Part five of a six-part series on building a consumer business, focused on retention and finding product-market fit. The post argues PMF is a spectrum of confidence, signaled by flattening retention curves, organic…
Lenny Rachitsky shares seven older essays he considers timeless and formative for product builders, including pieces on delegation, agency, taste, learning, product focus, market vs. team, and Elon Musk's approach. He…
Lenny Rachitsky, working with Crunchbase data, ranks the most active and most successful U.S. angel investors across several time windows. The post is a directional guide to who early-stage founders might approach, and…
“Competition is intense for startups in every industry, but there are few industries harder to crack than media. With an already intimidating array of major media conglomerates competing for audiences’… Keep reading The post How theSkimm Grew to 7 Million Subscribers in 7 Years appeared first on Product Habits.”
Jason Fried responds to a young entrepreneur in his mid-20s who sold a business and now holds a couple million dollars in liquid cash, asking whether to invest it, start a new company, or do something else. Fried's…
Marty Cagan describes a shared workspace he helped create in Silicon Valley for very early-stage startups, which often struggle with the time and money needed to set up an office. The space offers flexible…
Lenny Rachitsky shares a curated directory of roughly 200 favorite reads, listens, and watches on growth, startups, writing, angel investing, product management, leadership, and frameworks, cleaned up and expanded for…
Lenny Rachitsky surveys about 30 companies on when they hired their first product manager, finding the typical wait was two to three years, often before product-market fit. The post shows that someone always does PM…
A Q&A post offering advice for someone becoming a startup's first product manager. Drawing on interviews with people who held that role at well-known companies, it covers when to make the first PM hire and what the job…
This issue of Lenny Rachitsky's newsletter covers three reader questions. The first asks how a bootstrapped founder should offer a late-joining CTO equity without deterring investors; guest Hunter Walk advises common…
This second installment of a marketplace growth series tackles the chicken-and-egg problem: once a marketplace is constrained by geography or category, founders must decide whether to concentrate resources on supply or…
Marty Cagan reviews Eric Ries's book "The Lean Startup" and argues it is one of the best product books in years, relevant to both new and experienced product people and not only early-stage startups. He notes Ries…
Part two of Lenny's pivot series argues that pivoting is fundamentally about opportunity cost and distinguishes early ideation pivots from hard pivots on live products. It draws on founder-reported data to suggest…
Lenny Rachitsky explains what a 'wedge' strategy is, namely entering a large market through a narrow, sharp initial product and segment. He covers when a wedge is most needed (entrenched or crowded markets), why it…
Hiten Shah traces how Square went from a 2009 idea born of a lost glassblowing sale to a company valued in the billions, by solving the costly problem of card acceptance for small businesses. He highlights the simple…
Marty Cagan argues that product innovation is no longer confined to Silicon Valley and that talent in developing markets is moving through a clear progression. The industry began with outsourcing, moved to US companies…
Marty Cagan argues that in many startups the CEO is the most effective head of product, especially in consumer companies, because the CEO best understands the market, customer and company and is fully committed. He…
Part 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…
Hiten Shah recounts how his analytics startup KISSmetrics went from a near-breakthrough to a stalled company. After two failed products, the team did customer research and found a strong market, building features that…
Lenny Rachitsky answers a reader question about growth and retention during the 2020 coronavirus downturn by compiling advice from growth operators, investors, and HBR. The core argument is that founders should first…
This Product in Practice case study follows Kranthi Kiran, founder of ThoughtFlow, a collaboration tool combining visual mind mapping with data modeling. It opens by framing the risk founders face when they start from…
Lenny Rachitsky curates ten more essays for product builders, spanning problem framing, communication, distribution, market sizing, growth, scaling teams, positioning, and ambitious startup ideas. Each pick is paired…
This guest-authored guide by Jason Shah, head of product at Alchemy, explains how the product manager role changes at web3 startups. The author argues that PMs there are more versatile, more art than science given…
This essay traces Snapchat's rise from a 2011 Stanford side project to a major social platform, and its subsequent stall after going public. The author argues Snapchat's early success came from turning a familiar…