Shout-Out to Jenny Wanger: API Monsters, Product Ops Magic & Empathy-Driven Teams

I didn't ask her permission to post this (sorry, not sorry, Jenny!!) because more people need to hear about the fantastic work she's doing.

I first met Jenny Wanger (The one and only → https://jennywanger.com) at a meetup years ago. She was handing out a deck of "API Monsters" playing cards while walking us through the creatures you encounter when designing APIs. We chatted afterward and I have stayed in touch with her and her co-presenter ever since.

Today, Jenny consults tech companies to level up their product operations. She audits rituals, tightens feedback loops, and builds practical playbooks that stick long after she's gone. The result? Product teams that run smoother, make faster decisions, and stop lobbing chaos over the wall to engineering, design, or sales.

My favorite part of her toolkit: customer-research workshops. Jenny recruits real people to play specific roles and gives product managers live practice interviewing them to validate—or completely invalidate—an idea. I've been one of those "actors" twice now, dropping hints to see who picks them up while pretending my boss (another longtime friend) has no clue what us "pawns" go through each day. Watching different teams tackle research in real time is eye-opening; nothing beats the "aha!" moment when a PM reframes the problem on the spot.

Beyond the workshops, Jenny is a fierce advocate for empathy-driven product culture. She coaches PMs to listen first, kill their darlings, and ship what actually solves user pain—not what looks shiny in a roadmap deck.

If your product org needs a boost, talk to Jenny. Reach out through her site, say hello, and tell her Matt sent you. She's that good.

#ProductManagement #ProductOps #CustomerResearch #WorkshopMagic #APIBeastTamer

Photo note: I think I got this AI image generation thing down... check this out.. This was the prompt (tbh, I just modified the default one that I get from the app I write my blog posts in) "Shot captured using a DSLR camera with a 50mm f/1.8 lens, giving a shallow depth of field. Matt is a family grocery store floor manager standing in the aisles proudly, wearing a green apron, looking just off-camera at the beautiful shelves that his team has just stocked. The lighting is soft and natural, creating gentle shadows and highlights. The image has a natural feel, with small imperfections like stray hairs and slight fabric wrinkles visible. The background is blurred slightly due to the wide aperture, enhancing the focus on the subject while keeping the ambiance of the grocery store intact. The framing feels powerful, as if the photographer is grabbing an action shot." Cool, right? This dude is handsome and like 15 yrs younger than me, #lifegoals