5 Turing Fest talks that will help you win business in 2025
The best way to predict the future is to learn the lessons of the past.
At Turing Fest, we've seen first-hand how the most valuable business lessons are the ones that stand the test of time. For years, we've brought together top tech minds to share the strategies, insights, and stories behind their success — giving you a front-row seat to what truly drives innovation and growth.
If you're looking for a spark of inspiration and strategies you can put into action, we've handpicked 5 standout Turing Fest talks that will help you shape your business and thrive in 2025. Grab your notepad and let's dive in!
1. John Cutler: 5 Essential Product Habits (That Every Team Should Learn And Do)
Instead of resolutions, John Cutler, PM legend, author of The Beautiful Mess is coming to you from 2023 to talk about developing habits. John asserts that you absolutely need to develop habits that continuously generate momentum and do away with unnecessary frameworks. These habits include: having meaningful conversations with customers from which actionable decisions emerge, refining your story everyday, developing stepping stones for collective action, and celebrating the wins.
"It's not genius. It's reps." You heard the man.
2. April Dunford: Using Strategic Positioning to Unlock Growth in Noisy Markets
"Positioning defines how our product is the best in the world at delivering something of value that a well defined set of customers cares a lot about."
April Dunford, positioning expert, author of Obviously Awesome! walks us through how categorising your product can give you a huge advantage over your competition — you just have to do the slog of differentiation and that requires really knowing your product and examining the problem it solves.
(Once you've watched her talk, we highly recommend checking out April's book, Obviously Awesome: You Know Your Product is Awesome - But Does Anybody Else?)
3. Joanna Lord: How to Operationalise Growth for Maximum Revenue
"You've got to be willing to put in the time and take away from the roadmap to invest in the future."
Joanna Lord, CMO at Spring Health cuts through the BS with this hard hitting analysis of what it takes to operate for growth. She talks about investing in the views that matter, decentralising growth, letting go of what you think is precious, playing to your advantage, and testing to make your business case.
"I don't think any of us believe anymore that growth is just about tactics. It just isn't. It's more complicated than that. It's about an operational machine."
4. Des Traynor: What We've Learned From Scaling to 0-25k+ Paying Customers
"The most common advice I give young startups whether I'm investing in them or advising them or they're just asking me - or they show up at my house for some reason - is some version of when you're picking your product area, your product area has to be viable, feasible, and desirable," says Des Traynor, co-founder at Intercom at his 2018 Turing Fest talk.
Not as easy as it sounds: founders, according to Traynor, have to also be strict with product boundaries, make sure their teams are aligned with the company mission, have a marketing plan that works backwards, know their direct and indirect competitors, test effectively and know how to scale without adding a zillion features that are impossible to market.
An easy start to the year, when you think about it.
5. Nandini Jammi: Sleeping Giants and The Era of Brand Safety
While you're making money, it's important that you safeguard your brand so that trend continues.
Nandini Jammi's talk is as relevant today as it was in 2019 — she introduces us to and walks us through the spectrum of consequences in the era of "Answerability", where companies have two choices: to make house rules or to wing it. Because when it comes to responding to highly controversial topics, movements and political mine fields, ignorance, she demonstrates, is not an option.
The brand safety advocate, keynote speaker and trailblazer lays out the case for why companies are better off with a plan of action and getting comfortable making judgment calls.
Want more? Browse the full Turing Fest talk library