Published in Product Coalition·Jan 20Member-onlyHow Product Managers Make Metric-Informed DecisionsHow to fill in the gaps of a problem where the numbers don’t tell you everything — Welcome to ProdCo, the creators of fine imaginary solutions. Today you’re taking the seat of the head product strategist at ProdCo, at the helm of a product wherein hungry pedestrians can use a mobile application to summon one of an army of be-scootered ProdCo contract sandwich delivery people to their…Product Management5 min readProduct Management5 min read
Published in Product Coalition·Nov 20, 2022Member-onlyData Science Product Management 202: Intermediate ConceptsLessons About Building AI/ML and Data Science Products — Saying that AI is hot right now would be a gross understatement. Everyone seems to have realized the potential that AI has to automate & uplevel parts of their products & services. With that potential comes the need to bring on people who can bridge the gap between the talented…Product Management5 min readProduct Management5 min read
Sep 23, 2020Member-onlyLet’s All Keep Arguing… About Something ElseHow to make the practice of discourse fun. No, seriously — In December 1914, Allied and German troops crossed no-man’s land and embraced each other in a now-famous show of humanity in the face of abject division. Today, it’s easy to feel like our political discourse has placed us in a similar set of trenches. A 2019 Pew Research Study…Business4 min readBusiness4 min read
Published in The Startup·Sep 13, 2020Member-onlyEngineering vs Product — Turning Tension Into TriumphWhy it’s ok for engineering and product to fight — Let me know if this has happened to you before: Engineer: I’m not sure we’re going to be able to get done features A, B, and C by the deadline you gave us. Product Manager: What if we [built it differently, pushed through the weekend, deprioritized that other thing you’re…Product Management4 min readProduct Management4 min read
Published in Product Coalition·Jun 20, 2020Member-onlyWhat it means to be “scrappy”What if I told you that breakfast cereal saved AirBnb? — Story 1 — Scrappiness in the face of annihilation What if I told you that Airbnb was saved by breakfast cereal? In 2008, Brian Chesky and the early team behind Airbnb, which at the time was AirBed & Breakfast, found themselves with $20k debt and no way to pay it off.Product Management5 min readProduct Management5 min read
Published in The Startup·Jun 20, 2020Member-onlyA Gif Lead Me On A Search For MeaningDiscovery It started innocently enough. I was going to work out, and I needed a funny gif to mark the occasion. But nothing is ever simple I’d found something wonderful. My mind raced with potential origin stories for this work of art… Perhaps it was an obscure Eastern European workout video…Comedy4 min readComedy4 min read
Published in Product Coalition·Mar 26, 2020Member-onlyImplementation Science Enables Great Product ManagementBad Air. Before Germ Theory was popularized, the spread of disease was often attributed to “Bad Air emanating from rotting organic matter”. Germ Theory replaced this notion of how diseases spread, but it didn’t happen all at once. Louis Pasteur’s seminal work demonstrating how bacteria spread disease took place in…Product Management5 min readProduct Management5 min read
Published in Product Coalition·Dec 24, 2019Member-onlyHow A Giving Mentality Can Lead To Great ProductWhen you’re thinking of others, you can’t help but make great stuff — I was traveling home to see my family for Christmas when I came up with my latest product idea. I had heard someone somewhere talking about a bingo game they played on a road trip with their family. …Product Management5 min readProduct Management5 min read
Published in Product Coalition·Dec 1, 2019Member-onlyElements of a Great Product ManagerThe skills that you need to start being great — Consider all of the software products out there that have pervaded your life, for better or worse — Instagram, Lyft, Gmail. There are some incredibly talented software developers behind the scenes putting fingers to keyboard in service of making these programs work the way they need to, but who’s the…Product Management8 min readProduct Management8 min read
Published in Ascent Publication·Nov 11, 2019Member-onlyUnlock Your Information-Intake SuperpowerWe all want to improve every day, right? The mantra of, “I want to be a little better today than I was yesterday” is something I find appealing, but sometimes it can be stressful. Doing more with our time often seems like a daunting task, but occasionally opportunities present themselves…Self Improvement3 min readSelf Improvement3 min read
