The Product Growth Newsletter and Podcast ๐ | Helping PMs, Product Leaders, and PM Aspirants Succeed | Went from PM to VP of Product
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Nov 7 โข 10 tweets โข 3 min read
PMs, you can add at least $50k to your salary by becoming an AI PM.
However, many people miss the mark, making the same mistakes over and over again.
Here are the 7 mistakes to avoid if you want to secure your dream AI role:
๐ ๐ถ๐๐๐ฎ๐ธ๐ฒ #๐ญ: ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ถ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐น๐น๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ผ๐ฟโ๐ ๐๐๐ฟ๐๐ฒ
โ Collecting certificates may feel productive, but itโs often just an illusion of progress.
โ Instead of paper chasing, identify a problem, build a prototype, and document your process.
Nov 5 โข 13 tweets โข 3 min read
Looking to land a PM role at Google, Amazon, or Meta?
Hereโs the truth: Itโs not enough to just secure the offer.
You need to nail the team matching process.
Hereโs how to land the team (and role) you want:
๐ช๐๐๐ง ๐๐ฆ ๐ง๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐ง๐๐๐๐ก๐ ๐ฃ๐ฅ๐ข๐๐๐ฆ๐ฆ?
At top tech companies, landing an offer is only the beginning.
After that, itโs time for team matching: the stage where PMs find their โhome baseโ within the company.
Why this process is crucial for both parties?
Nov 3 โข 12 tweets โข 3 min read
The biggest bottleneck in scaling your product with enterprise clients?
Not getting your product ready.
Hereโs what you need to know to transform for enterprise:
๐ง๐๐ ๐ฃ๐๐ง๐๐๐๐๐ฆ ๐๐ก ๐๐ข๐ก๐ฉ๐๐ก๐ง๐๐ข๐ก๐๐ ๐ช๐๐ฆ๐๐ข๐
Many believe an โenterprise-readyโ product only needs the basics: RBAC, SSO, SLAs, and audit logs.
These are important but just the price of admission...
Oct 29 โข 13 tweets โข 4 min read
This founder dropped out of college and built a $20B company.
Here's the crazy story of how Figma went from nothing to one of the iconic startups:
CHAPTER 1 - SOLVING THE FILE PROBLEM
In 2012, Figma's co-founders @zoink and @evanwallace set out to solve a problem that every designer struggled with:
The file problem.
Oct 28 โข 10 tweets โข 3 min read
*Save this post for the next time you interview*
These are the 30 questions Eugene Segal has seen most in his mid-level PM leadership job search (Director/GPM/Head Of).
AND - Hereโs the proven way to answer these questions and succeed in your interviews:
๐ง๐๐ ๐ฐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ฉ๐๐ฅ๐ฆ ๐ฌ๐ข๐จ ๐ก๐๐๐ ๐ง๐ข ๐ฆ๐จ๐๐๐๐๐
1. Structure
โณ Use a framework like STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to keep your responses concise, impactful, and resonant.
โณ Also, using structure isnโt โcringeโ; itโs a foolproof way to communicate your thoughts with clarity and confidence.
Oct 10 โข 8 tweets โข 2 min read
You're likely to hear this question in most interviews.
"Why this company?"
Most people pass by with an 'okay' answer.
Here's a Framework to take your answer from that okay 6/10 to an awesome 10/10: 1. Deep Dive into Company Research
Go beyond the company's website. Dive into recent product launches, financial reports, and industry news,
Create a "company insights" document. For every piece of information you find, add a note about why it matters to you.
Oct 7 โข 9 tweets โข 4 min read
The secret sauce to landing high-paying jobs: cold emails.
Itโs how I broke into Epic Gamesโand how Iโve helped others secure roles at some of the worldโs top companies.
If youโre aiming for your dream job, this is for you:
Thereโs no doubt about itโcold email works.
A high schooler emailed Snapchatโs CEO and landed an internship.
So if youโre not getting responses, itโs not because it is broken.
