Being new to product you want to dive right in and solve everything now. An enthusiastic mindset is definitely a good thing, but it needs to be tempered with realism and thoroughness. One of my product mentors gave me some advice for how to approach product management with this balance in mind. They said “See step 10 (the vision), focu...

I had originally put this together after reading both Inspired and Continuous Discovery Habits. The intent being to highlight that we have the ability to de-risk an idea, starting from the moment it is conceived. In the discovery phase we do that through assumptions testing. And then assuming something is selected to be worked, we do s...

“Does it make the beer taste better?” A helpful analogy for knowing when to build or buy… In the past starting a brewery in Europe was a from scratch proposition. You had to do all the activities you’d expect like sourcing ingredients and hiring help. But you also had to do everything else, up to and including generating your own power...

Netflix. Spotify. And maybe Peloton? What do these 3 companies have in common aside from having industry shifting business models? It’s the man behind those models. He helped Netflix figure out subscriptions. He developed Spotify’s ad business and oversaw their direct listing. And now Peloton hopes he can lead them to long-term success...

Can you learn any useful career lessons while eating breakfast at an airport Burger King? Turns out you can if you mix luck with awareness. In 2009 I left home on a service mission for my church. This story isn’t about how I spent the two years of that mission. It is about one odd event that started it off. I was at the Salt Lake airpo...

Before we go down the rabbit hole of value, one thing to consider, value delivery is key to product development, it is not everything. In fact we can sometimes go too far in our quest for value. As a foil to my thoughts below, go read this article on another way to think about value in product. My friend Eric wrote it, and it is one of...

I’ve been off for awhile with a new baby, but slowly getting back into the swing of things. Look for some new content coming in the next weeks focused on: vendor management, build vs buy, product prioritization and advocacy in product management. But the big thing to talk about today is Shape Up. I just finished re-reading the book and...

Prioritization Methods have been something that I have had a hard time nailing down. It seems like everyone has a different approach and they are all touted as being the standard. Through lots of trial and error, I’ve come to land on Value vs Effort being the best approach. It let’s you quickly determine what to build and how to priori...

Two interesting ideas to deep dive on as you grow your product and customer base: 1. What are the North Star metrics and actions you should be tracking in your product? There are nearly limitless things you can track but what you should be tracking are the things that make you sticky. What takes a user to a super user? What makes your ...

Marty Cagan recently posted about the right "getting started" package of books for those interested in product. And those wanting to become stronger product people. The lineup was two of his books Inspired and Empowered, along with Teresa Torres' Continuous Discovery Habits. I have read the first two and am working through the 3rd righ...

"Today is August 17, 2021, which marks exactly 40 years since I began my career in tech, as a new software engineer on August 17, 1981. At a milestone like this, it’s hard not to reflect a little on your career, and the broader tech industry... I believe I can recall major learnings from every one of those 40 years." Marty Cagan recent...

I wrote about Working Backwards awhile ago. Just recently I heard a great podcast about this concept from Rocketship.fm. Michael Sacca & Mike Belsito interview Amazon veterans/experts Bill Carr & Colin Bryar on what Working Backwards is and why it has made Amazon so successful. Well worth a listen to hear how the approach has worked at...

I heard an incredible decision making framework today. Justin Jackson talked about it on the Build Your SaaS podcast. The idea is simple but powerful. You ground all of your decisions in your values and then have a predetermined set of "challenge questions" (my words) that you test your decisions against. These are things like how will...

"Watch the bartender" This was Jack Dorsey's way of explaining Square. They took all the things that interfered with the bartender interacting with the customer and built a product to remove those barriers. Ibrahim Bashir shares this real world example and numerous others related to customer feedback in a packed episode of the ProdPad ...

"If your guiding principle embodies a specific insight, it will guide you, and you'll always know if what you're doing is right... There are many ways to live your life. That's maybe the most important thing to realize in your life, that every aspect of your life is a choice. There are default choices. You can choose to sleepwalk throu...

