Gokul Rajaram on designing your product development process, when and how to hire your first PM, a playbook for hiring leaders, getting ahead in you career, how to get started angel investing, more
Jun 2022Founder authenticity determines company culture
There are multiple paths to greatness—technical excellence, growth obsession, design minimalism, operational rigor. But founders must be authentic to themselves and build companies in their image. Trying to build a company inauthentic to who you are as a founder won't work.
Gokul Rajaram on designing your product development process, when and how to hire your first PM, a playbook for hiring leaders, getting ahead in you career, how to get started angel investing, more
Jun 2022Passion emerges from problem and people, not role
You often don't know if you're passionate about something until you start doing the work. Focus on the problem you're solving and the customer segment you're serving—the passion follows. Working on payments seemed impossible until the environment, culture, and mission made it energizing.
Gokul Rajaram on designing your product development process, when and how to hire your first PM, a playbook for hiring leaders, getting ahead in you career, how to get started angel investing, more
Jun 2022Serendipity requires visibility and generosity
Great careers aren't built linearly through promotions, but through knowing many people, doing great work, and being open to unexpected opportunities. The key is staying visible across your organization, helping others without immediate expectation of return, and building a reservoir of goodwill that compounds over time.
April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process
Jun 2022Positioning is not static—it decays over time
Your product evolves, markets shift, and competitors change. Positioning that was excellent three years ago can become weak without deliberate attention. There's value in regularly checking in on positioning to see if it could be tighter or better, even if it's currently working.
April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process
Jun 2022Listen to early sales calls to diagnose positioning problems
The clearest signal of weak positioning emerges in initial customer conversations: confusion ('could you say that again?'), false recognition ('you're like Salesforce'), or missing value ('I could do that in a spreadsheet'). These are red flags that your positioning isn't landing.
April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process
Jun 2022Great positioning feels obvious in hindsight
When positioning is working, it feels like magic—people land on it and think 'of course that's what it is, what else could it be?' Postman's 'API platform for building and managing APIs' is so simple it seems inevitable, but it took years to get there.
April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process
Jun 2022Positioning is the foundation for everything downstream
Messaging, branding, sales narratives, and marketing strategy all flow from positioning. You cannot write effective messaging until you understand who the message is for and what your value is against specific alternatives. Positioning must come first.
April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process
Jun 2022Better means something different to every segment
You can't just claim you're 'better.' Better for a small company means simplicity and speed to value. Better for an enterprise means customization and bells and whistles. Your positioning must articulate why you're the best solution specifically for your target customer type.
April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process
Jun 2022You lose 40% of deals to 'no decision'
In B2B, the biggest competitor isn't another vendor—it's the status quo. If you can't help customers justify their decision and articulate why your solution is right for them specifically, they'll abandon the buying process entirely and stick with what they have.
April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process
Jun 2022Start with competitive alternatives, not your strengths
Most teams ask 'why does everyone love our stuff?' which yields opinions, not differentiation. Instead, begin by identifying what you must beat to win: the status quo (spreadsheets, pen and paper, interns) and the short list of alternatives. Only then can you identify capabilities that actually matter.
April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process
Jun 2022Positioning is a team sport, not a department function
Weak positioning often stems from misalignment across the organization—founder, marketing, sales, product, and customer success all have slightly different understandings. The only way to fix it is to get all these functions in a room together to build positioning collaboratively, ensuring everyone leaves singing the same song.
Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management
Jun 2022Use short-form writing to sharpen thinking
Julie switched from long-form essays to Twitter threads to work on being more concise and clear. Constraints force you to strip away ornamentation and focus on the core idea. The medium you choose can be a tool for developing a specific skill, not just a channel for distribution.
Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management
Jun 2022Develop your eye separately from your hand
As a manager, Julie developed her ability to critique design but stopped practicing design herself, so her ability to actually make things atrophied. Leadership and IC skills require different practice; you can't assume one sustains the other. Returning to hands-on work revealed gaps she didn't know she had.
Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management
Jun 2022Vulnerability creates better solutions
When leaders share what they find hard and what they're struggling with, it forms deeper connections and allows teams to collectively solve problems better. You don't have to have all the answers; by sharing the load and putting heads together, you arrive at better solutions than you would alone.
Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management
Jun 2022Theory and practice are different muscles
You can know the theory of good management and still struggle to apply it consistently because it's counterintuitive and context-dependent. Being an expert means knowing the theory but also being honest about how hard it is to execute, and continuing to learn how to tailor it to each unique person or situation.
Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management
Jun 2022Choose your writing angle to sustain the habit
Don't write for your audience or for likes—write because you're working on a specific skill you want to develop. If you write to solve a problem you have (clarity, vulnerability, conciseness), the intrinsic motivation sustains the habit far better than external validation ever could.
Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management
Jun 2022Use constraints to overcome perfectionism
Instead of aiming for quality, Julie set a word count goal (500 words in 30-45 minutes) to force herself past the blank page. This removes the perfectionism barrier that prevents people from shipping. The hardest part is getting started; quality comes in revision, not in the first draft.
Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management
Jun 2022Writing is thinking, not broadcasting
Julie approaches her writing as 'letters to myself'—advice she needs to give herself. The act of writing clarifies her thinking and organizes threads of thought running through her head. The primary audience for her writing is herself; the fact that others resonate with it is a secondary benefit.
Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management
Jun 2022Ask for help as a leadership skill
Early in her career, Julie tried to 'fake it until she made it,' but realized she was preventing herself from getting support, empathy, and advice that would have helped her grow faster. Asking for help—from peers, mentors, or people ahead of you—is not a weakness but a tool that accelerates learning and deepens connections.
Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management
Jun 2022Everyone at every level feels like an imposter
Even people with impressive titles and responsibilities regularly encounter unprecedented situations. The rate of change in tech means that feeling of discomfort never goes away—it's just par for the course. What changes isn't the feeling, but your toolkit for dealing with it.
Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management
Jun 2022Discomfort is the signal of growth
Being in an uncomfortable situation where you feel unprepared coincides with the fastest and most intense periods of growth in one's career. If you're constantly putting yourself in situations where you haven't seen the problem before, that's what pushes you to grow and learn. The feeling of being an imposter isn't a warning sign—it's evidence you're at the edge of your capability.
This Week #2: Tackling the chicken-and-egg problem, building a growth team from scratch, and addressing overlap with PM peers 🤔
Sep 2019Act before perfect clarity emerges
Don't wait for all details to be worked out before making organizational changes—this can take months or years. Identify the biggest issues, align on a few key improvements, and implement them while continuing to refine.
This Week #2: Tackling the chicken-and-egg problem, building a growth team from scratch, and addressing overlap with PM peers 🤔
Sep 2019Seek 2x-10x wins, not percentage improvements
In early-stage growth, focus on opportunities that can deliver exponential returns rather than incremental gains. Unless your product has viral mechanics built in, chasing small conversion improvements won't move the needle.
This Week #2: Tackling the chicken-and-egg problem, building a growth team from scratch, and addressing overlap with PM peers 🤔
Sep 2019Delegate growth to everyone, not just one team
A dedicated growth team is valuable, but growth responsibility cannot be delegated to a single group. From customer service to IT to product, every function should feel ownership for helping the company grow.
Avid does this with your books
Import your highlights, and we'll find the connections you've been missing.