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How can you optimize product engineering for different cultures?
Internationalization is everything when it comes to product engineering. The fact is: Most engineers have differing backgrounds and attitudes when it comes to product engineering. • Some of never heard of it • Others fully embraced it in a prior job And, the attitudes to product engineering vary a lot by country and company. So you should provide custom instruction relevant the to level of every engineer. Help them understand how autonomous they should be, what discovery they should do, and what their relationship with their PM should be. The better the documentation and eng leadership, the easier the transition to a product engineering culture.
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How can product managers stay organized while self-employed?
Saying no is the most important part here. As a PM, you have to do it to succeed. But it can also be the reason you get fired. It’s very important to say no with tact and still bring that person along for other things you build so they see your impact.
Experience & Education
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Product Growth
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Matt Turck
How to pitch: The company has zero traction —> “We’re early” You only have 2 customers —> “We’re working with design partners” You currently have no revenue but hoping some pipeline finally closes —> “we’re on track to exit this year at $3M ARR” You’re in the natural kill zone of a FAANG —> “We view them as partners rather than competitors” There’s no way the tech can actually work —>“We’re manifesting the future” And of course: One of your developers uses Co-Pilot to write some front end code —> “We’re an AI company”
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Josh Braun
Pushing vs. pulling when selling. Pushing: “We’re discovered a breakthrough in recovering failed payments. The reason I called is to share this breakthrough with you. Do you have your calendar handy?” Pulling: “Do you folks use internal resources, dunning, or an external team to recover failed payments?” “We use internal resources.” “You’ve probably looked into outsourcing it.” “We have.” “Sounds like the value wasn't there for you.” “Actually…” It's not you job to fill peopl’s heads with information. Your job is to draw it out. Why does this matter? Nobody wants to be explained to. People are more persuaded by what they hear themselves say rather than what you say.
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Jordan Wan, CFA 🇨🇦
FOUNDERS STOP DEMOING On net, early stage founders should stop demoing their products on the first sales call. I've watched dozens of Fathom videos of pre-seed and seed stage founders I've invested in, and its the number one culprit for wasting time and derailing your sales motions. Your product demo is SACRED and should only be shown to qualified buyers. In complex sales, the goal of your first sales call is NOT to sell, but determine whether you are talking to a qualified prospect: an influential champion at a company with a real usage case, that will actually buy your product in a reasonable amount of time. Demoing can incite an excitable stakeholder with no power, and organizations with no real need, to progress a deal. This false sense of progress creates an escalating sense of sunk cost that makes it hard for founders to abandon the deal. You end up spending a ton of time in follow up hell chasing a bad prospective design partner. In the early stages, all you have is time and resource costs. Don't squander it chasing bad customers. While its tempting to use slides or a product demo as a crutch, it completely derails your ability to run a productive "discovery" call. FOCUS on the conversation and if necessary prepare a list of 20 questions, sequenced by batches, that unlocks true understanding of the stakeholder's role / power, their organization buying process, and whether they may have a real usage case and urgency to make a purchasing decision in the next 2 quarters. If they don't, throw them in your nurturing campaign and move on. Your time is better spent focusing on setting more meetings.
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Matan Kleyman
I've returned to writing and sharing my insights, now on Substack! 📚✨ If you're interested in product development and compelling startup stories, be sure to check out my new Substack. The upside? It's going to be very opinionated and inspiring. The downside? It might push your thinking. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/dZnUgJj5 Stay tuned and feel free to subscribe. #Tech #ProductDevelopment #TechTrends #StartupStories #Substack
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Justin Gerrard
Bump is platform that helps creators manage and grow their businesses. Launched in 2020 by James Jones, Esq. and Kovalyov Anton, Bump recently announced a $3 million seed round, with investments from ImpactX, Capitalize VC and Serac Ventures. Bump allows creators to track income and market value, which can help them negotiate better deals and see how much money they are owed from partners. In 2022, Bump launched the Bump Creator credit card in partnership with Mastercard, which provides no monthly or hidden fees and can be acquired without a credit check. Bump also works with a banking institution and has direct deposit accounts that let creators earn interest on cash placed in its money market account. Bump closed its seed round in about six months, with other investors, including Heirloom Ventures, H/L Ventures and Mana Ventures. It has raised $3.5 million to date, with existing investors, including Snap Inc. and Sixty8 Capital. “The creator economy is one of the most important trends in the future of work,” Oliver Libby, a managing partner at H/L Ventures, told TechCrunch. “There is virtually no financial infrastructure, no financial training, products, or help for this growing population — many of them underrepresented and underbanked.” Bump will use the latest fundraise to help it expand and refine its infrastructure. #creators #creatoreconomy #startups #finance #tech https://lnkd.in/gE5xzp_s
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🃏 Sherry Jiang
Hot take: I think startups die because the founders stop having fun doing them I recently listened to this podcast on Lennys Podcast called "Lessons from 1,000+ YC startups: Resilience, tar pit ideas, pivoting, more" with Dalton Caldwell, a managing director at Y Combinator. He's probably seen more startups go through the journey than any other person in the world. He talks about how the main thing that separates the startups that die and the startups that become successful is not necessarily skill, experience, runway, or any of the other typical factors we may think about. It's the irrational perseverance of the founders who, despite confronting near-death experiences with their startup, still continue. And that irrational perseverance comes from their true love of their customers, their product, their team or a combination of all. They are STILL having fun despite the challenges. AirBnB is a great example of this where they nearly died 3 times and all signs should've pointed to shutting down. But they just loved working with each other and did anything they could do stay alive - even famously selling Obama O's cereal. And we've had a few pivots as as company as well and had moments where I had to question...is this all worth it? Yet, time and time again, I keep coming back to how much I love working with our team, and love solving problems for our customers. I am deeply committed to creating the tools of tomorrow that empower investors to take control of their financial lives. I am personally on a mission to help investors in Singapore aggregate and automate their personal finances across any account they hold - banks, CPF, brokerages, crypto, real estate and more. I would love to hear what other's think of this as well - if the main question we should be asking ourselves as founder is..."are we still having fun building this company?"
