Yoav Yeger

According to Marty Cagan European companies are "addicted to process", which is a big barrier for doing proper product work. Here are some key points from Marty's talk that I personally found important: (1) Marty believes that real product work is about solving customer problems. The main negative character in Marty's world is feature teams—teams that just implement features following a roadmap someone else wrote, instead of engaging in product discovery. – You don’t want to be a feature team, do you? – Marty asks. According to him, teams should be actively searching for answers to questions like: → What problem should we be trying to solve? → How can we solve this problem? If you're just developing something, you’re not a product manager but a project manager at best, and you don't belong in the profession. In delivery, Marty values speed (in the spirit of CI/CD); he doesn’t see anything else as valuable or interesting. "Think about time to money, not time to market." (2) Marty strongly advocates for autonomous cross-functional teams that can quickly experiment with solutions to discovered problems. He believes that everyone on the team, including engineers, should be involved in product work. "We don’t hire great engineers to tell them what to do, we hire great engineers so they can show us what’s possible". (3) Marty views processes and frameworks as the main enemies of product thinking because they replace analysis and critical thinking. This is especially true for Agile; while the original principles are good, the way they're often implemented in practice tends to be just mindlessly following a prescribed process. (4) Instead of frameworks, Marty suggests a set of "first principles of product model", which you can interpret and practice to the extent of your understanding and talent. These principles are shown in a picture. (5) Lead with context, not control. To elaborate on this point, Marty shares a story of a product leader at Netflix. When his team started doing something weird, his first instinct was to fire everyone. But then he remembered that Netflix fires anyone whose performance is even slightly below "exceptional" every year. Then he realised that if a smart product person does something strange, it means he, as a leader, dropped the ball and didn't provide some crucial part of the context. So, he went to figure out what critical piece of knowledge the team was missing.

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👶 Company reveal 👶 ⬇ Keragon - here's how it all started (Spoiler: This is not your typical Silicon Valley story) I met my cofounders 18 years ago during our military service and then studied together at Imperial College London. After uni, we started a company in the mobile adtech space and 3.5years later it was acquired by Glispa and then Market Group. After the vesting period ended, my cofounders and I decided to take some time off to focus on things we haven't had the chance to do over the 7 year grind. Even though there was a big overlap with Covid and restricted traveling, we managed to reflect, heal (yep, post-exit trauma is real) and eventually regrouped after 12 months. For the first time in a while, we held long sessions again - this time about career and life goals, and whether even considering working together on another play. Surprise surprise - our masochist part prevailed and we decided to jump again into the battlefield. However, unlike our first company, we weren't driven by a specific problem nor were passionate about a unique insight. This time, we decided to explore, agreeing on 3 core principles for our new venture: 1. pick any industry, but adtech 2. pick a broken space we could build a sector-defining company 3. life's too short to work with a-holes Healthcare quickly became the winner - as newcomers we dedicated half a year to researching how our skillset could give the most value in this space. And that's how we found ourselves hustling again: we reached out to 100s of healthcare professionals over 6 months, out of which 338 agreed to jump on a call to help us map the problems of the industry through their eyes - most of you are now LinkedIn friends, thanks for being part of the journey 🙏 We compiled and ranked a long list of problems - even though infrastructure is never the most glamorous play, we ended up picking this critical problem that was coming again and again and was right in our wheelhouse - healthcare providers are struggling with manual, repetitive, processes, and spend their limited time saving files instead of saving lives. And that's how Keragon was born. Incredibly grateful for focal (Daniel Darling), who were the first to believe in Avocarrot back in 2014 and are now co-leading the round of Keragon along with the amazing people at Afore Capital (Gaurav Jain), and also very lucky to have the backing and deep healthcare expertise from 25m Health - Lifepoint Health® (Thank you Ryan Macy and Merrill Anovick). Also big thanks to all our 👼 (Elliot Cohen, Giorgos Zacharia, Marina Hatsopoulos, Alexis Pantazis, Emilios Markou, Andreas Stavropoulos) Keragon is a first of its kind. And we're excited for what's coming! ▶ If you're a healthcare professional, looking to automate your day-to-day work - reach out, we can help. ▶ If you're a rockstar software engineer or growth hacker who wants to make a difference in healthcare - come and join us. cc George Eracleous George Makkoulis Panos Papageorgiou

