In this episode of Launch With Confidence, Chris sits down with Ciara Peter, SVP of Product at Robin. With leadership experience at Robin, Medallia, Gainsight, and Box, Ciara has spent her career helping SaaS companies navigate market shifts, competitive pressure, and evolving customer expectations.

At Robin, she guided the team through one of the most turbulent eras in workplace software—navigating Covid, the rise of hybrid work, and competition from giants like Microsoft and Zoom. In this conversation, Ciara shares how to rebuild confidence when your product story changes, how to reframe competitors, and why “extreme transparency” is a product leader’s superpower.

If you’re a product manager or product leader facing change, this episode is packed with lessons on leadership, strategy, and staying close to your customers.

In this episode:

(00:00) – Intro: Ciara Peter’s background and Robin’s journey

(01:08) – Helping teams rebuild confidence in a new direction

(01:55) – The explosion of competition during hybrid work

(02:45) – Why Robin shifted from point solutions to a platform

(04:08) – Practicing “extreme transparency” in product leadership

(05:53) – Watching 40 sales calls to uncover patterns

(07:26) – Avoiding the feature factory trap

(09:12) – Balancing multi-year vision with short-term realities

(10:29) – Bridging gaps between old use cases and new direction

(11:56) – Using NPS, analytics, and competitor tracking

(14:17) – Customer advisory boards and in-person empathy

(16:46) – How competitors reveal themselves in new markets

(18:46) – The rise of “vibe coding” and what it means

(20:15) – Guiding sales teams through noisy competition

(22:05) – New personas and motions in platform sales

(24:01) – Making strategy stick inside and outside the org

(26:03) – Testing if the product story really resonates

(28:08) – Why product is a team sport with sales, support, and marketing

(29:12) – Rapid fire: resets, role models, and resources

(32:33) – A product Ciara can’t live without (and why)

(33:22) – Funniest travel mishaps and lessons learned

(35:25) – How Ciara wants her team to feel after a big launch

(36:17) – Closing thoughts and wrap-up

About Our Guest

Ciara Peter is a SaaS Product executive with nearly 20 years of experience leading high performing organizations from Series A to $5B+ in annual revenue. Ciara currently oversees Product and Design at Robin, a leader in workplace management, and has also led world class organizations at Medallia, Gainsight, Box, Betterworks, and Salesforce. Ciara’s experience empowers her to uniquely address the needs of enterprises at scale, while incorporating product led growth, AI, and product design fundamentals to increase adoption and expansion across end users.

In this episode of Launch With Confidence, Chris Rader sits down with Randy Ford, Director of Product Management at Fidium Fiber. Randy has spent more than 20 years leading product teams across networking, cloud, and security, but what sets him apart is his conviction that the best ideas come from observing customers in their own environments.

From stadiums packed with thousands of devices to small supermarkets with hidden connectivity issues, Randy shares how in-the-wild insights can transform product development, customer trust, and even company strategy.

If you’ve ever wondered how to bridge the gap between product roadmaps and customer reality, this conversation will change the way you think about field research and customer engagement.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why stepping outside of the office uncovers problems no survey ever will
• How to turn onsite observations into product improvements
• Ways to build personas that reflect real environments, not just demographics
• Advice for teams navigating travel restrictions and budgets

00:00 – Introduction to Randy Ford

01:01 – Randy’s role and product management scope

01:41 – Why getting out of the office matters

02:11 – Observations you only see onsite

04:14 – Problem-solving with real-world signals

05:03 – Stories from Western Digital and stadium Wi-Fi challenges

07:16 – Turning field context into product planning

08:19 – Lessons from supermarkets and everyday environments

10:05 – How observations improve customer experience

12:25 – Personas and environmental factors

15:32 – Building vertical profiles for customer segments

15:50 – Advice on connecting with customers in the wild

17:10 – Regional and environmental differences in customer needs

18:43 – Becoming a trusted partner by sharing insights

19:15 – Budgets, travel bans, and scrappy ways to stay close to customers

20:43 – Rapid-fire questions (coffee vs. tea, product mistakes, teams vs. Slack, favorite snacks, dream product

In this episode of Launch With Confidence, Chris Rader sits down with product marketing leader and content creator Natalie Mackay to talk about pre-launch social proof, gathering deep customer insights, and unlocking the hidden go-to-market power of beta programs. Natalie shares actionable ways product marketers can partner with product managers to create messaging that resonates, drive conversions, and build authentic social proof before launch day. We also explore why so many teams overlook beta as a strategic GTM tool, and we wrap up with a fun rapid fire Q&A.