Lenny’s Podcast99 min
Meltem Kuran · Aug 27, 2023
Key learnings- Start growth with cheap channels: monitor communities like Reddit, Quora, and Twitter for people asking questions you can answer…
- Before spending on paid ads, make sure the fundamentals work: a fast website, discoverability in search engines, and clear…
- For SEO, aim for content that fully answers the search so users don't need to return to Google; avoid keyword stuffing and…
Lenny’s Podcast94 min
Bob Moesta · Aug 24, 2023
Key learnings- Customers hire products to make progress in a context; understanding the context and desired outcome matters more than simply…
- Start from the struggling moment that causes demand, since a product alone does not create demand; use those moments to guide…
- Model switching as forces: push and pull drive change, while anxiety of the new and habit of the present hold people back, and…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 112
Aug 22, 2023 · 17 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyThe post offers a step-by-step guide to hiring and structuring a first growth team, drawing on interviews with a dozen growth practitioners. It argues growth should follow product-market fit, that acquisition is usually…
Lenny’s Podcast80 min
Camille Hearst · Aug 20, 2023
Key learnings- Creators often undervalue their work and avoid charging fans, but a fair value exchange is needed for creators to make a…
- Subscription revenue creates a 'hamster wheel' where creators feel locked into constant output, so platforms should consider…
- Early creators benefit from consistent, predictable publishing of quality work over time, which Camille has seen as a top success…
SVPG · Marty CaganAug 17, 2023
Aug 17, 2023 · 3 min
Marty Cagan contrasts the traditional project model, where IT builds specific features by fixed dates, with the product model, where durable teams own business outcomes. He argues projects are slow, costly, and produce…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresAug 16, 2023
Aug 16, 2023 · 7 min
Product Talk's community manager, Welena Villasoto, shows how a non-PM can run a weekly continuous interviewing practice. She practiced story-based interviewing with Teresa Torres first, moving from talking too much to…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 306
Aug 15, 2023 · 37 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyPart two of a B2B startup series examines how founders validate an idea before committing. Drawing on interviews with about two dozen companies, it lays out four validation paths (manual, listening, prototype with…
Lenny’s Podcast114 min
Austin Hay · Aug 13, 2023
Key learnings- MarTech treats the marketing systems and platforms, both third-party and first-party, as products, and centers on people and…
- A dedicated systems or MarTech owner usually becomes necessary somewhere around 100 to 150 people, when a village approach to…
- Pick tools to solve specific problems, and combine buying a tool for most of the solution with building the remaining custom…
Lenny’s Podcast114 min
Christopher Miller · Aug 10, 2023
Key learnings- Take ownership of problems nobody has claimed; a radical accountability mindset can surface opportunities the business hasn't…
- Prioritize relentless curiosity and resilience when hiring or growing as a PM, since most growth experiments fail and you need…
- Talk directly to customers and to non-customers; usage data shows what users do, but only qualitative conversations reveal why.
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 495
Aug 8, 2023 · 40 min
Lenny Rachitsky opens a seven-part B2B startup playbook by examining how successful B2B companies found their original ideas. Drawing on dozens of founder interviews, he argues that a strong B2B idea combines an…
Lenny’s Podcast92 min
Geoff Charles · Aug 6, 2023
Key learnings- Keep small teams single-threaded on one goal and shield them from distractions, using protective layers like production engineers…
- Align on goals, hypotheses, and data before debating solutions; empowerment works when leaders share context rather than…
- Pair velocity with control mechanisms such as tracking NPS, CSAT, operational burden, and customer confusion tickets, and pause…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresAug 2, 2023
Aug 2, 2023 · 20 min
Teresa Torres argues that continuous discovery is achievable in almost any organization, even when people say 'that would never work here.' She frames resistance into three scenarios: the feature factory, the messy…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 229
Aug 1, 2023 · 13 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky, with OpenView and Pendo, benchmarks free-to-paid conversion from a survey of 1,000+ products, defining good and great rates for freemium, sales-assisted, and free-trial models. It argues conversion…
Lenny’s Podcast96 min
Ronny Kohavi · Jul 27, 2023
Key learnings- Test every code change, since even small bug fixes or tiny UI tweaks can have surprising, large impact on key metrics.
