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Where Great Product Roadmap Ideas Come From

Jun 2019

Your long-term vision is a compass, not a constraint

Working backwards from your long-term vision generates better ideas than working forward from current state. This reversal—starting with where you want to go rather than where you are—fundamentally changes which ideas feel like natural next steps versus distractions.
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Where Great Product Roadmap Ideas Come From

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Solitude is a required input for big ideas

Quiet thinking time is as essential as customer research for generating great roadmap ideas. The contrast between 'staying heads down too long' (bad) and 'thinking in a quiet place' (good) suggests that focused reflection—distinct from isolation—unlocks insights that collaborative noise cannot.

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What Buddhism Taught Me About Product Management

Jun 2019

Attachment to ideas kills better ideas

Your job as a PM is to accelerate good ideas and kill bad ones—not to keep your own ideas alive at all costs. The longer you cling to a bad idea because you're attached to it, the worse it becomes for you and the business. Impermanence applies to strategies too.

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Execution clarity precedes strategic vision

Before developing strategy, ensure everyone knows what they should be doing, unnecessary meetings are eliminated, blockers are addressed quickly, and deadlines are clear. You can't build a compelling vision on top of a chaotic foundation.

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What Seven Years at Airbnb Taught Me About Building a Business

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Work backward from the ideal, not forward from constraints

Instead of micro-optimizing a broken funnel, envision the perfect user experience and work backward. Airbnb's instant booking feature seemed impossible (only 5% of bookings were instant), but starting from the ideal state and breaking it into 'can' problems and 'want' problems made it tractable. Constraints should inform strategy, not limit vision.

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How to get into product management

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Strategy is a set of actions, not a vision

A good strategy is a set of actions that is credible, coherent, and focused on overcoming the biggest hurdles in achieving an objective. Strategy without execution is just planning; execution without strategy is just activity.

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