think now. So to succeed in the age of AI as a non-technical professional, you absolutely need to have a foundation in product thinking. You need to know what product thinking is and you need to know how to do it. Because if you want to have a great career in the business world, and the business world has been fundamentally changed by technology, by software, by AI, you'll either basically work with or for product managers. And some of the world's top leaders were trained in product management. So Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft comes to mind, Ben Horowitz, he is the billionaire Silicon Valley VC, that backed Facebook and so on. And now if you think about it, every large company is to some extent a tech company. So the example that I like is that Starbucks, you know, a coffee chain, gets over fifty percent of its in-store revenue via its app.

[00:08:00] And you know, if you're especially in the US, like I see this every time I go to New York, people are going to Starbucks. And by the way, why do you go to Starbucks? I think it's terrible. But that's a whole other thing. But you know, I've also lived in France and Italy where the coffee is amazing. I digress. People, for reasons I cannot comprehend, go to Starbucks, take out their app where they're actually in the Starbucks store and order their coffee. And what I have seen of, order their coffee or completely inedible pastries. People, stop. There are other options. Anyway, I will continue. I'm very sorry for the, you know, if you if you are a baker at Starbucks. Okay, over fifty percent of Starbucks's in-store revenue comes via its app. So that basically means that even companies that you're thinking a traditional business, it's selling drinks, it's selling pastries, and it owns lots of real estate. And still technology, you know, its app is a huge, huge part of its success. So therefore, knowing how a tech product like an app gets made is super important if you want to have a great career today.

[00:09:00] Also, I want you to be able to understand whether a tech product, not the business itself, but the actual app or the platform, whether it is a success or a flop, you know, is this something that people like using? And is this product going to help you meet your business aims? This is product thinking. So if you want to be a top manager in a corporate, or if you want to be a founder, you need all the stuff that you needed in the eighties. So you need basic skills in finance, so you can read a balance sheet. You also now need product thinking because that is a fundamental skill set today in the age of AI. So you can either lead or work with product management teams.

[00:09:18] You need to think of yourself as the product

But all of this clever stuff is just not enough for a truly successful career. And this kind of sucks because essentially you could be really smart, you can be really good at your job, and you could still not get the results that you frankly deserve. And this kind of sucks. But it doesn't truly suck because you can do something about it, right? If you couldn't do anything about it, then I would say, okay, that's just true suckage. Basically, you need to think of yourself as the product. So you need to keep on adding new skill sets to yourself because you're the product. So you need to add product thinking. It's kind of another feature, another string to your bow. So you can be a better product. But if you think of every successful company, successful companies, they have great products and they also have great marketing. So if that's you, and you keep on adding new skill sets to yourself as the product, but you're not doing anything about your marketing, the startup of you ain't gonna go anywhere. So if you're a super great product, but people in power don't know about you, or they know you but they underestimate you, then you have a problem. And this is a very unpleasant problem, but it is a solvable problem. So this is why you also need to consciously and deliberately develop your personal brand. Because this is what helps you get recognized by the people who can give you the opportunities that you want.

[00:11:00] And I know what I'm talking about because this is literally how I have built my business. And I think this is why people keep coming to me to learn this skill set. Because if you're listening to this podcast or you're following me on LinkedIn or you're reading my emails, you're basically seeing the results.

[00:11:33] How personal branding built a $300,000 government contract

So last year, I was literally swimming in the absolutely gorgeous Persian Gulf. You know, it's like turquoise seas, white sand. Stunning. I was in Bahrain swimming in the Persian Gulf after concluding a $300,000 project for the government of Bahrain. And that project happened because the people of the government of Bahrain, they discovered my work through the content that I had created. And you know, that was a fabulous, fabulous experience. And right now, so today, as I'm recording this, I'm sitting in front of a laptop at home, as my nanny is with my baby next door. And I'm working with clients in five different countries and speaking to an audience around the world. And I don't have investors and I don't spend a fortune on ads. And honestly, like right now, this is also living another dream, right? Like swimming in the Persian Gulf. That was fabulous. That was one stage of life. Now I've moved on to another stage of life and I have been able to have a business and have interesting, fulfilling, intellectually fulfilling work, basically because I have created myself, I've made myself seen as an innovator in my industry. I've made myself seen as a thought leader in my industry.

