Recently the case was made that Amazon has one of the best venture portfolios of all time. It takes VC level swings on projects it self funds. And when they pay off - they pay off big time. Ben Gilbert encapsulated this idea by saying, “AWS is a venture bet in their portfolio that they own 100% of.” In another world, AWS would have bee...

Two caveats here (always a fun way to start an article): • I’m not trying to make any type of statement with this one. People can and should each do their research on Ed Snowden. The same thing goes for Joe Rogan. I’m not sharing my opinion on either person just some things I found interesting. More than anything sharing some tangentia...

In 2006 Creative Technologies sued Apple.The reason for the suit? Apple allegedly stole ideas and designs that led to the iPod. The case was eventually settled for $100 million. In another act of borrowing, Apple added a mouse to their computers after Steve Jobs saw one at Xerox PARC. To be fair Apple did change the mouse up, theirs ha...

When a market looks homogenous and saturated, how can you stand out? How do you differentiate your product to carve out market share? These were the questions asked by companies trying to get into video hosting in the early 2000's. At the time YouTube had begun to assert its dominance in the space. It was the first video platform to al...

I enjoyed this breakdown of Apple’s audio strategy from Aakash Gupta. The level of long-term product strategy and execution at Apple is hard to match. What struck me was the amount of added value Apple drove for consumers by combining products. Any of the products in its music ecosystem (Beats, AirPods, iPhone, Apple Music) would have ...

In the last two years I have written 46 blog posts. 20% are about Amazon or reference them. I’m more obsessed with Amazon than I ever thought I would be. (My bank account and mailman can verify this). Considering how they have shaped multiple industries, they deserve to have a lot written about them. Experimentation has been core to bo...

Kevin Weil is my newest product hero. He came from outside of product and technology. But hard work, focus, and determination led him to success. At a rapid pace he landed leadership roles at Twitter, Instagram, and now Planet. I had somehow missed his career and product leadership until recently. But once I heard him on 20VC, I had to...

What if there was an algorithm for success in your career? Navigating your career can often feel like wandering through a maze. There are countless paths and options you could take. It's hard to know where to turn and when to choose a different path. With the acceleration in AI, you may soon be able to have an algorithm that can tell y...

Hulu and YouTube are great case studies in why having a clear strategy matters. They are an even more interesting example because they chose opposite strategies. Despite both being streaming platforms, they chose strategies that fit their unique needs and constraints. In the early days of Hulu you were likely to discover that more show...

This past week I was working through a product problem with a few other people. I knew little about the space. And the problem was a bit abstract. When we started talking I kinda felt like this guy: Starting from scratch and with only a few data points to go on, we spent some time talking it out. After 30 minutes or so it felt like we ...

BUSINESS IS WAR! Or is it? This topic causes me to feel a lot of dissonance. On one hand Snowflake and its leader who I admire, Frank Slootman, attest that business is war. It is what drives their success and what has made them a leader in the world of data and SaaS. But, I am also a huge fan of Basecamp (aka 37signals) and their leade...

I was doom scrolling Twitter when this tweet stopped my thumb in its tracks. This one story encapsulates the struggle of healthcare better than I ever could. This is why healthcare is so hard. During undergrad, my focus (and the focus of many others) was engaging and empowering patients. We were looking for the key to unlock patient pa...

"You're not succinct..." "You don't communicate clearly..." "You rambled on and didn't get your point across.." (I know what you are thinking, this is exactly the type of feedback you would want to hear after a job interview.) A few years ago this was what I was hearing. It was hard to hear, but I thrive on feedback like that. When I k...

When I was 6 I tried jumping my bike off a homemade ramp and hurt my hand… When I was 15 I got hit in the face and my chin split open to the bone… When I was 27 I was at the gym when my bicep ruptured… When I was 31 I fell off a ladder and hurt both of my legs… This isn’t about how clumsy I am (that post would be much longer)… When I w...

There are a lot of product people that I admire and aspire to be like: friends, coworkers, and big names in the space. But for me, the best model for a career in product is Tony Fadell. Among his accomplishments are: the iPod, the iPhone, Nest, and 300+ patents. Having just one of those on your resume would be enough to declare victory...

A few weeks ago I wrote about thinking like a brewer, if you want to build a strong product company. But what should you do if you want to build a platform company. You should think like someone providing electricity to brewers. This concept was one of the inspirations for Jeff Bezos and Amazon when they launched AWS. He saw brewers in...

“If you build it they will come”… Turns out this is true for farmers building baseball diamonds in fields to attract ghosts. But sadly it is not true for providers trying to get patients into their practice. Patient engagement is a case where simply setting up shop isn’t enough. You have to put in lots of work, at every phase of the jo...

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...