- Expect most ideas to fail: roughly two-thirds to over 90% of experiments in his experience did not move the target metric, so…
- Allocate a portion of experiments to high-risk, high-reward bets, accepting that about 80% will fail, while keeping most work…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 263
Jul 25, 2023 · 20 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyAn interview with Shopify's VP of Product, Glen Coates, on how the company plans around annual CEO themes, avoids OKR-style metrics ownership, reviews work through a staged system, and structures teams around merchant…
Lenny’s Podcast116 min
Noah Weiss · Jul 23, 2023
Key learnings- Distill company-level product taste into a shared set of principles so teams can self-evaluate and founders are not the sole…
- Involve founders early for strategy, goals and anti-goals, then again at the end to taste the product, and keep iterating in…
- Run complaint storms by critiquing adjacent products' customer journeys first, which builds calibration and fresh empathy before…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresJul 19, 2023
Jul 19, 2023 · 13 min
Teresa Torres explores how the opportunity solution tree, a continuous discovery tool, can be applied beyond digital products to personal and organizational challenges. Through three examples, she shows how the tree…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 184
Jul 18, 2023 · 26 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyGuest authors Michael Kaminsky and Mike Taylor explain how marketers measure incrementality, the true sales caused by spend, using three methods: multi-touch attribution, marketing mix modeling, and conversion lift…
Lenny’s Podcast94 min
Hari Srinivasan · Jul 16, 2023
Key learnings- Anchor decisions in a single clear North Star, such as connecting people to economic opportunity, so cross-marketplace tradeoffs…
- In complex ecosystems, map second- and third-order effects of every change, since a feature can shift how members perceive and…
- Name one decision-maker per decision (RAPID-style recommender, agreer, decider, input roles) and move to a call after a few email…
Lenny’s Podcast71 min
Julia Schottenstein · Jul 13, 2023
Key learnings- Evaluate early-stage companies on four dimensions: people, market, product, and distribution, and recognize that no company will…
- Look for signs of product spark, such as users who can't stop talking about the product and want to share it with teammates and…
- Build a strong standalone offense so you have a viable alternative in every M&A conversation rather than needing to sell.
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 86
Jul 11, 2023 · 17 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyAn interview with Snowflake's Director of Product for its Developer Platform and Ecosystem, describing how the company plans, reviews, and organizes product work. It covers annual 'big boulder' planning, six-page plan…
SVPG · Marty CaganJul 10, 2023
Jul 10, 2023 · 4 min
Marty Cagan argues that any recognized product risk taxonomy beats having none, since teams that skip risk assessment often fail, especially with MVPs. He compares three common frameworks: the original…
Lenny’s Podcast70 min
Paige Costello · Jul 9, 2023
Key learnings- Plan on a rolling 12-month horizon, refreshed every six months, so the immediate half has higher confidence and the business…
- Structure planning in nested altitudes (company, pillar, area, team) with metrics at each level so every team knows the outcome…
- Use a broad-then-narrow process for each problem: choose the customer, then the problem, then the solution, and pick success…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 403
Jul 4, 2023 · 22 min
Coach Erika argues that first-round interviews exist mainly to filter candidates, so preparing efficiently matters more than endless practice. She presents a method called Minimum Viable Interview Prep (MVIP) covering…
Lenny’s Podcast94 min
Jiaona Zhang · Jul 2, 2023
Key learnings- New PMs often jump to solutions; start by understanding user problems and whether a real opportunity exists before deciding what…
- A PM has little formal authority and must lead through influence, so editing and synthesizing opportunities matters more than…
- Check unit economics early; magical thinking that a business will work at scale is a common trap, as the Airbnb Plus experience…
SVPG · Marty CaganJun 27, 2023
Jun 27, 2023 · 5 min
Marty Cagan argues that moving from command-and-control leadership to an empowered product model requires changes on both sides: executives must not simply step back, and product teams must engage executives more, not…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 98
Jun 27, 2023 · 21 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyTwo former Reddit leaders outline a four-step framework for building products with a vocal, opinionated user base: measuring trust, listening to representative voices, moving debate into private advisory councils, and…
Lenny’s Podcast93 min
Sri Batchu · Jun 25, 2023
Key learnings- Sequence B2B growth roughly as founder-led sales, first salespeople, low-cost targeted marketing like content and community, then…
- Use early investor and founder relationships as a growth channel: getting influential operators onto the cap table can drive word…
- Make every growth channel driven by technology and data, such as dedicated growth engineers automating sales workflows and…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresJun 21, 2023
Jun 21, 2023 · 9 min
This Product Talk announcement introduces Ellen Brandenberger, a product coach and Director of Product at Stack Overflow, as a new instructor for the Product Talk Academy. It frames the expansion as part of the…
SVPG · Marty CaganJun 21, 2023
Jun 21, 2023 · 4 min
Marty Cagan argues that as companies shift from stakeholder-driven feature teams to empowered product teams, the relationship between product teams and stakeholders must change on both sides. Creating a solution…