Itamar Gilad

"The money is in the list." Build a lander, run some ads, watch the cash roll in. But here's the hard truth: Not all visitors are ready to convert. Some are just learning about their problem. Others are considering their options. The real money is in the journey. And it starts with awareness. Here's how your landing page should fit into different awareness stages: — I am Jackson Yew Click my name + follow + 🔔 Want more inbound clients? Send me a message. Or... Join my newsletter. Daily marketing insights. Link in comment. ❤️ + ♻️ Repost and help somebody!

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Jeff Bezos is known for shaking up industries, but did he also disrupt a core leadership principle? In a fascinating twist, Bezos has a unique approach to his S-Team (Senior Team) meetings - he has everyone silently read a long memo before discussing anything. This might seem counterintuitive to the common wisdom that leaders should speak last to foster open, diverse ideas. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐲? - Does it silence junior voices? Some argue that by focusing heavily on senior leadership's pre-digested ideas, newer voices could be overlooked, potentially stifling creativity and fresh perspectives. - The risk of groupthink When everyone reads the same memo before a meeting, it could lead to a narrow discussion, as participants might align with what’s written rather than thinking independently. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐥𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐁𝐞𝐳𝐨𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 - Informed discussion Bezos values deep, thoughtful conversations. By reading the memo first, everyone starts on the same page, ready to dive into complex issues, ensuring the conversation is substantive rather than reactive. - Quality over quantity This method might result in fewer, but more refined ideas. Instead of a free-for-all brainstorm, it prioritizes depth over volume, helping to drive focus on what really matters. Did Bezos unlock a new approach to leadership meetings, or could this strategy unintentionally limit open discussion? 👇 #innovation #technology #future #management #startups

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Figuring out what works and what doesn't is essential for PMs, from intuition through quant analysis to A/BT and MVT, and more 🧃 Mobbin have put together a neat library of various tests to get inspired by, including Uber, Blinkist, Headspace, Duolingo, TikTok. Seeing what others have tested along with the results does help. Link in comments. #ui #ux #performance

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How to Scale Product Trios? 🤔 I've seen a debate on LinkedIn about the possibility of running multiple discovery tracks with the same product trio. Considering that, to me, discovery should always lead to delivery and then back to discovery, I don't see how that is possible. My approach has been to scale by: • Starting with a trio • Adding a trio to all product teams • Adding a discovery layer for strategy 💭 But as usual, when I don't see a point, I get curious. Below I’ve summarized the two approaches I have taken and the third one that I cannot wrap my head around. Am I missing something in the way you can scale discovery? What is your experience and view on this? 💡 #ProductInsights #ProductDiscovery #ProductTrios

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In April 2020 I received an invitation I didn't expect. Sivan Hermon, a senior engineering manager at Google, asked me to teach the GIST model (Goals, Ideas, Steps, Tasks) to her product group. This request kicked my impostor syndrome into hyperdrive. As a former Googler, I knew Google had strong product people and a firm belief in its product culture and practices. Would anyone benefit from my approach to building high-impact products? With some apprehension we launched the training in June 2020 (online as this was the height of the pandemic). I expected pushback in the form of "we don't have these problems", but almost immediately I noticed this was not the case. The same questions and challenges that people raise in other companies came up at Google as well. People were bothered by unclear strategies and definitions of success. They worried they didn’t understand their customers well enough, and that they were picking the wrong ideas to work on. They had stakeholders to gratify and dependencies to manage. Some things are just universal it seems. I also feared that the solutions I offer would be rejected with "nothing new here". For example, as part of the Goals layer of GIST I teach Objectives and Key Results (OKR), but of course Google has been using OKR for decades. Indeed, When we prepared  for the workshop some people asked if we should skip this module entirely. However during the course we observed that what was being practiced isn’t the most effective (more on this in the linked article). Generally, throughout the workshop  the participants were engaged and receptive, and that the methods we practiced seemed to resonate strongly with them. The workshop (based on participant feedback) ended up being a success. But holding a training is the easy part. The hard part is changing the way you work, which some companies struggle with. But that wasn't the case with this group. They embraced the principles and methodology  and made them their own. They revamped their prioritization approach and got developers involved in discovery. As a result they were able to launch multiple successful products in rapid succession. Sivan attributes this success to these factors: - People being open minded - Supportive leadership team - Redesigning processes with the new information gained in the workshop I would add a fourth factor: Sivan as a leader is a strong believer in “realizing I can do better and being open to exploring new approaches” and she teaches this growth mindset to her reports. This mentality is key for a successful transformation.  Sivan regularly publishes beautiful articles about product development and culture. In her last article she recounts this GIST story from her perspective. This article is is packed with useful real-world insights and is also a great introduction to the GIST system. I highly recommend reading it:

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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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Three more exciting events to look forward to next week! Trust me, you won't want to miss out on the upcoming free Product Discovery Events with Teresa Torres. Adopting Continuous Product Discovery Habits is really essential to your Product Organisation. 💡 Tim Herbig is another powerhouse I confidently recommend, especially if continuous discovery is firing up discussions in your product org. #productdiscovery #productmanagement

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If you talk to expert poker players, one thing you’ll hear them talk about is the trap of results-oriented thinking. Results-oriented thinking is when we overreact to a probabilistic result, blaming or crediting our process or strategy when, in a sample size of 1, we got an outcome we did or didn’t want. We took a huge risk, and won.* Or, we did everything right, but still lost.* Results-oriented thinking is a bias our lizard brains evolved to keep us alive from danger — we don’t approach bears, we don’t eat the purple plants — but at work, it no longer serves us. It’s important to ask yourself, did we just get (un)lucky or was this the result of our process or strategy? There’s two kinds of protection against this bias. 1. Have a hypothesis-based mindset. Instead of just barging ahead with an idea, take a beat and write down what we think our hypothesis is. That way, when we get the results of our test (or launch), we can go back and see whether it confirms our hypothesis or not. 2. Regularly do “5 Whys”-style root cause analysis, where we ask Why five times. When something goes wrong (or right!), ask Why. And then, inspect your first-level Why and ask Why that first-level Why happened. Then repeat that — why did the second-level Why happen? And so on, until you feel like you’ve really gotten to the bottom of the issue. Sometimes rolling the dice on a low probability strategy is the right thing to do. And sometimes we don’t get the outcome we wanted even though we did everything “the right way”. If we can maintain process-oriented thinking, we can better look back in retrospect and see what we could have done better vs. where we just got (un)lucky. —————— *If you’re interested in reading the footnotes as well as my work-in-progress thoughts (today: maybe it’s time to bring back Clippy?), sign up for my free newsletter: https://lnkd.in/g44P3_rB

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I love a good "drama", so when the guest post "In Defense of Feature Team Product Managers" by Ben Erez hit Lenny's Newsletter, I brought out my popcorns and was ready to dive in. When Marty Cagan released his article "Product Management Theater" in January, it definitely caused a stir in the product community, leading to Lenny's podcast with Marty on this topic. Marty has strong opinions on what makes a “real” PM. Having read Marty's books since I was a PM newbie, his work has been my guiding light, though it sometimes made me question if I fit his definition of a true PM. Ben Erez’s recent post was a breath of fresh air, counter to the popular narrative. He highlighted the value of feature teams, especially for CEOs with a clear product vision, and emphasized the crucial roles PMs play, whether on feature or empowered teams. I appreciate Lenny for bringing these #diverse perspectives to light. It’s easy to be influenced by thought leaders, but hearing different viewpoints helps us form our own opinions and decide what’s best for our unique circumstances. Hats off to Lenny for creating such an #inclusive space! - In defense of feature team product managers by Ben Erez: https://lnkd.in/gaGkSn6f - Product Management Theater by Marty Cagan: https://lnkd.in/gD36X2zU - Lenny's Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky: https://lnkd.in/gWGpjX7g #productmanagement #diversity

