Product Bugle 23/9: it's a go....
Introducing my little side-hustle/ research project: TheBestProductStuff.com
If you do one thing this week.
I’d be massively grateful if you could go over to TheBestProductStuff.com, take a look around, and fill in the feedback form. It’s still very much a beta - so be kind! This week’s newsletter just explains a bit of the logic behind it
TheBestProductStuff.com: origin story
When I started writing this newsletter, I really didn’t know where it was going to go. I deliberately didn’t put ‘Product’ in the title - because I didn’t know if that’s where I’d end up (I thought it might be more about TV, music and movies). But over the weeks and months a few things became clear.
Having been locked away in a few pretty big companies for the last decade or so, there’s a whole load of interesting product thinking (and people) out there that I need to catch up on.
As product management has grown a discipline. There has been a massive explosion in books, podcasts, LinkedIn and Twitter noise, Blogs and newsletters - some of it from individuals who are just sharing their knowledge; others hustling their training/ coaching programs; up to big corporates who do this as part of their ‘content marketing’ efforts.
So I felt I should focus on product management - but how? Writing a book about product management wasn’t for me. Sure I had plenty to say, but I kept finding people who had already said it, and often much better. And the last thing the world needs is another podcast.
So, I stuck with the newsletter, and curating good stuff I stumbled across. But I was finding it increasingly difficult to keep tabs on things. Even if I put it in here, I then couldn’t find it a few weeks later. I mean, I could keep bookmarks, but really, who does that?
When i got to writing about say, roadmapping or creating a product strategy - I was having to write new ‘articles’ but what I should have been doing is crafting a single continuously updated ‘artefact’ - closer to a wikipedia page than a news article.
I was totally drawn in by all the no-code options out there - another trend that had really grown while I was looking elsewhere.
So I had this idea I should create a way to help people find all the good stuff that’s out there; I knew I could probably hack something together myself pretty quickly as a genuine MVP - something that would do no more than test demand. The question was what?
Three ideas I chucked out
Creating a digital trade magazine for Product managers - canned because it was going to need funding, and also going back to my earlier point - I think people need artefacts rather than articles.
Creating a clone of Reddit - aimed at PMs. Actually I still like this idea. There’s a lot of tutorials on how to do this in Bubble (or something similar) - but it felt like way beyond an MVP - like I was testing my ability to build something much more than testing any level of interest.
Doing an app that uses flashcards to share product knowledge. I still like this idea - it might be where I go next. But as I got stuck into it, it all started to get a little too tricksy.
Where I ended up
I knew I had to move from the endless lists of stuff you find everywhere to something that had a bit of structure to it - a database, or more likely a series of databases.
I very happy playing around in Notion - and soon drew up a simple structure of ‘stuff’ (individual articles/ podcast episodes/ youtube videos/ twitter thread) all sorted by category (eg: strategy / roadmapping - with a bit of commentary that I will continuously update/ improve); which then links to a databases of people and businesses (that last one is still barely out of the blocks), which also link to a series of databases of Books, Podcasts, Blogs and Newsletters.
Rather than just vanilla lists - I added a fair bit of commentary to the individual bits of stuff. And I also created focussed pages - on stuff like: Preparing for an Interview.
I used a service called Super.so to take the original Notion pages and turn them into an actual website.
I created a two week deadline for myself two weeks ago - by flagging it on here (and pinging a few people who were virtually watching ProductCon with me).
It’s still very very rough around the edges - but deadlines are deadlines. And it’s time to at least let everyone who gets this newsletter (and anyone you want to share it with) take a look.
And I should add - it’s been a great little project to work on.
A slightly deeper thought about ‘product stuff’
Product management isn’t brain surgery. Or possibly even hip replacement surgery. But it does involve a series moderately complex tasks that rely on combination of intellect, emotional intelligence, and good judgement.
I listened this week to a great episode of One Knight In Product with Jason Knight talking to John Cutler and gently kicking against ‘thread bros’ and reducing product management to a series of 280 character bullet points. Also pointing out that you can’t just go and show a copy of Inspired to your boss and expect your world to change.
The point is: I’ve provided what I hope is an easily accessible set of resources - they’re all good. But none of them are the complete answer for you, your career and your organisation. The skill is to read several; understand the common threads and the more distinctive approaches/ tactics - and then see what can work in your world.
So - what next?
Well, I’m still got a fair bit of work to get this beta into shape. I’m going to see if it resonates with people. If it does - I’ll be thinking about how to make it bigger, better, more scalable and potentially with a bit of revenue attached (oh, I have so many ideas, but none that will buy me an island, well, possibly a kitchen island). If it doesn’t - well, at least I’ll have built a useful resource that I know I will use!
So, take a look and let me know what you think (there’s links to a feedback form on the site). Feel free to share with friends and colleagues - although they need to accept a bit of beta roughness. I’ll probably start to push it on LinkedIn in the middle of next week.
So - that’s it for this week.
Hope you have a brilliant weekend. And if you have any free time during it - you know what I’d really appreciate you taking a look at.