Lenny’s Podcast115 min
Kayvon Beykpour · Apr 28, 2024
Key learnings- Treat sacred cows as a built-in roadmap: list what the org believes can't change, then start challenging those assumptions one by…
- Culture change requires alignment from the top; without leadership backing, pockets of the company advocating for change get…
- Optimizing the core experience can reignite growth, but balance it with a portfolio of bold bets that add genuinely new…
Substack · Shreyas Doshi♥ 50
Jan 2, 2026
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…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresMay 26, 2026
May 26, 2026 · 3 min
“Listen to this episode on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts We built the internet. We championed social media. We're now building AI. But what if, looking back, we made things worse? In this candid and wide-ranging conversation, Teresa and Petra wrestle with a question that's hard to ask from”
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 306
Aug 15, 2023 · 37 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyPart 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…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 148
May 10, 2022 · 56 min
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’s Newsletter♥ 140
Jan 31, 2023 · 21 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny 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…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 434
Nov 20, 2019 · 11 min
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…
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 · Free post♥ 232
Jan 10, 2023 · 20 min
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…
Lenny’s Podcast82 min
Noam Lovinsky · Mar 17, 2024
Key learnings- Advocate for what is best for the business even when it means shutting down your own project; in healthy organizations, that…
- Don't hesitate to ask for a different reporting structure if it will make you more productive; Noam layered himself under a peer…
- Set guiding principles for trade-offs, such as serving customers first, then supply, then the company, to resolve thorny…
SVPG · Marty CaganOct 13, 2014
Oct 13, 2014 · 8 min
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…
Lenny’s Podcast128 min
Shishir Mehrotra · Aug 14, 2022
Key learnings- Map your product's growth as loops rather than linear funnels, and draw a diagram of how users bring in other users; Shishir says…
- Remove friction from the moment users share, as Coda did by charging only for document makers, not for people they share with.
- Treat publishing as a discovery channel: users who publish something useful for their niche can expose the product to new…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresJan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 · 7 min
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’s Newsletter♥ 118
Mar 30, 2021 · 10 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny 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…
SVPG · Marty CaganFeb 24, 2017
Feb 24, 2017
Marty Cagan argues that many product teams spend their discovery effort on usability and performance fixes when the real problem is that users do not see why the product is worth using at all. Polishing a workflow or…
SVPG · Marty CaganMay 12, 2022
May 12, 2022 · 4 min
Marty Cagan argues that software buyers face an overwhelming marketplace, with tens of thousands of apps and thousands of solutions per category, so simply building a product no longer guarantees adoption. To win…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresDec 6, 2011
Dec 6, 2011 · 3 min
Teresa Torres argues that great product management means thinking from the whole business's perspective: a product must not only please customers but also earn money from them, which is the hardest part. She recommends…
SVPG · Marty CaganJan 13, 2010
Jan 13, 2010 · 3 min
Marty Cagan argues that as companies grow, product organizations often drift into serving internal stakeholders, documenting requirements, mediating conflicts, and allocating developer time, which crowds out customer…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 15
Feb 4, 2020 · 6 min
Lenny Rachitsky answers a reader's question about taking a marketplace business international, drawing on advice from two former Airbnb leaders who built its European business. The piece argues that expansion…
Lenny’s Podcast115 min
Tom Conrad · Nov 26, 2023
Key learnings- Choose where to work by the people you'd collaborate with, not just the product; your satisfaction tracks team relationships more…
- Trust your gut about a team's values and working style early; Conrad says he has consistently sensed mismatches before joining…
- Build a model of the whole business equation (investment in, returns out, over a time horizon) so you can see which levers have…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresMar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 · 5 min
Teresa Torres argues that product teams should start by defining what success looks like, since a clear goal is the ultimate measure that makes alignment and decisions easier. She warns against drowning in dozens of…
SVPG · Marty CaganApr 10, 2022
Apr 10, 2022 · 3 min
Marty Cagan revisits The Lost Interview with Steve Jobs to answer a question he has struggled with: why do so many product companies remain weak when the best ones are the most valuable in the world? Rather than…
Lenny’s Podcast130 min
Madhavan Ramanujam · Jul 27, 2025
Key learnings- Start willingness-to-pay conversations early, before building, because pricing is a measure of value and you can't avoid the…
- Frame pricing questions relatively, benchmarking against a known product like Salesforce, since people give more meaningful…
- Use acceptable, expensive, and prohibitively expensive price probes to find psychological thresholds, which often show steep…
SVPG · Marty CaganSep 8, 2008
Sep 8, 2008 · 3 min
Marty Cagan argues that product managers are fundamentally in the business of managing risk, and that playing it safe by only adding small features and fixes is often the riskiest choice over time. Because innovation…