Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 203
May 2, 2023 · 16 min
Guest author Olga Berezovsky explains the difference between correlation and linear regression analysis for product teams. Correlation measures how strongly two variables move together on a scale from -1 to 1, and is a…
Lenny’s Podcast80 min
Carilu Dietrich · Apr 30, 2023
Key learnings- Hypergrowth depends on an amazing product that people love, which spreads organically through inbound and viral word of mouth…
- To reach the C-suite, tie your work to revenue, learn how finances work, and think in terms of what the CEO and board care about.
- Take on tours of duty in other departments and volunteer for interim roles, which builds the cross-functional insight and visible…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 101
Apr 25, 2023 · 9 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky reflects on serving as juror on a weeklong criminal trial and maps courtroom dynamics onto product management. The post argues that trials offer a useful lens on soft skills like choosing the right…
Lenny’s Podcast105 min
Varun Parmar · Apr 20, 2023
Key learnings- Organize product teams around personas rather than only outcomes, and embed cross-functional roles like product marketing and…
- Treat every release as a move in the competitive game: each shipped change either improves or weakens your position relative to…
- Be the first to hit the learning wall in competitive markets, since speed of learning often determines who wins, even if that…
Lenny’s Podcast105 min
Ada Chen Rekhi · Apr 16, 2023
Key learnings- Run a curiosity loop by asking a specific, unbiased question with a rationale request, sent lightweight to 5-10 people who are…
- Avoid generic advice by making it contextual: weigh each recommendation against your own situation, skills, and experience rather…
- Use a personal values exercise to rank what matters to you, then test big decisions against that internal scorecard instead of…
Lenny’s Podcast74 min
Laura Modi · Apr 13, 2023
Key learnings- Build culture first: if the team internalizes that the supply side or users come first, growth and better tools tend to follow.
- Connect your brand to the top worries your customer already has, rather than trying to convince them they have a new problem.
- When a crisis threatens customers, be willing to pause growth, like Bobbie did by turning off its site to protect current…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 497
Apr 11, 2023 · 4 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky argues that learning to work alongside AI tools like ChatGPT is quickly becoming a baseline skill for product managers, not something that replaces them. The post surveys a dozen concrete ways PMs…
Lenny’s Podcast53 min
Shweta Shriva · Apr 9, 2023
Key learnings- Build autonomous driving to feel natural and predictable, using human driving data while discarding bad driving behavior, so…
- Expect the MVP bar to be far higher when safety is at stake, but still ship early and iterate on real-world deployment.
- Track both commercial/operational metrics (trips, active users, cost) and system behavior metrics (safety versus human…
Lenny’s Podcast77 min
Nikita Miller · Apr 6, 2023
Key learnings- Have product, design, engineering and data leaders each write expectations for their own role and for each other, then review…
- Revisit roles and responsibilities every few months, usually triggered by tension or missed work, with a quick retro when…
- Watch execution velocity and decision-making speed closely; outcomes matter, but shipping output quickly is the indicator that…
Lenny’s Podcast106 min
Hila Qu · Apr 2, 2023
Key learnings- Treat PLG as data-led growth: free products should yield broader reach plus usage data showing which features correlate with…
- Most companies end up running both PLG and sales motions; start PLG early because retrofitting it into a sales-led organization…
- Commit for a year or two and don't mistake simply opening a free trial for a PLG strategy; it requires redesigning activation…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 181
Mar 28, 2023 · 15 min
Kyle Poyar argues that product-led growth (PLG) only works economically if customer acquisition cost stays near zero, roughly under $1 per unique website visitor. Using OpenView benchmark funnel math, he shows that a…
Lenny’s Podcast65 min
Kevin Aluwi · Mar 26, 2023
Key learnings- Super apps often fail to deliver promised lower acquisition costs and higher retention unless the services share a unifying…
- Treat brand as the second most important priority after product, and build it through consistent tone across copy, ads, product…
- Embed your brand in physical reality: branded jackets and helmets worked because they visibly signaled the service to people…
Lenny’s Podcast76 min
Lulu Cheng Meservey · Mar 23, 2023
Key learnings- Make ideas spread by making them memorable and giving people a reason to repeat them, such as humor, a vivid mental image, an…
- Test a catchphrase by asking whether a second-grader could understand it immediately; avoid inside jokes that only make sense…
- Treat making mistakes of commission rather than omission as the better bet, since visible errors can be learned from while…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 265
Mar 21, 2023 · 19 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky interviews Duolingo VP of Product Cem Kansu about how the company builds product. The post covers its co-lead team structure, quarterly and yearly OKR cycles, a tiered product review process, weekly…
Lenny’s Podcast106 min
Josh Miller · Mar 19, 2023
Key learnings- Optimize for the feeling you want users to have (joy, speed, surprise, focus) and use metrics as an honesty check rather than the…
- Track one tight engagement metric that captures retention, engagement, and growth together, such as how many users return five of…
- Hire people who show up with heartfelt intensity and something to prove, then give them an ambitious prompt and get out of their…
Lenny’s Podcast99 min
Christina Wodtke · Mar 16, 2023
Key learnings- OKRs amplify a company that already has strategy, empowered teams and psychological safety; they reveal dysfunction rather than…
- Use a weekly question as the core unit: what am I doing this week to move closer to our strategic outcomes?
