Cagan argues that beyond empowered teams hitting measurable outcomes, the best product companies also pursue a harder-to-define standard of excellence: desirability, delight, or 'spirit.' He acknowledges the tension…
Teresa Torres's continuous-discovery practice depends on interviewing customers every week, but finding participants is the hardest part and often blocks the habit. This Product in Practice piece profiles Dan Clem at…
Cagan and Moore argue that 'transformation' is often described with labels like Agile or product-led, which fail to capture what actually changes. They propose defining transformation by three concrete shifts: how a…
Lenny Rachitsky shares high-level structures from 20+ large companies' product management career ladders, including titles by level, evaluated competencies, and where IC and manager tracks split. He argues career…
Teresa Torres addresses a common obstacle to continuous discovery: sales and marketing teams that resist product managers talking to customers. She explains that this resistance usually stems from fear of the unknown…
Lenny draws on interviews with founders and product leaders at Noom, Duolingo, Grammarly, Calm, Spotify, Future, Flo and others to explain what helps consumer subscription apps last. The core argument is that winners…
Marty Cagan argues that software buyers face an overwhelming marketplace, with tens of thousands of apps and thousands of solutions per category, so simply building a product no longer guarantees adoption. To win…
Todd Jackson, a seed-stage investor at First Round Capital, interviewed founders of eight companies (Vanta, Flexport, Cocoon, Good Dog, Snackpass, Rec Room, LaunchDarkly, Pinwheel) about how they chose and validated…
This Tools of the Trade installment profiles Steve Cheshire, a PM at Pendo, to show how one team runs continuous discovery with a practical tech stack. The core argument is that there is no single correct toolset; the…
Lenny Rachitsky surveys about two dozen venture investors on what growth rates count as good or great at each stage of a business. The post argues that early-stage investors weigh time-to-$1M ARR, retention, and…
Teresa Torres argues that continuous discovery habits apply to early-stage startups, not just mature products, even before a product or customers exist. She illustrates the ideal path with fictional founders who set a…
Lenny Rachitsky lays out a three-part approach to preparing for product manager interviews: research the product, company and interview process; practice with real people through mock interviews and coaching; and study…
Andy Johns, a growth leader who stepped away from a presidency at Wealthfront after a heart scare, argues that high achievers need a deliberate way to recognize and respect their personal limits. He introduces a…
Marty Cagan revisits The Lost Interview with Steve Jobs to answer a question he has struggled with: why do so many product companies remain weak when the best ones are the most valuable in the world? Rather than…
Teresa Torres argues that teams should separate their research questions (what they want to learn) from their interview questions (what they actually ask), because people answer direct questions unreliably due to…
Lenny Rachitsky lays out the four metrics he considers most important for an early marketplace: fill rate, bookings growth, supply growth, and GMV growth. He explains why each matters, shares practitioner perspectives…
Marty Cagan argues that the essential nature of technology-powered products is hard to grasp until you've worked on a strong product team, and that most people think they understand it but don't. He highlights a rarely…
Lenny Rachitsky lays out a practical playbook for interviewing product managers: a multi-stage funnel with screens, a full-day loop, and panel debriefs. He covers which skills to test, sample questions, how to design…
Marty Cagan distinguishes coaching from mentoring using a distinction he learned from Bill Campbell. Both are valuable, but mentoring is offered as honest opinion the mentee may or may not act on, so the mentor carries…
Teresa Torres argues that effective product teams should pair two discovery activities every week: continuous customer interviewing to find opportunities, and assumption testing to evaluate solutions. Visualizing this…
Jules Walter argues that product sense is a learned skill rather than an innate talent, defined as consistently crafting products that have the intended impact on users through empathy and creativity. He offers four…
This article profiles Sling TV, the streaming service that positioned itself as an early OTT provider, and argues that continuous reinvention and speed are central to its growth. Its SVP of Strategy and Technology…
Lenny explains when a product should be free and how to choose between freemium and a free trial, based on an analysis of about 50 SaaS pricing models. He frames free as an acquisition strategy, either disrupting a…
This article describes how John Deere, a 185-year-old equipment maker, is repositioning itself as a technology company centered on "smart farming." Facing a projected global population of 9.6 billion by 2050 and rising…
This essay describes how Ramsey Solutions, a financial education company, approached its digital transformation by first examining its own identity and capabilities rather than only envisioning its future. Its CEO's…
Teresa Torres argues that frequent, consistent customer interviews are a keystone habit of continuous discovery, since they make other discovery habits easier to adopt. She addresses who to interview: early on, anyone…
Lenny Rachitsky opens with a note on the war in Ukraine and ways to help, then answers a reader question about waitlist conversion. Drawing on founder input, he shares rough conversion benchmarks for free sign-ups, paid…
This piece profiles Datasite, formerly Merrill Corporation, a financial-document printer that had to reinvent itself as cloud demand grew. The company was slow, hierarchical and risk-averse, so it reframed its culture…
This essay recounts how Datasite, a SaaS provider for dealmaking, rebuilt its outdated platform under pressure to keep clients from leaving. When the platform failed during a beta launch with an Irish client, the…
Marty Cagan proposes a simple taxonomy for the types of product coaching, since no widely accepted vocabulary exists yet. He distinguishes product-related coaching (delivery, discovery, product leadership, and…