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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Open drawer · 01

Product strategy & vision

610 notes · 121 people · 2005–2026
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 612

My favorite product management templates

Aug 4, 2020 · 5 min

“Hello and welcome to thefree monthly editionof my weekly newsletter. I’m Lenny, and each week I humbly tackle reader questions about product, growth, working with humans, and anything else that’s stressing you out at the office. Q: I’ve seen you share a few PM templates in the past. Do you have a place to find all of your favorite templates? Now I do! Below are all of my favorite templates and frameworks that I rely on. As a bonus, I…”

Substack · Shreyas Doshi♥ 324

10 ideas for 2026

Dec 30, 2025

Shreyas Doshi argues that clear thinking underpins everything product people do, yet most of us have significant gaps in how we reason. In this year-end essay he offers ten ideas for 2026, framed explicitly as useful to…

Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 198

Positioning

Jan 26, 2021 · 18 min
Subscriber post — summary only

April Dunford gives a practical guide to product positioning, using a story about a mispositioned database product to show how context shapes customer assumptions. She argues positioning should be built by starting from…

@hnshah · Hiten Shah on X♥ 30
We asked Claude what changed among Linear's competitors. No skills: an old source treated as recent, and a guess stated as fact. Same model, with our competitive skills installed: every claim dated, the ranking marked as its own view, and a line about what it could not see.
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 1,022

How Duolingo reignited user growth

Feb 28, 2023 · 21 min

Jorge Mazal, former CPO of Duolingo, recounts how the company reversed a slide in daily active user growth and eventually grew DAU about 4.5x over four years. The journey began with failed attempts: a…

Lenny’s Podcast103 min

Lessons from 1,000+ YC startups: Resilience, tar pit ideas, pivoting, more

Dalton Caldwell · Apr 18, 2024
Key learnings
  • Keep the startup alive: the core mantra is 'don't die,' since much of startup success comes from persisting through near-death…
  • Before quitting, ask whether you still enjoy the work, your co-founders, and your customers; if you love those, lean toward…
  • A good pivot moves 'warmer,' toward domains you already know or have built experience in, and often grows out of what you learned…
Lenny’s Podcast97 min

The ultimate guide to AEO: How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product

Ethan Smith · Sep 14, 2025
Key learnings
  • Everything that works in traditional SEO also works for AEO, so start with landing pages targeting high-volume keywords before…
  • In LLM answers you win by being mentioned across many citations, not by ranking first, so pursue multiple third-party mentions…
  • Early-stage companies can win in AEO quickly, since a single citation from a Reddit thread, YouTube video, or blog can get you…
@lennysan · Lenny Rachitsky on X♥ 968
My conversation with Head of ChatGPT and Codex, @thsottiaux We discuss: 🔸 Why the model picker is likely going away 🔸 Why loops and graphs are a passing phase 🔸 Why most actions on the internet will soon be taken by agents 🔸 OpenAI’s approach to AI safety Listen now 👇

02 — FrameworksModels, annotated.

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03 — PeopleWho wrote the notes.

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04 — QuestionsAnswered from the notes.

All 32 questions →

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.