Youโre probably approaching it the wrong way.
Letโs start by fixing the most common mistakes:
Sep 29 โข 9 tweets โข 3 min read
If youโre building a company or trying to figure out how to grow it fast, this is for you.
Today, weโre breaking down 7 GTM motions (with 28 guides) from top companies that are scaling at breakneck speed.
Hereโs your roadmap to mastering Go-to-Market like a pro:
๐ ๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ถ๐บ๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐ผ๐ป ๐๐ผ-๐๐ผ-๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ธ๐ฒ๐ ๐ ๐ผ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐
When it comes to Go-to-Market (GTM), itโs all about the right combination of motions.
From driving virality to closing enterprise deals, each motion is a tool that you can leverage.
It may seem like a mystery...
Sep 29 โข 10 tweets โข 2 min read
You can become an AI PM with no experience.
Competition for those roles paying $300-900K is sky high.
But here's how to differentiate:
Dr. Nancy Li and I have gone in-depth on the path, with our lessons after having guided students to AI PM roles at:
How do you create a well-structured product strategy?
Here are the 7 steps you should follow:
๐ญ: ๐ข๐ฏ๐ท๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ
Without a definition of success, a strategy is meaningless.
Strategies are always the response to a challenge. They answer the question: โwhat is the best way to do X?โ.
A great format is: Objective = mission + measure
Sep 21 โข 10 tweets โข 3 min read
Two founders turned a $150K loan into a $10B+ startup while coding in their underwear.
Hereโs the wild journey of Notion from 0 to 30M active users:
Countless productivity tools like Miro, Canva, and Coda have launched in recent years.
But Notion cut through the noise to become the go-to platform for seamless productivity.
Today, itโs valued at $10B, with 30M users and generating $576M in revenue.
Let's break it down.
Sep 20 โข 6 tweets โข 2 min read
One of the secrets to make better product decisions:
"If it isnโt a clear yes, then itโs a clear no."
Prioritization is one of the most important skills in product management. There are always more ideas than resources, more problems than solutions, more features than benefits.
How do you decide what to work on next?
There are many frameworks and tools for prioritization, such as RICE, MoSCoW, Kano model, etc. But they all boil down to one simple principle: if it isn't a clear yes, then it's a clear no.
What does this mean?
It means that you should only work on things that have a strong positive impact on your product goals and metrics, and that are aligned with your product vision and strategy. Anything else is a distraction, a waste of time and energy, or worse, a source of confusion and frustration for your users and stakeholders.
Sep 20 โข 10 tweets โข 2 min read
I make more as a creator than I did as a VP of Product at a unicorn.
But how did I turn 60-minute writing sessions into a full-time job?
Hereโs how it all unfolded:
๐๐ต๐ฎ๐ฝ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐ญ: ๐๐ฝ๐ถ๐ฐ ๐๐ฎ๐บ๐ฒ๐ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐ผ๐๐ถ๐ฑ
In 2020, I was deep in my role at Epic Games, working long hours like most people in the industry.
Then the pandemic hit, and suddenly, I was working from home with extra time on my hands.
Sep 18 โข 9 tweets โข 3 min read
The retention hierarchy of needs is my go-to concept to solving retention problems.
Here's how it works:
The idea is retention is a pyramid.
You have to satisfy the lower layers first before tackling the oneโs above them:
Sep 16 โข 8 tweets โข 2 min read
"Don't Make Me Think" is one of the most underrated & ignored growth levers.
It's not "just" a UX concept.
It's an investment program - that's about minimizing cognitive load for users and prioritizing UX from a first-principles.
But how do you implement it?
I broke it down with Director of Product Growth at @Houzz Kunal Thadani.
There are 5 key principles:
Jul 21 โข 7 tweets โข 2 min read
Revealed: How to Succeed in Meta Product Manager Interviews.