[00:12:32] So I know that building a personal brand and being seen as a thought leader basically works if you want to build a career and a life you want, because you know, a career is obviously part of your life, right? They're not two separate things. So how do I bring these two things together? I genuinely think that if you combine product thinking and personal branding, you will be unstoppable. And I'm saying this because I have done this. It has worked for me. It has worked for people. Like I have seen this for myself and I have seen this for the people that I've worked with. And I haven't seen anybody else talking about this because there are lots of people who talk about personal branding and that's all they do. And I kind of, not that I don't believe them, but you know, if all they ever talk about is personal branding and marketing, then essentially it's kind of not what you want to achieve, right? Like you don't want to become a marketing expert who talks about personal branding. You want to become a top leader in a company or you want to become a founder. Like you want to do something and you want to build a personal brand that allows you to do it. And which is essentially what I've done. And that's why I think when you're listening to people about personal branding who only do personal branding, they're kind of only achieving like they're only doing half of what you want to do. So this is why I think if you combine product thinking with personal branding, then you are the whole package.

[00:13:00] Client story 1: John the product manager going on international trips with the CEO

So let me give you a few examples of how my one-on-one clients are doing this. So there's one person I'm thinking of. Let's call him John. That is not his real name. And he works at a very large multinational technology company. And he's ambitious, he's educated, he's got an MBA, he's actually a product manager. So his product thinking skill set is, you know, really, really honed. And John wants to get to the top management level in his company. And for this, basically being really good at his job is not enough. He needs to position himself as somebody who can lead a division. He needs to position himself as somebody who can basically report directly to the CEO on projects that are really important to the CEO. So he needs to be somebody for whom the country CEO, because it's a multinational, so multinationals will have like the overall CEO, and then they will have the CEO of company in France, the CEO of the company in Germany, the CEO of the company in Nigeria, and so on.

[00:14:15] So John needs to be somebody whom the country CEO can rely on and as somebody who has ideas for how to create more value for the company, i.e., how the company can make more money and have happier customers. And so if you're just sitting there, listening to this podcast, which actually I know he does. So if you are listening, hello. To listen to this episode, you know I'm talking about you. So if he was just sitting there, just listening to this podcast and just thinking about all these clever things by himself, that's not going to get him where he wants to go. So essentially he hired me to help him become seen as a leader on the rise by the company's decision makers. And it's working. Literally, after one month of working together, he is currently, literally at the time of this recording, he is on an international business trip with the company's country CEO. Along with the CEO's right hand. So there are only three of them on this trip. And it's his first time doing this. And it's basically the launch pad to getting the promotion and the pay rise that he wants.

[00:15:20] Client story 2: Janet the consultant heading to the Harvard Business Review

Let me tell you about another one-on-one client. And let's call her Janet. Again, not her real name. Janet is a consultant who has already written a really, really impressive book. This is not just somebody, you know, this is not like a random blogger who's just written some stuff. This is very well researched and very well respected by people who understand the industry. The book is already selling and her consultancy is going well and she's got international clients and she's in demand, but you know, she wants more, like I do. So essentially we're working together to get her into as many business podcasts and business publications and business stages, say conferences where her key clients are going to be, as possible. And I am absolutely sure that this year she's going to write for the Harvard Business Review, that she will be in the top-tier business press. And I know it's going to take effort. And we're gonna have to be clever about it and we're gonna have to take lots of different shots at goal, but I think it's gonna be really, really doable. And so that's our aim for the rest of 2026.

[00:16:17] Client story 3: The fintech founder building credibility ahead of fundraising

And here's another, so I'll give you my final example. So another client is an early stage founder of a fintech company, and he wants to build up his personal brand ahead of a fundraiser. So he's already got a product. People are already using it. And actually he financially doesn't really need it to scale, but he wants it to scale. He's already a successful founder. He's already got a successful finance company and they've got this fintech app and essentially it's working, things are going well, but now he wants it to go really, really big. So if you're planning to raise funding for your company too, working on your personal brand is a very, very good strategic move to make because it helps investors see you as credible and as the real deal. And it helps you stand out among lots of other money hungry founders. And this is especially relevant when you are early stage because you know, the early stages, you don't have metrics to prove that you're right. You basically, it's more about ideas and about possibility rather than about, look, here is exactly what we have done. We just need money to replicate exactly this, which is kind of more of a Series B, Series C kind of conversation.

[00:17:42] And as you can see from what I've told you, all of these people, all of these one-on-one clients, they're very smart, successful people. And they actually don't have to do this. Like they don't have to work with me. They don't have to work on their personal brands because they could just coast and stay where they are, and it would be fabulous. The product manager does not need to get promoted. He already has a good, well-paying job in a very respected company. The consultant does not need her book to be a bestseller. She does not need to write for the Harvard Business Review. Nobody needs that, right? She's not gonna die. The fintech founder is not going to go broke if he does not scale. But they want more. And I want more. And I think this podcast attracts people who want more.

