The hottest Product Development Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Business Topics
Market Curve 0 implied HN points 25 Sep 23
  1. Focus on getting your first 1000 users and $10k by engaging with potential users through social listening, content marketing, and building in public.
  2. Personalize your approach by talking to your initial users, showing them your MVP, and creating an Inner Circle Group of early adopters.
  3. Continuously engage with users, gather feedback, and iterate on your product to reach milestones like a Product Hunt Launch and acquiring 1000 paying users.
Three Data Point Thursday 0 implied HN points 15 Jun 23
  1. Building products with LLMs is challenging and requires addressing multiple issues.
  2. PandasAI offers AI-powered features for data analysis, focusing on integrating LLMs smartly into products.
  3. Consider switching to SQLMesh from dbt, especially if you are a data engineer or data scientist needing a more developer-focused analytics tool.
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davidfweiss 0 implied HN points 01 Jan 24
  1. The author's goal for 2024 is to write a weekly newsletter to improve writing skills and stay organized.
  2. The author plans to share updates on side projects in the newsletter, focusing on successes, failures, and lessons learned.
  3. Starting small and building good habits consistently can help achieve any goal, inspired by the book 'Atomic Habits' by James Clear.
DecafQuest's Newsletter 0 implied HN points 01 Jun 23
  1. The author shares personal experiences with coding and how it led to meeting others in the digital landscape.
  2. Louis Pereira's journey demonstrates how entrepreneurship in the digital world can thrive even without a technical background.
  3. Using no-code platforms like Bubble, individuals can create digital assets that require minimal maintenance and can evolve into successful ventures.
Michael Drogalis 0 implied HN points 11 Feb 24
  1. Building a good product doesn't guarantee seamless adoption - expect growing pains, and embrace the process of refining based on user feedback.
  2. In times of high pressure, having a clear prioritization system in place helps tackle critical issues efficiently and prevent feeling overwhelmed.
  3. When customers rely on your product, prioritize swift and effective support - early adoption is crucial and customer confidence is easily lost.
Build To Scale 0 implied HN points 10 Oct 23
  1. Implementing a Product Council can improve visibility, predictability, and provide a standardized process to address common scaling challenges in companies.
  2. The Product Council involves key leaders from different business functions working together to review and approve development plans, ensuring alignment and awareness across departments.
  3. Regular Product Council meetings help drive alignment, reveal problems early, and increase collaboration between Product and Engineering teams, ultimately making the development process more predictable and effective.
Founder Fuck-ups 0 implied HN points 16 Aug 23
  1. Yik Yak's platform allowed for anonymous interactions, creating a unique space for unfiltered expression and exclusive participation.
  2. Yik Yak faced challenges related to cyberbullying, abuse, and toxic content due to the anonymity of its users.
  3. The decline of Yik Yak was partly attributed to the platform's inability to foster lasting connections and meaningful engagement among users, lacking a strong sense of community.
Femstreet 0 implied HN points 24 Feb 24
  1. ERPs such as Netsuite are highly valued but struggle to meet evolving company needs, leading to gaps in automation and AI functionality.
  2. Mid-market companies face a lack of software tools seen at the enterprise level for accounting and cash flow management, showing a market gap for more sophisticated solutions.
  3. Companies building next-gen finance platforms with a focus on vertical challenges, orchestration layers, or fully-fledged ERPs have the potential to offer differentiated products and capture larger customer segments.
CTOrly 0 implied HN points 23 Aug 22
  1. The size of a person is determined by what they love and what annoys them - applies to teams too.
  2. Product teams should plan big and not be disrupted by small things, aiming for home runs.
  3. Teams can be greater or less than the sum of their parts based on how distractions are managed, so focus on making grand plans and cutting out distractions.
CyberSecurityMew 0 implied HN points 27 Apr 23
  1. Qi-An-Xin turned a profit in 2022 despite challenges by cutting costs and increasing efficiency, leading to revenue growth and improved profit margins.
  2. The company's critical infrastructure clients have become a significant source of revenue growth, with a focus on key industries and promoting safety solutions.
  3. Qi-An-Xin's network security products saw strong growth in 2022, positioning the company as an industry leader with innovative products and services.
the case for brand 💼 0 implied HN points 08 Mar 24
  1. The founders of Dad Grass built their brand without a traditional brand book, focusing on creating an experience that goes beyond typical models.
  2. Dad Grass founders highlight the importance of having fun and connecting with customers to build a successful brand.
  3. Investing heavily in branding early on is crucial for founders looking to build a strong and enduring brand.
Joseph Gefroh 0 implied HN points 16 Feb 24
  1. Articulate and define risks as a product manager to create value, balancing different factors.
  2. Fitness risk is the risk that your solution won't solve the intended problem effectively.
  3. Address fitness risk early by validating solutions with minimal effort, such as research-based or competitor-based approaches.
