Thoughts on startups, product, innovation and more, by Giff Constable
I ve been thinking a lot about the intersection of product and finance given my new class on financial fluency. Product managers, whether an individual contributor or a head of product, get lots of advice on how to start a new job: The critical addition often missing is this: If you re at a startup, you might talk to the CFO. At ... Read More
I have been musing on how to cover strategy to my NYU MBA class. How the hell do you teach strategy in a few hours? I think my aha over the last few years is the below: There are many strategy frameworks out there. I believe in using many, not one — 7 powers, porter, Gib Biddle s DHM/GEM. But one ... Read More
In the personal news to share category, I ve joined a startup. After quite a few years working at scale, and then a sabbatical to focus on family needs, it s back to the early stage for me. And yes, I m loving it. In April 2020, I stepped away from leading product and engineering at Meetup. The company was just getting spun ... Read More
Andrew Chen, long one of the best startup/growth voices out there, just tweeted about “The Traction Treadmill” —“It’ll kill your company,” he writes. Before I go on, let me explain what he means by that term. You’ve got a startup with okay customer retention, but not great. You successfully boost growth by doubling or tripling sales marketing spend. You’re ... Read More
It s hard to avoid the agony on prod-eng Twitter about the basics of making software. It s heartbreaking. Making software is hard, but we as humans do like to make it harder. Here are 10 lessons of my own about agile software, in case it is helpful. Some are high level and some are super tactical. Use only as useful for ... Read More
This summer I ve been teaching product management to the tech MBAs at NYU, and like all teaching, it s forced me to clarify my thinking. I m going to touch upon some of those areas in the next few posts. Today s topic is customer segments — in particular, the initial ones you choose to design for and market to. I’ve been pushing ... Read More
(These thoughts went out in my weekly newsletter this morning) Ken Norton has an in-depth article pitching a dual-track product management career path. He doesn’t really speak to the economics, but that’s what I want to address because I think this is all about economics, or should I say, outdated economics. When I ran Neo, which was an innovation consulting company, we had this ... Read More
A sentence stood out to me yesterday in a doc Randy Silver shared on Twitter: One of the most jealously guarded secrets of TV is the reality that those who get their pilots made and show picked up on any given year are usually no more gifted, visionary, or prodigious, than the ones who did not. The document Randy shared ... Read More
You’re an inclusive leader. Maybe you’re an executive trying to find good ideas and give more people a voice. Maybe you’re a PM trying to foster the creative juices of your team. What’s your move? Do you get everyone in a room (virtual or real) for a brainstorm, break out the sticky notes (virtual or real), and let the conversation ... Read More
Last week’s case prompt, to both the executive cohort and the aspiring-executive cohort (senior/director level) in Case Camp, went as follows: As CPO, you spent 6 months looking for a senior PM to lead up a new effort. You went looking for a particular skillset in wearables, which is in high demand and short supply, and so were excited to ... Read More