Lenny’s Podcast91 min
Judd Antin · Jan 4, 2024
Key learnings- Much research sits in a 'middle range' of questions that are interesting but rarely drive business decisions; push for macro…
- Integrate researchers from the beginning of product processes rather than calling them in at the end as a service function; their…
- Watch for 'user-centered performance': late-stage requests to validate assumptions or check boxes that signal customer obsession…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 300
Jan 2, 2024 · 21 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky compiles favorite life mottos shared by podcast guests, asking them for a motto they return to often. The post is a collection of short inspirational sayings and the reflections behind them, intended as…
Lenny’s Podcast122 min
Nir Eyal · Dec 29, 2023
Key learnings- Distraction is mostly driven by internal discomfort such as boredom, anxiety, or fatigue rather than external pings, so identify…
- Use the 10-minute rule: when tempted to drift, set a 10-minute timer, return to the task or ride out the urge, and treat it as…
- Replace to-do lists with a calendar: time-box traction activities (work, family, health, rest) in advance so anything outside…
Lenny’s Podcast128 min
Sarah Tavel · Dec 27, 2023
Key learnings- Pick one core action that defines an engaged user and track it as your North Star, rather than vanity metrics like MAUs or…
- Build the product so it gets better the more it is used and users have more to lose by leaving, which drives retention.
- Design network effects and re-engagement loops so that each user's activity pulls in and re-activates others without extra effort.
Lenny’s Podcast120 min
Christian Idiodi · Dec 21, 2023
Key learnings- Earn trust as a PM by becoming the most knowledgeable person on customers, data and the business, and by asking experts to teach…
- Frame PM success as earning a 'certificate of appreciation' from customers: revenue, engagement, loyalty, or referrals.
- Recognize that value is the hardest and most overlooked risk; test whether customers will actually buy, choose, and use the…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 560
Dec 19, 2023 · 21 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny explains first-principles thinking as a beginner's-mind method: question assumptions, dig to the source, and rebuild problems from fundamental truths instead of copying analogies. He illustrates it with examples…
Lenny’s Podcast150 min
Jason Fried · Dec 17, 2023
Key learnings- Software businesses have very low physical costs, so bootstrapping can be practical; treat cash flow and profit as the core skill…
- Venture-scale is an outlier path; most viable businesses sit in the large space between small and unicorn, so consider whether…
- Keep teams small and products simple; Fried argues constraints and a single product offering prevent the complexity that comes…
Lenny’s Podcast142 min
Matthew Dicks · Dec 15, 2023
Key learnings- Build every story around one five-second moment of transformation or realization, and make the rest of the story context that…
- Start stories as close to the end as possible, because the ending moment determines what you need to say and where to begin.
- Apply the dinner test: tell stories the way you would at a dinner table, only slightly elevated, without performance tricks like…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 231
Dec 12, 2023 · 11 min
“The end of the year is nigh, and as I do every year (here’s 2021 and 2022), I’ve revisited every single past post and podcast episode (over 400 of them!) and picked out the cream of the crop, organized by their job-to-be-done. This post is now the single best way to find my best stuff across both the newsletter and podcast. What this collection can help you with: 1. I want to hone my product skills 2. I want to grow my product 3. Help…”
Lenny’s Podcast108 min
Kim Scott · Dec 10, 2023
Key learnings- Radical candor means caring personally while challenging directly; missing the first yields obnoxious aggression, missing the…
- Don't ask 'Do you have any feedback for me?'; instead ask a specific question like 'What could I do or stop doing that would make…
- Give feedback immediately, in person or by phone rather than text or Slack, and use context, observation, result, next step…
Lenny’s Podcast89 min
Anuj Rathi · Dec 7, 2023
Key learnings- Design onboarding for the next-state user, treating new users as lazy, vain, and selfish, and carry the same value proposition…
- Pick one clear value proposition and follow it through the full journey instead of presenting everything the product does at once…
- Use working backwards PR FAQs not just for customer value but to align GTM, pricing, legal, and engineering timelines, and to…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 121
Dec 5, 2023 · 18 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky profiles Saturn, a calendar-centered social app for high school students that became a top App Store performer. The post draws five lessons from its founders on building viral consumer social products…
Lenny’s Podcast125 min
Ebi Atawodi · Dec 3, 2023
Key learnings- A vision should describe a picture of the future state, be lofty yet attainable, be free of today's technical limits, and be…
- Distinguish vision from mission: the vision is what the destination looks like, while the mission is the purpose and guiding…
- Write the vision as a 'once upon a time' story (current problem, a turning point, and the resulting changed world), or write the…
Lenny’s Podcast67 min
Inbal S · Dec 1, 2023
Key learnings- Engineers using AI tools need to shift from writing code to systems and architecture thinking, which lets junior developers spend…
- Don't adopt AI for its own sake; start from the customer problem and ask how AI can best solve it, rather than asking what to do…
- AI tools must fade into the background: any extra setup, asking, or waiting adds friction and developers will abandon the tool.