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Phase 2 of what I predicted would happen. 14,000 fewer managers will help AWS' (and Jassy's) bottom line. But it's going to centralize a lot of teams. Goodbye pizza teams. My next prediction was a major outage in 2024. While there has been an increase in internal LSE events, I underestimated how long AWS could run with existing processes and automations even if they're burning people out. I still think AWS will suffer a major public outage. But it'll wait a bit longer for the lack of people and speed of development to affect the systems reliability. https://lnkd.in/entQdYap

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🔍 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞: 𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐚 𝐯𝐬. 𝐋𝐮𝐟𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐚 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐬 ✈️ As someone who constantly thinks from a product angle, I can't help but analyze the apps and tech I use regularly. One comparison that always catches my attention is the Delta App versus the Lufthansa App. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐩𝐮𝐳𝐳𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐞: With the Delta App, I can see my miles updated within 30 minutes after I get off the flight. But with Lufthansa, it takes several days for the same update🤔 🔍 𝐌𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬: 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒍-𝑻𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝑼𝒑𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔: Delta's ability to show miles almost instantly is impressive and keeps the customer informed and satisfied. This level of efficiency is what every app should strive for. 𝑫𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒆𝒅 𝑼𝒑𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔: Lufthansa's delay, on the other hand, is frustrating. It feels outdated and less responsive. In today's fast-paced world, waiting days for an update just doesn't cut it. 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭: If Delta can update miles within 30 minutes, why can't Lufthansa? It's a clear example of how different approaches to product management and technology can vastly impact user experience. It makes me wonder: What processes and technologies are in place at Delta that Lufthansa could adopt? It's time for more airlines to prioritize real-time, user-friendly updates. Let's push for better, faster, and more efficient tech solutions in every industry. 🌐✈️ #ProductPerspective #TechAnalysis #DeltaVsLufthansa #UserExperience #RealTimeUpdates #Innovation #Efficiency #ChallengeTheNorm

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Would you ever go from being a manager to an individual contributor again? I had an interesting conversation the other day in one of the many WhatsApp groups, started by this proposition: 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆, 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗜𝗖, 𝗮𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿. As a manager, you’ll mostly have indirect information and are not affected by the processes most people are. This will accelerate your career instead of setting it back. I’ve heard a few reasons people give up being a manager for, but this was a new one.  People (engineers, product folks) usually go back to an IC role when they realize being a manager is a completely different job, and it is not "being a better engineer”. They end up hating the work: the constant meetings, administrative stuff, managing people and not getting that dopamine hit from feeling like actually doing something and making a difference. To quote my favorite existential comic: “𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯” Then a few people chimed in, saying they moved from manager to IC (usually from a startup / growth company to big tech), and it worked out well for them. The thing I started thinking about is whether this would work in the Middle East? It surely depends on the company, but in general management works very differently here than in Europe or in the US (understatement of the week I think, and it’s only Monday) My theory is that this would work with only a tiny percentage of companies here. What do you think? One more thing: the podcast that stated the whole question is the Skip podcast by Nikhyl Singhal: https://lnkd.in/dhJkYwCq - it’s mostly about product careers, but I found the advice works well for most tech-adjacent roles too. 

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I use a pretty simple 4-part framework for finding Product Market Fit. Nothing can make finding PMF easy, but this structure helps me break it down. Achieving PMF* means solving 4 questions: 1. What problem are we solving? (For the customer, for our business) 2. How are we solving it? 3. What is our market? (who is the customer, and is it big enough) 4. What is our GTM strategy? (Repeatable, scalable growth engine) Using that, we can build a table with four rows, one for each of these questions. We can then add a column for our hypotheses. This is what we think the answer is, based on what we know now (which might be nothing more than a guess). Now, for each of these hypotheses, there’s an underpinning set of assumptions that need to be true in order for the hypothesis to be true*. These assumptions might be about user behavior (“people are willing to buy [x] online”), internal execution (“we’re actually able to do [x]”), performance (“users convert at [x%]”), or spend (“customers pay at least $x”)*. We can then sort these assumptions into two sets: “Probably true” and “Not validated”. Our task is to open up our toolkit — e.g. user interviews, surveys, card sorting, data analysis, modeling, user testing with design prototypes, painted door tests, A/B tests, Pilots, etc. — and find the cheapest & fastest way we can move these assumptions into the “Probably true” column. At some point, we’re going to run into assumptions that prove to be probably NOT true. That’s when we need to go back and iterate on the hypotheses, and restart this entire exercise, with new assumptions born out of the new hypotheses that need to be moved from “Not validated” —> “Probably true”. As you get more experienced, you’ll get faster at 1) spotting the assumptions that are most likely to be wrong, 2) identifying the right tool for the job of testing that assumption, and 3) coming up with hypotheses that are more likely to be right. None of this is easy* and it’s not quick. But I’ve found this way of structuring things to help me not get overwhelmed by the complexity of going 0 → 1, and more quickly get focus on what to do next. I hope it helps you, too. —————— *If you’re interested in reading the footnotes as well as my work-in-progress thoughts (today: r/ProductManagement as a reminder of what Product is like for many people), sign up for my free newsletter: https://lnkd.in/g44P3_rB

