Cagan argues that beyond empowered teams hitting measurable outcomes, the best product companies also pursue a harder-to-define standard of excellence: desirability, delight, or 'spirit.' He acknowledges the tension…
“Hello and welcome to another edition of my newsletter. My name is Lenny, and each week I tackle reader questions about product, growth, working with humans, and anything else that’s stressing you out at the office. Send me your questions and in return, I’ll humbly offer actionable real-talk advice. 🤝 If you find this newsletter valuable, consider sharing it with friends 🤜🤛 Q: A lot is written about driving traffic to a website, but…”
Teresa Torres introduces a multi-week series arguing that API teams need more product discovery, and aims to bridge API engineers and discovery practitioners. This installment explains the basics: what an API is, how…
Marty Cagan argues that product creation is a blend of art and science, though he has long leaned toward the scientific side because of his training. Reading Rick Rubin's book The Creative Act reshaped his view…
Julie Zhuo reflects on Muse, a consumer AI agent she believes could actually change people's everyday habits. The essay, which is paywalled, argues that a few specific design choices explain why personal AI might…
Julie Zhuo's paid essay looks at playful, seemingly pointless things people build with AI when no one is tracking the hours or demanding a business case, such as an unusual bird display, a talking phone, and a game…
Marty Cagan argues against setting a fixed percentage split between new product development and improving existing products. Instead, every investment, whether new or improvement, should be treated as a product…
This essay traces how website heatmaps emerged from a blind spot in early web analytics, which counted page destinations rather than the actual interactions visitors made. Two identically destined links were merged into…
Marty Cagan argues that the common startup approach of funding engineers to build a product before validating it is inefficient and causes many good ideas to fail. Founders typically act as product manager, build in…
Teresa Torres argues that product managers constantly communicate complex ideas to engineers, designers, sales, and customers, and that visual thinking is one of the most effective ways to do it quickly and accurately…
Jason Fried's short essay argues that randomness, as seen in untouched nature, is among the most beautiful things there is. He describes forests, fields, stones, light, wind, and water as arrangements that never line up…
Marty Cagan argues that Agile product teams often suffer from poorly defined backlog items, slow velocity, rework, and unvalidated ideas. He proposes Dual-Track Agile, which runs a Discovery track to quickly validate…
Teresa Torres surveys eleven real-world teams using Lovable and similar AI prototyping tools to speed up product discovery. Across stories from design sprints, navigation tests, side projects, job applications and…
Marty Cagan responds to a common challenge: why are products like Facebook, Amazon, and Google so successful if they seem poorly designed? He argues that product people often confuse their own tastes with the target…
Marty Cagan responds to a debate sparked by Don Norman's essay arguing that big societal innovations are driven by technology first and needs later, which Norman frames against heavy upfront user research. Cagan says…
As a product grows from one team to many, keeping a holistic view of how the whole product fits together becomes very hard. Cagan argues that three senior roles are needed to hold that view: a principal designer for…
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…
Marty Cagan walks through a fabricated three-week product discovery sprint to show what the fast, iterative rhythm of discovery actually looks like compared with linear, Waterfall-style processes. The team sets product…
Marty Cagan revisits Henrik Kniberg's skateboard-versus-car MVP article and argues it describes what engineering-only teams can do, not what true cross-functional product teams should do. He contends that a skilled…
Crazy Egg's team tested 19 AI website builders by generating 51 pages (product, course, and local service pages) and scoring them against 60 criteria covering usability, conversion design, and SEO. The author finds AI…
Marty Cagan argues that product teams learn most when they put early, rough ideas in front of real users, and that they should do so faster than feels comfortable. He notes that polishing ideas in private mostly deepens…
This episode of Just Now Possible features three leaders from Healio, a 125-year-old medical publisher, discussing how they built Healio AI, an assistant helping physicians prepare for patient care. The core argument is…
Marty Cagan describes a common remote-work problem in product discovery: teams drift back into passing static artifacts between product manager, designer, and engineers instead of collaborating closely. His proposed fix…
Torres argues that thinking of a product as a collection of features is a trap that quietly undermines product quality. A feature-first mindset pulls teams into competitor-chasing, produces me-too offerings, and invites…