Marty Cagan argues that Six Sigma, a quality-control methodology proven in manufacturing, does real damage when applied to software product discovery and development. He observes that once influential innovators such as…
Marty Cagan argues that engineers often make excellent product managers because they understand what is technically possible, and that the move from engineering to product management requires specific mindset and skill…
Lenny Rachitsky and Noam Segal report on a 1,750-respondent survey of tech workers about AI productivity. The core argument is that AI is overdelivering for most people, with the biggest gains in founders and PMs, while…
“This post was written for Startup Edition. Almost everyone has at one point in their life thought, someone should make a something or another, or why doesn't this product exist in the world. This is exactly how products are born. It really is that simple. It always starts with”
Marty Cagan describes the "feed the beast" problem, where product teams feed a hungry development organization with specs just to keep engineers busy, regardless of whether the products are worth building. He argues…
Cagan argues that the next big product is usually not a wholly new market but a new version of something existing that does the job far better, faster, or cheaper, thereby redefining its category. He illustrates this…
This episode of Just Now Possible features Tendos AI's leaders discussing how they automate the tendering workflow for construction manufacturers, where teams manually parse huge bid-request PDFs, match products, price…
Teresa Torres interviews the founders of Rest, a startup that built a voice-first AI sleep coach grounded in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBTI). The team began by noticing that users of their podcast app…
Lenny 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 Rachitsky previews Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky's upcoming book Click and their new two-day Foundation Sprint for launching big projects. The post traces the origin of the approach to the Google Meet story and…
Teresa Torres argues that AI evals should be a core discovery habit for product teams, not just an engineering concern. Because LLM outputs are probabilistic and semantic, traditional pass/fail unit tests don't work…
Marty Cagan argues that 'specials'—large customer or partner deals that come with a condition to build exactly what they request—can derail a product company. Although the cash is tempting, especially for cash-strapped…
Cagan argues that user experience design should be completed before implementation begins, even though requirements/design and implementation/testing can each be run in parallel within their own pairs. He explains that…
Teresa Torres argues that a lack of web traffic should not stop product teams from learning, even if A/B testing is their only experimentation tool. Using a worked example of testing testimonials on a blog's about page…
Marty Cagan argues against a common corporate arrangement that splits the product role between a 'product manager' who handles customers and stakeholders and a 'product owner' who handles the backlog and developers. He…
Marty Cagan answers the most common objections people raise against the idea of empowered engineers, the engineers who take part in product discovery rather than only building what they are handed. He argues that the…
Teresa Torres profiles Thomas Groendal, a senior PM at Bluestone Analytics, whose intelligence-analysis products (DarkBlue and DarkPursuit) operate on the dark web with few users, privacy restrictions, and very long…
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille discuss the practical pain of global invoicing and EU tax compliance for small international online businesses. They argue that platforms and product teams often miss small regulatory…
Marty Cagan argues that removing usability problems and bugs only gets a product to the absence of pain, which is not the same as delighting users. Great products cause pleasure, sometimes from raw value, but often from…
Marty Cagan argues that competition is a constant in most markets, yet companies often waste energy reacting to rivals through feature-chasing and attacking competitors' weaknesses. He contends customers rarely leave…
Marty Cagan, author of four bestselling product books, shares his process for writing non-fiction books, framing the book as a product whose readers are customers. He argues that the decisive factor is whether the…
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille argue that product practitioners should trace frameworks and best practices back to their original creators rather than relying on social-media summaries. Simplified takes often dilute the…
A companion post to a First Round Review essay, built around an interview with Booking.com's former CMO Arthur Kosten. It lays out five lessons from Booking's early growth: letting performance marketing shape supply…
Marty Cagan argues that product management certification is premature and counterproductive for the software industry. He notes that the field is far from scientific, that software product success rates are poor, and…