Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 198
Jan 26, 2021 · 18 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyApril 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…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 363
Mar 15, 2022 · 18 min
Jules Walter argues that product sense is a learned skill rather than an innate talent, defined as consistently crafting products that have the intended impact on users through empathy and creativity. He offers four…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 612
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…”
Lenny’s Podcast100 min
Jeanne Grosser · Nov 30, 2025
Key learnings- Treat go-to-market as an integrated lifecycle spanning marketing, sales, customer success, and support, mapping the jobs to be…
- Expect the buyer experience of being sold to to become a differentiator, so design the sales journey as a distinctive, valuable…
- Frame value around avoiding pain and reducing risk, since many buyers purchase to avoid downside rather than chase upside…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 494
Aug 8, 2023 · 40 min
Lenny Rachitsky opens a seven-part B2B startup playbook by examining how successful B2B companies found their original ideas. Drawing on dozens of founder interviews, he argues that a strong B2B idea combines an…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 131
Jun 14, 2019 · 13 min
Lenny Rachitsky reflects on seven years at Airbnb, from early engineer to PM, distilling lessons on building a company. He argues that strong culture and values create competitive advantage in hiring, speed, and…
Lenny’s Podcast111 min
Bret Taylor · Jul 31, 2025
Key learnings- Don't just digitize what existed before; rebuild the experience natively for the new platform so customers have a reason to…
- Ask yourself what the most impactful thing is today, and reflect on whether you're choosing it out of comfort or because it's…
- Be skeptical of your own storytelling: customer reasons given to salespeople can mask deeper product problems, so seek…
Lenny’s Podcast94 min
Bob Moesta · Aug 24, 2023
Key learnings- Customers hire products to make progress in a context; understanding the context and desired outcome matters more than simply…
- Start from the struggling moment that causes demand, since a product alone does not create demand; use those moments to guide…
- Model switching as forces: push and pull drive change, while anxiety of the new and habit of the present hold people back, and…
Lenny’s Podcast97 min
Julie Zhuo · Jun 7, 2022
Key learnings- Growth often comes from being in uncomfortable, unfamiliar situations; Julie notes that feeling like an imposter tends to…
- Seek environments that are scaling, since growing companies create more opportunities to volunteer for new responsibilities and…
- Share your struggles openly with peers, mentors, and reports; vulnerability builds deeper connections and lets others help you…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 451
Dec 23, 2025 · 24 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky and Noam Segal report on a 1,750-respondent survey of tech workers about AI productivity. The core argument is that AI is overdelivering for most people, with the biggest gains in founders and PMs, while…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 123
Jun 14, 2019 · 13 min
Lenny Rachitsky recounts a failed Airbnb 'social travel' launch, arguing that the core mistake was misunderstanding the real problem (travelers want high-quality non-touristy things to do, not to meet other travelers)…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 244
Jun 2, 2023 · 15 min
Sho Kuwamoto, Figma's VP of Product, argues that Figma's success comes from putting customer needs first, a philosophy built into its culture from the early private beta. He describes how customer support became…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 335
Jun 11, 2024 · 6 min
Lenny Rachitsky surveyed hundreds of product managers, then ran follow-up calls, to collect concrete ways PMs use Perplexity, the AI-powered search engine, in their daily work. The post groups 27 real prompts into six…
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 Podcast90 min
Camille Ricketts · Dec 11, 2022
Key learnings- Treat content like a product: define who the audience is and what painful job they need done before creating anything.
- Community-led growth works best when the product creates something users want to share, such as templates or creative workspaces.
- Measure brand discovery with net new visitors to your site month over month, rather than starting with rigid community ROI…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 262
Jul 25, 2023 · 20 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyAn interview with Shopify's VP of Product, Glen Coates, on how the company plans around annual CEO themes, avoids OKR-style metrics ownership, reviews work through a staged system, and structures teams around merchant…
Lenny’s Podcast95 min
Krithika Shankarraman · May 25, 2025
Key learnings- Don't copy competitors' playbooks blindly; first diagnose the real funnel problem, since a leaky bottom-of-funnel means…
- Use a four-step DATE approach: diagnose the problem, analyze competitors for gaps, take a deliberately different path, then…
- Judge marketing by pipeline, revenue, signups, and activation rather than vanity metrics like clicks, views, and impressions.
