John Stokvis

October 30, 2025

Shreyas Doshi’s World-class Product Sense — in Practice, 18 months on

This is not a review of Shreyas’ course. I already wrote one of those over a year ago. I’d hesitate to even call this a reflection.

Let’s call it a signpost (no pun intended).


I’m not trying to convince anyone. The course is either right for you or it’s not.

If it’s right for you and you haven’t signed up yet, these ramblings might help you realize what’s holding you back.

If it’s not right for you and you’re still waffling, these ramblings might help you move on.

The WTF Moment

Lately, I’ve been discussing education with friends and coworkers a lot. I’ve noticed the discussion pauses when we discuss a particular moment in our lives. This moment seems to be universal. It happens at different times for everyone, but it always occurs. Sometimes during high school, sometimes during college, sometimes after.

At some point, everyone looks around and thinks "WTF?"

What am I learning?

How is anything I’ve been taught useful or pertinent to my life?

Geez, now I have to re-learn how things work?

I might have to unlearn some of the ways I was taught things worked???

W.T. actual. F?

That realization plants the seed of a skepticism of all education. As if anything learning-related is a scam. That you're exchanging money not for wisdom, but for the feeling of being smart, belonging to an exclusive club, or getting a credential.

Having “an education” means that others treat you as if you've learned something, but most people simultaneously know it doesn't actually mean that. Some have convinced themselves that a proof of an education (i.e. a credential) actually equals "intelligence."

When something comes along that doesn't feel like all that, it stands out. It feels different. It feels not normal.

Not Normal

The 8 days in May 2024 of Shreyas' course were unlike any other learning experience in my life. As I mentioned earlier, after the course, I wrote over 750 words about it.

Not a normal thing to do.

Instead of a credential (ok there’s a little thing you can add on LinkedIn), I came away with more confidence, more humility, more critical thinking, more perspective, more curiosity.

If you’re skimming, pause. The key takeaway from this post is:

The course didn’t give me these qualities. It clarified what was already in me.

Totally different from any other teaching situations I’ve found myself in.

In honor of the "not normalness" of that experience, I wanted to do a where-am-I-now check-in/reflection about 1 year later. After taking the course, it felt like something shifted, but with time and distance, I'll know if the feeling was fleeting or lasting.

I won't bury the lede (any more than I have). The feeling has more than lasted.

It's grown and compounded in ways I couldn't appreciate at the time. It sounds hyperbolic, but something hit an inflection point over the last year. Whatever that something is, is upstream of my career, my resilience, my ability to think clearly, my job satisfaction, my relationships to others and to myself. And I can trace the source of that change back to those 8 days.

But that’s enough about me.

What’s really important is you.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably still undecided about taking the course. Why is that?

Helpfully, Shreyas shared 9 common hesitations he tends to hear from prospective students with his community for feedback on how we would respond if we heard them.

The hesitations are Shreyas' words, distilled from responses and questions from prospective students of his course. The replies are mine.

Hesitation 1: "I am very senior & experienced so, while I understand that many people like this course, it won't actually be helpful for me"

In the immortal words of Donald Rumsfeld:

There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know.

You may feel senior and experienced, but that’s because you’re judging yourself relative to what you know. The world, even the aspects we know intimately, contains more depth and nuance than we perceive. This course taught me some skills I knew I was missing, but more than anything, it helped me see how much I didn’t know and how much farther I can go.

As Hamlet told his friend:

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

smart guy, knew what he was talking about (not Hamlet, btw)

The truly senior and experienced people don’t feel senior and experienced because they’ve developed an awareness about how vast and deep the world is and how little they understand.

Could this feeling be masking the fear that you’ll gain that same awareness?

Hesitation 2: "I have consumed everything Shreyas has posted publicly, so I won't learn anything new"

You may have read every tweet, listened to every podcast, watched every YouTube video. But can you think of any reasons why Shreyas wouldn’t post something valuable publicly?

The first thought is probably something like “he’s withholding information to make people pay for his course.” That’s a fine guess, but it’s not the reason. 

Can you think of any reasons why it would be a terrible idea to paywall information like that? 

If not, do you want to be able to think of the real reasons he doesn’t post this stuff publicly?

Hesitation 3: "I don't think Product Sense can be taught"

You’re right about this. 

It can’t be taught. It’s innate. 

You’re born with it or you’re not. More specifically, you’re born with a range. 

The peak of that range differs for everyone. 

The starting point on that range differs for everyone. 

Your ability to move up that range differs for everyone.

But product sense is like any other skill. Everyone can progress along that range to reach their potential.

Product sense can’t be taught, but it can be learned.

Do you want to know the top of your range? Do you want to get closer to it?

Hesitation 4: "I am sure the course is great, but I don't know if anyone can apply the learnings to real day to day product work"

The fundamentals are called “fundamental” because they’re the foundation on which everything else is built. We often feel tempted to skip past the basics because they seem simple and easy and we want to get to the fun, complicated stuff. The “applicable” stuff.

The problem is anything “applicable” only truly makes sense in its own context. It’s the fundamentals that truly make a difference everywhere. Listen to any master of their craft and they tend to gravitate back to mastery of the basics. 

For product builders, product sense is one of the fundamentals.

