Hubert Palan is the founder and CEO of the Product Management Platform, a product management platform designed to help teams push products more effectively by prioritizing user needs and around the shared roadmap. To the market. More than 5,400 companies including Zoom, Uipath, JCDecaux and Microsoft use the platform to gather customer insights and inform development decisions.
What inspired you to launch product boards, and how your experience with Gooddata influences its creation?
Product boards are inspired by my work as a product manager and product owner. The idea is in my flight where I’m trying to manage product roadmaps on various presentations and specifications, while on less-than-best aircraft Wi-Fi, it’s obviously trying and coordinating one without any single, single, single, single , single strategic product decision making is inefficient. Always renew the root of truth.
When creating product boards, our goal is to build a platform that covers the entire product management process and to address more PM pain points in the process. Now, product boards have grown into a platform that centers customers at the center of modern product management, leveraging AI technology to support customer voices, thereby improving the role of PM.
And it works. Today, Product Board has over 6,000 customers, including amazing companies like Salesforce, Autodesk and Zoom.
What challenges did you face in the early stages of product boards and how did you overcome them?
Early on the product board, I learned about the challenges of a startup getting into a new employee. The product boards move very quickly and I tend to expect new employees to grab what we are doing almost immediately and make clear strategic decisions immediately. Since then, I have learned that taking the time to join the onboarding has more value. By focusing on effective knowledge sharing and training, you can develop teams with knowledge and enthusiasm for your work. The return on investment is very high when you start a full job.
What is the “Excellent Product Framework” and how did you develop it as the basic concept of a product board?
The Product Excellence Framework is our structured approach to product management that emphasizes customer-centricity, putting a lot of bets and building a great team. This is our product philosophy on the product board, ensuring that we are always focused on providing value to our customers. After recognizing the common challenges faced by product teams, we developed this framework, such as the need to incorporate feedback, prioritize effectively and keep everyone consistent around a clear roadmap. This is a core part of our mission, designed to help product managers browse the complexity of modern products, especially in the AI era.
Product boards use AI to analyze customer feedback at scale. What prompted you to include AI into your platform and how to change product management?
What became clear to our team early on is the urgent need to help product teams understand the massive customer feedback they receive. AI is the natural solution that can analyze this data at scale, identify key insights and help prioritize what is next built. This changes product management by allowing teams to make faster and more informed decisions with greater confidence. It also elevates PMs to leadership, in which case they can provide more strategic feedback to align with the company’s business goals. Overall, AI in PM is about staying ahead and ensuring our customers can build products that keep up with emerging trends and truly resonate with users.
Can you share specific examples of how AI can improve customer decisions on product boards?
Imagine the general sentiment of product managers wanting to understand new features. They can just use product boards instead of filtering data on the hill in Salesforce, social media, Apple Store. Product Bults Pulse’s AI-driven dialogue interface immediately answers questions like “What do customers comment on the last update?” Or “customize the primary concern for users in the industry?” This access allows PMs to quickly identify pain points and opportunities, resulting in more effective product development.
In addition to Pulse, we also have an AI-powered analytics dashboard that automatically surfaces key topics and trends from customer feedback. This helps product managers prioritize features with the greatest potential impact, making them a game changer for data-driven decision making. We are seeing customers using these insights to accelerate time to market, improve product satisfaction, and ultimately build better products that people like.
How do you solve your issues regarding data security and privacy when using AI to handle customer insights?
We take privacy very seriously. On the product board, we use a multi-layer approach to data security and privacy, combining industry-standard practices and powerful measures to protect sensitive information. Our commitment to security is evident in our SOC 2 Type II compliance certification and compliance with strict data protection regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.
We use data encryption and our platform is built on a secure infrastructure. We also implement application-level security measures, including user authentication, authorization, and access controls to prevent unauthorized access to customer data. Our customers have granular control over their data, allowing them to determine the information they collect and how to use it. For AI, we use anonymous data to analyze customer feedback, protect personal identities, and extract valuable insights.
What are your trends in using AI for product management and how product boards are ready to lead in this field?
AI is essential for product managers to browse the complexity of the modern product landscape. Using AI in PM is more than just an automation task; it’s about making PMS more strategic and customer-centric, thus increasing their impact on their respective companies.
On the Product Board, we are committed to leading the path of AI-driven product management. We will continue to enhance our AI capabilities and provide innovative solutions to enhance our customers’ capabilities. Last year, we announced several iterations of our AI app, and more from 2025.
Our goal is to make AI accessible and beneficial to all product teams, regardless of their size or technical expertise. We believe that by embracing AI, PMS can unlock new levels of productivity, creativity, and customer-centricity and become even more indispensable in their organizations.
How does your leadership style grow as product boards grow from a small team to an international organization with over 6,000 customers?
Early on, I adopted a very hands-on leadership style – wearing multiple hats and figuring things out as we move on. As we expand, I have to learn to delegate more effectively, trust my team, and empower them to get ownership.
But even the importance of letting go, I understand the importance of staying in touch and keeping the founder’s mindset. I’ve been questioning, analyzing and looking for ways to improve. Effective leadership is to develop a deep understanding of the everyday reality of customers and teams.
What advice would you give to aspiring product managers who want to leverage their AI role?
I encourage aspiring product magnets to learn how to effectively leverage AI by following three best practices:
- Develop customer-centric: Always connect AI-driven insights to the human needs and pain points they represent.
- Seek guidance and cooperation: Contact experienced product managers who have leveraged the role of AI. Learn from their successes and challenges and seek guidance on how to browse the evolving landscape.
- Embrace continuous learning: AI is a dynamic field, so stay curious and keep learning. Explore online courses, attend workshops, and read about the industry to deepen your understanding of AI concepts and applications in product management.
What is your long-term vision for product boards, especially when leveraging AI to enhance customer-centric product development?
My current product board goal is the same as on day one – to solve PM pain points and authorize PM to make the best product possible.
We are committed to consistently assessing and updating our AI products to ensure we help PMS more collaborative, effective, creative and strategic. As the pain points change, our technology will also change. In fact, we use product board technology ourselves to ensure we are truly customer-centric and provide the updates and features that customers really need. So it’s hard to say what we’re going to do in the future today because on the product board it’s all about everything our customers need right now. But I can guarantee that we will continue to grow and leverage AI to deliver to our customers and empower PMS to become an outstanding member of their organization.
Thank you for your excellent interview, and readers who hope to learn more should visit the product board.
