Ben Albon

Breadfast has just introduced “Bank Installments” as a payment option during checkout. Users now have the chance to split a large purchase into easier monthly payments which is pretty clever and could unlock the affordability constraint of high-value tickets. Another interesting take from a viability perspective would be access to non-grocery categories ensuring higher AOVs and customer retention. Q-commerce players are gradually trying to position themselves as one-stop shops and that they offer more than just your regular club sandwich or cup of coffee, which I believe is the next challenge.

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Behaviour change isn’t a feature. It’s everything in the product. The rhythm. The tone. The space between steps. The reason someone cares to use your app at all. I wrote a piece recently that unpacks this using a slightly odd example: Pop Mart’s Labubu. It’s a toy. But it’s also a brilliant case study in how surprise, progress and identity drive repeated action. For those of us working in behaviour change products this isn’t new. But I think we could all use the reminder that: novelty alone isn’t enough, progress needs to be personal, and the real win is when a product becomes part of who someone is You can read the full piece here: 👉 https://lnkd.in/gS7qe7kY Would love to know what principles you use again and again when building behaviour-led products. #productleadership #behaviourdesign #ux #designthinking #habits

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Are you a Company Director? This is important! Change is coming to the way every UK company engages with Companies House and this will affect you. From 18𝐭𝐡 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 2025, a new layer of identity verification comes into force under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act. I'm not sure this change has been well sign-posted so please share this with your networks. The goal is simple: build trust in the register and strengthen the integrity of UK business. 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭? ➡️ Every director, person with significant control (PSC) of a UK Limited Company will need to complete an identity verification process. ➡️ For new directors, this will be mandatory at the point of incorporation or appointment. ➡️ For existing companies, verification will be required by the time of your next confirmation statement or any engagement with Companies House, eg. setting up a new company. Don't give yourself an unnecessary headache, get this done today. 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 You’ll be able to verify your identity in one of two ways: ➡️ Directly through GOV.UK One Login (an example of GovTech in action) or ➡️ Through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP) – for example, your accountant, solicitor, or company formation agent, who should be able to complete the verification on your behalf. I verified directly myself by setting up a GOV.UK account and downloading the app. The process is a little clunky but it worked, just make sure you have you passport handy. Once verified, you’ll receive a Companies House personal code confirming your status. This code will be required for any filing, such as director appointments or confirmation statements. So don't lose it! 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 This is not just another compliance hurdle. It’s part of a wider effort to: ➡️ Make UK corporate ownership more transparent. ➡️ Deter fraudulent appointments and shell companies. ➡️ Increase confidence for investors, partners, and government bodies working with UK firms. ➡️ Digitise our engagement with the state and thus make the whole process more straight forward. NB. from November 2025, unverified individuals cannot be appointed as directors. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐰? If you are a company director it's mandatory so get it out of the way now before you end up rushing this as you hit a Companies House compliance deadline. You never know what hick-ups or additional checks you may need to go through when verifying so it just makes sense to get this done immediately. Good luck and be sure to share with any entrepreneurs you work with as they may have missed this. #Director #Company #GovTech

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Most product career advice focuses on execution. That’s rarely the thing that holds people back. I had a great conversation this week with Jane Austin about product career progression, and one point really stuck with me. A lot of product impact lives in things that don’t always show up neatly in a roadmap or metric. Decisions not taken. Risks avoided. Clarity created. Alignment across teams. If you don’t find ways to articulate that, it’s easy for your contribution to be under-represented, even when outcomes are strong. It’s made me think more deliberately about how I talk about my work, what I want to be known for, and how I show up as a product leader. Curious how others approach this. How do you make your impact visible without it feeling awkward or forced?

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The State of Product Ops Report: 2025 🎊 This was incredibly popular before, so why not do it again! So pleased to be returning as commentator on the latest edition of the State of Product Ops Report, alongside respected Product Ops leaders Clare Hawthorne, Chris Butler and Topher F. 😇 Here are just some of the standouts for me: ⏳ “Businesses do not need Product Ops people, but they do need to focus their time and energy on Product Ops - though often this translates into dedicated people or portions of other staff’s time." Graham Reed 🚀 “The lack of clarity in Product Ops roles is persistent because the function is highly context-dependent. The needs of a growth-stage SaaS company, a mature service-based business, or an enterprise operating at scale can vary widely.” Clare Hawthorne 🪴 "Product ops thrives when it emphasizes collaborative systems that support innovation, not just execution" Chris Butler 🏆 “Identify your champions: test early and often with them -- in fact, treat them as design partners in some cases." Topher F. Link in comments