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Anthony Pierri 🎸
Here's how to know you might be on the verge of product-market-fit: 👇🏻 👇🏻 👇🏻 Rob Snyder recently shared one of the best indicators of product-market-fit for an early stage company: If you're able to write the SAME CASE STUDY for your last several rounds of customers... ...there's a good chance you're on the verge of true PMF. Most early stage startups can get customers, but not always for the same reason. When companies come to you and use different features of your software for different use cases, you haven't actually found PMF (despite potentially having a decently high ARR). You're looking for scalability — which means they have to be coming to you to solve the same problem. And you need to be able to solve it in the same way to provide the same outcome. If you have that repeatability, that means you'll be able to market against that problem/use case in a highly scalable way, and thus acquire many more customers without needing to customize everything (in an UNSCALABLE way.) I have since shared Rob's concept with dozens of founders that we've worked with — so much so that I thought it would be worth creating a Fletch-ified diagram to make it easier to explain on the fly. But go to the source and follow Rob. His content is pure gold ⭐️ #productmarketing #productmarketfit #saas #b2b
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Alex Stockman
Three lessons from building and launching a P2P payments app without doing the proper customer validation first (despite knowing better): 1) Building something you need is a great starting point - but not enough to validate an idea. As someone drawn to building solutions, I’m an early tech adopter. This led me to overestimate consumers’ willingness to onboard, especially with a P2P payments app that requires KYC/KYB compliance and relies on a network effect to be useful. 2) Manual solutions are often best to start with It’s good business to be in business - transitioning from ideating to operating as early as possible is the BEST way to learn effectively. While the move fast and break things mindset has attracted well-deserved skepticism, getting stuck in a multi-year build trap distracted me from critical real-world validation. 3) Consumer appetite shifts quickly In my case, the proliferation of free and instant P2P payment options like Zelle added additional pricing pressure that I couldn’t compete with. This disincentivized the consumer event/payment collection market, turning my bottom-up go-to-market strategy upside down. Pitch (https://www.pitch.fun) is currently on the back burner as I’ve begun building custom solutions in various industries to sharpen my skills, solve specific problems, gain a hands-on understanding of operations, pain points, and workflows, and build a network of experts to lean on as I keep my eyes peeled for high-impact opportunities.
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Rouven Keller
Check out this must-read article! It dives into topics that have likely left many feeling uncertain when they've heard about Web3 or blockchain technology. Plus, it sheds light on the definition of DePIN, which is still unfamiliar to many. The article breaks it down comprehensively, using project examples to make it easy to understand. Big thanks to Jason Glynn for sharing this valuable insight! 🚀 #gnss #web3 #DePIN easynav.xyz
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Yoav Zimmerman
The most common fallacy I see among startups is viewing competition as static and themselves as dynamic and ever-growing. Founders when talking about their own startup: “We’re currently targeting [small market], but will be expanding into [larger market] eventually” “We don’t have feature X but it’s on the roadmap” “We’re focusing on growth now and will turn on profitability later” Founders when talking about competitors: “We’re different because ____ only serves [small market]” “We’re different because _____ doesn’t have feature Y that we have” “We’re different because _____ isn’t profitable / doesn’t have a real business model” See the hypocrisy? Spoiler alert — if your competitor has raised venture capital (or a strong performing large company) they likely have the same aggressive growth/expansion plans that you do. A short-term tactical advantage is not a long term differentiated strategy. Know the difference, and act accordingly!
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Tyler Hogge
there is a common error that even very smart people fall into - it's what i call confusing the metric with the objective. 3 examples: 1. Founders think raising vc is the goal, but it's a metric. the goal is to build something people want. VCs follow. 2. VCs think DPI is the goal, but its actually a metric. the right goal is to invest and build enduring companies. DPI follows. 3. PMs think engagement is the goal, but it's a metric. The goal is to build a delightful product. Engagement follows. don't confuse the objective with the metric. it seems minor, but can be the difference between success and failure.