Here's the exact doc Meta shares with candidates for its PM Interviews:
Jul 1 โข 7 tweets โข 2 min read
Steal this template for your homepage: 1. Above the Fold
This is the most important part of the homepage. Too many people waste the space:
A. Convey the category of software your product is in, and how your solution differs
B. Add in wow logos from industries in your ICP (ideal customer profile)
Jun 10 โข 9 tweets โข 2 min read
Thereโs a paradox of seniority: people get more messages, yet they are even more responsive.
This is especially true for important emails.
Hereโs why:
THE IC LIFE
As an Individual Contributor, your work (outside of certain roles) mostly is internal to your company.
You can spend the vast majority of your day in Slack for responsive tasks.
Email responsiveness matters, but itโs not the most important thing.
Jun 1 โข 5 tweets โข 3 min read
For a company founded in '93, Nvidia's ascent to $2.7T market cap has been FAST. But what really is Nvidia's moat?
Let's break it down.
PART 1 โ SOFTWARE
The story starts all the way back in the early 2000s. That's when Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO, and his team were out meeting researchers using their products.
Most researchers were hacking graphics packages to run complex parallel compute tasks. It was not ideal. To say the least.
So, when the Nvidia team met Ian Buck, who had the vision of running general purpose programming languages on GPUs, they funded his Ph.D. After graduation, Ian came to Nvidia to commercialize the tech.
Two years later, in 2006, Nvidia released CUDA.
C ompute
U nified
D evice
A rchitecture
CUDA made all those parallelization hacks the researchers were doing available to everyone. Over time, CUDA became the default choice for researchers.
CUDA allowed accessible customization of the low-level hardware. So developers loved it.
Nowadays, when startups like MosaicML evaluate the available technology vs CUDA, they inevitably choose CUDA.
The ecosystem around CUDA has grown so robust that its lead is virtually unbeatable. This software layer is at the core of Nvidia's moat.
PART 2 โ HARDWARE
The other side of Nvidia's moat is hardware. But it's not graphics cards for crypto and gaming. The hardware that matters is AI supercomputers.
The story of these supercomputers begins in the late 2000s. As Nvidia was developing CUDA, Jensen asked the team to build a supercomputer to help him build better chips.
The result was a massive supercomputer that weighed 100 pounds and strung together many GPUs with world-class networking for ultra-fast computing.
In the early 2010s, Jensen gave a talk at a conference about this AI supercomputer. Elon Musk got wind of it and said, "I want one."
So, in 2016, Jensen actually donated one to Elon Musk's relatively unknown nonprofit, OpenAI. He hand delivered it, and there's photographic proof.
OpenAI quickly learned the supercomputer worked really well. Especially for training large neural networks. That 2016 Pascal architecture delivered an impressive 19 TFLOPS of FP16 operations.
That's 19 trillion floating point operations per second. It's a massive amount. But that was just the beginning.
Since then, Jensen and the Nvidia team have been lapping the industry in delivering more TFLOPS, growing them at an exponential rate.
The latest Blackwell architecture delivers a massive 5000 TFLOPS. That's >260x AI computer in 8 years. And sells for more than $75K. But buyers like Meta, OpenAI, Google, and Amazon just can't get enough, as their internal ASICs are nowhere near Nvidia's level.
As a result, Nvidia's profits and market cap continue to soar, cementing its position as a leader in the AI hardware and software space.
Jensen is one of the most impressive entrepreneurs alive.
He spotted the AI revolution before any other semiconductor CEO and bet the company on it.
That's a rare trait.
May 25 โข 13 tweets โข 3 min read
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to GTM.
Maja Voje and I studied 12 leading B2B SaaS companies.
(including interviews with their teams)
Hereโs what we learned: 1. PLG is eating the world
>80% of the companies in our study employ PLG in some fashion.
Even enterprise companies like Snowflake and Salesforce are adding free trials & freemium.
Itโs the new normal.
May 16 โข 7 tweets โข 2 min read
There's so many ways orgs mess up transforming the product team away from the feature factory.
Here's the top one's, as I see them: 1. Understanding and commitment
It's not enough to just have engineering, product, and design on board for transformation.