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 135
Nov 8, 2022 · 17 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyA follow-up on activation metrics explaining a three-step method: brainstorm candidate moments from usage data, test them with regression against retention, then run experiments to confirm causality. It adds real reader…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 127
Jul 12, 2022 · 16 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyThis post, step two of a six-part series on launching consumer businesses, argues that early growth depends on picking an almost comically narrow 'super-specific who' as the first target audience. It draws on examples…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 45
Oct 5, 2021 · 16 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky shares a curated directory of roughly 200 favorite reads, listens, and watches on growth, startups, writing, angel investing, product management, leadership, and frameworks, cleaned up and expanded for…
Lenny’s Podcast115 min
Kevin Yien · Aug 18, 2024
Key learnings- Consider entering product management from engineering, design, or sales, since those roles teach you the front-line work a PM…
- Treat product management as converting a team's potential energy into realized customer value, and only add PMs where that work…
- Write clearly and compellingly enough that others can act on it; Kevin argues a PM who cannot sell or support their own product…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 129
Jan 18, 2022 · 15 min
Deb Liu, who led the team behind Facebook Marketplace, recounts how an idea she pitched in 2009 languished for years before a small Groups-based commerce test revealed organic buying and selling behavior. The team's…
Lenny’s Podcast98 min
Jason Shah · Sep 18, 2022
Key learnings- Reframe pushback as shifting direction toward shared goals: first identify what the other person actually cares about, then align…
- Use Amazon's working-backwards PR/FAQ: write the press release, customer quote, and leadership quote before building, forcing…
- Cut vague adjectives like 'great' and replace them with concrete numbers and specifics, since fewer, heavier words force sharper…
Lenny’s Podcast133 min
Ryan Singer · Mar 30, 2025
Key learnings- Start from a fixed time budget (appetite) and shape a solution that fits it, rather than estimating a large idea and hoping it…
- Hold shaping sessions where product, design, and a senior engineer work together to sketch the idea and surface technical…
- Aim for a shaped idea describable in under about ten moving pieces; if it takes more, it likely isn't shaped well enough.
Lenny’s Podcast74 min
Cam Adams · Jun 2, 2024
Key learnings- Cameron says Canva replaces traditional managers with specialty coaches, roughly 800 to 1,000 internal people who help colleagues…
- Cameron argues that scaling requires 'giving away your Lego': hand off tasks you personally own, like writing every email, so you…
- Cameron advises founders to build something they are truly passionate about, since passion sustains them through the dark…
Lenny’s Podcast112 min
Nan Yu · Jan 30, 2025
Key learnings- Speed and quality aren't a trade-off; true craftspeople move fast because they are competent, so aim to get a workable version…
- Treat the first version as a best guess to test key assumptions, not a polished deliverable, and release it to internal users…
- Refuse feature requests that add customization for middle-manager reporting at the expense of individual contributors' workflows…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 96
Jul 19, 2022 · 11 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyPart three of Lenny Rachitsky's consumer-business series argues that busy audiences ignore ordinary products, so founders need a remarkable 'hook.' It offers four strategies for finding one: spotlighting what's unique…
Lenny’s Podcast118 min
Robby Stein · Oct 10, 2025
Key learnings- Search demand is expanding rather than dying: AI lets people ask more and harder questions, so growth comes from new query types…
- Build a product from a real user problem and stay dissatisfied with the status quo; keep making it better until it tips into…
- Use a J-curve retention analysis (day 7, 30, 90) to tell whether a product is flattening into real usage or steadily losing users.
