You focus on building understanding first and foremost. Then go build new features.
Your product’s biggest cheerleader should be you.
If you’re not excited about it, why should anyone else be?
Your product team’s biggest cheerleader? Also you.
If you’re not excited about what they’re doing, who will be?
I’m constantly impressed whenever a product introduces changes that address the micro-frictions in my daily work that I’ve barely registered.
Good product design makes your clients say “Wow!”
Great product design makes your clients say “Of course!”
Your product’s growth is often limited by your ability to scale your customer support and success processes.
Ignore this at your own peril.
“The disease of our time is that we live on the surface.”
-Steven Pressfield
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”The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change their future by merely changing their attitude."
-Oprah Winfrey
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What’s a sign of an effective product managers?
Someone who consistently turns constraints into catalysts for further creativity and innovation.
Your product’s user experience can spark joy and create emotional connections while also solving meaningful problems.
These aren’t mutually exclusive concepts.
One of the highly science fictional bits of “When Gravity Fails” (Effinger’s early cyberpunk novel published in 1986) was the protagonist’s phone which was - gasp! - small enough to easily clip to his belt and carry around.
Remember: right now we are dreaming up the future we may one day inhabit.
Sometimes you receive the most valuable feedback when you lose a client.
Great features can be born from the most frustrating user experiences.
“The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”
-Winston Churchill
#Quotes
”The mind is not a vessel that needs filling but wood that needs igniting."
-Plutarch
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“But we’ve always done it this way!”
Some of the most frightening words to hear… but so very ripe with opportunities.
Think about it like this:
Every time you deploy, you’re really shipping new/better/different outcomes.
Yes, yes, yes - you make wonderful hammers. (Congratulations!)
But how successful are your clients at actually building with them?
Your product’s success should really only be measured by your clients' successes.
A feature without a very clear “why” just shouldn’t exist.
Listen, listen, listen to your clients - but remember: they’re experts in their problems, not your solutions.
Your job is not to build what users ask for but to understand why they’re asking for it.
Don’t wait for the perfect moment to reach out - build your network consistently.
Don’t just ask for favors - add value whenever you can.
The relationships you cultivate today will shape your tomorrow.
“What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.”
-Cynthia Ozick
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”Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him."
-Aldous Huxley
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