Many established companies that began as retailers, airlines, or financial firms now sell directly to customers online, yet they often manage that customer-facing software the way they manage internal IT systems. The…
“I’m co-teaching a design course at Northwestern with my friend Jeff Merrell. We are teaching business leaders and change agents how to prototype their way to viable solutions. In this context, solutions aren’t product solutions, but rather internal programs and processes that effect change within the organization.”
Marty Cagan argues that the public debate over Paul Graham's 'founder mode' essay has largely missed its point. He reframes the idea as a style of leadership rather than a switchable mode, one that combines deep product…
Marty Cagan argues that the common split between a 'problem space' (owned by product) and a 'solution space' (owned by engineering) is overly simplistic and kills innovation. Validating that a customer problem is real…
Ben Erez, a former Meta PM and interview coach, presents a structured playbook for product sense interviews, which are now common across major tech companies. He explains that interviewers look for clear signals across…
Julie Zhuo's paid essay opens with Andy Warhol's point that every Coke tastes the same regardless of who drinks it, then uses that idea to frame a discussion of software. The piece appears to argue that digital products…
Jason Fried argues that owning an independent company is a rare privilege, one that frees leaders to experiment in ways that public companies and businesses forced to justify every move cannot. He encourages owners not…
Marty Cagan explains where the term "product discovery" came from and why he chose it. He argues that software has always faced two core problems: figuring out the right product, and then building it right, which he…
Teresa Torres interviews Matthias and Charlotte Kleverud, co-founders of Momental, about building a "GitHub for product management" that ingests documents, transcripts and recordings to map goals, decisions and…
Teeba Alkhudairi, a product manager, used continuous discovery skills during her job search by mapping each target company's revenue model into business outcomes, then breaking those into product outcomes and…
Hiten Shah argues that tech has long misunderstood marketing, treating it as decoration or a growth hack when it is really the translation between what a product does and what it means to customers. He notes that the…
Lenny Rachitsky introduces a two-part series on startup pivots, drawing on research into 30+ successful pivots. The post points to a companion spreadsheet covering why each company pivoted, how long it took, how the new…
Lenny Rachitsky explains why marketplaces fail, drawing on dozens of failed examples. He argues the core causes mirror any startup: lacking product-market fit on demand or supply, poor liquidity, weak unit economics…
An in-depth look at how Notion builds product, drawn from an interview with its Chief Product and Technology Officer. It covers planning cadences, a four-stage product review process, the small size of the PM team, a…
The post argues that as AI makes building and reaching customers easier for everyone, traditional B2B channels like search, outbound, events and lifecycle email are getting noisier and less effective. It makes the case…
Marty Cagan and Lea Hickman catalogue the common forms of 'theater' that show up when companies try to transform how they build products. Their core observation is that many transformations stay on the surface…
The essay opens with a launch scenario where marketing and product management drift apart, producing mixed-up press releases, inaccurate website copy, and misplaced confidence. Cagan argues that product marketing is a…
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille argue that individual contributors can build real leadership skills before receiving a title. They suggest first clarifying what leadership means in your own organization, since official…
Marty Cagan revisits Fred Brooks's classic essay "No Silver Bullet" and argues that the software world is full of advocates who present a single favorite technique as the answer to everything. He acknowledges that he…
Marty Cagan argues that product teams need to move fast, and that many teams still hold a Waterfall-era belief that speed trades off against quality and innovation. He contends that speed is valuable for reasons beyond…
The author argues that many companies reach an early beachhead of customers, assume product/market fit, and then stall because they neglected market fit. Market fit means discovering 'market pull': what makes customers…
Lenny Rachitsky recommends a curated set of product management courses, split into five for senior PMs and five for up-and-coming PMs, plus honorable mentions. He limits picks to live, cohort-based courses that have run…
Teresa Torres profiles Tali Melchior, Director of Product Management at Texthelp, who introduced opportunity solution trees (OSTs) first at a previous company after a book club, then at Texthelp, and later through…
Teresa Torres argues that annual feature-based product roadmaps create false certainty, since release dates routinely slip and features get reshuffled. Product leaders still owe their teams a map, but it should show…