Lenny’s Podcast26 min
Interview Q Compilation · Nov 29, 2023
Key learnings- Ask 'To what do you attribute your success?' and watch for self-awareness and curiosity rather than an answer like 'luck' (Eeke…
- Ask 'What's the hardest thing you've ever done?' to learn how a candidate defines difficulty, how they overcame it, and how much…
- Use the teleportation-device 'Eigenquestion' exercise: candidates may ask only two questions, then must plan, revealing how they…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 213
Nov 28, 2023 · 15 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyBobby Pinero, CEO of Equals, recounts how adding a freemium plan and removing onboarding friction initially spiked user counts but then stalled engagement, retention, and revenue. The team reversed course by…
Lenny’s Podcast115 min
Tom Conrad · Nov 26, 2023
Key learnings- Choose where to work by the people you'd collaborate with, not just the product; your satisfaction tracks team relationships more…
- Trust your gut about a team's values and working style early; Conrad says he has consistently sensed mismatches before joining…
- Build a model of the whole business equation (investment in, returns out, over a time horizon) so you can see which levers have…
Lenny’s Podcast74 min
Paul Millerd · Nov 19, 2023
Key learnings- Notice whether you're consciously choosing your default path or simply inheriting it, including implicit contracts like working…
- Take a three-hour block during a workday, go for an aimless walk or revisit a childhood activity, and notice what emerges and…
- Ask yourself why you work beyond money, and examine the cultural scripts behind your answer about being a good person.
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 97
Nov 14, 2023 · 16 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky surveys about 30 companies on when they hired their first product manager, finding the typical wait was two to three years, often before product-market fit. The post shows that someone always does PM…
Lenny’s Podcast108 min
Ramesh Johari · Nov 9, 2023
Key learnings- Marketplaces sell the removal of friction (transaction costs) rather than the underlying goods, and both sides are customers who…
- Don't build a marketplace before you have one: early on, find a bespoke value proposition that solves a real problem (e.g…
- Apply a scaled-liquidity smell test: if you don't have a lot of buyers and sellers, you're not yet a marketplace; if one side is…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 225
Nov 7, 2023 · 13 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyThe post introduces DRICE, a two-stage prioritization method for product and growth teams. It starts with RICE scoring (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) to build a shortlist, then applies a deeper 30-minute DRICE…
Lenny’s Podcast113 min
Maggie Crowley · Nov 5, 2023
Key learnings- Great PMs simplify relentlessly: find the one thing to do and stick with it long enough to actually finish it.
- Read your documents out loud and cut anything complicated; if you can say it in conversation, write it that way.
- Follow up on results after launches by setting calendar reminders to check metrics weeks and months later, and share what you…
Lenny’s Podcast109 min
Bill Carr · Nov 2, 2023
Key learnings- Start product decisions from the customer's real problem and work backwards to the required solution, rather than starting from…
- Avoid compound metrics that blend several numbers into one index; track each important metric individually so you can see which…
- Organize teams around a single-threaded leader who owns the people, resources and roadmap for a durable area, rather than…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 204
Oct 31, 2023 · 11 min
Jake Fuentes, co-founder of Cascade, reflects on the lessons from shutting down his B2B data-visualization startup after four years. He argues that failure rarely gets studied carefully, and that several decisions which…
Lenny’s Podcast193 min
Eric Ries · Oct 29, 2023
Key learnings- Treat a startup as an experiment: state the hypothesis, identify the leap-of-faith assumptions, and design the cheapest test that…
- An MVP is defined by the hypothesis being tested, not by a fixed level of stripped-down quality; it can be a brochure, a…
- Quality is defined by the customer, so teams that don't know their customer can't really know what a quality bar means; get early…
Lenny’s Podcast102 min
Paul Adams · Oct 26, 2023
Key learnings- Before redesigning a product for AI, start from the core premise: why people use it and what problem it solves, then map what AI…
- Treat AI as a strategic shift rather than a feature; Intercom ripped up its strategy and rebuilt from first principles after the…
- Build real machine learning depth on the team, but spread AI skills across product teams instead of isolating AI work in a…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 197
Oct 24, 2023 · 31 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky closes his seven-part B2B series by answering how long reaching $1M ARR typically takes, which growth channels scale B2B companies, and when and how much to charge. He draws on interviews with founders…
Lenny’s Podcast132 min
Gina Gotthilf · Oct 19, 2023
Key learnings- Anchor the company in a mission people can rally behind; it helps with organic growth, hiring, and resisting short-term…
- Keep growth lean and avoid paid acquisition early, since rising CAC and dependence on paid users can become an addiction that is…
- Focus relentlessly on retention by asking whether the product delivers real value; users who find real value stick around.
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 162
Oct 17, 2023 · 17 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyApril Dunford argues that B2B buyers often choose "no decision" because purchases feel high-stakes and confusing, making indecision the real competitor. She proposes a two-part sales pitch: a setup that teaches the…
Lenny’s Podcast113 min
Katie Dill · Oct 15, 2023
Key learnings- Beauty and functionality are not opposites; beauty enhances usability, approachability and trust, and users read attention to…
- When joining a team, come in listening and build trust first; Katie's early team intervention taught her that people won't follow…
- Quality is a group effort: align engineering, product and design on shared standards, and use an editor or architect to ensure…