“Working Backwards” This was a concept I had heard of before but hadn't studied much, until recently when a friend encouraged me to take a closer look. There are some great details on this approach in the annual Amazon shareholder letters: "'Working backward' from customer needs can be contrasted with a 'skills-forward' approach where ...

I was late to the world of tech & product compared to my peers; I didn't gain interest until I was halfway through grad school. So I felt like I had to play catchup, I dove in, reading books and taking courses. As I got in the real world I found myself discouraged... what I had been learning didn't match up with what I was seeing day t...

"One of the greatest weaknesses in most of us is our lack of faith in ourselves." - L. Tom Perry I have this quote written on a whiteboard that hangs in front of my desk, so that I can read it every day. I need the reminder daily, if not multiple times a day, that I can do a lot more than I would let myself believe. It seems to be huma...

My favorite customer insight of all time ⬇ As part of my deep dive into written narratives and Amazon, I have been reading through the yearly Amazon shareholder letters. This summary of the thought process behind the Kindle is mind-blowing. Where most of us would have hard-charged into doing all we could to highlight how high tech and ...

“Speed and scale are weapons and Amazon has already told everyone its secret… if only they have the discipline to implement it.” This was Bard Porter's parting shot in a discussion of how strong writing is the secret to Amazon's continued innovation and success. Since coming across this quote in Empowered I have been deep diving into t...

One of my favorite podcasts is the Stack Overflow podcast. I like it because the episodes are usually short but packed full of insights. It also does a great job of teaching business people how to work with technical people. On the last episode Paul Ford had two amazing insights that I had to call out as they were two of the coolest th...

Seems like everyone is talking about Continuous Discovery Habits right now. After finishing it for myself I can see why. It is one of the most practical and actionable books out there. You’ll want to keep this on your desk and refer to it often. There’s too much good stuff to be able to call out and highlight everything, you just need ...

How do you know if the product you built is having an impact? Or if the project you delivered was successful? Or if you are truly meeting customer’s needs? Delivery is often the focus of our work, the more we can get out into the world the better... or so we think. But where we should be putting more of our time is into measuring the i...

I just finished reading Invent and Wander which contains all the Amazon Annual Shareholder Letters. Many have called these letters a mini-MBA and after reading them I can see why. In the span of a few pages each year you see clearly how to: -be customer obsessed -use writing as a tool and weapon -develop a product mindset -use metrics ...

Empowered by Marty Cagan and Chris Jones is jam-packed with insights and tools for how to build a truly empowered product team and organization. It compiles the learnings from Silicon Valley Product Group and the world's best product organizations and gives you a concise and actionable framework for emulating the way they operate and b...

Most people who know me know that I like to read a lot. I usually churn through multiple books in a month and try to take away a few key learnings from each. But I have to say, that out of all the books I've read, I cannot remember a book that has ever impacted me in the way that Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins has impacted me. It has c...

I recently finished Drive by Daniel Pink, it was an engaging read, that was difficult to put down until I was all the way through. The book highlights what we think motivates us versus what actually motivates us. It was striking how intuitive the methods for modern day motivation are but also more shocking is how often we do things cou...

Each day I take tons of actions and make lots of decisions, most of which are based off experiences I have had in the past. Things that I have seen and done before, become references for how I tackle similar challenges now. I have been thinking about this a lot lately and realized that while I rely on this store of experience every day...

I have spent much of this week reflecting on all the good that has happened to me lately, both recently and throughout my life. The big realization was how little I actually contributed to my own good fortune, the majority of it was the work of other or luck. I owe so much to my parents who supported me early in life and helped me beli...

My whole life I have been deeply interested in Technology, paying attention to trends and keeping up on the latest news. I was drawn to it but at the same time didn't know how to get started in technology for myself. I went to grad school thinking I would spend my career working in business and admin. I quickly learned that it was not ...