When you work inside a startup with lots of clever and motivated staff you’re never short of good ideas that you can implement. It’s tempting to take on new projects, new features, new geographies, new speaking opportunities, whatever. Each one incrementally sounds like a good idea, yet collectively they end up punishing undisciplined teams. I… continue reading
One of the most compelling organizational things I’ve read about lately is Square’s practice of referring to their product team as Product Editors and the product editorial team, rather than the traditional “Product Management” title. Wanted to share some quick thoughts below about it. Product managers: One of the toughest and worst defined jobs in… continue reading
Over the past few years, I’ve become totally convinced that being as close to your users as possible (via minimum viable products, feedback mechanisms, etc.) greatly *increases your chances for product success*. However, once you have a decent sized user base you immediately run into the problem of what do with all that feedback. *The… continue reading
We looked at all the products in the space and thought, “We can do it better”. So we did. – most founders It’s a common refrain, and I suppose this is what all founders should think! After all, if your product is inferior in every way to even one incumbent product, why do it at… continue reading
For a tech company, product and engineering are the heart and soul of the business. When I do a quick mental query of headcount across our entire portfolio of ~30 companies, I think at least 50% and maybe as much as 60% of the entire headcount of our portfolio is in either product or engineering.… continue reading
In Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit, Mary and Tom Poppendieck describe a counter-intuitive technique for making better decisions: ”Concurrent software development means starting development when only partial requirements are known and developing in short iterations that provide the feedback that causes the system to emerge. Concurrent development makes it possible to delay commitment until… continue reading
It’s been a while since I was hiring at a startup, and recruiting at a startup is very different from hiring at a big company. At Yahoo! Search, it seemed like we were constantly hiring. I did an average of 5-8 interviews a week. It was a never-ending drumbeat of resumes, interviews, and offer letters.… continue reading
The best CEOs are product leaders at heart and here are my favorite ten product management quotes of all time. Not surprisingly they all come from the mouths of product leaders at great companies. “You can either be a shit funnel or a shit umbrella.” (See TechCrunch) — Todd Jackson, Facebook “People think focus means… continue reading
In this post I’d like to talk about 3 very common product management anti-patterns that I see a lot of teams struggling with. It will do wonders for the quality of your product as well as the morale of your team if you can spot and avoid them. Arbitrary Deadlines Deadlines do have their value.… continue reading
When you think about ways to improve your product, focusing on the following often neglected areas can have a massive impact on customer happiness and retention. Next to working on your core product, focusing on positioning, marketing and support may seem like a waste of your time. It’s not. In fact, by integrating these things… continue reading
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