Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 20
Mar 31, 2020 · 15 min
“Hello and welcome to another edition of my weekly newsletter! My name is Lenny, and each week I tackle reader questions about product, growth, working with humans, and anything else that’s stressing you out at the office. Send me your questions (just reply to this email or DM me) and in return, I’ll humbly offer some real-talk advice. 🤝 If you find this newsletter valuable, consider sharing it with a friend 🤜🤛 Q: Like many startups…”
Lenny’s NewsletterAug 12, 2025
Aug 12, 2025 · 10 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky curates ten more essays for product builders, spanning problem framing, communication, distribution, market sizing, growth, scaling teams, positioning, and ambitious startup ideas. Each pick is paired…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresJan 17, 2024
Jan 17, 2024 · 8 min
This Product in Practice case study follows Kranthi Kiran, founder of ThoughtFlow, a collaboration tool combining visual mind mapping with data modeling. It opens by framing the risk founders face when they start from…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 111
Feb 15, 2022 · 24 min
This guest-authored guide by Jason Shah, head of product at Alchemy, explains how the product manager role changes at web3 startups. The author argues that PMs there are more versatile, more art than science given…
Lenny’s Podcast132 min
Gina Gotthilf · Oct 19, 2023
Key learnings- Anchor the company in a mission people can rally behind; it helps with organic growth, hiring, and resisting short-term…
- Keep growth lean and avoid paid acquisition early, since rising CAC and dependence on paid users can become an addiction that is…
- Focus relentlessly on retention by asking whether the product delivers real value; users who find real value stick around.
producthabits.com · Hiten ShahNov 12, 2018
Nov 12, 2018 · 29 min
This essay traces Snapchat's rise from a 2011 Stanford side project to a major social platform, and its subsequent stall after going public. The author argues Snapchat's early success came from turning a familiar…
SVPG · Marty CaganOct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 · 4 min
Marty Cagan argues that the biggest risk facing most startups and new products is not market risk or business-model risk but solution risk: whether the team can find an approach customers actually choose to buy and use…
Lenny’s Podcast65 min
Kevin Aluwi · Mar 26, 2023
Key learnings- Super apps often fail to deliver promised lower acquisition costs and higher retention unless the services share a unifying…
- Treat brand as the second most important priority after product, and build it through consistent tone across copy, ads, product…
- Embed your brand in physical reality: branded jackets and helmets worked because they visibly signaled the service to people…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 213
Nov 28, 2023 · 15 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyBobby Pinero, CEO of Equals, recounts how adding a freemium plan and removing onboarding friction initially spiked user counts but then stalled engagement, retention, and revenue. The team reversed course by…
Lenny’s Podcast123 min
Matt MacInnis · Dec 28, 2025
Key learnings- Extraordinary outcomes require extraordinary effort; if people feel comfortable at work, something has gone wrong, and leaders…
- Deliberately understaff projects, since overstaffing invites politics and pulls people onto low-priority work before it is clear…
- Withholding feedback is selfish because it optimizes for your own comfort; escalate issues in public and give direct feedback…
Substack · Shreyas Doshi♥ 275
May 16, 2026
Shreyas Doshi describes a founder asking whether to go wide or deep, and argues that abstract framings like this feel productive but avoid the decision. The core advice is to push past comfortable generalities toward…
Lenny’s Podcast121 min
Sam Schillace · Jan 11, 2024
Key learnings- Treat 'why not' objections as signals to examine, and answer them with 'what if' questions about how far an idea could go if it…
- Judge disruption by polarization: if people either love or hate something, it is more likely disruptive than something met with…
- Make experiments cheap and fast so you can test ideas quickly, since you will almost always be wrong about the product until you…
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…
SVPG · Marty CaganJun 26, 2009
Jun 26, 2009 · 7 min
Marty Cagan argues that product companies can learn a great deal from venture capital firms, which are also in the business of making product investments and maximizing returns. He contrasts VC practices with typical…
Lenny’s Podcast105 min
Ada Chen Rekhi · Apr 16, 2023
Key learnings- Run a curiosity loop by asking a specific, unbiased question with a rationale request, sent lightweight to 5-10 people who are…
- Avoid generic advice by making it contextual: weigh each recommendation against your own situation, skills, and experience rather…
- Use a personal values exercise to rank what matters to you, then test big decisions against that internal scorecard instead of…
SVPG · Marty CaganJul 18, 2022
Jul 18, 2022 · 3 min
Marty Cagan argues that the best products often emerge during economic downturns, when companies lack the money to paper over weak products. He contends that many firms, especially those with abundant funding, assume…
SVPG · Marty CaganJun 27, 2011
Jun 27, 2011 · 3 min
Marty Cagan argues that great product companies require genuine passion for a long-term vision, not just the pursuit of a quick hit. He observes a renewed 'product frenzy' fueled by mobile, where building an app is…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 100
Dec 19, 2019 · 12 min
Lenny Rachitsky closes his eight-part marketplace growth series by asking founders and operators what they would do differently. The answers cluster around a few recurring regrets: spreading effort too thin instead of…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresAug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 · 5 min
Teresa Torres argues that successful products, even giants like Facebook and Google, began by serving a narrow group rather than everyone. Founders who try to sell to everyone end up building for no one, because the…
@hnshah · Hiten Shah on X♥ 28
Founders are doing product marketing earlier than they think. The market starts teaching you how buyers see the product almost immediately. What they compare it to affects the story you tell. Objections and lost deals often expose something deeper about the product itself. That
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 287
Dec 3, 2019 · 22 min
This is Part 4 of Lenny Rachitsky's marketplace series, focused on driving initial demand after supply is underway. It argues that the timing of investing in demand depends on product-market fit, where growth comes…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 25
Jun 22, 2021 · 9 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyThe post argues that distribution, not product alone, separates startups that succeed from those that fail, and that a unique distribution advantage is needed to reach audiences more cheaply than competitors. It lays…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 174
Oct 11, 2022 · 9 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky expands his Racecar Growth Framework, breaking a startup's growth into a self-sustaining growth engine, kickstarts for early users, turbo boosts for temporary surges, lubricants for efficiency, mid-stage…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 97
Nov 24, 2020 · 29 min
Pete Kazanjy argues that bottom-up, self-serve B2B products should eventually layer in a direct sales motion, since waiting too long creates large opportunity costs and lets competitors capture enterprise segments. He…