Writer of Lenny's Newsletter and host of Lenny's Podcast.
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…
“Hello, I’m Lenny and welcome to afree monthly editionof my weekly newsletter. Each week I humbly tackle reader questions about product, growth, working with humans, and anything else that’s stressing you out at the office. If you’re not a paid subscriber, here’s what you missed this month: 1. How to increase retention 2. Flywheels, flywheels, flywheels 3. Navigating your early career Q: I raised a small seed round, and I’m now thinking…”
This paid post explains how to measure retention using cohort analysis, including how to read cohort charts for trends and for signs of flattening that indicate product-market fit. It then previews a framework of seven…
Lenny explains how to measure retention using cohort charts, and why a curve that flattens signals product-market fit. He then lays out seven levers for improving retention, ranked by expected impact: improving the…
Lenny answers a reader's question about how to build a business 'flywheel,' a visual model of which business elements reinforce each other to accelerate growth. He explains how to brainstorm one from assets, actions…
Lenny Rachitsky shares five strategies from his own early career for people in their 20s deciding on roles, quitting jobs, and new ventures. He argues against over-optimizing for resume checkboxes, follows interests…
This edition of Lenny Rachitsky's newsletter answers a reader question by curating his favorite product management templates and frameworks in one place. The collection spans 1-pagers and PRDs, business and team…
The post examines how fast-growing B2B companies converted early free users into paying customers. It maps three early go-to-market strategies (bottom-up self-service, bottom-up with inside sales, and outbound sales)…
This post examines how fast-growing B2B startups converted their first users into paying customers, grouping them into three early sales motions: bottom-up self-service, bottom-up with inside sales, and outbound…
Lenny Rachitsky addresses the tension managers face between incorporating team input and making firm decisions themselves. He argues that managers must often overrule their teams, and offers five strategies to balance…
A guest-written post in which an SEO leader lays out a strategy for an early-stage company to compete with entrenched incumbents: build many valuable, templated pages targeting long-tail keywords, using proprietary…
Lenny Rachitsky investigates how fast-growing B2B companies won their first ten customers, drawing on interviews and stories from firms like Figma, Stripe, Slack, Shopify and Airtable. He finds that nearly every company…
Lenny Rachitsky answers a reader struggling with frequent reorgs, arguing they can accelerate careers and offering five tactical moves to position yourself for bigger roles. He then brings in executive coach Katherine…
Lenny Rachitsky shares how he evaluates marketplace business ideas after reviewing 100+ companies. He argues that founders and investors should first test the underlying business against seven core criteria…
Lenny Rachitsky answers an investor's question about evaluating marketplace ideas by arguing that the business fundamentals matter more than the marketplace structure itself. The free preview lays out the first several…
Lenny answers a reader's question about having separate design and engineering roadmaps, arguing that cross-functional teams should converge on one source-of-truth roadmap. He outlines the core benefits of a shared…
Lenny Rachitsky and Casey Winters surveyed 20 experienced growth practitioners to define what good and great retention looks like across business types. They asked for benchmarks on user retention at six months and net…
Lenny Rachitsky shares advice, drawn from researcher Matt Gallivan, on which questions to ask users to judge product-market fit. He recommends a survey for 100+ active users and interviews for smaller bases, while…
Lenny answers a reader question on how to split effort across conversion levers (focus, motivation, friction) and which tends to pay off most. He shares rules of thumb such as starting wide, mining past wins, and mixing…
Lenny Rachitsky answers a reader who must deliver bad news after inheriting a six-month onboarding overhaul that performed worse on metrics than the old flow. He argues the key is imagining you are the decision-maker…
Lenny Rachitsky surveys how major consumer apps acquired their first 1,000 users, drawing on founder interviews, books, and public accounts from companies like Tinder, Uber, Dropbox, Pinterest, and Airbnb. He distills…
A Q&A post offering advice for someone becoming a startup's first product manager. Drawing on interviews with people who held that role at well-known companies, it covers when to make the first PM hire and what the job…
Lenny Rachitsky argues that a product leader's core job is aligning everyone on the same direction, and that goals are the tool for this. He places goals in a chain from mission to vision to strategy to goals to…
Lenny Rachitsky lays out a framework for setting team and company goals, placing goals between strategy and roadmap as the way to measure whether strategy is working. He covers the traits of a good goal, how to pick a…
Lenny Rachitsky shares five practical time-management tactics for product managers, who often lack clear deadlines and drown in shallow work. He argues for scheduling protected deep-work blocks, keeping a trusted to-do…
Lenny Rachitsky answers a reader question on turning existing website traffic into customers, arguing that conversion work is one of the highest-return investments a growth team can make once acquisition channels are…
Lenny Rachitsky announces that his product newsletter, started as a side project after leaving Airbnb, is becoming a paid subscription business. Paid subscribers will get weekly, more in-depth editions, priority answers…
Lenny Rachitsky answers a reader question about growth and retention during the 2020 coronavirus downturn by compiling advice from growth operators, investors, and HBR. The core argument is that founders should first…
Lenny answers a reader whose startup grew to four PMs and who worries the team is drifting out of sync. He argues a PM team meeting can be one of the most valuable recurring meetings, but only if it has a clear purpose…
Lenny answers a reader who is joining a team with a history of underperformance, arguing that a turnaround is both risky and a strong career opportunity. He advises setting expectations with the manager early, since…