Interview with Basilis Kanonidis, Product Manager at creativeG.gr
Last Updated:
By
Vashishtha Kapoor
Hey friends! I am glad to have got the chance to talk to Mr. Basilis Kanonidis, a well-known name in the blogging and growth marketing domain. Basilis has worked with some of the top companies as a Growth consultant. NinjaOutreach, User.com, and creativeG are there to name a few.
I met him online while he worked at NinjaOutreach as the Head of Growth. His career is such an inspiration and the source of motivation for many. In this interview, I asked him some questions about growth marketing and his career. let’s read on.
Before heading further, please let us know a bit about you.
First of all, thank you very much for having me. I do appreciate the time spent to do this interview. I am an “ Internet “ Person for the last 15 years. I have started by doing web design and web developments and growing, I moved a lot more to consulting.
I now consult business owners either on web-related issues (Seo, Growth, etc), product, or business decisions.
I do love mostly the Product Growth / Marketing things, but I also help organizations with their Product Position, User-Centric issues.
How did you enter into digital marketing and what do you think is the best thing ever happened in your professional career.
I have joined the space at a really strange point. When I was at school, I was writing software for fun. At one point I wrote a game and my friends were asking to get it. I was tired of making USBs for them, so I created a simple page for them to download the game.
I put some ads and ppl were clicking them ( as early internet moments, they could not figure out exactly what it was ). This was the start.
I moved my experimenting a lot and that led to a proud moment where I have made the design for a really big online portal. After a while, things started to make a point and there we are today 🙂
What is your role at creativeG?
creativeG is my Productized Product Management agency. I used to run this as a full We Design & Development Agency with more than 25 people, now I am more focused on doing what I am really good at. Ideas Architecture, Go To Market and Product Management.
What do you do to push yourself out of your comfort zone?
Nothing. When you have a target to hit, you only make sure that you follow that. It is not hard to know where you want to go. You just need to be focused on that.
Do you think there is something that newbies don’t know about product marketing? If yes, what is it?
A lot of times people do not understand that your product marketing should be focused on your customer journey. Do not separate things. Drive your feature based on how customers interact with you and if it is needed, create your own category. For example, if you are a Saas Chat tool, you do not need to market for this as there is already a huge area. Try to either break your niche down or categorize it cleverly with something that does not exist already. An example is what drift has done with their marketing
Apart from their professional skills, what would you look for in the people you hire?
I have a lot of time to hire someone to work with me, except Jomaro my VA. Usually, I believe what you need from people is devotion. If people do what they say they do and you see it in results, there is no reason to monitor or review work. I am really against that. I prefer people to be free, to understand their responsibilities, and to act as should.
How important is the role of UI & UX (design part) in a product to succeed? What do you call a perfect MVP (minimal viable product)?
If a team does not have someone who has enough knowledge over UI & UX, then the company can not achieve their goals. UX for products is what Milk is for cats. A good product requires a good flow for the users, a flow that can make things succeed. A really good UI design can be found to user.com a platform where I have also worked as a Product Owner.
Do not forget that to build a good UI & UX, you need to run multiple interviews and listen to your users. Plan your product development based on what users say, this is really important. A framework that I love for this, is the Jobs to be Done Framework.
How can someone reading this blog post connect with you?
I have started again to be active over Twitter a lot. My Facebook and Instagram are more for my Personal life as I have decided to separate them like that.
First of all, thank you very much for having me. I do appreciate the time spent to do this interview. I am an “ Internet “ Person for the last 15 years. I have started by doing web design and web developments and growing, I moved a lot more to consulting.