“The Lean Startup has a flaw. It’s a simple one. It advocates the feedback loop: Build -> Measure -> Learn. I agree wholeheartedly with this loop. The flaw is in where you should start. I prefer: Learn -> Build -> Measure It’s a subtle difference, but it’s an important one. The”
Teresa Torres argues that a common mistake among teams new to Lean Startup methods is substituting experimentation for judgment, testing options like folders versus tags without first reasoning about which is most…
Teresa Torres argues that product managers often fall into a throughput mindset, filling backlogs and keeping engineers busy rather than driving outcomes. She identifies three recurring failures: not starting from a…
Caitlin Sullivan, a user-research practitioner, explains four recurring ways AI-generated customer analysis goes wrong: invented or blended quotes, generic insights, signal that doesn't guide decisions, and missed…
Teresa Torres introduces the Ladder of Evidence, a framework for judging how reliable customer feedback is. Asking people what they would do in the future, as focus groups and surveys often do, yields weak signal…
Lenny argues that most teams should skip elaborate prioritization frameworks and use a simple impact-versus-cost sort of T-shirt-sized ideas, then refine it with team input. He stresses that the roadmap must follow a…
Marty Cagan argues that testing high-fidelity prototypes with real users is the most important activity a product manager performs, because it reveals whether people can use a product and whether they want it before…
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…
Teresa Torres argues that once a product's success funnel converts well, the next step is growth, but only after that funnel is healthy; otherwise acquiring users just wastes time, energy and money. She introduces two…
Teresa Torres argues that product managers make dozens of decisions daily and tend to feel confident about them, yet decision research shows people often make poor choices while believing they are sound. Our minds are…
Part two of a PLG guide by Hila Qu covers the fourth and fifth steps of launching a product-led growth motion: setting up infrastructure and tooling, then building the team. The core argument is that PLG is…
Teresa Torres traces how product discovery has evolved over roughly two decades, from long requirements documents and shipping flops like Windows ME toward experiment-driven, customer-centered practice. She argues that…
Teresa Torres argues that many product managers remain unaware of a fundamental shift toward modern product discovery, despite the Lean Startup and design thinking having been around for years. She observes that many…
Cagan argues that the old model of carefully controlled, consistent product messaging no longer works, because most people first hear about a product from others outside the company's control. Messaging must now engage…
Marty Cagan follows up on an earlier list of product manager problem areas with five more common pitfalls. He argues that many teams play defense, acting risk-averse and protecting ground instead of moving forward…
Teresa Torres argues that product teams should monitor customer signals from support tickets, sales conversations, surveys, and behavioral analytics, but should not treat these fragments as a substitute for customer…
Teresa Torres reports on the second part of her inaugural CDH Benchmark Survey, which asked product teams about their discovery habits. She argues that many people doubt that continuous discovery exists in practice…
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…
Marty Cagan contrasts the traditional PC-era product manager with the modern Internet-era product manager. He argues that many organizations still operate with the older model, which was often ineffective and poorly…
Suril Kantaria, co-founder and CEO of Savvy, recounts the arc of a fintech startup that let employees buy their own health insurance with payment cards, from early missteps to a 2022 acquisition by a market incumbent…