Teresa Torres introduces a new series, Tools of the Trade, profiling continuous discovery practitioners and the tools they use. This first edition features Rebecca Klee, a UX Researcher at Optimal Workshop, who walks…
This guest-written issue, drawn from Ali Abouelatta's First 1000 research, catalogs 60 examples of 'Turbo Boosts,' one-off events that temporarily accelerate growth. It frames them as the fuel-like components of a…
Marty Cagan argues that product teams should actively seek out critical, negative feedback, since qualitative insight about why users don't adopt, buy, or stay is more valuable than most quantitative data. He observes…
Teresa Torres responds to Hope Gurion's proposal to add customer segments to opportunity solution trees, arguing that the tool should stay simple and focused on a single product outcome. She disagrees with two of Hope's…
Lenny Rachitsky shares a curated directory of roughly 200 favorite reads, listens, and watches on growth, startups, writing, angel investing, product management, leadership, and frameworks, cleaned up and expanded for…
Marty Cagan uses the Theranos collapse as a cautionary tale about founders who can sell a product concept but fail to discover and deliver a product that solves the real need. He argues that demand testing is the easy…
Lenny Rachitsky offers a three-step process for a product person to say no to a manager while keeping their trust: listen and ask questions, form an independent point of view, then respond constructively using one of…
Niya Dragova, co-founder of Candor, shares ten rules for salary negotiation aimed at tech professionals who find negotiating uncomfortable. She argues that compensation is deliberately opaque and that most people lose…
Lenny answers a reader who lacks a technical background and struggles to follow engineers and make trade-off decisions. He lays out a three-step path: learn core concepts like how software systems, APIs, and databases…
Behavioral scientist Kristen Berman argues that people often act against their own intentions, and that behavioral design, which blends psychology and economics, can help product teams close the gap between intent and…
Teresa Torres introduces Hope Gurion's approach to representing customer segments on an opportunity solution tree, noting that structuring the opportunity space is hard when customers are diverse, especially in B2B…
Cagan and Moore argue that moving to an empowered product-team model is a major cultural shift that must start with senior leaders, who still have legitimate needs to run the business. Their answer is not to simply step…
Brian Rothenberg argues that a surprising number of billion-dollar companies, including Airbnb, Uber, Square and Eventbrite, share a little-understood growth loop in which demand-side users convert into supply-side…
Lenny Rachitsky surveys founders and growth leads from Grubhub, OpenTable, Caviar, Instacart, Snackpass and Peerspace on how marketplaces expanded into new cities. The core argument is that expansion should follow once…
Teresa Torres profiles Lisa Orr, a product manager who carried her continuous discovery habits from Airship to a new Senior PM role at Human API. The central argument is that good discovery is wasted unless stakeholders…
Lenny Rachitsky answers a reader's request for real-world 1-Pagers and PRDs, explaining why good examples are scarce and listing traits of effective documents: problem focus, clear success criteria, just-enough…
Marty Cagan argues that during and after the pandemic, teams are sliding back into heavy requirements documents (PRDs) because remote collaboration is tiring. He reframes the core of strong product work as three things…
Lenny Rachitsky analyzes how 30 fast-growing B2B SaaS companies chose their go-to-market motions, covering product-led versus sales-led approaches, top-down versus bottom-up targeting, and which market segments they…
Teresa Torres argues that product discovery, the work of deciding what to build, should be a continuous activity rather than a project-based phase at the start of a initiative. She contrasts it with delivery, the work…
Marty Cagan marks 40 years since starting his career in software engineering, reflecting on the long run of work he found rewarding and the lessons it taught him. He argues that learning and experience compound over…
This is a curated index of Lenny Rachitsky's best newsletter posts from his first two and a half years, organized into nine topics such as growth strategy, product management work and career, product-market fit…
Lenny Rachitsky lists five habits that make product managers annoying to their teams and suggests how to avoid them. The core argument is that great PMs add much value, but rigid process worship, impulsive…
Teresa Torres describes how she used her own continuous discovery methods to shape and test the book that became Continuous Discovery Habits. Rather than writing the whole book upfront and hoping it landed, she turned…
The post argues that marketplaces succeed by choosing one of three routes: delivering far more convenience, offering a significantly lower price, or unlocking desirable supply that customers want. It also explains what…
Lenny argues that most teams should skip elaborate prioritization frameworks and use a simple impact-versus-cost sort of T-shirt-sized ideas, then refine it with team input. He stresses that the roadmap must follow a…
Marty Cagan reflects on a recent article he wrote critiquing the MBA pathology in product management, which he admits backfired. Although the core message was valid, opening the piece with a provocative Elon Musk quote…
Teresa Torres argues that engineers should be part of product discovery from the start, and offers three tactics for overcoming their resistance. Many engineers resist customer contact, but they still hold strong…
Lenny Rachitsky examines whether a startup needs a strong 'why now'—a clear reason the product is only possible at this moment. He argues it improves odds by enabling a 10x better product or a new untapped market, but…
Lenny Rachitsky examines whether startups need a strong 'why now' to win over investors and build large businesses. He argues a clear answer helps, since it can enable a much better product or open an untapped market…
Lenny Rachitsky examines how labor marketplaces find and grow their supply side, drawing on interviews with founders and early team members of roughly a dozen fast-growing companies. Because these platforms connect…