Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 89
Jun 18, 2024 · 17 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky synthesizes lessons from Stytch's CEO and marketing leaders at other startups on running out-of-home (billboard, bus, transit) ad campaigns for B2B software. The post argues OOH is best for brand…
Lenny’s Podcast124 min
Emilie Gerber · Mar 21, 2024
Key learnings- Press often delivers second-order value: third-party validation for sales emails, recruiting outreach, and investor or sponsor…
- For funding announcements, keep the pitch simple: amount raised, investors, and one line on why it matters, offered as an…
- Follow up respectfully every three or four days with new information, and move on to other relevant reporters after a few…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 232
Jan 10, 2023 · 20 min
“I’ve read hundreds of articles about product-led growth (PLG), and they all kind of blur together. So when founders ask me for advice on building their PLG motion, I still don’t know where to point them. Thus, when Hila Qu approached me about collaborating on a definitive deep-dive on building a PLG motion, I was thrilled. Hila helped scale Acorns from 1 million to 5 million users as their VP of growth, then joined GitLab, where she…”
Lenny’s Podcast90 min
Camille Ricketts · Dec 11, 2022
Key learnings- Treat content like a product: define who the audience is and what painful job they need done before creating anything.
- Community-led growth works best when the product creates something users want to share, such as templates or creative workspaces.
- Measure brand discovery with net new visitors to your site month over month, rather than starting with rigid community ROI…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 60
Oct 12, 2021 · 15 min
This guest-written issue, drawn from Ali Abouelatta's First 1000 research, catalogs 60 examples of 'Turbo Boosts,' one-off events that temporarily accelerate growth. It frames them as the fuel-like components of a…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 181
Mar 28, 2023 · 15 min
Kyle Poyar argues that product-led growth (PLG) only works economically if customer acquisition cost stays near zero, roughly under $1 per unique website visitor. Using OpenView benchmark funnel math, he shows that a…
Lenny’s Podcast58 min
Seth Godin · Dec 8, 2024
Key learnings- Define quality as meeting spec, and relentlessly improve the spec in service of the people you serve rather than polishing…
- Treat good taste as anticipating what people want just before they do, and build it by working alongside people with high…
- Treat brand as a promise: decide what you stand for, what you don't do, and what you'd be missed for, then make a difficult…
SVPG · Marty CaganFeb 28, 2006
Feb 28, 2006 · 4 min
Cagan argues that the traditional role of the salesperson is shrinking as customers now research, trial, and buy products online before ever talking to a rep. He identifies the main barriers that kept people buying…
@hnshah · Hiten Shah on X♥ 14
Founders are doing product marketing earlier than they think. It usually shows up when a buyer says something you weren’t expecting. That gap between how you describe the product and how buyers see it can change the story you tell and what gets built next. If you’re a founder
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 Podcast71 min
Andy Raskin · May 28, 2023
Key learnings- Replace the 'arrogant doctor' pitch (problem, solution, why we're better) with a story that opens by naming a shift from an old…
- Name the old game in a few concise words, such as 'transactions' or 'opinions', since compact labels make the shift easy to…
- Show that winners are already playing the new game, and frame the stakes as a clear choice between a very negative and a very…
SVPG · Marty CaganAug 16, 2022
Aug 16, 2022 · 5 min
The author argues that many companies reach an early beachhead of customers, assume product/market fit, and then stall because they neglected market fit. Market fit means discovering 'market pull': what makes customers…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 315
Sep 2, 2025 · 9 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyDavid Placek of Lexicon Branding outlines a step-by-step naming playbook drawn from decades of work on brands like Swiffer, Pentium and Vercel. He argues that a strong name builds trust, communicates an original idea…
The Looking Glass podcastJun 9, 2026
Jun 9, 2026
Key learnings- Treat sales as a craft worth mastering, not a lesser discipline; understanding how customers buy makes product leaders far more…
- Learn to listen closely to what customers are actually trying to accomplish before proposing solutions or pitching value.
- Build trust through consistent follow-through, since credibility compounds over repeated interactions with buyers and internal…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 293
Mar 12, 2024 · 20 min
Lenny Rachitsky reflects on nearly two years of running his product management podcast, which has passed 10 million downloads. He argues that the core job is producing a great audio file, and that starting with modest…
Lenny’s Podcast76 min
Lulu Cheng Meservey · Mar 23, 2023
Key learnings- Make ideas spread by making them memorable and giving people a reason to repeat them, such as humor, a vivid mental image, an…
- Test a catchphrase by asking whether a second-grader could understand it immediately; avoid inside jokes that only make sense…
- Treat making mistakes of commission rather than omission as the better bet, since visible errors can be learned from while…
HEY World · Jason FriedNov 29, 2025
Nov 29, 2025
Jason Fried argues that the best time to invite outside users into a product is only a week or two before launch, when it is essentially a near-final release rather than an early beta. At that stage he is not seeking…
SVPG · Marty CaganAug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 · 5 min
Cagan argues that strong products are the foundation of a healthy business: weak products inflate acquisition costs, lengthen sales cycles, pressure prices and burden customer service. The most powerful antidote is a…
@hnshah · Hiten Shah on X♥ 22
If a customer conversation has ever changed how you explain the product, you’ve already done product marketing. Friday at 10 AM PT I’m taking one B2B product through 16 jobs like that with AI. I’ll run the same work with and without the matching skill and see which version I’d
Lenny’s Podcast103 min
Ryan Hoover · Aug 7, 2022
Key learnings- Before launching on Product Hunt or elsewhere, define the goal first: customer acquisition, recruiting, fundraising, feedback…
- Write launch taglines and descriptions the way customers describe your product to friends, not in polished PR language, since…
- Use the product gallery as a visual story, such as a before-and-after or an evolution, since visitors look at visuals first on…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 102
Mar 5, 2024 · 22 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyThe post argues that a Product Hunt launch is worth the heavy time investment only for the right product and goals, and outlines seven tactics for a strong launch alongside five common myths. It frames…
SVPG · Marty CaganDec 18, 2007
Dec 18, 2007 · 4 min
Marty Cagan and Martina Lauchengco argue that the terms "product" and "solution" are often misused, especially in enterprise and infrastructure software. They define a real product as one customers pay for, that works…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 48
Jul 13, 2021 · 12 min
Lenny Rachitsky examines how labor marketplaces find and grow their supply side, drawing on interviews with founders and early team members of roughly a dozen fast-growing companies. Because these platforms connect…
Lenny’s Podcast114 min
Jonathan Lowenhar · Dec 5, 2024
Key learnings- Being a founder is a state of being, while being a CEO is a craft; founders should deliberately develop CEO skills like planning…
- Calibrate between founder mode and manager mode depending on what the moment needs; great CEOs know when to dive into details and…
- Start planning by working backwards from your next major milestone (exit, fundraise, profitability, or wind-down) and define what…