The hottest Product Development Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Business Topics

How Google Blew Up Its Open Culture and Compromised Its Product

Big Technology • 16387 implied HN points • 07 Mar 24
💼 Business Corporate culture Product Development Leadership Tech industry
  1. Google's open culture deteriorated, impacting its product quality and employee morale.
  2. Issues began when Google shut down discussions on sensitive topics like diversity and employee concerns.
  3. The closure of open channels for questioning within Google led to a negative impact on the company's innovation and decision-making processes.

TBM 278: The Power of Firsthand Experience

The Beautiful Mess • 662 implied HN points • 17 Mar 24
💼 Business Product Management Team Dynamics Customer Insights Product Development Decision-making
  1. Having firsthand experience is crucial in understanding product concepts, like observing failed launches or successful market fit.
  2. Seeing a team hit dead ends before succeeding can encourage more leeway for experimentation and resilience.
  3. Direct access to customers, effective team dynamics, and confronting false assumptions can greatly impact decision-making and product success.
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How I Made My First Million Online

Day One • 479 implied HN points • 17 Feb 24
💼 Business Content creation Monetization Community Building Product Development
  1. Choose a platform that fits your content format and engage with your community to build a loyal following.
  2. Creating products/services should revolve around solving your community's problems, listen to their struggles and offer solutions.
  3. Consistently create quality content, engage with others, and focus on helping people to build a successful online brand.

The inside story of Amplitude’s new self-service plan

Kyle Poyar’s Growth Unhinged • 252 implied HN points • 06 Mar 24
💼 Business Marketing Growth Product Development Sales Revenue
  1. Launching a self-service plan can lead to significant improvements in conversion rates, even if initial numbers are low
  2. It's important to involve the sales team in the self-serve journey to avoid cannibalization and maintain a healthy balance between self-service and enterprise sales
  3. Revisiting pricing and packaging is crucial for the success of a self-service model, including conducting user interviews, analyzing features, and monitoring competitors

How to have "the talk" with your customers

Kyle Poyar’s Growth Unhinged • 607 implied HN points • 17 Jan 24
💼 Business Marketing Finance Pricing Product Development
  1. Increase ACV by asking customers about willingness-to-pay without directly asking for a specific price.
  2. Understand that ACV growth involves price increases, product expansion, and knowing what customers value.
  3. As your business scales, consider factors like pricing, packaging, and customer willingness to pay to optimize revenue.

Briefing: YouTube’s big bets, Snap slumps, Airbnb’s Winter Redesign

Department of Product • 353 implied HN points • 08 Feb 24
🕹 Technology Tech news Product Development AI Data Trends
  1. YouTube is focusing on subscriptions with over 100 million paying subscribers, positioning itself as a subscription superpower.
  2. Snap's stock slumped after Q4 results, but the company reached 7 million paid subscribers for its product.
  3. Google Maps introduced LLM search, enabling users to search using key phrases for recommendations in the US, with expansion planned.

🧠 Knowledge Series #23: Passkeys explained

Department of Product • 314 implied HN points • 06 Feb 24
🕹 Technology Security Product Development User Experience Cybersecurity Authentication
  1. Passkeys are digital keys replacing traditional passwords, enhancing security and creating unique keys for each account and device.
  2. Major companies like Uber, Apple, Google, and Microsoft are actively supporting and implementing passkeys for a passwordless future.
  3. Product teams can implement passkeys by understanding how they work and following a step-by-step guide for integration.

From seven failures to 10x growth

Kyle Poyar’s Growth Unhinged • 354 implied HN points • 24 Jan 24
💼 Business Startup Growth Product Development Marketing User Feedback Team Management
  1. Growing from 0 to 1,000 users was harder than the next 999,000 for Jam.
  2. Key factors for Jam's success included dogfooding, focusing on high quality, and having few, focused pilots.
  3. Jam's growth strategies involved continuous improvement, strong focus on user feedback, and engaging with the community through events and content.

Inside Rewind’s path to 170 Series A offers

Kyle Poyar’s Growth Unhinged • 433 implied HN points • 10 Jan 24
💼 Business Startups Funding Product Development Monetization Entrepreneurship
  1. Rewind's success story includes starting with a different product and pivoting to a viral AI hit
  2. The decision to monetize from day one helped Rewind grow rapidly but required continuous iteration on pricing strategies
  3. Rewind's approach to leveraging product-led growth (PLG) includes emphasizing viral loops and frequent product launches

Re-release: ‘Scrum is an awful project management methodology’

Ageling on Agile • 137 implied HN points • 07 Feb 24
💼 Business Management Product Development Team Collaboration Workplace culture Process Improvement
  1. Consider re-evaluating your project management methodology if it is causing stress and hindering productivity. It is important to adapt and make radical changes when necessary.
  2. Embrace an iterative approach in your product delivery process, especially in unpredictable environments. Small steps, clear goals, and team collaboration can lead to valuable results.
  3. Empower your team by giving them ownership of the backlog, focusing on iteration goals, and encouraging discussions and improvements during demos and retrospectives. Allow flexibility and adaptability in your work processes.