Shubhi’s Substack 0 implied HN points 13 Apr 23
  1. The importance and excitement of sales in converting prospects, understanding pain points, and delivering magical demos to create value.
  2. The satisfaction and learning in ambitiously building products, overcoming challenges, and evolving with customer feedback.
  3. The power of taking action, owning situations, setting aggressive goals, and focusing on solving problems to drive productivity and success.
Joshua Gans' Newsletter 0 implied HN points 28 Mar 17
  1. Training for AI, like pilots or cashiers, is essential for machines to learn and improve in performance.
  2. Determining what is "good enough" for machine intelligence involves considering the trade-offs in terms of error tolerance and level of in-house vs on-the-job learning.
  3. The decision of when to deploy AI systems into the real world for learning involves balancing the need for data with the potential risks to brand and customer safety.
Venture Prose 0 implied HN points 29 Jul 16
  1. Key elements for a successful mobile consumer app include product-market fit, positive virality rate, and retention over time.
  2. To succeed, a mobile app must provide utility, become a regular part of users' lives, and foster a sense of community.
  3. Building a mobile consumer app involves creating great UI/UX, ensuring quick user benefit discovery, and connecting users for interaction and engagement.
Venture Prose 0 implied HN points 29 Jul 16
  1. Foursquare provides great reviews and tips with an authentic tone, useful for checking recommendations and discovering new places on the go.
  2. Even though Foursquare is limited to food, nightlife, and shopping, it works effectively, but lacks consistent and lasting relevance.
  3. To improve, Foursquare could benefit from having local experts for daily updates, community engagement similar to Product Hunt, and coverage of culture and events in addition to its current categories.
Eddie's startup voyage 0 implied HN points 20 Jul 22
  1. EnVsion started with a vision for customer-centric tools and focused on UX Research as a critical use case.
  2. The journey of building EnVsion has been challenging, facing funding issues and near bankruptcy, but the team persists with a strong belief in the product's potential.
  3. EnVsion aims to empower companies by transforming video recordings of customer conversations into valuable insights, ultimately improving customer experience.
Eddie's startup voyage 0 implied HN points 17 Jun 22
  1. The company is transitioning to charging for its product to focus on customer needs and accelerate learning.
  2. They realized the need to move past perfectionism and the 'one more feature' mindset to progress.
  3. Charging for the product is seen as a step towards establishing a business, understanding customer preferences, and improving product-market fit.
Kushal’s Substack 0 implied HN points 07 Jun 23
  1. APIs can be a powerful marketing tool for tech companies, enabling external developers to build on top of your product.
  2. By embracing an API growth strategy, companies can deliver more features, boost user-generated content, and enhance customer experience with minimal effort.
  3. The future of marketing may heavily involve APIs, especially with the rise of Web 3.0 and big data, leading to new ways of selling.
realkinetic 0 implied HN points 05 Jan 21
  1. Real Kinetic successfully launched a new software product called Witful without any VC funding, relying on their consulting revenues instead.
  2. Their approach is focused on steady growth, work-life balance, and sustainability, prioritizing profitability over rapid expansion.
  3. The technology decisions for building Witful were influenced by resource constraints, leading to the use of serverless architecture, Firebase, Elm, and TypeScript, for efficiency and resilience.
realkinetic 0 implied HN points 07 Dec 20
  1. Transitioning to the cloud involves structuring engineering organizations effectively into product development and infrastructure components.
  2. Operations in the cloud require a balance between empowering developers and maintaining operational efficiencies through tools, standards, and abstractions.
  3. Creating efficient cloud infrastructure organizations involves teams like Developer Productivity, Infrastructure Engineering, and Cloud Engineering, each with specific charters and missions supporting product development.
realkinetic 0 implied HN points 05 Oct 20
  1. The app Witful was created to reduce cognitive load for people with lots of meetings, helping them be focused and prepared.
  2. The idea for Witful arose from the struggles of managing large teams and multiple client relationships, showing the importance of organized note-taking.
  3. Continual iteration and user feedback helped the Witful team realize the significance of smart organization, user experience, and search functionality over flashy features.
realkinetic 0 implied HN points 05 Feb 20
  1. Many established businesses are striving to transform into technology companies through digital transformation, but face challenges such as low throughput and quality issues.
  2. The key to successful digital transformation lies in shifting organizational culture to become technology product companies where empowered product teams work towards a shared vision.
  3. Focusing on vision, strategy, and empowering product teams is crucial for companies to effectively scale throughput and quality, rather than being caught up in tactical responses or inefficient processes.
QUALITY BOSS 0 implied HN points 04 Mar 24
  1. Risk analysis helps us focus on the most important bugs to fix. Instead of trying to eliminate all bugs, we prioritize those that could hurt the user experience or company revenue.
  2. To assess risk, we look at the impact of a bug and how likely it is to happen. Using a simple scoring system can help us decide which features to test first.
  3. Risk analysis should include checks on security and user experience, not just how well something works. Understanding all risks helps ensure we can test our products effectively.