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

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Answers quote and cite the source notes

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

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

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

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01 · Ask a questionGet a cited answer in seconds.

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02 · Learn a topicRead what the best people say.

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

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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 · 01

Product strategy & vision

618 notes · 122 people · 2005–2026
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 193

How to know if you've got product-market fit

Jan 28, 2020 · 8 min

““The only thing that matters is getting to product-market fit.” —Marc Andreessen I’ve noticed that most people (including myself) have only a vague grasp on what product-market fit actually is. And even fewer people are going after it in a systematic way. For my own benefit if nothing else, last year I began collecting the best descriptions of PMF that I could find across Twitter, podcasts, books, and blog posts. Below, I’ve put…”

Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 199

Positioning

Jan 26, 2021 · 18 min
Subscriber post — summary only

April Dunford gives a practical guide to product positioning, using a story about a mispositioned database product to show how context shapes customer assumptions. She argues positioning should be built by starting from…

Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 171

Getting better at product strategy

Sep 8, 2020 · 13 min
Subscriber post — summary only

Lenny walks through how his Airbnb team turned a problem of rejected booking requests into an 'Instant Book' strategy that grew instant bookings from about 5% to over 80%. He breaks strategy into three steps…

@lissijean · Melissa Perri on X♥ 9
Product teams need to think like investors—understand the real cost, focus on ROI, and balance risk to drive outcomes. Fabrice des Mazery, former CPO at TheFork, shares how shifting to an investment mindset leads to smarter decisions and impact. Listen:
Lenny’s Podcast122 min

Vision, conviction, and hype: How to build 0 to 1 inside a company

Mihika Kapoor · Apr 21, 2024
Key learnings
  • Build a vision that ties together a user pain point, a proposed solution, and a proof point such as a testimonial or prototype…
  • Pull research, design, and engineering feasibility into the vision early so it reflects what users feel and what the team can…
  • Lean on prototypes and mocks before a project gets approved; seeing and feeling the future often persuades more than…
Lenny’s Podcast85 min

5 essential questions to craft a winning strategy

Roger Martin · Jul 25, 2024
Key learnings
  • Strategy is an integrated set of choices that compels desired customer action, since customers are the one thing a company cannot…
  • Work through the five cascade questions together: winning aspiration, where to play, how to win, required capabilities, and…
  • Winning requires being either differentiated or lowest cost; without one of those, competitors can keep pushing you back step by…
@ttorres · Teresa Torres on X♥ 9
The supermarket shelf used to hold maybe 1,000 SKUs. Now it can hold 10,000, because AI makes it just as easy to build the wrong thing as the right one. Brian (Aha!) argues this is exactly where product managers earn their keep: strategy and discovery decide what deserves a spot on the shelf…

02 — FrameworksModels, annotated.

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03 — PeopleWho wrote the notes.

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04 — QuestionsAnswered from the notes.

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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.