Marty Cagan argues that the word "pivot" is overused in product teams and that teams too often abandon their product vision far too early. He separates two kinds of pivots: vision pivots, which change the underlying…
“We need to talk about product roadmaps. I once worked at a startup where our product roadmap was literally an Excel spreadsheet full of feature ideas. Most of them came from our CEO. Our head of product simply prioritized the rows. Based on what, I have no idea. This is”
Lenny Rachitsky analyzes how 30 fast-growing B2B SaaS companies chose their go-to-market motions, covering product-led versus sales-led approaches, top-down versus bottom-up targeting, and which market segments they…
Teresa Torres walks through how she sets quarterly product goals for her team, focusing on the most valuable thing the business needs next. She shows three quarters of goals that changed as her understanding grew: first…
Marty Cagan argues that Product Market Fit and the Product Vision are related but distinct, and that teams often confuse them. The Product Vision describes the services and customers a company intends to serve over…
Product teams need to think like investors—understand the real cost, focus on ROI, and balance risk to drive outcomes. Fabrice des Mazery, former CPO at TheFork, shares how shifting to an investment mindset leads to smarter decisions and impact. Listen:
Marty Cagan argues that many product teams, both in startups and established companies, spend most of their effort capturing value (pricing tests, ad optimization, cost cutting) rather than creating it. Startups often…
Marty Cagan argues that 'specials'—large customer or partner deals that come with a condition to build exactly what they request—can derail a product company. Although the cash is tempting, especially for cash-strapped…
Patrick Campbell, CEO of ProfitWell, argues that pricing is an ongoing strategic lever rather than a one-time number, and that early on the exact price matters far less than the value metric and the customer segments…
Marty Cagan highlights a talk by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and draws out four principles that connect to his thinking on product portfolio planning. The core message is that great product companies focus relentlessly on…
Marty Cagan argues that Apple's repeated success in redefining consumer markets comes from product discipline rather than marketing. Written around the iPhone's debut, the essay contends that Apple gets the ordering of…
Cagan argues that product portfolio planning should be treated like financial portfolio planning: each product effort is an investment whose returns depend on where the company places its bets. Many companies either…
This is a short announcement newsletter pointing readers to a guest post Lenny Rachitsky wrote for a16z's Future site on choosing a North Star Metric. The guide draws on a survey of current and former employees at more…
David Spinks argues that community is a structure for creating value by helping people help each other, which can scale a product's impact with a small team. Before investing, founders should align community to a…
Teresa Torres argues that 'outcomes over outputs' is easy to state but hard to practice, because many teams still ship features while being asked to deliver impact. She defines outputs as what a team builds and outcomes…
Marty Cagan argues that product teams can find major opportunities by letting customers use their products for purposes the company never planned or officially supports. He describes this as a third path beyond…
An interview-based post with April Dunford, a positioning consultant, covering how to diagnose positioning problems, her five-step positioning exercise, and how positioning differs from messaging, branding…
The authors argue that many companies become efficient feature factories: most roadmap features fail to generate a positive return, often estimated at only 10-20%. The root cause is feature teams that serve internal…
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…