Working notes from product people

Ask the people who’ve done it.

A free, searchable library of 1,799 of the best product-management essays, podcast episodes and posts, from Lenny Rachitsky, Marty Cagan, Teresa Torres and seven others, that answers your questions with citations.

For PMs, founders and anyone building products

Q:
Answers quote and cite the source notes

Unofficial · not affiliated with any author · every note links to the original

Get the Daily: 5 things worth knowing in product, every weekday morning. Free.

Why not just ask ChatGPT?

Only practitioners you trust

Answers come from ten product leaders’ essays, podcasts and posts, not the open web.

Every claim is cited

Each point carries a numbered citation that links to the note and to the original essay or episode.

No outside knowledge

Ask writes only from the library, and says plainly when the library doesn’t cover your question.

Where to start

01 · Ask a questionGet a cited answer in seconds.

Type a real problem you’re stuck on: pricing, discovery, a promotion, an AI launch.

Open Ask →
02 · Learn a topicRead what the best people say.

14 topics, from strategy to pricing to AI, and 33 common questions already answered.

Browse topics → Answered questions →
03 · Get the Daily5 things in product management today.

Every weekday morning, with a two-line TL;DR and a link to each original. Free; one-click unsubscribe.

Sign up at the top ↑

01 — Topics · the card catalogueBrowse by topic

Postfree essay or newsletter postPaidsubscriber post, summary onlyPodcastepisode with key learningsXpost on XHover a tag for the publication

3 more drawersBrowse all 14 topics →
Open drawer · 08

Go-to-market & sales

149 notes · 50 people · 2005–2026
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 255

How to kickstart and scale a consumer business—Step 4: Find your early adopters by doing things that don’t scale

Jul 26, 2022 · 54 min

“Welcome to part four (maybe my favorite!) of our six-part series on kickstarting and scaling a consumer business. At this point, you have your startup idea, a good sense of your super-specific who, and a hook. In this post, we bring it all together to go find your first 1,000 users. If you’re just joining us, here’s where we are at, and what’s ahead: - Step 1: INSIGHT: Come up with your idea - Step 2: AUDIENCE: Identify your…”

Lenny’s Podcast134 min

An inside look at Figma’s unique GTM motion

Claire Butler · Sep 7, 2023
Key learnings
  • Focus go-to-market on the individual contributors who use your product daily; their love and advocacy spread the product into…
  • Keep the free tier generous, such as unlimited collaborators on a starter team, so teams can adopt and build confidence before…
  • Early on, treat metrics as weak signal; look for a few users who love the product and are excited to play with it, rather than…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 73

GTM motions of 30 B2B SaaS companies

Aug 24, 2021 · 12 min
Subscriber post — summary only

Lenny Rachitsky analyzes how 30 fast-growing B2B SaaS companies chose their go-to-market motions, covering product-led versus sales-led approaches, top-down versus bottom-up targeting, and which market segments they…

@hnshah · Hiten Shah on X♥ 35
To the founder who can suddenly build almost anything Product marketing is about to matter a lot more. Software has become dramatically cheaper to make. A small team can ship in weeks what used to take a much larger team months. AI can help with research, design, code, support,
Lenny’s Podcast97 min

"Sell the alpha, not the feature": The enterprise sales playbook for $1M to $10M ARR

Jen Abel · Nov 9, 2025
Key learnings
  • Founder-led sales is a competitive advantage because founders are the visionary and can spot budding insights that salespeople…
  • Write cold outreach that leads with relevance, a counterintuitive insight, and the problem rather than the solution, kept to…
  • Before buying tools, manually find and write thoughtful notes to about 30 prospects; use the response pattern to refine messaging…
Lenny’s Podcast100 min

What world-class GTM looks like in 2026

Jeanne Grosser · Nov 30, 2025
Key learnings
  • Treat go-to-market as an integrated lifecycle spanning marketing, sales, customer success, and support, mapping the jobs to be…
  • Expect the buyer experience of being sold to to become a differentiator, so design the sales journey as a distinctive, valuable…
  • Frame value around avoiding pain and reducing risk, since many buyers purchase to avoid downside rather than chase upside…
Lenny’s Podcast75 min

Founder-led sales

Pete Kazanjy · Dec 15, 2022
Key learnings
  • Founders should personally run sales first, since outsourcing it early breaks the feedback loop on whether the product and…
  • Build a repeatable sales motion before hiring: aim for roughly a 15-25% conversion from first meeting to customer across cohorts…
  • Iterate on your pitch continuously: after each objection, update slides, talk tracks, and collateral so the next cohort of…
@hnshah · Hiten Shah on X♥ 24
AI makes bad product marketing look finished. That’s the part I don’t trust. A competitive brief can sound current while leaning on an old source. Positioning can sound sharp even when the logic underneath is a guess. A battlecard can look complete and still fail the rep who

02 — FrameworksModels, annotated.

All frameworks →

03 — PeopleWho wrote the notes.

All 10 people →

04 — QuestionsAnswered from the notes.

All 33 questions →

Where notes come from

NewsletterLenny’s Newsletter110 free posts, with a longer excerpt.
Subscriber postsSummary only233 paid posts: our summary, at most two short quotes, and a link.
PodcastLenny’s Podcast323 episodes, each with 5–8 key learnings and timestamps.
EssaysSVPG · The Beautiful Mess499 essays from Marty Cagan and John Cutler.
Substack & blogsShreyas · Julie · Jason · Hiten577 essays and posts from independent writers.
XPosts on product66 posts, filtered for product relevance.