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What tech founders get wrong about design: - what gets you here won’t get you there Your MVP — the first version built for early adopters — can be: - a bit messy - a bit buggy - using default design systems - a bit challenging to navigate And that’s often fine! Early adopters are not that picky. They’re risk-takers. They overlook the rough edges if the product solves a big problem. But here’s where many founders stumble: they think this approach will scale. Then the real test comes. The early majority arrives, and they are different. They have higher expectations. They don’t tolerate broken flows or difficult navigation. They churn. That’s when founders scramble to hire a designer, often a junior or mid-level one, to “polish” the product. They think a few tweaks will fix it. It rarely does. More features get added in an attempt to satisfy users, but instead: - navigation gets worse. - users can’t find existing features and keep asking for them. Sound familiar? If so, let’s talk. I’ve helped many tech businesses in this exact spot—clean up their product, build a solid design foundation, and establish a design process that works. And yes, even keep or hire the right designer. #uxdesign #productdesign

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The STAR format is broken. There, I said it. But no, it actually is not entirely broken. It's just that people assume that once they apply it to their answers, they will magically be able to convey everything they need to succeed in their product management interviews. And that's a whole lot of crap. That's like watching a video on how to hit a great golf shot and thinking you're ready for the Masters. Hoo hoo hoo, no way! Here's the real deal. To truly master behavioral interviews - which seem simple on the surface, our clients go through an incredible amount of work and lots of intense processes: * They write and rewrite their stories until they're clear, impactful, and memorable. * They work their butts off, figuring out how to highlight their most significant achievements and most formidable challenges in a compelling way. * They craft drama and intrigue into those stories to keep the interviewer hooked. * They carefully choose wording appropriate for the level they're interviewing for. * They learn the art of intentionally spotlighting the factors that will help them succeed. * They practice zooming in and out to control what details to include. * They even learn to subtly reframe questions to position their best strengths and stories as the perfect response. * They even borrow techniques from sales and marketing to amplify the impact of their storytelling. And that's just for behavioral interviews! Anyone who thinks that by reading a book on Product Management interviews, they will suddenly prepare great answers they are kidding themselves. We work intensely on product design, metrics, and all the other types, too. Learning to answer well is like learning a sport. You have to work out, run, eat well, practice drills, and play matches, among other things. We have designed our systems to make sure you deliver on the need. We won't let you underdeliver. You might not get it all immediately, but stick with us, and you'll gain the skills to land the role you really want. Or keep winging it with STAR and hoping for the best. But if you want elite coaching to improve your interview skills, send me a DM with the message "talk" and I can point you in the right direction.

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Retention is an output metric. Meaning, several activities and input metrics feed into retention. It is one of the most important KPIs in B2B, specifically paid user retention. If paid user retention isn't a straight line (also defined as Gross Dollar Retention in the 90s or Net Dollar Retention > 100), your users aren't getting repeat value - the product/service is not sticky enough to grow infinitely. You have to work doubly hard to replace the leak at the bottom of the bucket. Off late we've seen far too many people show slides on how they moved customer retention (or in the B2C world - Day 30 retention) significantly, and when you hear someone say that, you have the right to be skeptical (they are likely not an operator, but great at slides). They are likely reporting on the success of some other team that spent days and months 1) Personally onboarding customers 2) Mapping out the customer journey, and identifying all the friction points that prevents them from getting value 3) Carefully removing all of the UX and tech debt that the product has accumulated over time and simplifying the path to immediate "wow" 4) Cataloging all the different user types and the use cases of the product that drives unique landed value (not indirect value) 5) Led a cross functional team (eng, CS, marketing, support) as a single threaded owner- that took massive risks to implement new, drastically different "hybrid" flows - both with humans in the loop as well as combining that with in-product UX overhauls 6) Failed 3-5X in the process until they reached one or more input metrics - # of customers fully setup, # of customers getting value once, # of customers getting value multiple times. 7) Ruthlessly measuring everyday, obsessing over customer anecdotes - what did a user say this week about how quickly they got value and was it useful The path to improving retention is a labyrinth. Very often you have to be patient and try testing several hypotheses to see one or many of those input metrics move and not glorify "retention". #retention #NRR #GRR

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A (significantly) more condensed rant about the use of internal metrics (adoption, patter reuse, coverage, etc.) Everyone talking about measuring usage of a design system by their team is only addressing product value of the system (which is important). However, the more interesting metrics are those that affect users. A design system is an incredible repository of design choices. We need to start thinking about how choices in our design system change the usage metrics of the products built with them.

