The happiness and pain of product management

Noam Lovinsky, Chief Product Officer at Grammarly, shares lessons from a varied career spanning YouTube, Thumbtack, and Facebook's New Product Experimentation team. The conversation covers turning around struggling products and growth, incubating 0-to-1 ideas inside large companies, and the importance of stretch, stamina, and working on energizing work.

01Key learnings

• Advocate for what is best for the business even when it means shutting down your own project; in healthy organizations, that candor is rewarded and builds trust.
• Don't hesitate to ask for a different reporting structure if it will make you more productive; Noam layered himself under a peer manager at YouTube and it worked well.
• Set guiding principles for trade-offs, such as serving customers first, then supply, then the company, to resolve thorny marketplace decisions.
• Growth can mask underlying problems; stress-test what would happen if growth turned negative and pay attention to hidden friction.
• Avoid relying on a single growth channel; diversify acquisition sources such as SEO, paid, referrals, and social before a shift in platform rules hurts you.
• When building incubators inside large companies, the incentive system and review timelines matter most; twice-yearly performance cycles kill 0-to-1 teams.
• Strategy is not only the product team's job; leaders in finance, sales, and people should all contribute to product strategy during downturns.
• Seek roles that stretch and grow you, but ensure you can lean on one or two core strengths to balance the discomfort.

02Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.