- Keep strategy as a half-built plan across quarters and set the detailed key results only for the current quarter.
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 235
Mar 14, 2023 · 7 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyA practical brainstorming list of growth tactics organized by funnel stage and team area: top-of-funnel acquisition (short and long term), monetization, conversion and activation, retention, and team velocity. The post…
Lenny’s Podcast119 min
Sriram and Aarthi · Mar 12, 2023
Key learnings- Meet peers across your org for coffee with no agenda, asking about their work and who else to meet; two coffees a week compounds…
- Follow up after good first meetings and check in every six months or so; most people never follow through, which wastes the…
- Put your work out publicly (threads, posts, talks, GitHub, video); it acts as a signal that attracts serendipitous opportunities…
Lenny’s Podcast103 min
Laura Schaffer · Mar 9, 2023
Key learnings- Build career momentum beyond your manager by learning your customers deeply and sharing those insights, which makes you a go-to…
- Share customer insights regularly and make them visible; a recurring voice-of-the-customer report can grow into a forum that…
- Expect many ideas to be rejected; treat each refusal as a chance to bring better information, since leaders value insights they…
Lenny’s Podcast102 min
Claire Hughes Johnson · Mar 5, 2023
Key learnings- Start with self-awareness: seek feedback on your motivators, strengths, and blind spots, and share them with your team, since…
- Introduce job levels and career ladders earlier than feels necessary; waiting until a company is large makes the change far more…
- Treat company-building infrastructure as essential, not optional: product-market fit alone won't scale, and weak structures and…
Lenny’s Podcast113 min
Gustaf Alstromer · Mar 2, 2023
Key learnings- Hire people who are genuinely excited to build the specific company and screen motivations with culture interviews, as Airbnb did…
- Startups most often fail because they don't talk to customers and so never find product-market fit; validating with users is the…
- Expect to contact many prospects (roughly 25 to 50 conversations) to find the early adopters who will actually engage.
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 1,022
Feb 28, 2023 · 21 min
Jorge Mazal, former CPO of Duolingo, recounts how the company reversed a slide in daily active user growth and eventually grew DAU about 4.5x over four years. The journey began with failed attempts: a…
Lenny’s Podcast86 min
Annie Pearl · Feb 26, 2023
Key learnings- When sharing a scheduling link, first invite the other person to share their availability, and paste your open times directly…
- Break into product via internal transfer: show curiosity, help with product work on the side, and build relationships with PMs…
- Start from a clear product strategy that defines where you play and where you don't, including the markets, segments, and…
Lenny’s Podcast70 min
Upasna Gautam · Feb 23, 2023
Key learnings- Build buffer time into plans for newsroom work, since breaking news routinely pulls journalists away from scheduled research and…
- Use recurring touchpoints such as weekly demo days, multi-session working sessions, and office hours to gather continuous…
- Script breaking-news dress rehearsals to stress-test the platform under realistic time pressure before a real event hits.
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 64
Feb 21, 2023 · 7 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky answers a reader worried about layoffs by compiling advice from people who were recently laid off. The post walks through seven preparation steps, including documenting accomplishments, rebuilding your…
Lenny’s Podcast102 min
Patrick Campbell · Feb 19, 2023
Key learnings- Define your values by the trade-offs they force, and assess candidates against them during interviews so misfits are filtered out…
- Ask whether your business can plausibly reach around $1 billion in annual revenue; if not, bootstrapping or building a…
- Campbell argues ProfitWell should have raised money earlier, since it could have pursued a larger outcome sooner, so match…
Lenny’s Podcast87 min
Christine Itwaru · Feb 16, 2023
Key learnings- Product ops can be understood two ways: as a set of systems that help a product team thrive, and as a dedicated person or group…
- Common product ops responsibilities include voice-of-customer synthesis, tooling and data integrations, content and education…
- Frame the role to PMs as protecting their time for customer conversations, which Christine says PMs should never give up, rather…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 185
Feb 14, 2023 · 21 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky surveys growth inflection stories from roughly two dozen well-known products to find what tends to precede sudden growth jumps. He sorts them into three groups: product improvements, external events that…
Lenny’s Podcast76 min
Lauryn Isford · Feb 12, 2023
Key learnings- Experiment when you need to, mainly as risk mitigation for big changes; let customer research and mockups provide conviction for…
- Onboarding is a critical choke point for self-serve products because downstream conversion, deal closing, and team-wide adoption…
- For complex products, an immersive guided wizard that reduces cognitive load can outperform tooltips; tooltips still have a place…
Lenny’s Podcast78 min
Keith Yandell · Feb 9, 2023
Key learnings- Hire people better than yourself, then get out of the way; the most valuable managers slowly step back as their team members…
- Write a 'How to work with me' document that states your expectations, known growth areas, and commitments to your team; it helps…
- Help people find their next job, even outside the company; it surfaces retention risks early, lets you plan backfills, and builds…