Working notes from product people

Ask the people who’ve done it.

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Answers quote and cite the source notes

01 — TopicsFourteen drawers, sorted.

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Startups & founders

288 notes · 89 people · 2005–2026
The Looking Glass · Julie Zhuo♥ 195

To All the Folks Who Are About to Be Rich

Jun 13, 2026
Subscriber post — summary only

Julie Zhuo writes to people about to become wealthy through an IPO, acquisition, or successful business, framing a sudden liquidity event as a turning point. The essay appears to address how to handle that new reality…

@hnshah · Hiten Shah on X♥ 14
Founders are doing product marketing earlier than they think. It usually shows up when a buyer says something you weren’t expecting. That gap between how you describe the product and how buyers see it can change the story you tell and what gets built next. If you’re a founder
SVPG · Marty CaganJun 30, 2026

Great Products, Bad Companies

Jun 30, 2026 · 4 min

Marty Cagan argues that great products are necessary but not sufficient for a great company, because a company known for strong products attracts predatory investors and executives who strip value for quick financial…

Lenny’s Podcast110 min

Why companies are becoming a series of loops

Anish Acharya · Sep 6, 2026
Key learnings
  • Treat each business function as an agent loop: map its inputs, outputs, and the points where it gets blocked, then supply…
  • Expect loops to climb local maxima quickly, but plan for humans to supply out-of-distribution intuition that moves you to the…
  • When an agent gets stuck, have a human coach it through the problem; the captured traces let the agent handle that case next time.
@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

02 — FrameworksModels, annotated.

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03 — PeopleWho wrote the notes.

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04 — QuestionsAnswered from the notes.

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Where notes come from

NewsletterLenny’s Newsletter106 free posts, with a longer excerpt.
Subscriber postsSummary only229 paid posts: our summary, at most two short quotes, and a link.
PodcastLenny’s Podcast322 episodes, each with 5–8 key learnings and timestamps.
EssaysSVPG · The Beautiful Mess499 essays from Marty Cagan and John Cutler.
Substack & blogsShreyas · Julie · Jason · Hiten577 essays and posts from independent writers.
XPosts on product58 posts, filtered for product relevance.