[00:18:27] Why strategic personal branding is not LinkedIn likes and followers

So these one-on-one clients that I've told you about, they all think I have one life and I want to do the biggest thing I possibly can with it. And I wanna see how far I can go. Like I wanna see what I can do with this thing. And for that, their work needs to be discovered, their thinking needs to be discovered, and they need to be recognized and they need to be valued. And this is what building a personal brand strategically is about. It is not about random posting on LinkedIn and it is not about likes, it is not about followers, because that is not strategic. That's basically that's kind of like trying to combine Kim Kardashian metrics with LinkedIn, which is not really going to get you anywhere. Or at least it's not going to get you results that you can frankly monetize.

[00:19:20] And if you're thinking, if you're listening to this and you're thinking, yes, I want this, well, this is your chance to use my free gift and book your free one-on-one consulting session with me. So why am I doing this? I'm doing this actually because I have been working on the product of me. So I've actually taken a new coach training program in the last few months. So I'm making the product of me better so you're going to get even better results and even better content. And as part of that program, I am offering complementary sample sessions. And the sample sessions, as I mentioned before, they are super useful if you want to build your professional brand to achieve big things. If you want to get discovered and have opportunities come to you. And if you want to use a more public profile to essentially make more money, either from where you're working, from new clients or from investors.

[00:20:10] And yes, at the end of this session, let me just tell you the logistics. There is a calendar link at the bottom of the show notes where you can book your session. If the calendar link doesn't work, it's because we've basically stopped doing it. So whenever you listen to this, you know, if you're listening to this in 2027, try it anyway because maybe I'm still doing them. I don't know. So if this appeals to you, just click on the link in the show notes. If I'm still doing these sessions, then you will see a one hour slot. Within that one hour, we are going to use most of that time, so about 40 minutes of that time, we will use on consulting you on where you want to get to and how you basically can get there. I will also use part of that time to make you an offer to work with me at the end. So the bulk of the session is going to be focused on providing you maximum value. It is a sample session. It is not a sales call. But I will also be making you an offer to work with me at the end. And there's absolutely no pressure to take it. Some of you are going to take it because you will see that this is the time for you to invest in this work. Others of you won't. Either way, it's going to be fabulous.

[00:21:00] Summary: Why product thinking + personal brand = unstoppable

And now, my dear smart person, let us summarize what we have learned today. Why do product thinking and personal branding make you a truly unstoppable professional in the age of AI? For most of business history, the barrier to building something has been technology and high cost. So you needed developers, you needed infrastructure, you needed capital and a team. And you know, capital is really important here because this is expensive stuff and most people were locked out before they even started. Now AI has reduced the barrier. It hasn't collapsed it but reduced that barrier. So there are AI tools that exist to test your product and actually to get fairly far, and developers can now use AI to compress their speed to market. So you can test for free and you can build for much cheaper. Which means that the differentiator is no longer whether you can build. It's whether you know what to build and whether people trust you to build it. And this is product thinking and your reputation. So that's product thinking and personal brand.

[00:22:06] So product thinking is your judgment. It's how you figure out what the world needs, what's worth building, why it's worth building, and how to make it work. That's product thinking. Personal brand is your reputation. Without the reputation of someone who can think creatively and deliver results, you won't get the chance to create in the first place. So you'll just get to be a clever person by yourself. Nobody wants that. So your personal brand is how the right people find out about you and see you as a thought leader and an innovator in your industry before you're even in the room. Because if that's how you are seen, essentially you will be more able to unleash that creative potential that you are honing with product thinking. So product thinking without personal branding is incomplete. You can have the best ideas in your industry and be completely invisible, or you can be everywhere saying nothing worth listening to.

[00:23:02] Closing and how to book your free session

But when you have both, when you know how to think and you know how to be seen and you know how to create, that is when opportunities stop being things that you chase and start being things that find you. Which is fabulous. And this is what we are doing. This is what I'm doing at Tech for Non-Techies, and this is what we're building here. And if this excites you, then make sure to book your sample consulting session. I would love to talk to you. I know that our audience has grown and I haven't met the vast majority of you. So this is gonna be a super wonderful exercise for me. And on the first of July 2026, there are slots going to be open. So grab yours because I don't know how long I'm gonna be able to keep this up for. Because there is only one of me, right? Okay. On that note, my dear smart person, have a wonderful day and I shall be back in your delightful smart ears next week. Ciao.