Product Bugle - June 10
Bursting with wholesome, fresh, product goodness. And a gratuitous bit about flying cars.
Want to do your job better? Follow this advice..
I’m too frugal these days to spend the $150 to subscribe to Lenny Rachitsky’s newsletter - even though it looks great from these ‘Best Of’ bits.
However, he’s started a podcast [Spotify, Apple ], which is free! (for now) and definitely well worth a listen. Episode 3 has an excellent (or ‘banging’, as my sons would say ) interview/ conversation with Shreyas Doshi, who’s ex Google, Yahoo and Stripe and a bit of a force of nature when it comes to tweeting, talking and writing about Product Management (sample: why products don’t succeed). This is a great listen.
They focus on five topics - which happen to be relevant to Product Management, but are really just sound advice for anyone working in a tech driven org.
The importance of Pre-mortems (and how to do them - using this guide)
How to manage your time using the LNO Framework
The Three levels of product work: Impact, Execution and Optics
Most execution issues are really strategy or culture issues
The problem with ROI thinking
In passing Shreyas also covers his topic of High Agency which he’d previously tweeted about here..
Anyone of these topics in this podcast is worthy of your time: there’s some great pointers here in how to operate as a PM in organisations big and small - skills that go beyond the mechanical processes of discovery, strategy etc.
You can find links about all of the points on the episode page. Definitely take a listen.
Chasing Excellence, nicely
This from Marty Cagan this week..on leaders pushing for excellence in their product..
This interaction with the leader has the potential to be either very inspiring to push for something even better, or very demoralizing if the team feels they are chasing some intangible, unrealistic and unachievable expectation.
In truth, I’ve experienced each. And this is why it’s a difficult topic to discuss. The last thing I want to do is encourage Steve Jobs wannabes.
..contrasted neatly with this bit from a review of After Steve in the NYT
Ive was also demanding, of both his colleagues and external suppliers. In one meeting, shown a piece of polished aluminum for a laptop case, Ive became visibly upset at imperfections barely visible to the others. Seeking to calm him, one of his colleagues handed him a red Sharpie, telling Ive to circle what was wrong. “I’ve got a different idea,” came Ive’s reply. “Get me a bucket of red paint. I’ll dip this in it and wipe off the things that are right.”
Quick summary/ lesson for us all: it’s ok to push for high standards, but don’t be a dick about it.
How to kick of Product Discovery (like a pro)
There’s never a single way to do it, of course, but this is a pretty good guide from Anthony Murphy. ‘Assumption mapping’ at the outset is a good way to avoid gotchas further down the line.
Metric mistakes to avoid
Everyone loves to be data-driven - but what data? Roman Pilcher this week posted about six common KPI mistakes including: Vanity Metrics; Stakeholder or Big Boss Dictates KPIs and Biassed Data Analysis.
Admittedly, after reading it I did wonder if it was possible to have any metric that actually was ok. My slightly simpler take is that the judge of any metric/ goal is what you do as a result. If it drives ‘good’ behaviour…(ie: making long term improvements to your product that help your customers and business) then it’s fine by me.
The Reddit story
I love these painstakingly detailed retrospectives/ origin stories by Aakash Gupta (eg: The AWS story); and now he’s turned his sights on Reddit.
Spotify’s investor day
Spotify’s share price is down 47% y-o-y. Perhaps related to that, they held an investor day this week. The main takeaways: 1) Podcasts has cost them; 2) They’re going after audiobooks; 3) From a product perspective - while they’re keeping everything in a single front end, they’re building different back ends for each category (music/ podcast/ audiobooks). Watch the video for some of the highlights - or read the details here.
Breaking into Web 3 as a PM
There’s no great secret here, but if you’re interested - and there’s a lot to be interested in - it’s worth reading this discussion on ProductHunt between Peter Yang (who writes the excellent Creator Economy newsletter) and Jason Shah from Alchemy. Acronym of the week: WAGMI (We Are Going to Make It).
Gig economy vs Cost of Living crisis
Something I’ve covered a bit before (sparked by this from a month ago). This article by John Colley of Warwick Business school looks at the challenges faced by the businesses powering the gig economy. Valuations are down..
Uber, known for ride-hailing and takeaway food delivery, is now valued at US$49 billion (£39 billion) compared to US$125 billion-plus in early 2021. DoorDash, a US takeaway delivery firm, is down to US$28 billion from nearly US$90 billion over the same period.
Just Eat, which delivers takeaway in the UK, Europe and US, has fallen from a valuation high of £24 billion to under £5 billion. It is trying to sell off GrubHub, a US business it bought for US$5.9 billion just two years ago. Meanwhile, Deliveroo, another UK takeaway company, has seen its valuation fall from £7 billion to £1.7 billion in only nine months.
..and there’s all the headwinds of reduced disposable income among customers, increased cost of capital, higher operating costs, staff shortages etc. So: temporary blip..or something more structural?
Flying cars
Enough practical stuff. I listened this week to a recent one of Azeem Azhar’s Exponential View podcast, which features an interview with Volocopter’s CEO Florian Reuter - they’re responsible for this…
…which as Azeem points out is really taking us more into the realm of an drone-copter version of Uber for rich people (the initial use case given is downtown Manhattan to JFK) . But it gives me a good excuse to share this from Klein in Slovakia- which is a car, and which flies, and recently obtained the official certificate of airworthiness from the Slovak Transport Authority.
What’s not to love? Other than the $400,000 price tag. So what about flying cars? this bit of analysis goes beyond ‘Wooh, it’s just like the Jetsons’. Including this pretty obvious (when you think of it) bit of physics..
The main task while designing an aircraft is to have it generate as much lift as possible. On the other hand, a car designer’s job is the exact opposite: to make the car generate as much downforce as possible, always staying on the road even at high speeds.
So, not quite one for the Christmas list. Yet.
Also..
Exponential view: interview with Tony Fadell (will probably write something on this next week)
TV talk
While listening to the Van Tulleken brothers talking about the dangers of Ultra-processed foods, I realised I’ve been stuffing myself with Ultra Processed TV this week in the form of The Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix.
As addictive, bingeable, and ultimately lacking in nutrition as a pack of Pringles. So I went through all 10 episodes in a week (great use of the Bank Holidays!), enjoyed it, and felt very guilty for it.
We Own This City, the true story of the massively corrupt Gun Trace Task Force in the Baltimore Police Department from David Simon, creator of The Wire, is much more substantial, and a pretty horrific story. The problem is that as there’s no whodunnit, or why they dunnit, for all its quality it’s strangely lacking in drama. I’m craving the documentary.
The Staircase finally came to an end. God, Colin Firth was good in it. His ‘Mare of Eastown’ moment. But, I wish they’d made this all available at once.
Meanwhile, Love Island has started, and I’m in my annual ‘I’m not going to get sucked into it’ phase, which normally lasts two weeks max.
Listening brief
Radio 4’s Soul Music on Bowie’s Life on Mars is worth 30 minutes of any one’s time.
And I’m loving The Candy House by Jennifer Egan - listening on Xigxag.
Gig of the week
An intimate gathering of me and 59,999 others watching The Killers at The Emirates. Great night, though TBH, I preferred Patti Smith the week before..
That’s it for this week..
If you’ve liked it - spread the word. If you’ve got some feedback, I’m all ears..