Lenny’s Podcast95 min
Evan Spiegel · Apr 26, 2026
Key learnings- Distribution is often underweighted compared with product-market fit; founders should plan how they will reach users, not just…
- Software features are easy to copy, so durable advantages come from ecosystems, creator/developer platforms, and…
- Connecting people to their closest relationships, rather than maximizing total friends, can be the more valuable network effect…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresNov 20, 2025
Nov 20, 2025
Teresa Torres interviews the founders of Rest, a startup that built a voice-first AI sleep coach grounded in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBTI). The team began by noticing that users of their podcast app…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresOct 23, 2025
Oct 23, 2025
This podcast episode features three leaders from Zencity, a company that helps local governments understand residents by combining survey data, 311 calls, social media, and local news into one platform. The conversation…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresJul 15, 2025
Jul 15, 2025
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille argue that product practitioners should trace frameworks and best practices back to their original creators rather than relying on social-media summaries. Simplified takes often dilute the…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresMar 4, 2025
Mar 4, 2025
This podcast episode, hosted by Teresa Torres with guest Petra Wille, examines how product management frameworks should be used. Frameworks like the Business Model Canvas, Opportunity Solution Trees, and Jobs to Be Done…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresDec 11, 2024
Dec 11, 2024 · 10 min
This Product in Practice profile follows Eva Spexard, Head of Operations and People at Passion.io, who applies continuous discovery habits to the employee experience rather than to a product. She treats employees as…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresApr 17, 2024
Apr 17, 2024 · 25 min
Stephanie Leue, then Chief Product Officer at Doodle, describes moving a team that had been run as a top-down feature factory toward continuous discovery. Despite good data access, customer feedback channels, and a new…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresDec 27, 2023
Dec 27, 2023 · 8 min
Lily Smith, Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, describes how she set out to add deliberate practice to product learning after realizing that reading and talks were not enough to change how she and her peers work…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresSep 6, 2023
Sep 6, 2023 · 35 min
In a fireside chat at the Product at Heart Leadership Forum, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille discuss how product leaders can help teams adopt continuous discovery. Torres frames discovery as the work of deciding what to…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresSep 7, 2022
Sep 7, 2022 · 10 min
Teresa Torres profiles how Sören Weber and the Search & Flow team at trivago adopted continuous discovery habits on a mature hotel metasearch product. Despite existing user-focus rituals, the team tended to jump to…
SVPG · Marty CaganSep 14, 2021
Sep 14, 2021 · 7 min
Cagan and Moore argue that moving to an empowered product-team model is a major cultural shift that must start with senior leaders, who still have legitimate needs to run the business. Their answer is not to simply step…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresAug 18, 2021
Aug 18, 2021 · 8 min
Teresa Torres argues that product discovery, the work of deciding what to build, should be a continuous activity rather than a project-based phase at the start of a initiative. She contrasts it with delivery, the work…
SVPG · Marty CaganSep 1, 2020
Sep 1, 2020 · 3 min
Marty Cagan, who popularized the term product discovery, clarifies a common confusion: learning is valuable, but the real goal of discovery is to gain insights, which are learnings a team can act on. He explains that…
SVPG · Marty CaganJun 1, 2020
Jun 1, 2020 · 3 min
Marty Cagan explains where the term "product discovery" came from and why he chose it. He argues that software has always faced two core problems: figuring out the right product, and then building it right, which he…
producthabits.com · Hiten ShahSep 30, 2019
Sep 30, 2019 · 14 min
The article argues that the old advice to ignore competitors no longer holds, since new SaaS competitors appear constantly and may encroach from adjacent markets. Competitor research, done properly, is a way to learn…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresAug 14, 2019
Aug 14, 2019 · 16 min
Teresa Torres argues that product managers often fixate on having the 'right answer,' presenting finished backlogs and roadmaps that stakeholders then override with their own opinions. Her remedy is to show the…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresApr 10, 2019
Apr 10, 2019 · 12 min
Teresa Torres, a discovery coach, shares a case study of a SEEK product team that moved from ad hoc, as-needed discovery to a structured, continuous discovery practice. Before coaching, the team interviewed customers…