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Dogfooding. Terrible name, invaluable product exercise. Put simply: it’s using your own product, or “eating your own dogfood.” At Flipdish, it’s something we continue to take seriously, whilst other product teams drop this practice due to busy schedules. Since joining, I’ve: → Met multiple restaurant owners in person and discussed their issues → Onboarded clients and seen their pain points first-hand → Jumped into support to experience the backend struggles our customers (and team) deal with daily It’s not just me... everyone in our product and engineering teams does it. The result? A mountain of tech/bug tickets that go on to get resolved. More importantly, builders gain empathy for what both our colleagues, clients and consumers have to go through. A little empathy really does go a long way. So before you spend big on external research, ask yourself, have you tried your own dogfood?

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🚨 Announcing the Series B-C Scaleups to Watch in 2026. A handpicked list of UK tech scaleups who raised Series B and C funding last year that are actively hiring into tech. If you’re consider new opportunities- this list is a good starting point. 1. Sokin — Global payments, simplified for businesses 2. PhysicsX — AI reinventing engineering and manufacturing 3. Vyntelligence — Human-first mobile enterprise communications 4. i6 Group — Modern software for aircraft refueling 5. nPlan — Predictive intelligence for construction delivery 6. Mimica — AI that automates everyday work 7. Omnea — Smarter, faster procurement orchestration 8. Fyxer AI — Your AI executive assistant 9. Cyted Health — AI diagnostics for earlier disease detection 10. Attio — AI-first CRM for modern teams 11. Bumper — Flexible payments for car repairs 12. Xelix — AI-powered accounts payable control 13. Numan — Digital healthcare, personalized and discreet 14. HIVED — Zero-emission parcel delivery network 15. Metaview — AI transforming how teams hire 16. Zeelo — Smart transport for work and education 17. Definely — AI-native tools for legal drafting 18. Treefera — AI-powered transparency for nature assets 19. Dexory — Autonomous robots for warehouse visibility 20. Nscale — Sustainable infrastructure for enterprise AI 21. Nothing — Design-led consumer tech brand 22. Paragraf — Commercial graphene for next-gen electronics Interested in growing your tech team on cord? Drop me a message. Check out the Full Collection linked in the Comments ⬇️

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Great shared learnings on a ‘therapeutic’ night discussing the topic of Product Therapy, alongside insights from guest Thor Mitchell at the Product Group London May. Topic of the Night: Product Therapy With a room evenly split on having/not having approaches for maintaining a healthy state of mind at work, we went on a journey sharing views and experiences. First up was defining what a heathy state of mind looks like. Then came exploring the impact of negative environments and acknowledging the challenges product people face and signals that they exist. We then looked at proactive and reactive actions people take to manage and maintain a healthy state of mind. Examples included taking time to reflect; focusing on creating positive habits around sleep, eating and exercise; discussing challenges with the team; going outside the office for a mental break; holding managers accountable for coaching you to build resilience; taking lunch breaks / giving yourself little windows to unplug during the day; forgiving yourself for things that are out of your control; taking the dog for a walk (everyday); getting a coach or mentor to support you; turning challenges into opportunities, and looking for new opportunities if it becomes too toxic and completely out of your control. Guest Speaker: Thor Mitchell, CPO Executive-in-Residence, Balderton Capital Working across the globe and in roles at Google, Crowdcube, Miro and Balderton Capital, Thor talked about starting his career in a local ISP before moving to Sun Microsystems and then Google, where he landed his first product role. He then moved to Crowdcube, before taking a role at Miro during the pandemic - in what became a hyper growth period for the business. He covered his experiences and learnings as part of the leadership team driving strategy, delivery and recruitment during and after this period. For example, how they made the shift from PLG to enterprise SaaS, how the role of a leader is different in a 300 vs 1,500 person company and how during a period of rapid growth no process stays stable before you outgrow it. On the future of the product role, Thor emphasised our responsibility to inspire those trying to get into the profession. He also talked about the ongoing evolution of product and how those with a growth mindset will be able to adapt and thrive now and in the future. Thor also writes on product and recently published an article on how leaders can unlock the power of decision making in cross-functional teams. Thank you Thor Mitchell for sharing your journey and many insights into life as a founder 🙏. Thanks to everyone who came and openly engaged in the discussions 🙏. Thanks to BrainStation 🙏 for hosting us and providing the pizza, treats and drinks. See you on Tue 3rd June! #tpglondon #ProductTherapy #MentalWellbeing #ProductManagement #WorkLifeBalance #HealthyMindset

