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 Podcast104 min
Brian Balfour · Oct 5, 2023
Key learnings- Building a great product is necessary but not sufficient; durable winners separate themselves by building strong distribution…
- New distribution platforms tend to follow a cycle: competitive consensus, identifying a moat, opening a third-party ecosystem…
- Being early to a new platform matters because late adopters face shrinking windows, since platform cycles appear to be getting…
Lenny’s Podcast98 min
Melissa Tan · Jun 18, 2023
Key learnings- Hire first-principles thinkers who are humble and collaborative, since that combination drove much of Dropbox's innovation…
- Start go-to-market and monetization planning early rather than treating growth as a layer added on top of the product later.
- Introduce a PLG motion when the product is intuitive to onboard onto and has a viral component; move toward enterprise sales once…
Lenny’s Podcast105 min
Zoelle Egner · Jan 29, 2023
Key learnings- Start with a laughably small MVP, as Zoelle's team did with a spreadsheet and phone calls, to learn what infrastructure you…
- Repeat your core message relentlessly; people fill gaps with wrong assumptions, so the leader's job is saying the same things…
- Punch above your weight as a small company by polishing emails, landing pages, and sample content so customers feel the product…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 84
Dec 10, 2019 · 9 min
““Lyft was always supply constrained. It was obvious to everyone. You open up the app on a Friday night and there were no cars available. Instead, you got a Lyft message saying sorry, try again later. We eventually ended up having to build a waitlist for supply to catch up to demand. This was especially bad for us because Lyft focused on being reliable — a ride when you need one, with the tap of a button. The aha moment, or inflection…”
HEY World · Jason FriedFeb 3, 2025
Feb 3, 2025
Jason Fried describes a six-week sprint at Basecamp focused on smoothing the trial-to-paid onboarding experience, which bundled many small changes at once: a sample Getting Started project, a one-step project creation…
Lenny’s NewsletterAug 25, 2020
Aug 25, 2020 · 7 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyThis paid post explains how to measure retention using cohort analysis, including how to read cohort charts for trends and for signs of flattening that indicate product-market fit. It then previews a framework of seven…
Lenny’s Podcast117 min
Peter Sellis · Sep 20, 2026
Key learnings- Collaboration carries hidden coordination costs that slow teams down to the pace of the slowest node; a clear ideology plus clear…
- Give product leaders explicit, repeatable phrases that shortcut the company strategy, and tie them to both a mission and concrete…
- Growth often comes from deepening engagement with your core users (higher daily or weekly use) rather than chasing new monthly…
Lenny’s Podcast117 min
Elena Verna 4.0 · Dec 18, 2025
Key learnings- Expect most of your classic growth playbook to transfer poorly in fast-moving AI categories; Elena estimates only 30-40% of her…
- Build in public: pair regular product shipping with founder-led and employee social posts so the market sees constant change and…
- Give the product away generously, including credits for hackathons and events, since removing the barrier to trying an AI product…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 221
Sep 5, 2023 · 29 min
Lenny Rachitsky's fourth installment in his B2B startup series argues that finding your first ten customers starts with trust and hand-to-hand effort, not scalable channels. Drawing on interviews with founders of…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 112
Aug 22, 2023 · 17 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyThe post offers a step-by-step guide to hiring and structuring a first growth team, drawing on interviews with a dozen growth practitioners. It argues growth should follow product-market fit, that acquisition is usually…
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 Podcast91 min
Adriel Frederick · Oct 20, 2022
Key learnings- Make new R&D or incubation teams feel core to the company mission and share their wins, so the rest of the organization doesn't…
- For algorithm-heavy products, decide explicitly what the algorithm owns versus what people own, and design interfaces that let…
- Treat operational control as a first-order product requirement when a marketplace needs day-to-day human adjustments like weather…
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…
SVPG · Marty CaganApr 5, 2005
Apr 5, 2005 · 7 min
Marty Cagan argues that consumer internet services differ sharply from traditional enterprise software: there is no sales force or distribution channel between the product and its users, so ideas can be tested and…
Lenny’s Podcast80 min
Adam Fishman · Oct 13, 2022
Key learnings- Use a competency model (growth execution, customer knowledge, growth strategy, communication and influence) to hire for a…
- Before hiring a growth leader, agree on what you need and where the gaps are, and use the model as a reverse interview to see…
- Give specific feedback by naming the exact competency to improve, instead of vague comments like 'be more strategic'.
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 97
Nov 24, 2020 · 29 min
Pete Kazanjy argues that bottom-up, self-serve B2B products should eventually layer in a direct sales motion, since waiting too long creates large opportunity costs and lets competitors capture enterprise segments. He…
Lenny’s Podcast121 min
Naomi Gleit · Oct 27, 2024
Key learnings- Keep one canonical doc per project that links to all other docs, listing workstreams, single-threaded owners, processes…
- Pursue a dream company or role persistently, even by volunteering informally in the role you want until the formal job becomes a…
- Pick a clear activation or retention milestone so the whole team optimizes toward one shared goal, even if the exact threshold is…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 25
Nov 2, 2021 · 7 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyThis post is mostly a promotional announcement for a part-time PM course aimed at early-career product managers, with a reader Q&A in the middle. The core advice in the Q&A explains how to move from a generalist PM role…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresFeb 25, 2013
Feb 25, 2013 · 3 min
Teresa Torres argues that email remains a powerful channel for products despite claims it is dead. She counters common myths: that young users avoid email, that spam has ruined it, and that users will be annoyed by…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 84
Apr 26, 2022 · 12 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky surveys about two dozen venture investors on what growth rates count as good or great at each stage of a business. The post argues that early-stage investors weigh time-to-$1M ARR, retention, and…
Lenny’s Podcast74 min
Laura Modi · Apr 13, 2023
Key learnings- Build culture first: if the team internalizes that the supply side or users come first, growth and better tools tend to follow.
- Connect your brand to the top worries your customer already has, rather than trying to convince them they have a new problem.
- When a crisis threatens customers, be willing to pause growth, like Bobbie did by turning off its site to protect current…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresJun 20, 2012
Jun 20, 2012 · 5 min
Teresa Torres describes how a weekend of family play turned her from a mobile-game holdout into a heavy user of Words with Friends, Draw Something, and Scramble. She uses a 2012 Journal of Product Innovation Management…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 172
Aug 30, 2022 · 18 min
Olga Berezovsky, guest-writing for Lenny Rachitsky, argues that cohort retention is widely misunderstood and costly to get wrong, and offers a practical guide to measuring it. She recommends defining "active" by the…