Mariona Dotras Perales
“Compliance shouldn't feel like a tax on getting things done.”
Identity & Background
- Name
- Mariona Dotras Perales
- Current role
- Product Manager
- Current company
- Spendesk
- Location
- Barcelona
- Years in product
- 6 years
Your story: how did you end up in product?
I started in marketing while I was in my second year at university. At some point, our CPO saw something in me and moved me into product growth and analytics. That's where I really got into how people use a product, not just how we sell it. Becoming a PM was the next step, and honestly I haven't looked back.
Core PM Philosophy
How do you define product success?
Adoption and activation. If people aren't using the product, nothing else really matters. And it's usually smarter to invest in keeping and expanding the customers you already have than in chasing new ones, so I trust the signals that tell me users are getting value early.
What's your decision-making philosophy?
I talk to people, so many people, all the time. Customers who use the product, churned ones, and outbound to reach people who don't use it yet. Then I try to land on a clear problem statement before thinking about any solution. If the problem is well defined, the solution tends to follow.
What's your biggest PM lesson or mistake?
Not pushing back on management when I knew the direction was wrong. Turns out a polite "yes" can be the most expensive word in product. It happened when we poorly chose a provider I knew it wasn't the best choice and in the end we had to roll back the whole project 6 months after launching. Now I say it early and bring the evidence with me. If we go a different way anyway, fine, but at least it was a decision and not something we drifted into.
Product & Decision-Making
How do you do customer discovery and validation?
I ask about what people actually did the last time the problem came up, how they solve it today and what it costs them. I never ask "would you use this?" during discovery phases, because everyone is nice and will tell you it's great, which is lovely for the ego and useless for the roadmap. I only trust something when I hear it repeated across different customers, including the ones who left.
What's your favorite product you've shipped?
The procurement workflows engine in one of my previous jobs. Nobody dreams of working in procurement as a kid, but buying things inside a company is messy and involves a lot of people, so making it feel smooth was a real challenge. I'm proud of it because we started from how people actually buy, not from how the process looks on paper since most of the time, there's not even a paper.
What product inspires you?
Omnea and Revolut. They're clear leaders in their space and they're really focused on the user. They take something complicated and make it feel easy and appealing, who would've thought that someone would be thrilled about purchasing or opening their bank app? To me, that's success.
AI & the Future
How is AI changing product management?
It takes away the tasks that don't add value, and I'm not going to pretend I miss them. I stay more up to date on competitors and trends, and I can execute faster, which gives me more room to keep building product perspective. What doesn't change is critical thinking. AI will happily give you a confident answer, so the risk is believing it too quickly.
What's one thing about AI everyone gets wrong?
That you have to put AI in everything. You don't. Sometimes classic ML is enough, and sometimes you don't need either, just a good rule or a better flow or better UX. The question I always start with is what real problem we're solving, and only then which tool fits. AI is great when it's the right answer, but "because it's AI" is not a reason to build anything.
Beliefs & Opinions
What's your unpopular product opinion?
Churned customers teach you more than happy ones. Happy customers tell you what to keep. The ones who left tell you what's actually broken, and they have no reason to be polite about it.
Company & Product
What does your product solve?
We're a spend management platform, and I work on the procurement module. The goal is to make purchasing as smooth as possible, so nobody has to chase an approval over three different chats. In short, helping companies spend smartly.
What's the biggest misconception about it?
That procurement is just approvals. It's so much more. It's managing the expectations of whoever is asking for a purchase, building the relationship with suppliers and spotting opportunities to negotiate. And a big part of it is turning tedious processes into a happy path, so buying something doesn't feel like a quest.
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