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Viva Engage isn’t plug-and-play. Sorry.... I'm seeing a lot of launches stall pretty much after the moment someone pins a tab in Teams and thinks the job’s done. The challenges are often similar - no clear ownership, no content plan, and no one actually sure what success looks like. We’ve worked with a lot of teams recently to get Engage off the ground – particularly with the impending close of Workplace by Meta - and here’s a simple checklist to consider before rolling out anything Viva-shaped: 1️⃣ Have you mapped your personas? Not everyone needs every Viva module. Be clear who you’re building for. 2️⃣ Who owns it beyond IT? Turning it on is easy. Curating content, supporting comms, measuring engagement – that’s where the work begins. 3️⃣ What’s your homepage strategy? Is Viva Connections and an out-of-date SharePoint from 2017 replacing your intranet homepage? Or just sitting next to it, awkwardly? 4️⃣ Is your Engage feed actually worth reading? If it's just birthdays and lunch menus, no one’s coming back. Pet photos admittedly hold a bit more leverage.... 5️⃣ How will you measure success? You don’t need to overdo it – but if you’re not tracking adoption and feedback, you can't build on what's working and fix what isn't. That's why at Cocentric aren't just flipping a switch, we're helping internal comms and IT teams launch Viva with structure – not guesswork. 💬 Want a copy of a readiness scorecard we use with clients? Drop me a message and I’ll send it over. #Buildingaconnectedworkingworld #MicrosoftViva #InternalComms #DigitalWorkplace #ModernWork #EmployeeExperience #Cocentric

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US Tariffs appear to be back for UK and European brands. Previously there was a way to mitigate these if a brand has a US entity by moving stock wholesale between entities. MAUVAIS launched on Patchworks in just 14 days to mitigate the last set of tariffs. In fast changing global economics, a flexible, agile tech stack is a must. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eKZvecrE

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As Product people, we love to talk about "user pain points”, but nothing makes it more real than being in the back of a cab watching your driver frantically trying to change three lanes on a busy highway just a mere few inches from the exit. What's worse... when you're the one driving... Happened to me just recently as well! 😅 We started by asking ourselves why this keeps happening. Turns out, most navigation apps treat roads like simple lines on a map. But roads aren't lines. They're complicated systems with their own quirks. So we went granular. Really granular. We mapped individual lanes across almost all of Riyadh. Not just "there's a road here" - but "lane 2 becomes a right-turn-only in 200m." Thanks to our amazing data and AI teams, the richness in this base data directly impacts every feature that we build on top. Then we built intelligence on top of that foundation. Our lane guidance kicks in early, giving users a clear heads up on which lanes they need to be on when they can still safely change lanes instead of surprising them with last-minute panic. We also show clear annotations with road names on the map for upcoming turns, so you always know where you stand. We made it visual too. The camera auto-zooms when approaching turns because sometimes "turn right at the big intersection" needs a little more precision. And for those absolute nightmare intersections, we show HD images of exactly which exit to take. Sometimes you need to show, not just tell. Since launch, we've been getting user feedback on our voice instruction timings, and we're actively working on making those even better. Feedback from our users like this is music to our ears and helps us improve our products. We're actively listening and making the app better. And yes, we’re also cooking up some bigger improvements (worth the wait 😉). Because navigation isn’t just A to B. It’s about building confidence in every micro-interaction. Every interaction either builds trust… or pisses people off. What's one navigation feature you wish existed but no one has built yet?

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🎙️ In this week's episode of Roadmap, I sit down with Ryan Tinsley Head of Product Design & Research at Flipdish to chat about best practices and proven ways of working to successfully scale design teams and set them up for long-term impact. In this episode, we dive into how to successfully embed design within product development teams—highlighting why strong communication and collaboration matter more than just sticking rigid frameworks Links to the episode are in the comments below 👇 #product #productmanagement #UXdesign #UX #design #research #UXresearch #productdevelopment #leadership

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