1. First rule of fishing is to know where to fish
- Is the target market opportunity reasonably large, growing and underserved?
- What matters to the business? What is the strategy to get there?
- What are the biggest opportunities and most pressing problems to be working on?
2. A well-understood problem (and user) is half the solution
- Who is the user(s)? What is the job to be done? Why does this matter to the user/persona and how much? Is it an aspirin or a vitamin?
- What's their hiring criteria and which ones are important? Where and does this job fit into their lives? How do they solve the problem today?
- Do plenty of user research - ask them to describe their problems, ask questions, show mocks, watch them using the prototypes/products
3. Grand vision, simple steps
- What is the 5 star experience? What will your press release say? How will users describe it? What are the key metrics?
- Lay out the roadmap towards this vision
- What is the next step (for new products, MVP)? How can we do this in 1/2 the time? What can make this 2X better?
4. If you build a great product and no one uses it, did you build a great product?
- How will you acquire your first 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, 1M users? Think about this upfront and then try to do it even before building a product
- Before you scale number of users, improve retention and engagement
5. Ideas are cheap. Execution is everything
- Assemble the right team
- Prototype for 1X -> Build for 10X -> Engineer for 100X
- Get regular feedback from real users
- Focus on a few things and do them well. Deliver in small, complete and testable chunks
- Have a recurring planning hygiene where you set clear milestones, set ownership, track tasks and look back
- Invest in your tools, process and technical infrastructure to keep your velocity high.
- What are the results and customers telling you?
- What could we have done better?
- Update the vision, roadmap and next steps as you see fit
7. Take care of your users and product
- Hold yourself to a minimum quality standard that you are proud of
- Fix annoying bugs and broken experiences
- Assist users when they have a problem
8. Product building is a team sport
- Optimistic, high ownership, collaborative, low-ego and respectful team
- Everyone understands the why, the what and portions of the how that's relevant to them.
- Clear responsibilities and accountability, but with shared goals and supportive team
- Value company and team success over personal success
9. Your product is a reflection of YOU
- Attitude: Optimistic, high energy, high agency, low-ego
- Bar raiser: Strive for high quality, be organized, collaborative
- Always learning: Be curious, sharpen your skills