Marty Cagan, drawing on a conversation with venture capitalist Josh Kopelman, argues that business plans are wrong almost as soon as they are written. Competition, technology, and market dynamics constantly shift, and…
“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…”
Marty Cagan, a longtime product leader, argues that Google, despite its strong performance and assets, is at risk over the long term for two reasons: weak conversion of product opportunities into finished, integrated…
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…
Marty Cagan argues that the typical product portfolio planning process used by companies past the startup stage is deeply frustrating, and that few organizations are satisfied with how they choose projects and allocate…
Lenny Rachitsky profiles how Miro builds product, drawing on an interview with its CPO Varun Parmar. The post covers Miro's cross-functional AMPED structure, its three-year vision and annual strategy process, a…
Lenny Rachitsky offers a five-point checklist for deciding when to sunset a product or feature, drawing on his Airbnb experience. The core argument is that a feature failing at least three of the criteria (low usage…
Lenny Rachitsky answers the common interview question of what a product manager does, offering a working definition centered on delivering business impact through a team and customer problems. He frames the day-to-day…
Teresa Torres reviews how her coaching business has changed and lays out her plans for 2022. She explains that her main goal is to get more product trios adopting continuous discovery, but that this impact is hard to…
Marty Cagan and Stacey Langer argue that the product model, though born in commercial product companies, fits government technology work because government also aims to create value and achieve outcomes, just measured…
In this podcast episode, host Teresa Torres and guest Petra Wille examine whether every product outcome must be measurable. Torres revisits her long-held view that outcomes should always be metrics and explains why she…
Lenny Rachitsky argues that a product leader's core job is aligning everyone on the same direction, and that goals are the tool for this. He places goals in a chain from mission to vision to strategy to goals to…
Teresa Torres argues that many startups treat product management as little more than turning feedback into a feature list, and that the discipline remains underdeveloped. She notes that teams know valuable research…
Guest author Terrence Rohan shares how five early employees who joined multiple iconic companies, including Palantir, OpenAI, Stripe, and Spotify, spotted breakout startups early. The post argues that three signals…
Shreyas Doshi argues that a common implicit assumption, that everything should be meant for everyone, is mistaken, and that treating narrow fit as a defect leads people to create and consume poorly. The essay's framing…
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille question whether the technology industry they have built their careers in is net positive for the world. They reflect candidly on contributing to the internet, social media, and now AI, and…
Part two of a B2B startup series examines how founders validate an idea before committing. Drawing on interviews with about two dozen companies, it lays out four validation paths (manual, listening, prototype with…
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…
Lenny Rachitsky profiles how Coda's product organization plans, reviews, and builds product, drawing on an interview with CPO Lane Shackleton. The post covers Coda's evolving planning cadence, OKR philosophy, review…
This is the first part of a multi-post playbook by Lenny Rachitsky, drawn from interviews with people who built marketplaces like Airbnb, DoorDash, Uber, Etsy and Thumbtack. The core argument is that the chicken-and-egg…
Hila Qu, a former VP of growth at Acorns and PLG lead at GitLab, lays out a practical guide to starting a product-led growth motion for B2B SaaS. The piece argues that PLG is not just a feature set but a go-to-market…
Marty Cagan argues that established companies often lose their capacity for continuous innovation, and that a deeper root cause than the usual focus on scale and execution is an "IT mindset" applied to product work. He…
Teresa Torres argues that product builders make constant decisions, but human judgment is error-prone, so teams should deliberately design decision-making processes. She identifies eight critical decisions in building…
Lenny explains the Minto Pyramid Principle (lead with the answer, then support it with arguments and data) and the Situation-Complication-Resolution (SCR) framework for structuring business narratives. He shows how…