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Wix was founded as a DIY website builder in 2006. With its no-code platform, it’s powerfully equipped with business tools that can help anyone create the website they want. The platform was built on the idea that anyone without code or design experience can create beautiful and meaningful websites from something as simple as a personal blog to something as complex as an enterprise-grade hub for their online business. Since then, the Wix platform has become a complete platform with distinguished performance, security, and reliable infrastructure. Over time, we saw the need for web creation agencies and freelancers who build for others to have a professional community and platform. In 2019 we introduced the Wix Partner Program. Over the years we’ve grown our platform’s capabilities to meet the rapidly changing needs of Partners and their clients, with advanced design features, tailored eCommerce, SEO tools, marketing solutions, dev tools, and complex functionalities. Wix Studio, our cornerstone web creation and management platform for agencies and freelancers, launched in August 2023. Wix Studio builds on Wix’s proven capabilities combined with the latest AI technology to provide a state-of-the-art solution, enabling the creation of advanced websites and management capabilities at scale. With unmatched flexibility, the platform includes a designed development and creation editor with code capabilities, and multi-site management workspaces, all helping to drive efficiency. Wix Studio has proven to be our highest-performing product release in recent history. Since its launch, more than one million agencies and freelancers created Studio accounts. Most of these Studio accounts are created by agencies completely new to Wix, a sign that we are continuing to win market share. Existing professionals are also increasingly using Studio to complement their Wix Editor projects with most of our top Partners building at least one project on Studio today. Importantly, conversion of these accounts is high and has resulted in more Studio premium subscriptions than anticipated at this point. This robust conversion of Studio users is a testament to the powerful design, creation, and workflow management capabilities professionals cannot find anywhere else. Even as product response proves to be better than expected, we continuously improve the Studio platform and launch new capabilities. In April, we introduced the ability for Partners to sell Studio templates in the Marketplace. In June, we launched the Figma to Wix Studio plugin that allows professionals to seamlessly export their Figma designs directly into the Wix Studio platform to create dynamic web experiences. With more new features and improvements on the horizon, we expect the momentum of the past several months to continue and Studio to be a meaningful catalyst of Partner growth in the coming years.

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v2.54 is a massive release. Through integrating ar.io, ArDrive users can now benefit from some crazy new features. #Web3 Dropbox on steroids, as they say. Assign friendly names to your files and data via ArNS, the Arweave Name System. This is great if you're building a website stored on Arweave that needs to be easily shared and accessed across hundreds of gateways in the AR.IO Network. Select which gateway to retrieve data from, thanks to ar.io's Gateway Address Registry. These decentralized gateways to Arweave ensure that there is no single point of failure when using ArDrive, giving you resilient data access. You can take it all for a spin right now at: https://app.ardrive.io

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An internal meeting today. Theodore & Megon casually reporting on the traffic numbers for one of our partners. Teddy: "The Reddit traffic is up for this partner. It's now at 5k". Vlad: "Wow, 5k, good stuff! Per month ... right?" Teddy, casually: "No, that's weekly." Vlad: "Wait, we are driving 20k views per month from Reddit?" Megon: "Yep." 20k high-intent views / mo, from a handful of Reddit threads. Because Google ❤️ Reddit since ± Aug 2022, and because Reddit now owns a large % of most valuable SERP real estate, we see Reddit as an important block in the media strategy for every SaaS company.

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