Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 614
Aug 4, 2020 · 5 min
“Hello and welcome to thefree monthly editionof my weekly newsletter. I’m Lenny, and each week I humbly tackle reader questions about product, growth, working with humans, and anything else that’s stressing you out at the office. Q: I’ve seen you share a few PM templates in the past. Do you have a place to find all of your favorite templates? Now I do! Below are all of my favorite templates and frameworks that I rely on. As a bonus, I…”
Lenny’s NewsletterJul 28, 2020
Jul 28, 2020 · 8 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyThe 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)…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 18
Jul 28, 2020 · 21 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyThis 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’s Newsletter♥ 26
Jul 21, 2020 · 9 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny 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…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 44
Jul 14, 2020 · 14 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyA 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’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 167
Jul 7, 2020 · 18 min
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’s Newsletter♥ 5
Jun 30, 2020 · 10 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny 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’s Newsletter♥ 26
Jun 23, 2020 · 3 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny 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’s Newsletter♥ 26
Jun 23, 2020 · 11 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny 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’s Newsletter♥ 13
Jun 16, 2020 · 3 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny 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’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 225
Jun 9, 2020 · 12 min
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’s Newsletter♥ 18
Jun 2, 2020 · 7 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny 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’s Newsletter♥ 13
May 26, 2020 · 6 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny 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’s Newsletter♥ 7
May 19, 2020 · 4 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny 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’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 573
May 12, 2020 · 22 min
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…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 40
May 5, 2020 · 10 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyA 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’s Newsletter♥ 33
Apr 29, 2020
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny 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’s Newsletter♥ 33
Apr 28, 2020 · 7 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny 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’s Newsletter♥ 19
Apr 21, 2020 · 7 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny 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’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 76
Apr 14, 2020 · 7 min
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’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 11
Apr 7, 2020 · 3 min
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’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 20
Mar 31, 2020 · 15 min
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’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 12
Mar 24, 2020 · 4 min
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’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 10
Mar 10, 2020 · 6 min
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…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 100
Mar 3, 2020 · 6 min
Lenny Rachitsky answers a reader's question about building referral programs for marketplaces, drawing on his experience leading supply growth at Airbnb, where the host referral program became the biggest driver of…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 14
Feb 25, 2020 · 4 min
Lenny Rachitsky answers a SaaS founder's question about when a small startup should raise money and start hiring. His core guideline is to wait until product/market fit is found, since hiring before then slows a company…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 12
Feb 18, 2020 · 4 min
Lenny Rachitsky answers a reader who just sold their startup and is moving into a product manager role without formal PM training. Drawing on his own experience after Localmind was acquired by Airbnb, he admits he was a…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 14
Feb 11, 2020 · 4 min
Lenny Rachitsky answers a reader question about how Airbnb balanced outcome-oriented thinking with design and engineering requirements that don't directly drive a target metric. He argues that outcome-oriented…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 15
Feb 4, 2020 · 6 min
Lenny Rachitsky answers a reader's question about taking a marketplace business international, drawing on advice from two former Airbnb leaders who built its European business. The piece argues that expansion…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 193
Jan 28, 2020 · 8 min
Lenny Rachitsky compiles the most concrete and actionable definitions of product-market fit (PMF) from leading investors, founders, and operators, organized into signals before a product exists and signals after launch…