By Teresa Torres · producttalk.org · @ttorres on X · LinkedIn
Teresa Torres uses her annual letter to reflect on a burnout-filled 2024, where she rediscovered joy in her work by reworking her community, launching a self-paced course, and tightening her email and webinar offerings. For 2025 she sets two themes supporting her north star of growing the number of product teams that adopt continuous discovery: accessibility and genuine connection. Accessibility means more self-paced options, subtitles, varied learning formats, and eventual translations, while connection means filtering out low-quality engagement and investing in people who do the work. The letter also clarifies what Product Talk offers and what it no longer does, such as in-person speaking and bespoke consulting. It matters because it shows a practitioner deliberately narrowing scope and attention to sustain both her business and her wellbeing.
01Key takeaways
- Reframe growth goals as accessibility when your aim is to serve people who already want the change, rather than persuading everyone.
- Make learning self-paced only once you have designed for completion, practice, and measurable outcomes instead of passive consumption.
- Encourage partial adoption: teams can start with one habit at a time, and something is better than nothing.
- Protect your energy by deliberately limiting low-quality interactions and investing time where people share context and do the work.
- Sustain a small business by cutting activities that drain you, such as travel that no longer makes sense economically or personally.
02Key sections
- 2024 look back
- Torres describes burnout from years of book promotion, content output, and teaching, and sets a goal to re-find joy in her work. She highlights a reworked membership program, a first self-paced course, and a growing email focus.
- Accessibility theme
- She reframes growth as accessibility so she can serve people who already want to work this way rather than proselytize. Initiatives include more self-paced courses, full subtitles, multiple learning formats, and multilingual content.
- Genuine connection theme
- She describes exhausting noise from AI-generated comments and lazy questions, and commits to engaging more deliberately with people who show effort and context. A stakeholder-style example illustrates what good engagement looks like.
- Community initiatives
- Continued senior leader discussion sessions, the Slack community, the daily email, and selective social media experimentation are positioned as ways to deepen real conversations.
- Working with Product Talk
- The letter lays out offerings: virtual speaking only, the renamed Product Discovery Fundamentals course, on-demand deep-dive courses, and coaching limited to course alumni, with no bespoke consulting.
03From the post
“Welcome to 2025! As we kick off a new year, it’s time for my annual letter. For the past several years, I’ve used my annual letters to reflect on the past year, share where I intend to focus during the upcoming year, and provide a guide for folks”
04Frameworks mentioned
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.