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Derek Steer
That one time I got a ton of value out of being rejected by a VC: In early 2015, we went out to raise Mode’s Series A. I met Mike Dauber through a friend who was an exec at Platfora, where Mike was on the board. Mike had just left Battery Ventures to start Amplify Partners. His experience and Amplify’s focus seemed to match perfectly with what we were up to at Mode. My co-founders and I went into his office for a one-hour conversation. I don’t recall speaking with him too much beyond that, but he was kind enough to give me a phone call and break the news to me live. Here's roughly how it went: “We like the company, but we think this deal will be too expensive for us. We are really just set up to do seed deals.” “What do you think the right price is for this round?” “$28 million pre-money” Back then, $28m was a pretty good Series A — and certainly beyond a seed round — so it felt like Mike was being honest with me. And I had heard “no” enough times at that point to recognize that he didn’t have to give me a number. So I asked him for more thoughts, and he was very free with them. But the number turned out to matter the most. Because a couple weeks later, we had a term sheet on the table and another one coming. The first one was at $20m pre-money. We bet on Mike’s guidance and told the second firm that we were looking for $28m. And that’s what we ended up with. Maybe we could have gone higher, but we certainly wouldn’t have thought to go 40% above our other term sheet without an expert giving us some indication that it would be reasonable. So when I was prepping my deck for the Series B a couple years later, the first person I called was Mike. Not because I wanted him to invest. I was 100% certain he wouldn’t. I just wanted his opinion on my pitch; on the company. Once again, he gave me direct, actionable feedback that made my pitch better, and ultimately helped me get a great round done. It was a bit more critical this time -- it certainly didn't feel as good as hearing "your deal will be priced to high for me." But that made it all the more valuable. I can’t stress enough how rare this is. Especially as a CEO, it’s very difficult to find people who will tell it to you like it is.
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Taimur Abdaal
Causal is my 1st company. Here's what I'd do differently as a 2nd-time founder: 1. Hire an EA on day 1 — founders shouldn't waste time doing scheduling 2. Spend 25% of my time at conferences — this is where commerce happens 3. Fly business class — self-explanatory What else?
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Basit Riaz Sheikh, Ph.D.
As entrepreneurs, we're often enamored by the concept of "disruption." But in this pursuit, we sometimes overlook a crucial truth: the minds behind these groundbreaking ideas aren't inherently disruptive themselves. Instead, they are creatures of habit—specifically, atomic habits. Take Elon Musk, for example. He didn't stumble upon the idea of colonizing Mars overnight. Musk's journey began with a simple yet powerful habit: reading. From an early age, he immersed himself in science fiction literature, cultivating a habit of continuous self-learning. This habit of voracious reading laid the foundation for his ambitious vision of an interplanetary future. Despite lacking a background in rocketry, Musk's unwavering commitment to his atomic habits empowered him to pursue his vision. Armed with a wealth of knowledge acquired through years of reading and self-learning, he launched SpaceX with the belief that humanity's future lies beyond Earth's confines. When Musk embarked on his mission to "disrupt" the space industry, he did so by leveraging his habits. He devoured books on rocketry, honing his expertise and laying the groundwork for SpaceX's success. The habits we cultivate can make all the difference in our capacity to effect disruptive change. By nurturing atomic habits—such as reading, continuous learning, and relentless self-improvement—we equip ourselves with the skills, knowledge, and belief to shape the future. #ai #habits #atomichabits #tech #future
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Elliott Poppel
Are you giving your customers what they want or what they actually need? This will trip up even the most experienced product teams. David Fano talked with me about using the 'Jobs-to-be-Done' framework. He’s implemented his own version that works for him and his team. It’s an intersection of Bob Moesta and Clayton Christensen’s idea that: — “People buy products to make their lives better in some way.” But when we ask customers what they want, their answers tend to only scratch the surface. "I want better control of the margins." Is that really what they need? Or is it just a means to an end? Dave compared it to giving your kid french fries instead of broccoli. Sure, they WANT the fries, but they NEED the broccoli to grow up big and strong. Product teams need to find ways to sneak the broccoli into the fries. How can we give users what they want while still helping them make real progress? The secret is to dig deeper and figure out what they're really trying to achieve. When we do this, we can come up with solutions that give them what they want AND what they need. — How do you balance giving users what they want vs. what they need? Check out the full episode at the link in my profile, and follow me (Elliott Poppel) for more daily posts like this.
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Eric Seufert
This week on the Mobile Dev Memo podcast: I speak with Mike Taylor about his new book, Prompt Engineering for Generative AI: Future-Proof Inputs for Reliable AI Outputs, as well as the skill gap in performance marketing. Find the episode by searching for "Mobile Dev Memo" wherever you consume podcasts.
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Chang (CK) Kim
What I've seen over the years is, early stage companies rarely grow beyond their founders’ capabilities; or at least, companies model after their founders really closely. If the founder is unfocused, chances are the whole company is unfocused. If the founder is incapable of making decisions, the company is likely to have meetings after meetings without clear conclusions. If the founder doesn’t put in 110% of herself in the company, it’s hard to expect anyone else at the company would. 1/ Having cofounders is advantageous in this regard, because no one is perfect and different cofounders can bring different skill sets and strengths 2/ Founders need to have good mentors 3/ Founders must set aside some time to constantly upgrade themselves and “sharpen the tooth”.
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