“I started consulting in 2014. It was supposed to be temporary, a way to pay the bills as I figured out which company I wanted to join next as a VP of Product. As I got more and more calls from ex-colleagues and those who saw my talks, I started to consider consulting…”
Marty Cagan and Richard Russell use the origin story of Amazon Prime to show how Amazon's approach to building technology products mirrors the product operating model used by the strongest product companies. The article…
Marty Cagan argues that product managers should formally assess new product opportunities before building, rather than relying on executive decree, intuition, or a single large customer's funding. He notes that Market…
Marty Cagan argues that every technology company has more product ideas than capacity to build them, so the real work of portfolio planning is deciding where to invest. Rather than only adding headcount, companies can…
Teresa Torres argues that a clear desired outcome sets the scope, latitude, and success measure for product discovery, yet many teams struggle to define one. She distinguishes outcomes (the impact of work on customers…
Marty Cagan and Felipe Castro argue that moving from outputs (what we build) to outcomes (the difference we make) is conceptually simple but practically very hard. They contend that most failed attempts stem from trying…
Marty Cagan, a longtime admirer of Apple, argues that the first Apple Watch after Steve Jobs is a disappointing product that falls short of Apple's usual standards of value. He criticizes its dependence on the phone…
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…
Teresa Torres argues that product teams are often held responsible for business outcomes such as revenue, margin, or churn, which they cannot directly control. Business outcomes are lagging indicators that only reveal…
Marty Cagan argues that product work has two distinct phases: strategy, where you discover what to build through exploration and customer contact, and execution, where you build and ship it. Many teams fail because they…
Lenny Rachitsky recounts a failed Airbnb 'social travel' launch, arguing that the core mistake was misunderstanding the real problem (travelers want high-quality non-touristy things to do, not to meet other travelers)…
Marty Cagan answers the most common questions readers raised after his article proposing an alternative to conventional product roadmaps. He argues that engineers should help decide what to build, that outcome-based…
Teresa Torres argues that a product should be built around doing one thing exceptionally well. Such focus helps customers understand when and why to use it, gives the team a realistic chance of being the best at that…
Marty Cagan argues that product teams benefit from writing a short manifesto, a public declaration of core principles and beliefs that complements the product vision and strategy. He describes how a manifesto forces a…
Marty Cagan recommends Stratechery, Ben Thompson's newsletter on tech strategy, as a valuable resource for product managers and leaders. He argues that a key part of product leadership is understanding markets…
Marty Cagan argues that weak products are those that fail to meet their objectives or create new revenue and growth for the company. He lists ten root causes, centered on the absence of a real product vision…
Marty Cagan uses an anecdote about Apple, Xerox PARC, and the graphical desktop computer to explain what a product vision and a 'visiontype' (a vision prototype) are for. He argues that a compelling visiontype helps…
Marty Cagan argues that a startup's central goal is reaching Product-Market Fit, the point where a product has proven demand and justifies investing in sales, marketing and scale. He standardizes on Marc Andreessen's…
In this podcast episode, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille examine the hard decision of when and how to sunset products that are profitable and liked but no longer growing. They argue that this mediocre middle ground is…
Product managers constantly receive requests from sales, executives, support, engineers, and customers, and trying to satisfy all of them can derail a well-defined product. The author argues that you can rarely both…
Melissa Perri argues that product leaders planning a company's next phase should survey a standard set of growth strategies rather than fixate on a single path. She organizes 16 options around three business objectives…
Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion, both product discovery coaches, walk through the eight most common mistakes teams make when defining product outcomes. They argue that outcomes often get mislabeled as outputs…
Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion analyze free-text answers from a 2022 benchmark survey where many product teams answered 'other' when asked whether their product aims to grow revenue or reduce costs. Using real examples…
This post is a monthly reading guide for a book club celebrating the fifth anniversary of Continuous Discovery Habits, focused on Chapter 3 about outcomes versus outputs. It frames the chapter's core idea: product teams…