“Two-pizza team” is a Jeff Bezos term that describes a scrappy business strategy. Basically, your teams should be small enough to suffice on two pizzas. That's roughly five to eight people. (Unless, of course, one is a college student. Then it’s about one to two people haha.)
After years of over-processed approaches, Savage put Bezos' philosophy into practice.
Before switching to two-pizza teams, Wistia released 12 product updates annually. This included a new webinar tool and new interactive video elements like in-video quizzes.
After restructuring its product teams and simplifying its strategies in 2023, Wistia released 72 updates — 6X over the year before.
How? By turning away from flawless road maps and exceptional internal comms, and toward innovating based on customer feedback every two weeks.
“This change fostered a more dynamic approach to product development and feedback, and it encouraged constant evolution and learning within the teams,” Savage tells me.
His two-pizza teams consist of product managers, designers, tech leads, and engineers. At their core, they work like a small business within a business.
“The key to innovation is building these small teams that work the way a startup can — in fast sprints,” he says.
That's the how. But what I find most interesting is the why: Before, Savage says his employees consistently pitched bulletproof, data-driven projects — but the instinct-driven items, often based on limited customer feedback, were ignored.
“The ideas might've had very little data, so they were never at the top of the list,” he says. “But it turns out some of those ideas were the most impactful. It's completely changed Wistia as a business.”
If your employees are endlessly updating internal docs and polishing fancy slide decks to pitch to leadership, you might want to ask: Is all of this getting in the way of driving bigger impact?