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Vlad Loktev taught me more about product management than anyone else I've ever worked with, and is responsible for the biggest inflection in my PM career. Vlad spent 10 years at Airbnb where he started as an IC PM and quickly advanced to lead product, and then GM the entire Airbnb homes business, managing over 1,000 people and reporting directly to CEO Brian Chesky. He recently left Airbnb and joined Index Ventures as their newest partner. Prior to Airbnb, Vlad spent a year at Zynga, where he helped grow Words with Friends to over 14 million daily active users. In our conversation, we discuss: 🔸 Insight into Brian Chesky’s leadership style 🔸 Why success as a PM is all about impact, impact, impact 🔸 Why chaos can be good 🔸 Why as a leader it’s OK to let some fires burn 🔸 Why you should learn to “poke the bear” 🔸 Balancing product release speed with quality 🔸 Lessons on prioritization, decision-making, and organizational design 🔸 Advice for founders on building company culture 🔸 Much more Listen now 👇 - YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gMrECh5z - Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gG8yRXh2 - Apple: https://lnkd.in/g8rKdAjm Some key takeaways: 1. Relentlessly focus on impact. Start by identifying the highest priorities for your organization or team. Each day, ask yourself: What are the most critical tasks or projects that align with these priorities? Ensure your efforts are directly contributing to these goals. 2. Don’t be afraid to “poke the bear”: When you have a strong opinion or concern, don’t shy away from voicing it, even if it challenges the status quo. Poking the bear means confronting difficult issues constructively and openly, which can drive meaningful change and improvements. 3. Lead with curiosity and dial down advocacy: When entering a conversation or meeting, start by asking open-ended questions to understand others’ perspectives fully. This approach shows respect for differing opinions and helps you gather important information. Only after you have actively listened and absorbed the other viewpoints should you advocate for your own perspective. 4. Let some fires burn. You can’t address everything at once, and if you feel a need to do so, that’s a sign you don’t understand what’s most important for your business. You need to be explicit with yourself and your team about what the priorities are and what you’re willing to let burn in service of them. Aligning on this in advance will help you resist the urge to put out fires as they start. 5. Two tools to help you calm your mind: a. The serenity prayer: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” b. The shit bucket: Designate a specific place, like a physical trash can or a digital file, as your ‘shit bucket’ for frustrations and issues you can’t change.

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A/B testing is not product design. In recent years, it’s become fashionable to use lots of small A/B tests to try to build and refine products and experiences—even though there is no evidence that this actually works. I've worked with companies that went all in on A/B testing over all other methods and are now in deep trouble. While A/B testing can be a powerful tool in the right hands, it can also be an incredibly dangerous tool in the wrong hands. And I think most product and tech teams don’t have the sophistication to pull off A/B testing properly. I've written in the past that you can’t A/B test your way to product transformation, and Tony Fadell explains why in his book Build: “A/B and user testing is not product design. It’s a tool. A test. At best a diagnosis. It can tell you something’s not working, but it won’t tell you how to fix it. Or it can show you an option that solves one hyperlocal issue but breaks something else downstream.” — Tony Fadell. That final point is so critical. A/B testing done poorly will result in runaway butterfly effects, where these small tests lead up to big, unknown changes long term in your products. A/B testing is what you should do once you know the product design — once you have the vision. If you don’t know the vision and why you are building something, you shouldn’t be anywhere near A/B testing. What becomes really dangerous is when a company starts doing multiple hyperlocal A/B test experiments on the same page and then tries to slam together the results from multiple tests into one vision. Fadell also talks about how user panels/focus groups aren’t very useful. You can’t ask users what to build (but you can ask them about their pain points). Why? Because they can’t conceive of what has never been built before. I highly recommend Fadell’s book Build to anyone looking to either learn how great products and experiences get made or to learn how to get better at product development. It’s one of the best product and business books I have read in years. #productdesign #ux #abtesting #testing #data #userresearch

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Talking to a handful of small companies this past few weeks, and sharing some thoughts on distinct types of PM. Humble opinion... there are only really two kinds. Discovery PMs and Delivery PMs. 🔬Discovery PMs just get customer problems. They interview differently, they listen well, and they come away with a better understanding of what the customer needs (versus what they ask for). They are usually also better at visualisation and working with design teams. 🧱 Delivery PMs just get sh*t done. They understand how to negotiate with stakeholders, do planning, and track how things are going during and after a feature is launched, and are almost always data savvy. They also tend to handle themselves well in a crisis. Sounds super simple - but ultimately PMs will excel either in the problem space or the product space. The next time you are hiring for a PM, think about which side of the house will add more value. Within each of the spaces (problem and product) there are *tons* of specialisations, but most organisations I've worked with/for have struggled more in one side than the other. I better give all the growth PMs a shout out before I get 🧌 🤣 If you could choose to add more capability/expertise/energy to the problem OR product space in your organisation, which would it be?