Hesitation 5: "I am not sure if this course will be worth the fees being charged"

When I think about every class I've taken, every mentorship I've had, every book I've read, every tool I've used in my entire life and stack rank them based on value gained vs. cost, this course is definitely in the top 5, arguably #1 (for context, my smartphone is also in the top 5, as is a $2 nail clipper I bought in 2007 that lasted almost 20 years).

The value I’ve gained from this course in my career and life far exceeds the full price I paid (Shreyas doesn’t do discounts). It’s easily 100x, likely 1,000x, and 10,000x is feasible.

I took it a year and a half ago, and the value will continue to compound over time for the rest of my life. If you knew you could do something that will compound in value at that kind of order of magnitude, would a $50 or even a $500 discount make any difference?

Now this is just for me and your mileage may vary. It’s up to you to decide if the ROI makes sense for you.

But here’s something to consider: the opportunity to observe and reflect on why the course is priced the way it is with no discounts is an amazing (free) lesson in many aspects of product sense: customer psychology, product positioning, perceived value, integrating product & marketing strategy, 2nd/3rd order effects, prioritization of tradeoffs.

This is going to sound weird, but consider the opportunity to think about and explore the reasons why the course is priced the way it is and (not) discounted as the discount code itself.

Meaning it will change your ROI. It may not lower the price you pay. But if it resonates, if you start to see nuances about product sense that you did not see before, it will dramatically raise the value of the course for you.

Now what if you had the ability to do that with whatever product or service you're building - to tune the way you're pricing and marketing it to encourage your best customers to self-select into using it? Is that ability worth paying an extra $50?

Hesitation 6: "I have read so many positive reviews of the course, not sure if it will live up to the hype"

It may or may not. It depends entirely on you.

Superficially, you might think something like “truly great things have broad appeal” or “if it’s popular it must be good,” but if you stop and think about it for a second, the opposite is true. For anything to be great it must be unique (for “great” is a comparative descriptor — “great” compared to what?). Being unique means making tradeoffs, differentiating. In order to accomplish A, it must sacrifice B.

The key is to know for yourself whether “A is much more important to you than B.”

So rather than paying attention to the hype, pay attention to the people hyping. Are you similar to them? Do you value similar things? Do you see the world in similar ways? Then it’s more likely to live up to the hype.

Pay attention to the detractors too! If you are similar to them, then the course will probably not live up to the hype. It’s a lot of money to spend on something that will disappoint you. 

And it’s okay if it’s not for you! It doesn’t make you bad or stupid or a failure or a sucker. Remember, anything great isn’t for everyone. If the course isn’t for you, at the very least you’ve discovered what isn’t right for you. That’s usually the first step to finding what is right for you.

If you do see similarities between all the people hyping the course and yourself, consider why they come out of the course describing it in hyperbolic terms. They are trying to describe an experience that is difficult to put into words. It is an experience that causes words to fail. After all, I’ve already written almost 2,000 words trying to describe it.

Is that an experience you want for yourself?

Hesitation 7: "I know this course is hugely valuable, but am going to wait until later this year / next year / the perfect time"

Compounding is the eighth wonder of the world.

This quote is often misattributed to Einstein or Rockefeller. It most likely originated in an ad for savings accounts.

Does that knowledge change how true you feel the statement is?

you think that's Einstein you're quoting?

It’s relatively easy to understand the power of compounding with money. 

It's harder to understand its power when it comes to knowledge.

Think about this: time is the only scarce resource you have. 

If you’re not sure the course will be valuable, that’s fine! Maybe you need some time to grow. But the truths you will encounter are not like wine. They will not ripen with time.

Some insights will smack you in the face right away. Others will reveal themselves slowly over months.

Any time spent putting off this course is time you're not giving the insight you will encounter to compound.

Hesitation 8: "I won't be able to pay the attention it requires for 8 days"

When it comes to anything meaningful in your life (relationships, friendships, children, adversity), you’ll be shocked at the reserves of patience and energy you have. 

Your ability to pay attention has little to do with how entertaining or engaging the material is and everything to do with you.

If. If. IF.

If it matters to you, you won’t be able to not pay attention.

So the real question is not “will it be engaging enough to hold my attention?”

But “am I interested enough to want to pay attention?”

Hesitation 9: "I need to grow my product & strategic intuition, but if I am being honest, I am not sure Shreyas is the right person to learn from. After all, he has never founded a successful startup, he has never been CEO or CPO, etc. etc."


If you’re not sure, that’s a good sign! It’s worth listening to and trusting your instincts. Too many look for signals outside of themselves to replace their own judgment.

That’s the thing about external signals. They are proxies for the real thing you are looking for. External signals may indicate underlying skill (but they can also be the result of luck or simply faked).

Fame, monetary success, or title are proxies. They’re not the thing itself. They’re the map, not the territory

Besides, the most popular thing is not the greatest, remember?

Why not instead look for the skill directly? 

Use your judgment.

Does what Shreyas have to say make more sense than what anyone else is saying?

Does the way in which he’s created and marketed his course indicate high levels of product and strategic intuition?

That’s it.

If you’re still not convinced, congratulations, it’s probably not right for you. You can safely let go of wanting to take it because you won’t get much out of it. 

Whew! Hopefully, that’s a weight off your shoulders. 

Because it’s not for everyone.

Nothing valuable is for everyone.

If it is for you, here’s the link.