4 reasons why PMs and UXR should understand business strategy

Askwhy: UX Research, Product Management, Design & Careers • 50 implied HN points • 04 Mar 24
💼 Business Strategy Product Development Decision-making Competitive Analysis
  1. Understanding business strategy helps drive alignment and focus, ensuring products contribute to company goals and avoiding feature creep.
  2. Knowing consumer trends, markets, and competitive landscape aids in developing relevant products and making informed decisions to stay competitive.
  3. Engaging with business strategy leads to better decision-making through frameworks like second-order thinking and inversion, fostering alignment within the organization.

Ti Amo

Venture Prose • 259 implied HN points • 19 Nov 23
🕹 Technology Social media Startup Product Development Innovation
  1. Launch fast and don't be afraid to release early in the world of social consumer apps
  2. Successful founders in social consumer apps focus on building products intentionally with a deep understanding of user behavior
  3. Social consumer applications revolve around status, communication, and entertainment, where people post, communicate, and get entertained

Cost of Acquisition (CAC) trap.

Elena's Growth Scoop • 1022 implied HN points • 12 May 23
💼 Business Marketing Metrics ROI Customer Acquisition Product Development
  1. Focus on optimizing payback period instead of just reducing CAC to improve ROI.
  2. Consider the profitability and long-term value of different acquisition channels before shutting them down based solely on CAC.
  3. The payback period is a superior metric for acquisition that focuses on reinvesting returns and optimizing various aspects like CAC, conversion rate, ARPU, and conversion time.

Becoming a sales-engineer

Leading Developers • 48 implied HN points • 20 Feb 24
💼 Business Sales Management Career development Customer Relations Product Development
  1. Acquiring new skills through new challenges can be exciting and lead to unexpected career paths.
  2. Transitioning from a technical role to sales doesn't mean losing technical skills - understanding the product deeply remains crucial.
  3. Sales engineering roles offer variety, immediate value, and potential for lucrative rewards, but require strong communication and collaboration skills.

Your Feature is Not a Product

Nathan’s Substack • 79 implied HN points • 26 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Product Development Artificial Intelligence Tech industry Software Development User Experience
  1. A common mistake is mistaking a feature for a product, leading to incomplete solutions in the market.
  2. Customers care more about how a product solves their problem, rather than the specific technology used.
  3. Start with the customer experience and work back to the technology when designing products, a lesson exemplified by Steve Jobs.

3 steps to value focused data product management

Datent • 58 implied HN points • 09 Feb 24
💼 Business Data Management Product Development Project management Innovation
  1. Transitioning from a BI role to a data product team requires defining a Value Gateway to ensure projects deliver tangible benefits.
  2. To manage the progress and accountability of data work, reporting on value at key points is crucial, showcasing the value realized and areas needing support.
  3. Establishing a process around failing fast and doubling down on successful projects, supported by agile project management, is essential for efficient data product management.

Five Important Yet Frequently Missed User Archetypes

Elena's Growth Scoop • 766 implied HN points • 11 Apr 23
💼 Business Customer Engagement Marketing Strategy Customer Experience Product Development
  1. Core users are important, but don't overlook other user archetypes.
  2. Different user archetypes like power users, viral users, champions, high-LTV users, and adjacent users play unique roles in shaping your business strategy.
  3. Identify and cater to each user archetype to ensure sustainable company growth.

209. Why are people so quick to proclaim failure for new products?

Hardcore Software • 569 implied HN points • 06 Jun 23
🕹 Technology Innovation Market Product Development Prediction Tech industry
  1. Most new products in the market tend to fail, so predicting failure can be a way to gain social status.
  2. Predicting failure of new products has always been popular and attention-grabbing throughout different eras.
  3. Success in launching a new product heavily depends on navigating risks and uncertainties, making predicting success challenging.

Advocating for Why

Steelhead • 78 implied HN points • 10 Jan 24
💼 Business Entrepreneurship Startup Success Product Development
  1. Understanding why customers care or don't care about a product's value proposition is crucial for building an actually robust business with a compelling value proposition.
  2. The absence of information (what people don't do or say) is just as important as what they do, highlighting the importance of understanding why customers behave as they do.
  3. By combining the Customer Development framework with a deep understanding of why, entrepreneurs can build a good product, orient business functions correctly, and operate with greater capital efficiency.