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The two main points I think are so crucial and interrelated: 1) Focus on Impact 2) Let some fires burn (because they aren’t important to current focus areas) Again and again I see the same sort of messages about being outcome oriented and focusing on the most impactful thing that teams can be working on. In this case, they are coming from a company, AirBnB that has a strong Where To? (Where we WANT to go?) but often that isn’t the case. Being outcome oriented without knowing the desired end destination is impossible. Leaders need to recognize without that overarching & unifying vision that teams feel lost and often at odds with one another. How can you expect anyone to focus on the right things which drive impact if it isn’t clear what the efforts should generate? This is why I am constantly preaching about the importance of establishing and emphasizing your Where To? Nothing is more foundational for success.

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The way modern tech companies are being built: ⭐ MVPs are minimum valuable products "Being embarrassed" by your first product version is not a strategy; it's a path to churning your early customers. The Lean Startup talks about releasing early and often, but beware of compromising on product quality. UX matters, and the bar is higher than ever. ⭐ AI-enhanced development AI will not replace developers(for now), but it will make them better and faster; so your engineering team should be all over using it. ⭐ Have a global workforce For example, a US-based tech company should have a healthy blend of talent in the US along with countries like Mexico, Brazil, Chile, etc. PS. Curotec can help you hire the top global software engineers the right way. Get in touch to learn more 👋 ⭐ Distribution is the new moat 20 years ago, building software was the moat, but no longer. Having a defensible distribution channel to sell your product is the new moat. ⭐ Teams are half-robots While AI won't replace every role, it will replace some. Top-performing companies employ robots(automation) everywhere they can. ⭐ Pure SaaS is saturated; think productized services Pure SaaS plays are mostly saturated unless you go into super micro niches, or you already have a foothold in your market. For new ventures, start thinking about productized services for greenfield disruption. ⭐ Brand / Creator partnerships will win B2B is ripe for influencer-creator partnerships. Think Canva's partnership with Guy Kawasaki. ⭐ Own your category to win Must read book: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing sums this up very well. ⭐ Bootstrapping is in We'll see more and more companies like Atlassian, 37signals, and Qualtrics, that raise little or no VC capital and scale to massive success.

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Early UX mistakes can jeopardize your ability to develop a strong PLG motion. Over the last five years, I have been asked to give feedback to 40+ B2B SaaS businesses optimizing their self-service motion. These were the three most common design challenges that create unnecessary friction for new users: 1️⃣ Curse of Knowledge: designing for expert users who understand the domain well. This happens when designers develop expertise in the domain after many interviews with expert users. The resulting designs are often plagued with industry jargon. Designers forget that new users must be educated and motivated to use the product. Users are often onboarded onto complicated workflows that they struggle to master or understand the value of. Make sure to test extensively on novice users. 2️⃣ Incorrect Chunking and Sequencing: users are expected to complete multiple tasks or decisions in a single view. The result is an overwhelming menu that looks like a tax form. One lifecycle management platform asked its users to decide the goal, the target, the timing, the delivery method, the design, and the marketing copy for the campaign in a single view. Overwhelmed users complained that after one year of usage, they still felt intimidated when they opened the page. After the view was broken into five separate steps, the same users reported that they achieved mastery of campaign creation after just one or two uses. 3️⃣ Lack of feedback / next step: users do not receive feedback on their tasks or decisions, and it is unclear what steps they should follow. If there is a workflow or a happy path for the product, you must help users discover it. If they are making complex decisions that lead to anxiety, you should give them feedback. This might be a simple green checkmark when an element of a form is correctly entered or a complete diagnostic view for a correctly integrated API. Reward your users for a job well done with peace of mind. #productdesign #ux #plg

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