producthabits.com · Hiten ShahNov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 · 20 min
This case study traces how theSkimm, a daily email news digest aimed at young millennial women, grew to roughly 7 million subscribers despite a crowded and hostile media market. The founders bet on a routine-based…
SVPG · Marty CaganNov 28, 2016
Nov 28, 2016 · 3 min
Marty Cagan argues that most discovery work needs little planning, but larger efforts such as multi-team initiatives call for deliberate framing before diving in. He describes two goals: aligning the team on the…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresMar 2, 2016
Mar 2, 2016 · 8 min
Torres argues that product delivery has matured through Agile, continuous integration, and story mapping, while product discovery, the work of deciding what to build, has lagged behind. She contrasts the traditional…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresJan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 · 11 min
Teresa Torres argues that product managers are essentially designers who solve ill-structured problems, which have no single right answer and several competing solutions. Drawing on educational psychologist David…
SVPG · Marty CaganNov 29, 2013
Nov 29, 2013 · 3 min
Marty Cagan argues that product teams should design for specific personas rather than vague generic users. Using eBay seller tools as an example, he sketches three detailed fictional people with different backgrounds…
Lenny’s Podcast115 min
Max Schoenig
Key learnings- Prototyping in code forces you to understand the medium, so designers and PMs gain better judgment about what the real product…
- Agency, the willingness to treat your company and role as malleable, matters more than any single skill as AI tools make…
- Start by making things; tinkering builds the belief that the world around you can be changed, which Max sees as the root of…
Lenny’s Podcast81 min
Gia Laudi · Sep 29, 2022
Key learnings- Stop treating growth as ending at acquisition; for recurring-revenue businesses, retention, expansion and post-signup activation…
- Start by identifying your best customers: those who are happy, pay well, have an urgent problem, and signed up recently enough to…
- Survey recent best customers about the trigger moment, alternatives considered, must-haves, anxieties, and desired outcomes, then…
Lenny’s Podcast103 min
Ryan Hoover · Aug 7, 2022
Key learnings- Before launching on Product Hunt or elsewhere, define the goal first: customer acquisition, recruiting, fundraising, feedback…
- Write launch taglines and descriptions the way customers describe your product to friends, not in polished PR language, since…
- Use the product gallery as a visual story, such as a before-and-after or an evolution, since visitors look at visuals first on…
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…
Lenny’s Podcast93 min
Ken Norton · Jul 24, 2022
Key learnings- Executive coaching is a partnership where the client defines success; the coach brings listening, curiosity, and challenge rather…
- Advice often delivers a short-lived boost, like cotton candy; lasting growth usually requires confronting the underlying problem…
- Leadership shifts are largely internal: reframing your operating system matters as much as learning new frameworks once you reach…
Lenny’s Podcast104 min
Lane Shackleton · Oct 1, 2023
Key learnings- Treat the core job of product work as turning ambiguity into clarity, and build repeatable systems rather than chasing one-off…
- Build default-on customer contact systems, such as a standing weekly slot with customers, instead of quarterly OKRs to talk to…
- Ask career questions about how many 'oh shit' moments someone has had recently, a sharper signal of growth than asking whether…
Lenny’s Podcast119 min
Sriram and Aarthi · Mar 12, 2023
Key learnings- Meet peers across your org for coffee with no agenda, asking about their work and who else to meet; two coffees a week compounds…
- Follow up after good first meetings and check in every six months or so; most people never follow through, which wastes the…
- Put your work out publicly (threads, posts, talks, GitHub, video); it acts as a signal that attracts serendipitous opportunities…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 86
Jul 11, 2023 · 17 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyAn interview with Snowflake's Director of Product for its Developer Platform and Ecosystem, describing how the company plans, reviews, and organizes product work. It covers annual 'big boulder' planning, six-page plan…
Lenny’s Podcast87 min
Brian Tolkin · Aug 4, 2024
Key learnings- Treat operations and product as complementary engines rather than rivals; a company runs best when both feed each other with…
- Start with manual, human-in-the-loop processes to learn, then automate with technology once volume makes manual work break…
- Be explicit about where scarce engineering effort goes, focusing on the core leverage point (like dispatch and pricing early on)…