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When Your Team Hits the Scaling Wall

Daniel Lereya
Chief Product Officer, Monday.com
8 YEARS
The Moment

Competitors Shipped 30 Columns in One Month

OUR PACE4 monthsCOMPETITOR1 month
"We received a gift from our competitors. They showed us that it's possible. Now we need to think how. Use your competition, know it, and take it, and set ambitious goals, and believe in yourself."
  • You're shipping 5 columns over months, competitor launches 30 in weeks
  • First reaction: impossible. But seeing it done = proof it's possible
  • That's when 150-person Monday realized something was fundamentally broken
  • The gift: a forced reckoning with how you actually build
The Realization

You're Building a Lot, But Are You Moving the Needle?

MANYTHINGSONEIMPACTFOCUS?IF YOU CAN'T NAME THE ONE THING:YOU HAVE A FOCUS PROBLEM
  • The weekly update: long, impressive, many features shipped
  • The problem: "What's the most meaningful thing we did?" Answer was vague
  • The insight: execution ≠ transformation. You can work hard and miss entirely
  • The fix: ambitious goals force different thinking (4 months → 1 day mindset)
The column transformation

Set the goal: 25 columns in one month. Build shared infrastructure. Two-week hackathon: each dev takes one column, ships in one day. Month 1.5: 30 columns shipped.

What changed

Defining what a column IS (shared structure, capabilities) unlocked the ability to parallelize the work. Not more hours. Different thinking.

The Playbook

How to Ship at 10X the Speed

  • Avoid fake speed: skipping quality or stages = burnout without breakthrough
  • Real speed is architectural: define the pattern, create infrastructure, enable parallelization
  • Set "impossible" goals: goals that make you realize you can't do it the old way
  • Get to the problem: PMs spend time on opportunity before solution (solutions are plentiful)
  • Measure impact, not effort: "We shipped 50 things" is meaningless. "We moved the needle on X" matters
The PM's real job

Relentless until impact is validated. That means: shared understanding of the problem, shared understanding of how you'll measure success, then test in real life.

Impact isn't always features

Sometimes the biggest impact is making current value more accessible, or connecting go-to-market better. Stop defaulting to "build more."

Making it Real

Align the Entire Org on Impact

  • Company goals dashboard with sound effects (Simpsons laugh on $1M collected)
  • Make the metric tangible and live, not abstract; everyone feels it
  • When goals are visible, partnership is visible, not just leadership feels wins
  • Creates a different conversation, everyone's hunting the same metric
The cultural shiftWhen your entire company lives a metric, it changes how decisions get made. People naturally ask: "How does this move the needle on what we're actually trying to do?"
Contrarian

The Bold Moves That Look Insane

✗Launching new products one at a timeINSTEAD →✓ Announce 5 products simultaneously. It signals "we're not a project management tool anymore," even if some fail.
✗Protecting past successINSTEAD →✓ Not taking bold risks is a bigger risk. You'll miss the leap. You have to let go of what worked before.
✗Slower shipping = better productINSTEAD →✓ More time doesn't yield better results. Speed to real-world feedback > careful internal polish. Ship fast, learn faster.
✗Praise from the product team is successINSTEAD →✓ "Amazing product" feedback is actually bad. Real success is users discovering it solves their problem, without you explaining it.
Based on Daniel Lereya's episode on Lenny's Podcast. All ideas on this page are from the episode.Watch on YouTube
GO DEEPER IN THE EPISODE
04:20 The pivotal moment: competitors shipping faster08:50 Setting ambitious goals17:44 Focusing on impact rather than features27:07 Transforming your product quarterly32:07 Scaling monday.com: challenges and strategies39:14 How monday.com maintains transparency as a public company45:40 The importance of taking risks51:02 Counterintuitive lessons in product development54:33 The value of timeboxing and deadlines57:28 Embracing user feedback59:54 Adapting leadership styles01:04:43 Personal reflections on leadership01:10:41 Handling crises and strategic planning01:17:28 The role of AI in work and personal life01:22:13 Final thoughts and lightning round
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